The LNER Encyclopedia

I keep hearing about LNER Coach sets can someone explaine please?

Well that is a big topic. Impossible to answer without some further knowledge.

What do you keep hearing and from whom; on this particular subject?

(If this query is related to the 4472 one you posted, that loco hauled all kinds of trains required by the King's Cross shed rosters in the mid 1930s, not always top express services)

The LNER carriage working books issued to work alongside the timetables show which carriages were allocated to which services, sometimes this was a type of carriage, on prestige services it could be a particular carriage number allocated to the service.

Because the LNER was a decentralised organisation each Area had its own way of doing things. So basically no such thing as an LNER Coach set.

Over to you b27.

John

So witch area was the flying Scotsman at?

John, I think it incumbent on us "slightly older" modellers to consider that we often use Short hand to describe things which we either
model or are interested in. Hence the phrase LNER coach sets.

Remember no one under 50 has any real time experience with BR steam that is not preserved, and indeed few of us under 70 had much
practical experience with the words and phrases used on the real railway, because at the time we were only really interested in
trainspotting and not the things that later in life we find really fascinating.

So for someone who has asked the kind of questions the poster has, it is worth remembering that in many magazines they use the
phrase LNER coach sets to describe models, since it is short hand to give those in the know "i.e. practising modellers" some idea of
the photos on the page.

What we do know is that none of the "mainstream" makers produce the correct carriages to create the standard formations of many
trains that ran during for instance LNER times, and of course Steve Banks book has helped by offering accurate guidance to the make
up of many trains.

For all of us, the biggest problem is the available lack of individual station working platform tables. Like so much ephemera they were
flimsy and not meant to be kept for more than say 6 months, so have not lasted as long as we now need to make more accurate trains.

To the original poster, I would comment the Steve Banks book, as a starting point to allow him to understand the phrase more explicity.

Paul

sorry I'm new to model trains and I find it not easy to find info about LNER Coaches and formations also what are station working platform tables?

What it boils down to is that trains were formed using specified sets of carriages. Some trains in the LNER period were specified down to the number of the carriage to be used (because those allocated to the premium trains would be taken into works before the start of the summer timetable and serviced).

Carriage Working Notices give the makeup of each train in an area and will tell you what the planned makeup of each train was. Some will go down to specific vehicle numbers. Others (like the North Eastern document I have) will say that a train is to be formed using 'Composition A' and elsewhere specifies that 'Composition A' is a set of four carriages, BT - T - C - BT.

If you can be a bit more specific about where and when you want to model, we can probably point you to the best sources. This is a poorly understood and documented area, though and the Banks/Carter book is the best starting point to read into it.

I'm not trying to do a model railway its more of a train set because when I'm done doing the Hornby track mat (getting tracks and buildings) I want to put trains from different eras on it and the only thing I want to get accurate is the coaches a train pulls. and I want to know what coaches the flying scotsman pulled (the loco not the route) from April 1928 to Oct 1936.(because its the flying scotsman from Hornby train set R1167 with its corridor tender)

You can't have an answer that is both simple and accurate at the same time, because the question you have asked isn't amenable to such an answer.

If you want a basic, general answer then you need models of Gresley's fully-panelled, true "teak" finished, corridor, bow-ended coaches with domed ends to the roofs. Hornby have produced several versions of these over the last ten years or so. You want the ones with fine pale yellow lining of the beading on the sides and ends, not the plain teak ones which are post-war representations of these coaches. Unfortunately, they won't be cheap. The much older pattern of Hornby Gresley coaches, first made in the 1970s, now in the Railroad range and often available second hand (sometimes cheaply) in various conditions, in a drab biscuit-coloured plain plastic finish, are a very much poorer product and are only a sort of "tribute" to the general style of the coaches rather than true models.

Kits are also available but it sounds like you only want a quick easy answer.

May I recommend use of commas and full stops too, with the latter followed by a capital letter for the start of the new sentence? It makes it easier for others to understand correctly what you mean.

Sorry Ive got aspgers syndrome and I think I’m dyslexic

Greetings bignose27 from New Zealand.

I can empathise with you as some 8 or 9 years ago my wife bought me a train 'set' (ie a train set from Hornby, not the formation 'set' you're asking about) but one I could set up on the floor and enjoy with the grandchildren. They in fact have shown little interest but, be warned, your basic 'set' may grow, as mine has, to one taking up a 6m x 5m space in a large separate room (my 'man cave'). When I started I would purchase anything that visually appealed (all types of trains, rolling stock from all sorts of regions and eras) and then realised a need to specialise was called for (with the subsequent result 'non-needed' purchases were put on trademe (our ebay) in some instances only a few months after I'd bought them.

I picked LNER as my area of specialisation due to a connection with Yorkshire and very pleased I did as the forum members who have replied to your initial query (along with at least a dozen others) have all been exceptionally helpful over the years and as well as answering some of my rather naff/obscure/whimsical/convoluted questions on every topic concerning LNER themselves have provided sources and alternative contacts to fill in the all too many gaps in my knowledge. (It's also had the unexpected benefit of meeting a very interesting bunch of people with the same interest, both here in New Zealand and the UK where I have usually visit annually).

Enjoy the hobby as I am certainly doing.

Graeme Leary