Another K's A31 auto trailer for The Johnster - the inside story

[The Johnster]

My memory is a bit flaky sometimes and I can't remember when we left this project; was it last year or the year before?  Doesn't matter much anyway, I'm having a bit of a modelling mojo upsurge at the moment and today decided to finally tackle this, the second of the K's A31s I acquired.  The story so far; having already found a K's A31 at the small Cardiff show 3 years ago and bought it, I worked it up as W 207 W with fishbelly bogies and plated toplights in plain crimson BR livery, to a photo in John Lewis's Auto Trailers book vol.1 of the prototype at Monmouth (Troy).  Then I picked up another one, and intend to work this one up as 211 in 1945-7 late GW choc/cream livery, to a photo in the same book at Godfrey Road Sidings, Newport.  

 

A word for anyone wanting to have a go at this about bogies.  A31s were rebuilt from steam railmotors which were built in two separate lots, one at Swindon and one outsourced to Gloucester Rail Carriage & Wagon.  The difference between them was that the Swindon SRMs had the (by then) standard Swindon single centra inward opening passenger vestibule doors, and the Gloucesters had inward opening twin doors.  All had Fishbelly bogies at the passenger end.  When they were rebuilt, the bogies were distributed amongst the rebuilt trailer so that some had Fishbellies, some Americans, and some 7' Collett bogies.  W 207 W had fishbellies and 211 had Collett 7'; both were twin passenger door Gloucesters and no Gloucester built trailer rebuilds had American bogies.  But 211, given Collett bogies from an Airfix B set coach sacrificed to form a cut'n'shut ersatz bow-ended all third, looks odd, as did the prototype, because the bogie pivot, inherited from the SRM, is set further back towards the centred of the trailer, and there is a disparity in overhangs at each end.  

 

Now, the K's A31 came with American bogies and Gloucester type twin doors, so could not be assembled to represent any prototype correctly; you needed to replace the bogies or remodel the vestibule door.  I chose the latter route because both of 'my' prototypes are known to have been allox Newport District during my time frame, and thus could and may well have worked out of Tondu...

 

First the good news; like it's predecessor, 211 has been well built, square and true, and has all it's buffers.  Moreover, it is reasonably well finished in late 1945-7 GW livery.  Now the bad news, firstly, it is incorrectly numbered as 100 in the wrong position, and secondly, well, it's a K's A31.  I purports to be made of whitemetal castings but weighs more like unobtanium; just as well the roof is plastic!  It will never be a finescale model of anything, far too much of the detail is cast and the panelling isn't as sharp as I'd like.  It has no floor or interior detail beyond compartment bulkeads, which have prints showing detail on them; I guess it dates from a time when that level of detail was not expected to be provided with kits.  But it should be not too difficult to work up into an acceptable 'layout' model, and an interior is essential because I want it to run with a Hornby A23/30 with lights for evening trains or rainy days.  It is a beginner level project, and it is hoped that it will encourage people to have a go at fairly simple work of this sort...

 

Here we go then.  The first job is to fit the floors.  Remove the bogies and, carefully, the plastic roof.  Almost anything will do for the floors that it thin and rigid enough; I happened to have some stiff laminated A4 card handy, old packaging, and used that.  Check that you've got one edge straight and true, cutting to achieve one if needed, and measure in 31mm and mark at each end. Hold a metal (preferably) straight edge, the ruler I used to measure the 31mm marks in my case, and, with a fresh sharp Exacto pointed blade, scribe a line across between the two 31mm marks.  Gently does it, don't use much more than the weight of the knife or you'll risk dragging the workpiece out of position.  4 or 5 passes and you'll be able to remove the straight edge and use the scribe mark to guide the blade point while you cut more firmly.  When you've finished you'll have a strip of material 31mm wide; this will fit neatly between the sides of the trailer.  

 

You now have to remove the glazing, which was very thin cellulose in my case, to drop the floor sections in from the top, measure each floor section to the compartment length, and cut them.  There are 5, all different lengths, and the end compartments, driver's and guard's, have to be shaped to the bow end of the trailer.  Don't worry if you don't get a perfect fit; you can trim if the piece is too big and fill if it's a little undersized.  There are ledges on the inner face of the sides for a floor to rest on, and these are what you will eventually glue them too.  When you are happy that they will all drop in without problems (I had a bit of a faff with the driver's compartment), they are ready for painting.  I sprayed mine Halfords Acrylic Grey, as I was doing a couple of BSL aluminium coach bodies as well at the same time.  If you don't have an outdoors to do this, make sure the room is very well ventilated and wear your face mask.  I use old cardboard boxes as spray booths, and the paint does blow back out of them a bit...

 

When the paint dries, about 15 minutes, you can glue the sections in place.  This is the start of the job but already makes a huge difference to the 'credibility' of the coach; it's all improvements from here on in.

