'Genesis' 4 & 6 wheel coaches in OO Gauge - New Announcement

[chris p bacon]

10 minutes ago, uax6 said:

It's taken me a long time to be called rude and arrogant so a big 'Thank You' for that, that's one thing off my bucket list.

 

I like to think I set the bar for that some time ago.....

 

I think the idea of these is a good one, but doubt I will obtain any as they just don't come near the GN or LNWR. I also like building my own.

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, JohnR said:

 

To many people, OO "looks right", the reason they don't model in P4 isn't because they don't care. 

 

 

But others, such as myself, continue to model in 00 for practical reasons, whilst admiring intensely the work of those who do model in EM or P4 and being thoroughly aware of the compromises I have chosen to make. 

 

I've put some apostrophes in for you because I count those too. I'm never quite sure in this thread whether I'm lurking under the bridge or brazenly tossing others off it. 

[JohnR]

4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But others, such as myself, continue to model in 00 for practical reasons, whilst admiring intensely the work of those who do model in EM or P4 and being thoroughly aware of the compromises I have chosen to make. 

 

I've put some apostrophes in for you because I count those too. I'm never quite sure in this thread whether I'm lurking under the bridge or brazenly tossing others off it. 

 

And if P4 modellers suddenly started saying those of us who model in OO "don't care" or are "too lazy"....? Which is exactly what someone who proposed to run some of these generic carriages in LNWR livery behind a LNWR Coal tank was accused of. 

[johnarcher]

4 minutes ago, JohnR said:

 

And if P4 modellers suddenly started saying those of us who model in OO "don't care" or are "too lazy"....? Which is exactly what someone who proposed to run some of these generic carriages in LNWR livery behind a LNWR Coal tank was accused of. 

I'm not making a point, I wouldn't want these carriages but if others do that's up to them, but I do wonder (genuine question, not a sarcastic point) would that be as OK for people if the locomotive were not an LNW coal tank but a 'generic' tank engine in LNW livery (which you see at exhibitions in many other liveries)?

 

[Edwardian]

Each to his own ....

 

Having met a number of the Pendon crew recently, I can say that, if they are among the Finescale Taliban, they're awfully nice Taliban.  I did smile wryly to myself, though, at the track comparison plank they'd nailed to the wall: P4, EM and OO/HO set track.  Not really a fair comparison, which was brought home to me when admiring an EM layout at Hartlepool and realising that I really could not tell the difference between its track gauge and that of my OO SMP at home; I actually took it to be a "finescale" OO layout until I read the blurb. 

 

Accuracy is more than track gauge; I've seen plenty of realistic and convincing OO gauge layouts and plenty of EM layouts that do not convince.  Moreover, what's wrong with something that doesn't set out to convince, but that nevertheless entertains? 

 

All of which perhaps just shows that it's surely all a matter of the individual layout owner's perspective? What looks good to one might be an anathema to another.  The thing is to accept that without succumbing to snobbery, or inverted snobbery, concerning modelling 'standards'.

[Wickham Green]

28 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

............

Accuracy is more than track gauge; I've seen plenty of realistic and convincing OO gauge layouts and plenty of EM layouts that do not convince.  ..........

I well remember the introductory articles for P4 in the old MRC ( er, I think ) and I remember lovely finescale track and wheels beneath otherwise totally unmodified Triang wagons and Mk1s ........ Not my cup of meat, I thought !

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, johnarcher said:

I'm not making a point, I wouldn't want these carriages but if others do that's up to them, but I do wonder (genuine question, not a sarcastic point) would that be as OK for people if the locomotive were not an LNW coal tank but a 'generic' tank engine in LNW livery (which you see at exhibitions in many other liveries)?

 

Because it should be a process of gentle education.

 

Yes, once we would have seen locomotives in suspect liveries, even at exhibitions, but RTR locomotives have progressed through the past 30 odd years from some pretty crude "representations" of their prototypes to what we get today, RTR locos that "finescale" modellers are perfectly happy to rewheel and put on their EM or P4 layouts.

