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  1. County of Yorkshire

    GWR Excursion Stock

    By County of Yorkshire,


    GWR Coach Works at 53C
    This project is a culmination of two fascinations. First, to model some of the GWR’s excursions stock of the 1930s. Second, to dip my toe in the water of brass side/RTR coach conversions. 
     
    The GWR entered the world of dedicated excursions stock in 1935, identifying the need for dedicated coach sets to take fans to the football, and families to the beach. The first (non-dining) open coaches built by the GWR since the clerestory period, open thirds, open brake thirds, and buffet coaches were ordered to form the sets. 
     
    Such was the success of these sets, the GWR ordered further sets, albeit to slightly different coach diagrams. The final sets ordered before the Second World War comprised 28 C76 open thirds, 2 D126 open brake thirds (4 seating bays) and 2 D130 open brake thirds (5 seating bays). However, most entered service in wartime and likely never ran as formed sets but rather as general service vehicles. 

    When I saw Bill Bedford offered the C76 & D130 brass coach sides, I ordered two of the former and one of the latter. With a slight trimming of the ends, these would be a perfect fit for the Mainline/Bachmann GWR Sunshine coaches as coach side conversions. 
     
    The D130 was the first to be tackled, with a prototype surviving on the Severn Valley (No.650) providing excellent reference opportunities. An old Mainline E159 brake compo acted as the donor coach. 

    The willing donor…
     


    The brass sides are supplied flat, and the tumblehome needs to be formed, using the old “skirting board in a vice” method. 
     


    Roof furniture is added and rearranged, and the solebar has steps added with styrene strip…
     

     
    The coach ends are altered to match the prototype. 


     
    The sides are primed, and the interior starts to take shape. 


     
    Don’t forget the guards compartment! 

     
    Then, my modelling mojo disappears for the best part of three years, with some brass-to-plastic adhesive issues along the way. 
     
    Come May 2023, an urge returned to get this coach finished. So, et voila! 
     



     
    For my first go at brass sides onto RTR, I’m pretty happy with the result, even if it took 3 years to outshop! The two C76’s will now follow, using Mainline C77’s as donors. 
     
    The only disappointment is that this coach etch has an erroneous window on the right-hand van doors at the rear, which appears on both sides and is not found on the prototype. Perhaps I could have blocked this window up, but by time I’d noticed this I’d already painted the sides and didn’t want to unpick the work done. 
     
    I’m not sure if the GWR returned to using fixed excursion sets after the war, so I’ll probably run my excursion coaches mixed in with other diagrams. Does anyone know for sure - can anyone comment? 
     
    Hope this blog is of use and interest! 
     
    Jon 
  2. County of Yorkshire
    Just six weeks shy off three years since my last blog update, and hasn't the world changed since...
     
    The fairly new Hornby GWR Collett subs are very nice coaches indeed, and whilst they might only have gravitated toward the London and Birmingham Divisions, they are an essential non-corridor RTR coach to 21st century standards. Rule 1 dictates that a four coach 'set' may well have been seconded elsewhere on the GWR network during their lifetimes; a circumstance perhaps more likely in the immediate post-war years, were delayed coaching refurbishment cycles caught up with the GWR and exigences of wartime led to rag-tag rakes of coaching stock in unusual places. 
     
    As a modeller of the immediate post-war GWR, it is rare that the main manufacturers release western locos and rolling stock in either wartime or post-war liveries, meaning that re-liveries are the only real way to get the liveries that I need. The recent Bachmann Hall in post war, unlined green with G-Crest-W was nice to see, and the forthcoming wartime black GWR pannier is also on my shopping list, though perhaps after the 3 month's discounting cap has been lifted....
     
    In terms of rolling stock, few items of GWR coaching stock have been released in either the GWR wartime colour schemes (either wartime brown or the 'simplified' chocolate and cream) or the 1945-1947 Hawksworth livery. Indeed, the only RTR GWR coaches to modern standards that have ever been released in the latter livery are the Hornby Hawksworths in full Hawksworth chocolate and cream livery, though these were only issued in one run back in 2011 and are like rocking horse poo these days (luckily i have as many as I will ever realistically need!). With the recent Collett bow-ended gangwayed stock, frustratingly these have only been issued in the 1925-34 livery (twice!) and the 1934-1942 shirtbutton liveries; no 1945-1947 livery has yet been released or announced. 
     
