From The Railroad range

Before




Started life as R6474 from the railroad range

stripped to bare chassis




added bogie bolsters, centre sill & base for Kadee couplings




Painted, Kadees fitted #148 in #252 boxes, renumbered the van, bogies painted & dullcoated the lot. Weathering to be done later.




 

The underframe certainly looks cleaner Sol. :thumbs

I'd guess, if you're going to "do things" to these Railroad range items, they're probably quite good.  Cheaper than the current stuff and a few years ago, were considered "top of the range".

Gives me wagons, etc that are different to other layouts.
My next one will be another VDA 4 wheeler but with Bachmann bogies.

How do know how big( as in deep) to make the supports for the Kaydees before you've added the bogies ?
Stu

Stu, I do the bogie bolster depth so the chassis lines up with the rest of the stock then adjust the Kadee ( no "y" in Kadee ;-) ) support base to suit.
In most cases, lining the chassis up with bogie installed , against a Kadee coupler height gauge #206 , gives a good indication.

   

The end of the lid as above is the height required to mount the coupler box. Occasionally, using their fibre washers #208 or 209 on bogies screws or gear box  shims #211 is used to get correct height.

To expand the above post, the Kadee gauge is located onto the track & the wagon offered up to it - the lid lip indicates how high or low , the coupler box top is to be.
On a previous Hornby VDA van. I had to remove some chassis at the buffer beam to get the box high enough.

Ah, thanks for that, that's the order I thought you do it.

I was asking as the picture sequence seemed to show you'd strip the chassis then added the bogie mounts and Kadee ( no Y) mounts at the same time at the correct height ( which I thought was quite impressive).

Stu

The alterations change it completely. If it wasn't for the livery it would be difficult to know its origins :thumbs

Are you going to weather it Sol?

Yes, Nick , with the rest of my stock in the fullnes of time.