So what’s with all this coaching stock business then?

[Steamport Southport]

Flying Scotsman as well.

 

Everyone concentrates on the 1920s FS trains. But it was also replaced with new sets in the late 1930s, then late 1940s, then went to BR Mark Ones.

 

Wasn't The Elizabethan originally The Capitals Limited? As I think it got the coaches before HRH became Queen. The Capitals had Thompson sets. Those and FS were Pressure Ventilated with the skirts. Designed to match the A4s which were meant to have had the farings around the valve gear replaced. But that didn't happen.

 

 

Jason

[Flying Pig]

On 29/03/2021 at 04:29, The Johnster said:

LMS- ‘Period 1’, built 1923-early 30s, RTR Mainline; ‘Stanier’, built mid 30s-1944, RTR Airfix, Hornby, Plastic kit Kitmster/Dapol, and ‘Porthole’, built 1944 -54, Ivatt development of Stanier, RTR Bachmann. 

 

You missed out Period 2 from about 1929 - 32.  This is represented by the Airfix/Dapol/Hornby 12-wheeled dining car and Airfix/Dapol non-gangwayed lavatory stock.

 

BTW - the Dapol plastic 'kits' are unassembled rtr models rather than kits as usually understood and originated with Airfix.  AFAIK the Kitmaster models were Mk1s and are long gone.

 

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

You missed out Period 2 from about 1929 - 32.  This is represented by the Airfix/Dapol/Hornby 12-wheeled dining car and Airfix/Dapol non-gangwayed lavatory stock.

 

BTW - the Dapol plastic 'kits' are unassembled rtr models rather than kits as usually understood and originated with Airfix.  AFAIK the Kitmaster models were Mk1s and are long gone.

 

 

Dapol use the term Kitmaster for their kits. I'm pretty sure they own the rights to the name and have used it for quite a long time.

 

The LMS coach kits definitely use it. Or did as they have been discontinued.

 

https://www.dccsupplies.com/cat-1018/carriage-kits-Dapol-kitmaster.htm

 

 

 

Jason

[Wheatley]

Once you've sussed coaches you can start on wagons. I've found 12 identifiable 'as built' variants of the BR Std Diag 1/208 van so far.

[signalnorth]

On 29/03/2021 at 04:29, The Johnster said:

As a very rough general guide, the main types of Big 4 design pre mk1 coaches that you need to be aware of, some of which were still being built well into the 50s but were by and large all withdrawn by 1968 are:-

 

LMS- ‘Period 1’, built 1923-early 30s, RTR Mainline; ‘Stanier’, built mid 30s-1944, RTR Airfix, Hornby, Plastic kit Kitmster/Dapol, and ‘Porthole’, built 1944 -54, Ivatt development of Stanier, RTR Bachmann. 
 

LNER- Gresley teak panelled, 1923-1943, RTR Hornby, Thompson all steel, 1943-mid 50s, RTR Triang Hornby (crude), Bachmann 

 

Southern- Maunsell, 1923-1938, RTR Hornby, Bullied, 1938-mid 50s, 2 styles of windows, early small ventilators and later deeper ventilators, RTR Bachmann

 

GWR- Collett bow-ended, 1923-29, RTR Hornby, Collett flat ended ‘Sunshine’ 1930-42, RTR Mainline/Replica/Bachmann, Collett ‘Centenary’, 1935, RTR Airfix/Hornby, Hawksworth, 1942-mid 50s, Hornby. 
 

This is by no means exhaustive and some

pre-grouping designs lasted into early BR days, and I have not mentioned non-gangwayed suburban stock, or NPCCS, a whole vast subject in it’s own right, and one in which Big 4 stock lasted into the 70s and early 89s, in blue livery.  You will see that many of the post war designs had very short working lives.  Some LMS Porthole coaches survived long enough to be given 1966 blue/grey livery, as did some Gresley buffet cars used on excursion service on the WR in the 70s. 
 

