Dana Ashdown

James, For GWR livery, I had better luck painting the "mahogany" around the windows first, then the mouldings in black, then the brown, and only finally the cream panels using a small brush. I still have to do the odd touch up, but its much easier in the end. This approach follows Mikkel's (thank you Mikkel!), except I do the mouldings black. I tried painting the black mouldings last, but had to do a lot more touching up. With a small brush, you can move the paint to the edge of the panels, and if a bit gets on the black, just scrape it off with a piece of plastic or wood. A black pen does make the odd correction easier though. Dana

Just a thought, but can a Tri-ang M7 be altered to a LC&DR/SE&CR Kirtley Class R/R1 0-4-4T, as here <http://www.semgonline.com/steam/r-r1class-lcdr_01.html>. The Tri-ang M7 has a driving wheelbase of about 8 ft. 3 in., a bogie wheel base of about 3 ft. 3.5 in.; and a total length of 23 ft. on the footplate, excluding buffers. The front end would need shortening, but they look similar. Dana

For anyone interested in the 2000 gallon Dean tender, here is the drawing for the ones first supplied with the Duke/Devon class, from one of O.S. Nock's books.

The Tri-ang clerestory bodies can be bashed into LBSCR and SECR carriages... at least so I'm told! That said, Gary Bluelightening did some nice LBSCR conversions a while back.

"I seek absolution from the Parish for my impetuous and willful extravagance ..." You are forgiven my son. Now say three Hail Great Westerns and two Great Easterns.

Yes!

That's a very neat job, Tony! Better than mine. Dana

Hello Lofty. You can use the original roof for the altered body. After cutting the original clerestory roof to length, glue a couple of reinforcing pieces across the lower roof sides, so the two sides are joined independent of the clerestory. This is optional, but it helps prevent the roof from coming to pieces during the alterations. Next, take a razor saw and cut the clerestory off, following along where the sides and ends of the clerestory meet the lower roof. This is fairly easy to do and, if you're careful, you should only have a little bit sticking up. The offending edges can be filed off. Now that the clerestory has been removed, cut a piece of thin plastic card stock (I used Evergreen .010 inch if I remember correctly), to the length of the roof and wider than the opening, so it overlaps the roof sides. Glue this in place. With the plastic card securely glued, you can then fair the edges with a sharp knife, file or sandpaper, until you have a smooth transition. The thin card is strong enough by itself, but if you plan to drill through it you might want to reinforce it from below. Otherwise, that's it. Dana

I'll look forward to it Gary!

A very fitting, very personal tribute Gary. Well done!

But if you want to understand Wagner, if that's possible, try the movie Wagner with Richard Burton, from around 1973. Appropriately, its about seven hours long! Well worth watching though. Dana (And yes, I am late with this)

A new (to me) source for Bradshaw is the February 1906 edition posted on archive.org by Bristolian - https://archive.org/details/Bradshaw1906. The file is HUGE, but it is much easier to view than the printed versions because you can easily enlarge the image. Dana

You could try the society directly, they might still have copies. It was only £4.50 plus postage back in 2012. Dana

Have you seen the SE&CR Society's book A Car Called Constance? Its got a fairly complete record of the Hastings Car Train, complete with diagrams and pictures. Now if only they could do the same with the Folkestone Car Train. Dana

I was wrong about the Midland trains going east — Mr. Brain having gone bye-bye I confused these with the GNR through service to Woolwich (which ceased at the end of June 1910). Midland trains went to Victoria via Ludgate Hill, but this service ended 1 July 1908. If you can find it, Adrian Gray’s South Eastern and Chatham Railways, A Marriage of Convenience (Middleton Press, 1998), outlines the many and varied SE&CR passenger services.

I think the second picture with the Midland carriages represents a suburban train, some of which operated to east end London prior to the Great War. Similarly, some SECR trains ran up Great Northern line into north London. Dana

Here is the Midland-SECR through service from the Summer of 1911. Dana

Hello Mikkel and Castle, Yes I've seen the Shapeways bogies — and very nice they are too! — but with a dozen or so coaches to do (chocolate & cream, brown, and crimson lake) and a few planned, I thought I'd try doing the conversion instead before blowing the budget. As it is, I think I can achieve the look of Dean bogies without the extra cost, in which case I'll be happy. Heresy maybe, but apart from us, whose to know! Dana

