The LNER Encyclopedia

For my next project - all the reading I've been doing around those Gresleys (http://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.p ... 7&start=15) has put me in a carriage frame of mind. While I'm waiting for one or two things to arrive I wondered about a quick project which might be done on the cheap...

Does anyone remember these?



I bet there are hundreds lying unwanted on swapmeet tables and available for pennies. This has been in the parental attic since the mid 70s.

Comparing this (D329 TK if you want to be technical) to the Isinglass drawing showed it to be about 4 mm over long but apart from that a pretty good match. Hornby have obviously used a standard end and underframe at the time and they've stretched the side to fit, so there's no single section you can remove to shorten it. That said everything is in the right place relatively and the overall length is actually spot on - the ends they've used haven't got the steep angles of the Thompson original.

Anyway, as long as you don't put them next to the new Bachmann ones I don't think it will show.

This is what I had left when I had stripped it down and thrown away what was useless:



I've filed all the detail off the ends and drilled the sides for more of those MJT handles. The buffers will have to go. The roof has also been filed flat.

This is what I then added in:



Floor from 40 thou plastikard, interior a mix of 30 and 15 thou and solebars from 1/8" Evergreen channel. The bogies are what was left from the Kirk kits I butchered for the Gresleys and the wheels were donated by a club colleague.

This is the interior so far - these coaches had vestibules one third and two thirds of the way along their length, so the compartments were in little clumps. Notice also that the solebar is stuck to the side of the floor rather than the bottom. The sides have a lip underneath them (they slotted into the old underframe) so they do sit 'on' the floor rather than sliding down over it as the Gresleys do. The solebar has to meet the bottom of the Hornby side, so you have to arrange it like this.



Your thoughts/comments appreciated.

My thoughts would be that the sides are far too basic and lacking in detail to make it worth bothering with... unless you've found some ingenius way to adding panelling and such

Nonetheless, an interior and new paint job would vastly improve it

Bass wrote:My thoughts would be that the sides are far too basic and lacking in detail to make it worth bothering with... unless you've found some ingenius way to adding panelling and such

Nonetheless, an interior and new paint job would vastly improve it

Thompson coaches, unlike their Gresley equivalents were flat sided and therefore had no panelling. See here for examples http://extension3363.fotopic.net/p14786055.html and http://extension3363.fotopic.net/p14638933.html

Regards

Karl

karlrestall wrote:Thompson coaches, unlike their Gresley equivalents were flat sided and therefore had no panelling.

Isn't that because they were steel-sided, and just painted in teak-effect (though the teak-effect paint, if that's what it is, in the pictures you've posted looks very realistic)?

Partly yes. Don't forget Thompson come to 'power' in 1941, during WWII, materials were not as abundant as they were in Gresley's time, so cut backs were made; panelling went as did the wooden exterior (most of which was brought in from overseas) in favour of the steel sided stock which was easier and quicker to build with and maintain in desperate times.

Regards

Karl

One of the first big bombing raids of WW2 on London hit the docks and the complex of warehouses holding most of the UKs stocks of imported hardwoods were destroyed in an enormous conflagration. From then on war time Britain had to rely on home grown timber.

This probably lead to one famous catch phrase on the BBC Goon Show
"You can't get the wood, you know"

Colombo

unless you've found some ingenious way to adding panelling and such

I'm not going to use it on these and wouldn't claim to be capable of tackling such a thing, but David Jenkinson's book on carriage modelling tells you just how to do such a thing. The old BSL kits also required you to do it with sticky-backed plastic IIRC.

though the teak-effect paint, if that's what it is, in the pictures you've posted looks very realistic

In fact it's just the plastic they were moulded in, but I do think it looks better than the colour Bachmann used for their Thompsons. These will be Carmine and Cream anyway so the effect will be lost. It just shows that not everything Hornby did in the 1970s was rubbish (although to be fair it'll take a few more superdetailed Chinese marvels before I can forgive them for 'Lord Westwood').

jwealleans wrote:

though the teak-effect paint, if that's what it is, in the pictures you've posted looks very realistic

In fact it's just the plastic they were moulded in, but I do think it looks better than the colour Bachmann used for their Thompsons.

I actually meant the pictures of the full-size coaches you'd provided links to.

Oh, I see. Sorry. They weren't my links, they were Karl's, but now I look at them I see what you mean. I'll have to ask him whether they are painted steel or wood- the finish looks a bit patchy to be painted, somehow - I'd have thought they'd have tried to get a more uniform effect that that.

I saw that coach on the NYMR last week and from a short distance it certainly looks wooden.

Hi
The Thompsons would be steel. The random effect is to make it look like natural wood.
Very nice pictures and beautiful coaches

Mick

More progress after a rainy Sunday night forced me to do some more modelling...

The sides are very easy to mask up, being flush and the paint certainly makes a difference. I've used Ford Sahara Beige and BMW Zinnobar Red (both Halfords) after advice on another forum. The roof has been marked and drilled and had Comet ventilators fitted. It still needs a little filling where the old moulded ventilators put up a fight. The ends have plates, buffers and jumper leads fitted: one end has the alam gear. I also had to repair one end where it broke as I tried to extract the old buffer.



The interior was just built up and painted; nothing clever. the seats have been painted and this now just needs detailing.

and how long did that take you exactly Jonathan? Looks very nice.

Regards

Karl

I agree - it's beginning to look promising, particularly given its humble origins.

Are you going to line it? What will you do about glazing, as I reckon that flush-finish windows will make a big difference (and whose absence is the principal criticism I'd make of the Bachmann Thompsons)?

It will be lined - I have the Fox packet on the bench as I write - and I also have a couple of packets of the SEF flush glazing under the bench. It will be interesting to see how much of a difference that makes.

I've not really looked at a Bachy Thompson close up - are they not flush glazed, then? It shows how far we've come in the last few years - they'd never release a coach like that now.

Mainly Trains are advertising some Bachmann bodies as a clearance; I might invest in one of those to run with this once this one's done.

We now jump ahead - via a number of hurried and undocumented steps - to the (almost) finished article. Just needs the coupling backening and corridor connectors.



The flush glazing gives a slightly 'underwater' effect when you look through the windows and the interior is too high because it sits on the ledge inside the body. Other than that I'm quite pleased, considering its origins.