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Bachmann Hawksworth Autocoach


David Bigcheeseplant
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It's selling for $180 in Melbourne but that is way to expensive for a single coach, well it is for me anyway. It is a nice looking model though.

Yeah I have to agree. Perhaps if it was lit me passengered then it may be closer to being worth it but not yet.

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I have just been into my local model shop here in NZ. This coach is retailing for an astonishing $238. That's about £100. I can buy a loco from the uk including postage for less than that. I couldn't believe it.

Depends on the engine I guess.

 

Is a very high end model, you pays your money and you takes your choice, for about 1/3 of the price, or less, you can still get the original Airfix /Hornby one on eBay etc.

 

For about 1/3 of the detail.

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Can anyone shed any light on the roof colour of W242W in this picture on 53A Models Flickr site?

 

https://flic.kr/p/GCbRd9

 

It appears to be white, light grey or silver.

 

Swindon did have a  habit at one time of using a very pale paint/treatment on coach roofs - a sort of light grey/silver (it seemed to vary) almost as if they were trying some new type of paint or treatment.  On one or two departmental coaches it was very much an aluminium looking colour but I can't recall seeing it on any revenue earning vehicles.

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Can anyone shed any light on the roof colour of W242W in this picture on 53A Models Flickr site?

 

https://flic.kr/p/GCbRd9

 

It appears to be white, light grey or silver.

Check out the colour picture of Chalford in the current 'Stations' issue of Model Rail. I don't have a copy here so I can't give you more details than that. However, I used a photo of a two coach autotrain at Chalford, taken looking down on the train. One coach has the dirty, almost black roof of a well weathered example. The other is fresh from works with what appears to be a bare aluminium - or silver-painted roof. (CJL)

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Quick query: I already have a maroon example and find that I am rather attracted to the red version - would the two have been seen together, or was plain red a very early 1950s livery (possibly superseded in turn by carmine/cream?)

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Quick query: I already have a maroon example and find that I am rather attracted to the red version - would the two have been seen together, or was plain red a very early 1950s livery (possibly superseded in turn by carmine/cream?)

 

This is best answered with a note of when the various liveries were current.  Crimson and cream should not have been applied to the auto trailers but was until mid 1952 when it was pointed out by On High to the Western Region that such vehicles were not main line corridor stock!  This was too late to stop nos 220 - 234 sporting it when built.  Nos 235- 244, built in 1954, came out in unlined crimson.  Depending when the first batch were shopped, some may have received this livery but I think it more likely that they were painted unlined maroon, which was introduced in mid 1956.  From mid 1959 lined maroon was introduced but the trailers did not all receive it at once.

 

So the short answer is - possibly, depending in when the trailers received works attention.

 

It is as well to remind ourselves that the use of the term "maroon" by John Lewis in his otherwise admirable books is rather misleading.  He uses it to describe the all-over crimson livery which some call carmine.  The two shades are distinctly different.

 

Chris

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This is best answered with a note of when the various liveries were current.  Crimson and cream should not have been applied to the auto trailers but was until mid 1952 when it was pointed out by On High to the Western Region that such vehicles were not main line corridor stock!  This was too late to stop nos 220 - 234 sporting it when built.  Nos 235- 244, built in 1954, came out in unlined crimson.  Depending when the first batch were shopped, some may have received this livery but I think it more likely that they were painted unlined maroon, which was introduced in mid 1956.  From mid 1959 lined maroon was introduced but the trailers did not all receive it at once.

 

So the short answer is - possibly, depending in when the trailers received works attention.

 

It is as well to remind ourselves that the use of the term "maroon" by John Lewis in his otherwise admirable books is rather misleading.  He uses it to describe the all-over crimson livery which some call carmine.  The two shades are distinctly different.

 

Chris

Thanks Chris - "possibly" suits me fine! Lined maroon and unlined crimson trailers either side of a 64xx should make a nice addition to the branch line.

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  • 4 months later...
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I doubt it as none ever carried chocolate and cream in BR service.

That won't stop Bachmann as they plan to release the preserved example.

 

BTW I have a maroon one for sale if anyone's interested by PM.

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I doubt it as none ever carried chocolate and cream in BR service.

 

Except for the one that ended up in departmental service.  Some carried chocolate and cream in preservation. Somewhere in the past 17 pages it will tell you which.

 

Chris

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Will there be a chocolate & cream BR version?

Due Jan/Feb 2017 according to Hattons in GWR preservation chocolate and cream

 

Still vacillating how far I can stretch reality on Granby!

 

Regards

 

John

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Except for the one that ended up in departmental service.  Some carried chocolate and cream in preservation. Somewhere in the past 17 pages it will tell you which.

