Compound2632

The Bachmann red coach mainly looks odd due to the chassis and lack of footboards and under chassis tank etc., but without scratchbuilding them you are not going to get closer to a Victorian coach except for the Ratio GWR 4 wheeler kits. A lot of light railway items never matched each other or any one maker, perhaps the only unifying part was the livery. I need coaches that can be in use in a few weeks, not months away.

Sorry, as you may have noticed there's a bit of an informal conspiracy to wean you off those horrid Hornby coaches!

Those Bachmann ones look narrow gauge to my mind., especially the red one. Obviously not looking at the chassis.

 

 

Jason

Product dimensions are quoted as 5.1 x 3.2 x 10.2 cm - OK not clear what these dimensions are over but if the body, then at 4 mm scale, 8'0" wide - typical for the mid-late 19th century, 25'6" long - fine, four compartments just over 6' between partitions, 12'9" high - if that's to the top of the lamps, good. Typical dimensions would be 4'0" - 4'2" rail to floor, 6'0" height of sides, so just over 10' to eves. Perhaps BlueLightning can confirm?

The fact that they are HO is not really a problem, though I, like you, would re-wheel (with Gibson 14mm Mansels).

 

How HO are the Bachmann Thomas coaches? When their Thomas and Percy were available here incognito, I bought one of each to re-Awdryize with faces made from one type of modelling clay pressed into a mould of another clay - I forget which - using the faces of the wooden Brio-style 'models' as masters. (Purely for personal use - no financial gain involved - if I do get any legal come-back from this post I trust Edwardian will be willing to defend me pro bono!) Both engines are pretty accurate 4 mm scale models of their prototypes... If anything, Percy is uncomfortably wide over the cylinders. Other items - wagons for instance - in the Bachmann Thomas range are re-branded OO UK models and the narrow-gauge stuff is definitely 4 mm - e.g. the re-branded (and re-priced!) L&B vans!

This could well be one of the final design of 68' 12-wheel LNWR sleeping cars, D15 (also built for WCJS, D1) - it has the 'Wolverton diner' style panelling, high elliptical roof, and - the identification feature - end vestibule doors almost out to the body profile. (The otherwise similar first generation LMS sleeping carriages had end doors to the body profile.) Compare plate 52 in Jenkinson's LNWR Carriages - though this shows the Carriage assigned to the Royal Train, just before scrapping in 1968. That isn't the carriage in your picture since it's still in good nick paint-wise which yours doesn't look to be! 

 

The 6-wheeler looks at first sight to be square-panelled (where panelling survives) but on closer inspection it might have radiused corners except at the bottom of the windows - could indeed be GE?

 Here's a picture of the LMS version with doors to body profile (in fact LMS & LNE joint - successor to, and still lettered for, the M&NB Joint Stock for St Pancras - Edinburgh services).

But what intrigues me more is the identity of the neighbouring coach. It looks as though it could have been an impressive looking vehicle, with its recessed doorway.  Any thoughts?

This could well be one of the final design of 68' 12-wheel LNWR sleeping cars, D15 (also built for WCJS, D1) - it has the 'Wolverton diner' style panelling, high elliptical roof, and - the identification feature - end vestibule doors almost out to the body profile. (The otherwise similar first generation LMS sleeping carriages had end doors to the body profile.) Compare plate 52 in Jenkinson's LNWR Carriages - though this shows the Carriage assigned to the Royal Train, just before scrapping in 1968. That isn't the carriage in your picture since it's still in good nick paint-wise which yours doesn't look to be! 

The 6-wheeler looks at first sight to be square-panelled (where panelling survives) but on closer inspection it might have radiused corners except at the bottom of the windows - could indeed be GE?

Thats actually a scratchbuilt Furness Ry van on Cambrian frames and Geen W irons. I even gave it safety chains. The roof was my sadly only usage of roof boards coated in tissue. I would like to reuse that technique if I get around to scratchbuilding another van. Post 154 on page 7 has my build of it.

Thanks - I need to go back and read through from the beginning!

If I wanted to get to where you want to get - archaic carriages for an impoverished light railway - I wouldn't start from here. I accept that these little monstrosities can be picked up very cheaply - £3 - £4 - but that's for a reason...

I'd be tempted to go for something like the North Staffs 4-wheelers - bodies available as a 3D print to fit a GWR brake van underframe. Another possibility might be the imported Bachmann Thomas coaches which have found favour in LBSC quarters.

