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BR (ex GWR) Parcels Railcar


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Latest project, inspired by a photo in the brilliant book “British Railways in Unseen Colour” - a repaint of the Hornby GWR parcels railcar.

 

78451C90-7456-44C4-AEEA-546871E26CF0.jpeg.e0ad4521cff7ed7599ca8083c26b218f.jpeg

 

The model is the Hornby DCC ready version in GWR livery - hence the initial coat of grey primer.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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When crimson was introduced in 1949 there was a line at waist level.  From about 1951 that line was abolished but it took a long tine for that instruction to be implemented.  As I recall, W34W kept it till the end.

 

Chris

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On 14/09/2019 at 11:38, Miss Prism said:

Why is the sloping surface (at each nose) in black? Or is this intended to reflect the grimy crimson surface?

 

 

 

If you look at my earlier posts it was painted crimson and then had the grime etc. added as part of the weathering process to try and match the prototype in the photo shown in my first post.

 

 

IMG_9123.jpg.30c9e2b7bb66099e9b686391fdbfe8b2.jpg

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Edited by Darius43
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1 minute ago, Miss Prism said:

Yes, I had seen that. There are other pics of the Express Railcars with the non-vertical surfaces left uncleaned. Which is a bit odd.

 

 

Wouldn’t those surfaces tend to get dirtier compared to the vertical ones?

 

Furthermore their remaining service life was considered sufficiently short to warrant a less intensive cleaning policy - as was the case with steam locomotives at the time.

 

Darius

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11 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

Wouldn’t those surfaces tend to get dirtier compared to the vertical ones?

 

Indeed, so one might assume they would have been given a bit more attention from cleaners, rather than less. Or maybe they got ignored because they had less of a 'passenger' connection.

 

Presumably they disappeared when the Gloucester 128s started to appear in 1959?

 

Edited by Miss Prism
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It would not have been easy to get at the sloping bits to clean them from ground level, presumably it was based at a steam shed, Southall? and wouldn't have had shed days for boiler wash outs etc like the steam locos so the opportunities for cleaning were limited.   That said the prototype photo has red toward the cab windows tapering to grime towards the ground where the model appears to be  black,

I believe the parcels car did a Southall - Paddington shuttle which would have been a real pain to operate with a loco and stock if it was out of service, another incentive to keep it moving.   A Parcels Autotrailer with or without an Auto fitted Condensing Metro Tank would be a good model to bamboozle the know it alls with. Just a wicked thought.

Edited by DavidCBroad
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For the record, I would point out that I did not just paint the sloping front ends black.  I used a mixture of diluted dark grey and brown washes plus some weathering powders - as demonstrated in some BRM dvd video tutorials that I watched - to replicate the lightning effect noted by Mr CBroad in his post above.   These were sealed in with a sprayed coat of matt varnish, which tended to darken the overall effect - something that seems to be accentuated in the photos compared to the model itself.

 

I make no claims to be a pro-weatherer, in fact I am quite the neophyte in this area.  As they say, practice makes perfect, so I would hope to improve in this area over the next 20 or 30 years.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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  • 2 months later...

I have just recently brought a Lima GWR railcar express parcels number 34 railcar in dark green livery and dark grey roof with lettering lining and numbering in gold can anyone please tell me if GWR number 34 ever saw service in this livery colour and if it did when and where and what line did it run on ? I cannot find any reference anywhere on the internet about number 34 seeing service in this colour or any reference of Lima making a model in this colour - they are either all coffee and cream or red in colour !! 

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