By and large, windows, a good indicator of the type of coach you are looking at and very individual to that style, changed in appearance during the 1930s from quarter lights flanking compartment doors to full size windows with sliding ventilators, the compartments having to be accessed via vestibule doors and the side corridor; mk1s were of this type. Bogies are another good indicator, especially for the various GW types.  Some are indeed superficially similar; one might well need to look twice to distinguish between an LMS Stanier and a GWR Collett ‘Sunshine’ if they were both in a BR livery, but the bogies, toilet windows, roof profiles, roof ventilators, and gangway connections are all different and can be used as distinctive telltales.  
 

I’d say you are very definitely missing out on a massive source of rail pleasure, Len.  Coaches of that era were very indicative of their originating company and designer, and so for that matter were goods wagons and vans, signals, signalboxes, and a host of other things.  The variety gave them character, and at a big hub like Bristol TM or York, you would likely see most of the types I’ve mentioned over about an hour of train watching.  It’s not just locos, you know, and under BR many styles of Big 4 stock were commonly seen in a much greater variety of places than they had been before 1948.  I’m nearly a decade older than you, 16 in 1968, and count myself fortunate to have experienced it.  
 

We are lucky in that good RTR models of all these types of coaches are available to us, and that they can be experienced for real on heritage lines. The Severn Valley has rakes of LMS, GWR, and LNER stock and the Southern types are well represented on the Bluebell; that’s if the Covid restrictions are ever lifted

 

 

So what would you say is the missing piece as regards rtr models in 4mm . And yeah , I’m getting into this subject!

t

[TheSignalEngineer]

LMS 'Vestibule' Open Thirds. These were the most numerous coaches built between 1923 and 1939 but we have only ever had the Diagram 1915 TO produced by Bachmann for Replica Railways many years ago. Hopefully the Diagram 1904 pressure ventilated conversion being produced by Hornby for the Coronation Scot will lead to a run of the original version standard ventilator coaches.

More about my building of Vestibule Stock using Comet sides on various rtr donors can be found here:- 

 

[The Johnster]

There are several gaps in what is available RTR, the LMS coaches mentioned above, some GWR Collett designs, and shorter 57’ Gresley LNER stock for the GER section.  There are also non-gangwayed coaches missing from all the companies (the Southern built no such coaches, concentrating on stock for it’s expanding 3rd rail electric network and having inherited a large number of suitable pregrouping coaches that survived into BR days). 
 

Catering vehicles tend to be one token design from each company, and there are no pre-BR design sleepers, or Collett GW BG ‘full brakes’ or 70’ coaches.  The RTR companies by and large produce stock to ‘go with’ the locomotives they produce, and while the variety has improved since the days when all that was available was a brake third, composite, and perhaps a matching restaurant car of each design, there are inevitably still gaps. 
 

Some of the missing types can be obtained in kit form from Wizard Models’ ‘Comet’ range. 

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by The Johnster

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, signalnorth said:

So what would you say is the missing piece as regards rtr models in 4mm . And yeah , I’m getting into this subject!

t

 

Driving trailers/autocoaches or whatever you call them.  LMS has none despite a plethora of suitable locos; LNER has none; GWR has a postwar vehicle and a very old and somewhat inaccurate model of an older type; the Southern has a couple of good and fairly recent models but one is a post-nationalisation conversion.

 

The number of carriage designs built even by the Big Four was so large however that rtr will never cover more than a small fraction.  To get a idea, here is the old Comet Models site archived (photos and downloads sadly missing) on the Wayback Machine (the models are still available from Wizard Models but their website doesn't list them together like this).   Note that these are just the types modelled by Comet.  Then you have pre-group vehicles, many of which survived well into nationalisation.

 

 

[The Johnster]

The GW called them 'auto trailers' and they are a fertile field for new RTR development.  The RTR currently consists of the Bachmann diagram A38, a GW design introduced in 1949 though a preserved example has been painted in an incorrect GW livery, and a model originally introduced in the late 70s by Airfix, and later produces by Replica, Mainline, and eventually Hornby who are still knocking them out.  This is a coach which is a problem for 'serious' (whatever that is) modellers as it is a hybrid of two 1920s diagrams, A28 and A30.  IMHO it is closer to the A30, and mine are numbered as A30s. 