Apart from the wagons, what an interesting picture. Three way point, wagon turntable and a weighbridge all in the same photo as well as the shunting horses and all the other railway ephemera long gone.

 

Brian.

 Indeed, there was a thread a while back which focused on the wagon traverser (front left) that led to someone building a demo example! And I've distracted Mikkel by linking to it elsewhere today...

The 3-links look good, batch-making is clearly a good approach to this. I have been trying out the ready-made Smith's ones recently, but they're a bit large (although good for manual coupling no doubt).

The Slater's ones look a lot better than the Smith's ones to my eyes but I confess coupling up is a challenge and I've been getting some stick at the Club for the time it takes to set a train up on the test track!

It helps to have something worth listening to on the radio while making these up.

Great Western experts - having tweaked you re. corridor carriages, are you willing or able to tell me anything about the wagon (No. 25637 I think) front left in this photo, taken in Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory, Reading, c. 1900.

Springs inside the W-irons, W-iron slightly behind the outside face of the solebars - iron frame? Self-contained buffers? - this and the non-full-width headstocks, suggests conversion from dumb buffers?

EDIT: @Chrisbr, who has examined the GW wagon registers at the NRM, conforms that this is a conversion from a broad gauge wagon:

Not much modelling just at present but a few evenings ago I did make up another set of 3-link couplings – good for another dozen wagons!

 These are a Slater’s product – one of a few 4 mm scale products still in their catalogue (Part No. 4151) though this batch are from a pack I found lurking in the back of a box and I think were bought twenty years ago. The links are of a softer wire than the last batch I made, which were from a recently-purchased packet! That certainly made assembly quicker than last time.

The hooks are a brass etching. This was polished up with Cif using an old electric toothbrush. After cutting from the fret and fettling, each hook was dunked in Carr’s metal black for brass (Part No. C1062). Once the couplings were assembled, the links were blackened by heating to a red heat in the flame of a gas ring and then quenching in oil (Tesco olive oil – other oils may be suitable). The coupling is held in a pair of pliers to avoid getting too close to the flame! When the end of the hook gets in the flame, green and blue flames are observed – chemistry students will recognise the characteristic colours for zinc and copper.

This is supposed to be a scratch- and kit-building thread; I have posted pictures of things I’ve merely bought but as I’ve posted a photo of my recently arrived batch of wagon sheets from Thomas Petith I’ll send you there.

Arrived in the post a few days ago:

Thanks to Tom for the prompt service (and the bonus LSWR sheet - I now have a plan for that) and to RMwebbers for helping find the cause of the contact problem - to confirm, the address is: wagonsheets@hotmail.com.

I'll be getting to grips with the LNWR ones first but have plans for the rest. The SER ones are because I can't get this picture out of my head - lovely line-up of antique SER wagons, such a shame SERKits are 7 mm scale only. Note also the SER sheet 'borrowed' for factory purposes in this view - behind the horse-drawn wagon and the telegraph post - presumably demurrage charges were mounting up!

Well, yesterday I broke out the soldering iron to see about remaking a brake wheel for the flatcar.

Made a jig from wood to help align it all and soldered it all up. Its not perfect, and nowhere near the same level of detail as the original (judging by the remains of the spokes), but I think it works.

IMG_2401.JPG

 

 

And I had a go at counting how many 4mm wagons I had which fit into my time period.

IMG_2400.JPG

Its a good collection seeing as nothing is RTR.

Although the ratio of LMS to not is a little 'xenophobic'. Ill have to amend that at some point.

Anyone know of some good kits of foreign stock which fit into early grouping?

It's a good-looking collection - with a variety of brake vans. Also, 'early grouping' is very much 'late pre-grouping' - so good to see a good number of vehicles that haven't yet been through the paint shop. As I recall, the layout is a small goods yard, so the relatively low proportion of private owner coal wagons doesn't signify. It would be good to have a beauty parade - for instance, I'm curious as to the van middle back, behind the ex-LNWR D88(?) - it seems to have vertical wooden framing and possibly a roof hatch?