    However, upon seeing a D98 brake third in BR Maroon on Amazon for a silly-cheap price I snapped one up for thirteen pence shy of £25, including postage...

     
    Within 24 hours of arrival, it had been unboxed, disassembled and masked ready for priming...

     
    I have started to use Phoenix Precision rattle cans of late, but am disappointed at their variable spray quality, as more often than not, detritus and paint globules are ejected and fleck the model in question, which is especially noticeable on long, flush coach sides - and this happend whether I shake them for 2, 20 or 200 minutes before use! However, I am committed to using Halfords rattle cans wherever possible, as their paint quality is far, far superior, and more importantly, consistent. I have only ever had a bad one (something 'Hurrican Grey') when repainting Hornby Collett coach roofs from the ghastly white to a postwar grey.
     
    Halfords grey primer was applied, followed by Halfords Rover Russet Brown... 
     
    Several weeks passed, as my modelling mojo ebbed and flowed, other projects took over (making inroads to my wagon kit stash), and also cracking on with my first ever brass coach side onto RTR donor project (the results of which will feature in the next blog entry!)
     
    Then, around a fortnight ago once summer appeared to desert us, I picked this project up again, and with the addition of: 
     
    - HMRS orange coach lining transfers
    - HMRC GWR coach transfers
    - Railtech 'smoking' and 'non smoking' transfers
    - Brassmasters etched window grills
    - A few dabs of Humrol brass paint
    - Halfords Satin Laquer
     
    the following beauty was born:

     

     
     

     
     
     
     

     

     
    I'm pretty happy with this modelling project overall, but I dropped two clangers in truth:
     
    - When refitting the glazing after varnishing the body shell, I got liquid cement fingerprints on one of the sides... my best effort at remedying this being a patch-paint of Phoenix Precision coach brown from a tinlet. It is noticeable, but not hugely so and I think adds a bit of character to the coach. Who knows, it might have been damaged due to a wartime incident (shrapnel damage?) and patch painted in the carriage sidings?
     
    - Despite best efforts, the satin lacquer has trapped some dust and fluff in places, which isn't noticeable until you lean in, but has irritated me a little! Lesson for next time - ensure that the model is fully wiped down and the spray booth dust free.
     
    And that's it! All that's left is to weather and add more discrete coach couplings, which will be a while as I haven't made a decision on what couplings to outfit my coach fleet with yet. I also intend to complete a four-coach set in matching livery, so i'm now on the look out for the E131 (right and left handed) and the right-handed D98 to finish the set (preferably for similar bargain prices!). They will be something different to hang behind the forthcoming Hornby 41xx prairie in G-W-R green!
     
    Cheers,
     
    Jon
     
     
  3. County of Yorkshire
    New ground in more ways than one! My first blog post, my first 4mm wagon kit build, my first time using a spray can... I have felt it high time to really crack on with my stash of kits, and with my modelling projects more generally. I am a big believer in easing oneself in, using the path of least resistance to get underway, and so what was I to choose?
     
    - Re livery of my three Hornby GWR Kings from shirtbutton to G-Crest-W?
    - Complete the transformation of my cheapo Hornby Railroad Olton Hall into a more detailed G-Crest-W wartime black livery?
    - Make a start on one of about a dozen Comet coach side overlays onto Bachmann Colletts to create new coach diagrams?
    - Detail my four secondhand RTR-bashed Clerestories and put them into their late-life all over brown livery?
    - Replace the bogies on my Siphons G's & H's with the brave-new-world 3D prints of 9ft American bogies?
    - To complete my transformation of my Hornby 1910s era Star to an unlined green post-war version with 4000g Collett tender?
    - To add the Brassmasters detailing kit to all of my 42/52/72xx tanks?
    - To do the front-end conversion of the Bachmann Modified Hall with the Brassmasters detailing kit?
    - To add ventilator windows to my secondhand CRE kit-built set using the cream labels kindly provided by Checkrail of this parish?
     