 

Within the boundaries of this discussion, the GW introduced many 'new' diagrams of auto trailers in the period between 1923 (the grouping) and the all steel A27, A28, and A30 types (the A27 was on a shorter 57' underframe), but these were mostly rebuilds of earlier steam 'rail motor' vehicles.  Comet duplicate the A30, A38, and the A43, a BR 1953 rebuild of a non-gangwayed Collett compartment brake 3rd.  The majority of trailers produced by the GW were of a panelled design; Dapol make a Diagram N in 7mm scale, and there is an ancient rather crude A31 (rebuilt from rail motor) from Keyser in whitemetal, which is reasonably to scale but has a lot of cast in detail that is not of a very high standard.  Roxey do the very distinctive A2/A3 'Clifton Downs' trailers as a kit; these are non-ganwayed compartment rebuilt from Dean types in Churchward's time that lasted until the late 1940s

 

RTR producers like to choose prototypes that had long service lives so that they can accurately produce them in several different liveries, a method suited to the batch production that all use these days.  This enables them to cater to modellers of different periods and increases the sales to collectors, who will buy the complete range in each livery and tooling.  So, one might have expected the panelled auto trailers to have been more likely to available as RTR or kit models, but they're not in fact only the Keyser kit is of this type for the 'normal' open saloon type of trailer.  The A26, another SRM rebuild, was the most common type numerically and was widely distributed everywhere except South Wales, a 70' behemoth (which mitigates against RTR production as it restricts the setrack curve radii it can be used with) and in service from the early 1920s to the late 1950s, using 3 different types of bogie, so a good variety of liveries to sell to collectors.  Many of these trailers rode on different types of bogies, which further increases the attraction for collectors.

 

There are, however, trailers available as 3D bodyshell 'scratch build aids' from Recreation Models through Shapeways, both panelled and matchboarded types.  These are designed by Rue d'Etropal of this parish, and are a way of extending the biodiversity if you are prepared to model interior chassis and bogie parts from scratch (you need to make a floor and your own interiors for the old Keyser A31s as well), but, while of good quality, like most 3D prints they don't come cheap and, because Shapeways' European operation is based in Eindhoven, Holland, they have recently become more expensive post-Brexit.

 

Recreation Models provide a good and expanding range of Big 4, pre-grouping, and multiple unit coaches not available elsewhere but in bodyshell form.  Some are suitable for mouning on RTR chassis.

[Steamport Southport]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

There are several gaps in what is available RTR, the LMS coaches mentioned above, some GWR Collett designs, and shorter 57’ Gresley LNER stock for the GER section.  There are also non-gangwayed coaches missing from all the companies (the Southern built no such coaches, concentrating on stock for it’s expanding 3rd rail electric network and having inherited a large number of suitable pregrouping coaches that survived into BR days). 

 

 

Not entirely correct as they mounted a lot of older stock on to new chassis and extended them. They did that with quite a few hundred carriages. Many were also converted to EMUs.

 

Prime example is the 58 footers made by Hornby. No way could you really say they weren't "new" as very little of the originals survived.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/100221-Hornby-announce-sr-58-maunsell-rebuilt-ex-lswr-coaches/

 

 

Jason

[robertcwp]

Third Class became Second from June 1956. This page on codes is from the SR Carriage Working Notice Appendix for Loco-Hauled Stock from 1965. Although the 'Tourist' stock was listed with bucket seats, this was a bit of a legacy from the LNER and the code TSO for an open with 2+2 seating soon became standard, with SO indicating 2+1:

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by robertcwp
Second page added.

[Wheatley]

All the Big 4 have at least 1, sometimes 2 styles of mainline corridor stock represented, and at least one style of non-corridor stock (although not sure about GWR). That still leaves plenty of gaps; as well as the vestibule and specialist  types mentioned there was a bewildering variety among the main types. With the exception of BR Mk 1s the best you can with RTR is often only a representation. There were, for example, at least 4 different varieties of LMS period 3 corridor brake third (BTK). 

