'Genesis' 4 & 6 wheel coaches in OO Gauge - New Announcement

[phil gollin]

.

 

ALL I ASK is that these remain as "generic"   -   this will help them be more commercially successful.

 

The more they get identified with one particular company, then the more people will believe that they are just being given an XYZ company coach in false colours.

 

.

[dana]

Thomas & co Anyone ? 

 

https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Victoria

 

 

[PatB]

12 minutes ago, dana said:

Thomas & co Anyone ? 

 

https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Victoria

 

 

Victoria's livery looks suspiciously like BR Blue Grey to me .

[Philou]

A welcome addition and, in my humble opinion, a good starting point for those who 'may' want something more 'correct' to have a go at kit-making/bashing - when time permits/skills evolve.

 

Having read all of the posts over yesterday and this morning, I have found it fascinating and learned a thing or two as well. Seemingly, the basic outline of a lot of pre-grouping coaches were not too different from each other (LNWR excepted) - the devil, as always, being in the detail.

 

My lasting impression will be that it a was good effort at a coach-designed-by-committee by the RMweb collective.

 

I'll be up for a few different sets closer to the time.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[RLWP]

25 minutes ago, Philou said:

Seemingly, the basic outline of a lot of pre-grouping coaches were not too different from each other (LNWR excepted)

 

Philip

 

Where has this come from? If you are 'into' this stuff, all the pre-grouping carriages are significantly different to each other. The L&NWR is not exceptional, apart from the livery. They are all the same in that they are all different

 

I can sense a new pre-grouping myth taking wing here

 

Richard

[Philou]

Weeeelllllll, unless I had mis-understood, in the creating this generic range, no-one has been able to pin down an exact match to the original drawing on which Hattons had based their coach. As the comments have been coming in thick and fast it would seem to be 'there's a bit of that in there, and there's a bit of this in there too,' with the exception of the LNWR (and other smaller companies) which again, unless I mis-understood, were distinctly different. I do realise that there are differences in roof styles and door shapes and beading thickness and whether coaches were 30ft or 30ft 1inch or 24ft or 25ft long - I think the colour is what will attract the eye and once bought, I would feel less reluctant to chop up a £30 coach than something much more expensive, or perhaps got the taste for a pre-grouping coach-set, have a go at building something from a kit.

 

FWIW, I shall be in need of coaching stock for at least one LNWR rake and IMHO this is a way forward while I get my layout started and have something up and running that will not be too expensive. I think Jol quite sometime ago kindly pointed me the way to some cracking looking stuff - but it's all kit AND has to be painted too.

 

Sorry if there was any feather ruffling going on and certainly no intention of any myth starting (though hey imagine 20 years on 'but.... but .... it's what Philou said on RMweb all those years ago .....') .

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

[Craigw]

46 minutes ago, Philou said:

A welcome addition and, in my humble opinion, a good starting point for those who 'may' want something more 'correct' to have a go at kit-making/bashing - when time permits/skills evolve.

 

Having read all of the posts over yesterday and this morning, I have found it fascinating and learned a thing or two as well. Seemingly, the basic outline of a lot of pre-grouping coaches were not too different from each other (LNWR excepted) - the devil, as always, being in the detail.

 

My lasting impression will be that it a was good effort at a coach-designed-by-committee by the RMweb collective.

 

I'll be up for a few different sets closer to the time.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

People will not build kits because they are concerned that they cannot do a proper job on a complex livery, so they will race out and buy a generic coach that has the livery applied to save doing said livery. They will then take to those same coaches with a saw, destroy said finish in the process to produce something else?

 

Sorry, that is counter to the whole reason they were being talked up in the first place.

 

Craig W

[RLWP]

27 minutes ago, Philou said:

Sorry if there was any feather ruffling going on and certainly no intention of any myth starting (though hey imagine 20 years on 'but.... but .... it's what Philou said on RMweb all those years ago .....') .

