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“BEYOND DOVER”


Northroader
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I’ve finished off the paint and weathering for the Belgian beer van, one side is Flemish, and the other Walloon, so honours are even. Maybe it did happen, or maybe it’s a figment of the breweries imagination, but the Chimay brewers aren’t saying. Incidentally, Chimay had its own private railway, the local nobs having dreams of a fast link to Paris over the Ardennes. Politics got in the way, and it ended up being worked by the Nord-Belge, which was the French NORD railway in Belgium, but it wasn’t finally absorbed in the SNCB until 1948.

AE7D0C3C-3EB8-4D7A-8680-B02681BE0274.jpeg.6a871e8126da3dd3a51355a2063ee7ed.jpeg76E44CF1-F745-4BD6-9E6F-833542F3D783.jpeg.a3d80c32eff4d67b5d4c003e5a3537a7.jpeg

I’m afraid these pictures duplicate those on page two, as when I’ve had to replace the pictures, I could only do the finished condition.

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Absolutely cracking thread Bob. Your modelling and subject matter is an inspiration. Other than quick updates on my Croatian thread I haven’t been on this one for over a month - head has been in the rule book requalifying as a signalman, in support of colleagues in the current COVID crisis. 
 

Aside from the excellent locomotives the beer van is great - what’s not to like about Chimay. The French Railway Society would (I’m sure) love to have you at the annual show at Lenham. If you wanted a pilotman I’d happily trundle up there with you on the train. 
 

Stay safe all. Paul 

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Thanks for that, Paul. Before I get taking things to show people I really need a layout that looks finished and works, and it would be nice to have help, when I tool off to the toilet every half hour! (The joys of old age) The layout is something I working on, at present I’m doing a “Beeching” reorganisation, trying to pull my British, American, and Continental threads into one unit. The centre piece is coming from the board intended for Europe, and right now I’m adapting the scenic support from the British unit. Maybe in a month or so, I hope to explain how it’s applied for the items on here, although there’s distractions and bright ideas such as 5’6” gauge keep popping up, and there’s the plague which must be avoided at all costs as well.

i like the grill work on your big diesel, it’s shaping nicely. Way back, Cardiff Division late 60s, I did the Train operating course  which involved ploughing through the rule book. In those days, the rules started at number one and went up from there. Some time later some bright spark decided they’d look better in lettered sections and sub sections, and it became something of a maze, and I shudder to think what “elf n safety” has done these days, so best of luck in understanding them nowadays.

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EST PASSENGER CARRIAGES.

 

Having got some locos, they need something to pull, so for a look at the EST carriage fleet in the nineteenth century. The whole lot were four wheelers, you could find some six wheelers on other lines, but they weren’t as common as in Britain. The only six wheelers on the EST were either some Wagon Lits on the Orient express, or a few post office TPOs. In the 1850s there were three compartment firsts, (or two compartment plus coupe) and four compartment seconds and thirds. The firsts looked just like a Liverpool and Manchester import, with three stagecoach bodies on a chassis. The stagecoach “branding”, with the curved quarter lights, was retained, perhaps to reassure first class travellers. Second class had narrow rectangular quarter lights, but third class just had a drop light in the door, and no quarter lights until the 1890s. Gradually the length of the coaches increased, the longer wheelbase giving a better ride, and the number of compartments increased, particularly on thirds. Four compartment first /second composites appeared, still clinging to different window profiles for the two classes. Trains were marshalled with a “fourgon”, a brake /luggage coach leading, presumably to give a “crumple zone” in the case of a crash. Air braking started to appear in the ‘eighties, before then the braking was done by the fourgon and a few coaches in the train with hand brakes, applied by a brakeman riding on the coach. To me the particular charm of old French trains is the irregular skyline caused by the brakemans  cabins ( “Vigie” = lookout, or “guerite” = sentrybox) it could get cold on the EST in winter, so these were enclosed, unlike some of the southern lines. Second and third class coaches were built with this feature at random. Coaches were coded, “A” for first,”B” for second, “C” for third, “D” or “E” for a fourgon, followed by a number for the number of compartments, and if a handbrake and cabin was fitted, a “f” suffix, so  “A2B2” was a composite, “C5f” a third with brakeman, and so on. Platforms were at rail height, and access was by using a long continuous stepboard at axlebox level, and a smaller step just below the door, hauling yourself up with a long handrail at the side of the door. All very well if you were fit, but the elderly, and women in long skirts, must have had a hell of a struggle. Lighting was by oil lamps, one per compartment first and second, shared for two compartments in thirds, and a much neater look than the klunky British chimneys.

