London to Birmingham and hopefully back again...
Entry posted by 5&9Models in London & Birmingham Carriages
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Another of my 'seemed like a good idea at the time' projects last summer was to create kits for each of the principal carriages of the London & Birmingham Railway.
Once again this was to be another diversion from Bricklayers Arms but a change is as good as a break, no?
Together with a good friend Tom Nicholls who has provided endless information, drawings, research and above all encouragement, I started at the bottom with the intention of working my way up. In other words, the first was the open third class carriage (if you can call it a carriage at all) and the open-sided second. These have been created as fairly straightforward cast kits with one resin-cast block for the seats. This turned out to be quite a good idea as making seats in styrene is very boring indeed.
The sole bars, axle guards and springs are all part of the side so the carriage went together quite quickly. The buffers were turned in brass and set in a mould to produce a quantity of castings suitable for both types of carriage.
I haven't bothered with any form of compensation with these as they really are so small it hardly seems worth the effort. In fact they are that small one would fit neatly inside your average 10ton coal wagon (yes, I tried it)!
The open-sided second required a little more work in that I made little turned pillars to support the roof which was made of brass sheet gently curved to the correct profile. These carriages also had brakes, the brakesman sitting amongst the passengers and hopefully not being too distracted from his job by the odd glimpse of a ladies ankle. The handle is operated through a hole in the end panelling which presumably gave the brakesman a view forward or back as required, although a roof top seat like the braked First class carriages would have been much more useful in that respect.
The enclosed Night Second is a work in progress and artwork is currently being drawn up by a fellow Brighton Circle member to produce the two types of First class as etched kits. More about these in a future blog when I finally stop fussing over the detail and agree to send the artwork to the etchers!
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