SECR Birdcage Coaches

[tetsudofan]

Any dates or news on the early livery versions?

 

Has been mentioned above many times and is available on the Bachmann website.

 

Keith

[Guest Midland Mole]

I saw all three in the Bachmann case at Kidderminster today, and it just increased how exited I am for them!

Alex

[The Bigbee Line]

Arrived home from holiday and there they were.  That big box from Hattons, a day I thought might not come.....

 

They look very nice.  I will try the Roco coupler frig to close up the coaches.

 

No complaints.  I wont change the coach numbers, but might change the set number.

 

A big well done to Bachmann...

[trevor7598]

Earlier today I purchased the October copies of Model Rail and BRM magazines.

On reading their respective reviews of the crimson Bachmann Birdcage sets I have to say

that some nonsense has crept in the reviews in both magazines.

BRM tells us that all three of the crimson coaches are fitted with dynamos and battery boxes,

while their two illustrations of the lavatory brake third, correctly, shows the absence of them.

 

Model Rail tells us that the coaches are ' Ashford Gothic' with the windows rounded at the top

and square at the bottom, the models correctly have all four corners rounded.

The true ' Ashford Gothic ' coaches preceded the 60ft type. The doors on the 60ft coaches

do have rounded tops, and square bottoms to the droplight opening as per the earlier coaches.

The other error in Model Rail concerns the captions to their illustrations, where the S prefix

to the coach numbers has been replaced by a 5.on all three illustrations.

 

At £8.85 for both magazines, a little more accuracy would not go amiss.

[Graham_Muz]

Earlier today I purchased the October copies of Model Rail and BRM magazines.

On reading their respective reviews of the crimson Bachmann Birdcage sets I have to say

that some nonsense has crept in the reviews in both magazines.

BRM tells us that all three of the crimson coaches are fitted with dynamos and battery boxes,

while their two illustrations of the lavatory brake third, correctly, shows the absence of them.

 

 

At £8.85 for both magazines, a little more accuracy would not go amiss.

 

Trevor 

 

I hold my hands up to that mistake, you are indeed correct, I knew that at some time during their life the number of coaches in the three so fitted and through cabled changed and I obviously managed to check the same brake coach twice. The configuration of battery boxes and dynamos is also correctly different than the crimson versions for the other livery versions. Sorry!

[Wickham Green]

Trevor 

 

I hold my hands up to that mistake, you are indeed correct, I knew that at some time during their life the number of coaches in the three so fitted and through cabled changed and I obviously managed to check the same brake coach twice. The configuration of battery boxes and dynamos is also correctly different than the crimson versions for the other livery versions. Sorry!

From the illustrations I can find it looks like Bachmann have got the dynamos right : originally ( SECR livery ) only the Composite had one but the Southern added one to the ( non-lavvy ) Brake Third too - so that's what the Maunsell Green and BR liveried sets look to have : for early SR day you could remove the second dynamo, of course.

[dibber25]

Earlier today I purchased the October copies of Model Rail and BRM magazines.

On reading their respective reviews of the crimson Bachmann Birdcage sets I have to say

that some nonsense has crept in the reviews in both magazines.

BRM tells us that all three of the crimson coaches are fitted with dynamos and battery boxes,

while their two illustrations of the lavatory brake third, correctly, shows the absence of them.

 

Model Rail tells us that the coaches are ' Ashford Gothic' with the windows rounded at the top

and square at the bottom, the models correctly have all four corners rounded.

The true ' Ashford Gothic ' coaches preceded the 60ft type. The doors on the 60ft coaches

do have rounded tops, and square bottoms to the droplight opening as per the earlier coaches.

The other error in Model Rail concerns the captions to their illustrations, where the S prefix

to the coach numbers has been replaced by a 5.on all three illustrations.

 

At £8.85 for both magazines, a little more accuracy would not go amiss.

