Kits for LSWR Ironclad Push Pull Sets 381-385, and SECR Set 662?

[kevinlms]

 

There's also G.R.Weddell's excellent 'LSWR Carriages in the 20th.Century', Publr. OPC 2001, ISBN 0 86093 555 8.

Chapter 10, consisting of 23 pages, covers all the 'Ironclad' stock, including the catering cars and Pull - Push conversions.

The 4mm./ 1ft. drawings are more finely lined and more detailed than those of Mike King. Livery details are also drawn.

For those interested in 'Gate Stock', Chapter 8, 'Railmotors and Vestibule Cars' has 22 pages of text and drawings which include underframe details and P - P Control equipment.

Other LSWR Pull - Push variations are also included.

A book, IMO, worth every penny.

 

Regards

 

Hi Ceptic & Ian J.

 

I'm not a SR fan, but all this additional information to the sources you & I originally found in our various indexes, shows one thing to me. The likes of G.R. Weddell, Mike King & others had articles, including plans published in various model railway magazines. Later it seems they went on to publish books on their preferred topics of Southern Railway & constituent company coaches.

 

Credit ought to be given to the various magazine editors for getting the interest in better coaches started, by printing these plans, within the normal limitations of allowing a page or two within an issue. This of course meant that only limited space was available for more details. Letters pages, often provided much more detail in subsequent issues, but that made the additional information hard to reference.

 

The question is, how relevant is the information in old magazines (not very on the Ironclads it seems) & how much of it has later had books (or websites) containing expanded versions of the originally published info & how much is lost? By lost, I mean next to impossible to find.

 

My apologies for highjacking this thread.

 

Kevin Martin

[coachmann]

I painted Ironclad push pull sets for Lawrence Scale Models and they were always built from BSL/Phoenix kits. Didn't the Southern kits got to Southern Pride? If not, try Marc Models.

 

Some SE&CR push pull conversions were produced by Northstar Models, but you're too late now as the firm is closing down.

[Ian J.]

For most of the technical information I'd suggest that it's still around in some form, it's the anecdotal stuff that tended to be in the magazines. Stuff like 'coach X was 60 feet long according to this plan' is obviously technical, but 'I saw coach X in Brighton on 31st December 1963, even though it was allocated to Kyle of Lochalsh and supposedly never left the West Highlands, and here's my photo of it' is anecdotal (with evidence) but not part of any official information record, so historic magazines can contain a wealth of information that probably isn't in books at all.

 

Where the mentioned books (and others like them) come into their own is that they contain additional research into officially held records. I'll cite an example I found myself recently. I'm looking for the detailed technical drawings of the Stroudley LB&SCR Terriers, classified as A1 originally, and A1X after rebuild. I looked through various documents at the National Archives at Kew, including the official locomotive register volume that covered the Terriers (recording their mileage, boiler work, etc). In that they are given the classification 'A' in the headings, not 'A1', and only included the '1' when referring to the 'A1X' rebuilds under the boiler work details. Now, to the best of my knowledge, the Terriers were 'A1' and have always been known to be so, and when I finally get to see the plans then I reckon that 'A1' is what I'll see, but this little difference in the way they were written about at the time is the kind of information that trawling through the records can bring to light, and it's the kind of information that Mike King and the like will have had access to that perhaps the authors of magazine articles either hadn't seen, or had simply glossed over in order to fit their articles to the magazines' length limits.

[Ian J.]

I painted Ironclad push pull sets for Lawrence Scale Models and they were always built from BSL/Phoenix kits. Didn't the Southern kits got to Southern Pride? If not, try Marc Models.

 

Some SE&CR push pull conversions were produced by Northstar Models, but you're too late now as the firm is closing down.

I looked at the Phoenix site and couldn't find any reference to push-pull sets, so maybe they were conversions from the Ironclad kits? No sign of them on Southern Pride or Marcs Models either. Northstar looked like they produced RTR from brass, rather than supplying kits, nice idea but way beyond my kind of budget even at the best of times.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Phoenix definitely do (did?) the Pull-Push sets - they are listed on this page: http://www.srg.org.uk/Ironclad_history_01.htm. I think it's fair to say that the SRG website isn't the easiest to navigate.

[Ian J.]

Phoenix definitely do (did?) the Pull-Push sets - they are listed on this page: http://www.srg.org.u..._history_01.htm. I think it's fair to say that the SRG website isn't the easiest to navigate.

I missed that completely, and didn't realise there was a link to it from the main page either! Thanks for highlighting it.

[coachmann]

The Ironclad push & pull coaches were conversions from standard stock with the lavatories put out of action and the lav windows plated over. BSL also did the Maunsell conversions. The latter are not easy using etched brass because of the inset doors on the open third.

[Ian J.]

If Hornby announce a Maunsell set for next year in their New Year announcement, then that hopefully will obviate the need for building kits of those.

[kevinlms]

Looking at my copy of the same Gould book its detail on the push-pull conversions isn't all that comprehensive. I think Mike King's tome on the Push-Pulls is the most authoritative to date.

 

For others browsing this thread, the full details of the three books mentioned so far:

 

Title, Author, Publisher, ISBN

 

An Illustrated History of Southern Coaches, Mike King, OPC, 978-0-86093-570-4

 

An Illustrated History of Southern Push-Pull Stock, Mike King, OPC, 978-0-86093-596-4

 

Maunsell's SR Steam Carriage Stock, David Gould, The Oakwood Press, 978-0-85361-555-2

 

A Note of caution when looking these up. I've provided the 13 digit ISBN code, but all these books also reference the 10 digit ISBN inside. As the 10 digit ISBN should no longer be used for ordering purposes, please make sure you use the 13 digit number. And no, it's not as simple as removing the '978' at the beginning, as the last digit (a check number) changes depending on whether it's a 10 digit or 13 digit ISBN

 

As far as ISBN's are concerned, I think it will be a long time until the 10 digit numbers disappear. OK maybe booksellers, selling new stock now exclusively deal with 13 digit numbers. But there are countless books out there with 10 digit ISBN's printed into covers & flyleaf's. So the ordinary seller (on the likes of eBay) are going to quote the old numbering for many years to come.

 

Kevin Martin

[Ian J.]

It's now official that Hornby are doing the Maunsell PP sets, so those are covered

[Graham_Muz]

Technically and perhaps pedantically Hornby are releasing the BR(s) Pull Push sets converted from Maunsell Stock rather than Maunsell Pull Push sets.

[Ian J.]