Budd 'Silver Princess' diagrams

[69843]

G'day all,

I'm currently trying to track down the LMS diagrams (or other) of the Budd/Pressed Steel trial car 'Silver Princess'/M7585M. Doing some searching came up with a comment from RMweb back in 2014 (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/40018-silver-princess/&do=findComment&comment=1301610) by R.Wells stating the following:
"The Budd Silver Princess appeared in the LMS diagram book on page 59 as Diagram 2186, also on page 59 A as diagram 2190, the latter was the smooth sided rebuilt version."

Where would be the best place to try hunting up a copy of these? Being outside the UK does limit my options on resources and searching in person, so I'm hoping someone might be able to point me in a good direction even if that direction is 'The NRM has a copy'. Searching their online selections has so far turned up nothing more than references to piping and similar.

Cheers in advance.

 

[watfordtmc]

Firstly, I cannot point you in the direction of a confirmed source of LMS diagrams, but below are some thoughts that may enable you to progress your researches.

 

As was pointed out in the earlier post, the Railway Modeller for January 1980 had an article about the original Silver Princess, accompanied by a drawing (Ref:  “Silver Princess" Wells R & Maruda R, Railway Modeller, January 1980, Vol 31, No. 351, pp16-17).

The article concluded with the author writing that they intended to follow up with details of the buffet car rebuild (D2190) but, if they ever did, it never did get published unfortunately.

 

There are ‘diagrams’ in the relevant Hugh Longworth tome (Ref: British Railways Pre-nationalisation Coaching Stock Volume 2  SR & LMS, Longworth H, Crecy Publishing Ltd 2019).

However, at 1.5mm to the foot scale these will not progress any modelling.

 

That said Hugh Longworth clearly had access to diagram books in order to be able to produce his ‘diagrams’.

In this context it should be noted that not all historic railway documentation is held by the National Railway Museum (NRM) at York.  Most matters pertinent to Scotland seem to be held by the National Records of Scotland, and there is a tranche of materials held in The National Archive (TNA) in London.

 

Indeed, in his acknowledgements, Mr. Longworth specifically refers to:

“Sources of information in archives: … National Archives, Kew (e.g. the TNA) … Diagram Books for … and LMS.”  So the TNA may be the place to go.

 

Of course at the moment, both the NRM and TNA archives (and much else) are closed due to England’s Lockdown 2 which will hinder your enquiries, but the TNA’s website is: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and is probably worth investigating.

 

I did take a look at the Historical Model Railway Society (HMRS) website to see if there might be anything of use to you in the HMRS’s archive.

 

Unlike the NRM/TNA, the HMRS do not have a ‘free-form’ search box; you can only search by specified criteria selected from menus.  There did not seem to be anything relevant in Drawings searching under coaching stock & LMS/BR London Midland Region.  A search selected by coaching stock & BR returned nearly a thousand items, almost all of which do NOT have a thumbnail of the drawing, just the 30-character description.  However, two of the few items with a thumbnail (that I noted before I gave up) were actually Hawksworth GW coaches, so it’s just possible there may be something concerning the rebuild of the Silver Princess.

I’ll let you entertain yourself searching through that lot to see if there’s anything relevant…

 

The HMRS operate a ‘steward’ system of individuals who specialise is particular aspects of British railways history, and there is a specific steward for BR coaching stock.  I strongly suspect that this post will only cover BR Standard types and not pre-nationalisation stock, but there may be no harm in making an enquiry.

 

Much of the HMRS archive has yet to be digitised of course, so there may be relevant items that are not yet listed.  An enquiry to the HMRS Secretary may (or may not) help in this respect.

The HMRS website is: https://hmrs.org.uk.  Stewards contact details and an e-enquiry form can be found under “Services”, the drawings under “Drawings” and the “Secretary” under Contact.

