AVS1998

(Credit: British Newspaper Archive, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000293/19250307/037/0002 ) ''That train has been running for over twenty years [...] At first it started from Bexhill and had a Pullman on it and then it came through to Hastings''. Interesting that the Bexhill Special Express seems, according to J. M. Glover, the author of 'Railway Deputation: A Member's Views', to have survived from its inception in 1900 in some form or other, and was highly successful. This is the only article I've found praising the Express to such a degree after around 1907, and I'm not going to take it as gospel that it did survive the Great War, but nevertheless, it's an interesting thought. I wonder why I've found no other mentions of its longevity (unless Glover is mistaken?)

I can only echo what Dana's suggested, really. The other main alternative would be to construct a new clerestory roof, but that's rather involved. I do wish there was a more reliable supply of Pullman/continental-style clerestory roofs, that'd be a boon.

Car 171 (Later Pullman Parlour First Tulip) only became a Pullman proper in 1919 . Prior to that, it was a 'go anywhere' SER club car, able to run on both Hastings and Folkestone trains, and likely was on the T.W. Pullman (probably misnamed as the SER didn't use the term Pullman AFAIK) as it could run the Hastings route without clearance issues. It was the lone Jackson, Sharp car and was seen on both services. So, to answer your questions: no, it wasn't (at least not at the time of the publication) and no, as Pullmans never technically appeared on the SER (at least not pre-1910.)

From what I remember reading, the last teak liveries disappeared largely by 1911, though there were a handful of particularly hardy examples possibly around as late as 1917, but not overly likely. Nearly everything by that point was some shade of brown or lake.

I have plans to re-letter a GNR full brake to SE&CDR (or just LCDR) and shorten it when I get my hands on one (I think my order is being sent to my parents' address, something to do next time I'm home).

A little bit of tidying up on the roof (I've sanded and shaved the rainstrips back I don't know how many times and they're still very prominent) and that's the basic paintwork finished. I need to find a cream or white paint that isn't quite as buttery as the Pullman creams I've got in stock. Once that's done, I believe I've got some LBSCR handle etches somewhere, then it's lettering and a varnish. The glazing needs its BR markings removing - I'll figure out how to do that somehow. One compartment will be painted as if its blinds are closed, just to try and add some variety, and definitely not to cover up the cut and shut of the interior seating... Looking at Brighton destination boards, it seems very hit and miss as to where they were carried, if at all. Some carriages seem to have had them on the roof below the rainstrips, others on the carriage sides?

