HARTLAND LOCOMOTIVE WORKS

ORE WAGON KIT ref 15020

Hartland Locomotive Works are a not so well known G scale manufacturer from the USA. The web site is http://www.h-l-w.com . At a recent G scale exhibition Back2Bay6 were selling a range of products from this manufacturer. My recently built diesel shunter needed a little load to pull and the ore wagon kits at 3 for £25 were just the job at a very reasonable price.

The kits are very simple and almost fell together, probably taking no more than ten minutes to assemble each one. I painted the wagon frame matt black and the tipper part with red oxide primer. To create a load that was not too heavy I cut a piece of plasticard to fit inside the hopper and then built up a little hump shape from other pieces of plasticard. This was then roughly painted in a stone sort of colour and fitted into the hopper.

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The painted plasticard was then covered with glue.

And then the grit I use for ballast was added to make a fairly light, loaded wagon.

They make an appropriate train for my shunter, shown here battling through the snow. With the grit placed in  the hoppers as shown above they are top heavy so need to be glued to the frame in order to avoid automatically tipping as they go round. They could do with some heavy weathering as the real things were invariably in a rusty and battered state.

The kit is not highly detailed and there is a ridge right across the buffer beam. Apart from this the rest of the mouldings were crisp and quite free from flash. They make up into a pleasant representation of an industrial tipper wagon.

Overall a very easy kit to put together which would be suitable for a young or inexperienced modeller.

25/02/05

Chris Morris