A look at the Hawksworths

[Ozexpatriate]

It depends on which GWR era you are modelling. If it is the mid 1930s, then ask yourself what you would lose by moving the era to say 1951. You could avoid the 'orrible shirt button totem, but a lot of your coaches would still be in GWR choc and cream and you could add the Hawksworths. You could still run Stars and many of the old classes too, but slip in a Britannia just to annoy the locals!

Indeed I am on the sidelines wistfully watching you all enjoy the Hawksworths. They do indeed look fabulous and hopefully they will be a very successful offering from Hornby.

 

I made my choice not to stray past 1947, even though I will time warp a bit in the first half of the 20th century. I agree that the shirt button is quite 'orrible. It looks grand as a brass blazer button, but is quite lonely and lost on a Collett tender.

[Adrian Wintle]

Indeed I am on the sidelines wistfully watching you all enjoy the Hawksworths. They do indeed look fabulous and hopefully they will be a very successful offering from Hornby.

 

I made my choice not to stray past 1947, even though I will time warp a bit in the first half of the 20th century. I agree that the shirt button is quite 'orrible. It looks grand as a brass blazer button, but is quite lonely and lost on a Collett tender.

 

I'm in the same boat. I won't go past about 1942, and tend mostly towards 1933-38. I don't like the big letters on the tenders or the new style script and I do quite like the shirtbutton for some reason.

 

Adrian

[Brian Kirby]

Hi Everyone,

Those curtains just had to go, here are a couple i've done so far. The BCK now has pale blue curtains in first-class, light grey for third/second-class. I've also changed the gangways and couplings. I'll do a write-up and more pics in the Scratching and Kite Building Section.

Cheers, Brian.

 

[JZ]

I'll do a write-up and more pics in the Scratching and Kite Building Section.

Cheers, Brian.

 

 

I thought this was supposed to be a model railway forum;)

[Brian Kirby]

Brian Kirby writing concerning Hawksworth coaches : Would this be a kitehawk?

 

Well one of them's a Red Kite. BK

[Baby Deltic]

I couldn't resist a Hawksworth full brake in maroon to add to my parcels stock. Got mine today, cracking model.

 

[SRman]

Nice vids there, Baby Deltic.    I like your third and fourth rail as well and the general station modelling. What was that last parcels van in the train, please?

[Baby Deltic]

Nice vids there, Baby Deltic. I like your third and fourth rail as well and the general station modelling. What was that last parcels van in the train, please?

 

The last vehicle was a Chiver's LNER pigeon van.

[dibber25]

Just taken a brake compo to bits in order to start turning it into a slip coach. The clips that hold the body on, are part of the glazing and the glazing provides the rigidity for the rather thin body shell. I won't attempt to remove the glazing as I've no real need, but it looks to be VERY firmly glued in. As the underframe is the same, I guess the full brake will have the same glazing/assembly arrangement, just fewer actual windows. A lot may depend on luck as to how much glue has been used on an individual model. I reckon Maskol on the windows is the least risky way.

The assembly is a really tight clip fit - I used a sharp knife to ease the side out and slipped a small screwdriver in, levering gradually along the edge between body and solebar until one end suddenly came free. Even so, the other end proved near impossible and I broke one clip. Hope this helps.

CHRIS LEIGH

[Guest dilbert]

I'm in the same boat. I won't go past about 1942, and tend mostly towards 1933-38. I don't like the big letters on the tenders or the new style script and I do quite like the shirtbutton for some reason.

 

That shirtbutton motif on GW coaching stock (including the Brown vehicles) looks quite appropriate to mine eyes but doesn't have the same impact on GW locos (maybe it's the background colour that is at fault).

 

However, the shirtbutton is a very clever logo - that ferret on the dartboard logo has its origins from where?...dilbert

[nnich]

Can anyone tell me whether Hawksworth coaches would have been used on the Didcot Newbury and Southampton? I've mislaid my books on the line but I am fairly sure I've seen pictures of 2251's , City of Truro and T9's hauling them - in 3 car sets as I recall - on Southampton to Didcot trains

 

I'm sure someone here has the definitive answer! I'd also like to know what other coaches - Collets perhaps - would have been seen on this line in the mid 1950's

 

Norm

[dibber25]

Yes, most of the WR secondary services had Hawksworths and Colletts in their final days. They could, and did, turn up almost anywhere. I recall a very lively ride up the Cotswold line from Oxford to Chipping Campden on an all stations stopper formed of two Hawksworths pulled by a Hymek. A few weeks earlier the loco had been 73000 and earlier still 6868. The 1.25pm (SO) Oxford-Moreton-in-Marsh, one of the 'great secrets' of the WR at the time. Most other locals on that line were DMUs.

CHRIS LEIGH

[Brian Kirby]

Can anyone tell me whether Hawksworth coaches would have been used on the Didcot Newbury and Southampton?

