LNWR Coaches, GWR Coaches 4mm

[Brassey]

 

I promised on another thread that I would add images of my builds so here we go.  

 

First up is a brace of GWR W4 Parcel Vans.  These, as can be seen from the photos, are being kit bashed from various Ratio Van 3rd sides.  This is using a known technique featured elsewhere for producing a 4 wheel version (which I have also started).  I acquired a number of Ratio 4 wheelers only to discover on the Marshalling Diagrams, that no GWR 4 wheelers ran on the line I am modelling.  So I have a lot of surplus parts.  

 

The W4's are 6 wheel.  Two were attached to the 1.35am Crewe to Cardiff at Shrewsbury.  One from Manchester Exchange to Cardiff the other from Birmingham to Cardiff.  I have a number of six wheelers to build for the layout so these are a bit of an experiment.  I am using Brassmasters Cleminson chassis.  In this instance this will be attached to a Mainly Trains 19' Wheel Base underframe (bashed to fit six wheels).  I am only building one chassis at this stage which should fit both.  I'll build another if this one works out i.e. goes round curves without falling off etc.

 

 

Various sides, including remnants of other projects, are being cut and stuck together to form the sides.  The picture gives the idea with much evidence of filler still to be cleaned up.  The door and commode handles have been removed to be replaced with brass versions after painting.

 

 

Using techniques inspired by Coachman of this Parish, I have created brass floors upon which to solder the van ends which are from Shire Scenes.  These already have the tumblehome formed but seem to have escaped the camera.  This shot shows a side, floor and the Mainly Trains under frame.  This looks a little over length but should fit when the van ends are fitted on the ends.  Russell gives the length of these as 31' in the text but the drawing shows 30' 03/4".  Eitherway, my versions, using the Ratio sides, are likely to end up short but as these are going passed in an Express train I doubt anyone will spot.  Also the panelling does not match exactly the drawing but the drawing also has a line right down the middle of the vehicle which I am sure was not correct.  However someone might have a picture which proves it.

 

I am also building a couple of Ratio LNWR 50' corridor coaches - I'm working my way through Stephen Williams "The 4mm Coach" books!  The bogies for these have featured elsewhere here, so when these move on a bit more I'll add them to this thread also.  Hence the title.

 

Peter

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by Brassey

[Brassey]

 

I've mentioned this build of a GWR 6 wheeler elsewhere so by way of an update here's an old pic of the body coming together which looks a bit of a mess but should improve with painting.  It's currently in the paint shop and I will post some more updates when it's a bit more presentable.

 

Peter

 

 

[Brassey]

 

It's frightening how long it's been since an update.  After I said I was using a Mainly Trains chassis for this project, Mainly Trains promptly announced that they were no longer going to be trading.  I thought using the chassis for a vehicle that might not see much use might be indulgent so I made other plans for it.  But I also sourced alternatives from Haye Developments as standby.  Mainly Trains then continued to trade and made their chassis available again so I acquired a few.  In the meantime, I had Araldited the Cleminson underframe to a Ratio chassis:

 

 

Although the marshalling of trains on my layout will feature many 6 wheelers, I discovered via the working timetable that the Tenbury & Bewdley branch line train would have passed through the station on its way to working the branch all day and that would have featured 4 wheelers.  That gave me an excuse to use all the Ratio GWR 4 wheel carriages I'd been stockpiling over the years married to the above mentioned chassis.  So I have not been totally idle.  Apart from getting on with the layout, I have 2 x 4 wheel chassis in hand; one Mainly Trains the other Haye.  Here is a shot by way of comparison, the Haye one is in the foreground.

 

 

Astute readers will note that I have not added the brake linkages.  For the 6 wheelers with Cleminson workings I think they would get in the way so I will have to leave them out.  To be consistent I have left them off the 4 wheelers too.  Also the lower footboards are missing.  I am constructing IKB 6 wheel chassis with the Brassmasters cleminson under frame and managed to knock both the lower footboards off these (see below).  I find the method of fixing the footboards in these IKB chassis very fiddly so I will have to work out an alternative method for fixing.  I've left them off the 4 wheelers till I have cracked the solution and to prevent damage via handling: Herewith a shot of an IKB 19' 6 wheel chassis under construction amended to have the Cleminson baseplate soldered in place.

 

[billbedford]

I should check your prototype drawings. In general pre-grouping six wheelers had no brakes on the centre axle.

Edited August 11, 2016 by billbedford

[Brassey]

I'd mentioned on another thread that I had used the Brassmasters Cleminson system to convert Ratio GWR 4 wheelers to 6 wheelers.  Here's an update to the previous posts:

 

I abandoned using the Ratio under frame in the end because once the Ratio solebar or any metal solebar was fitted there was little room for the centre truck in particular to move which kinda defeated the object.  So I reverted to using Mainly Trains GWR 19' underframes.  These need a bit of surgery too as the double fold in the solebar gets in the way of the centre truck again.  