 

At present the only RTR "UK outline" 4 wheel coach is the one that Hornby offers in an ever changing multitude of inappropriate liveries. If you want anything else, you have to build a kit, from the Ratio GWR 4 wheeler at the cheapest end to etched brass and other materials examples of prototypically correct coaches at prices that start well above what Hattons are proposing.  And, apart from the Ratio kits which have wheels included, you also have to obtain wheelsets, provide glazing and fit interiors before painting and numbering.

 

So what is better?

 

A range of 4 and 6 wheel carriages that plausibly "look" like 19th C carriages should, in a range of attractive liveries that will accompany the slowly growing range of pre-grouping locomotives without looking entirely silly and at an affordable price,  encouraging non-specialists to enter the world of pre-grouping railways.

 

OR

 

Produce carriages following the design patterns of individual pre-grouping railway companies, with little commonality between them, to a high standard at commensurate prices, that the above non-specialist will reject as too expensive for their needs and therefore won't buy. 

 

Manufacturers have to take a view as to what will sell, which is what Hattons have done, and I applaud them for it, they even seem to be taking some suggestions on board.  Personally, I wouldn't be distressed beyond reason to see an LNWR Coal Tank pottering about a layout with a rake of Hattons 6 wheelers in LNWR livery, even at an exhibition. It would be a pre-grouping loco with pre-grouping carriages, doing things that would be done in a pre-grouping environment.

 

Its back to gentle education.  In the RTR pre-grouping era we're at the start of the same process that took us from those crude representation of post 1923 locomotives to what we get today.  Currently all that is available is the Hornby 4 wheeler, in a year or so's time we'll have the Hattons carriages and they will be bought and enjoyed for what they are.  And the larger group of railway modellers who don't build finescale rolling stock may start to ask for company specific RTR carriages, or may even be encouraged to have a go at a kit.  And iteratively, models to specific company designs might come along.

 

But we won't get there by rubbing peoples noses in their "failings" to appreciate the subtle differences between one companies carriages and anothers.  Lets have these "generic" 4 and 6 wheelers and let things grow from there.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Hroth

[Ravenser]

4 hours ago, uax6 said:

 

I think you have hit the nail there: The majority of modellers 'don't care'. They are happy to play trains with whatever they can get rtr, and don't want to develop their skills.

 

Andy G

(who does build his own)

 

What actually happens is documented here:

 

Ratio GW 4 wheelers as SECR 6 wheelers

 

NBR coaches

 

tarted up Hornby 4 wheeler

 

The continuing suggestions that a GW 4 wheeler is better  (morally and in terms of accuracy)  as a representation of a GE, GC, or GN 6 wheeler than these Hattons products will be  - is not sensible. What the LNER modeller needs is 6 wheelers...  The Hattons coaches look like they might provide a reasonable representation of GC and some GE 6 wheelers. They will be a damn sight better than hacking Bachmann Thomas clerestories

 

And I repeat - I hope someone will provide some suitable etched sides for them - in the Shirescenes style - to enable more types , and accurate types

Edited October 28, 2019 by Ravenser

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

What the LNER

 

WTL! 

[wombatofludham]

Reading the previous few posts I'm reminded of a great French poem I once saw on, of all places, a "Poems on the Dart" car-card in an Iarnrod Eireann 82xx unit (for those of you whose interests in railways ended when Queen Vic shuffled off this mortal coil, it's a modern electrickery Irish two car train) which was:

Le poète prétend
que le platane est en réalité
un grand oiseau.
Le philosophe dit :
"Le platane a des lois
que l'homme ne saurait comprendre."
Le prêtre dit :
"Un dieu habite le platane."
Et le platane, tous les ans, grandit, grandit,
sur les cadavres du poète,
du philosophe et du prédicateur.

Alain Bosquet

In other words related to this thread, you can debate the merits of this particular Plane tree to your heart's lack of content but all the time Hatton's will continue to grow the project on the dead bodies of all the arguments you want to raise.

