Elegant Edwardian Electrics

[Nick Holliday]

Whilst UK modellers have been getting very excited about the Great British Locomotives series, with variable quality clones of variable quality original models for £9 a go (I know some of them have been very good value, {the ones I bought, I hope} but some have been rather poor) modellers across the Channel have been offered rather more interesting fare.

 

Atlas Editions, who have produced some series for the UK market (buses / fire engines / trams) have been producing at least three different series of continental railway items to HO scale (some have been narrow gauge).  The ones I have come across are “Trams”, “Michelines et Autorails” (Diesel railcars) and “Automotrices des Reseaux Français” (Motor coaches). To my eyes these are not mere clones as some I never even knew existed, although others, like the Picasso railcar, have been made before.  Each is a superbly moulded (in plastic) and well finished entirely new model, in a nice presentation case on a length of suitably gauged track.  I have been finding them on eBay, mainly from the Far East, for less than £20, and they are much more complete items than the GBL locos. 

 

I don’t know how easy the trams are to motorise as I have only acquired an exquisite steam tram plus carriage, but the other ranges have fully moulded interiors with the areas over the bogies obligingly raised, and looking ideal for motorising with a SPUD or similar unit.  On one French website, the only modifications a person had to make, apart from motorising it, was to substitute the plastic pantograph with a finer metal version, and that was that.  (This was an unusual electro–diesel railcar!)

One item, though, would appear to have possibilities for UK modellers, although probably not those with fine sensibilities.  I noticed an interesting looking clerestory roofed electric motor coach, with large windows and several sets of sliding doors (Etat Second Series from 1915) which looked much like early District and Metropolitan stock.  I thought that a pair of them would make a nice background shuttle for a possible Edwardian London display, making use of the HO scale difference to provide a forced perspective.

 

Two were duly ordered from China, and arrived astonishingly quickly.  When I opened the box I was in for a surprise – the coach was enormous!  It dwarfed a Hornby-Acho HO main line coach, and gave a Hornby Mark 3 a run for its money.  For a while I thought that Atlas had modelled it to a larger scale, but a little internet research showed that the real thing was a massive 22.8 metres long – 75 feet in old money, so when scaled down it was 262 mm long, which the model accurately measured. 

 

 

 

As it wasn’t going to work for forced perspective, I thought about whether it might be usable as a 4mm item.  If taken as a 4mm model, it is over 65 feet long, longer than any pre-grouping electric coach (LBSCR and L&YR had 60 footers) and on a par with the much later Brighton Belle.  Unfortunately, the ones it most resembles were much shorter, presumably to negotiate underground tunnels, at around 40 feet, but perhaps there is scope for cutting and carving for the more adventurous. As can be seen the window arrangement is very close to this 1922 Metropolitan coach.

(Metropolitan Railway Rolling Stock – James R Snowdon – Wild Swan)

There is also a lot in common with earlier District stock

(London Underground Surface Stock – Ian Huntley – Ian Allan)

The underframe is slightly unusual, being more of a steel truss design, but it closely resembles that on the LBSC overhead electrics, although their body style was completely different, retaining the compartment principle, rather than the open saloons adopted on most of the other electrification schemes.

 

The power bogie is rather a hopeless case, though.  The original has three axles, two of which are driven (sources are not clear if it was A1A-A1A or B1 -1B) and the model has relatively small wheels.  Using a normal sort of UK bogie, with a wheelbase of around 8 foot, would appear to work well, although I haven’t investigated motorisation yet, and normal UK 4mm coach wheels will help to bring the doors up to a normal platform level.

 

Overall I would say that, with minimal effort in the motorisation, and a re-paint, these models would make a very convincing pastiche of an elegant late Edwardian electric train, redolent not just of the Metropolitan and District Railways, but also the Mersey and Lancashire and Yorkshire too.  You might even get away without providing buffers as many adopted systems like buck-eye couplers.  The only down-side is that one of the end doors is very narrow, the driver will just have to stop eating those pies!