There is an article in the July issue of Garden Rail on how to build these wagons.
These wagons are only suitable for 32mm gauge.
Due to problems with the original tooling they do not have brakegear and are supplied with Binney Wheels and axleboxes and material to make 3mm axles. Binney small Carmarthen couplings are included which can be configured as standard, hook and chain or drop link.
Due to limited storage space we are currently only making these kits up on demand which is why the listing says pre-order but they should go out within a day of being ordered.
After colliery underground tubs and tipper wagons used by contractors, the North Wales slate wagon was the most numerous narrow gauge wagon in Britain. The Ffestiniog Railway alone had 1095 of them on their books and other similar wagons were used by quarry systems throughout the Principality.
The first Ffestiniog wagons were wooden but in due course this form of construction gave way to iron wagons of 2 tons capacity. At first sheet iron floors were fitted but as these were prone to rust through, wooden floors were later provided - both patterns are catered for in this kit. Finished slates were packed upright into the body with wooden mallets. No private wagons were allowed to run on the FR So these wagons would have been found in use in all of the Ffestiniog quarries.
Similar wagons were built by the LNWR at Earlstown and the GWR at Swindon. Most Ffestiniog wagons were built at Boston Lodge works although others had similar wagons built by the Glaslyn Foundry at Portmadoc and De Winton of Caernarfon. So similar were all these wagons that these wagons would pass for any of the other makers - a useful feature on a freelance railway.
A Ffestiniog feature rarely found elsewhere was the gravity train whereby vast trains of over 100 wagons were allowed to roll down the railway without a locomotive all the way to Minffordd or even Portmadoc. To stop these trains running away about one in every six slate wagons was fitted with a handbrake, brakemen would run along the top of the gravity trains applying or releasing brakes as required. Brakes were seldom fitted on other lines.