Auscision AQSY container wagons

Hi Guy's

This is going to be a discussion on the new AQSY container wagons that I just received in the last week or so from Auscision. They appear to be a nice model and they are a reasonable representation of the prototype. Many years ago I looked at Scratch building a couple of these and went about buying 2 Laser Cut kits from Rail Motor Models in Victoria at the time. This was just the basic cuts to start what would be a scratch build, and the level of detail would depend on the modeller. This got to a point and was left.

This AQSY I gave a slight dusting and placed it on SEM bogies. A lightly weathered pair of SDS 28 foot containers have been added and make a nice load for this wagon.

This is as far as I got with the scratch build. Since Auscision's nice Die Cast model there doesn't seem much point in continuing?

When I was looking into scratch building these, I was living up at Ballina at the time and a member of the Northern Rivers Fussy Modellers Group for a couple of years. I learnt allot from this group of gifted modellers and was fortunate to be able to copy a heap of their research info while there. So it is good to have a model come out that I can go over photo's and make an assessment of issues arising and whether it would be worth while to fix any errors or let it go.

First from Auscision's own web page there were 455 of these wagons built, from 4 manufacturers. There is a number of differences between these. I guess the most obvious would be the oval hole vers. the square type hole version. There is also some variations among the Square hole version, mainly around the sizes of some on the holes. ATM the only visual issue I can see is the bolster detail on the side sill of the Square holed wagons appears to be the same as the oval hole version. This could be a point of added some extra modelling work if you were inclined. I don't think many would notice.

From the photo's I have, I think most of the Square holed wagons have this type of detail on the side sill at the bolsters. The model I have has what I can gather something similar to the oval Shaped bolster detail. A bit of styrene work and this could be corrected

The only other area that I feel the model is let down is under the wagon around the bolster area. The frame should run through this area but appears to shallow off, perhaps to allow for the 22 inch minimum turning Radius promised buy the manufacturer. This is another area that a concerned modeller could go to work

And there is a little green washer provided. One of mine fell off and I was having a WTF moment and realised what had happening.

Under the prototype you can see how this area differs to the model

Photo by Steve McElroy

It appears that Auscision have used the same Factory as they did for their ABFX/AOOX projects. Unfortunately having reasonably accurate  underfloor detail just doesn't seem to be a priority of this factory when you compare it to other factories work such as the NLKY's and NLDF's as an example. Not that it makes this project look bad. It is just a bit of a let down when other projects come out better. It just goes to show the great work done on the NLDF's and NLKY's ETC. I don't know the story of why detail around the bolster was not added, the only thing maybe a restraint on the weight of the die cast model or bogie movement. At the end of the day it gives a modeller something that they can add to the model if they want to. It is not something that can be seen while the model is running, like a bad roof profile etc. The only reason for me to mention it, is that compared to other factories that Auscision is using, I think this one is letting them down in this area. On the plus side is they come with genuine KD 58 type couplers so I don't need to replace mine. I am putting KD 58's on all my new projects now to replace most Scale couplers that come RTR. As good as they are don't take well to being painted. KD's don't seem to be troubled by paint.

A few more comparison Photo's

Photo by Steve McElroy

Photo by Steve McElroy

 For the wagon freaks out there, This is one of the few times I have seen 3 butter boxes on the one wagon, esp. a north bound on it's way to Brisbane

It is a good representation of the Prototype, it is strong and things won't fall off the model without misadventure. There is a couple of short comings, If a modeller wanted to go about correcting these items, it would make the model your own. They are still out running and for my era there wouldn't be many container trains running around that didn't have at least one variant of this wagon on it. The 4 that I have will be welcome among my fleet of container wagons.

Just to finish, some detail shots of the new Auscision Southern Aurora Cars. I only got the Spirit add on set and the XPT test Baggage Car as that was all I needed for my Grafton Passenger. The XPT test car will be painted back to a normal baggage car and the power car will have some mods. done. The NAM was sold off. More about this latter.

Nice job Auscision

Cheers Justin Moy