vonmarshall

For anybody interested, I found a photo on Didcot’s FB of a 1925 built articulated coach set at Weymouth in August 1929 and you can clearly see the fake panelling has been replaced with the simpler post 1927 livery already so it lasted less than 4 years. https://www.facebook.com/DidcotRailwayCentre/photos/a.210517012308528/3770424132984447/?type=3

Not sure if anybody is interested, but I recently came across a new webpage (new to me at least) when researching whether I could legitimately run a Bavarian S3/6 with my Elettren CIWLs. Very well written. https://trainconsultant.com/2019/06/22/the-orient-express-train-of-mistakes-mistake-of-train/

Many thanks that is excellent. From the link... "In general, a coach livery pre-WWI was expected to last approximately 10–12 years before repainting was necessary. From 1922 onward, with the re-introduction of the brown and cream body colours, it seems less varnishing was applied, and the repainting interval for non-express stock dropped to approximately 7 years. For express stock, the pace of repainting seems to have accelerated during the mid- to late-1920s as a result of the GWR Board voting for extra funds to be made available to hasten the repainting program. As a consequence, it was rare to see a crimson lake corridor coach after 1927/8, and rare to find a fully-lined (pre-1927) corridor coach after c 1930. Assessing what livery a coach should be in a particular era, especially when the official livery was changing quite rapidly (throughout the 1920s, and post-1948) is therefore difficult, and some intelligent guesswork needs to be applied using the build date of a coach. As always, good contemporary pictures help considerably." I think that I could go either then for a 1925 set as they would have been in 1929. I do have a photo of one of the Ocean Mails (M15 I think) vans in 1929 in full lining so maybe I will keep that as a single fully lined option for variation.

For my sins I have picked 1929 as the year that I model, 2 years after the switch from the fully lined livery to the simpler, but still elegant dual tone. I am in the middle of building a set of the the 1925 Articulated coaches (the Restaurant / Kitchen triplet). As built in 1925, they were in the magnificent fully lined livery. And there are photos in Russel of a set in 1936 in the new Roundel livery. Does anybody know how frequently coaches that would have been main-line and reasonably prestige, would have been repainted? Would 1925 stock have stayed fully lined for a decade? Or would they have been repainted after about 5 years in the interim livery? In Russel there are a few wonderful photos of some of the older stock such as H19 and H26 repainted in 1930/31, but I cannot find any photos of the articulated stock in this period. My gut feel is that 4 year old stock would not have been repainted so quickly and they would have focused on the older carriages that needed work. For instance there is a great photo I have taken in Millbay of H20 and a Clerestory and both are repainted and unlined. What do you all think?

Thanks Harlequin I too have seen that. It seems the coaches disappear from 1915ish until after the war from any public photos. I am leaning towards including them in 1930’s Plymouth specials but would love corroboration

I am working on several possible rakes for Ocean Traffic in 1929-1932 and started a thread many moons ago about the Super Saloons (and we diverted to Pullmans) here... I have recently been re-reading some of my Harris books and there were two types of coach in particular that I would love to represent at this time, although there is no evidence I can find that they were used on these trains. In 1928-1930, there were c250 ships that arrived per year, and up to 5 trains run for each ship, so I can always use modellers licence, but if there is some actual evidence, I am always keen to find it. In 1911, sets of 70' toplights were made specifically for the Fishguard traffic, and included magnificent 70' Firsts (A10) and Brake 1sts (A11). But after WW1, I believe Cunard stopped going to Fishguard and all traffic was now via Plymouth. As such I would expect these coaches found their way onto that route. Does anybody know if this is the case and whether there are any photos to back this up? My other question is linked to the early Clerestory stock. One photo I have of one of the Ocean Mails coaches which was taken at Millbay, clearly shows a clerestory attached, both of them repainted in the simpler post-1927 livery and apparently taken in 1935. https://hmrs.org.uk/photographs/70-apos-rfbk-gw-8303-diag-h20-at-train-end-plymouth-millbay-f3r-kitchen-side-brake-end-nearest-part-clerestory-car-right.html I can guess which diagram the clerestory may be, but it made me wonder if the wonderful Directors Saloons were also ever used in these boats. Again, to my mind, it stands to logic that this sort of traffic would have had reason to use a saloon like this, but again I have no evidence. Can anyone help?

Hi all Long time lurker here. My original plan was to work in 7mm or even G1 and I have some lovely stock and kits in these scales, but we are moving house soon and I will have a much smaller garden to play with and have decided that I will have a lot more fun with 4mm. As such I am going to be selling them and starting to build my 4mm stock. I am building a nice long loop to sit back and watch the trains go by, so my first criteria is that I want to have robust, smooth, consistent chassis / bogies and running characteristics. This has made me mull over trying to modify / use the best RTR coach chassis I can find. In my head, a modern well made RTR should theoretically be truer than any home made folded brass bogie. Or am I being niaive? My interests are rather particular and I am building up several rakes of carriages to represent the 1929/1930 era and will be including lots of 70' stock and interesting restaurant cars. I am also keen on high detail where practical and with the sort of toplights and even concertina coaches I want to run, I know I need to work with the range of kits and brass parts that seem readily available from companies like CPL and Worsely. I am a very experienced modeller and comfortable working with a soldering iron and multimedia kits, but I am new to coach kit building. I have read all the books and feel ready to go. So if you were me, what would you do? Is there a RTR coach chassis / bogies that are particularly well rated from a running point of view that I should utilise and are there any kit / side manufacturers that you would particularly recommend? Thanks for any input and ideas.

