The prototype Great Western Railway had a large number of drop bottom gondolas for hauling sugar beets. They started with 150 small wooden gondolas in the early 1900s and increased their capacity with wooden racks on the top edges.  In 1949, the GWR started buying used steel drop bottom gondolas to replace the wooden ones and eventually had a fleet of 188 units.  All were sold for scrap starting in 1979 when trucks became the predominate method of hauling beets.

Needless to say, a proper model of the GWR needs more than a few drop bottom gondolas. I have been hard pressed to find many models. Details West produced a very nice kit based on SP beet gons and I bought three a number of years ago. I found them very tedious to build - many fragile details including working doors. I came close to finishing one until it came time to add grab irons - many grab irons. The #80 drill was my downfall. But now thanks to the thread on drilling small holes, I may try again.  

But, again, three is still not a very big number.    

A Walther’s flyer arrived in November and announced they were producing drop bottom gondolas for use in work trains and would be available in December.  Yee-Haa!  Just in time for Christmas!  So I made a suggestion to my Director of Procurement that a dozen of these beauties would make a swell present and would begin to equal the Kitchen-Aid Professional 600w mixer that was on her list. 

Unfortunately, the December release date was a little optimistic so all I got for Christmas were 12 photocopies of the ad with an IOU attached.  But like magic, the UPS sleigh dropped them off last night. Yee-Haa!

The cars turned out to be very nice. I haven’t purchased much rolling stock in a quite a few years so I didn’t know what to expect.  I was hoping for “not too cheesy” but I have been very surprised. They have a nicely detailed but solid body. Grab irons are molded in but are thin enough to look free-standing and will withstand the usual operating session abuse.  They have very free-rolling metal wheels (standard these days, I guess) and what appears to be real K-D couplers.  Most surprisingly, they have a good heft to them – 4.25 ounces.  Truly ready-to-run.

I have a little work to do before they are Correct. I asked for BN units so the mineral red color is right.  I will need to paint over the BN markings and road numbers (as did the real GW) and add some GW decals. I may build some wood racks for some of them but photos of the prototype show them with and without, so that may be in the future. And, of course, I will make some appropriate sugar beet loads for them.  

George Booth
Director of Everything, The New Great Western Railway
http://users.frii.com/gbooth/Trains/index.htm