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

 

It isn't you that started this myth, Craig. It's somehow got into this thread that LNWR carriages are exceptional

 

With my L&NWR hat on, this is obviously true. With my 'generic' hat on, I could probably find as many Midland/GWR/GER carriages that are as exceptional as the LNWR

 

The L&NWR is not a special case*

 

Richard

 

*except in all the occasions when it clearly is, of course

[woodenhead]

There are some pretty knowledgeable people assisting Hattons with finer details to get the flavour of these coaches.

 

It is Hattons who will ultimately decide when enough is enough and they commit to the CAD/Tooling based on the flavour they choose from the ingredients given.

 

I am still quite excited by this project and will ensure space in my office/railway room/spare room if SWMBO bans me from the marital bed for these models in a couple of liveries.

 

I may even buy some Ratio GWR kits and build those as well - I mean how hard can a GWR livery get.......

[Philou]

I think the point I was trying to make was that perhaps once you have a rake of these generic coaches in front of you (regardless of the company colours) and see what they're like - you may well want to explore further and actually recreate something that is more accurate - whether that be by cutting up a £30 coach or trying your hand on a kit. Both would need painting of course and I believe that to be the one of the most difficult skills to 'get right'.

 

I can 'do' plastic fairly well - but painting? C - , must try harder. At least £30 spent on a coach and badly painted wouldn't be as bad as £60 spent on a coach kit and then badly painted. The painting in 'block' colours is fine - but all that beading ............

 

And if I continued the myth that LNWR coaches were different - sorry - t'was wot I read earlier, guv, honest.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

I wanted to add: Is the proposition of coach bashing the proposed generic coaches any different to those that buy Hornby coaches and then use Comet overlays to produce something else? Just sayin' ......

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Philou
A thought that popped into my head

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, RLWP said:

 

Where has this come from? If you are 'into' this stuff, all the pre-grouping carriages are significantly different to each other. The L&NWR is not exceptional, apart from the livery. They are all the same in that they are all different

 

I can sense a new pre-grouping myth taking wing here

 

Richard

 

But some are more "different" than others.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

 

 

Great Western toplights are well OT but just out of curiosity, I note that the quarter-lights are held in place by conventional bolection moldings but how are the top-lights mounted? It looks as if they are fitted from the inside, rather in the manner of the quarter-lights in those 1870s Stroudley block train carriages mentioned earlier.

 

The thing I'm really enjoying about this thread is that it is forcing me to look more closely at how wood-framed and panelled carriages are actually constructed, particularly for vehicles that are constructed differently to the Midland or LNWR vehicles with which I am most familiar.

 

On the question of livery, as far as I'm aware, of companies employing a two-colour livery, the Great Western was unusual if not unique in painting the waist panels the same colour as the lower panels.

[Wickham Green]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

On the question of livery, as far as I'm aware, of companies employing a two-colour livery, the Great Western was unusual if not unique in painting the waist panels the same colour as the lower panels.

When a handful of SECR gangwayed Brake Composites were painted in 'Blood & Custard' the dividing line went straight through the middle of the panelling !

[Compound2632]

38 minutes ago, Wickham Green said:

When a handful of SECR gangwayed Brake Composites were painted in 'Blood & Custard' the dividing line went straight through the middle of the panelling !

 

That was quite common for wood panelled carriages - LMS Period 1 carriages, for example. Mind you, that is a very attractive livery so perhaps one Hattons should consider!

 

I can't find a prototype photo off-hand, but here's a model (second photo down) - note the similar treatment of the eves panels:

 

 

 

 

[Miss Prism]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

but how are the top-lights mounted?

 

Yes, fitted from the inside, with what seems to be thin boxing. (The opening variety of toplight was a bit more complicated.)

 

[Robin Brasher]

Most of the comments to date seem to be about individual coaches but Hattons have produced a formations guide on their website that you may find interesting. The formations include a GWR N2 with some teak coaches, SECR D and P class locomotives with a mixture of four and six wheel crimson coaches and an Isle of Wight terrier with some four and six wheel olive green coaches.

 

Please see https://www.hattons.co.uk and then click 09/10/2019 - Genesis 4 & 6 wheel coaches - formations guide.