 

This is the main underframe plate as it comes:

 

 

And here I have removed a section to allow room for the centre truck to swing, shown with the Cleminson baseplate in place. Centre truck is shown at top of pic:

 

 

I've not got a pic of a completed Mainly Trains 6 wheel conversion so here's a pic of a Cleminson conversion of an IKB 6 wheeler again.  These come with a complex sprung chassis which I did not fancy.  The IKB chassis is wider than the MT one and has plenty of room for the trucks to swing and needs no major surgery.  I assume that the IKB chassis is closer to scale as the MT one is designed to fit the Ratio 4 wheelers which might not be quite as precise.  There is not much room for the additional underpinnings such as vacuum cylinder so that's the next challenge to get them all in.

 

Bill will be please to see that I have removed the brakes from the centre wheel set.  This is currently under a Mallard/Blacksmith GWR 6 wheel body that is going through the workshop rather than a Ratio one but you get the idea.  This goes round the 5' curves on my mainline fine and negotiates a 1000mm radius turnout in the yard (minimum for P4) without a problem (just over 3 foot radius).  

 

 

I've still got to fit the lower step boards too and now have the added problem that those on other similar chassis foul the platforms so some major work there to remedy that!

[richard i]

Remedy the platform, it will be quicker than remedying all the stock.

[Brassey]

Remedy the platform, it will be quicker than remedying all the stock.

 

Yes. Luckily the platforms are all still removable at this stage.  It might destroy the carefully painted and weathered brick face but so be it.

[Brassey]

I have come to the conclusion that it is an error in the Mainly Trains chassis that sets the step-boards too wide; both upper and lower.  I will need to find a remedy for this as I have quite a few of these to build in various guises.  I've also fixed one of the platforms now which will be hard to change if the clearance problems persist.

 

This is an old photo of a test run showing the Haye chassis which clears the platforms fine.  The 6 wheel chassis still has the lower footboards to be added:

 

 

[Brassey]

So it's time that I finally got round to mastering the black art of lining and some candidates have been prepared in the paint shop.  First up is the subject from the start of this thread, (just 7 years ago!) the 6 wheel parcel van.  The second, LNWR 50ft bogie break third, eagle-eyed readers would recognise from my layout thread where it has been testing the track in grey primer for about the same amount of time.  These now have the appropriate coats of paint sprayed on ready for the ruling pen.  Let battle commence.

 

[Mikkel]

Any news from the frontline?

[Brassey]

12 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Any news from the frontline?

 

No Mikkel.  Due to the day job, the lining pen will have to be confined to barracks until the weekend.  This will help let the base coat dry hard as I foresee there will be a lot of errors that will have to be removed with white spirit leaving the base colour intact.  I have owned a ruling pen for decades though never got round to using one in anger; until now.  As can be seen from the pic above, there has been some training on painted card. It has also taken an age for me to get an acceptable finish out of an airbrush and I still have issues there.  I changed the needle to a less fine example (0.5mm from 0.35mm) and using a stronger paint dilution (80:20), I think I have cracked it. 

 

Thus some locos are in the lining queue too but I thought I might start with coaches as that would cause less angst if all went pear shaped.  Watch this space.  Peter

[Mikkel]

No hurry of course. It looks to me as if you have a good canvas to work on, with those two coaches.

[Coal Tank]

Hi where is your layout thread

John 

[Brassey]

18 hours ago, Coal Tank said:

Hi where is your layout thread

John 

 

Layout on RMWeb: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/71033-berrington-and-eye-1912/

[bluestag]

Looking forward to your battles with the lining pen.   It is about time for me to get stuck in.

[Brassey]

This close up of a brake van and horse box at Exeter in 1914 has answered some queries for me.

 

 

The first was whether on the long-distance through trains, the corridor connections were made and remade every time the train was shunted and remarshalled.  Well this proves they were maintained.

 

The other is, I had the impression that the corridors were always on the same side of the train.  This proves they weren't as the two LNWR coaches are orientated differently.

 

It's odd that a GW brake van is connected to two LNWR carriages; so you travelled in an LNWR vehicle but your luggage went in a GW one.  I guess this is because a GW guard is needed for that part of the journey.

 

The other issue for me is that in my 1912 marshalling programmes, there are only 6 GW brake vans used per day on the North to West expresses.  In modelling terms that's just 3 x 8 wheel brake vans to cover all the marshalling as they went down and came back up again.  For 1912 in the diagrams, none of these are shown as corridor.  By 1914 things had obviously changed.

 

Why is this of relevance?  Well I am currently building a ShireScenes K15/16 brake van.  This can be built with corridor connections or without.  The K16 was built with dummy ends for possible conversion (page 170 of Russell) so I am building it as such.  (also in Crimson Lake as above)

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Brassey said:

The other is, I had the impression that the corridors were always on the same side of the train. 

 

This may have been done on the principal West Coast expresses, with the corridor on the west side - so that passengers would not get the full glare of the setting sun - and maybe on some other set trains such as Liverpool-Newcastle; at least photos show them so but these may be posed.

