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GEC “Watford” EMU


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Next project - the GEC (ex LMS) EMU.

 

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Looking at the second photo there do appear to be some missing parts - one motor bogie side and one coach chassis truss.  
 

I have spare trusses (lucky me) and the bogie castings are typical MTK grim so will be discarded.  I have few spare Hornby motor bogies and frames that look suitably similar to the MTK castings* so these will be used for the motor coach.

 

 

* I appreciate the MTK bogie castings are probably not correct themselves but the Hornby mouldings are far better.

 

The MTK pressed aluminium sheet chassis will be deployed using the same construction method as the 2-HAL de-icer.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Edited by Darius43
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Driving coach front and end cleaned up.  Soft molded-on detail removed from the cab front.  The cast buffer beams were removed - will be replaced with plasticard beams.

 

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Door edges scribed into driving coach sides.

 

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Cheers

 

Darius

Edited by Darius43
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Motor coach body ends fitted and blended in with filler.  Roof hatch added.  Chassis started.

 

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Motor bogie support constructed from plasticard.  Rear bogie is fixed using a small diameter bolt and nut/locknut.

 

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Cheers

 

Darius

Edited by Darius43
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Roof vents and rain strips added.  The vents provided in the kit are the wrong type so I used spare vents from Ian Kirk kit leftovers.

 

I removed, down-sized and re-attached the roof hatch.  Made the mistake of following the MTK instructions on its size with the original.


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Cheers

 

Darius

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Darius

 

I was brought up both watching and using the slow electric lines out of Watford and used the predecessors of these units daily to go to school, cannot remember the yellow warning panels,probably because they were covered in grime, come to think of it the sides never looked green but dirty !!  Great to see it being modelled

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Ron Fisher has some great shots of these units after withdrawal stored at Verney Junction showing the Green with Yellow fronts on this FlickR pages, used these as reference when building my own GEC Sets

 

R1262.  LMS dc stock at Verney Junction. January,1964.

January, 1964. Copyright Ron Fisher. - https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=40052043%40N03&text=Verney Junction&view_all=1

 

Andrew Humphries

Class 501 Trust 

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23 minutes ago, cg501 said:

Ron Fisher has some great shots of these units after withdrawal stored at Verney Junction showing the Green with Yellow fronts on this FlickR pages, used these as reference when building my own GEC Sets

 

R1262.  LMS dc stock at Verney Junction. January,1964.

January, 1964. Copyright Ron Fisher. - https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=40052043%40N03&text=Verney Junction&view_all=1

 

Andrew Humphries

Class 501 Trust 

 

Andrew,

 

Excellent photos.  Many thanks for the link.  One thing they show is that the driver’s doors opened inwards.  I will need to remove the hinges and relocate the door handles on the model.  Shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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22 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

 

Andrew,

 

Excellent photos.  Many thanks for the link.  One thing they show is that the driver’s doors opened inwards.  I will need to remove the hinges and relocate the door handles on the model.  Shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Darius

 

Just to note there should be hinges on the 3 doors which are housing the grills. top hinge (bottom of the hinge inline with top of the windows). Middle hinge ( just above the bottom of the windows) and bottom hinges are inline with the bottom door hinges on the other doors. I have a picture somewhere of a Motor coach outside Stonebridge Park.

 

For more info on the units check out the book below, has a few shots of underframe detail as well

 Andrew

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3 hours ago, cg501 said:

 

Darius

 

Just to note there should be hinges on the 3 doors which are housing the grills. top hinge (bottom of the hinge inline with top of the windows). Middle hinge ( just above the bottom of the windows) and bottom hinges are inline with the bottom door hinges on the other doors. I have a picture somewhere of a Motor coach outside Stonebridge Park.

 

For more info on the units check out the book below, has a few shots of underframe detail as well

 Andrew

 

Hi Andrew,

 

Looking at Ron’s photos I have come to the conclusion that I will need to replace the MTK louvre castings with scratch built plasticard ones as the MTK louvre panels are not well aligned vertically (or horizontally for that matter) something that would be emphasised by adding the hinges.

 

Another mini modellling project in prospect.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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I was going to say it's a pity that the louvre mouldings are letting down the look of the sides. I wonder if you might be able to create a better set using a cut down section of an old Triang-Hornby Hymek main grille - I guess it would depend on the pitch though.

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Remarkably speedy and effective work. Your scratch grilles are a mega-improvement.

 

I'm curious as to the door handles. Did you drill holes for these and if so how easily did the aluminium take a drill, was it possible to do it by hand?

 

Many thanks,

 

John.

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40 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

Remarkably speedy and effective work. Your scratch grilles are a mega-improvement.

 

I'm curious as to the door handles. Did you drill holes for these and if so how easily did the aluminium take a drill, was it possible to do it by hand?

 

Many thanks,

 

John.


 

Thanks John,

 

I have broken several 0.5mm drill bits trying to make holes for handrails in MTK metal coach bodies.

 

The method I use now is to clamp a heavy duty sewing needle in a pin vice and use it as an awl to form a small hole.  You have to be careful not to form a “dent” in the metal body - more risk of that with brass coach bodies - but it saves drill bits!!!

 

I also use the “awl” to form guide holes for drilling out the roof vent holes with larger diameter drill bits.
 

Cheers

 

Darius

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