 

 

Just look at my tidied work table!  Wonder how long I'll keep that up?  This is the trailer with the top off, glue marks showing where a previous owner had a go, looks like UHU.  We are going to do better than this...  

 

 

Floor sections cut and laid out as they will be in the trailer, driver's compt, nearest the camera.  

 

 

And fitted to the trailer.  We are not looking for perfection, as the gaps will have to be filled to seal it for lighting anyway.  The driver's compartment is particularly rough.

 

Overnight I will give some thought to the next stage, which is to make the seating.  The arrangement of benches and bay seating is not the same as the RTR A28/30 or A38, and on W 207 W I cut out the bay seat end pieces from Plasticard and made the actual seats out of Milliput,  I haven't yet ruled this out for this coach, but it was a faffy process and before I proceed to the next stage I want to investigate the possibility of using RTR seating in 'cut'n'shut' form or adapting Ratio/Parkside preformed plastic seating strip.  Once the seating is completed, we can paint the interior, install the lighting to the roof, battery to go in guard's cmpt, do whatever is needed to the exterior, and fit new glazing.  Then it's the windows and the roof can go back on.  

 

[The Johnster]

Forgot to mention; cut out in man saloon floor near rear bulkhead to clear end of bogie screw, will be filled eventually!  And some of my research is carp; 211 is a Swindon built SRM and hence trailer. though it did have 7' Collett bogies.  A better prototype for our purposes is W 209, photographed in early 1948 BR 'transition' chocolate/cream at Godfrey Road.  I am going to bottle out of the possibility of modelling W 211, which is photographed at Monmouth Troy in early BR 1948-56 custard/cream livery, which would mean a full repaint and replacing the vestibule doors with the single Swindon type, though these are available from scrapped Airfix A28/30s.  Maybe the next A31, though I've promised myself I've got enough A31s now...  

 

We are now modelling W 209 in 1948 to possibly withdrawal (1957) condition.  I doubt that it was ever painted in crimson/cream, it being only 2 years after the repaint we are modelling when the WR began painting auto trailers in plain crimson livery, apparently after Mr Riddles had spotted on in crimson/cream at Paddington and demanded to know what a lowly auto trailer was doing in his best main line livery...  I doubt that any A31 ever carried the 1956 plain maroon livery, and all were scrapped by 1959 when lined maroon was used for all passenger rated stock.

 

I've lined up the seating from the scrap A28/30 and it's not of much use.  Firstly, it is part of the body tooling and a faff to cut out, and secondly, because of the different sizes of the saloons and the fact that the A31s have rows of seats facing the same way, unlike the back to backs of the A28/30s seating bays, it is very difficult to match the seats correctly to the windows.  Ratio/Parkside seating will have to be adapted, and I've none in stock at the moment, so the project will have to wait on acquisition...

Edited October 13, 2020 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Ok, now it's seats.  2 types, typical auto trailer, bench and bay seating.  Despite having no Ratio/Parkside seating in stock, I decided today to break up a K's E116 B set as one was giving running problems, and use the good one as a loose BC.  This means that Ratio seating from the interior job I did on the 'bad' E116 can be salvaged and re-used here.  The Ratio seating is intended for use in compartment stock of course, and must be cut down for use in the open saloons of an auto trailer.

 

First, cut the bottom upright section off the Ratio seats.  The plastic is soft and after a couple of score passes with the Exacto you can snap them off with a long nose pliers.  This will be less work and easier with the seating in it's original strip form than my already cut to compartment size sections.  For the benches, you need to trim the seat backs down to about 3mm above the seat cushion, and for the the bay seats you need to trim them down to about 5mm.

 

 

 

 

Here's a section of bench lined up with the bottom already cut off to assess where to cut the back ; you can see the mark I've scored at the required height...

 

 

 

Trimmed to correct height, and an additional section added to length, lined up with pillar between droplight windows leaving a bit of space for the leaning back of the bay seat that goes next to it.  Note the gap left behind the benches and at the sides of the bay seats for the glazing to sit in, a mistake I made on W 207 W that I learned from.

 

 

Then, you put the bay seats in.  As it happens, cutting the compartment width length seats into 3 gives you 3 ballpark correct size bay seats for trailers, with makes sense as these were twin seats divided by armrests and the compartment they came from were 8 seater benches, when you allow for the armrests and a half a mm or so cutting waste.  Do the one next to the bench first, then the one against the vestibule bulkhead, and if you've got it right the middle 'bus row' seat will fit in the correct space between them, with it's back aligned to the next droplight pillar along.  Note that there is a space between the bulkhead seat end and the doorway; this is to allow for the wooden end piece, which includes the aisle side armrest and will be built later.