    To all of the above, and 2 dozen more projects, nope. Though to this, yes:

     
    A GWR 20T Ballast Wagon to diagram P17 of 1937. As represented in preservation by the sole survivor of its type - 80789 - as seen here:

    Image Credit Didcot Railway Centre
     
    Unfortunately, due to the last minute desire to blog this kit build, I neglected to photo the build thus far, though I will give you a rough breakdown of the work involved, as follows:
     
    - Removed the parts from the sprue, removed flashing with craft knife and files (the 40 year old moulding has aged quite well)
    - Assembled the box of wagon sides, and inserted the floor
    - Added the buffers (which was a rookie mistake, as subsequent constant handling of the wagon body led to a buffer being knocked of more than once, though the superglue seems to have held...)
    - Unfortunately, one of the solebar moudlings had warped to quite a large degree at some point over the last 40 years, and so I fitted two widths of 0.40mm Slaters Microstrip on the underside between the wagon side and the location where the solebar joins the body, to give a perpendicular edge to glue the solebar to - thus ensuring a (relatively) straightened solebar.
    - Fitted top hat wheel bearings (felt like a 'proper modeller' whilst doing this!) after reaming out the axlebox holes in the solebar mouldings
    - Fitted solebars to the underside of the box of sides and floor
    - Fitted central v-hangers and ratchet brake v-hangers
    - Fitted ratchet brake levers
    - Filed back the brake shoes to allow for the fitting of Hornby spoked wagon wheels (I am currently out of stock of the correct '3-hole' wagon wheels)
    - Fitted brake gear.
    - Glued about 20g of lead shot to the wagon underside
    - My proudest moment; fabricated the end steps out of 0.40mm microstrip and styrene strip U channel (proper modeller territory again!)
    - Most laborious moment; cutting, bending and fettling microstrip to form the door bangs
    - Primed with two coats of Halfords Grey primer
     
    And, for anyone still awake - the result....
     



     
    I must state how pleased I am with how it has come out so far. This is my first wagon build from scratch, and I am somewhat astonished at how clean and uniform a spray-can finish can look. It makes disparate parts and materials hang together in the most pleasing way; the sickly grey Kirk mouldings, my homemade white microstrip footsteps and door bangs, the black moudled solebars... I have brush painted the odd thing here and there over the last few years, but it never, ever, looks as nice as this does. It is therefore a shame that my GWR freight grey paints are in tinlets and not in spray cans... Now I must master the art of the airbrush!
     
    Finally, the primed wagon as displayed on one of my diorama planks coupled between a re liveried Hornby toad (complete with guard) and a GWR open wagon doing what it was built for (carrying the bogie from Olton Hall whilst she undergoes a hugely protracted re-livery and detailing project!)
     

     
    I now need to procure suitable transfers to put her into the post 1937 GWR freight livery (small GW lettering), for which a message of enquiry has been sent to CCT (HMRS do have 'Engineering Dept' and 'Pt Way' on their wagon transfer sheet but only two of each, and I will ultimately need three sets, plus I have never seen the 'circled CO' available as a transfer, and for that matter, does anyone know what the 'CO' stands for?). I have Phoenix and Precision GWR freight grey ready to go, although there is still a niggle in the back of my mind that these might have carried black - which the example at Didcot seems to be wearing.
     
    I wanted to credit Castle of this parish and his 'Little Didcot' thread for some guidance on his build of the same prototype, found here, and also Buffalo for his pictures of the brake gear and underside of the surviving prototype here.
     
    Part 2 ETA sometime w/c 21st August (London calling next weekend for a West Somerset steam excursion behind an...A4??), and so watch this space...
     
    Cheers,
     
    CoY
  4. County of Yorkshire
    After making a modest start over the Bank Holiday weekend with some Hornby Colletts and repainting their roofs, I cracked on with this yesterday in the glorious Indian Summer sunshine on the first Saturday in September; ideal spraying conditions! Unfortunately, there is no progress to report with the completion of my Ian Kirk GWR P17 Ballast Wagon build, as I am weighing up whether to brush-paint it GWR freight grey, or rig the airbrush up for the first ever time.... we shall see!
     

    Having bought a couple of the Hornby 'Bristolian' sets at silly-cheap prices (£130 via ebay, and £140 from Rails of Sheffield iirc), I decided that I would keep them in the Shirtbutton livery (no doubt much GWR coaching stock saw-in 1947 still in Shirtbutton, given that it was still applied as a livery up until mid-1942) however the white roofs had to go - and indeed all GWR coaching stock were gradually given grey roofs from around 1938 onward in any case. Partially inspired by The Fatadder (Rich) of this parish and his exploits with Halfords' Volvo Dark Grey spray cans, I made a trip to Halfords myself around a month ago to pick some up. Rich's blog post in question can be seen here.
     