Hello Mikkel, I'll hijack your thread an repost this from your blog with the picture. To review: With a “composite clerestory” to do as part of a circa 1907 formation, I thought I would do it in the 1903 for something different. Its not quite finished but here it is.... or it would be if I could figure out how to attach the image! It started as a late Margate LNER clerestory composite, so the body moulding is a little crisper but with the odd buffers (replaced with my last set of Triang buffers). Lower footboards have been added and the bogies are in the process of being made into something more like Dean bogies. Body colour is Humbrol No.10 Service Brown; drop lights and bolection mouldings are Humbrol RC403 Crimson Lake. Transfers are HMRS Pressfix, and all varnished with Humbrol Satin Varnish. Footboards are Humbrol 93 Desert Yellow. The roof is actually grey with brown on the rain strips and clerestory sides, but looks more overall grey in the picture — possibly due to the matt varnish and poor lighting. I'm not sure I would do an entire formation, but one brown clerestory could be justified. Dana

Good idea. I'll post it to your Pragmatic Pre-Grouping site.

Mikkel, With a “composite clerestory” to do as part of a circa 1907 formation, I thought I would do it in the 1903 for something different. Its not quite finished but here it is.... or it would be if I could figure out how to attach the image! It started as a late Margate LNER clerestory composite, so the body moulding is a little crisper but with the odd buffers (replaced with my last set of Triang buffers). Lower footboards have been added and the bogies are in the process of being made into something more like Dean bogies. Body colour is Humbrol No.10 Service Brown; drop lights and bolection mouldings are Humbrol RC403 Crimson Lake. Transfers are HMRS Pressfix, and all varnished with Humbrol Satin Varnish. Footboards are Humbrol 93 Desert Yellow. The roof is actually grey with brown on the rain strips and clerestory sides, but looks more overall grey in the picture — possibly due to the matt varnish and poor lighting. Low tech, but I rather like it. Dana

Thank's for this Mikkel! I do wonder which/how many carriages received the experimental all-chocolate livery in 1903. I know a D29 (or possibly a D40) was amongst them, so possibly a rake of corridor clerestories. But were non-corridor clerestories included as well? I ask because I have noticed that the Triang clerestory coaches seem to look well in crimson lake, which hides their unorthodox layout that is neither first nor second class (I treated my three as composites.) I have another for an Edwardian rake and am now considering all-chocolate rather than chocolate and cream. Dana

The only pre-1908 photograph of an “all brown” carriage that I’ve seen is in Peter Darke, Great Western Locomotives on the Main Line (Ian Allan, 2012) — an interesting little book of photos, mostly engines circa 1906-7, with some carriages and wagons in and around. At the top of page 82 is a picture taken at Torquay in 1906 showing saddle tank 1045 with a van third in tow (only the front part with the three sets of van doors is visible). The number appears to be 3274, which was a D25 (Lot 870), though others might like to confirm this. The brown looks somewhat lighter in shade than the brown most of us are used to, which is also noticeable in some other pictures; in other words, the lighter pre-1904 shade Coachman mentioned. I can’t see any monogram on the side of the carriage, but the number is in the eave panel, so the livery was probably identical to the standard chocolate & cream, but without the cream. Does anybody know what stock received the experimental all brown livery in 1903? Was it a rake of coaches, or just a random selection? I’ve isolated the picture Composite Brake Corridor No.7672 from Our Home Railways and added some sharpening to bring out a few details. What strikes me is that the actual body colour seems more brown than red, and that the red may just be an artefact of the lithography process or the PDF conversion. You will notice that the droplight sashes are varnished, which would be correct for the all brown scheme — droplight sashes on crimson lake coaches were painted the body colour. Oddly, the initials “G.W.R” are not to be seen anywhere along the waist panel, so this may have been an error of omission on the part of the artist, or an early variant. Normally for the 1908 livery, “G.W.R” should appear over the London and Bristol crests. The roof destination boards are red with gold lettering, which is correct for the pre-1912 era. Dana

The Locomotive Magazine article only establishes that GWR wagons were red up to the middle of the 1890s. The next change in wagon livery actually came around this time in the form of cast plates replacing painted letters. According to Slinn’s Great Western Way (2nd edition), they were introduced experimentally in 1894 on CROCODILES and PW vehicles. They were applied to new wagons from 1899 until as late as 1905 (and probably on some rebuilds as well). The change from red to grey for wagons may have occurred when cast plates were extended to the wagons in 1899 (if not before). This is suggested by the photo of the iron MINK on page 100 of GWW. The cast G.W.R plate has been removed and replaced by painted 25” letters, though the other plates were left in place. The shadow of the cast plate is quite noticeable and seems to show that the MINK was painted grey sometime before the plate was removed. The shadow itself is noticeably darker in shade, perhaps suggesting the original red colour. Dana

James, This has been very inspiring! Dana