In the 1890s, the PO led the way with much smarter  looking coaches, four wheeler long bodies, vestibule entrances, and neat rectangular windows, and the EST copied these for mainline expresses, until bogie stock appeared in the twentieth century. I’ve stuck with the old fashioned stuff in my modelling.  There were two other types of coaches you could come across, firstly the doubledeck trains in Paris suburban services, with a lowslung second compartment body surmounted by   third class like a tramcar, reaches by stairs at each end., and then a batch built for lighter traffic on secondary routes, with end balconies (“voitures a platformes”), very much a German look to them, and various combinations for classes, “X” prefix on the code, and I’ve put one of those in the drawings I prepared, a useful brake second.B9DB1AFA-F4D6-4557-B465-E69F1256FF3B.jpeg.14771d9a226af25d5679fecb4381e331.jpegt

8091B88C-E143-4B35-B719-FC82D53A3AE1.jpeg

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I am amazed by the primitiveness of these carriages, given the long distances travelled to reach Paris from the main provincial centres. I find it surprising that bogie carriages were so late coming to the continent, given that they were being built in quantity for some British lines (Midland of course) in the early 80s. Why?

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WURTTEMBURG kWStB “AMERIKANER” BOGIE COACHES.

 

Around the time the Birmingham & Gloucester was investing in American Norris 4-2-0 locos for the Lickey incline, some of the lines in the South German states and Austria were going further with American imports, Norris locos and the rather primitive bogie coaches of the time, and these did establish a trend in that region. Now if you were a Frenchman used to travelling in a nicely upholstered compartment, and went by way of Stuttgart, Munich, and Vienna, and saw the kWStB’s “Amerikaners”, might you think “Thanks, but no thanks”?

CEAFD05B-9B70-4103-A931-875A4006AE39.jpeg.e10b01777aa92872c93c2f240265e93b.jpeg

http://www.laenderbahn-forum.de/journal/der_erste_wuertembergische_salonwagen/der_Salonwagen_A1_der_Wuertembergischen_Staatsbahn.html

 

Passengers were far more conservative then, and I think back to my yoof, when the big four all ran main line trains with compartment stock with side corridors. Open saloons were good for catering, and there was the excursion trains on the LNER, but it wasn’t until BR began to produce opens alongside compartment stock that attitudes began to slowly change over some years to prefer opens to compartments, which looking back at now may seem surprising.

The 1870s were a big time for change, although off to a bad start with the Franco Prussian war.  Once that was done, the foundations of the Wagon Lits company were formed, originally by a Belgian financier Nagelmackers using carriages provided by an American Colonel Mann, to provide International services in Europe. (Some Mann cars appeared on the LCDR and the GNR) To start with the coaches were either4 or 6 wheeled, but their first bogie coach appeared in 1880, this being the first bogie coach in Europe, (although that statement must need quantifying looking at the picture above) and use of these spread across the continent for the top class services.

In America, George Pullman had started the first  of his cars in 1859, to give overnight travel on the long distances, this being a big improvement on the type of cars shown above. James Allport, the MR manager did an American tour in 1872, leading to American Pullman cars being built at Derby from 1874, and Clayton building bogie carriages in bulk for the MR, simultaneously with the eight wheel radials of the LNWR and GWR appearing. One of the Derby Pullmans was lent to an Italian company, leading to Pullman services in Italy.

Why did the EST persist with old 4w designs? I think two things, firstly Wagon Lits were creaming off the quality traffic, and secondly money. The Franco Prussian war affected the EST company badly, the eastern end of the system and the assets were annexed by the Germans, with a consequential loss of traffic, and although there was still heavy industry like iron and coal, it wasn’t as large as in Britain or the Ruhr, and there were long stretches of the line serving an agricultural economy. In the event bogie coaches, both corridor and compartment stock, didn’t appear til 1904.

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FRENCH VOITURES IMPERIALES (DOUBLE DECK SUBURBAN)

 

Just adding a link which gives some more information on the Parisian suburban double deckers that the EST used.

 

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I Working off some of those drawings I’ve made up a train. It’s just about the bare minimum of only three coaches, with a fourgon, a first/second composite, and a third.Trains were normally made up with a fourgon behind the engine, I fancy this was legislated for, to give a “crumple zone” in the event of a crash. Firsts and seconds could be either individual vehicles or combined as here. Thirds were usually stand alone, and this one has a brakemans guerite built in. This would be at the back end of the train, and other vehicles could be scattered along the length of the train with brakemans accommodation, as shown in old photos, and they seem to be very slow to disappear after the introduction of air braking, so they can be seen in WW1 pictures of troops going to the front.