For me, railway modelling is a pleasure.  Trying to hand knit valve gear or send myself blind trying to line out a LNWR dining car is not pleasure, it's a foul and un-natural torture that probably is banned by the Geneva Convention.  What's more I don't give a stuff if I'm accused of playing trains.  It's what I do.  Anyone else thinking otherwise is delusional.  Making veiled criticisms that anyone resorting to RTR is "lazy" or "don't care" is showing the same degree of intolerance and bigotry as the Taliban albeit in a less life threatening way.  Making such offensive judgements isn't going to stop Hatton's going ahead and frankly seeing as they are putting their money into something they clearly think is worth doing, or they risk losing more than a bit of face, it seems frankly rather pointless.

[Edwardian]

8 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

What actually happens is documented here:

 

Ratio GW 4 wheelers as SECR 6 wheelers

 

NBR coaches

 

tarted up Hornby 4 wheeler

 

The continuing suggestions that a GW 4 wheeler is better  (morally and in terms of accuracy)  as a representation of a GE, GC, or GN 6 wheeler than these Hattons products will be is not sensible. What the LNER

 

I agree.  When one considers how many perfectly respectable modellers have pressed the Ratio kits into service as something else, it seems unreasonable to criticise the Hattons' concept.  

 

There are a lot of Triang pseudo-GW clerestories running around as LNER clerestories, come to that!

 

To me, the Ratio kits generally betray their GWR origins in many ways, not least roof profile and moulded GW pattern grab handles.  The more generic Hattons coaches will have the advantage. 

[Ravenser]

13 hours ago, NCB said:

Only just got stuck into this thread. Wonder how many non-bogie coaches made it to British Railways in revenue service. Quite a few is my guess. Certainly the Tanat Valley line was running ex-GW 4 wheelers along with a Dean bogie brake until the passenger service ceased in 1954.

 

I like this project. For those modellers more interested in creating an overall scene, having typical, if generic, coaches available is a boon if they want to try pre-grouping. Stick the LNWR ones behind a Bachmann LNWR coal tank and they should look great, just the job for a North Wales branch, say.

 

Wonder if its possible to do a run of unpainted examples. Or even coaches knocked down as far as possible into their basic parts. Much easier to convert to something else.

 

My own wish would be for some in bronze green and white panelling, i.e. the Cambrian Railways!  Do a generic Sharps Stewart 0-6-0 based on the Cambrian ones as well.

 

Oh well, back to modelling ...

 

 

I am not sure much non-bogie stock made it to BR in revenue service.

 

On the Southern Area of the LNER just three lines - the Mid Suffolk, the Kelvedon and Tollesbury and the Thaxted line were still using them at Nationalisation. They were replaced with bogie stock by 1950 . These were very minor light railways. . The NE Area of the LNER was bogie-stock only by 1934 - and probably a few years earlier

 

The Tanat Valley is worth flagging , but outside miners trains it seems very few GW 4 wheelers were still in passenger service in 1948. They nearly all went in the mid 30s

 

That NBR thread suggests the Caledonian built 4 wheel stock in 1921 which lasted till 1952 - more info needed. Otherwise the ex NLR close-coupled sets went in 1938, and Historic Carriage Drawings LMS says that the ex MR 6 wheelers became extinct in the mid/late 30s

 

 

[Antony Farrell]

I found it amazing how close they are to the stock on the London, Buckingham and East Gloucester Railway. I don't think any purists would be able to tell; except of course the L B & E G C was never built. I do need to consider liveries for it though.

[Compound2632]

What about the Southern Railway? I've been looking at S&DJR rolling stock quite a bit lately. Once the carriage stock was divided between the Southern and LMS in 1930, the Southern condemned its share of the 6-wheelers immediately - with March 1930 being given as the withdrawal date for most of them, just a few hanging on until April 1932 (one branch or spare set?) [R. Garner, The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock Registers 1886-1930 (S&DRT, 2000)]. Such rapid action suggests that the Southern management regarded 6-wheelers as unfit for service - had they been eliminated from elsewhere on the Southern by this date?