A wee update from my Pullman works and readings. On the LNER car front, I'm happy to announce that the cars will be with their commissioner by January. Given the poor state of some of my transfers, and the time it's taken to get the models this far, we've agreed that I should get the paint in a decently finished condition, make sure everything is fixed in place, and then send them on - the owner will do the lining and lettering themselves in time. I'm content with this agreement. The LBSCR clerestory is proving troublesome - the join is rather fragile, and it seems the car body had sagged when the solvent set, so I cut the halves apart again and sanded them a little more flush, only now the body is too short for the underframe. I have some wiggle room left to lose in the underframe anyway, so I'll see if trimming it some more doesn't help. In the meantime, I can glue reinforcements on the inside of the car - the sides will be cut away eventually anyway (terrifying prospect) for replacements to the British pattern. Re-reading Ford's Volume One on the twelve-wheel cars, Third Class Parlours 5-8 were built in 1917 and were deployed on Brighton and Eastbourne workings. From 1915, third class cars had been running on similar workings, and to West Sussex towns, and it is noted in newspapers such as the Bexhill-On-Sea Observer (18th September 1915) that ''it is hoped to introduce similar cars into other services as soon as possible'', suggesting that third class cars may have emerged on the Bexhill Special Express, which you may remember appears to not have been fully axed in 1907 as previously imagined. This is further reinforced with a snippet from the Bexhill-On-Sea Chronicle (same date), stating that ''so far no third-class Pullman cars on the L.B. and S.C. Railway have reached Bexhill, but it is probable that the Commercial Association will join with Hastings in asking the company to place Bexhill and Hastings on the same footing as Brighton.'' This demand seems to have been in effect from a year prior (square brackets mine); ''He [Mr Reed-Lewis] hoped that at some future day, and not that very far distant, they [various bodies from Bexhill and Hastings including the Advertising Association and Commercial Association] would be able to bring pressure on the Brighton Railway to give Bexhill a parlour-car [note the British spelling now] service and, at times, respectable carriages. At the present day, the carriages which came to Bexhill and Hastings were very different to those which went to Brighton and Eastbourne.'' (Commercial Association Meeting, Bexhill-On-Sea Observer, 5th February 1916) The record of this meeting continues with reference to comments from LB&SCR stationmaster, J. Holden (bold for emphasis): ''On all railways the towns that had the least traffic had to put up with the worst carriages. If there were sufficient passengers, the Railway Company would provide better facilities for Bexhill. They ran for some time a breakfast car, but often there was only one person in it. He thought it ran for two years.'' Suffice to say, there's a lot of ambiguity about this service, especially as to its receipt (or not) of third-class cars, but I'm happy enough to fudge it for my own purposes. Moving to something completely different, I re-read Jim Greaves' article on the Kentish dalliance with CIWL cars in the late 1800s, and was curious as to how the cars scaled out, according to measurements and floorplans he was able to find. I believe I'm correct in saying both parlour layouts would have had 17 windows. There was little to no catering, probably only warm beverages. The parlours were 57' 4'' long and 9' wide, with a bogie wheelbase of 8' 2'' (8' for ease of modelling possibly?). I'm unsure of height, but likely under 12' 9''? They ran in olive with gold lining, though this contradicts a works photo in another livery (easy to repaint before shipment though I suppose). I did toy with an alternative history as opposed to their being returned to the Continent after withdrawal in 1893; ‘’Despite the evident failings of both the SER and LCDR’s dalliance with Wagons Lits, the cars allotted to the two companies remained in England for several years in storage at Mottingham, near Bromley, and, upon the arrangement of the new joint management committee through 1898, a new agreement was formed with CIWL for operation of the cars under the new company. The cars were now intended to be employed on ocean liner traffic to Blackstone, and later Dover, operating to passenger demand, with all cars constituting a complete train if required. They were stripped of their olive livery and instead varnished, with the gold lettering restored. Roofs were white. The fourgons were reclassified from smoking saloons to gentlemen’s lounges, and a pair ran consistently with each outing; the third was kept in reserve. As the Register of the Dover Harbour Board noted in 1905, Dover provided considerable benefits as a transatlantic port, with its position on the South Coast being ''absolutely unique [... ] In the voyage from Germany or Antwerp to New York 120 miles on each voyage as compared with a call at Southampton.'' (Dover Express, 11th August 1905) By 1910, the SECR was running three forms of luxury carriage; Wagons Lits, Pullman, and their own Club Car (previously Hastings and Folkestone sets). These were easily distinguished from one another; Pullmans and the Wagons Lits cars ran on boat services until 1920, with the SECR’s own cars being used on domestic trains: these were bought and refurbished by Pullman post-War. By 1915, all cars had been suspended from service and were stored along with the SECR cars, being moved around the network, until 1919. The CIWL cars were lightly refurbished at Ashford, and re-varnished, re-entering service in June of that year. Consideration was given to the cars' life expectancy: the SECR were unsure of their willingness to renew the contract, given the 25-year period expired in 1923 and the War had ravaged cross-channel trade. In January of 1923, all the CIWL cars were withdrawn once more and stored at Hither Green, awaiting a decision as to their continued use. They were, by then, over forty years old, and approaching life expiration. The similarly-aged ex-Gilbert Hastings cars were seeing out their final years as Pullmans on the Hastings route, but, with the anticipated influx of modern Pullmans taking over their roles on the boat train traffic, both sets of cars were, at last, redundant. The Southern Railway and Wagons Lits entered discussions as to the viability of supplying suitably scaled steel cars as replacements. As transatlantic traffic largely fell away from the Kent Coast, the cost-effectiveness of providing a small fleet of dedicated WL cars was unjustifiable. In 1925, a prototype sleeper and restaurant car, built in Birmingham, were trialled in Europe and on intercompany services within Britain, but were stored at Stewarts Lane. No Wagons Lits car would again run in England until the Night Ferry, commencing in 1936.’’ Just a bit of fun, naturally.

That's not a bad idea!

I think the Stroudley is as neat as I'm going to manage. The panelling is more-or-less square and I've cleaned out the filler overspill therein. The roof looks tidy and the body is square. When the weather's a little drier (fingers crossed) I'll do another primer coat and hopefully get a coat of umber on, too. I've decided I will paint it out in umber and white/cream, for variety. Alongside the Stroudley first, I found another old project, an E4 I was backdating to be 577 (formerly Blackstone). I'd made a bit of a mess of it, especially with glue, and some of you may remember I'd grabbed the wrong rattle can and it had come out in a hodge-podge of brown shades. I've sanded and shaved the overspill away, tweaked the cab so it sits properly again, and repositioned the chimney.