 

Regarding your critique of my review:

I knew very little about SECR 'Birdcage' stock so I looked it up. The reference to Ashford Gothic was taken from one of the internet SR reference sites that I consulted. I don't have time to go back through trying to find which one it was. To my eye the top two corners of the droplight openings are rounded and the bottom corners are squared off. I assumed that this was what got them the 'gothic' tag. The numbers on the captions are clearly just a mis-reading by someone, of hand-writing. The final proofs were seen on a day I wasn't working. If I'd seen them, I'd have picked it up but I doubt anyone will be misled by it. Model Rail costs £4.10. I doubt it'll reach £8.85 in my lifetime. (CJL)

[Fireline]

Earlier today I purchased the October copies of Model Rail and BRM magazines.

On reading their respective reviews of the crimson Bachmann Birdcage sets I have to say

that some nonsense has crept in the reviews in both magazines.

BRM tells us that all three of the crimson coaches are fitted with dynamos and battery boxes,

while their two illustrations of the lavatory brake third, correctly, shows the absence of them.

 

Model Rail tells us that the coaches are ' Ashford Gothic' with the windows rounded at the top

and square at the bottom, the models correctly have all four corners rounded.

The true ' Ashford Gothic ' coaches preceded the 60ft type. The doors on the 60ft coaches

do have rounded tops, and square bottoms to the droplight opening as per the earlier coaches.

The other error in Model Rail concerns the captions to their illustrations, where the S prefix

to the coach numbers has been replaced by a 5.on all three illustrations.

 

At £8.85 for both magazines, a little more accuracy would not go amiss.

 

But did the reviews have the correct number of rivets....?

[Robin Brasher]

I am more interested in the  in the general appearance and running qualities of model railways rather than counting rivets. There are several pictures of birdcage coaches in 'Orpington to Tonbridge' published by the Middleton Press all hauled by 4-4-0 locomotives. In Southern livery are a D class in plate 76, an E class in plate 96 and Schools class St Lawrence in plate 108. Plate 110 taken in British Railways cycling lion days in 1953 shows an L class.

 

To represent the train hauled by the L class I have taken a Tri-ang Hornby repainted L1 out of mothballs. The Bachmann coaches ran very well and much better than the Hornby ex LSWR coaches and luggage van. They are all the same shade of crimson. As the colour has been arrived at by two manufacturers this suggests that the shade is correct. If someone has access to a British Railways colour chart with the BS number that should be conclusive evidence.

 

Some people have raised concerns about the price and one of the disadvantages of pre-ordering is that my credit card has been debited for three LSWR gate stock coaches, a 4TC and the birdcage coaches which I ordered in different years but have all arrived at once.

[dibber25]

I am more interested in the  in the general appearance and running qualities of model railways rather than counting rivets. There are several pictures of birdcage coaches in 'Orpington to Tonbridge' published by the Middleton Press all hauled by 4-4-0 locomotives. In Southern livery are a D class in plate 76, an E class in plate 96 and Schools class St Lawrence in plate 108. Plate 110 taken in British Railways cycling lion days in 1953 shows an L class.

 

To represent the train hauled by the L class I have taken a Tri-ang Hornby repainted L1 out of mothballs. The Bachmann coaches ran very well and much better than the Hornby ex LSWR coaches and luggage van. They are all the same shade of crimson. As the colour has been arrived at by two manufacturers this suggests that the shade is correct. If someone has access to a British Railways colour chart with the BS number that should be conclusive evidence.

 

Some people have raised concerns about the price and one of the disadvantages of pre-ordering is that my credit card has been debited for three LSWR gate stock coaches, a 4TC and the birdcage coaches which I ordered in different years but have all arrived at once.

