Detailing an old Tri-ang clerestory coach

[NZRedBaron]

I picked up an old LNER liveried Tri-ang clerestory coach at a swapmeet last year, and I've decided I want to get it into a better state; that'd mean replacing the old bogies with modern ones, repainting the body to be less plastic-y, and fitting seats inside.

 

I'm thinking to start with the seats first, as that seems the most straight-forward task, so I wanted to ask the experts; would the Ratio coach seat set from PECO be suitable for that? Or would that need fettling to fit?

[kevinlms]

Plenty of other threads on these. Try a search on the top right. Here's one with plenty of variety.
 

 

[The Johnster]

I used the Ratio seats and plasticard compartment dividers.  If I was doing it again I wouldn’t bother with the seats unless I was modelling open droplights or intended to put lights in; they are more or less invisible in the gloom in there once you paint them, even close up, but the compartment dividers are worth the effort to stop light showing from the other side of the coach where it shouldn’t.  It’s also worth glazing the clerestory lights and replacing the buffers as well. 

 

As I was intending it to be a GW Dean coach in use in the 50s as a workman’s vehicle, I retained the Triang B1 8’6” bogies but converted them to ersatz Dean 8’6” by cutting the tiebar out and supergluing footboards on with cutouts around the axleboxes, real wood, from Wetherspoon’s coffee stirrers cut in half lengthways.  Proper 8’’6” Deans can be had as 3D prints from Stafford Road Works on Shapeways, with NEM pockets, and on the receipt of my long awaited round tuit I intend to revisit this with a lengthened cut’n’shut of brake 3rds as an all-3rd (the model is a compartment too short), better window spacing for my purposes than the composite (actually an all-2nd).  The footboards between the bogies are more coffee stirrer with Rexel no.13 staples cut down as brackets; drill holes to fix them in the floor just behind the solebar.  My intended cut’n’shut (that’s right, we’re engaged) will feature separate gas tanks and vac cylinders, and an attempt at least to improve on Triang’s trussing.  If you really want to go to town, separate brass doorhandles and grab handles as well but that’s prolly overkill for this sort of model. 
 

No idea what bogies would be suitable for an LNER clerestory.

Edited February 7, 2023 by The Johnster

[JohnR]

I've seen a seller on ebay that produces 3D printed interiors for these. 

[The Johnster]

Yeah, I know, but have you seen the price!  And it’s Shapeways, which makes it even more expensive.  

[salop89a]

Seat units for the coaches are also available from www.dcresinreplicas.co.uk in white or brown for £7.00 each. I bought some a few months ago and they seem a good moulding to me.

 

No connection other than as a satisfied customer.

[Halvarras]

How about DC Resin Replicas? 

 

https://dcresinreplicas.co.uk/product/r332-clerestory-composite-coach-seating-unit/

 

Both interiors available in brown or white, £7 a pop. I obtained two brown ones for my composite and brake clerestory coaches last year, they drop in on top of the floor projections (no need to do any 'ground clearance' work) and add some useful weight too.

 

NB Crossed lines with @salop89a!

[NZRedBaron]

Neat. I'll look into those. Cheers.

[81E]

On 07/02/2023 at 13:01, The Johnster said:

Yeah, I know, but have you seen the price!  And it’s Shapeways, which makes it even more expensive.  

Sadly Brexit and a poor poor exchange rate has put the cost up. Anyone know of a 3d printing service in the UK which allows you to sell 3d prints in the same way as Shapeways?

[cypherman]

On 07/02/2023 at 14:51, Halvarras said:

How about DC Resin Replicas? 

 

https://dcresinreplicas.co.uk/product/r332-clerestory-composite-coach-seating-unit/

 

Both interiors available in brown or white, £7 a pop. I obtained two brown ones for my composite and brake clerestory coaches last year, they drop in on top of the floor projections (no need to do any 'ground clearance' work) and add some useful weight too.

 

NB Crossed lines with @salop89a!

Hi Halvarras, Do you know how to contact them. The web site keeps saying if you have any problems or queries to contact them. But does not give an email address. I want to know if they are going to make interiors for the Trian Southern Railway EMU.

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, 81E said:

Sadly Brexit and a poor poor exchange rate has put the cost up. Anyone know of a 3d printing service in the UK which allows you to sell 3d prints in the same way as Shapeways?