 

Norm

 

Hi Norm,

Yes they would, but not necessarily as a uniform train, more likely a 3 or 4 coach rake with a mixture of Hawksworth and various Collett types. The different designs were freely mixed up and regarded as interchangeable. A four car train could be BTK/TK/CK/BTK of whichever coach you fancy.

Cheers, Brian.

[dibber25]

Looking back at GWR parcels stock - Part 2. (No. 30, April 2001). There's an Interesting photo of W314W, a Hawksworth full brake in lined maroon. (quote)

 

Ah, yes, a feature by my good friend John Senior, of Mopok kits. By curious coincidence, I plunged into a crate of stored material yesterday and cam up with two printed sheets of Mopok Hawksworth sides. There's three vehicles in GWR livery and a full brake in BR blue, so Mopok didn't shrink from putting Hawksworths in GWR livery. My quest was for the instructions from their Dynamometer Car kit (which I found). That and the slip coach will enable me to have two Hawksworths in Western Region brown and cream. Incidentally, one of the slips lasted long enough to get lined maroon livery, and it ran in ordinary service after slipping had ceased. Two slips, one maroon the other brown and cream, were used out of Taunton on the Chard line, along with other Hawksworths and Colletts.

CHRIS LEIGH

[Brian Kirby]

Hi Chris,

Did the Mopok Dynamometer Car have the said slogan already applied to the choc/cream printed sides or did one apply a set of transfers ? I seem to recall Mopok transfer sheets in my distant memory. Suitable transfers for the above would be very handy right now, although any surviving Mopok (or MTK !) transfer sheets are probably a bit past it by now.

Cheers, Brian.

[Miss Prism]

The earliest Hawksworth coach working on the DN&S I know of is 1952. Generally, they were rare on the line until 1956, and even then, they appeared only as a single Hawksworth in the (usually) 3-coach rake, the other two being early or late Colletts or even old Toplights. DN&S 3-coach trains were a brake 3rd or brake compo plus any two of compo, all 3rd and brake 3rd, subject to their being only one coach in the rake with 1st accomodation. In later days, the order of the coaches in the rake varied, often diverting from the 'classic' DN&S rake with the brake in the middle. The shifting nature of the actual makeup of the DN&S rakes reflected the availability of newer stock relieved from mainline duty, and anything suitable left in the west bay at Newbury was considered fair game.

 

P.S. Nice curtains, Brian. A complete improvement over Hornby's!

[nnich]

Chris Brian and Miss Prism

 

Many thanks!! A great excuse for me to buy a couple then

 

Norm

[Mikkel]

The case for modelling the DNS in the 1950s with RTR stock just keeps getting stronger - eg T9s, City of Truro, Collett Goods, 43xx/93xxs, and now Hawksworth coaches etc... Good stuff!

[SRman]

The last vehicle was a Chiver's LNER pigeon van.

 

Thanks.

[exet1095]

I've just come across an undated monochrome shot (probably circa 1950) of a 'Saint' 4-6-0 at Swansea hauling the following train : -

 

Hawksworth corridor brake third (blood & custard).

60' Collett corridor third (GWR 1945 double waist choc & cream with BR insignia.

57' Collett corridor third (blood & custard).

57' Collett corridor brake third (wartime all over brown).

 

Unusual for the train to have no first class accommodation, bur this is just the sort of photo I like to see as I try to model WR trains based on photographs and tied-in with the carriage working notices.

 

Was the brown coach sporting a line on the waist? I was thinking of painting a couple of vehicles in this livery (maybe a C54 TK and a Toplight TK), but wondered about lining, and whether the droplights should still be in maroon.

 

Cheers,

 

Paul

[iak]

So the war time livery lasted that long on some stuff then?

Hmmmmmmmmmm......

[exet1095]

Thanks Larry. I shall scour all of my photographic books to see if I can find any other pictures of stock clearl in brown and with a Wxxxx number visible. It will certainly make the painting easier! (If I assume the droplights are brown too - if not, I had better go for a C77 "Sunshine" coach instead...) I wonder if the brown was the same as the normal brown used with cream? Didcot have a coach which is painted brown on one side Diagram E.158 Number 7313, with a single 1/2" red line at the waist. It looks much redder, certainly then that on other vehicles there, but this might be because that was all the paint they could find. It certainly is quite an attractive livery

 

Best,

 

Paul

[iak]

And a dodge for modellers with dodgy airbrush technique

L plate holders please form an orderly cue.

Spraying one colour please to start with children................

Ahem - he says looking sheepish

[exet1095]

And if anyone knows the closest Halfords match for the GWS coach then please let me know

[90rob]

The case for modelling the DNS in the 1950s with RTR stock just keeps getting stronger - eg T9s, City of Truro, Collett Goods, 43xx/93xxs, and now Hawksworth coaches etc... Good stuff!

 

Yes been trying to get round to it for a year now. It is just a question of space....

 

Probably a good subject for a new topic if anyone wants to start it....?