Minerva ‘Iron Mink’
SCALE ‘O’ gauge MODEL Minerva Model Railways ‘Iron Mink V6’ 11309, GWR grey PRICE (rrp) £42.50 AVAILABILITY Minerva Model Railway, PO Box 244, Penarth CF64 9FJ WEB www.minervamodelrailways.co.uk
You might have thought that moving from timber goods vans to vans with metal bodies was quite a revolutionary step for the GWR to take, especially as early as 1886. The result was the famous GWR ‘Iron Mink’, a name which seems so familiar to GWR enthusiasts that it’s surprising they were only built until 1902. Then the GWR took what could be considered a retrograde step by going back to timber for further ‘Minks’. Minerva has chosen the ‘Iron Mink’ for its first ready-to-run ‘O’ gauge wagon. It’s the perfect complement to the ‘57XX’ released a few months ago (MR241), despite the fact that the pannier was introduced over 25 years after the last ‘Iron Minks’ were built. The model is delightful. Minerva has chosen the ‘V6 Mink’, with its 16ft underframe and 10t capacity. It compares well with drawings published in Messers Atkins, Beard, Hyde and Tourret’s A History of GWR Goods Wagons and photographs of V6 survivor No. 11152 at Didcot Railway Centre. It has the ‘Iron Mink’s’ distinctive rounded corners and, as befits a metal body, lots of crisp rivets. The ventilator hood is perhaps a little undernourished, however. Minerva’s ‘Mink’ is of plastic construction. The bufferheads (the buffers are sprung), the couplings (also sprung) and the wheels and axles are metal (the wheel centres are plastic). The axleboxes move in the hornguides to give a degree of compensation and there’s plenty of side play in the axles to cope with tight curves. There’s a large metal weight inside so that it tips the scales at 153g. The metal weight had come loose in our sample, but the roof can be unclipped and the weight pressed back into place. Three versions are on offer: GWR grey with either 16in or 25in lettering (our sample had the latter) and BR grey. The only issue with the ‘Iron Mink’ concerns the lettering: the ‘G’ of ‘GW’ was a decent enough representation of the prototype but the ‘W’ was a little too rounded and had an incorrect serif. That said, this is a bit of a bargain at a little over £40. You even get additional brake components, so you can choose whether your ‘Mink’ has single or twin Dean-churchward brake gear. A great addition to the ranks of good value RTR ‘O’.
It has the ‘Iron Mink’s’ distinctive rounded corners and, as befits a metal body, lots of crisp rivets