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B sets for Cwmdimbath


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Some of you will be familiar with my South Wales 1950s layout Cwmdimbath, a real place that never had a railway or a mining village but does in my world.  This is in the Bridgend hinterland, and it's railway would have been supplied with locos and stock from Tondu.  I need B sets among other things.  

 

So far I have been able to determine that there were 3 B sets at Tondu, all E147s.  These are available as kits from Comet, and I will eventually build one, but must wait for other priorities to be satisfied first.  I started the layout with the almost obligatory Airfix E140 B set, but this type never worked at Tondu as far as I can tell.  They certainly appeared in South Wales, and I've seen a photo of a set at Maerdy with a bowended all third strengthener, but not apparently at Tondu.  I have made up a cut'n'shut ersatz C63 bowended all third with these coaches which passes at a distance for what I claim it to be.  The greater the distance it passes at, the more accurate it is...

 

At this point, I would like to introduce the 20% rule.  This holds that, if a branch that never actually existed was ever worked with stock from Tondu, which already provides stock for Porthcawl, Abergwynfi, Nanymoel, Ogmore Vale, and Gilfach Goch, Tondu must be provided with 20% more locos and stock to provide Cwmdimbath's service.  

 

This means that Tondu, in my world, had 4 B sets, and until I build a Comet E147 set I have decreed under the authority of Rule 1 that an E116 set has been transferred from Bristol Area as a result of the introduction of auto working between Severn Beach and Pilning Low Level.  One of the reasons for this is that I managed to locate 2 K's plastic kit E116s on 'Bay, one an unmade kit and one made up, but in GW livery.  This thread is to be an account of my attempt to make presentable models out of these coaches.  

 

The first one acquired was the unmade kit, which was duly made up and given a floor compartment dividers and seating, no smoking and first class window stickers, and numbers, from Mr Isherwood's excellent CCT range, with 'GUARD' and '1' door lettering from an HMRS sheet.  Door handles and grab handles were picked out in brass.  I preferred the Stafford Road Works/Shapeways 3D print fishbelly bogies as being better detailed than the K's whitemetal cast ones, and these have pockets for my standard NEM couplers.  

 

It ran as a single coach with the ersatz C63 for a while.  Then another one, this time made up, turned up on 'Bay and I bought it.  This one came with compartment dividers, and has been nicely made up.  It'll need working up to run with the first E116.  First thing was to paint it in a matching BR 1949-56 unlined crimson livery, done on the weekend, and it was while I was doing this that I realised that it was not identical to the original purchase.  It lacks representation of the grab handles and has rather feeble 'pips' for the door handles.  I assume, but don't know, that K's did 2 toolings for this model.  I suspect that the floor and compartment dividers were included with the kit for this coach.  

 

The roof ventilators are also wrongly positioned in the centre of the roof on this coach.  The kit one came with a paper template to drill the holes correctly off centre for these.  Another difference is that one of the droplights is open, and as far as I can tell this is in the tooling, a nice touch.

 

This evening's task was to number the coaches, and I have randomly chosen W 7512 W and W 7513 W after repainting the original coach to make sure they matched in finish.  Another task is to replace the inner buffers of both coaches with the small inner buffers that permanently coupled B set coaches, including the Airfix E140s, were fitted with, and I am going to devise a bar coupling to get them as close as possible together while still being able to negotiate the 4th radius curves I have in my fiddle yard; the mini buffers will help with this.  Other details such as the electrical cables on the ends and underframe details will come from Comet.

 

By the time I've got a round tuit to replace my square one and done all this, I'll probably be in a position to start on the E147s, but reckon that'll take me about 3 months to complete.  Next task however is the 'GUARD' lettering for the doors and the '1' for the inner end compartment doors, which will be a delay because I do not currently have any suitable transfers and must order; xmas is not the best time to do this!  Both coaches need to be done because of the repaint, and final coat of matt acrylic will seal the transfers.  Then I can handle the coaches without worrying about the transfers, and thus we will progress...

 

Unlike other B sets, these early E116 types, which I believe were the first purpose built B set coaches, had the first class in the centre of the train, as did the slightly later bowender London and Birmingham area 4 coach suburban sets as modelled by Hornby and the similar 5 coach South Wales/Bristol suburban sets.  Later B sets have single first class compartments, one non-smoking, in the centre of the passenger area of the coach.

Edited by The Johnster
correcting information
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8 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Unlike other B sets, these early E116 types, which I believe were the first purpose built B set coaches,

 

Yes, for elliptical roofs. There were earlier 3-arc low roof candidates, notably the E40. (I think Mike Wiltshire posted a pic somewhere of the Worsely Works etch.)

