One of my jobs for St Ruth is the preparation of the operating sequence so that we don't get stuck in a rut of just running the same trains up and down. I've done this by referring to the WR working timetables for Cornwall for the late 1960s and the excellent carriage working information available on the BRCS Yahoo group. This material has provided plenty of ideas for introducing variety into our train services without the need to depart from reality. One of these ideas was the working of a sleeping car/Motorail service to arrive in St Ruth each morning with the return working in the evening. With the announcement of sleeping cars by Graham Farish, this service became a possibility so I put it into the schedule.

Those who have been checking the Farish web site waiting for new coaches to be available may have noticed that the sleepers are currently 'on order' and have been so since at least last November. When I spoke to Farish on their stand at Warley last year they told me that they were 'imminent', but so far they don't seem to have appeared. The GUV and BG also seem to have gone back a month. I could have just removed the train from the schedule, but I didn't really want to do that so I decided to create a 'Plan B' for the Nottingham show if the Farish sleepers weren't available by the start of February. While the train would be a bit short, I thought I could manage to put two coaches together if I got my skates on.

I found that ERG do vinyl sides for the Mark 1 sleepers and that Ultima also do an etched overlay intended for the older Farish coaches. Now Mark 1 sleeping cars have a lot of differences from 'normal' coaches apart from just the sides, so I thought that just overlaying the sides wouldn't really be my style even though it would probably be enough to convince most people most of the time. I also dislike the roof fitting on the old Farish Mark 1s, so I decided on a quite different plan with the help of my gloat box…

A long long time ago when the very first Farish Mark 1s were released, I decided that they were not for me. Instead I opted to buy up a whole bunch of the (then) Fleetline Mark 1 kits along with a couple of Mark 2s and some parcels vans (but no sleepers, even though these were available). This was a fine plan at the time, but with the exception of a single Mark 2 TSO and a GUV, none of them have ever made it to become completed models. Nowadays the new Farish coaches mean that most of them probably never will, so it seemed like a good idea to re-purpose two of these kits by using the (excellent) Ultima etched sides.

So here you have some pictures of the results. They are in running order but still waiting for some paint touch-ups, gangway end plates and their loo filler pipes, but the sun was streaming in through the windows earlier, so I thought it too good a chance to miss and took some photos.

I don't intend to write a detailed account of construction because I seriously doubt whether (assuming that the Farish coaches will eventually appear) anyone would want to follow this path. Suffice it to say that the Fleetline body mouldings were used, with 0.5mm of packing to suit the extra height of the Ultima sides. The ends are plastikard filed to shape because the Fleetline white metal ends are not up to scratch. Here's a picture from before the paint shop.

I used Ultima Commonwealth bogies instead of the BR1s in the Fleetline kit because these are more typical for sleeping cars in the late 60s. One vehicle has Ultima etched underframe detail (because I had one pack in the gloat box), the other has detail cobbled together from Fleetline and various other bits from my scrap box.

The paint job is similar to my Hawksworth BG. I mostly managed to get the maroon 'right first time' although a stray hair forced a rub down and respray for one side. For the most part the lining came out slightly better than on the Hawksworth, probably because the underlying paint finish is better. Transfers are (as before), from a resurrected Woodhead sheet. The waist lining on the compartment side is too high up due to haste on my part, but I didn't notice the mistake until it was too late (at which time a suitable form of words was uttered), so it will just have to stay that way now.

I noticed after my sides had arrived that Ultima's catalogue had been updated and that the sleeper sides have now been changed to 'special order', presumably in anticipation of the Farish sleepers, so if anybody else does want some then they will need to ask Alan to etch some just for them.

So these two coaches should be in use on St Ruth at Nottingham in just over a week's time. As a final bit of serendipity, I remembered that my first four Fleetline kits were purchased at the Nottingham show (when it was at Victoria Baths) in 1984.