MB Wooden Railways
A different approach to wooden railways

Welcome to MB Wooden Railways, which is part of a larger site concerned with Miniature Buildings .  It discusses aspects of Brio (and compatible) railways and my own, not entirely usual, approach to them.  For my other articles on the subject please go to Railways Articles

Shipping Containers
for Wooden Railways.

The front four of these container wagons are a combination of an Ikea wagon base and a free downloaded image from the super Wordsworth Model Railway site stuck onto a length of balsa wood.  This article provides more detail about their construction.  If you are used to making paper models then I'm afraid some of this will be teaching you to suck eggs.

Wordsworth Model Railway is an amazing resource for paper kits of buildings and railway structures.  Unlike others, Mike Martin has not tried to monetise his hobby but has simply shared with other enthusiasts the structures he has created for his own layout.  Something I applaud.  Just be aware that he authorises the use of his files only for private use and that they may not be used or modified for commercial purposes.  Please do not abuse this.

The file for his "20’ Container Version 3" can be found half way down the Rail Side section of his site.  Click on the download button.  There is a small hiccup at this point. Google/Chrome identifies his site as being 'insecure' - it is hosted at an 'http' location rather an 'https' one.  As far as I am aware (though I am no expert) this is only an issue if you are giving information about you to a site or downloading material from it.  Suffice to say I have had no problem with the downloaded file.  I had to do a couple of extra clicks to 'keep' and download the file.  It is a .rar file ( something like .zip) and has to be unpacked to get to the .pdf file.

The file contains 11 different versions of a standard 20 foot container.  Due to the strange scaling used by Brio I think the 20 ft version is much more suitable for wooden railways than the more common 40 ft version (which Wordsworth also offers). I discussed this in more detail in in my article about Oirschot station) but the short version is that Brio engines, wagons and carriages are much shorter than they would be if in proportion with their height and width.  When creating items for a wooden railway we are not producing accurate scale model; these are toys for young children, we are just trying to create an effect.

Just 3 of the 11 livery options

Before printing the chosen page from the file I increased it by a factor of 1.23 .  To do this I used Photoshop (for reasons I describe below) but you can of course use other packages or just the scaling option in your printer driver.  For my first attempt I printed it onto an A4 adhesive label sheet but this did not work well and later versions have just been printed onto plain paper or a slightly heavier matte paper.  The short version is that I then cut it out and stuck it onto a suitably sized block of balsa.  Other woods are available but the weight of balsa seems to me to work better.  And it is easier to cut and drill it.

The reason I chose to use Photoshop is that I wanted to make some changes to the image before printing.  Not the full version, just the cheaper cut-down Elements version - which does everything I need.  The downloaded .pdf file cannot be directly imported into Photoshop as it is password protected.  I therefore used the Snip & Sketch function to copy the image and imported that into Photoshop.  Step 1 was to resize the image and I took the opportunity to increase the resolution.

I made two changes to the image. The first was to change the colour of the tabs from grey to green (on the Evergreen version) to avoid any visible grey if my assembly was not perfect.  The second was to get rid of the base and put the tabs onto the bottom of the sides.

The original Wordsworth image and my modified version

Having printed the image out, the first thing I did was to give it a spray with inkjet fixing spray to give it a little extra protection both during assembly and when it is being played with.  The brand I have is from Ghiant but I'm sure there must be others.

There are two containers on each sheet. Cutting them out needs to be done carefully, you will be using the edges of the tabs as a guide for folding.  To assemble the container you will need to fold the paper from the back so you need to know where to make the folds.

Once the first stage of cutting was done I then turned the paper over to fold it with the help of a thin ruler or similar. Actually I used a clear triangle protractor as it had bevelled edges and let me see better what I was doing.   Since neither my workbench nor my dining room table can be guaranteed to be completly flat or clean I put a plain sheet of paper under the printed image to avoid any damage.  It is also a good idea to colour the edge of the paper to avoid white edges showing.

Professionals would probably begin with a correctly sized piece of wood and then size their printed image to fit exactly, but since I'm only making a few I cut my length of balsa wood to fit the print.  It works for me.

I chose the size of the containers to fit on wagon bases readily available from IKEA.

IKEA Lillabo 603.200.94

The top bits lift off easily leaving the plastic base with four prongs sticking up.  You can use the base as it is, making four holes in the base of the container block.  I think it is much improved by painting the base a dark grey or black.  

The two containers in the picture below are slightly different sizes, the one on the grey base is the smaller and looks better to my eyes.

The container on the right is the one increased by 23%, the one on the left is an an earlier experiment.