[MarkSG]

20 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Yes, once we would have seen locomotives in suspect liveries, even at exhibitions, but RTR locomotives have progressed through the past 30 odd years from some pretty crude "representations" of their prototypes to what we get today, RTR locos that "finescale" modellers are perfectly happy to rewheel and put on their EM or P4 layouts.

 

Someone has already posted an image in this topic of a review of some N gauge locos in 1977 that were generic designs with different liveries applied, and the comment in the article that it doesn't really matter because you can't see detail in N. RTR, even in the smaller scales, has come on a lot since then and we wouldn't put up with that now, at least for locos. But, on the other hand, as again has been pointed out already, we continue to put up with PO wagon liveries on standard designs that probably didn't carry that particular livery in real life. Coaches are probably somewhere between those two extremes, we care more about them being historically accurate than we do PO wagons, but not quite as much as locos. But, even with wagons, the trend is towards greater accuracy, particularly specialist wagons such as horse boxes and cattle wagons.

 

If these coaches do sell well, then, I expect it will stimulate demand for more accurate models of genuine prototypes. But pre-grouping is very much a chicken and egg situation as far as manufacturers are concerned - is the lack of people modelling pre-grouping a reflection of the fact that few people are interested in the era, or are people being put off modelling pre-grouping because of a lack of products? The only way to test that is to dip a toe in the water, with a product that can be made relatively cheaply and sold at a good price.

[Ravenser]

5 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

I agree.  When one considers how many perfectly respectable modellers have pressed the Ratio kits into service as something else, it seems unreasonable to criticise the Hattons' concept.  

 

There are a lot of Triang pseudo-GW clerestories running around as LNER clerestories, come to that!

 

To me, the Ratio kits generally betray their GWR origins in many ways, not least roof profile and moulded GW pattern grab handles.  The more generic Hattons coaches will have the advantage. 

 

Its worth noting that 6 LNWR wheelers have been done twice - first by K's in whitemetal , then by LRM. The K's kits are long defunct and seemingly unregretted , and I don't see a lot of the LRM kits on layouts . More tellingly - Ratio have had a modest range of LNWR bogie stock for 30 years and I hardly ever see any built on layouts , either in magazines or at shows. I must have seen 10 Ratio MR coaches for every LNWR coach - if not 20. Since the LNWR stock was both numerous and very long lived (into the early 1950s) this is rather odd

 

(And yes I do have a "dog in the fight" in the case of "LNER brown"  LNWR Ratio coaches  , so I didn't really appreciate being told without evidence that LNER brown is a modeller's myth and the recognised reference books are worthless....)

 

But apart from LNWR where there is good support from LRM and some L&Y from LRM, there seem to be virtually no kits available for 6 wheelers in 4mm, from anyone (I think Mike Trice illustrated some lasercut GN 6 wheelers in a thread?)

 

The GW disliked 6 wheelers, were almost entirely committed to 4 wheelers, and have long been catered for.

The big inter-war operator of non-bogie  stock was the LNER - and after the GN and GE suburban 4 wheelers were culled in the mid 20s that stock was 90% 6 wheeled. But there aren't really any kits

The SR had 6 wheelers between the wars - how much survived electrification I'm not sure

 

The Hattons 6  wheelers are not going to be a resource for the committed LNWR modeller, but if you need a GC  or GE or SECR or LBSCR 6 wheeler they may be a useful resource. They may also be a reasonable approximation of MR arc-roof Bain 6 wheelers - someone who knows the LMS may comment , but I get the impression those were the main element of LMS non-bogie passenger stock. (The LNWR flirted with 42' 4 axle radial stock very early,  went to bogie coaches in the early 1890s , and had money to replace its coaching stock - how many ex LNWR 6 wheelers really made it to the LMS??)