Don't quote me on this but something in the back of my mind tells me the LNWR flirted with left and right handed coaches, I shall have to go through all my books now to see if they did. Steve

I know this is an old thread that has just had one recent comment but I couldn't resist the temptation to subvert the Great Western-ness of things by agreeing with Londontram - from diagrams and photos in Jenkinson's LNWR Carriages, it's clear that both the original 42' bogie stock of 1893 and the luxury 12-wheelers of 1908, for the 2pm - the original 'Corridor' and the country's premier express passenger service - were built to have the corridor down one side, including 'handed' brake carriages. As far as I can work out, the corridor seems to have been on the eastern side of the train. 

Be grateful for that

So many shades of brown! Almost as much nostalgia as pair of 20s nose-to-nose... 

Im in a time loop next up Jenny Agutter

 

Nick

It is, apparently, obligatory to include a picture of Jenny Agutter in every 1,263rd post on this thread. Manure, however, comes round more frequently.

The post on the Granville brakevans didn't seem to attract much interest

Well, I was interested but didn't get round to asking: is it known where the Cannock company got them from? Home-made, main-line cast-offs or new from one of the rolling-stock manufacturing companies?

The Great Western had to abandon its misappropriation of the arms of London and Bristol after giving its use of them too much publicity in celebrating the centenary of the incorporation of the company - cue the shirtbutton. Most companies seem to have got away with such goings-on at least in the Victorian era - the Midland is a case in point, with arms cobbled together from the six cities served by the original constituents and the Bristol line constituents. I believe the Great Central got a proper grant of arms when it reinvented itself from the M&SL - did the LNER follow suit? The LMS was more cautious and simply used the national badges - in a manner that had already started to be used in the internal decoration of some Midland & Glasgow & South Western Joint Stock dining carriages.

In Scotland, the Caledonian boldly appropriated the Royal Arms of Scotland and stuck the company name underneath - if Lyon King of Arms was so hot on such matters, how did the Caley get away with it? Nemo me impune lacessit...

My feeling is that one may get away without the lighter coloured lining - whether it be gold, imitation gold, or straw - next to a white or cream coloured panel but against a dark panel its absence does leave the carriage looking rather drab. The gold lining brings out the colour! An unlined claret carriage looks very dull alongside a fully lined one.

- I am tempted to abandon the yellow edging.  It's a good look, but I cannot seem to achieve the neatness required.  This does not bode well for GW lined chocolate and cream coaches in due course.

May I offer another of my teenage efforts as encouragement? A Midland D522 4-compartment bogie brake third from the Ratio kit:

EDIT for more info (I hit the post button inadvertently): In my youth I was innocent of such things as undercoats and varnish. This is probably Humbrol No. 20 brushed directly onto the plastic, lining with gold marker and Humbrol gloss black with a fine brush! Bolections in Humbrol gloss tan. Life was made easier with many fixed windows, as the gold lining is only on one side of the black and the tan went on last. I can't remember whether I'd also tried a Rotring pen with black drawing ink by then - I used this with some success on a pair of LNWR coaches, mixing black and blue ink to match the plum colour. My techniques were developing and had I persisted I might have got to a result I'd be happy with now, so it's another project to return to. I say: keep practicing; keep trying different techniques; don't despair - we're much more aware of the defects of our models than anyone else!

Prototype notes (rant/moan): The D522 4-compartment bogie brake third seems to be a favourite with many modellers - it was in fact the very first Ratio kit I attempted at age 12 (not the one in the photo!) but it was actually the rarest of the four Bain suburbans in the Ratio range - just 12 were built with the 10ft wheelbase bogies per the kit, for four-coach sets for services down the Gloucestershire loop from Birmingham via Redditch and Evesham to Alvechurch. These close-coupled sets were formed: D552 brake third / D551 composite / D487 third / D552 brake third - the composites being identical to the D481 first except for having three compartments at one end reduced in size internally with additional partitions, so either can be built from the Ratio kit. Superb photo here. There were however a further 58 built for Sheffield district services, but with 8ft wheelbase bogies. The Birmingham area services made much more use of the D501 6-compartment brake third, 34 being built and used at either end of six-coach sets (BT/T/F/F/T/BT) and four coach sets (BT/F/T/BT) for services round the Camp Hill and West Suburban lines and to Walsall and Wolverhampton, along with some three-coach sets (BT/F/BT) used for peak-time strengthening. The design originated in sets built for the Manchester area, six nine-coach sets (BT/T/T/F/F/F/F/T/BT). After the Sheffield area sets with 8ft bogies, similar carriages were 9ft wide rather than 8ft 6in, with sides bowed out at the waist rather than vertical from waist to eves. Please excuse my Midland Carriages pedantry again - it is my obsession.

