OO Gauge GWR Toplight Mainline & City Coaches announced

[Miss Prism]

Set 1 - 1920-22
Set 2 - 1922-27
Set 3 - 1928-34
Set 4 - 1934-42
Set 5 - 1942-43
Set 6 - 1949-57
 

But as noted earlier in the thread, I doubt whether all these liveries were applied.

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

Set 1 - 1920-22
Set 2 - 1922-27
Set 3 - 1928-34
Set 4 - 1934-42
Set 5 - 1942-43
Set 6 - 1949-57
 

But as noted earlier in the thread, I doubt whether all these liveries were applied.

 

 

And each date range comes with a + x, where x is the number of years before repainting into the next livery. What's the last date for crimson lake vehicles in traffic? One would imagine vehicles new in 1920 would hardly be front of the queue for repainting in 1922/3, but would they last to 1928?

[Craigw]

39 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

And each date range comes with a + x, where x is the number of years before repainting into the next livery. What's the last date for crimson lake vehicles in traffic? One would imagine vehicles new in 1920 would hardly be front of the queue for repainting in 1922/3, but would they last to 1928?

 

The GWR put in a fairly concerted effort to apply the 1922-1923 livery. I am fairly sure that an article has made mention of them allocating extra funding for it. I don't recall seeing much in the way of crimson lake livery stock from the mid 1920s. Thankfully, I am modelling the early 1920s so crimson lake it is. Just to keep on topic, my card was hit over last weekend but my order is still showing as a preorder. I am kind of used to a world where you get charged for something when it is dispatched.

 

Craig W

 

[Miss Prism]

Last crimson lake pic I know of is c 1928 (a single large 70' toplight iirc). In the mid- to late-20s however, the GWR Board provided extra funds for coach repaints, in an effort (it seems to me) to make things look modern, which I think equates to getting rid of over-elaborate lining. So the normal repainting intervals were not observable in the way they had been before. Full lining had almost completely disappeared after 1930.

 

I have posted pics of brown and cream repaints of this stock earlier in this thread (see here and here), but Dapol knows, as do all the manufacturers, they can produce liveries with impunity. Collectors will lap them up, even where there is no evidence of a particular prototype livery era being actually applied to prototype stock. If I was Dapol, I'd do a Hattons and produce them in all sorts of non-GWR liveries - they would still sell like hot cakes.

 

I'm usually very critical of manufacturers (especially Hornby, who do tend to take liberties) applying fictional liveries to stock, but I guess I'm softening in my dotage.

 

 

Edited February 27 by Miss Prism

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

If I was Dapol, I'd do a Hattons and produce them in all sorts of non-GWR liveries - they would still sell like hot cakes.

 

I did like the question whether these carriages survived to the 1970s, when Dapol were showing samples molded in blue plastic - or possibly just blue CAD renders.

[rembrow]

On 25/02/2024 at 13:10, gwrrob said:

 

As a fan of these couplings any chance of a photo between the two coaches please @rembrow

Hope these will be of use. I have not painted the sides of the magnet housing yet.

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, rembrow said:

Hope these will be of use. I have not painted the sides of the magnet housing yet.

 

That's not exactly close coupling, is it? I would understand close coupling to be replication of the prototype distance between carriage ends, at least on the straight. Are these models fitted with a cam mechanism for the NEM socket, to allow greater distance between headstocks on curves, as is now standard from other manufacturers?

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Tim Dubya said:

Nope, couplings just fit straight into the bogies.

 

That's rather retro!

[Tim Dubya]

38 minutes ago, rembrow said:

Hope these will be of use. I have not painted the sides of the magnet housing yet.

 

Are there any shorter versions?  I don't do curves (of any significance) so will most likely use the supplied bar type coupling, but I can see that this would annoy the pants off of me if I did 😬

 

[Free At Last]

58 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 Are these models fitted with a cam mechanism for the NEM socket, to allow greater distance between headstocks on curves, as is now standard from other manufacturers?

 

Yes.

[Tim Dubya]

7 hours ago, Free At Last said:

 

Mine Don't...

 

Should have gone to Specsavers 😳🤣

 

 

 

Edited February 28 by Tim Dubya

[rembrow]

1 hour ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Are there any shorter versions?  I don't do curves (of any significance) so will most likely use the supplied bar type coupling, but I can see that this would annoy the pants off of me if I did 😬

 

That is the shortest I could find, 7mm from the nem fitting to the front of the magnet. I wasn't seeking close coupling, but closer coupling than using bar and hook nem couplings, while being able to uncouple readily.

You may be able to reduce the gap by shortening the magnetic coupling. I've done it before by sawing close to the nem prongs and then cutting off some of the bar left in front of the magnet box, regluing with cyano (needed as the material is 3d printed).

 

 

 

Edited February 28 by rembrow

[gwrrob]

There's a video on You Tube now shewing the removal of the roof and running of these. I didn't realise you get a selection of the bar couplings depending on your tightest curves , although no mention in the destructions.

 

 

Edited February 28 by gwrrob
info.