Here is a lovely photo of a King in duty in 1960 with what looks like about 8-10 tanks and a full brake between Cardiff and Paddington. Very dirty tanks! https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p956313545

I believe I have seen a similar photo of a King or Castle with a load of Dining cars and kitchens being hauled empty down to Plymouth in one of the Books / Magazines I have. What a great formation to model! I have all of the Coach books, Plymouth in the 30's, relevant GWR journals on articulated and Pullmans, Backtrack volumes on Restaurant cars and the Hubback collection along with all of the photos I can find online, but if you know of somewhere else I should be looking, do let me know.

That is great info Mike and a wonderful photo! Do you have any other photos you can share? Do you think any of the articulated dining sets were ever used?

Sorry to reliven this old thread but I cannot seem to stop looking more and more into the fascinating (in my mind at least!) special trains put together for all of the Ocean Traffic. I am an odd sort of modeller, my focus being on running prototypically correct formations behind my GWR Castle and just sitting back and watching it trundle around the garden. I have several "Ocean" rakes made up using much of the info I have gathered here and in all of the books and magazines I can find. I did have a question about the pre-29 era, particularly 27 and 28. The Pullmans were not available yet but there were over 200 liners a year arriving at Millbay and up to 5 special trains leaving in a single day! My assumption would be that there would be a large 1st class requirement and this is supported by the existence of H20, the 1st Restaurant / Kitchen / Brake (and to a lesser extend the 12 wheeler H22) both of which were seen a lot on these specials. But all of the info I can find about suitable 1st class stock, particularly A10 and A11 (70' 1st and 70' 1st Brake) was that they were made for the Fishguard boat trains (and never seemingly had a dining car set to go with them). Do any of you know if these 70' 1sts made it onto the Plymouth traffic? My assumption would be that they would have indeed been called into action, especially before the Pullmans or the Saloons existed.

That is great info! Many thanks

This is a fascinating topic. My focus is an earlier period, the late 20's and early 30's. Does anybody know much about this time and what a Milk train (either up or down) would have looked like in the Devon area? I would love to know whether Castles or Stars were seen on duty. And how many tankers were normal. And whether they were a mix of dairies or all the same livery. And what sort of Siphons and Brakes may have been involved too. I am also assuming that sometimes a tanker or 2 were attached to one of the Newspaper trains or even some of the relied express formations. If there is any photographic evidence then please let me know.

Fred, you are costing me a fortune! I keep coming back to your Gauge 1 Aster 241 and cannot help but feel that I am going to end up regretting building an O gauge collection, always craving 1/32! I am in collection mode. I work full time and have a gorgeous, large garden and a dream for me has been to build a single long line meandering around the garden to haul only one or two of my favourite trains. The original thought was for a 10-12 Train Bleu or Orient Express with a 241, an 8 coach Golden Arrow behind a Britannia and then, if funds allowed, a 10-12 coach LMS Mail train with Duchess up front and a LNER P2 with 10-12 Teaks. In O gauge that was rather stretching the budget and in G1 it will be a no-no. I have 10 years to collect the locos and coaches and have already got the Pullmans for the Golden Arrow in O. But I now find myself thinking have just 2 trains, a 7 coach Orient Express as you detailed in your first answer, and a 7 coach UK Golden Arrow behind a G1AM Britannia. That will cost the same as 4 long O gauge trains. I have been out in the garden working it out and reckon I can get a 150-200m long run around the edge with half of it raised and half at ground level. The sound of live steam, and the melody of G1 coaches rocking in a scale manner is a sight to behold. You clearly have both options on your clever track. If you were only able to have 1, which would you prefer? A couple of G1 trains or a wider selection of O gauge? Does the weight and feel of G1 give you more pleasure than the volume of O gauge?

As a matter of interest, what is the loco at the head of this train? Is it a 231 Chapeleon without deflectors? If so, when would the deflectors have been added and what livery would it have carried when deflectorless? And what livery in the late 30’s? Understanding French Eras and liveries is a new minefield for me!