Just a quick shot of the carriage body again, having had two further coats of primer and some further sanding. I think it's ready for a final (please let it be the final) coat of primer before going in for paint. At one end I've added a representation of alarm gear and lighting controls from plastic strip and some spare brass wire. Not perfect, but it'll do the job once in a set. Though the prototype diagram used the Stroudley Houghton electric system, fed from a dynamo in a brake van, I imagined that by 1910 the carriages may have been fitted with their own dynamos, and will represent this on the chassis in due course. This also benefits my 'blagging' of it running in Blackstone trains, possibly later than the 'official' withdrawal date of 1919.

It was more an exercise in trying to minimalise what was thrown away, and to see whether chopping the chassis together would be viable. For me, it's proven fruitless, so I'm happy to explore other options now.

And the underframe crumbled again, irreparably so. I'll look at using a Ratio Midland 48' chassis instead.

A word of caution to anyone wanting to cut and shut the Generics into anything bogie - the underframes, once you've cut apertures for the wheels to sit in - become very fragile. I've just had the joins fail and split, and the intact chassis (I used a whole chassis then the end of the other) failed at a weak point, too. I've glued them back together and will neaten it all up tomorrow, stiffen with wire down the inside, but still something to look out for.

I can't claim to be the progenitor of this idea, but I've had fun doing it today. I saw on Model Railways Direct the Hornby generics were heavily discounted (BR livery especially) and having been inspired by Matt (Pregroupingfan)'s own efforts, I purchased two first class carriages in BR maroon, which arrived today. The intention is to cut and shut them into a six-compartment Stroudley bogie first, diagram 36/43. It won't be wholly accurate (for one, the D.36 was built to the higher later roof pattern) but a dash of Rule One doesn't hurt. The Build. They were easy enough to strip down into component parts, and I set to work trimming the underframes, cutting away the springs, underframe detail, NEM pockets and so on, and cutting them to length. I also pulled the awful buffer heads out from their housings, I'm thinking I may be able to drill through the housings and use steel sprung buffer heads? If not, they're easy to cut off and replace later. I think I may have cut them a little too short in length, but ultimately once the carriage is on its bogies and in a rake, you'd be hard pressed to notice. With the body, I chose to cut at the panels between compartments, leaving enough sacrificial material to file back until tidy, leaving reasonable mouldings. First efforts were a bit sloppy, so I snapped the halves apart and took the file to them again to neaten things up. Another attempt to mate them up, and a bit of primer, shows the join is much better. There's still tidying to be done, but I'm happy with that for now. This view also definitely shows that there needs to be some space cut in the chassis for wheels to sit in - at the moment, the carriage sits about 2mm too high, even taking into account how thick these particular bogies are! A clearer indication is the comparison with an untampered (okay... Untampered in ride height) Hornby Generic chassis and a Generic body (there were two compartment ends left over from the exercise, and they were asking so nicely to be turned into something). Fits rather nicely on a 10' wooden wagon underframe... (This closeup is from pre-roof sanding!) But looks equally as cute when hinting at being a narrow-gauge saloon. I'm fairly happy with how this build is going, I feel like I'm slowly getting my modelling mojo back. The D. 36 will have its body sides and roof seam filled and sanded a few times, just to make the join a bit nicer, and then I'll look to the roof. These didn't carry rain strips, if I'm reading White correctly, which I've already scraped and sanded off. There does need to be an electrical conduit added (easy enough in plastic strip). Ventilators were likely to be the Brighton's own sort of Havock vents? They look almost like little mushrooms, to my eye. If they're what I need, I can requisition some from one of my clerestory Pullmans that hasn't been modified yet. Underneath I think I need the usual brake cylinders, truss rods (pretty simple 'V' shape) but otherwise, nothing else. When it comes to bogies, I've got a few options. In service the carriages ran on 9' equaliser beam/Pullmanesque bogies, but these are near-impossible to find (I think Ian McCormac etched some years ago). To make things easier, I could go for Ratio LNWR bogies (a standard stand-in, it seems, for Brighton carriage builders), or I could use Roxey's LSWR American pattern. I'm planning on using those for Pullman builds where appropriate. But at £14-15 a pair, that's quickly going to get expensive for the one carriage. At least with Pullmans, I can justify the expense by having the bogies fit several cars and spread the cost. I'm not going to be running all cars at once, after all. There's also GWR American pattern, but they look too obviously Western. I'll figure it out when I get there. So - livery? I'm firmly in the umber period of the LBSC, but I'm wondering about the possibility of having a carriage or two slip through in umber and cream. Now technically these carriages were withdrawn in 1919, but again, Rule One. I'm happy with plain umber if need be.