[Andy Keane]

On 19/07/2022 at 08:37, coeurdelyon said:

Hi Neal,

On the G W R Chocolate and cream carriages, the tail lamp will be red, whilst the All brown and Crimson will have white tail lamps.

Regards,

Richard

Having just gotten my lined crimson coaches the tail lamps are indeed white. But I thought this livery was for 1912–1922 and thus should have red lamps?

[markw]

Stumbled across these photos.

https://hmrs.org.uk/-abg806--48--staff-coach-br-w3756w-xgw-tbn-diag-d62-at-skewen-r3l-no-3755-beyond---see-abg807.html

 

https://hmrs.org.uk/-abg807--48--staff-coach-br-w3755w-xgw-tbn-diag-d62-at-skewen-r3l-part-3756-right---see-abg806.html

 

https://hmrs.org.uk/-abg808--20t-grain-van-br-w42237-at-plymouth-millbay-f3r.html

 

Photos and descriptions for abg807 and abg808 are jumbled up.

[The Johnster]

I must wait until Friday to see how much funnymoney I have after the rent is paid (don't ask) before ordering my Rule 1 brake 3rd to use on the miners' workmans at Cwmdimbath.  I'm umming and ahhing over whether to go for 1945-7 choc/cream or 1948-56 crimson.  I suppose it depends on the backstory; I've proposed a set broken up after blast damage from a V2, which would suggest a repaint before transfer to South Wales in the 1945-7 livery, along with stripping out the upholstery for workmans duties, but of course I probably won't be able to easily remove the upholstery on the model.  If I can, I will, leaving one compartment as a 'clean' for office and management.  The upholstery on miners' stock was removed and the seats left as wooden benches before pithead baths were installed and the men came home dirty, so that the compartments could be cleaned by hosing out. 

 

The alternative would be to order a BR crimson, set Rule 1 damaged in shunting sideswipe accident at Old Oak or Southall, but the same upholstery problem applies.  If the upholstery is allowed to remain, the coach must be used in general service and not on a miners' workmans, but my feeling is that this is pushing Rule 1 further than I am comfortable with (yes, I know, my approach to Rule 1 is inconsistent and illogical, captain).  These coaches are lit so it's important to get the interiors right.  Actually, since the upholstery issue is the same whichever livery I choose, it is not connected to the livery issue.  Writing stuff down does help to order my thought processes sometimes.

 

Ok, here's the plan, dependent on cash available Friday buy a BT, livery decision deferred until order, maybe defer altogether if a 1942-5 austerity brown version is in the offing.  Once coach is in my sweaty piggy little hands, investigate removal of upholstery from all bar one compartment.  If removal is difficult/impossible without damage to model, which I suspect it will be if the upholstery is moulded with the seating, the options are to remove the seating and make my own compartment dividers and benches, or to attempt to disguise the upholstery to represent wooden benches, or to assume that Dimbath Deep Navigaion no.2 Pit already has pithead baths installed, in which case the men go home clean in their own clothes and the upholstery can be left as it is. 

 

This has censequonces (really, autospell allowed that!) at the colliery, where a building is modelled under constrution as a baths and canteen as a plausible excuse for incoming goods traffic to the colliery of building materials for it.  If the coach is fully upholstered, logic demands that this will have to be replaced by a completed building and that traffic abandoned; plausible, if one assumes pithead bathing available from, say, 1952 on. The background history to this is that the NCB, on formation in 1947, undertook to provide pithead baths and canteens at all pits, and made good on their word everywhere over the next 15 years or so.  Thus, if one takes the example of the Glyncorrwg miners' trains, which is the inspiration for a Mainline & City toplight appearing at Cwmdimbath in the first place, the upholstery was stripped from the Daen 4-wheelers that were used 194?-53 and the Dean clerestories used from 1953-1958 (both the last of their types in service), and the stock in very dirty condition, but the pithead baths were available from 1958 when the Mainline & City 3-coach set in plain maroon livery turned up, resulting in the upholstery being left in and the coaches kept in clean and smart condition. 

 

I am proposing an earlier Rule 1 transfer of a surplus M&C BT from a broken to Tondu C&W, so must take the colliery's provision of bathing faclities into account.  If there are pithead baths, then a coach from normal public service can be used, the only reason the M&Cs were used at Glyncorrwg was that there was no public service train in that valley after 1935.  And I won't be able to make a decision regarding representing stripped out upholstery until I have a model in my sweaty little piggies.  Hence the umming and ahhing.  Sensible thing to do is not to buy an M&C BT that never appeared at Tondu anyway, but since when does sensible count for anything...

 

First world problems, eh?

[Tim Dubya]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I won't be able to make a decision regarding representing stripped out upholstery...

 

Can't you just paint the seating or does the moulding give it away, even with it full of dirty Welsher's on their way home?

 

Edited February 28 by Tim Dubya
tea

[Tim Dubya]

Well..... a bit like Panniers, the correct number to have is always one more than you've got 😜

 

 

 

This one has wiggly coupling thingies too 🤭... I actually bothered to look this time 🤔

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

dirty Welsher's on their way home?

 

2 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Can't you just paint the seating or does the moulding give it away, even with it full of dirty Welsher's on their way home?