[Brassey]

Having not posted here for a couple of years, here's some work-in-progress.  A couple of 32ft LNWR 6wheel vans.  The top is a Postal Van and the lower a Parcel Van. 

 

 

I'm quite fond of vans as one can guess from this thread mainly because they pose less of a challenge for lining.  Not so the 42foot LNWR arc roof corridor break third just sneaking into the picture

[Citadel]

Beautiful.  Can I ask as to the origin of the etches, would love to build something along these lines

[Brassey]

2 hours ago, Citadel said:

Beautiful.  Can I ask as to the origin of the etches, would love to build something along these lines

Thanks for the interest. 

 

I need a 32foot LNWR Post Office to run in the Hereford-Tamworth Post Office Service as No. 12 which always ran attached to No33.  (I've had the 8wheel bogie TPO No.33 etched by Worsley Works from a drawing supplied by Philip Millard)

 

As far as I know, nobody has marketed a LNWR 6wheel TPO in 4mm. BUT, the LNWR later took two of these vehicles and put them together to form a 64foot TPO. Oddly Stevensons Carriages produced such a model of which I think there were only 2 built. So I acquired an etch of the 64footer from Squires who now market the Stevensons range and took my trusty shears/tin snips to it and chopped it in half.  The other half is destined to become another 6wheel TPO ie the York to Cardiff mail.  The underframe is a LRM 32foot Cleminson which they sell separately.  The LNWR 42foot break third in the back of the pic is also a Stevensons etch that I got at the same time.

 

Philip Millard produced a series of articles in the LNWR Society Journal on TPO's from which I have gleaned much information. Unfortunately there was no drawing of No.12 only a description.  A number of these LNWR 32ft 6wheel TPO's ran across the network including the WCJS.  One WCJS example is preserved at the NRM York

The other 6wheeler in the photo on my shelf is a 32foot Parcel Van. Again, as far as I can tell, nobody has ever sold a 4mm model of a LNWR 32foot Parcel van though they have a 30foot one i.e. David Geen. I acquired this particular etch on eBay but don't know it's source. It has the initial MW on it so could originate from Modellers World and been a test. I was going to use this as a substitute for No. 12 until I came up with the other brainwave.

 

It does have its own underframe but I replaced the underpinnings again with parts from an LRM 6wheel Cleminson chassis.

 

If you want to try the same on the Stevensons etch, here is the Squires website pricelist: Diagram D83. They are very good at supplying spare parts and etches.  There are some other interesting kits there that I also have; my period is 1912 so includes Cove and Elliptical roof coaches.

 

http://www.squirestools.com/files/SC Retail Price List.pdf

 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Brassey

[Brassey]

Whilst building a rake of 6 wheel LNWR carriages I realised I did not have anything built suitable to pull them.  

 

So here's my LRM ex Geo Norton Whitworth 2-4-0 work-in-progress plus LRM D385 brake van and a couple of 3rds from David Geen ex Microrail.  All running on LRM LNWR 30' 1" Cleminson bogies.  There's another 4 in the works:

 

 

[Mikkel]

I had been wondering what you were up to. Clearly a lot of good!

 

It's refreshing to hear that there are people who lack locos for their coaches, as per the real railways. Normally for modellers it's the other way around!

[Brassey]

14 hours ago, Mikkel said:

I had been wondering what you were up to. Clearly a lot of good!

 

It's refreshing to hear that there are people who lack locos for their coaches, as per the real railways. Normally for modellers it's the other way around!

A long while ago, possibly earlier in this thread, I made a New Years resolution to build trains not just locos.  Well that didn't last long - so rest assured I still have more locos built than carriages.

 

Here's the inspiration shot for this train though; the only pre-grouping one I have for Berrington & Eye.  The train is made up of six LNWR 6 wheelers, a brake van at each end and pulled by a Small Jumbo/Whitworth.

 

The platforms were staggered at B&E: the down had been extended beyond the road bridge which is why the loco might appear to have pulled up short.

 

 

This is Leominster, next stop on the down line.  The GWR train is likely destined for one of the branches off Leominster but on the mainline is another LNWR local in a slightly different  formation:

 

Edited February 18 by Brassey
Added Leominster

[Methuselah]

Hi Peter,

                    I'm guessing that you've seen this photo - posting in case you haven't. The 'BLAKE' wagons were to be seen in number on the Tenbury Branch. Do you recognise the graphics on the other coal wagons....?

 

Cheers,

                    Stephen.

 

Edited February 18 by Methuselah

[Mikkel]

On 18/02/2024 at 12:06, Brassey said:

A long while ago, possibly earlier in this thread, I made a New Years resolution to build trains not just locos.  Well that didn't last long - so rest assured I still have more locos built than carriages.

 

Here's the inspiration shot for this train though; the only pre-grouping one I have for Berrington & Eye.  The train is made up of six LNWR 6 wheelers, a brake van at each end and pulled by a Small Jumbo/Whitworth.

 

The platforms were staggered at B&E: the down had been extended beyond the road bridge which is why the loco might appear to have pulled up short.

 

 

That's the kind of photo that can singlehandedly inspire decades of modelling.