Victorian Era Pullman Coach

[relaxinghobby]

At last I found my Pullman to takes it's photograph, it's been in storage because it's too large for my present shunting plank layout, unless I use it as a single coach push-pull unit which is what the Midland railway ended up doing with theirs. This is a modified H0 scale coach, I had started to scratch build one of the early 1870s Wild West Pullmans, following a David Jenkinson article I think from a 1966 Railway Modeller. It did not work for me trying to cut lots of window holes in thin plasticard to build up the coach sides from many layers. I just ended up with hundreds of little bits of shredded plastic and the Pullman bogies I built are too flimsy.

So when I saw this coach at a swap meet I though it was a good starting point as it had suitably baroque detailing on the sides and a clerestory roof. I can't remember the make but is says made in Italy underneath. I used the sides and roof. Despite being H0 it is the correct height and I cut it in half and added a strip of plastic to make it the correct width and reworked the roof, which has since gone banana shape I think because I combined balsa wood and plastic to make the clerestory more Pullmanlike. I can't remember exactly what I did to the ends but I remade them into the vestibules and outside steps in the manner of the 1890s Pullmans used on the LB&SCR and the LSWR Bournemouth Express.

 

See the strip of white plasticard to widen it, 6w Pullman bogies from a USA coach, a representation of the 3 gas cylinders the LSWR kitchen coach used to power their cooker.

Photo to come

Coming back the other way, it should have elaborate gold lining and patterns but I chicken our doing that, a job for computer printer transfer paper perhaps?

[Londontram]

I think this is a lovely little conversion giving the coach the real feel of those early cir.1880 British pullman coaches, well done 

[relaxinghobby]

 

Here's another model from years ago, a PBV with Lantern lookout. It started as a scratch build of a sort of J70 tram loco. Basically a plasticard box on a Lima 6 wheel diesel motor bogie. 

It never ran well at all.

So I built a new chassis with foot boards added the roof lookout and made this, sort of modeled it on one in a photo album of old trains, could do with some windows though. 

[Londontram]

Very nice captures the look very well, as well as the glazing some handrails would look good as well.

I'm a big Caledonian railway fan and this photo of Loch Tay in the 1880s is one of my favorite all time photo's and I've promised my self I'll build this train one day with it's outside framed coaches and lantern brake very much in the style of yours (The loco shunting in the distance is one of the two 0-4-2 Killin pugs built for this line)

[Londontram]

Thinking about your original post about the Pullman car I always thought two of these cut and shut to give the right length and correct number of windows (16 windows I think with out checking) would make a fair copy of the early midland Pullman cars. There from the old Triang Davy Crockett Train set and the coaches turn up on Ebay quite regularly