 

 

Possibly; I will need to examine the model before the way forward is clear.  A bench with stripped out upholstery is plain wood, on top of which the sprung cushion rests, and the cushion is about 9" thick at the front tapering to about 6" at the back, 3mm tapering to 2mm in 4mm scale.  And the dimples would have to be filled in.  Then there is the back cushion, tapers from 3" at the top to next to nothing at the bottom, also needs removal to represent stripped out upholstery.  The wooden benches and backs were then varnished to seal them for hose washing to get rid of the coal dust.

 

The nature of things is that the easiest to deal with, the backrests, are the most visible through the windows, while the chunkier seat cushions are below the bottoms of the windows relatively out of sight, but my instinct at the moment is that a wood-painted piece of plasticard sitting on the top of the moulded cushion will look wrong, sitting too high.  The way to proceed is probably to remove the Dapol seat/compartment divider moulding and build new interiors from plasticard.  Can't hide the seats with dirty Welshers on their way home because the pit halt at which they detrain to go to work and retrain to go home is down the line a little and off-scene; the train as it appears on the layout is ecs that comes up to the terminus to run around before its return journey down the valley, the running around and loco taking water conveniently filling in the time between shifts.

 

As for dirty Welshers on their way home, it is difficult to imagine now what a huge improvement in everybody concerneds' lives it was when they stopped doing this.  The lady of the house, wife, sister, daughter, aunt, whoever, had the task of providing a tin bath full of hot water from cauldrons on the iron stove, which took hours and was heavy physical work, and for the washtub as well.  The miner would come home, strip his clothes for the washtub, and climb into the tin bath in front of the kitchen range fire, which had to be kept going througout the year for this purpose regardless of the cost of the fuel (very few pit allowed concession coal in pre-NCB days), kids, neighbours kids, neigbours, the odd sheep wandering in and out at will; this activity would cause any modern social worker to have kittens!  If there was more than one underground worker in the home, providing water and washing clothes was virtually a full-time job for mam, and heavy labour at that, and she had to clean the house, buy and cook the dinner, and wash up as well... 

 

Not just in South Wales of course, as there were at the same time equally dirty East and West Midlanders, Yorkshiremen, Lancastrians, Geordies, Co.Durhamers, Scots, North Walians, and Men of Kent (or were they Kentish Men, can't remember which way around it is now), along with not a few in North Somerset, the Forest of Dean, and South Gloucestershire as well, and that's just in the UK.  The nationalisation of the coal industry was not simply a matter of bringing the industry into public ownership in the name of political ideology, it was at the root of a very significant and highly successful social reform which greatly improved the standards of living of miners and the people of the towns and villages they lived in.  The removal of the onerous task of heating so much water, the incessant clothes washing (the mens' work overalls were now laundered at the pits), and the provision of concession coal made life a lot easier for the men who dug the stuff and their families and communities. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Garethp8873]

On 27/02/2024 at 20:36, Miss Prism said:

Set 1 - 1920-22
Set 2 - 1922-27
Set 3 - 1928-34
Set 4 - 1934-42
Set 5 - 1942-43
Set 6 - 1949-57
 

But as noted earlier in the thread, I doubt whether all these liveries were applied.

 

 

Cheers, my aim is to focus on Set's 3, 4 and 5. Possibly 2 but I doubt it.

[sjrixon]

18 hours ago, rembrow said:

That is the shortest I could find, 7mm from the nem fitting to the front of the magnet. I wasn't seeking close coupling, but closer coupling than using bar and hook nem couplings, while being able to uncouple readily.

You may be able to reduce the gap by shortening the magnetic coupling. I've done it before by sawing close to the nem prongs and then cutting off some of the bar left in front of the magnet box, regluing with cyano (needed as the material is 3d printed).

 

 

 

Their shortest is 7, so total about 14 total between coaches.. The longest bar in the box is about 12mm.  

 

The mechanism is pretty good, R2 curves are ok, it's pretty tight and I had to push one set of buffers a little to free them up as they do clash. That said, I think I'll swap to magnets as am really not a fan of the fixed bar, I can't take them on and off the layout easily.

[rembrow]

12 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

Well..... a bit like Panniers, the correct number to have is always one more than you've got 😜

 

 

 

This one has wiggly coupling thingies too 🤭... I actually bothered to look this time 🤔

You are now trapped, two will become three and on and on.

[Tim Dubya]

57 minutes ago, rembrow said:

You are now trapped, two will become three and on and on.

 

Well it does have too many 1st class compartments...

[rembrow]

1 hour ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Well it does have too many 1st class compartments...

But are they? They have no 1st class door markings, so we're the composites declassified to All 2nd in their final years with BR.

[Tim Dubya]

7 minutes ago, rembrow said:

But are they? They have no 1st class door markings, so we're the composites declassified to All 2nd in their final years with BR.

 

Good question and one I don't really know the answer to.  I did notice the lack of class designations and assumed that these were declassified by the 1950's.

 

Anyway I need to start saving for the corridor LSWR coaches coming from ??? and for a couple of toplight corridors. 😁