Edited April 1, 2021 by Wheatley

[kevinlms]

On 28/03/2021 at 21:41, Steamport Southport said:

Here's a bit more info.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_coach_designations

 

And yes, I used to always think it strange that it was Korridor.

 

 

 

Jason

Note that the codes used were mostly derived from the LNER scheme. The equivalent LMS codes are given, but note that even in the LMS coaches bibles, by Jenkinson & Essery, the LMS designations are virtually ignored, such is the logic to the LNER system.

[kevinlms]

On 02/04/2021 at 05:37, Wheatley said:

All the Big 4 have at least 1, sometimes 2 styles of mainline corridor stock represented, and at least one style of non-corridor stock (although not sure about GWR). That still leaves plenty of gaps; as well as the vestibule and specialist  types mentioned there was a bewildering variety among the main types. With the exception of BR Mk 1s the best you can with RTR is often only a representation. There were, for example, at least 4 different varieties of LMS period 3 corridor brake third (BTK). 

Not surprising that there were variations in the period 3 type. They had changed the arrangement to 4 compartments (earlier BTK had 5 compartments). So a bit of experimentation to find the best arrangement.

The toilets had also moved the the brake end of the compartments.

[The Johnster]

There are several gaps in what is available RTR, the LMS coaches mentioned above, some GWR Collett designs, and shorter 57’ Gresley LNER stock for the GER section.  There are also non-gangwayed coaches missing from all the companies (the Southern built no such coaches, concentrating on stock for it’s expanding 3rd rail electric network and having inherited a large number of suitable pregrouping coaches that survived into BR days). 
 

Catering vehicles tend to be one token design from each company, and there are no pre-BR design sleepers, or Collett GW BG ‘full brakes’ or 70’ coaches. 
 

Some of the missing types can be obtained in kit form from Wizard Models’ ‘Comet’ range. 

 

[hmrspaul]

Getting back to carriages, I'm not sure the doyen of carriage history has been mentioned. David Jenkinson authored several detailed books - on LNWR, LMS etc carriages but he also did some overviews on the development of carriages, eg 

 

 

and a 2 volume set, the later of which is possibly your main interest

 

JENKINSON, David

British Railway Carriages of the 20th Century / The History of British Railway Carriages 1900 - 1953

Several available on Ebay and probably Abebooks. 

 

Paul

Edited April 3, 2021 by hmrspaul

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

Catering vehicles tend to be one token design from each company, and there are no pre-BR design sleepers, or Collett GW BG ‘full brakes’ or 70’ coaches. 
 

Some of the missing types can be obtained in kit form from Wizard Models’ ‘Comet’ range. 

 

The thing with catering vehicles is that they tended to be built in very small batches, mostly to modernise existing fleets. So a batch of say 10 would normally be a very large order. That means it's difficult for a manufacturer to select vehicles, which represent a companies catering vehicles.

As model layouts tend to be small, an 8 coach train would be very long for most layouts. Of the 8 coaches, how many would be catering vehicles - likely to be just the one.

 

These days, it's possible for smaller batches to be created, so maybe it's possible that further catering choices will be made available.

After all the LSWR Gate Stock is now available.

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

There are also non-gangwayed coaches missing from all the companies

 

That was true until not too many years ago, but there are fairly recently tooled non-gangwayed vehicles for all the big four.  The range of designs is fairly limited however and if you want to represent prototype formations the types you want will often be unavailable rtr.  This is no different from the situation for gangwayed stock and you can at least operate a local train from the right company

 

[The Johnster]

One migh reasonably expect a catering vehicle to match each of the styles of RTR coaches, though.  TTBOMK there are no LMS period 2 or 3, Thompsons, or GW Hawkworth Collett rebuilds.  And of course there are catering vehicles and then there are catering vehicles; no GW or LMS buffet or Gresley restaurant.  I can understand why the RTR guys shy away from the 3 car sets used on the ECML.  Plenty of Pullmans, irrelevant to a large proportion of layouts, though, always were.

