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Metropolitan Railway. 3rd Class Motor Car No97


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My choice of layout and scale meant that the majority of the rolling stock would need to be scratchbuilt although the range of kits is slowly growing. I had never scratchbuilt anything before so the RMweb challenge seemed like the perfect excuse for my first attempt.

 

My layout (when I actually make some real progress on it) is set around the early 1930's which is the latter years of the Metropolitan Railway prior to the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB). Passenger services in and around Moorgate and the Widened Lines were worked by the LMS, LNER, the Metropolitan, and the Hammersmith and City Railway ( Met and GWR joint) . In addition to their own multiple unit and loco hauled services, the Metropolitan also hauled GWR through workings from Paddington to the City. Throw the two Metropolitan Railway Pullman coaches in to the mix and I have a nice long list of things to build.

 

The first Metropolitan Railway multiple units were the 1905 stock and 1906 stock. I decided to give these examples a miss for my first attempt because their Clerestory roofs would have probably turned out to be a nightmare. Instead I opted for the 1913 stock which had the elliptical roof shape. The 1913 stock comprises the 3rd class motor car (complete with luggage compartment), the 3rd class trailer and the 1st class driving trailer. The normal formation was a 3 car set of a 3rd motor, 3rd trailer and 1st trailer. Usually two 3 car sets ran in service coupled together.

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The source of inspiration for my scratchbuilding exercise was David Jenkinson's book "Carriage Modelling Made Easy". James Snowdon's and Ian Huntley's books provided the basic drawings.

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An opportunity to visit Slater's allowed me to stock up on raw materials which comprised of the large sized sheets of Plastikard (1350mm x 600mm) as well as a collection of microstrip.

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Although the first vehicle to be tackled was the 3rd class motor car. I got a bit too ambitious and started cutting out the floors for all 6 cars followed by fitting the solebars to the motor car floor. This quickly turned out to be a mistake as it became apparent that it would make fitting the body sides very difficult.

 

Loosely following the methods in David Jenkinson's book, the body side inner layer is cut out of 1mm plastikard and the outer layer from 0.5mm plastikard. Blue plastikard was used for the outer layer in order to make it easy to line up the beading detail which was made from microstrip. Between the outer and inner layers, spacers were used to form the side profile to give the slight tumblehome down to the solebar.

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This first attempt at scratchbuilding was turning out to be one big learning exercise with numerous minor mistakes being made. Can you spot the deliberate error below which shows the sides being made ready to be fitted to the floor.

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Each end is different for the 3rd Motor Car. They are made from 1mm Plastikard with the profile formed using a “hold and fold”.

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The first fitting of the Wayoh bogies. These were modified to resemble the motor bogies fitted to the Motor Car. On the model only the outer bogies (under the luggage area) will be motorised.

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Next it was an experiment with working headlamps. The combination of white and purple lights is used to denote the destination of the train.

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What's next ????

 

Progress has been a lot slower than envisaged. I've found the challenge to be an enjoyable experience and I have learnt a lot from my mistakes.

 

Work is in progress on the roof and the working power bogie. This will be described in my workshop thread along with progress on Lord Byron..

 

Then it's build another 30 odd coaches....

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Do any of the books you have reproduce a colour photo taken at Aylesbury in 1937, from the Philip Colebourne collection, showing part of a Metropolitan loco hauled teak coach side? As it was shot just before the LNER take over, it is in effect a colour photo of a pre-group coach still in pre-group ownership. It is nicely reproduced in 'The Big Four in Colour 1935 - 50', and gives just a hint of how gorgeous the pre-group scene must have been.

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Do any of the books you have reproduce a colour photo taken at Aylesbury in 1937,

 

Hi,

Unfortunately no. However I do have colour photo's in John Glover's book "Glory Days, Metropolitan Railway" of loco hauled teak compartment stock working on the Aylesbury services in the final months before the A stock was introduced.

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