One area of Canute Road Quay that I needed to correct, as it had been both constructively and bluntly pointed out to me on a couple of occasions, is that a few of the road vehicles were slightly out of my usual self-imposed modelling period of 1946 to 1946.

Obviously, I want all aspects of the layout to be correct and consistent, it is all too easy to contrate on rolling stock and miss other, more obvious to others, areas of accuracy. I have therefore been looking to source some replacement suitable vehicles. For someone like me, without an in-depth knowledge of all things internal combustion, I found this to be a much harder and time-consuming job than it could be, as very few of the manufactures of ready to run vehicles actually provide simple information such as the relevant dates of manufacture as part of their listings, resulting in having to google each and any model that I thought might be of roughly the correct period.

However, at a recent model railway exhibition I happened to be across the aisle from Road Transport Images run by the very friendly Graeme and Lorraine McQuaker, they produce a range of modular resin kits for British commercial and military vehicles in 4mm scale ranging from a 1930s Fordson AA up to a 2014 Iveco Stralis. All were displayed very helpfully, with yes, the date of manufacture for the prototype (as does their website), just what I had been looking for, making choosing the correct vehicle for my time period accurate and simple!

The range currently includes over 200 cab, vans and pickups, and 16 chassis and a wide range of bodies, trailers and unsheeted loads all cast in resin, with detailing parts in white metal or etched and 35 different wheel profiles.

For Canute Road Quay I purchased a Bedford Spurlings KV 2 ton integral van (built between 1946 and 1952) and an Austin K2-4 with a dropside body (built between 1946-48).

The resin parts, that comprise of cab/body/dropside, chassis parts, cab interior, fuel tank etc. are very crisply moulded, well detailed with very little flash to require cleaning off. These particular kits also included white metal head and side lights either etched or white metal steering wheel, the relevant white metal wheels come with brass rod for axles and are designed such that the wheels rotate. I angled the front wheels slightly on the angles to enable a ‘steered’ position to be allowed rather than the usual ‘straight on’ seen on most RTR vehicles.

Having fixed the cab interiors to the chassis parts I used the trusty Halfords’ Plastic Primer followed by a top coat of other aerosol colours that I happen to have had to hand; you should be able to recognise at least one of the colours…

As the windows were relatively small, I used Delux Materials ‘Glue and Glaze’ pulled across the aperture for the glazing, although the front windscreens were possibly on the verge of being large and cutting individual clear plastic glazing would have been an alternative method (if you use this method run a black maker around the edges before gluing in place with a little Glue and Glaze, as this then represents the rubber windscreen seal).

The inside of the headlamps (white metals castings)  were painted with a little silver paint and when dry the lens was created with a small drop of Glue and Glaze.

All that is required now are some registration number plate transfers to be added, I have obtained a set of suitable transfers from Scale Model Scenery.

Overall, these Road Transport Images resin kits are excellent, simple and enjoyable to build, and I consider them good value for money. I will certainly be adding more of their kits to the fleet of vehicles available for use on Canute Road Quay to provide variety whilst being consistent with my time period.