The chassis is constructed from brass strip for solebars and headstocks, with angle reinforcement of the corners, and a wide transverse strip centrally. The axleguards are also brass strip with top hat bearings, and these are jig mounted on the solebars before assembling the chassis. There’s no compensation or springing, and I feel that if after the body is mounted, you check that each of the four wheel flanges is firmly down on a sheet of glass, and you’re careful with your tracklaying, this is quite adequate for finescale 0. The buffers are bits of brass tubing and strip, and the footboards are copper clad sleeper strip mounted on brass rod. The axleboxes are plastic lifted from leftover kit spares, and the springs and the prominent suspension links fashioned from plastikard. Slaters  do supply coach wheels with “flower petal” spokes, which is encouraging, although I doubt if anyone will ever notice.

The body is just made up from plastikard, with some microstrip for the panelling mouldings, which thankfully aren’t as elaborate as on British coaches. I’m afraid the glazing of the cupola on the fourgon is a bit of a mess with paint and glue. The lighting is using oil lamps, a slimmer fitting than the big chimneys used on British trains. I think I’ll add some more notes about the coach liveries in another post.

3E49BC78-21DA-4FDA-ADEC-4F917B566172.jpeg.9eab72edaaf64e4393d1a05aa1157432.jpeg3C2ECC10-A3AA-45DE-B514-9D0C29635B59.jpeg.0db6317db70cf15a8ab41ee1e8b9751a.jpegA4A0EC02-36C6-424A-8E45-56DCC5045BE9.jpeg.f916ab30c839bee7d822c1959098125e.jpeg

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22 hours ago, Northroader said:

Working off some of those drawings I’ve made up a train.

 

Hopefully you don't mean that you've made the coaches since May 11? That would be too much for the rest of us to bear :)

 

They look excellent, very stylish, and quite exotic somehow. 

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They look really nice. 

17 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

 

Hopefully you don't mean that you've made the coaches since May 11? That would be too much for the rest of us to bear :)

I'd imagine not having to fit brake gear speeds up the construction. Or maybe it's just me who hates adding brake gear to 6w coaches and spins it out over a long time....?

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Sorry, i gave a false impression there, the drawings and the coaches have been around for some time. I’m hoping to give an account with a leisurely progression towards a goal which hasn’t yet been reached, so the instalments on this are being well spaced out in the hope I get there before the story does.

The other thing is brakegear, I’m aiming for about 1900, by which time the air pumps on the locos would be feeding airbrakes on all coaches, and certainly the fourgon and the third had handbrakes fitted well before then., and there’s none there. I started off scratchbuilding with very basic loco kits without them, most modern kits do give all the bits, but there is an line of thought that says a lot of detail below solebar level does go unnoticed by most people, particularly if it’s painted black, such as the flower petal spokes. So, my apologies to folks to like to have everything just so, it does cut corners and save time.

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I have more than a little sympathy with that.

My first H0 PLM layout had a set of MMM-RG 6 wheel coaches - in many aspects similar to your own.  However in common with many 6 wheelers their running could be a bit iffy.  For exhibitions then, I simply removed the centre set of wheels.  If anyone noticed they were too polite to mention it.

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Well Mr. Northroader,

 

I've spent a very happy 40 minutes reading through this thread and I must say I have enjoyed your modelling.

 

As you may already know I too have an interest in the time period you are working to and this certainly puts another spin on it. The locos and rolling stock you've produced so far are lovely. ever since I met Mike Sharman and his beautiful "oddities" I have wanted to have a Crampton with the appropriate stock. I have seen some models available of French websites but I can't warrant the cost really.

 

Anyway, I will tick the FOLLOW box and look forward to future developments.

 

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FRENCH COACH LIVERIES

 

To wrap up the coaches, I’m giving a few notes on the painting. In my Vilain, it says: “pendant longtemps, presque des l’origine jusque vers 1935, les voitures EST etaient peintes differemment suivant la classe, savoir: rouge pour les premieres classes, vert pour la seconde classe, marron pour la troisieme classe. Toit, chassis et bogies en noir.”

Have you ever jumped feet first into a translation? Rouge, vert, simples. Marron, get the MR lake out. Later, cleaning my shoes outside on a Sunday morning, look at the tin of Kiwi shoe polish. “Marron” equals “Tan”... !

It didn’t mention that actually the upper half of the coaches is black, as well as the roof. This goes right back in antiquity, it being common practice on road stage coaches. The Liverpool and Manchester coaches used it, and the early British lines followed, but the practice died out in Britain. The EST kept it going well into the twentieth century. As a kid I can remember the long distance coaches of the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus company, the mighty “Midland Red”, kept the practice going. The X96 always left Shrewsbury in a morning bulled up, and I would stress it must be gloss black, not Matt black as per the roof, then it does look really smart.