[Wickham Green]

22 minutes ago, Robin Brasher said:

Most of the comments to date seem to be about individual coaches but Hattons have produced a formations guide on their website that you may find interesting. The formations include a GWR N2 with some teak coaches, SECR D and P class locomotives with a mixture of four and six wheel crimson coaches and an Isle of Wight terrier with some four and six wheel olive green coaches.

 

.... and a Precedent that SOMEONE ought to be announcing shortly ! ( it worked with the 'D' )

[Ravenser]

23 hours ago, BackRoomBoffin said:

Oh, and Dave is effectively now working as CME / Chief Draughtsman to a railway of roughly the period 1880 to 1900 that that never existed. (Hattonshire Union Railway?)

 

The Merseyside Suburban Railways (formed as an amagamation of the Mersey Railway and the LOR)

 

Just for the hell of it - what did Mersey Railway 4 and 6 wheel stock look like??

[PhilJ W]

2 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

The Merseyside Suburban Railways (formed as an amagamation of the Mersey Railway and the LOR)

 

Just for the hell of it - what did Mersey Railway 4 and 6 wheel stock look like??

The LOR trailer cars were not much longer if at all than most other six wheel stock. Perhaps you could take one of the six wheelers and mount it on a couple of short wheelbase bogies?

[BackRoomBoffin]

20 minutes ago, Ravenser said:



Just for the hell of it - what did Mersey Railway 4 and 6 wheel stock look like??

 

DOn't know about Mersey Rly, but here's a possible impression of a Wirral Railway train in what looks like light brown / teak...

https://www.travellingartgallery.com/landscape/historic/detail/H016.html

 

I am not for a moment suggesting that a C Hamilton Ellis picture gives you a detailed scale guide to panelling, in case anyone makes this point.

[Ravenser]

24 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

The LOR trailer cars were not much longer if at all than most other six wheel stock. Perhaps you could take one of the six wheelers and mount it on a couple of short wheelbase bogies?

 

I think Judith Edge have done an etched kit for Herculanum Dock .

 

The Mersey Railway and the Wirral Railway might be rather interesting to investigate, though.....

[Ravenser]

5 hours ago, Craigw said:

 

People will not build kits because they are concerned that they cannot do a proper job on a complex livery, so they will race out and buy a generic coach that has the livery applied to save doing said livery. They will then take to those same coaches with a saw, destroy said finish in the process to produce something else?

 

Sorry, that is counter to the whole reason they were being talked up in the first place.

 

Craig W

 

There are so many possible permutations, over so many companies , over such a long period (1870s - 1950s) that this is simplistic.

 

In the case of the LNWR - the livery is so demanding to do well that your choice is either :

 

- buy generic coaches with good plum and spilt milk livery finish but completely wrong panelling and wrong length

- build an etched kit and finish it well - somehow.

 

But if you model the MR then finishing the things in Edwardian livery after a cut-and-shut is no more demanding than finishing a Ratio kit. I've never heard that advanced as a reason why Ratio coach kits are non-starters....

 

The NER and GER had a single colour crimson coach livery (someone confirm dates?).  So did the GW after 1912.  This should be manageable after a cut and shut?

 

After 1923 , you would simply be finishing the vehicle in LMS red or LNER brown (GE/NER/MSLR vehicles would surely have gone from paint into brown paint?). Even teaks would surely have been so far gone by then that they'd have gone to brown paint?  So any coaches on the LNER which survived for excursion traffic until the mid 1930s would be in brown - easy enough to handle after a cut-and-shut. On the SR , it becomes a case of olive green.

 

Similarly any 1950s examples with the Engineers would be in black... 

 

With teaks , you would be either keeping the finish and trying to remove/replace lettering or doing something drastic

 

(And was the Wirral Railway livery teak or brown? To me that C Hamilton Ellis picture says brown)

 

The point is that there are a whole lot of paths in a whole lot of scenarios

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

In the case of the LNWR - the livery is so demanding to do well that your choice is either :

 

- buy generic coaches with good plum and spilt milk livery finish but completely wrong panelling and wrong length

- build an etched kit and finish it well - somehow.

