One of the things I’ve found about building a layout of a specific prototype is you learn a great deal about subjects that may have had little to no interest to you before. On the prototype railway, goods were moved north packed in trailers mounted on flat cars, or TOFC. Before I started my layout, I knew nothing of the different types of trailers that were found on the BCR in the 1980’s, and although I’m still learning, I’ve found there ere quite the variety. I’m not going to get into the different types and sub classes, since I still know very little about them, rather I thought I would write about one trailer I recently completed.

One of the commodities to travel north on BC Rail was the life giving fluid that is beer. For reasons unknown (to me) Labatts shipped beer north in very sharp looking blue trailers with the company logo on the sides.

Here’s a shot taken by Richard Yaremko in August of 1985 that shows one of these trailers:

No question what was hauled in that trailer!

Through some good fortune and the help of a couple of friends I managed to find a Briggs Models kit of this trailer. Cast in resin with some styrene pieces (ie the roof) it turned out to be a rather nicely designed kit

Kit mostly built before primer and paint:

I left the wheels off for ease of painting and weathering of the under frame, the seperate hubs and tires make it nice to paint the pieces before assembly

Tires after paint:

Body after painting with Polly Scale C&O Blue and lettered using the (very nice) decals that came in the kit:

Now painted, weathered and assembled sitting on a TOFC flat that was kitbashed by Andy Barber:

I added an A Line fuel tank and built the wire hanger contraption (spare tire mount?) to the kit before paint. I’ve always wanted one of these trailers to run on my layout and am happy how it turned out.