Then I found that the “go to” place for French coach livery is a thread on the equivalent of RMweb,

https://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=74579&hilit=Livrees+des+voitures+des+ancientness+compagnies

Here you can lose yourself trying to make head or tail of  vert national, vert fixe, vert no.5, &c, &c. Some of it is contradictory, or hard to follow if your French is as bad as mine, and some of the illustrations aren’t very good, being done as a transparent water colour wash rather than an opaque block.

It seems that the first class red is “Rouge Van Dyck” which looks like a browner version of MR lake, and the second class is a darker, more bronze shade of green, so that really my composite ought to have a repaint to darker shades than it currently has.

The fourgon is on firmer ground, this is “vert russe” - Russian Green. Why Russian? It seems to go back to the Napoleonic Wars, the green of Russian Army jackets. I settled for LNER grass green as a fair match.

That leaves my second class “marron” , one description given as “Jaune Havane”, and the old Italian State used a similar shade on their coaches “Castanato y Isabella” “Castanato” being chestnut, a nice rich red brown. “Isabella”?,“Havane”?, they’re the same thing, one of those big Cuban cigars “a single leaf rolled on a maidens thigh” as the market men would have you believe, a tobacco shade suggestive of rich living, possibly in men’s clubs where you sprawl in a large stuffed armchair, the war gamers “antique leather”. I might add we could see it as “Stroudleys Improved Engine Green”. 

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7 hours ago, Northroader said:

It seems that the first class red is “Rouge Van Dyck”

 

I'm converting to French modelling simply because of that.

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In our school French lessons, we are always taught that brown is "brun". Very rarely do I hear a French person use that word. "Marron", chestnut, is in much more common usage.

 

Not of course just the Est that used different colours for each class. Some DB UIC-X coaches were even bi-colour as were some Paris Metro carriages. The red for first class on the Metro was a rather brighter colour than had been used by the main line companies. 

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Yes, I'm not converting. Just a poor joke as I think “Rouge Van Dyck” sounds hilarious and it would be fun to say it all the time.

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FRENCH GOODS WAGONS.

 

About time to have a look at the wagon side of things on the EST. For a long time, the only wagon drawing I had was by Denis Allenden in the MRN for August 1971, an ETAT open.

8439D113-01B4-4817-B3A0-DD6A874769B7.jpeg.79e14e26163839f05308dc710856e3a0.jpeg

you'll see I've noted that the scale provided is misleading, in the end I worked off the buffer spacing. This formed the basis of a lot of the modelling I did, amending as required from what photos I could find, mainly out of the Archives series by Le Train publishers.

At one time the Museon di Rodo did scrapbooks. This is a place centred round a large model railway with added artefacts, which I believe no longer exists. The scrapbooks had some lovely reproductions of old drawings and engravings, mainly locos, some coaches and hardly any wagons. I have number 28, which has two PO wagons, and that might be all the wagons they did.

C9DED0D9-ABDA-43FD-8FE1-F8B3C91ECC99.jpeg.73efb5319482ae56e5f5179473084746.jpeg2B0148EC-9BBB-4652-BD25-41F8E2024F5D.jpeg.5dff9de2df1bfb2169c938a9dc4ebb5d.jpeg5170D0A1-EE9C-44C2-B4C5-8575168B3635.jpeg.752a79d5f2cd2fa8a7ce92981e51026c.jpeg6C55119E-A45A-4230-96F0-7ACEF5EA8524.jpeg.b6c83b5ca38c5163576cb8339f408627.jpeg

 

 

i think if if you’re able to get to a big technical library in Paris somewhere, there must be old volumes crammed full of such delights. These days, there’s the internet, which simplifies things no end. For instance, if you go to the Tassignon site I mentioned earlier, and page down to the wagon builders catalogues, you can find photos and leading dimensions for a representative selection of the mainline French companies around 1900.

Then it’s a question of digging around, until you come up with drawings like this: (Roland Arzul’s site)

88D1E223-9244-40C9-B197-72395C2F3A34.jpeg.8b963edea8c09185c07addf2595d0dc2.jpeg

 

 

Edit: I’ve since found two proper EST drawings to add to the mix:

BE19DC5C-387B-4595-B49D-5B42BABE29FE.jpeg.d8fe936206c045e53d26ee32979e7f2a.jpeg6CECF427-E35B-44B0-B3D8-20BCD2E86D06.jpeg.01c92b5c694ca44c6ffe22353d07b7ff.jpeg

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On 06/06/2020 at 19:27, Mikkel said:

Yes, I'm not converting. Just a poor joke as I think “Rouge Van Dyck” sounds hilarious and it would be fun to say it all the time.

 

Would that be “supposedly, but actually totally unlike, English as she is spoken?”

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Anyway, those are wonderful drawings. Little works of art in themselves. I can see the attraction of modelling that style of stock. This thread is very distracting :)

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