Hornby 2021 - SR Bogie Luggage van

[DutyDruid]

I don't know if I am mis-remembering something I heard years ago, but I thought that the only one of these with windows in the central set of doors was the one that was used as the hearse for Sir Winston and that this was a special conversion done for use in the funeral train.  However, the era 4 one shown at the top of the thread in maroon also has windows in the central set of doors.

 

Does anyone know if this was a late-life conversion on more than just the hearse wagon?

[Wickham Green too]

44 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

The GLVs were built on recycled underframes and the length varied a bit (up to about a yard from shortest to longest IIRC)

 

Tri-ang lucked out in that one size matched their 9" coaches so they could use the same roofs and underbody detail mouldings. 

Nope - there was only a 2' difference between the batches : 51'3'' as my Chivers kit and 53'3'' as the forthcoming Hornby - though the shorter version came with two bogie centres just to confuse things. Where Triang go it seriously wrong was in the width department : their roof is very similar to the shorty Mk1s but straight ended and the whole vehicle is far too wide. I've not got my old Triang van to hand but I clearly remember shortening it by cutting& shutting through  some of the non-window panels - and thinking the vent bonnets still looked too wide ..... a completely new roof had to be built to the correct width & profile.

[Dunsignalling]

3 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Nope - there was only a 2' difference between the batches : 51'3'' as my Chivers kit and 53'3'' as the forthcoming Hornby - though the shorter version came with two bogie centres just to confuse things. Where Triang go it seriously wrong was in the width department : their roof is very similar to the shorty Mk1s but straight ended and the whole vehicle is far too wide. I've not got my old Triang van to hand but I clearly remember shortening it by cutting& shutting through  some of the non-window panels - and thinking the vent bonnets still looked too wide ..... a completely new roof had to be built to the correct width & profile.

So, has the scale drawing on the Roxey conversion kit instructions been stretched to match the Tri-ang body?

 

John

Edited January 5, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Wickham Green too]

28 minutes ago, DutyDruid said:

I don't know if I am mis-remembering something I heard years ago, but I thought that the only one of these with windows in the central set of doors was the one that was used as the hearse for Sir Winston .....

There were seventeen of the short vans with droplight doors and sixteen of the long ones - they were modified for use in Casualty Evacuation and Ambulance Trains during the war .............. 1950's photos of the Golden Arrow often show a red one behind the loco.

[Wickham Green too]

6 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

So, has the scale drawing on the Roxey conversion kit instructions been stretched to match the Tri-ang body?

Quite possibly - has anyone got one they can measure ? ....................................... not that it really matters now !

[Dunsignalling]

5 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

There were seventeen of the short vans with droplight doors and sixteen of the long ones - they were modified for use in Casualty Evacuation and Ambulance Trains during the war .............. 1950's photos of the Golden Arrow often show a red one behind the loco.

I was pretty sure the Churchill van hadn't received them specially for the occasion, but didn't realise there were so many others like it.

 

Looks like I'll be getting a SR one to repaint as well, then....

 

John

[gwrrob]

Asking for a friend obviously , can anyone enlighten the less knowledgeable about SR rolling stock what the difference is broadly speaking between this new release and this recent offering from Hornby. They're like panniers, they all look the same .....

 

 

 

[DutyDruid]

Just now, gwrrob said:

Asking for a friend obviously , can anyone enlighten the less knowledgeable about SR rolling stock what the difference is broadly speaking between this new release and this recent offering from Hornby. They're like panniers, they all look the same .....

 

The one in your pic has no corridor connectors and a guard's compartment.

[Wickham Green too]

..... together with four pairs of doors rather than three ( each with droplights ), 1940's 2+2 planking instead of all planks being boringly the same width, a standard angle-trussed steel underframe rather than second hand timber one, and standard S.R. bogies instead of LSWR type ........................... now what can we find that the two have in common ?

[gwrrob]

Ran in the same parcels train for a bit of variety. Add some Bachmann PLV'S and you have a very good looking train.

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, gwrrob said:

Ran in the same parcels train for a bit of variety. Add some Bachmann PLV'S and you have a very good looking train.

The gangwayed vans were usually seen between the tender and the first coach on express services, boat trains, etc.

 

Others were used on overnight newspaper trains, seldom modelled for the obvious reason.

 

John

Edited January 5, 2021 by Dunsignalling
Expansion

[Wickham Green too]

Yyyyyeah ........... but don't forget what is usually seen ( in photos ) is the front end of a train - where the puff-puff or whatever is located - and a train without a GBL behind the tender might well have one on the tail ............. moreover, being parcels vehicles, they were very often NOT seen when out an' about 'cos all self respecting photographers were tucked up in bed.

[autocoach]

Well it was in California once...I actually visited the site and have a photo of it somewhere from the 1980's. Will have to see when it lands whether I still want it in SR green.

[GreenGiraffe22]

I've just this minute realised I've totally missed that Bogie B Van, I must have come back into the hobby just too late, I'll keep an eye out for one, there's one on eBay but I'm not sure it's worth £50...

[truffy]

5 hours ago, GreenGiraffe22 said:

that Hornby Airport service pack they did a while back

That would be the Imperial Airways set. I have the T9 (and chunky plastic header) from a split pack.

 

I'll get both of the SR numbers, one to run in a slightly better IA consist.