I wonder about an arc-roof version of the Ratio 4-Wheel Composite (First/Second) combined with your Centre Brake Third. 

Not clear from the photo but I did crudely carve the ends to a single arc profile which does mean the panelling looks a bit odd but if there's a roof overhang I doubt it would show except on the end carriage of a rake. As you say, it ought to be finished but that goes for a lot of my modelling!

In my teenage carriage-building days, I did the usual thing of butting up two Ratio T47 brake ends to make a cod GW 4-wheel brake van. I put the passenger ends together on the second underframe to make a centre-brake third:

I remember at the time deciding it was a Maryport & Carlisle coach but realise now I may actually have inadvertently built a West Norfolk vehicle.

It's perhaps more olive and spilt milk than green and cream - in fact I think the upper panels are Precision LNWR white - and I think isn't far off the actual M&C livery which was carefully differentiated from its neighbours' plum and spilt milk (LNW) and blue and ditto (Furness).

Somehow this was as far as it got - roofless, interior-less, and without the green or black lining over the gold or mahogany bolections. The gold lining was one of those gold marker pens - I think one snag may have been to get any other paint to adhere to it. I have some notes that I made from one of Coachman's threads (now deleted I think) which I hope he won't mind being quoted here:

"Railways were fond of using the word gold when in fact it was a paint mixed to resemble gold. A bright colour it wasn't. On the modelling front, you could use Humbrol Cream No.7 and Humbrol yellow No.69 mixed 50/50. If you are using a draughtsman's ruling pen, let the new tins of paint settle before pouring off the oil into a spare container. Then stir the 'putty' that is left and pour in small amounts of the oil until the paint flows out of your bow pen and stays put without spreading out of control. Then mix the two colours together. Finally add a very small touch of black to distress the colour. This same lining colour can also be used for BR maroon. I happen to used cellulose paint mixed to match the above colour."

I haven't tried this yet but Coachman said he'd been doing it for fifty years, so who's to quarrel with that?

I think this series of phots of how and how not to load wagons dates from the 1920s?

I found these photos on the NRM website where they're dated 1903.

Now, apropos of saloon carriages, somewhere - I think in a slim book of Leicestershire Railways from Old Postcards I can't just find - I've seen a photo of His Majesty on the platform at some lesser junction - possibly Syston - awaiting his connection onward to Wolferton having left Queen Alexandra to travel on to London - I think they'd been at Chatsworth. As the caption says, 'almost a ordinary passenger'.

 

It was a postcard, taken from a distance - paparazzi are nothing new!

Found it! Leicestershire and Rutland Railway Stations on old picture postcards, Brian Lund (Yesterday's Leicestershire series No. 2, Reflections of a Bygone age, Keyworth, Nottingham, 1996). On 7 January 1907, His Majesty, travelling from Rowsley (i.e. Chatsworth) had to wait nine minutes on the platform at Saxby (not Syston) for his connection on to St Pancras, while the Queen had gone on to Wolferton (that sounds a more likely state of affairs...). In the first photo, he's walking away from a clerestory carriage that has a rather Great Eastern-ish air to my eyes, in greatcoat and bowler hat and with a stick, there's a taller middl-aged chap similarilt attired and a couple of younger attendants with top hats - the younger one stands at a greater distance (he looks like the junior security man) while the elder talks to someone in the carriage. In the second photo, the same group are alone on the platform with addition of a white terrier. The King does look to be a rather tired old man. A train is drawing out from the opposite platform - several the droplights are down with passengers leaning out and waving. 

Bumped into this chap, who was enquiring as to how his subjects are faring, this afternoon.

 

K

Now, apropos of saloon carriages, somewhere - I think in a slim book of Leicestershire Railways from Old Postcards I can't just find - I've seen a photo of His Majesty on the platform at some lesser junction - possibly Syston - awaiting his connection onward to Wolferton having left Queen Alexandra to travel on to London - I think they'd been at Chatsworth. As the caption says, 'almost a ordinary passenger'.

It was a postcard, taken from a distance - paparazzi are nothing new!

Read Mr American by the late George MacDonald Fraser - or even his more scandalous representation of Bertie in The Subtleties of Baccarat (Flashman and the Tiger)!