 

 

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7 hours ago, chrisf said:

I think you will find that the Airfix B set represents diagram E140.  E145 was the same but with 9 ft wb bogies instead of 7ft.  

 

Chris

Oops.  I will correct forthwith; thanks Chris!

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21 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Tondu must be provided with 20% more locos and stock to provide Cwmdimbath's service.  

I wonder how much more fictional rolling stock would be required to run all our fictional branch lines [grin].

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5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Those are handsome coaches, but AFAIK didn’t last into the 50s or late 40s.  The 20% rule does’t apply to

time, sadly...

 

Why? Reasoning: If 20% extra is needed why could things not stay on in service longer.

Edited by richbrummitt
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You are very bad people who are putting temptation before me.  Thanks, chaps...

 

Seriously, there is a sort of queue of things to be done and Comet kits take me a good time to complete.  An A44 Cyclops auto is next, and then the E147s as Tondu no.2.  20% rule makes the E116s Tondu no.4. Photo shows the current state of play; colour doesn't match yet and new bogies and couplings are needed on 7513, and inner buffers and 'GUARD' transfers for both.  All in good time, children, all in good time.

 

As for the E40s, maybe later.  Perhaps replacing my ancient but worked up Triang clerestories on the miner's workman's.

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Bit of progress today with some bogie swapping.  I've got a Hornby close coupling set, which came with one of the Collett bowenders (the set that came with the other bowender is coupling them together) and have decided to use this to couple the inner ends of the set.  This means that the 'inner' bogie from W 7512 W has been removed and is now under the outer end of W 7513 W, so that an NEM tension lock is available at both ends of the set.  The swapped bogie from the inner end of W 7513 W will now sit beneath the inner end of W 7512 W.  

 

I will probably devise a fillet to go behind the inner end buffer beams for the NEM dovetail mounts (Parkside) to sit on so that the close couplers clear the bottom of the buffer beams, which will have to be done with some care as the bogies need to swing freely without being fouled by the fillets.  The set will be stabled on no.7 fiddle yard road, which requires them to negotiate no.4 curves.  The close couplers will thus be mounted to the coach floors rather than to the K's bogies.  They have a lot more sideways swing play than t/ls, so should work fine.

 

But the job isn't finished yet; maybe tomorrow, when a bit of fixing and fettling can be undertaken to achieve the best performance in conjunction with the least possible distance between the vehicles.  I will be removing the inner buffers and replacing them with smaller B set type inner buffers.  Final fitting cannot be achieved until the new small buffers are fitted.

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The plan to use the Hornby close couplers has run into some trouble, but I haven't given up yet.  I write at the end of an evening of classic Johnster bodging in an attempt to get the coaches as close coupled as I can and still get them around the necessary no.4 curves.  The couplers mounted out of the way of the bogies do not couple closely enough.  The ultimate answer may well be to replace the kit bogies I'm using for the inner bogies with Stafford Road prints, with NEM pockets, but for now...

 

The answer has been to modify one of the Hornby close couplers to engage on a pin located just behind the buffer beam of the other coach.  This has been superglued into a drilled hole and actually consists of what was to hand, a straightened out no.13 staple.  The Hornby coupling has been modified by having one of the sideways hooks cut off and a standard coupling hook glued over the end of the two locating 'horns' for the pin to engage with.

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A bit of firm handling and judicious bending has already rectified the situation, Lofty, and the thing runs fine now!  The axles are parallel to each other and square to the frames at the correct height.  These rather crude cast bogies will eventually be replaced with Stafford Road/Shapeways prints, which are better anyway, having NEM pockets and tiebars, and run perfectly with Hornby coach wheels.

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Trial running has revealed a need to ease the close coupling a bit, despite (by which of course I mean because of) my measuring carefully to accommodate the no.4 curve at the entrance to the fiddle.  I’ve also had to trim the Parkside dovetail back to clear the wheels ‘on the swing’.  Thought I was being very clever drawing it all out on paper first, but will to back to my default method of trying things out until I’ve beaten them into submission and they work!

 

Pity, because the close coupling looked just right and ran beautifully through Streamline medium turnouts...

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Here's how I did mine. This is an E145, but principles are the same. I used the Keen coupling, I believe this will go down to the smallest radius you can use ( I was at 3', but that was in P4), while keeping the buffers in contact. Thoroughly recommended.

 

 

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Thank you very much for this, Tim; I will look into this.  At the minute I'm carrying regardless because I have the stuff I'm using is to hand and the right price, but may not be the final form of the set.  And anyway the E116 set is ultimately to be semi-retired in favour of Comet E147s, which may also benefit from this method.  Looks just right!

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