Western Pullman - recap and progress
Entry posted by Barry Ten
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Over the last few years I've dipped in and out of a very long-term project to create an 8-car Western Pullman set. As the model is now close to completion, and there is interest in the 6-car WR sets due to Bachmann's new version of their original Midland Pullman, I thought it wouldn't hurt to do a bit of a recap of the story so far.
Back in 2007 there wasn't any hint of an RTR Blue Pullman on the horizon from any of the manufacturers, with most commentators of the view that it would be too expensive a project to be feasible. There was supposedly a kit in development, but that never came to anything, leaving only two real options for creating a realistic consist; either hunt down the rare Kitmaster models, or adapt the Tri-ang mouldings. I don't know how easy it is to get hold of the Kitmaster versions, either unassembled or assembled, but I've certainly not seen them come up on ebay in any great quantity, if at all. whereas the Tri-ang bits are (or at least were) a little easier to obtain, especially if one wasn't fussy about the condition. As is well known, the motor cars were made in greater quantities than the parlour firsts, but I still found that I could hunt down enough parlour cars to make my conversion feasible. I also noticed that, once the Bachmann models came out, I started seeing parlour cars pop up at more affordable prices in swapmeets, although by then I had enough for my purposes - in fact, more than enough.
The key to the creating an 8-car rake is the use of Southern Pride etched window inserts, which are an excellent product. They just fit into the existing window recess left behind by the removal of the flush glazing/window part on the Tri-ang cars. There's a minor catch: when Tri-ang did the BP in the reversed blue grey livery, they altered the mouldings so that the windows were no longer a separate part. I didn't realise that at the time and ended up with a couple of the reversed livery coaches which initially looked as if they would not be suitable for the project.
Here's a shot from earlier in the build (although still many years after I started acquiring the bits) showing how the etched window parts drop into the recesses very neatly, helping to create one of the parlour seconds which go immediately behind the power car on the WR rake. A similar etch goes into the power car.
In addition to the etched windows, the model also needs new bogies and replacement ends to rectify the deficiencies in the shape of the Tri-ang car.
Here, I was very lucky to be able to order a complete set of castings from Chris Leigh, to whom many thanks are due. As it happened, I did eventually
substitute a Genesis casting for the nose, feeling it was slightly cleaner than the Chris Leigh one, but I was very pleased to be able to pass on the
two Leigh ends to another modeller who was also doing a BP, so they have been put to good use.
What else? Two black beetles power bogies in the motor car, and fingers crossed that it would be sufficient to shift the whole rake!
I just kept adding cars and seeing how it ran. As it turned out, there seemed to be ample adhesion for the whole rake, so that was one less thing to worry about.
Once the basic conversions were done, work moved onto the painting - by far the most fraught part of the whole job, and an exercise in tedium if ever one were invented. My initial plan had
been to do the whole model in original Nanking blue, which is by far the easiest option, as the white bits follow the etched parts exactly. However, once the Bachmann model was out, I decided
I'd move the model forward and do it in reverse blue and grey livery so that it would look a bit different. The catch, which I didn't properly appreciate at the time, is that the blue part has to wrap around the whole coach, so the left and right edges of the etches need to be disguised. This necessitated a lot of filling and sanding - a lot- followed by much grumbling as cracks and iimperfections kept appearing.
It looks pretty smart in just grey, but as this shot shows, there was still a great deal of work ahead of me to get ride of seams and transitions between the etched areas and the rest of the coach.
Gradually the major issues were resolved, though, and I could move onto the application of blue:
Followed by yellow for the ends, the addition of glazing, and the start of the roofs being painted:
I was glad when I got the glazing in as I found that this helped stabilise the whole assembly of the etched parts and coach sides, limiting a tendency for them to flex and crack around
the filled areas and paint seams. Nonetheless, much touching in still needed to be done to get a reasonably crisp finish. It's at this point that you start appreciating the finish on the
Bachmann model.
In the last few weeks I've had the models back on the workbench with the intention of moving them to completion, or as near to complete as I can get them at the time. My objectives
this time were to add DCC to the power car, and some form of internal lighting for the whole rake. Along the way I also looked closely at reliability of running, adjusting all wheel
back-to-backs and moving to the use of Kadees for the couplings between vehicles, instead of the crude method I'd bodged for the initial testing. I found that body mounted Kadees
were easily able to cope with 36 inch radius curves (possibly tighter in places) and close-coupling can be easily achieved since there are no buffers between the vehicles.
For DCC, I hardwired in an 8-pin socket so that various decoders can be easily swapped in and out, as well as a blanking plug. At the moment there's no sound but I'm intending to add this feature in due course, perhaps using suitable Hornby TTS decoders to provide a generic diesel sound and two-tone horn, without getting too bogged down in high-end sound. After all,
no one can go out and record a Blue Pullman now, so any sound is going to involve an element of interpretation and compromise.
The interior lights were slightly more problematic. I didn't want to be reliant on on-board batteries so some form of reliable pickup was going to be essential, yet at the same time it couldn't be
too draggy. I settled on ESU digital light bars which are easy to install and cut to length. Since I'd already built the bogies, I couldn't use any fancy pickup system such as the DCC Concepts wheels. so I had to make do with my own wiper pickups. I formed these out of .33mm wire which is springy enough to do the job, but doesn't impart too much friction. Each car has pickup from all eight wheels, but it still needed careful adjustment to get the necessary reliability, at the same as not impeding free-running. I did a half-rake with no problems, but as I started on the second half of the unit, the drag factor began to rear its head. However, after some careful adjustment and lubrication (the wheels, not me) matters were eventually resolved to the point where the rake could be moved easily and the lights remained flicker-free.
Still to be added are front and rear lights which will again be decoder controlled.
I ran into a problem trying to find suitable decals for the Pullman branding - perhaps the situation is easier now. Luckily, though, I found a supplier on ebay who provides replacement decals
for the Tri-ang units and these proved ideal:
There's still a few jobs to be done. The roof of the restaurant cars need extra details, for which Southern Pride offer some mouldings which I hope to be able to order. The tri-ang models all use the same underframe moulding which is fine for the power cars, not obviously terrible for the kitchen cars or parlour seconds, but far too busy for the parlour firsts. I made a start on "remixing" the Tri-ang parts (cutting away and relocating) to approximate the parlour first details but this has only been completed on one of the two coaches. It's not intended to be accurate but does help convey a sense of non-uniformity in the rake. The interiors also need further attention. All seats have been added (tedious) but the kitchen cars still need the "cooking" areas built up to some degree. I also evolved my way to a neater arrangement of internal wiring as I did each coach, so the earlier ones are due to be tidied up, followed by the addition of passengers.
In the longer run, to get to the complete rake, I've "cheated" and used the unmodified parlour firsts with their non-flush glazing. I have two of the earlier cars being repainted to provide a better appearance, but to be honest it's not the lack of flush glazing that jumps out at me so much as the variation between the Railmatch colours and tri-ang's versions of them. So perhaps the existing cars will continue to be used, after a gentle respray... or I'll pull my finger out and finish the others.
For now, here's a shot of the complete rake showing how long it is, and perhaps demonstrating why an RTR version will always be unlikely:
And here's a (very!) short clip of the complete rake running through the above scene:
Thanks for reading, and hope this has been of interest - and of course, happy new year to all.
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