 

 

Here's a pair of Ratio LNWR carriages that I built and painted in my late teens:

 

 

I wouldn't claim anything exceptional for my skills. The gold was done with a metallic pen and the lake on the gold using a Rotring pen with a mix of blue and red ink. This angle flatters my work; it doesn't stand up to very close inspection!

[truffy]

1 hour ago, Ravenser said:

On the SR , it becomes a case of olive green.

You make it sound so easy. Which it would be, if not for the lining.

[Compound2632]

With the kind assistance of @Edwardian, @Miss Prism, @uax6, @corneliuslundie, and @Nick Holliday, I have drawn up a comparative table of the leading dimensions and the panelling dimensions of a variety of late 19th century 6-wheel and 4-wheel carriages, attached here. Wherever possible I have used written dimensions from official drawings or from drawings known to be based on official drawings; for some dimensions I have scaled from drawings. I have included examples from three of the pre-Grouping "big four", the Midland, North Eastern, and Great Western, and also examples from a couple of smaller lines, the Cambrian and Rhymney Railways - for which particularly good drawings are available, thanks to Mike Lloyd and the Welsh Railways Research Circle. I have also included several examples at different dates from the two southern lines that used the style of panelling in question, the Brighton and the South Western.

 

6 wheel carriage dimensions.pdf

 

The main conclusion I draw from this data is that the Hattons carriage is too low, because its sides are not high enough. Most of the carriages in the table have sides around 6'3" high, providing for a 2" thick floor, doors 6' tall, and at least 1" for the longitudinal framing above the door (in fact a bit deeper because of the curve of the roof). I suggest making the sides 25 mm high, adding 1 mm to the overall height - the carriages in the table are all at least several inches over 11' tall. 

 

As far as the panelling goes, the data shows that the Hattons carriages are still too high waisted; I suggest reducing the height of the lower panels to a scale 1’10½”, and increasing the height of the upper panels to scale 2'8". I've marked up the most recent Hattons drawings with these suggestions:

 

 

Discussion with the RMWebbers mentioned above has highlighted the difficulties that arise in trying to represent both characteristic 4-wheelers and characteristic 6-wheelers within the same series of carriages, which is why for the Brighton I have included both Stroudley and Billinton 4-wheelers along with Billinton 6-wheelers. There seems to be good circumstantial evidence that diagrams of the Stroudley block train carriages of 1872 were Hattons' point of reference for the 4-wheelers, and diagrams of Billinton 6-wheelers for the 6-wheelers (the lavatory composite was a bit of a tell-tale). This is despite the fact that Hattons have not announced any of the three LBSCR liveries (which has led to some speculation). 

 

Both the Stroudley and Billinton 4-wheelers were built as close-coupled sets for London suburban service and, like the carriages of other companies providing such services, were rather more cramped than the contemporary main-line carriages; the Stroudley carriages have just 5'0" between partitions in the thirds, a dimension only otherwise found in my table for the very frugal 6-compartment thirds of the Rhymney Railway; a quarter of a century later, Billinton was giving the same passengers 5'5", still 4" less than in his main line carriages. The 6-wheelers seem to be representative of carriages built from the mid-1880s to the late 1890s (the underframe details have developed in that direction); given that the 4-wheelers will have the same features, they should be thought of as representative of the same period. Thus 26' is really too short to be realistic for a carriage with these features; 28'0" would be nearer the mark.

 

A number of other detail points have been raised which I'm sure will get ironed out as Hattons do more research - particularly details of the roof furniture. It would be good if the roof could overhang the ends by an inch or two. 

 

As far as I can see, Hattons' design work has not yet extended beyond the sketches we have seen, so I'm thinking that at this stage there is still everything to play for to get these carriages into a shape that will be genuinely "typical". To me, that means avoiding features that look odd or unusual, rather than necessarily replicating a particular prototype exactly.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Compound2632
Corrected an "are" to "is".