 

The RTR people by and large know what will sell, have a fair idea of how many, and what can be made cheaply enough to make a profit at sensible market prices.  Their decision on what to make and what to not make are 'informed' by this, and 'serious' modellers (whatever that means, I take to mean those who are attempting to build and operate layouts that feature stock representative of a period and geographical location in a realistic way and need locos and stock the conforms to those limitations) are not the only fruit.  There are collectors, and many who build layouts that fulfil the desire to expand the trainset layouts they had as a child, and are happy to run anything and everything; I reckon these buy a lot of Pullmans, and there is nothing wrong with that!

 

Things are better than they  once were though; there was a time in the late 60s and early 70s when the only catering vehicle available RTR was the Triang Hornby mk1 Buffet, and there were no RTR non-gangwayed coaches at all!  Such pre-nat stock as was out there  was crude and on generic bogies, and, as it was all from Triang Hornby, rode 2mm too high at the buffers.  This was the nadir of British RTR, with only Trix providing token competition to a firm which did not have scale modelling at the core of it's culture.  The 'new wave', Airfix, Lima, and Mainline was a breath of fresh air and the progenitor of the current era. 

[hmrspaul]

46 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

and there were no RTR non-gangwayed coaches at all!  

Although not RTR the CKD Graham Farish 4mm suburban was an easy build, although generic strong leanings to the LMS, not least as the LMS Society had put a lot of information into the mainstream magazines by the later 1960s.

 

Paul

.

[Steamport Southport]

30 minutes ago, CKPR said:

I'm always surprised that no r-t-r manufacturer has ever produced a Gresley buffet car as three survived up to 1976-77 and were painted in blue & grey livery,  as were some examples of LMS 'porthole' stock and 12-wheel sleeping cars but which have also never been produced as r-t-r coaches. 

 

Like this?

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/c/1504468612

 

Did a Blue/Grey one as well...

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/263766/hornby_r4468_ln03_br_gresley_ex_lner_buffet_car_in_br_blue_grey_pre_owned_like_new/stockdetail.aspx

 

Portholes?

 

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/70469/39-452-Bachmann-LMS-57ft-Porthole-Second-Corridor

 

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/70470/39-452A-Bachmann-LMS-57ft-Porthole-Second-Corridor-BR

 

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/70471/39-462-Bachmann-LMS-57ft-Porthole-Brake-Second-Corridor

 

 

I think some in this thread need to start paying attention. Most of what you are asking for is or has already been available RTR.  

 

 

Jason

Edited April 3, 2021 by Steamport Southport
Added B/G Buffet to prove to myself I'm not imagining things....

[Flying Pig]

8 hours ago, The Johnster said:

One migh reasonably expect a catering vehicle to match each of the styles of RTR coaches, though.  TTBOMK there are no LMS period 2 or 3,

 

The Airfix/Dapol/Hornby 12-wheeler is period 2, the only rtr coach with the characteristic rectangular windows and Stones ventilators that I can recall.

 

There are three catering vehicles in the forthcoming Coronation Scot set from Hornby - all variants of general service Period 3 designs, so that stock may be available in the future (and as far as I can tell the kitchen car is pretty much a standard vehicle, so only needs a couple of vestibu... oh).

 

  

[signalnorth]

I think I'm beginning to see the attraction now! One thing it has made me realise is that our Preserved Railways are less under represented in terms of a variety of coaching stock then locos are they ? Yes/No? 

 

On another point, would it have been normal then to have seen,say, a train on ex LNER metals made up of ex Thompson and Gresley carriages? 

[BernardTPM]

Post war it would not have been unusual. If you fancy looking at pictures of old trains then how about the late David Hey's website? Plenty there to keep you occupied.

[Lambton58]

On 28/03/2021 at 09:36, rab said:

I don't know all the abbreviations, but the main ones are:

B = Brake

F = First

S = Second

C = Composite (First & Second)

K = Corridor

O = Open ( Non-compartment)

 

So, for example a BSK is

a corridor coach with second class seating

and a brake compartment at one end

 

Just wondering what these would be classified as  - V W O (Very Wet Open) maybe?

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Lambton58