I read that too and from the same site the description of the Rome Express imcludes “Passengers from London leave Victoria at 11 am. The Southern Railway’s boat express is primarily part of the “Golden Arrow” service between London and Paris. The connecting boat from Dover arrives at Calais at 2.50 pm. As with the “Orient Express”, we shall perhaps see at Calais only two sleeping cars attached to an ordinary Northern Railway of France boat train, which follows the route of the “Golden Arrow” through Boulogne, Abbeville, and Amiens to the Gare du Nord in Paris. Thence the through sleeping cars are worked round the Paris Ceinture or “Belt” Railway to the PLM Terminus of the Gare de Lyon.” From the same website, when talking about the Golden Arrow, there is a picture of Calais with the following comment... “AT CALAIS the passengers are transferred to the Paris Express, seen here on the quay of the Gare Maritime. On the sides of the Pullman cars are painted arrows of gold. Some of the sleeping-cars form a part of the celebrated “Blue Train” which runs from Paris to the Riviera. One of the sleepers, labelled “Rome”, is attached at Paris to the equally famous “Rome Express”.”

You are a source of amazing information! #3544 worked the Rome Express in 38-39 so conceivably made its way up to Calais as part of the Fleche d’Or. My thinking therefore is I could use 2 LX sleepers, a selection of Pullman 1st and 2nd class couplets and a pair off different forgons to create a truly visually interesting and historically accurate formation. Would you concur? Re the loco, I am hunting down a 241A. The P came along a bit late for my preferred era I believe. I did not know the honour of leading the Fleche d’Or fell on a 231. I may have to employ some artistic licence because the 241 is perfectly proportioned in my eye and I only have one loco per rake on my railway and this is likely to be my only French loco. However I shall revisit the 231 Chapeleons to see what my options could be.

I should probably rename this thread because the pictures have opened up more questions than answers! Let me start by stating that I have a single line in the garden for O gauge and I only watch the trains go by. I exclusively like long express trains with 10+ coaches and tend to like running as prototypical formation as possible. Most of my focus is 1930's UK mainline with the following rakes in process of being created: LNER P2 hauled express with 11 LNER teak coaches including the triplet diner LMS Duchess hauled Queen Scot with 13 LMS Period II and Period III coaches with a 12 wheel diner GWR Castle hauled "Ocean Liner" special with Ocean Mails van, Super Saloons and 70' Collet stock Because I had travelled in #3544 on the VSOE and I also happen to love the 241 locomotive, my original thought was to model the SOE. But in the garden, I can run long rakes and there is nothing like watching an impressive loco pulling a heavy load, so given the info above I am leaning towards recreating Le Train Bleu or maybe even the Fleche D'Or. Re the latter, the 1936 Fleche D'Or seems to include 2 sleepers along with the Pullmans and the rather interesting Fourgon at the back. But it seems odd to me that a train that only ran from Calais to Paris would have sleepers. Would they be sleepers for a through train, maybe linking onto the Train Bleu and on to Nice or Rome? And whilst talking about the Fleche D'Or, would all of the Pullmans (and the loco) have carried the big gold arrows on the side? Sorry for all the questions but this is a fascinating subject to me!

Thank you for the link. I had a feeling things would not be simple and it turns out I was right! I am normally a fan of 1930’s GWR express trains which is a total minefield of what was used and when, but at least all of the info is in English. My schoolboy French is not cutting it on the French forums!

Sorry I was not clear. I meant the top one. Pity.

Thanks for the heads up. I am leaning towards a 1930's era so that is very relevant. Late 20's early 30's works well for me so will go for LX. Given the relatively short length of the Orient Express and the fact that I have budgeted on getting around 12 coaches to go with a 241, I am thinking of getting some of the Pullmans, a 1st class couplet and a 2nd class couplet. I could then use the same 2 bagage cars at each end to recreate L'Oiseau Bleu or even a close approximation of the Fleche D'Or. As an aside, do you know when the Fougons were phased out? And were they never used on the Orient Express?

I stumbled across https://www.wagons-lits-diffusion.com/ last night and found some rather interesting drawings that I thought sharing for any future reader coming across this post.

Thanks for your help Fred. I love your videos and have watched them many times! I was aware that the Pulllmans ran on the day trains such as the L'Etoile du Nord, l'Oiseau Bleu, the Sud Express etc and not on the sleeper trains, but was not aware that the Simplon Orient Express did not have a bar. I also thought it would have been longer. Do you know whether most of the coaches mentioned would have been seen in the 1930's trains?

I was lucky to take the VSOE home from my honeymoon a decade ago and find myself now with the space to run a full length train in my garden. We slept in coach 3544 which served in both the Train Bleu and Simplon Orient Express (and as a brothel during the war!). As a lover of the SNCF 241 locomotive I intend to run a realistic Simplon Orient Express from the 30's or 50's and just sit back and watch it go by. As an aside I am also open to representing the Train Bleu too. My French is not strong enough to search on the French forums so I thought I may ask here. Does anybody know what the formation would have been back then. I hope to use Elettren coaches throughout so hope I can build a realistic rake. I may need to get a coach renumbered as 3544 but Elettren did make #3350 which was also an LX so it should not be too hard. In an ideal world I would be representing the train as it ran from Paris to Venice in a busy Summer. I am particularly interested in how many sleepers would have typically run, the make up of the dining / bar sets and the luggage options. Many thanks for any input.

That would make a lot more sense!