Balcony Coaches

[Guest nzflyer]

Hi all,

 

The Titfield Thunderbolt will be, for many of us, our favourite railway movie. I'm pretty partial to the small formation of No. 1401, cattle wagon, Toad brake van, and of course, Wisbech and Upwell coach.

 

I wanted to do something with a similar project I was thinking of, a small spur line on the Western Region served by No. 1475 (a fictional 14xx locomotive), and vintage coach. This would be either a GW four wheeler or a non-corridor LSWR, LBSCR, SECR coach, something under fifty feet ideally. The third option would be to scratchbuild an original design. I had in mind a balcony coach (much like the Titfield model) built by an independent contractor for an early railway that was absorbed by the Great Western. A cattle wagon or milk tank and Toad van would follow.

 

The excuse for running a 14xx and ex-SR coach would be the politically charged passovers between the Southern Region and Western Region in the 1950s and early 1960s. The line itself is a freight branch or tramway serving a goods depot, quarry or canal junction in the late 1950s, early 1960s, perhaps just before the last 14xx withdrawal in early 1965. It would be not be a too far flung idea from the original Wisbech and Upwell or even Wantage Tramway in Oxfordshire. 

 

I know balcony coaches were never popular but are there any other examples I could gather inspiration from?

 

Jim.

 

 

[Branwell]

The Garstang and Knott End certainly had one - http://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/OtherRailways/Garstang.html - and there were a few narrow gauge lines that had them - Southwold, Leek & Manifold, Welshpool & Llanfiar ...

[Miss Prism]

http://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/GreatWestern/Narrowgauge/LambournCompo.jpg

[Nearholmer]

In GWR Territory, the Lambourn Valley, WC&PR, and a line in South Wales, Alexandra Docks to Newport, that had ex-circus train coaches, spring to mind.

 

Kevin

Edited September 17, 2017 by Nearholmer

[PatC]

The Selsey Tramway (later the West Sussex Railway) was originally equipped with very attractive balcony carriages. It later acquired three of the Lambourn Valley carriages as well.

[Nearholmer]

Every home should have one.

[IWCR]

The  Isle  of  Wight  railway  had  some,  two  6  wheelers  (verandahs  both  ends)  and  a  four  wheel  brake,  (single  verandah).

These  had  been  built  by  Oldbury  in  1881  for  the  Golden  Valley  Railway  but  re-posessed  following  a  lack  of  payment.

Sold  to  the  IWR  in  1885  they  were  used  on  the  Bembridge  branch,  withdrawn  in  1914  and  one  rebuilt  as  a  lugguage  van.

 

Pete

[The Johnster]

My never built but planned and thought about North Gower Railway, a light railway extending from Penclawdd where the LNWR branch ended to Port Eynon, was to have been modelled in the late 1940s/early 50s and presumed to be on the brink of closure.  A reserve loco for this would have been a Hornby 2721 from one of the local BR sheds 'on hire', and, given your requirement for a light railways with coaches unlike anything that ran on the GW and mixed trains, perhaps your 1475 is more likely as a loco on hire to a failing railway.  

 

The Hemyock branch is the obvious real life inspiration, where coaches had to be gas or oil lit because speeds and distances were too low to charge the batteries on electrically lit ones and mixed trains did run, but does not satisfy your need for balcony stock and has, in any case, probably been done to death in modelling.  An independent railway dying on it's feet is probably more fertile territory for Rule 1, and could include an exchange siding with a 'proper' GW branch so that you could include more GW locos and stock.  More or less all the freight stock not employed on internal work would have been GW.