I Have acquired a rake (13 at the moment hopefully a few more in the near future) of the Bachmann tipper wagon. I thought that they looked a bit bare when empty, so, I came up with this idea.

                                                                                                              Empty wagons

My Daughter chucked out a couple of our granddaughters bean bags. I thought that I might be able to use them at some time on the railway. That's when the idea of a stone load came to me. This is a sample of the polystyrene beads

 

                                                                                What I did was this, take 1 empty wagon

 

                                                                                                        Lined it with clingfilm

                                                 

                                                 Mixed some of the beads with waterproof PVA and half filled the wagon, and allowed the mix to set.

 

I then mixed some more beads with some paint, and allowed this to dry. This process is a bit fiddly, as you have to stir this every now and then to break up the lumps, or the beads tend to clump together. Once dry mix with PVA and add to the top of the dry base coat. When I added a some of this mix, I found the best way to shape the load was with a square piece of polystyrene coated in some Olive Oil.

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                Shaping the load.

 

Once dry this remove from wagon, and remove clingfilm. This is what the load looks like.

 

                                                                                     Wagon look a lot better loaded, well, I think so.