The Hastings and Eastbourne/Kent Coast Maunsell sets have been ousted, they're lovely but too modern. Any corridor sets will be pure SECR or LSWR/SECR blend, Southern period. That's making life easier, slowly.

Looking at Brighton sets, I've got most of S. 59 made up. S. 26 would also be fairly easy, I imagine. A couple of the bogie sets probably wouldn't be too hard, either - it's just tracking down some of the trickier kits or scratch building them. When it comes to SECR, S. 59 and S. 62 wouldn't be too hard - again, it's just tracking down kits and so on. S. 389 for the Southern, similarly, not too difficult. I've also got a 60' Birdcage trio from Bachmann which is mostly backdated. On the loco front, honestly, a T9, couple of LBSCR Radial tanks, and some SECR 4-4-0s of various descriptions, maybe an R1, and that would suit very nicely. What I've got in tables/documents isn't necessarily reflective of what will get built or modelled, it's more just an exercise in research and, at least on paper, having a prototypical reflection of what may have been running in the Hastings area in my time period.

This post is going to focus on the coaching stock for Blackstone, and a rationalisation of sets. I'll leave things like push-pull sets and loose coaches alone for now, that's something I can either whittle down over time, or I can model ad-hoc. The way some of these sets are organised may seem a little odd; I'd tried to arrange them initially in the document by period and numerical order but for simplicity I'm grouping roughly by pre-grouping company (LBSC and SECR) and then anything that was formed post-1923 under the Southern. Hopefully it makes sense. SECR Firstly, I don't know what I need that many boat trains for the SECR. I would definitely like the Tidal, and B.T.6 gives me the opportunity to actually operate some of the Pullmans I've got planned. I've now just noticed I've got the same spare boat set listed twice - that's an easy one to fix. B.T.4 would be nice, an opportunity to use 12W Pullmans outside of a corridor set (which did occur, apparently, just not terribly often). The spare/loose sets are neither here nor there - I can live without them. They were more just an exercise in forming trains out of what I had listed in loose stock. The two mainline sets can stay. Again, I'm quite happy with these. Easy enough to make up from kits over time as they emerge. The LSWR set will be a little trickier (and is a Southern-period reallocation) as, as far as I'm aware, there are no kits available. Might be a Triang clerestory bash. LBSCR LBSCR stock I'm reasonably happy with. That can be built up over time. When looking at carriage working volumes, what struck me was the amount of sets which maybe ran very few services a day; an Up, a Down, an Up again, and maybe another Down, sometimes in a triangle between London, Hastings and somewhere out West like Littlehampton (not unlike Southern today, I suppose). Post-1923 These are, for the most part, relatively simple to form. I'll have the corridor birdcage brakes and Thanet kits are, I believe, available from Worsley Works. Where it will get tricky is the Eagle saloons and the Gilbert-Pullman Hastings cars. Now this is where things get interesting. I did have a fair part of set 467 constituted from Kirk kits, but they were falling apart and looked really, really scrappy. So, I've salvaged parts like bogies, Kadees and some underfloor detailing, and they've been scrapped. I'm unsure whether I should still try to build them - the Hastings or the Kent Coast/Eastbourne sets. They're very narrowly into my modelling period, and it seems daft to try to shoehorn anything in. The only thing I could do would be to possibly blag the R0 set as being an earlier build, but that's a bit much, I think. The K.C. and E'bourne routes were still largely non-corridor operated even by this time, so perhaps I need to just stick with that? The four SECR sets at the bottom, again, should be manageable to be built over time. I'm open to hearing thoughts on the matter.

