Coachman is to blame for the following assaults on the new Hornby Gresleys- his always informative coach blog encouraged me to return to an abandoned coach that I had decided was beyond redemption.As with the LMS coaches, others have led the way- Larry and Tony Wright both having sewn seeds that led to this.

Basically, the new Hornby coaches are so full of faults that they are of no use on any layout that pretends to work to current standards of detail and authenticity, which is a shame, as they are well made, but wrong. Their failings are well detailed elsewhere, so I will just show what I did to try and upgrade mine.

The first one I had was a sleeper in teak, and attempts to remove the glazing caused so much damage that I eventually removed the side and fitted an Ian Kirk moulding in its place- a backward step in many ways, but at least it has something like the correct profile. The chassis was narrowed as Coachman suggested, and the result was a great improvement on the factory offering. Hornby,s plastic is very soft and cuts easily, but there seems to be no problem joining it- poly cement doing the job OK.

This was the state of the original side when I gave up on it.

I was going to do no more with these coaches, but Coach's ideas sent me to that clearing house in Liverpool, and two bargains were obtained for further work - a crimson and cream sleeper and a maroon RB. I liked the idea of forcing a tumble home into the sides, but the glazing strip was too thick to do this, so I managed to either remove it completly or slice through it below the window level, allowing the body moulding, which is quite thin, to take a shape. The sides were Evo-sticked, as was the chassis where it met them, and when dry the two were put together, with the shape holding along its length. To date the sleeper is running, but the buffet is lagging behind as removing the glazing cracked some windows, so some juggling was needed to hide this. As I only need to see one side of any vehicle this is not a problem for me.

Some WIP pics.

The RB body with glazing removed to curve the lower body.

A trial fitting of the C/C sleeper showing the changed sides and then a before and after of the ends.

This is the Ian Kirk sided coach as running.

And an end profile of the two together- although the further away one is a bit blurred, the profile runs the length of the coach.

All in all, an interesting few nights work if the originals can be obtained cheaply enough, but like the LMS ones, not something I'll be making any more of. This is an example of the chaotic conditions of my workbench. Actual modelling takes place on a pull out tray and I give it a tidy-up before the next big idea, in theory anyway.

A couple more shots to show the difference this hacking about achieves. I borrowed an out of the box teak to give a visual comparison.

And the original and the modified versions.

I rest my, and Coach's, case.