hartleymartin

December 1976 "Model Railways" p. 598 has a drawing for a Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway 4-wheel coach which is pretty darn close. The Hornby model scales out at 21'6" over headstocks whilst the S&DJR coach drawing shows 22'3" - only 3mm short overall length. The wheelbase on the drawing is 12'6". The main criticism of the Hornby model is that it is too tall. There is at least a 1mm lip at the top of the coach which needs to go (easy enough job with a razor saw) and the roof arc is all wrong. I'm having a go at this myself, but someone else has already got a similar conversion online for you to look at: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/846/entry-7029-Hornby-4-wheel-coach/ They have retained the original chassis, which I believe is borrowed from their GWR Brake Van, but I will probably bash up something from an Airfix Brake Van kit. These modified 4-wheelers would be useful for pre-1900 railways (1860's - 1880's period most likely) or for light railways of the Colonel Stephens empire. I've also tried chopping a couple up intl a 4-compartment 4-wheeler of 28'8" length, but my cuts with the razor saw are not quite perfect. I doubt that it would suit 5.5mm scale since the height of the door is 25mm - too short unless you are perhaps adapting them for narrow gauge.

A few years back Railway Modeller published an article on building locomotives in cardboard. The author even used 2mm plywood for the chassis! He did say that a lot of detailing items such as chimneys, domes, buffers, etc could be bought as metal castings, but there was a time when people even made them from layers of card! You don't have to be a card purist though. He used plastic pipes and all sorts of other bits and bobs if they happened to be the right size.