Usambara Railroad: Sarissa Freight Cars

So I'm back with a few freight cars for my rail line. These are the Sarissa low aggregate and goods wagons. Despite my complaints about some of their other railroad products, these are two products I quite like and would recommend to others.

First up is the aggregate wagon:

This wagon is an unmodified kit (excluding sanding down some of the hard edges) and was quite easy to assemble. For the paint scheme, I've gone with an early 1900's color from Germany.  I've also added some rub on lettering from Woodland Scenics to give the wagon  a bit more character.  The font isn't correct for German trains and I've not added the full compliment of markings (I got lazy cutting out letters and numbers), but I think it gets the job done. Weathering was done with chestnut ink, Vallejo smoke, and some bleached sand paint.

Next up is the goods wagon:

Again I've gone with the same 1900's German color scheme and weathering.  I've made one modification in terms of steps going up one side of the wagon.  These are Precision Scale cast steel steps (PSH-40599)with brass rod handrails supported by cast stanchions (PSH-4098).  The prototypes I looked at showed the handrails curling over the roof, but I decided not to do that so the roof would remain removable. 

The roof is made of greyboard with interior MDF supports. I'm a bit worried on how it will hold up over time, but we'll see how it goes. It fits well on the wagon and will make it much easier to put figures or cargo inside. The doors are also made of greyboard and can be glued in either closed or open. 

To link the cars, you use small MDF linker chains.  You get 2 per wagon, so with a larger train you'll have a fair amount of spares in case some go missing. I've sanded my chain hooks to give them rounded edges, so the chain segments fit on quite well. 

As I mentioned in the beginning, these are well done products and will look good on the table if you give them a little attention.