OO Gauge GWR Toplight Mainline & City Coaches announced

[Edwardian]

30 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Wouldn't say no. Wouldn't be the first 1870s loco to make it to RTR.

 

Is there even a kit of one available these days? 

 

There was a (Wills? Ks?) white metal Small Metro.  Some Large Metros made it down to Newton Abbot, IIRC, by the '30s.

[Miss Prism]

1 minute ago, Edwardian said:

Is there even a kit of one available these days? 

 

Not for a large Metro. Roxey was going to do one, but I don't think it ever materialised.

 

4 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Large Metros made it down to Newton Abbot, IIRC, by the '30s.

 

Here's a small one at Newton. I'll keep my eye out for large ones. (Most of the surviving Metros got dispersed to various parts of the system after their London work was overtaken by those brutish large prairies.)

 

[Edwardian]

10 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Not for a large Metro. Roxey was going to do one, but I don't think it ever materialised.

 

 

Umm, as I thought.

 

10 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Here's a small one at Newton. I'll keep my eye out for large ones. (Most of the surviving Metros got dispersed to various parts of the system after their London work was overtaken by those brutish large prairies.)

 

 

Ooh, that's interesting, thanks. Must check my 1935 list to see what's there.

[melmoth]

There is photo of a large Metro at Taunton, post-World War II, with "G W R" markings in (I think) Michael H C Baker's "Steam on the Western: The Final Decades (Ian Allan, 2010, isbn 0711034923)

[Kickstart]

On 30/11/2022 at 11:52, The Stationmaster said:

PS    I understand from talking to 'someone in the trade' at the Warley Show on Sunday that there is a new way of applying livery detail such as lining etc.  It has been used so far on one model and the results are pretty staggering compared with the usual approach of tampo printing etc but at present it is very expensive technology so will take time to become the everyday way of doing the job.

 

There are inkjet printers that can print onto a patterned surface like the side of a coach or wagon.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[The Johnster]

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

I think that a fair conclusion.  Of course, if you buy them in any of the liveries representing the 1921-1939 period, which may well be the most popular, and you don't buy six of them to run in a set, then you are effectively running a freelance train.

 

Indeed, as their small, tube tunnel friendly dimensions make them so different from what the GWR ran elsewhere, if you take a definition of freelance that is "prototypical, even if not matching a particular prototype", as opposed to meaning "anything goes", then the use of these coaches outside their very specific settings is not even that. It's gone beyond any notion of credible freelance and is rather pure Rule No.1, and you may as well couple them up to City of Truro  for a laugh.

 

As you suggest, that will not be an obstacle to the acquisitive majority, and that's probably just as well!

 

 

Looks a stunning setting, should make for an impressive model.  I am assuming your set would be plain brown? But what luck to have an excuse to use these. 

 

 

No, it'll be be based on the Glyncorrwg miner's train, the last use of these coaches in service and a 3-car set with a droplight cut into the leading BT (the train was propelled to the pits from Glyncorrwg) slip coach style for the guard to keep a good lookout from.  He also had an autotrailer type bell to frighten the sheep with.  These coaches were allocated to the service after the pithead baths at the pits were opened in 1957 and given plain maroon livery, so they were kept clean, unlike their clerestory and 4-wheeler predecessors on which any form of livery or the numbers were indiscernable under the filth.  I'll prolly buy two (more would be overkill) in plain maroon for my miners' workmans, a BT and a T, and might even include the psuedo-slip coach window and bell on the basis that the vehicles are capable of being used at Glyncorrwg, only two valleys northwest over from Cwmdimbath.

 

Dapol are missing a trick in not tooling for a Glyncorrwg BT; it would stimulate interest in the branch and no doubt be the genesis of many layouts based loosely on this line, which would attract ridicule at most exhibitions due to it's sheer improbability.  The stations and collieries are almost tailor-made for limited space layouts, and most of it could be contained in a foot or so width to scale!!!