 

The rest of the seating is a repeat of the above, mirror image on the other side of this saloon and to a slightly different pattern in the cab end saloon; from the rear, vestibule bulkhead, benches again, a double this time (the one already fitted is a triple), followed by a bay and then 2 bus row seats finishing up with the driver's bulkhead seat, again mirror image the other side.  I will try to devise a method of mass producing the wooden end piece plates; these are the sort of thing it's more important to get them all looking the same than to worry about the last micron of accuracy...

 

This'll do me for tonight, and with luck I'll get the rest done tomoz, but will not post again until we have moved past this stage.  Next will probably be armrests, end plates, and painting.  There is some detail to go in the vestibule as well, the step mechanism lever.  I should order these in bulk as none of my trailers have them; loco reversing levers cut down will suffice.  They go to the right of the vestibule looking outwards.

[The Johnster]

We seem to have had a glitch with the photos.  Hopefully this will explain, sorry for the inconvenience.  I've had a bit of trouble with the mac today, for which I blame Virgin Media. who've been messing around with the cable cabinets and upsetting things.  Back to normal now. I hope...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Finished the seating and painted the interior, tidied up the outside paint job a bit, and added the number transfers from a Cambridge sheet of WR coach numbers,  As I'm building this in 1948 condition with chocolate and cream BR 'transition' livery as applied between 1st January and 31st March 1948, as photographed at Gordon Road Sidings, Newport High St in John Lewis' Auto Trailer book, I have used large 'W" prefix and 209 numbers.  

 

I have no photo of an A31 interior and have based the interior on photos of Trailer 92 and SRM 93.  These have 3 different types of seats and this seems to be what is shown on the plan in Lewis.  There are bench seats, with wooden arms, fixed bay seats at the end of the benches and next to the bulkheads, and 'swing back' seats where the rear cushion was hinged and moveable so the seat could face either way as required (something similar was common on trams).  There are no end plates and the bay seats, both fixed and 'swing back' (not sure if this is the correct term), do not have arms, which makes life easier.  The cushions are open at the ends and tops on the swing back seats, so you paint them slightly differently, a wooden top and side piece for the fixed seats and just the side piece for the swing backs, if that makes sense.  

 

Tomorrow, matt varnish to seal the numbers, glazing, fixing the no smoking triangles (the Lewis photo shows these rather than the GW 'Smoking' labels, to my surprise), painting the inside of the roof white to cast the light better, and installing the lights.  I want to devise some sort of easy removal for the roof, to get at the lights and especially the battery, possibly using magnetic fixing, and then we're done; W 209 can have a weathering coat and go into service!

 

Saw another of these K's trailers on the Bay yesterday, but I've got enough A31s now!

Edited October 17, 2020 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Finished and in service, pending cab interior details and solder to finish up the connections for the lighting.  The glazing rests on the ledge cast in to the inside of the sides of this model, which is why you have to leave a gap behind the benches and at the side of the other seats.  I glued the glazing in with Glue’n’ Glaze, which dries clear and helps hide any overspill, but I made a tolerably neat job anyway. 
 

Here she is, coming to a squealing stop in Cwmdimbath’s platform with an early evening working from Bridgend sometime in the late 40s or early 50s; the A30 with her is in ‘blood and custard’ so must have been repainted between June of  1948 and whenever it was in 1950 that Riddles instructed the WR to stop using this livery for auto trailers.  Actually it has to be after the 1953 introduction of the Valleys’ new ‘regular interval’ timetable, which is when the first auto fitted locos, 4575s newly equipped, were allox Tondu.  This set needs to be fairly extensively weathered, then; it’s at least 5 years since W 209 was painted and  at least 3 since W 189 W felt the business end of a brush...
 

I now have 2 auto sets, both A30/A31 combos, the other set in plain crimson, which the plated toplights of W 207 W makes look even plainer.  The other set is coupled the other way around, with the A31 next to the loco, for variety.  Reason for this arrangement rather than a pair of A30s and a pair of A31s is the weight of the whitemetal A31s, enough to cause problems for the Baccy 4575s.  They can manage, just, on the straights but the no.4 setrack curves at the fy throat defeat them.  They can barely move 2 A31s at all, but an A30/A31 combo is viable. 
 

I reckon there is work for a third set, but I want to increase the biodiversity.  Rue d’Etropal of this parish does a nice A7 matchboarded trailer 3D bodyshell, but it’ll have to wait for finances.  
 

Hopefully these screeds will encourage others to work up old K’s A31s.  As I said at the start, these are never going to be fine scale hi-fi models, but they are pretty much to scale dimensions and not badly detailed for their age.  They’d benefit from separate details to replace moulded lumps of whitemetal, especially the bells and cab end details, but they are perfectly acceptable ‘layout’ models as they are.  I’ll eventually replace the Airfix bogies on this one with Stafford Road Works 3D prints, which are much more free running; with the thing weighing as much as a small neutron star, the locos need all the help they can get!