[Jack P]

Did any of these end up in malachite? 

[57xx]

1 hour ago, GreenGiraffe22 said:

I've just this minute realised I've totally missed that Bogie B Van, I must have come back into the hobby just too late, I'll keep an eye out for one, there's one on eBay but I'm not sure it's worth £50...

 

I also just missed out on the release of the previous Bogie B. Set yourself up a saved search with alerts, it took about a year but one eventually came up on ebay at a sensible price.

Edited January 5, 2021 by 57xx

[Dunsignalling]

28 minutes ago, Jack P said:

Did any of these end up in malachite? 

SR malachite, definitely, BR malachite, very likely, the Southern Region applied green paint with some alacrity once it was authorised in 1956. Considering the age of their running gear, these vans were often used in fast trains, so had to be well-maintained. Withdrawals didn't begin until 1958, so it's highly probable the last few to be overhauled would have received the BR shade.

 

However, one would have to be fairly close to tell the difference between the two; the the lighter SR malachite appeared progressively darker with every layer of re-varnishing.   

 

John

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, GreenGiraffe22 said:

I've just this minute realised I've totally missed that Bogie B Van, I must have come back into the hobby just too late, I'll keep an eye out for one, there's one on eBay but I'm not sure it's worth £50...

I have one in Southern Region BR green, a lovely model well worth having.  It may well be given another run by H, as interest in this sort of thing will be raised by the new GLV, and they would make pretty good running partners for overnight newspaper trains.  AFAIK, the Southern Railway never had any bogie gangwayed brake vehicles.  £50 is a lot for a coach with no interior detail, though.

[Oldddudders]

One of these will be next to the Bogie Van B in my version of the 01.15 Waterloo to Padstow.

[The Fatadder]

14 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Nope - there was only a 2' difference between the batches : 51'3'' as my Chivers kit and 53'3'' as the forthcoming Hornby - though the shorter version came with two bogie centres just to confuse things. Where Triang go it seriously wrong was in the width department : their roof is very similar to the shorty Mk1s but straight ended and the whole vehicle is far too wide. I've not got my old Triang van to hand but I clearly remember shortening it by cutting& shutting through  some of the non-window panels - and thinking the vent bonnets still looked too wide ..... a completely new roof had to be built to the correct width & profile.

I think you have just answered the question as to what I should do with my planned detailing job, its not worth the effort trying to improve (particularly for something which is fairly tenuous on my layout).  Ebay beckons...  

[Wickham Green too]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

..... AFAIK, the Southern Railway never had any bogie gangwayed brake vehicles.  ........

They never BUILT any bogie gangwayed ( full ) brakes - but they inherited a few from the LSWR, a handful of which ( 56' Great War Ambulance Car conversions ) just about made it into B.R. days.

 

Did the GBLs receive malachite green ? - well, "Most vans required extensive underframe repairs between 1945 and 1948" according to Mike King so they may well have got a repaint at that time before "British Railways crimson-lake livery began to appear in 1949". ( Any vans in Maunsell green that had survived the war particularly well might have ben 're-varnished' ......... did the Evacuation Train conversions need repainting from some 'special' colour, I wonder ? - I'd guess they retained Maunsell green on conversion ! ) 

[Dunsignalling]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I have one in Southern Region BR green, a lovely model well worth having.  It may well be given another run by H, as interest in this sort of thing will be raised by the new GLV, and they would make pretty good running partners for overnight newspaper trains.  AFAIK, the Southern Railway never had any bogie gangwayed brake vehicles.  £50 is a lot for a coach with no interior detail, though.

Sheer scarcity value, pure and simple, very few people who have them want to sell.

 

Cheaper ones will come along, if you keep looking, just depends on how long you are willing to wait and if you think it's worth paying extra to avoid the effort. Might be worth wish-listing it on Hatton's but you have to react quickly when you get a notification that they have what you want - you won't be alone.

 

I wanted one more in green a couple of years back - it took a while even then, and I think I paid around £30 from a dealer I use regularly. I've not seen another for sale since so I'm guessing that even with an asking price of £50, it may not hang about long. 

 

You are right about gangwayed full brakes (apart from any inherited pre-group ones?) but in Southern Region days, late 1950s all sorts of "immigrants" arrived; Stove Rs on some milk trains, Stanier, Gresley and Thompson BGs not uncommon, sometimes even attached to 3-coach local sets, where a 4-wheel utility would be more usual. Mk.1 BGs were quite a rare sight though. I presume we got the imports because their previous owners got all the new-build.

 

John

Edited January 6, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[1466]

Re Ambulance train conversions . Around 1956 , I was at East Croydon waiting a train to Brighton . As we waited , a long freight train passed slowly . As part of the freight train,  I have a vivid memory of a bogie brake van in a two tone  livery with Red Cross markings in a white circle . Fallible memory suggests the livery was LSWR  salmon pink and brown but ( being slightly colour blind ) , it may have been GWR cream and brown .

 From this distance in time, I speculate that they were First or Second World War stock on their way to being condemned .

[Wickham Green too]

My GUESS is that it could have been an ex LSWR Dining Saloon as the Army retained a number of them : one is at the NRM and a couple were at the Mad-Hints at one time and I think they're now at Blaenavon - a two-tone livery rings bells.