 

A BS number won't be conclusive evidence at all, because if you paint 1:76 models in 1:1 paint they will always look too dark because of the way light works, off the much smaller surfaces. All model colours are an estimation by the human eye of what looks right in small scale. The fact that Bachmann and Hornby use the same shade is very helpful but it doesn't mean they'll look right to everyone. To my eye, they don't look right and there are models in 1:76 which are a very different shade and which do look right. (CJL)

[Robin Brasher]

It is a good point about colour appearing darker on a model. There is a 4 wheel luggage van in a siding at Harmans Cross station in BR southern early crimson livery and this looks to me just like the shades used by Hornby and Bachmann for their coaches for that period.

 

In some photographs the livery looks bright red like the Wrenn passenger fruit van. Before I saw the photographs I thought that the livery looked gaudy. I have got a vague recollection of some Graham Farish N gauge coaches appearing in bright red. Contemporary models like the Hornby and Tri-ang suburbans were in different shades of maroon. I am sure that Tri-ang would have painted their suburban coaches bright red if they were that colour because the Tri-ang factory was near the real thing.

[Dunsignalling]

It is a good point about colour appearing darker on a model. There is a 4 wheel luggage van in a siding at Harmans Cross station in BR southern early crimson livery and this looks to me just like the shades used by Hornby and Bachmann for their coaches for that period.

 

In some photographs the livery looks bright red like the Wrenn passenger fruit van. Before I saw the photographs I thought that the livery looked gaudy. I have got a vague recollection of some Graham Farish N gauge coaches appearing in bright red. Contemporary models like the Hornby and Tri-ang suburbans were in different shades of maroon. I am sure that Tri-ang would have painted their suburban coaches bright red if they were that colour because the Tri-ang factory was near the real thing.

The Wrenn PasFruit D is self-coloured plastic, not painted, and that makes it unlikely the red will be spot-on to anything.

 

Reds are unstable anyway, so the chances are it's not quite the same shade now as it was when you bought it. This is prototypical, I can just remember the last dregs of BR crimson, and much of it was a nondescript orangey-pink by the end.

 

Now the model is made by Dapol, the colour is much better but, unfortunately, when they revived it, they didn't correct the overscale width of the Wrenn/HD mould.

 

John

Edited September 28, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[Robin Brasher]

According to page 48 of 'Locomotive Hauled Mark 1 Coaching Stock of British Railways' by Keith Parkin M.A. the colour adopted for most non gangwayed Mk1 coaching stock from 1949 was " a match of colour 540 'crimson' in the BS specification 381C." I assume that British Railways adopted the same colour for pre-nationalisation stock. Perhaps Bachmann's birdcage stock livery is a good representation of freshly painted coaches in 1949.

 

Bachmann's birdcage coaches are in a lighter shade of crimson than the crimson in the colour chart so it looks like Bachmann has allowed for colours appearing darker in a model.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Robin Brasher

[bertiedog]

Be very careful in saying a particular colour is right or not, first the Railway companies and later BR used several suppliers of paint. The colours are unstable with age, heat, and UV from sun, and apparent colour varies with the light sources, surface texture, gloss, reflections, and matting, amount of colour pigment in the binders, and over varnishing of the paint.

 

Add in that a fair percentage of people are colour blind, or colour blind to a smaller degree that would pass all tests for it, and you have problems.

 

Red in particular is a problem colour, most of the pigments fade or alter quite quickly. Modern red is better now, but the paint from the 1950's was nothing special, and altered with time. Since WW2 Blues are now stable, older blues were not, and in some cases additional lead white was added to try to stop fading, Caledonian Blue is one such, not helped by the practice of adding more white to make the paint go further.

 

Films are no good as reference, even Kodachrome alters with time, and has an initial palette that was adjusted by Kodak to a standard for general photography, not a technical review of colour. The old standard used by Kodak was a shot taken in Washington of a view north at Lincoln's monument, with at least one third grass, the rest sky, with a girl in a multi coloured dress holding a colour test chart, taken mid summer at midday...if your subject was different to this then the colours altered.........

 

Modern digital cameras are even worst, they can be adjusted to match charts in pro equipment, but most peoples cameras are just not accurate by the time it gets to the screen.