[Edwardian]

Apropos of nothing strictly relevant to this topic, I thought I would mention that behind the scenes Natalie and I have reconciled our differences - my thanks to her for reaching out - and all is now sweetness and light in Great Western land. 

 

My further thoughts were, if there were 9 six-coach sets (one a spare), presumably they would have been repainted on a rotational basis. If all out-shopped in crimson lake, they might not have worn 1922 fully-lined chocolate and cream for very long and I wonder if all of them did? I haven't yet seen any photographs of the prototypes in this livery, but then I have not any coverage of these save for the standard reference works. I can well imagine that, at any given time, a good proportion of this stock was in the previous livery. 

 

Presumably, then, the way to attain Ultimate Glory with these coaches is to buy six in each livery so that a prototypical set can be formed and have two sets in overlapping liveries, say lake plus lined chocolate and cream or the latter plus plain chocolate and cream. I mean, if you are going to have these coaches, why not go the whole hog?

 

A future full of Large Metros, Birdcages and County tanks hoves into view.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Edwardian
spelling

[Craigw]

I still think this Metro would be a better one to do.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[1466]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Apropos of nothing strictly relevant to this topic, I thought I would mention that behind the scenes Natalie and I have reconciled our differences - my thanks to her for reaching out - and all is now sweetness and light in Great Western land. 

 

My further thoughts were, if there were 9 six-coach sets (one a spare), presumably they would have been repainted on a rotational basis. If all out-shopped in crimson lake, they might not have worn 1922 fully-lined chocolate and cream for very long and I wonder if all of them did? I haven't yet seen any photographs of the prototypes in this livery, but then I have not any coverage of these save for the standard reference works. I can well imagine that, at any given time, a good proportion of this stock was in the previous livery. 

 

Presumably, then, the way to attain Ultimate Glory with these coaches is to buy six in each livery so that a prototypical set can be formed and have two sets in overlapping liveries, say lake plus lined chocolate and cream or the latter plus plain chocolate and cream. I mean, if you are going to have these coaches, why not go the whole hog?

 

A future full of Large Metros, Birdcages and County tanks hoves into view.

 

 

Good to hear that differences have been reconciled. Life  is too short . Well done , Natalie , for taking the initiative and well done Edwardian.

[Neal Ball]

12 hours ago, Craigw said:

I still think this Metro would be a better one to do.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

 

As I understand it - Metro tanks are as tricky to do as Toplight carriages... There are lots of them to a standard design, but they were all different.

 

A small or large Metro or a 517 class would be very nice.

[melmoth]

I'm reading George Behrend's 'Gone With Regret' again and there is another photo (plate 77 in my edition) of a large Metro at Taunton - 3581, with a roundel on its side tank, in 1936.

 

 

[Coach bogie]

19 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Not for a large Metro. Roxey was going to do one, but I don't think it ever materialised.

 

 

Mine is from Rod Neep who drew up the etches only (he did a small metro as well). The only source I know. The castings had to be obtained from SEF or made. The front spring is scratch built. As you say The Roxey one never came through, though I suspect it would have been from the Neep films.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

 

As I understand it - Metro tanks are as tricky to do as Toplight carriages... There are lots of them to a standard design, but they were all different.

 

A small or large Metro or a 517 class would be very nice.

 

But, again, if you know the prototypes and make sensible choices with regard to how your model breaks down and the number of tooling slides you could afford, a number of the more common variants are possible. When I actually looked closely at the 517 and compared it with how the physical variants on the Dapol/Rails Terrier were catered for (a reasonable comparison in that far more physical variations were catered for than in the Oxford version sold by Hornby), it struck me as entirely possible. You don't have to cater for every variant in order to achieve a reasonable coverage of a class. 

 

Not that I am accusing you of this (!) but I do think the '517 is too difficult' is an over-simplification of the problem, though actually I suspect there is a valid point to be teased out of it!

