Tinplate lighted 00 carriage I can't identify, possible 1950s German?

[Captain Slough]

HI all you lovely geniuses

 

Was wondering if any of you ever saw this before. Its one of two identical stamped tinplate carriages I bought on the Hemel Hempstead antiques market in about 1994, both are painted in BR carmine & cream but without numbers and have no makers marks.

 

The stampings are absolutely identical, the one shown is in better condition, the other having lost a wheel and more flaked paint. Theres no lithography or other paint under this livery. It was applied to bare metal.

 

The wheels are 2-rail insulated with cleasr plastic collar bushes and each bogie has a power pickup, is flexible to compensate for poor track,  and rests on an insulated rubber collar. The couplings (Fleischmann?) are mounted on a fibreboard extension so as not to cause short circuits against an adjacent bogie. No glazing but theres a strip of cellophane paper inside the vehicle, separating the 2 MES bulbs that are connected in series between the two bogies. Its possible to see inside the carriage over the buffer beams as shown below. The bulbs are held in what appear to be standard bicycle lamp holders and considering the series wiring are presumably 6.3v standard dynamo bike bulbs.   

 

No makers mark but the large weight underneath looks like a later addition which may be concealing something.  From the profile I'd say these are proportioned to be 1:76 not 1:87 despite the German-looking bogies. Has a early 1950s feel to me but I've never really had a handle on exactly what these are.  Thanks for any insights

[Il Grifone]

The coach bodies look like they could possibly be Hamblings to me and look like they are supposed to be LMS Stanier, though maybe a trifle short. The other bits came from something else, but I wouldn't like to say what, beyond agreeing that the couplings indeed appear to be Fleischmann.

[Captain Slough]

Interesting....Now I didnt say it but I thought the design looked LMS as well, as the profile of the roof is right for LMS and wrong for just about everything else.

 

I thought - which I didnt also say - that they were possibly pre-war Marklin bodies on something else's chassis because I know that in about 1937 Marklin introduced an LMS Royal Scot or Jubilee 4-6-0 to their HO range (I forget which) and it would make sense for them to have made LMS carriages to go with it. Political circumstances at the time meant few were probably sold.....

[roythebus1]

Interesting as I've recently looked at a late friend's collection of rolling stock which ISTR contains some similar looking coaches. There'a also some  early 1950s Mårklin tinplate coaches in HO scale.

 

I'm going to collect the stuff late next week so will have a look at what's there.

[Metropolitan H]

On 02/04/2023 at 18:20, Il Grifone said:

The coach bodies look like they could possibly be Hamblings to me and look like they are supposed to be LMS Stanier, though maybe a trifle short. The other bits came from something else, but I wouldn't like to say what, beyond agreeing that the couplings indeed appear to be Fleischmann.

I agree with the suggestion that the bogies and couplings are Fleischmann - they look exactly like what I remember being fitted to 2x Fleischmann models of Swiss Federal Railways coaches in the mid 1960s - bought in Interlaken circa 1964. They ran very well.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Il Grifone]

A pre-war Märklin LMS compound is worth a fortune (a junk one sold for £28,000 not so long ago IIRC). As stated, they didn't sell many, but whether this was due to politics (this would be about the "Peace in our time" period*) or the high price I don't know. 00 was still a niche market at the time. A long time ago (mid/late-fifties) I had a Märklin open wagon, for which I paid the princely sum of 4/6d. I don't know what happened to it, but I do recall it had a weird claw-like buckeye' coupling that refused to couple with anything else. They got replaced with Peco couplings and K's mounting which together cost nearly as much as the wagon (1/6d and 9d).

*We were of course re-arming as fast as possible....

[Captain Slough]

Bodyshells now identified - "Scalemaster" - UK, and 1950s - thanks to this website which @sncf231e linked in another thread

 

Heres the original spec