 

We used to make BS standard colourimeters and comparitors, they view a tiny sample and the paint in an optically combined view to get a match, under the standard lighting applied to both.. But it relies on accurate and trusted samples. Nowadays digital analysis can do a far better job, but you still need the samples.

 

After all, there is nothing actually there in front of you that you can "see", it is just reflections of plain radiation at a range of frequencies that the eyes respond too and the brain "sees", there is nothing there in reality!

 

Paint samples from Locos can be useless, heat and oil has got at it even if overpainted, and you can't trust them.

 

You would think that standard formulas could be duplicated, but in the old days the colourmen had closely guard trade secrets as the additions to the basic pigment, such as binders , matting, and varnish, preservatives etc.

 

The worst colour to match is GWR green, because there was no such exact colour, each workshop mixed their own idea to samples, with Wolverhamton using a slightly different colour to mark out their work from Swindons. Add in local purchases of paint, and the preferences of the painting foreman with additions and the exact colour was all over the place. It was said that Wolverhampton deliberately used a different paint mix to distinguish their work.

 

It did not matter much with locos, the heat altered it anyway, and coach colour suffered from the weather just as much.

 

Only modern BR stock has closer matching, the modern pigments, fewer suppliers, and more rigorous testing has brought stability in colours.

 

Stephen.

[bertiedog]

By the way it is not rue as such that models have a darker look, etc., it is the difference in the % total that you see that fools the eye, the colours may exactly match, but if you paint a six foot panel, and a 6 inch tile with exactly the same paint, when viewed normally they will never match when apart but can be overlaid to prove they are still the same. Basically it is the background in relation to the size that makes it appear darker on a smaller model.

Add in different light for each sample and you would swear they were different colour tones.

 

Stephen.

[Dunsignalling]

I think the only fair rule of thumb is that, so long as not too many criticise a colour, it's probably there or thereabouts. Conversely, if a high proportion think its "wrong" it is likely that it is and the only further useful discussion is about degree.

 

At this remove from being able to make direct comparisons with in-service prototypes, that is probably as good as we can reasonably expect. 

 

The "crimson" as recently used by both Hornby and Bachmann is certainly acceptable to me and, given the inherent tendency of the genuine BR stuff to fade, will almost certainly be dead right for some or all of the coaches some of the time.  

 

Rightly or wrongly, and whether bought or built, once we accumulate stock in "acceptable" shades, we get used to them. By familiarity, they then become de facto standards against which future releases will be judged.  

 

All this breaks the Golden Rule about not modelling a model, but there are so many variables involved (already comprehensively presented by Stephen) that there's no sure way to avoid it.

 

Even using BSI specifications, modern paint will be made from different ingredients because some older ones have become unobtainable or illegal. After application, it will be subjected to a different cocktail of atmospheric pollutants than that of six decades ago, too. Even if you manage to get a perfect match "in the can", it may not dry the same, and it will almost certainly age differently.

 

John

Edited September 28, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[Tim Dubya]

Some 'tings about colour scaling for you chaps: 

http://www.009.cd2.com/members/how_to/colour.htm

 

http://www.aidan-campbell.co.uk/PDFs/guide%20to%20scale%20colour.pdf

 

https://www.cybermodeler.com/color/scale_effect.shtml

 

Get yer weathering powders out chaps, particularly the whiter shade of pale ones

Edited September 28, 2017 by Tim Dubya

[phil gollin]

.

 

Looking at that Tri-ang L1, I'm just taking the opportunity to glory in a RTR model (however crude) of one of the lighter Southern Railway/Region lighter 4-4-0's.

 

We really do need one, whether and L, D, or D1.

 

.

Edited September 28, 2017 by phil gollin

[Dunsignalling]

By the way it is not rue as such that models have a darker look, etc., it is the difference in the % total that you see that fools the eye, the colours may exactly match, but if you paint a six foot panel, and a 6 inch tile with exactly the same paint, when viewed normally they will never match when apart but can be overlaid to prove they are still the same. Basically it is the background in relation to the size that makes it appear darker on a smaller model.

