Hornby cornish riviera

[Henners84]

Would like to construct a cornish riviera pulled by a Hornby king class. What coaching stock would you go for in early br days? Thinking hawksworth coaches but no idea on a suitable rake. Any ideas? 

[KeithMacdonald]

There's a lovely article here showing the coaches.

https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/cornish-riviera-express.html

 

[KeithMacdonald]

 

 

 

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The carriages look like the "centenary" stock built for the Cornish Riviera Express in 1935.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

There is also an article in 'Smoke and Steam' from Warners.   The real problem is deciding which era you wish to model as the stock changed over the years and when deciding on an era you also need to check if coaches area available for that era.

[Barry Ten]

Worth picking up this book, easily available second-hand:

 

 

If you model the GWR-era than you can do the complete train using Comet sides on Airfix Centenary donors.

 

[Ian Hargrave]

I think it depends upon your time frame for early BR. The GWR/BR wasn’t always consistent in respect of the make up of its express services.It was the day of trains splitting into a variety of different destinations and of the notorious Summer Saturday extras .For example,the Riviera ran to St.Ives instead of Penzance double headed by a pair of Small Prairies from St.Earth on Saturday.  If your marker is the early 1950’s then there were sufficient Hawksworths for The Riviera ( Plenty pf images for that ) plus of course the Collett dining cars.Of course the WR often added strengtheners,so sometimes a rag bag of allsorts could appear. Norman Lockhart’s photographic works are an excellent place to start.

[Henners84]

1 hour ago, Ian Hargrave said:

I think it depends upon your time frame for early BR. The GWR/BR wasn’t always consistent in respect of the make up of its express services.It was the day of trains splitting into a variety of different destinations and of the notorious Summer Saturday extras .For example,the Riviera ran to St.Ives instead of Penzance double headed by a pair of Small Prairies from St.Earth on Saturday.  If your marker is the early 1950’s then there were sufficient Hawksworths for The Riviera ( Plenty pf images for that ) plus of course the Collett dining cars.Of course the WR often added strengtheners,so sometimes a rag bag of allsorts could appear. Norman Lockhart’s photographic works are an excellent place to start.

Thanks all for your help. On there being plenty of images of hawksworth coaches I must be typing the wrong thing into Google as I am struggling to find! Good though that hawksworth works as, as taken as I am with mk1s I would like variety and I think the Hornby hawksworths look good and tmc currently have a few crimson and creams at a good price! Still need to work out how to build an appropriate rake (albeit maybe limiting myself to 7 or 8 coaches otherwise it just looks too big for the space I have.

As for what specific point in br days, I don't have a point in time. One of the reasons for modelling early br is that (in my head at least) I can get away with mixing regions plus have a good mix of steam and diesels. I don't restrict myself to early or late crest as I like the variety of colours. Even though my approach is not accurate, to me it is evocative of a period I want to model and trying to get super accurate may restrict me a little too much. So, I guess I want to create the essence of the riviera train and not necessarily 100% accurate to exact coach numbers and years. 

Thanks again

[Barry Ten]

Hawksworth coaches didn't last particularly long in front-line service, so pictures of them in named trains may be scarcer than you'd expect.

[The Johnster]

I model 1948-58 for similar reasons, Henner, but it much easier on a BLT in a specific area served by one depot for the locos and coaches to be accurately numbered and liveried.  The centeneray stock was pretty dispersed by this period, but one or two vehicles might well appear on a CRE.  There were relief CREs on summer saturdays that were made up according to the GW/WR relief train rules*, and TTBOMK, not complete in this respect, the first full rake specifically for this service under BR was mk1s with a Collett catering vehicle, repainted into the WR choclolate and cream livery in 1956 and given a mk1 RB.

 

The 'main train' CRE was a premium service, though, and one would expect the normal pre mk1 rake to be of newish designs, a mix of Hawksworths and later Collett 'Sunshine' stock, in a mix of late GW choc/cream and BR crimson/cream liveries; it took some time when a new livery was introduced for the old liveries to be eradicated, unlike the modern situation when re-branding is commercially important and reliverying is only a matter of peeling off the old branding and applying new.  Coaches were overhauled and painted roughly every 7 years or so, so some missed out on liveries altogether.  Coaches painted in the first 6 months of 1948 carried GW livery but with BR Gill Sans numbers and 'W' prefixes, crimson/cream being standard for gangwayed stock after this,  The down service had several slip portions as well, which I think Comet do kits for.  Don't forget the King came off at Plymouth, not allowed over the Tamar Bridge, so would be incorrect for a Cornish location.

 

The King can be in 1945-7 G crest W livery, or one of the BR transition liveries; fortunately Kings were fairly frequently photographed even in those days when film and it should be possible to get this right.  Between 1/1/48 and 31/5/48, Kings coming out of Swindon Works were painted in a version of GW fully lined livery with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' in GW style Egyptian Serif script on the tender.  From 1/6/48, they received smokebox number and shedcode plates, and various versions of the blue 8P livery with the 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' in Gill Sans, followed by the application of the unicycling lion device in 6/49.  TTBOMK the lined green livery became standard for all passenger locos including 8Ps in 1950.  Red backed number and name plates were used between 6/48 and 6/50, and could be seen for some time after that on some locos.

 

 

*It was the rule that no two vehicles of the same style be coupled together, and that, if this was unavoidable, the liveries had to be different.

[Coach bogie]

You can also consider that on summer Saturday's the CRE ran in several sections. It depends on the geography of your layout. I could never get my head around a CRE section run as a complete train to .....Weymouth. This gets around the challenge of slip coaches as the different sections replaced the slips. 

 

At one point in the 1950's the King came off at Newton Abbott. The King needed to be worked through to Plymouth Laira so was coupled to the following Plymouth express which was also hauled by a King to give the rare sight of  double headed Kings often with the CRE headboard reversed on the leading locomotive.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Steamport Southport]

On 29/06/2021 at 22:21, KeithMacdonald said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would debate the date in the link as being "Circa 1950".

 

That's almost certainly 1930s.

 

 

Jason

[Barry Ten]

The windows date it to no later than the 1930s.

[Coach bogie]

I would date it 1935/6 as the coaches still have the beclawet windows which were all replaced with Mk 1 style sliding windows in late 37/early 38.

 

Mike Wiltshire