4mm LNER & Constituent Coaches...

[LarryG]

I for one welcomed the introduction of Hornby's LNER Gresley wooden coaches some years ago because their chassis, bogies and domed roofs opened the door building etched brass GNR and LNER coaches without the hassle that traditionally comes with domed roofs.

A number of manufacturers including Comet, Kemilway, Mike Trice and Bill Bedford produce coach side etches and all have their little foibles and methods of assembly. Below is the etched sheet for the Kemilway GNR D218A corridor brake composite....

To be continued...

 

[LarryG]

Each side comes in one piece. The lower panels then have to be soldered to the framework. They were lightly tacked from the front to ensure they were accurately aligned and then soldered fully from the back. Then the droplights followed. I added my own hinges at the bottom of the door. These days I would add the middle and top hinges from Plastkard glued into the door groove. Grab and door handles came from MJT. A glance at this picture will tell you how many separate pieces of glazing material will be needed!!!


The finished sides and corridor partition....


A Hornby Buffet Car was used as a donor and below is the roof after carefully removing the plastic sides, ends and roof detail....


The top of the etched ends was re-=profiled to match a Hornby roof


Sides soldered to ends, but before gluing on the roof, it was necessary to solder strips of scrap brass some 3mm wide along the cantrail to prevent the sides bowing in and to provide a larger surface on which to apply Evostik impact adhesive.....


To illustrate this, I have used a GNR corridor third that was built at the same time. New torpedo came from Mike Trice....


After removing the Hornby trussing, it was replaced with MJT etched trussrods and queenposts. One trossrod was used to accurately space out the queenpost etchings, then the rest were soldered in place. The ends were bent down and melted into the plastic underframe...

 

[LarryG]

This is how the Hornby chassis was altered. First the trussing and bogies were removed...


Then both solebars were cut off with a knife, but the bufferbeam was cut with a fine saw....

Ah so....


Then I trimmed the floor so that when the solebars were glued back in lace they were 31mm apart on the inside faces...


The trussrods were split as shown and trimmed until they fitted between the solebars...


Almost finished. Although tghe solebars were now correct, the floor was too narrow for a coach body.....


Strips of Pastikard were glued to the floor to make it wider. This is trail and error according to the body kit, but it usually needs 20thou adding on each side...


Etched brass trussing added if the coaches were built before angle-trussing was adopted....

 

[LarryG]

Painted in grained teak livery as carrying early BR markings in LNER style insignia....



The over-exposed and washed out models were much darker than apparent in the pictures ...


A GNR corridor third carrying BR insignia. These coaches added some character to my trains amongst the LNER Gresley coaches back in 2010.....


GNR D248B corridor third....


A real GNR corridor brake composite restored on the Llangllen Railway and photographed in the yard at Carrog in 2018. It has lost it toplights on the corridor side....


The coach carries LNER No. 4229, which ties in with the ex. GNR number 229....

View of the end profile showing the amount of tumblehome even on an 8' 6" wide coach...

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Then both solebars were cut off with a knife, but the bufferbeam was cut with a fine saw....

Are the GN carriages narrower than the Gresley LNE carriages?

 

[LarryG]

Are the GN carriages narrower than the Gresley LNE carriages?

It is nine years ago since they were built (and later sold), but I am quite sure the GNR coaches were 8' 6" wide against LNER Gresley's 9'. Pictured below with a Hornby Gresley coach. The difference in width is noticeable. Incidentally, the solebars were cut off and the chassis narrowed because Hornby got it too wide. It was done for all coaches....

 

[LarryG]

Starting at the beginning, this was the old way of building an LNER Gresley coach. I think friend Mike Radford sent me the BSL/Phoenix-style pressed aluminium domed roof. The model weighed a ton with whitemetal bogies and fitting...

 

[LarryG]

Once the Hornby LNER Gresley coaches were released, I used them as donors on which to fit etched brass sides. Using a steel ruler, I made several fine cuts immediately below the gutter and snapped the sides off the roof. A saw cut was made at each end about 3mm from the end...

The etched sides are generally 12 thou to 15 thou thick and so the equivalent thickness of plastic was filed off the ends (as shown by red line)...



Comet's Gresley etched sides come in two parts plus door droplights. ....