 

There are some real reasons why the class might not be viable; would you sell enough of each variant produced? A very real issue because the class does not have the same (over-used word) 'iconic' popularity as a Terrier and has no BR constituency. In other words, a degree of tooling variation justified in the case of a really popular subject like the Terrier might not be justified for a different subject. It's the complexity relative to the perceived sales that is really the issue, I think.  So, even if you were persuaded that you could sell X-thousand 517s overall despite there being no BR ones, you may need to break that down into several physically distinct versions to get the era coverage necessary to make up the target sales. That at some point becomes uneconomical unless you can sell more of each variant to pay for the extra tooling slides you'd need, The problem is that it does not follow that you would sell the Y thousands of each physical variant you'd need to justify the cost of the tooling suite.  

 

This is why I don't criticise manufacturers for the choices they make, as a rule. I might think in some instances they are being too timid or drawing the wrong conclusions, and I occasionally annoy them by pointing it out, but not often. The failure of Model Rail to include even one GER version of its J70 seemed a clear and obvious example to me, but I cannot actually think of any others. Many such missed opportunities came before the market had matured enough to justify the risk and manufacturers and retailers must be left to weigh up commercial risk on a case by case basis. Yes, there is a point to be made that you will only get better sales from, say, an earlier period to the extent you lead by supporting that period*, but in this chicken and egg world, I'm funding neither the chicken nor the egg, and I have to respect the decisions of those who are. 

 

* We might speculate what might happen if, say, manufacturers came together to support the pre-Grouping scene the way they have lavished resources on their novel TT 1:120 ranges. Now, one might think a new scale/gauge offering redundant. One might mourn the failure to revive the traditional 3mm scale with TT gauge nostalgia option. One might think 1:120 scale and 12mm gauge sub-optimal. One might conclude that genuine 3mm scale 14.2mm gauge might have been worth looking into as sufficiently distinct from both 4mm and 2mm. One might, therefore, dismiss 1:120 scale as redundant body-positive N Gauge**. If one advanced any of these views, I could point out that one must respect the fact that seemingly these manufacturers, simultaneously, yet independently and coincidentally, and in no sense in any sort of cartel, all identified that a new scale gauge was viable and that it was best for it to be 1:120 scale and 12mm gauge. It's their money, they call these shots.  

 

** Other opinions are available. 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Edwardian
grammar

[Madreddog]

I think if a Metro tank were to be made it would have to be almost generic. There are so many variations it would be damn near impossible to settle on one unless... the last batch from 1899. Some from that batch that hobbled in to 1949. Others from the 1894 and 1892 batches also survived WW2.

 

https://brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=class&id=124052&type=S&page=fleet

 

There are a few surprises in the above list like some of the 1869 batch lasting until 1934. Still, some reading for you guys!

Edited December 2, 2022 by Madreddog

[darthmh]

I've got the Dean Sidings Metro kit in my to do pile.  I've never seen a picture of one build so im presuming there a bit of a Sod to do.  Im sure the moment i start they will release a RTR version 100% better than anything i can build.

[Edwardian]

15 minutes ago, darthmh said:

I've got the Dean Sidings Metro kit in my to do pile.  I've never seen a picture of one build so im presuming there a bit of a Sod to do.  Im sure the moment i start they will release a RTR version 100% better than anything i can build.

 

Phoenix-Precision have the following advisory regarding the Dean Sidings range:

 

Resin Kits

Whilst the last two years have not been the best, we have not entirely forgotten about the Dean Sidings problems. As the report below states, in April 2019 we placed an order for a small batch of the 'Lochgorm Tank' , with the intention to reintroduce the range bit by bit. After four months of waiting, a lot of excuses and other problems, we eventually cancelled the order and had the masters returned to ourselves.

 

We were just about in the position to make some decisions and make and anouncement when we went into lockdown and the day to day work increased by about 250%.

 

We are now in a position to announce that we are going to redo the parts of the range that have not been produced, or scheduled for production, in ready to run form as 3d printed bodies in either HIPS (polystyrene) or ABS plastic. The major advantage of this type of production is that we will not have to carry large amounts of stock items that we do not know if they will sell and we will be able to produce a much large range of prototypes from the Welsh Valley lines, Furness, GSWR, LT&S etc. (including the Baltic tanks)

 

We will post more as we have more information.