 

I've done a Ratio 4 wheeler as a black Departmental coach for the 1950s - Departmental 4 wheeler but I had the vehicle knocking around in a box from my teens so it cost nowt , and if I'm honest a black 6 wheeler ex MSLR would be rather  more authentic and less of a stretch...)

 

I just don't see what kits for 6 wheelers people are going to be diverted from building. They don't exist

 

 

[PJT]

9 minutes ago, johnarcher said:

I'm not making a point, I wouldn't want these carriages but if others do that's up to them, but I do wonder (genuine question, not a sarcastic point) would that be as OK for people if the locomotive were not an LNW coal tank but a 'generic' tank engine in LNW livery (which you see at exhibitions in many other liveries)?

 

It's a very good question and one that's bang at the centre of the arguments that critics of the Genesis carriage project have been making. 

 

You've managed the task of asking the question without (in my opinion, anyway) causing offence or being seen to be arrogant.  The trouble is, the written word - or post - is there for ever for us to read again, analyse, pick apart and find offence in.  I suspect if some of these points were debated face to face, more would be taken in the right spirit because you could clearly see and hear that the speaker wasn't trying to be rude or arrogant - I think one or two of the very recent posts might well fall into this bracket. 

 

Unfortunately, one or two of the posts criticising the project are most definitely, clearly intended by the authors to be rude, arrogant and/or spitefully dismissive and as a result contribute not one iota to the debate other than deliberately souring the atmosphere and making rational debate more difficult. 

 

Now, my answer to your question is that I suspect most would not put up with a generic loco, whilst at the same time 'putting up with' generic carriages.  It's an obvious fact that many, many railway modellers, train set operators, call them what you will, are loco-centric.   It's the locos that matter most to an awful lot of us, often to the detriment of attention we perhaps should be paying to other equally interesting aspects of the railway.  But that's ok.  It's fine; enjoy your version of railway modelling as you will.  There are no rules as to how you derive your enjoyment from railway models.  Even collectors who never use their models (shock, horror) have a legitimate place in our world.  As a modelmaker that wouldn't be my idea of fun, but who am I to say others shouldn't collect things and never use them?  Live and let live. 

 

I count myself as having a foot in both camps in this debate.  I spend a lot of time kitbuilding, scratchbuilding and modifying rolling stock to create trains of the Isle of Wight in the 1950s and 60s.  I've also given in to temptation with several of the lovely pre-grouping liveried RTR locos that have come along in recent years and I'd like to run them occasionally on my railway, with stock that looks more appropriate than 1960s BR green carriages.  Without me having to divert huge amounts of money and/or time to build stock for what is really a sideline interest, I can purchase from Hattons more-or-less appropriate looking carriages.  I'll freely admit at this point that, from the Hattons illustrations, some pre-grouping liveries look more comfortable on the Genesis carriages than others. 

 

These carriages come at very reasonable prices, one of the crucial reasons for which is that they are generic in design and will require far less in time and other resources to get to market.  Hattons, as a professional business, will certainly have done viability studies into the project and judged that to develop a range of carriages specifically to take a wide range of pre-grouping liveries that still look period-authentic will cost them far less and be far more marketable than basing the carriages on actual prototypes from one railway and adjusting all sorts of other liveries to print onto them (with varying degrees of success).   That's why they'll have taken that route.  In so doing, they've come up with a product I'd like to buy to run occasionally with my impulsively purchased, beautifully finished RTR pre-grouping locos.

 

However, at the same time as I'm waiting for my Hattons Genesis carriages, I'll carry on buying, building and modifying Roxey Mouldings kits, Smallbrook kits,  etc., etc. for my 'real' railway...

 

Pete T.

