sledghampton

Here's the thing. Firstly, well done to Hornby for (hopefully) getting it right after fouling up the original "bow-enders" and unpanelled clerestories; but why handed coaches ? Even the GW didn't build any more after these as the system didn't work. And anyhow, handed composites were only any good either side of the restaurant car. Ah, so where IS the restaurant car; and the brake composite. An "E" set; brake composite, third, van third; and an "M" set, van third, third, composite, van third, made up many local sets irrespective of "handing". A much better idea if producing five coaches to do one van third, one composite, one brake composite, and either a restaurant car or a full brake. Strange advice given to Hornby by someone who should have known better......but still, be thankful for ANY accurate GWR coach!!!.............Now.....where are the Toplights ?

Nice K36. What's it's pedigree ? I have one built/painted by Lawrence/Goddard which looks as if it could be Trevor Charlton, but not sure. By the way. The K36 is the only post-Dean GWR full brake type to have 4 set of luggage doors. Allegedly because they were converted from the brake ends of ex-ambulance train van thirds..

Just joined the group and picked up on this topic. I am a little puzzled regarding he discussion on these railcars as people seem to be treating the "flying bananas" as one design, when they were not. The cars proposed by Dapol (Nos 2-4) were buffet cars used exclusively (pre-war, at least) on express main line services. They never, as far as I can find, ran on branch lines (who wants a buffet on a branch ?) although when the buffet twins were introduced later they may have been cascaded to secondary main line services. The other cars mentioned, Nos 6 - 17 were a different shape altogether -(although superficially similar) having a different nose, window and door configuration, lower body and roof profile etc so I think it would be a bit of a problem for Dapol to produce one of these. This may seem to some to be a bit pedantic, but the best comparison I can think of is that between a 49xx "Hall" and a 10xx "County". They both seem similar at a distance but upon perusal they are totally different machines. Look at either Russell's or Judge's railcar books and you will see what I mean. I was a bit upset when I read about the prototype for the Dapol model but agree that the availability of the real thing to measure is a bonus, and well done for doing SOMETHING !!!