Nile's Mostly Freelance Bodging Bench - Pre-Grouping Locos

[Martin S-C]

Presumably, from an operational POV, the enlarged verandahs and extra side windows to lean out of negated the need for duckets. Is that how the design evolved?

[Compound2632]

Presumably, from an operational POV, the enlarged verandahs and extra side windows to lean out of negated the need for duckets. Is that how the design evolved?

 

The sequence of LMS vans was broadly (i.e. much simplified): 

D1659: derived from the last Midland vans, 20ft long, 12ft wheelbase, 3ft verandah at both ends;

D1657/D1656: from 1926, as D1659 but with duckets. Essery and Morgan* note that the Midland was the only major LMS consituent not to have adopted duckets by grouping, so this modification may have been due to pressure from other divisions than the Midland Division;

D1890: from 1933, 24ft long with 16ft wheelbase but the same 14ft cabin length as before, giving 5ft verandahs - the access (one can hardly call it a doorway) remained next to the cabin, so the extra length was on the outside end; with duckets

D1919/D2036/D2068: from 1933, as D1890 but with the access at the ends. The most numerous type by nationalisation.

Ref. R.J. Essery and K.R. Morgan, The LMS Wagon (David & Charles, 1977).

[Nile]

I've added doors to the verandah openings, I think this enhances the pre-grouping look. Pieces of planked plastikard glued back to back, with microstrip framing.

 

On the ends there is strapping on the buffer beams. I've extended these up onto the end panels with bits of microstrip. The upright post in the end opening has been refitted in the middle, it was originally offset.

 

This is about making it look less like a Midland brake van.

[Martin S-C]

I do enjoy seeing your step-by-step photos Neil, very useful for reference for anyone else. And your work is always nice and tidy and clean and crisp, unlike my own "bodging in a swamp" style.

[Corbs]

Looking great, the Parkside parts seem to be a good basis for lots of bashing opportunities. What livery did the LMWR brake vans sport? I guess the horse box is classed as coaching stock?

[Nile]

As it happens, next up is this.

It's goods wagon grey (Humbrol 106) with red end panels.

[Nile]

Transfers are on, it now has an identity. This is a trial fit on the chassis.

The chassis has been shortened by about 1mm overall to fit between the buffer beams, which have themselves had some unwanted material removed from the rear. The upper steps have been removed from the chassis, as they were in the wrong place, and holes filled. New steps will be added later. The lower transfers are from a new Slater's NER hopper wagon kit, they seem to work ok.

 

 

[Nile]

Handrails now fitted, made from blackened brass rod.

On the roof I've replaced the long rain strips with short ones at each corner, more obfuscation.

[Martin S-C]

Such a small change but that does give quite a different character to it.

[Nile]

All stuck together and painted, it's now finished.

 

Finally some comparison shots with the donor vehicles.

[Compound2632]

Both distinctive and credible. If you'd left it without branding, you'd have folk scouring their reference books. Great Northern?

[Nile]

Thanks

And now for another brake van bash, sort of. This is one of those things that's been hanging around (in a box) for ages, the first photo is dated June 2017 !

The idea was to take the brake ends from two Mainline early LMS coaches and create a full brake luggage van sort of thing. The result is about 50ft long.


The duckets at one end were filled in and new panelling made from microstrip.


I also modified the area above the remaining duckets.


This is how I'd left it in it's box, painted WMR maroon.


I've finally gotten round to painting the upper panels cream.

[Martin S-C]

What's your technique for painting panels into recesses between the raised beading? Very thin paint and use surface tension/flow? If so, how many coats do you use?

 

Thanks.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Nile]

I got the painting technique from Mikkel.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/75/entry-8235-painting-coach-panels/

 

Two or three coats is enough with this paint (Pollyscale acrylic) depending how thin it is.

[Compound2632]

That does have the air of one of the brake vans converted from ambulance train carriages after the Great War. Now, what are you going to do with the passenger ends? One of them plus half a Mainline/Bachmann composite should make a 57ft all third.

[Nile]

The problem is I have no idea where I put the rest of these coaches, probably buried in a box somewhere. I have however got plenty more of these coaches to play with.

[Nile]

Not knowing where the original chassis parts are isn't a problem in this case as I have a couple of Bachmann LMS BGs to use. The chassis only needed a few mm removed from each end to fit inside my new coach. The vents have been removed for re-use.

 

A test fit shows this is going to work.

 

It looks almost finished but there is still plenty to do.

[Nile]

I had to raid my stash of Mainline coaches for the parts to glaze this one, two brake coaches worth. Most of the windows have bars on them, those that don't have had tissue paper glued behind them, apart from those on the guard's door. Lower foot-boards have been added, a mixture of Slater's and Evergreen strips. The upper foot-boards will have to be removed as they don't line up with the doors.

 

While working on the chassis I noticed it had no dynamo, an odd omission on this Bachmann model as the older Mainline coaches have them. So I knocked one up from bits of plastic tube and card.

 

An overall view of the underside showing the new foot-boards.

 

[James Harrison]

This is looking brilliant.  It's giving me an idea or two how to build a pregrouping full brake myself.

[Nile]

Painting the backs of those foot-boards proved to be too difficult with a normal paint brush, I needed one that went round corners, so I made one from an old brush.

 

The torpedo vents for the roof came from the same LMS BG as the chassis. To get them in a straight line I used a strip of 5mm wide masking tape, gluing them either side of it.

These then had to be painted to match the roof. It would have been easier to do this before fitting them but I forgot.

 

Some brass paint on the various handles and it was finished.

 

Along with the brake coach I'd already done.

[HonestTom]

I like the contrast in "house styles" between the LMWR and WMR coaching stock. Adds to the world-building.

[Compound2632]

There was general convergence among the leading companies* in the last decade or so before the Grouping on elliptical-roofed 57ft corridor carriages with this style of panelling. There were some of the smaller companies - I'm thinking of the Hull & Barnsley which I suppose was similar in size to the LWMR - that went in for such modern-looking carriages for their one prestige service - though shorter than 57ft. What I'm wondering is, can the Mainline/Bachmann LMS 57ft carriage bodies be cut down to make some interesting 50ft carriages on the brake van underframe? Losing one first class compartment from the composite might more-or-less do it, giving 2F/4T compartments - which might have started out as a tr-composite 2F/2S/2T. When did the LWMR abolish second class?

 

*i.e. LNWR, MR, and in Scotland, CR.

[Corbs]

It looks delightful, stubby and business-like.

[Martin S-C]

"Stubby" is a great adjective for the kind of coaching stock I like. I baulk at anything approaching 60 feet. 10 or 20 feet less than that is my ideal and I have a special fondness for the GWR 38' 6" bogie suburban stock. Very cute vehicles they were.

 

[BernardTPM]

My teenage self enthusiatically hacked a Triang Clerestory Brake about to make one of those. It comes out quite close but there are certain crudities (not least the old Triang bogies and papered over hole in the roof where the clerestory was) that make this model somewhat less than ideal. I did correctly rearrange the guard's door and lookout on this side though, which is why that door is slightly broken!