The LNER Encyclopedia

My learned friends, your assistance please, if you may

When the beavertails where rebuilt, was the rear window end widened to match the leading end?

I am embarking on a conversation of a Mailcoach kit that is part built, donated to me many moons ago by a good friend Peter Morgan

Any help in this, would be most grateful

I can't give you a definitively accurate answer because I have only been close up with one and as you well know that had the end knocked out before I got to it.

But that said the bottom side rails and end bar are unchanged. The waist rails remain curved but were sawn through close to the corner pillars and a half lap created because presumably the more acute end required the waist rails to be longer. I can't say whether the extensions to the waists were curved or straight.

The carriage sides are morticed and tenoned until the waists become curved. From then on the pillars are half lapped into both the waist and bottom side rails. This allowed a degree of making it up as they went along, rather than having to develope lots of complex cross sections. This method of construction allows a degree of flexibility and it is possible that the rebuild stretched the waist rails apart slightly. I think this is quite likely as the replacement cant rails that I had to remove were completely straight and had been half lapped where the original curved ones were.

Again the rails although made straight might have been nipped in together slightly at the end. The one original drawing states that the original cant rails were curved in two planes, which would have required a huge lump of wood and been very difficult to machine without CNC. The reality was that they were straight in the vertical plane but were nipped in as Mike Trice will confirm, having repeated my physical journey virtually.

I hope this helps.

Sawdust.

There was an article in the April-May 1999 edition of Model Rail on converting a Mailcoach Beaver Tail into the BR rebuilt version.

Thank you both, very much appreciated