 

February 7th 2022

 

No update since, but the list of those kits they seem to offer include the Metro and the County tank. 

 

[Welchester]

6 hours ago, darthmh said:

I've got the Dean Sidings Metro kit in my to do pile.  I've never seen a picture of one build so im presuming there a bit of a Sod to do.  Im sure the moment i start they will release a RTR version 100% better than anything i can build.

 

I had RTR version from Mr Dean Sidings (Dave Slater). One problem is that because an 0-4-2 chassis is used, the brake linkage is back to front. The wrong number is entirely my fault (3561 was a large metro). It ran nicely, but I sold it with my other OO stuff when I moved to 7mm.

[darthmh]

16 hours ago, Welchester said:

 

I had RTR version from Mr Dean Sidings (Dave Slater). One problem is that because an 0-4-2 chassis is used, the brake linkage is back to front. The wrong number is entirely my fault (3561 was a large metro). It ran nicely, but I sold it with my other OO stuff when I moved to 7mm.

Thanks for sharing.  looks great,  I think i will crack on with mine in the new year.

[tomparryharry]

A large Metro would be ideal. At one time or another, 2 of these little chaps were shedded at Llantrisant. Now, if I can snare that flying pig, I'd happily have an ex-TVR trailer, and/or railcar 18.

 

I can dream, dammit! 

[1466]

5 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

A large Metro would be ideal. At one time or another, 2 of these little chaps were shedded at Llantrisant. Now, if I can snare that flying pig, I'd happily have an ex-TVR trailer, and/or railcar 18.

 

I can dream, dammit! 

Whilst skimming through Shapeway , I saw a printed body for the Lambourn railcar number18 . I’m not clear on what mechanics and or underpinnings are required. 
Hope this is helpful but realise it’s a long way from RTR .

[tomparryharry]

58 minutes ago, 1466 said:

Whilst skimming through Shapeway , I saw a printed body for the Lambourn railcar number18 . I’m not clear on what mechanics and or underpinnings are required. 
Hope this is helpful but realise it’s a long way from RTR .

 

I've deliberated buying the Shapeways model many, many times. Also, the Western autocoaches. I understand that the model requires a Lima chassis for the main part. Modelling here is totally on stop, so I've only purchasing RTR. 

[Coppercap]

Seems these were still in use in the London area in 1957 (Sloughborough, aka Uxbridge Vine Street) and used in the film "The Smallest Show on Earth"):

[The Johnster]

On 05/12/2022 at 22:25, tomparryharry said:

A large Metro would be ideal. At one time or another, 2 of these little chaps were shedded at Llantrisant. Now, if I can snare that flying pig, I'd happily have an ex-TVR trailer, and/or railcar 18.

 

I can dream, dammit! 

I’d be up for a TVR trailer as well, or two actually since what I’d want would be one of the gangwayed twin sets allox Tondu for the Porthcawl branch.  One of these survived until 1957 in plain maroon livery.  A lot of dreaming going on in South Wales!

 

[tomparryharry]

Ah yes, just a dream. 

 

Now, if the drawing(s)  for the trailer cars exist, then it's only a matter of time..... 

[The Johnster]

There are drawings in  John Lewis 'Great Western Auto Trailers (constituent/absorbed & GW all-steel trailers)' vol.2, which I haven't got though I do have a well thumbed vol.1.  Not sure about the bogies, think they were Fox.  These coaches have very large square windows something like a conservatory or greenhouse on rails, and I imagine any RTR attempt, unlikely though it is, would have the main structural element of the coach body in clear plastic and the body sides as overlays on top of it, which is why I can't see them being 3D printed. 

 

I've even got some vague notion of having a go at scratching a set, which would be based on a clear plastic structure, but this needs a very large and slow-to-arrive Round Tuit...