 

 

   

[Ravenser]

On 27/10/2019 at 08:08, Pint of Adnams said:

On Grouping, the principal constituents contributed coaching stock as follows:

                                                                       Passenger                 Inc. NPCS

Great Central                                                 1700                         2727

Great Eastern                                                3907                         5548

Great Northern*                                            2607                         2639

Great North of Scotland                                453                           766

North British*                                                2358                         3576

North Eastern (inc. Hull & Barnsley)*^         3163                         4065

* Includes relative proportion of Joint Stock

^ Includes Tyneside Electrics

Data extracted from The Railway Year Book, 1923, based on the Official Annual Returns

 

For the sake of strict accuracy - is the total incl NPCS  shown above for the GN  correct , or is it a typo for 3639??  Given that the other companies had around 1000 NPCS apiece I am struggling to accept that the GN had only 32 NPCS vehicles. I suspect the ex GN 50' bogie vans alone must have been more numerous than that

[Ravenser]

2 hours ago, johnarcher said:

I'm not making a point, I wouldn't want these carriages but if others do that's up to them, but I do wonder (genuine question, not a sarcastic point) would that be as OK for people if the locomotive were not an LNW coal tank but a 'generic' tank engine in LNW livery (which you see at exhibitions in many other liveries)?

 

 

It will be interesting to see if LRM etched sides for 32' stock can be fitted to the Hattons body. That might be a route to explore - especially for LMS period 

[Dunsignalling]

5 hours ago, JohnR said:

 

What you mean is that will not actually BE right. And that is of course, indisputable. But what they look like to many people is that they will LOOK right. And it wont be that they "dont care". To many people, OO "looks right", the reason they dont model in P4 isnt because they dont care. 

 

Exactly. We all have our leanings toward (or away from) different aspects of the hobby and, when it comes to "caring", each of us evolves a hierarchy with what we really don't want to compromise on at the top, gradually descending to what we honestly aren't too bothered about at the bottom. Creating a model railway relies on a combination of four factors, space, money, time and skill. Choices and outcomes are decided by where we start and how we trade each against the others.    

 

For example, if dead scale track is your thing, and you don't have a house/railway room big enough, you can forget about creating a mainline layout on which you can run steam era express trains of equal authenticity from one place to another (cassettes only count as "places" in the imagination).

 

 Conversely, those who have operation at the top of their list will tolerate (to varying degrees) cramming two stations and a set of storage loops into a room 13' x 10', treat six-coach trains as crack expresses, and put up with No2 radius OO track because that's the price of getting as much as possible of the rest of what they want.   

 

Similarly, the coaches Hatton's have announced will provide many people with alternatives that they aren't currently offered in r-t-r. Pre-grouping, and Light Railways to mention but two. At normal layout viewing distances, most people can only pick out the most distinctive of features anyway, and those are exactly what Hatton's seem to be striving to avoid, LNW coaches without the trademark panelling style notwithstanding.

 

John

Edited October 28, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Clive Mortimore]

As a wanna be purist and a model railway bodger  the idea of "generic" stock of any sort is not appealing to me.   Unless I can make it into something representing a more prototypical railway vehicle.

 

For those who unlike me who want to see a train of coaches that represents something close to what they are portraying then these are going to be fantastic, no matter how wrong I and the likes of me say they are. Well done Hattons. 

 

if you don't like them don't buy them.   If you do like them have fun running them.

 

It is a fun hobby.

[Jol Wilkinson]

1 hour ago, wombatofludham said:

"For me, railway modelling is a pleasure.  Trying to hand knit valve gear or send myself blind trying to line out a LNWR dining car is not pleasure, it's a foul and un-natural torture that probably is banned by the Geneva Convention.  What's more I don't give a stuff if I'm accused of playing trains.  It's what I do.  Anyone else thinking otherwise is delusional.  Making veiled criticisms that anyone resorting to RTR is "lazy" or "don't care" is showing the same degree of intolerance and bigotry as the Taliban albeit in a less life threatening way.  Making such offensive judgements isn't going to stop Hatton's going ahead and frankly seeing as they are putting their money into something they clearly think is worth doing, or they risk losing more than a bit of face, it seems frankly rather pointless."