Add in different light for each sample and you would swear they were different colour tones.

 

Stephen.

Viewing distance comes into the equation, too, the colour of a 4mm scale model viewed from a foot away should visually match that of the full-sized item viewed from 76 feet.

 

John

[JSpencer]

.

 

Looking at that Tri-ang L1, I'm just taking the opportunity to glory in a RTR model (however crude) of one of the lighter Southern Railway/Region lighter 4-4-0's.

 

We really do need one, whether and L, D, or D1.

 

.

Agreed. Digging out a 50 year old model of the only ever light 4-4-0 from the Southern region to be done in RTR with its moulded handrails, road roller wheels, Giant tension locks and x03 motor, to pull brand new birdcages with state of the art 21st century manufacturing capabilities should be taken heed of by the big makes to now fill this market gap!

[chris45lsw]

I am more interested in the  in the general appearance and running qualities of model railways rather than counting rivets. There are several pictures of birdcage coaches in 'Orpington to Tonbridge' published by the Middleton Press all hauled by 4-4-0 locomotives. In Southern livery are a D class in plate 76, an E class in plate 96 and Schools class St Lawrence in plate 108. Plate 110 taken in British Railways cycling lion days in 1953 shows an L class.

 

To represent the train hauled by the L class I have taken a Tri-ang Hornby repainted L1 out of mothballs. The Bachmann coaches ran very well and much better than the Hornby ex LSWR coaches and luggage van. They are all the same shade of crimson. As the colour has been arrived at by two manufacturers this suggests that the shade is correct. If someone has access to a British Railways colour chart with the BS number that should be conclusive evidence.

 

Some people have raised concerns about the price and one of the disadvantages of pre-ordering is that my credit card has been debited for three LSWR gate stock coaches, a 4TC and the birdcage coaches which I ordered in different years but have all arrived at once.

Putting one of my latest Hornby 58ft rebuilds - TL s280s - alongside my Bachmann Trio C set I would say that the Bachmanns are a tad darker than the Hornby.

 

Chris Knowles-thomas

[bertiedog]

Viewing distance comes into the equation, too, the colour of a 4mm scale model viewed from a foot away should visually match that of the full-sized item viewed from 76 feet.

 

John

But it does not, if the six foot square board is placed say 20 feet away, and the six inch one at 10 feet, in the same light, the smaller on will look darker than the larger. If the six inch tile is placed on the large panel, it matches and vanishes.

This tends to show, given other variables that models appear darker than the real thing, and therefore should be lighter to compensate, but then on their own they can look too light! The whole area is a minefield to get right, colour marching is easy, but colour perception is difficult.

Another thing on coach models that does alter the apparent colour is the size and brightness of the lining, it can make a startling difference.

 

This is not a complaint but a pre comment on the Bachmann versions with the Lake finish, but the sample shots look as if the lining is too thick, and bright, and makes the coach colour darker, but this could all be down to the sample, the camera and conditions, making the lining a bit overpowering, but we shall have to wait and see as pre release photos are often misleading.

 

Stephen

 

Stephen

Edited September 29, 2017 by bertiedog

[Cor-onGRT4]

Bachmann updated the delivery dates on 27 th September 

Now for the        

SR livery-  Nov/Dec

SECR livery Dec/Jan

They are not expected the comming 60 days in the new delivery page so if we are lucky,

maybe begin December for SR and Januari for SECR , but dn't expect to much.

Happened many times before all was shifted to the new year.

Just lets hope at least one set this year

for the time we must wait, take a little       

[Anglian]

Time to save up to pay for them.

[tetsudofan]

Not that great a picture......

 

 

Must get round to reading the instruction leaflet that came with a recently purchased camera and then, hopefully, should be able to take some better pics.

 

Keith