 

The HMRS once had an LMS steward but this no longer seems to be the case.  There is though an LMS Society.  I appreciate that the Silver Princess was essentially a private venture, but it first ran on the LMS and the later rebuild was deployed by the London Midland Region of BR, the successor to the LMS in England, so they could be a potential source of information.

All enquiries are through the Society’s Secretary; the website is: http://www.lmssociety.org.uk.

 

Hope there’s something in the above that may be of use: Good Luck!

 

Regards

TMc

24/11/2020

 

[69843]

On 25/11/2020 at 12:11, watfordtmc said:

Firstly, I cannot point you in the direction of a confirmed source of LMS diagrams, but below are some thoughts that may enable you to progress your researches.

 

As was pointed out in the earlier post, the Railway Modeller for January 1980 had an article about the original Silver Princess, accompanied by a drawing (Ref:  “Silver Princess" Wells R & Maruda R, Railway Modeller, January 1980, Vol 31, No. 351, pp16-17).

The article concluded with the author writing that they intended to follow up with details of the buffet car rebuild (D2190) but, if they ever did, it never did get published unfortunately.

 

There are ‘diagrams’ in the relevant Hugh Longworth tome (Ref: British Railways Pre-nationalisation Coaching Stock Volume 2  SR & LMS, Longworth H, Crecy Publishing Ltd 2019).

However, at 1.5mm to the foot scale these will not progress any modelling.

 

That said Hugh Longworth clearly had access to diagram books in order to be able to produce his ‘diagrams’.

In this context it should be noted that not all historic railway documentation is held by the National Railway Museum (NRM) at York.  Most matters pertinent to Scotland seem to be held by the National Records of Scotland, and there is a tranche of materials held in The National Archive (TNA) in London.

 

Indeed, in his acknowledgements, Mr. Longworth specifically refers to:

“Sources of information in archives: … National Archives, Kew (e.g. the TNA) … Diagram Books for … and LMS.”  So the TNA may be the place to go.

 

Of course at the moment, both the NRM and TNA archives (and much else) are closed due to England’s Lockdown 2 which will hinder your enquiries, but the TNA’s website is: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and is probably worth investigating.

 

I did take a look at the Historical Model Railway Society (HMRS) website to see if there might be anything of use to you in the HMRS’s archive.

 

Unlike the NRM/TNA, the HMRS do not have a ‘free-form’ search box; you can only search by specified criteria selected from menus.  There did not seem to be anything relevant in Drawings searching under coaching stock & LMS/BR London Midland Region.  A search selected by coaching stock & BR returned nearly a thousand items, almost all of which do NOT have a thumbnail of the drawing, just the 30-character description.  However, two of the few items with a thumbnail (that I noted before I gave up) were actually Hawksworth GW coaches, so it’s just possible there may be something concerning the rebuild of the Silver Princess.

I’ll let you entertain yourself searching through that lot to see if there’s anything relevant…

 

The HMRS operate a ‘steward’ system of individuals who specialise is particular aspects of British railways history, and there is a specific steward for BR coaching stock.  I strongly suspect that this post will only cover BR Standard types and not pre-nationalisation stock, but there may be no harm in making an enquiry.

 

Much of the HMRS archive has yet to be digitised of course, so there may be relevant items that are not yet listed.  An enquiry to the HMRS Secretary may (or may not) help in this respect.

The HMRS website is: https://hmrs.org.uk.  Stewards contact details and an e-enquiry form can be found under “Services”, the drawings under “Drawings” and the “Secretary” under Contact.

 

The HMRS once had an LMS steward but this no longer seems to be the case.  There is though an LMS Society.  I appreciate that the Silver Princess was essentially a private venture, but it first ran on the LMS and the later rebuild was deployed by the London Midland Region of BR, the successor to the LMS in England, so they could be a potential source of information.

All enquiries are through the Society’s Secretary; the website is: http://www.lmssociety.org.uk.

 

Hope there’s something in the above that may be of use: Good Luck!

 

Regards

TMc

24/11/2020

 

Thank you kindly for all of that, and I shall have a start digging around in all those locations.