There is a rather nice, very well painted,  00 LNWR 14 wheel D9 diner on ebay at present, currently at £79:00. It'll go for more than that but if you really, really want one, it would be worth a shot.

 

The Hattons generic coaches will undoubtedly be a success at the prices proposed. They will be bought by those who want something "period" to run behind the pre-group locos they have bought and for whom availability is more important than accuracy and who don't want to build, paint and line their own models. That is the way the hobby is developing, into those that are happy (well, sometimes) with the offering of the RTR producers and those who are more focused on creating a model that satisfies their desire for a more prototypically accurate model where one isn't available off the shelf and so are willing to learn how to build and paint them.

 

 

[johnarcher]

1 hour ago, MarkSG said:

 

 

If these coaches do sell well, then, I expect it will stimulate demand for more accurate models of genuine prototypes. But pre-grouping is very much a chicken and egg situation as far as manufacturers are concerned - is the lack of people modelling pre-grouping a reflection of the fact that few people are interested in the era, or are people being put off modelling pre-grouping because of a lack of products? The only way to test that is to dip a toe in the water, with a product that can be made relatively cheaply and sold at a good price.

I do wonder about this aspect that some have suggested.

Maybe these will stimulate interest in pre-grouping (or, as some have suggested, my own favoured area, light railways), but is it really feasible that there will ever be a time when anyone could actually model a pre-grouping company realistically without at least some kit-building?

Surely there's too many of them, over too long a period for manufacturers to supply the necessary stock for that r-t-r?

(Unless, maybe, a big maker or two decided to concentrate specifically on one company)

[Wickham Green]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

What about the Southern Railway? I've been looking at S&DJR rolling stock quite a bit lately. Once the carriage stock was divided between the Southern and LMS in 1930, the Southern condemned its share of the 6-wheelers immediately - with March 1930 being given as the withdrawal date for most of them, just a few hanging on until April 1932 (one branch or spare set?) [R. Garner, The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock Registers 1886-1930 (S&DRT, 2000)]. Such rapid action suggests that the Southern management regarded 6-wheelers as unfit for service - had they been eliminated from elsewhere on the Southern by this date?

In a word YEP ! ..... I'm not sure how long non-bogie stock lasted on the Isle of Widget - but probably longer than on the 'North Island' where such vehicles as survived in traffic at grouping were soon mounted in pairs on electric chassis or flogged off as beach huts etc.

[wombatofludham]

1 minute ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

There is a rather nice, very well painted,  00 LNWR 14 wheel D9 diner on ebay at present, currently at £79:00. It'll go for more than that but if you really, really want one, it would be worth a shot.

 

The Hattons generic coaches will undoubtedly be a success at the prices proposed. They will be bought by those who want something "period" to run behind the pre-group locos they have bought and for whom availability is more important than accuracy and who don't want to build, paint and line their own models. That is the way the hobby is developing, into those that are happy (well, sometimes) with the offering of the RTR producers and those who are more focused on creating a model that satisfies their desire for a more prototypically accurate model where one isn't available off the shelf and so are willing to learn how to build and paint them.

 

 

I'd seen that but I think I'll decline.

For me the appeal of the "Generic" coaches is if the Precedent shown in the Hatton's formation listings does indeed get an official announcement at Warley (if I was a betting man that's my odds on favourite) it will allow me to backdate my LMS themed planned plank-to-plank to represent an earlier time, without much grief.  It won't be accurate, especially as I intend to use Dapol working LMS standard signals, but there again "Nefyn" on the Lleyn Peninsula never got a railway off the Caernarfon to Afon Wen line, nor did the Midland or Lancashire and Yorkshire get running rights to send excursions there. I will invoke Rule 1 (the rule of IMFR) and enjoy the delights of pretty Edwardian locos and coaches running an impossibly busy Summer holiday service with Metro levels of traffic into a small two track seaside terminus that never was.

Hell a Precedent and generic six wheelers might even turn up at Dolgellau which would really get me a Fatwa from the Finescale Mullahs.