 

Chris

 

The other trailers that carried Chocolate and Cream are W231 which is at Didcot, W232 which is now at Bodmin, W238 which is now at the SVR, W240 which is at the South Devon and W233 which is the one that ended up in departmental service. IIRC W232 and W238 had the auto gear taken out of the 'cab', corridors added and the seating changed so they could be turned into observation saloons for use on the Paignton and Dartmouth. A quick search found this photo of W232 which at the time was named Claire at Paignton: http://www.bodminrailway.co.uk/userfiles/images/auto2.jpg 

 

   

Edited by Rhys Underwood
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The other trailers that carried Chocolate and Cream are W231 which is at Didcot, W232 which is now at Bodmin, W238 which is now at the SVR, W240 which is at the South Devon and W233 which is the one that ended up in departmental service. IIRC W232 and W238 had the auto gear taken out of the 'cab', corridors added and the seating changed so they could be turned into observation saloons for use on the Paignton and Dartmouth. A quick search found this photo of W232 which at the time was named Claire at Paignton: http://www.bodminrailway.co.uk/userfiles/images/auto2.jpg 

 

   

 

I can't make the link work but thank you for the kind thought!

 

Chris

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Well it would be great to see the RTC on done properly given the half baked Hornby effort from a few years back! ie. wrong body for prototype.

Edited by Opelsi
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  • 3 months later...

I've come late to this thread having just found a link linked to it, so apologies for resurrecting it

 

The autocoach seems pricey (I can't afford one/SWMBO would have a fit, but then I do have 3 Airfix and 2 K's autocoaches already), but quality has always been expensive. For example, in the fifties, a Hornby Dublo Stanier coach* was around 15/-. a Farish Pullman (the bees knees in R-T-R at the time**) 27/6 and and an Exley about £2 (it needed bogies at extra cost IIRC). Allowing for inflation, these figures are of the order £20, £35 and £55 (it's impossible to be exact on this***) which are not all that out of line, especially considering the relatively better quality of the modern product. An example of a model which has lasted until today is the Tri-ang utility van which has gone from 7/6d to £20 or so - IIRC the Churchill funeral version was £25 - The only real difference is that modern versions have a painted finish rather than self coloured plastic.

 

* They still haven been beaten for flush windows however.

** This was before they revealed their tendency for the plastic to warp and the metal to expand and break up. (Corrected in the sixties reissues, which were also cheaper.)

*** I have always taken 1/- = £1, but inflation is creeping upwards (Government figures are 'alternate facts' (newspeak for 'lies') and 15-20% devaluation due to Brexit (more newspeak) hasn't helped.

 

I think the reason that Tri-ang CKD kits were cheaper was more due to tax rates than labour costs. IIRC as a kit they qualified for a lower rate of purchase tax than an assembled model, which bore the top rate (35% IIRC) as a 'luxury'. The kit versions certainly disappeared, when VAT was imposed on almost everything at 10% following the UK joining the EEC, as it then was.  (The rates were not as different as it seems, because purchase tax was levied on the wholesale price, not the retail price. The 10% rate was later reduced to 8% as it was producing, "Too much revenue". I won't go into why it's 20% today, as that will take us into the forbidden zone of politics....)

 

As to labour costs, I can claim psychic abilities. In the mid-nineties I said that one day the Chinese will refuse to work for nothing any more and then prices will rise steeply. I predicted 2015.... (I wish I was as good with lottery numbers! :(  )

Edited by Il Grifone
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Well, I'm buying one in a couple of days when my pension comes in.  Best part of £60 is, by a very very very long chalk the most I've ever paid for a model raiway vehicle that is not a locomotive, even in relative terms allowing for inflation at around a shilling to the pound over 60 years as per Il Grifone's formula.  It is still expensive, and I will be expecting a lot for my money, but the bottom line is that a) I want one enough to pay that much, even if I moan about it a bit,  and b) the price shows no sign of dropping and will, if anything, go up in future.  It will not make any bigger dent in the budget this month than any other month, so I'm 'avin it!  I have been very satisfied with my recently retooled blue box purchases; my crimson liveried PMV is probably the best detailed rtr model I have ever seen.

 

But I'm warning you, blue box, it'd better be really good!  Or else I won't buy any more of your stuff for at least a week...

Edited by The Johnster
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I have got a Comet kit of the same autocoach but will still be getting a Bachman one, and will no doubt do something creative with it to, If there are moulded handrails I will replace them. If have Thrush you need to sort the inside out!

 

If you have Thrush you need to go to a clinic...

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