I recently put together an Airfix meat wagon kit for old times sake, and this led me to take a look at their later life. As the Fifties progressed the idea of transporting carcasses in unrefridgerated vans lost its appeal and these were demoted to general traffic, with some receiving conversions to their appearance. The extra end vents were removed and patched over and they were given the usual bauxite livery instead of their original red. I built the Airfix van as it was but painted it brown as I seem to remember a debate years ago about how many ran in red rather than bauxite. Here it is, straight from the kit apart from tiebars. I then did a conversion using a Parkside BR van kit for the sides, where the vents were removed, and took of the bottom end vents and blanked the space over. The extra vents were used on my LMS wooden ended vans so didn't go to waste. That horrible gap that shows at the corner was invisible on the workbench and it will be sorted immediately This is why I take shots once they are just finished - to catch what my obviously failing eyesight has missed... These two left me with a spare set of sides and ends, so I decided to combine them into a supposed alternative conversion of the meat van, with an end vent but retaining the original side ones. Fruit vans were configured this way, so it perhaps is a plausible option, and apparently there is scant information or photographic evidence of what actually occurred. It might have been a case of wagonworks using what was around and keeping costs to a minimum, but here is my take on it.
Plastic filler , touch of paint and a bit of weathering - five minutes work. It isn't as bad to,my,eye as it shows on screen.
Job done with nearly all the offending gaps gone - I see there is still a tiny space here and there but these are most definitely not eye apperent