 

Sadly no, and this is I feel a major hinderance to the development of what could be a very useful source of parts or bespoke prints for modellers.  The low(ish) cost of domestic printers means that one does not need to be particularly wealthy to afford one's own (sadly for me I am not even moderately wealthy and they are beyond me), the actual cost of printing items on domestic printers makes retailing them hardly worth the effort, and one assumes that if there was demand for such a service based in the UK ('demand' in the economic sense; plenty of us want it but it cannot be provided at a price the market will bear, so that's not demand) somebody would have set one up.

 

Shapeways was originally set up in a sort of mutually beneficial 'community market' way, to facilitate produceers of items being connected with customers, but import duties and regulations along with increasing costs have effectively put paid to it's competitiveness. 

 

What we do have is producers of set ranges of products like Modelu operating outside of the Shapeways envelope, and printing firms offering bespoke services which are basicaly either where they will print something you provide the CAD for or will provide a CAD to your specification, sometimes including the drawings.  This is a way of obtaining items that you might want (for example, I'd like somebody to print me some GWR auto-trailer angled buffers to replace breakages), but the costs are high and it isn't worth the effort for the restoration of the old Airfix toolings.

 

3D printing was heralded as a cheap and effective method of producing parts or whole items easily at home when it was originally developed, and it was going to change the way spare parts and small items were produced and marketed.  This hasn't quite happened, and I rather doubt now that it ever will.  A squiz on Shapeways webby will reveal prints of open wagons or vans that are the same as item available as finished RTR products; we wince at the price of new RTR products of this sort but the 3D prints are more expensive, less detailed, and require wheels, painting, and transfers to finish.  I sort of wonder if anyone is actually purchasing them.

 

I've used Shapeways for some items that I could not obtain by other methods, notably GW Dean 8'6", Fishbelly, and American bogies from Stafford Road Works.  These are not cheap compared to RTR bogies sold as spares, and not as well detailed, but as I don't have 10-coach rakes that need them I can manage, and they run well using Bachmann or Hornby wheelsets in plain coned bearings.  They can be ordered with several pivot fixings and NEM pockets printed in.  You can buy the parts for a Cordon gas tank wagon from Stafford Road/Shapeways, but the cost of completing the wagon is prohibitive.  And rising.  I suppose you could do it like a part-work, on installments, but that's wasteful in terms of postage.  OTOH, the prints for the 517 and 2721 saddle tank bodyshells are not unreasonable, but I am not in that market.

 

Our own Rue d'Etropal markets a startlingly eclectic range of prints through SW, but probably doesn't sell many and there are probably some items in his catalogue that have never actually been ordered.  Kudos to him for doing this, he can't be making much of a living from it, and coach bodyshells are more expensive than a typical recent production RTR finished coach.  They are really more in the nature of scratch-building aids.  I'm going to be in the wallet doghouse if he ever does the Taff Vale gangwayed twinset auto-trailers (and I'd reckon that Bermudan rolling stock and Selsey loco bodies are a good bit more esoteric than this); I reckon I'd be about £250 light for a finished set, but there is never going to be an RTR of these and I will have no alternative!  Hopefully I'll have paid for my Dapol N by then.

 

So, no British Shapeways, there's no demand you know, you're the tenth person to ask this morning...

[Halvarras]

5 hours ago, cypherman said:

Hi Halvarras, Do you know how to contact them. The web site keeps saying if you have any problems or queries to contact them. But does not give an email address. I want to know if they are going to make interiors for the Trian Southern Railway EMU.

 

Hello cypherman, I see what you mean - no contact details 🤔! However I've managed to find the letter which accompanied my order and this gives an email address (in case of any issues with the items) - admin@dcresinreplicas.co.uk. 

 

Hope this works for you (and them!)........

[Pete Haitch]

10 hours ago, 81E said:

Sadly Brexit and a poor poor exchange rate has put the cost up. Anyone know of a 3d printing service in the UK which allows you to sell 3d prints in the same way as Shapeways?

https://www.oakhillworks.co.uk/  ?

[cypherman]

4 hours ago, Halvarras said:

 

Hello cypherman, I see what you mean - no contact details 🤔! However I've managed to find the letter which accompanied my order and this gives an email address (in case of any issues with the items) - admin@dcresinreplicas.co.uk. 

 

Hope this works for you (and them!)........

Hi, Thanks for the info. I will get in touch with them and see if they are going to make the EMU interiors.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Pete Haitch said:

https://www.oakhillworks.co.uk/  ?

 

Interesting, though of little use to me being focussed on LBSC and SER stuff, although the Cardiff Railway did have some Kitson 0-6-0Ts.  But it's not really like Shapeways, which is more like a clearing house for an number of producers and facliltates their marketing and distribution.