The container on the right is the one increased by 23%, the one on the left is an an earlier experiment.

But, I was not entirely happy with the appearance of either of these.  They still looked a little tall when coupled to an engine.  Reducing the container size was a straightforward matter of adjusting the print size but I also made the platform thinner and slightly narrower.  The plastic platform is easily levered off.  I then cut a new base from a sheet of 1/16" basswood (about mm) and added two new prongs from a piece of 4mm dowel.

The container is 24mm wide, mm high and mm long.  The base is 26mm wide and 70 mm long.   This is the result and I'm reasonably happy with it:

I should have stopped there but I carried on fiddling and experimenting.  This involved work in Photoshop so if you don't have it or a similar package you can ignore the next bit.  I was trying to keep the width and height the same but to make the container a little longer - 70mm rather than 64.  It is possible to stretch an image in one dimension but there are two problems.  The end panels would be stretched as well and the name and logo would be distorted.

Even though the resulting model is neither a 20ft nor a 40 ft container my view is that the modified version (the Hapag-Lloyd one) looks right in the unreal world of wooden railways.

I won't go through the process in laborious detail but it involved removing the name/logo, splitting the image, adding in a couple of new panels, splicing it back together and then putting the logo back.  Contact me if you want to know more.

In the image at the top of this article you will have seen a couple of Maersk containers at the end of the train.  These were not from Wordsworth but were an earlier attempt.  They are a correctly scaled 40ft container and are therefore much too long for a standard wooden railway wagon.  If I had made them the width I would have liked they would have been even longer.

The same container on two different bases

Not only do they look too long in comparison with Brio engines and other wagons (even though they are, strictly, accurate) but the length presents technical problems.  The left hand wagon in the picture above is rigid.  Which means that it does not comfortably go around the radius of curves used in wooden railways.  My attempted solution was to try and build a wagon base more like real ones, with two independent wheel bogies:

I had to cannabalise a wagon base from my oddments box.  Although I am pleased with the cut out central section I have not found a good solution for fixing the bogies to the base.  Mounting a short length of threaded rod (2.5mm?) into the bogies was OK but getting the tension on the securing nut has not worked.  Too tight and the wheels do not pivot and too loose means they waggle about.  And they do not stay at the tension I set, but work themelves loose.  I am still working on this issue.

Which is all I have to say for now on the subject.

Shipping Containers
for Wooden Railways.

These two container wagons (and the front four in the image below) are a combination of an Ikea wagon base and a free downloaded image from the super Wordsworth Model Railway site stuck onto a length of balsa wood.  This article provides more detail about their construction.  If you are used to making paper models then I'm afraid much of this will be teaching you to suck eggs.

Wordsworth Model Railway is an amazing resource for paper kits of buildings and railway structures.  Unlike others, Mike Martin has not tried to monetise his hobby but has simply shared with other enthusiasts the structures he has created for his own layout.  Something I applaud.  Just be aware that he authorises the use of his files only for private use and that they may not be used or modified for commercial purposes.  Please do not abuse this.

The file for his "20’ Container Version 3" can be found half way down the Rail Side section of his site.  Click on the download button.  There is a small hiccup at this point. Google/Chrome identifies his site as being 'insecure' - it is hosted at an 'http' location rather an 'https' one.  As far as I am aware (though I am no expert) this is only an issue if you are giving information about you to a site or downloading material from it.  Suffice to say I have had no problem with the downloaded file.  I had to do a couple of extra clicks to 'keep' and download the file.  It is a .rar file ( something like .zip) and has to be unpacked to get to the .pdf file.

The file contains 11 different versions of a standard 20 foot container.

Just 3 of the 11 livery options

Due to the strange scaling used by Brio I think the 20 ft version is much more suitable for wooden railways than the more common 40 ft version (which Wordsworth also offers). I discussed this in more detail in in my article about Oirschot station) but the short version is that Brio engines, wagons and carriages are much shorter than they would be if in proportion with their height and width.  When creating items for a wooden railway we are not producing accurate scale model; these are toys for young children, we are just trying to create an effect.

Before printing the chosen page from the file I increased it by a factor of 1.23 .  To do this I used Photoshop (for reasons I describe below) but you can of course use other packages or just the scaling option in your printer driver.  For my first attempt I printed it onto an A4 adhesive label sheet but this did not work well and later versions have just been printed onto plain paper or a slightly heavier matte paper.  The short version is that I then cut it out and stuck it onto a suitably sized block of balsa.  Other woods are available but the weight of balsa seems to me to work better.  And it is easier to cut and drill it.

