Laser-Cut O gauge wagon kits.

Though we offer support in a variety of scales, Since the purchase and operation of Happisburgh Goods, We here at Online Models started looking at O. Though we are working on designing our range of lights and signals for O scale, we also decided to look at what else we could do in O.

We observed that, in O, a lot of the locomotives available for small layouts like Happisburgh Goods are Industrials and Contractor locos, which are generally at odds with the available wagons, which are often 1910’s onward standard wagons and mainline stock. 

While working with a previous company, an observation was made that there is little point doing locomotives and rolling stock that did not see BR 1950s as a standard user and time period, and with the Railways act and RCH rules in 1923, effectively, the oldest acceptable rolling stock is GWR 1905 steel frame wagons.

Dumb buffers were “Banned” from “Public” railways in 1923 after a recommended redundancy from 1903, but what exactly this entailed or means is an obvious point of contention when actually looking at rolling stock, since the LNER continues to use Dumb buffers, even refitting stock to have dumb buffers after 1923; shunters such as the Y9, for example. And there are ample pictures of Departmental and yard shunter wagons continuing with dumb buffers in yards, ports, quarries and docks, all the way up to the 1950’s, and still more pictures of Condemned wagons in the 1960’s with dumb buffers, while continuous stock such as Cranes and runners, or bolster wagons continued to run with dumb buffers beyond this also. The RCH denies New vehicles built post-1923 to be constructed with them, and the 1923 Railways act agrees, for rolling stock to be used for the conveyance of passengers or third-party goods, but there is no specific ban on them outside of this. Neither regulation applies to either Light or Private Industrial Railways, while Private Owner Wagons are with the agreement as being satisfactory with the company they are travelling on.

So… What would be wrong with a 5 ton, 7ft chassis, Dumb-buffered wagon on Happisburgh Goods, in 1952, as a Departmental Ballast wagon, or shunter’s truck?
Well… Nothing. Since the vehicle was used internally. We even have pictures of such vehicles in use.

While constructing stock for Happisburgh, we identified some problems with kit rolling stock assembly, as well as the ample supply of accessory and detail parts.

With all this in mind, Our kits are laser-cut basic kits which can be easily assembled to provide a reliable and solid rolling chassis, which can be improved with modification parts to customise.  Good for beginners to start with, or better modellers to take on to for kit-bashing.

Our starting kits are two short coaches, based on Pre-grouping 1850’s box coaches, a brake van, a peaked-roof covered wagon, and short planked wagons, with a look at doing a crane and runner in the future. For now, these are still in development.

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Project Tiny

Project Tiny was a carry-over from a previous set of works, and originated from a conversation with a scratchbuilder in O.

In short, one of the biggest issues for modellers is accessibility to working chassis. In OO, monoblock chassis, combined with self-quartering wheels, mean that kitbuild and scratch building is far easier, and buying old stock to have a suitable chassis is easy. In O, generally chassis are brass frames which, though more accurate, a nightmare of precision modelling to get perfect and generally require the full locomotive finished to test properly, to find issues, while RTR options cost hundreds of pounds buying a model only to strip it apart.
There is a company in the Czech republic, ETS which provide RTR chassis for this role, with excellent compact design, gearbox and motors, but import costs is comparable to a full value model.

Project Tiny is a monoblock chassis set to NEM/O gauge Guild standards to accept a gearbox, wheels and other features, with everything aligned and inline for easy fitting so that it will just work for modellers who want to build a model without having to worry about precision alignment. With Slater’s wheels and gearbox, a sturdy and reliable chassis for under £100 should be possible in O.

The original Tiny prototype was manufactured in 2018, but the project was put down between then and 2022 due to other developments.

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