Kubes

Hi Not quite as uncommon as it seems perhaps. There is a photo in British Railways Past & Present Volume 20 Kent & East Sussex which shows D6521 coupled to a different unidentified pre-grouping pair of coaches (though visibly not of LBSC origin and indeed the caption suggests ex LC&DR) at Cliffe on an Allhallows service. The date given is 1st April 1961. Kubes

And the wheels of Tri-Ang coaches which distinctly upset a ten year old Kubes!

Oh and sets 381 and 383 were malachite green. Kubes

According to Mike King's book the answer is both! They were converted between 1948 and 1949. Apparently the earlier conversions were outshopped in malachite and the later ones in BR crimson either with or without lining. They ended up in BR SR green. Set 382 is pictured in lined crimson in 1949. Kubes

The words 'slippery' and 'slope' come to mind! Kubes

Can anyone point me in the direction of a published colour photo of this set? This set was a bit of a celebrity being often used on the Bluebell line in the last years of BR operation and there are plenty of BW shots of it and also colour shots of the ex LBSC single carriage that was used but set 504 seems to have avoided being caught in colour. Kubes

I take your point on cost but I think Doilum made the most valid point. It is hard enough to build a sweet running chassis without introducing the added variable of a fold up gearbox. At least with a milled box you can be sure that it is square right from the off. Kubes

The ABC gearbox is machine milled out of solid brass while the Connoisseur version is etched in flat brass sheet which you fold up to create a gearbox. Many modellers have used fold up gearboxes very successfully. I haven't and I remain to be persuaded that it is possible to fold up etched gearboxes to the same level of accuracy as a milled box. The Connoisseur product is an excellent example of its type but if I have spent several hundred pounds on a kit and a further hundred on wheels I would want the best drive I could get. There are other good milled gearboxes available which are cheaper e

It probably will...on its own. But you'll almost certainly experience buffer lock issues when coupled to a loco I suspect.

You could try the garden railway section. 7mm coarse scale wheels are often used for 16mm scale narrow gauge stock on 32mm gauge track. Kubes

And even that's not what it was!

What you want are ordinary plain disc coach wheels as supplied by Slaters, Peartree and many others. Kubes

You are quite correct about the diagramming. Many services on the secondary Central and Eastern SR lines were worked like this and the stock would be widely travelled across the division.

And Set 459 sounds like a scratch set formed from two coaches from disbanded set 219 which was an eight coach set of 8' 6" Maunsell high window carriages. Again not Slaters or Kirk Kubes

I think Sets 955 and 958 were from the last Maunsell designs with frameless droplights and a different arrangement of windows and doors on the corridor side. Unfortunately they cannot be made from Slaters or Kirk kits. Kubes