Addressing a few projects: Rosalind looks salvageable. The chassis wasn't as bad as I imagined, and so the trussing has been reglued (it's always been a weak point on Hornby's Pullmans), and I'm thinking I'm going to cut off the buffer beams and replace them with Keen products, just to make them look tidier. They look very straggly at present. The chassis has also bowed slightly - I think by fitting brass strip in the vestibules with a nut on them, I can fix the body to the chassis through the Kadee boxes. New footsteps have been needed for a while, but my old-fashioned brass ladder trick seems to work just fine. Drill into the chassis and glue them in place. As for the body, it's going to have its (third?) repaint, stripped down and done from scratch. The transfer job I tried wasn't very tidy, and the varnish bloomed and matted poorly. New vestibules are easy to fit, too. I'm unsure if I'll populate the car. The SECR parlours (8-wheel) will need Dublo/Wrenn donors. They'll be bought over time. I was working on some but again, they look a bit scrappy and I'm not convinced I can rescue them effectively. We'll wait and see. Roundhouse LBSCR clerestories (unnamed yet, but likely to be Majestic and Princess Patricia) are going well. I've sanded the first car down and its body is currently curing together. It'll see filler and a blow-over with primer before I look at handling the vestibule windows and how to seal with the sides. I've got half an idea of what to do there. GER/LNER brakes 94 and 95 are going okay. The paintwork needs a tweak, then it's onto transfers, a little more detailing, and hopefully I can send those off to their owner in time. They've taken a lot longer than I'd have liked, but the commissioner doesn't seem too fussed and has said they've enjoyed watching the progress. SER/SECR car - this car I'm unsure I'll actually run in service. It was a fun little exercise, but I'd rather have something more representative and realistic in due course. All in good time, naturally.

I'm going to start with a rationalisation of the motive power for Blackstone. It's been done before, but I'd like to do it again, just for good measure. As part of the justification for some locomotive classes, part of the background for Blackstone is that the re-laying of track in Bo Peep in the 1900s was done in conjunction with the lowering of the track bed and some locomotives being fitted with lowered fittings such as chimneys and domes. Not every locomotive class would be working the Hastings Direct or East Coastway route, either; some would be working Ashford - Blackstone (corresponding to Ashford - Hastings, roughly). Some locomotives are listed for fun, or as part of a fictional history developed from the reality. An example of this would be the ex-Tilsbury Baltics being adopted by the SE&CR for boat and other express trains. In reality, the class were too inflexible in route availability and very heavy, causing concern for stability at speed. LBSCR For starters, I'm unsure if I need this many locomotives for the LB&SCR to begin with. Yes, it serves Blackstone, but the town's main company is the SE&CR. I could whittle it down to maybe two E4s and an E5 on the Radial front? The K I'm indifferent toward. I like them, but I can live without it. The J1 I did begin building but I wasn't happy with my efforts - I may strip it down and start again. The I4 was something different, and apparently they were used on Hastings services, which was my initial justification, but I can do without it if it would be a challenge to build. The G class was an oddball derived from Stephenson's survival on the Sunday Eastbourne Pullman until 1914. I supposed I may have a similar surviving locomotive working a Pullman car or two to Eastbourne for a Blackstone portion of the train, but it's a bit of a stretch. I can happily scrap that. SE&CR I think I'm pretty happy with this selection. Perhaps scrap the K and the T, though. They're a bit redundant - and the K too short-lived. Allegedly, the P 323 never ran in lake after all, it was historical conjecture. I rather like the idea, and there are other companies which ran their push/pull locomotives in passenger livery so, we'll see. LSWR Again, pretty happy with these. I spoke with Linny about the X2. It was just to be something different, perhaps transferred as an experiment alongside the T9s, to see how the class would fare on a hilly, windy route such as the Hastings line as opposed to its usual Salisbury stomping ground. The locomotive is shorter in length than a Schools, around the same width over the cylinders, with the steps a little wider (not necessarily an issue), and all that may be required is a shorter chimney and dome. If anyone finds an obvious flaw with that thinking though, please let me know and I'll amend it. SR I don't know that I'll need or can justify two N15s, but I rather like the class. There aren't many early-Southern period locomotives I can sensibly put on the roster, anyway, so this is my lot. I think that's around 8 locomotives to drop from the list, which helps enormously. There are likely more I can oust, too, but we'll see. I'll do coaches shortly (which will be difficult - I am, after all, a big fan of the carriage).

Good evening everyone, As some of you may have noticed, my account was briefly suspended a few days ago. I'd made a status update and the wording of it wasn't great, and so my account was disabled, and my threads sadly deleted. But, it's not such a bad thing - it gives me an opportunity to rationalise what I'd started with projects while I'm visiting home, and try to make a better plan for future projects and stock I want/need for Blackstone in the long run. I look forward to posting what I come up with and create, and sharing any future findings with you. Alex

Good evening everyone, As some of you will doubtless have seen, my account was temporarily suspended (I'd posted a status update and the wording in it was a little fishy), and as a result, all of my previous threads have been ousted. I'm going to start afresh, with a new Blackstone workbench and this Pullman (and associated luxury vehicle) post, serving (hopefully) as a place of discussion and a more dedicated archive to my findings. It's good to be back, and I look forward to sharing future findings with you. Alex