Garden Railway Forum

I have been building one of the new Vale of Rheidol kits from IP engineering, the 4 wheel brake van, for SLRmidge (well I was interested about what they would be like to build and he had ordered one so I offered to build it for him). The kit was great, the accuracy of the laser cut parts was something else, easily the most accucratly cut kit I have ever built, the only sanding of wood parts that was required was to remove some of the char on the cut edges so that the PVA wood glue would stick.

The van body made up before priming and sending back to SLRmidge for painting.


The instructions, which are clear and concise, but I did notice a couple of errors, notably the kit in the pics appeared to be pre-production, the solebars were part of the bodysides in the pre-production kit, but not in the kit I was building, which had seperate solebars (making construction a bit easier than it would be)
Once SLRMidge has completed the painting, I am getting the kit back for completion and running in on the ANLR before entering service on the Silverdale light railway (northern division)

See I told you that you could build the things to order. Nice kit by the way and a nice job youve done on it.

Wow, that looks like its a nice kit to build. Im tempted by some VoR coaches...

As am I now i've built one (I like the whole try before you buy of the situation )

I think he did the right thing sending it to you mate!

Well true to form, SLRmidge is content just to run the van when its finished, as its been to the other Silverdale light railway of Peter Hutton for paiting! It is now back to me for finishing, and im going to add some interior details he provided as well as some bits from me including transfers. He has also lent me one of his Vale of Rheidol bogie coaches, so i'll be able to run my own little Vale of Rheidol train when the vans finished before I give it back to SLRmidge (that is, if I want to give it back, mwa ha hahahahaha )

Well the van is now finished and had its first running in trial today. Fixing the roof on was a bit of a pain, as it was plasticard rather than wood. I was also suprised at how small the van is, it is narrower and smaller than my IP 4 wheelers, coaches which I consider to be tiny. However, I am intesrested in buying some laser cut IP coaches of my own now, as it was so easy to build

The van, number 135 (can anyone work out the significance of that?) is seen at Nant Llywyd, coupled to SLRmidge's standard Vale of Rheidol coach

The test train was hauled by Caradoc, with my nuber 5 and an Accucraft W and L van included for height comparisons


I have these coaches untill Friday 19th, then the van will enter service at the Silverdale light railway 3rd anniversery steamup this Saturady, 20th of September

looking stunning laalratty! A fine job!

A cracking job there. Presumably that means I.P went scale on these ones to keep the e-group happy? I read in the latest garden rail that this (and Ffesty stuff) is the start of a new 40 (!!) item range . Rumour has it that Glyn Valley is coming soon.

40 items! Wow, i think i'll be hanging on to my birthday money untill I find out what these are, though im not that keen on the Glyn Valley coaches

stunning build i like it

You've done a good job there Laalratty. Can't wait to get it back & running on the SLR(N).....

Looking good

Nice kit and a very good paint job.