The reason I chose to use Photoshop is that I wanted to make some changes to the image before printing.  Not the full version, just the cheaper cut-down Elements version - which does everything I need.  The downloaded .pdf file cannot be directly imported into Photoshop as it is password protected.  I therefore used the Snip & Sketch function to copy the image and imported that into Photoshop.  Step 1 was to resize the image and I took the opportunity to increase the resolution.

I made two changes to the image. The first was to change the colour of the tabs from grey to green (on the Evergreen version) to avoid any visible grey if my assembly was not perfect.  The second was to get rid of the base and put the tabs onto the bottom of the sides.

The original Wordsworth image and my modified version

Having printed the image out, the first thing I did was to give it a spray with inkjet fixing spray to give it a little extra protection both during assembly and when it is being played with.  The brand I have is from Ghiant but I'm sure there must be others.

There are two containers on each sheet. Cutting them out needs to be done carefully, you will be using the edges of the tabs as a guide for folding.  To assemble the container you will need to fold the paper from the back so you need to know where to make the folds.

Once the first stage of cutting was done I then turned the paper over to fold it with the help of a thin ruler or similar. Actually I used a clear triangle protractor as it had bevelled edges and let me see better what I was doing.   Since neither my workbench nor my dining room table can be guaranteed to be completly flat or clean I put a plain sheet of paper under the printed image to avoid any damage.  It is also a good idea to colour the edge of the paper to avoid white edges showing.

Professionals would probably begin with a correctly sized piece of wood and then size their printed image to fit exactly, but since I'm only making a few I cut my length of balsa wood to fit the print.  It works for me.

I chose the size of the containers to fit on wagon bases readily available from IKEA.

IKEA Lillabo 603.200.94

The top bits lift off easily leaving the plastic base with four prongs sticking up.

You can use the base as it is, making four holes in the base of the container block.

I think it is much improved by painting the base a dark grey or black.

The two containers in the picture below are slightly different sizes, the one on the grey base is the smaller and looks better to my eyes.

The container on the right is the one increased by 23%, the one on the left is an an earlier experiment.

But, I was not entirely happy with the appearance of either of these.  They still looked a little tall when coupled to an engine.  Reducing the container size was a straightforward matter of adjusting the print size but I also made the platform thinner and slightly narrower.  The plastic platform is easily levered off.  

I then cut a new base from a sheet of 1/16" basswood (about mm) and added two new prongs from a piece of 4mm dowel.

The container is 24mm wide, mm high and mm long.  The base is 26mm wide and 70 mm long.   This is the result and I'm reasonably happy with it:

I should have stopped there but I carried on fiddling and experimenting.  This involved work in Photoshop so if you don't have it or a similar package you can ignore the next bit.  I was trying to keep the width and height the same but to make the container a little longer - 70mm rather than 64.  It is possible to stretch an image in one dimension but there are two problems.  The end panels would be stretched as well and the name and logo would be distorted.

Even though the resulting model is neither a 20ft nor a 40 ft container my view is that the modified version (the Hapag-Lloyd one) looks right in the unreal world of wooden railways.

I won't go through the process in laborious detail but it involved removing the name/logo, splitting the image, adding in a couple of new panels, splicing it back together and then putting the logo back.  Contact me if you want to know more.

In the image at the top of this article you will have seen a couple of Maersk containers at the end of the train.  These were not from Wordsworth but were an earlier attempt.  They are a correctly scaled 40ft container and are therefore much too long for a standard wooden railway wagon.  If I had made them the width I would have liked they would have been even longer.

The same container on two different bases

Not only do they look too long in comparison with Brio engines and other wagons (even though they are, strictly, accurate) but the length presents technical problems.  The left hand wagon in the picture above is rigid.  Which means that it does not comfortably go around the radius of curves used in wooden railways.  My attempted solution was to try and build a wagon base more like real ones, with two independent wheel bogies:

I had to cannabalise a wagon base from my oddments box.  Although I am pleased with the cut out central section I have not found a good solution for fixing the bogies to the base.  Mounting a short length of threaded rod (2.5mm?) into the bogies was OK but getting the tension on the securing nut has not worked.  Too tight and the wheels do not pivot and too loose means they waggle about.  And they do not stay at the tension I set, but work themelves loose.  I am still working on this issue.

Which is all I have to say for now on the subject.


As always, please e-mail Miniature Buildings if you have something to add. Comments, criticisms, extra thoughts, pictures, or even complete articles for inclusion in the Miniature Buildings site are all welcome.  Or if you would like to be added to my mailing list to hear when a new article is published.

David, March 2024,