    Come the August Bank Holiday weekend, I commenced this project in earnest, with three Bristolian Coaches (D95 l/h, D95 r/h and E127 l/h) and a rogue C54 in the 1927-1934 livery (an ideal candidate due to it receiving some slight damage from a framed picture falling off the wall in the night and clattering it, plus it strangely leaving Hornby's factory without the GWR crest on the corridor side!) being the Guineapigs for my first every bought of RTR re-liverying using spray cans - nervous wasn't the word!
     
    The coaches come apart quite easily...
     


     
    My BSL E137 renovation project can be glimpsed on the right hand side - unfortunately for now a stalled project.

     
    After easily taking apart the Colletts, I prised the 'The Bristolian' destination boards off with a small flick of my longest finger nail, and proceeded to mask the coach sides and ends. 'Precision' masking tape, brown tape, and scrap paper 'concertined' inside the shell of the coach was my first attempt at this.
     


     
    My spraying rig is simple but - so far - effective. An empty wine box to give protection from the wind and any stray pollen/insects/foliage detritus, used newspaper, and an outside table - my dust mask and rubber gloves not shown!

     
    All four Collett roofs got three coats of Halfords Dark Grey, each applied around 15 minutes apart. As it was a warm day yesterday, I felt confident to apply the Halfords Matt Lacquer around four hours later, and again, all four Colletts got three coats each of this.
     
    Later that evening I braved the removal of the masking tape; would they be beauties, or beasts?

     
    Disaster!
     
    Panic ensued when the first coach emerged from its its masking wrapper. The l/h D95 had spray paint stained onto the coach side - obviously I hadn't masked anywhere near well enough... A lesson learned, but then I recalled that white spirit and cottonbuds are our friends!

     
    Thankfully, this was the only instance of 'seepage' and so the other three Colletts came out of this exercise scot-free. The C54 needed more doing to it for my 1947 purposes, however the three Colletts ex-The Bristolain set were posed with a Hornby C82 Hawksworth all-third to form an improbable, though not impossible, GWR M-set from the Autumn of 1947. Perhaps the Hawksworth is running-in on a local turn after being outshopped the week before?


     
    The final piece of modelling done yesterday was the removal of the number, class labels and crest decals from the C54 with T-cut and a cocktail stick.

     
    With the outstanding jobs here being the addition of the brown band beneath the cantrail, addition of the upper 3/4 inch black & gold line, Great-Crest-Western and sans-serif class labels and coach numbers needing adding before sealing in with a coast of satin lacquer to 'outshop' it in the 1945 Hawksworth double-waist livery. Further progress on this TBC.
     
    And finally, whilst the gear was all out and I was in the mood, I took Halfords Black Primer and Rover Russet brown to a pair of C8 (C17?) Clerestory coach sides that I had picked up as a built kit/RTR-bashed coach a few years ago - see below. I had taken this apart around 6 months ago with the intention of renovating it into a 1947 'down at heel' austerity condition, as seen here at Tyseley on the fantastic Warwickshire Railways site.
     

     
    With inspiration again taken from The Fatadder and his blog - the relevant blog post being the same one as linked above.
     

     
    Two coats of black primer and two coats of Rover Russet Brown later and.... volia.

     
    Perhaps a little too light a shade of brown than I was expecting, and indeed lighter than what was the case historically, however I have another three similar RTR/Kit-based clerestories to do and it would be prototypical to do them in varying shades of dark brown I feel. I added the GWR crest at the waist as seen in the Warwickshire Railways image, but I cannot find any photo evidence of where and indeed if coach numbers were applied to there aged clerestories at all, as none of clerestories pictured in 1947 on Warwickshire Railways show coach numbers, unless they are submerged by grime, soot and muck! Any insight would be much appreciated from the ever-helpful populace of RMweb: were coach numbers applied to the all-over brown clerestories? If so, whereabouts on the coach side, and in what font?
     
    Well, that's all for now. Keep an eye out in the next week or so for progress with the C54 into Hawksworth 1945 double waist livery and with the brown clerestory. With the latter, once I have an outcome about coach numbers, I can coat the sides in matt lacquer (correct for wood paneled coaches rather than satin?) and start the rebuilding process - 10ft Dean bogies already procured from Shapeways, and other detailing components in hand - lamp irons and grab rails etc. Only issue is how to build the underframe trussing from scratch? Evergreen strip/rod and similar? Hmm.
     
    Cheers,
     
    CoY
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