The lower half is intended to slightly overlap the upper half. I lightly tacked each end to ensure accurate alignment and then soldered along the seam. Best not to linger with the iron or apply too much heat to avoid excess solder creeping into places where it would have to be removed afterwards...


The pair of sides below show I soldered a strip of scrap brass at right angles inside and along the very top of the coach. It provides a wider surface on which to glue the sides to the roof and strengthens the sides...


Sides glued to rooof with Evostik impact adhesive and to the ends with Loctite superglue. The flexibility of Evostik allows the plastic roof and brass sides to expand at different rates....


I found a convenient interior in the scrap box which needed a spot of alteration to make it fit this D186 open third. Note the while Plastikard strips to widen the floor. These were necessary becasue brass coach sides were much thinner than the plastic sides...


Finished in the usual (for my layouts) BR red & cream. This livery is easier than BR maroon because the waist lining falls below the raised beading...


The companion D196 open brake third....

 

[LarryG]

An odd introduction to an LNER Dining Car I suppose, but I built the interior first using etched components from one of my MR Diners! The thing is, who would know in 4mm?


MJT Dia. 10C (Dart Castings 2862) sides were used. They entail soldering the lower panels into a framework as per the aforementioned GNR coaches....


These two pictures illustrate the roof details, which are quite sparse for a diner. These etches for the early LNER Dining cars are the easiest to build, as from November 1928, it was recommended future diners be 9' 3" wide. Only the body was this width and all doors were recessed....



MJT turnbuckle trussing kit (Dart Castings 2808 kit) was fitted to the Hornby donor underframe as shown...

Ready for the sprayshop. The cast door vents were useful. I usually have to make them from Plastikard...


Unframe after being sprayed with Halfords Acid 8 etching primer and matt black paint, followed by a mild blow-over with my weathering colour...



The toplights were glazed and then my etched nickel-silver 'Stones' vents glued in the middle to the glazing. From 1925, Wedgewood instructed that all new restaurant firsts must be upholstered in green leather and that all existing cars with moquette should be re-trimmed. I obtained running numbers from Harris's 'Gresley Coaches' published in 1973 because the list in Harris's LNER Carraiges' book of 1974 looked incomplete and frankly confused me (easily done!)....


The completed Dia.10 dining car with a Dia 27A open third (Dart Castings 2859), some of which were designated as dining cars...


POSTSCRIPT 17 March 2019 : The telephojne rang this afternoon with a voice from the past. It was Murray Brown (ex. Editor) wishing to discuss a full-size D10C Gresley Diner that the group he is involved with has got. We are assisting each other with pictures to illustrate our respective articles and to that end, Murray kindly sent the following pictures of Dia.10 restaurant cars with captions :-
ADE 320947 is pictured at Stratford whilst finally condemned - I think in 1986. (It was sold to the Woolwich Museum only a few miles away).....

Photo courtesy Murray Brown

42969 in the yard at Pickering - it is used by the C&W department for upholstery repairs. Of note are the replacement BR Mk.I windows.....

Photo courtesy Murray Brown

 

[LarryG]

The lining is is higher on BR maroon livery. On a real Gresley wooden coach, the raised waist beading is black and the yellow lining is either side of the black beading. This is not always possible on a 4mm coach due to the thickness of the raised beading. I run a black line along the underside of the beading then rule a yellow line on the beading (even if it is a knife edge) and another yellow line under the black....

 

[LarryG]

I obtained LNER D167 etchings from Bill Bedford when it came to rebuilding a Hornby buffet car with brass sides......


Door and grab handles came from Dart Castings....


The two halves of the sides were tacked at the ends as shown by the arrow (below) before turning the sides over and soldering the joint...


I keep the sides perfectly flat by pressing a steel ruler along the joint while soldering. This prevents the two halves from bowing during soldering....


The usual strip of brass was soldered along the top....


Bill etched the droplights in, which I was very happy about. No point in making work for people needlessly. The tumblehome was formed as detailed earlier in this thread....


Let demolition & rebuilding commence....

The D167 finished in ex.works condition for a change....



The interior was slightly more colorful than Hornby's interior moulding suggests...

 

[LarryG]

Gresley brake ends were narrower at the guards end and so the etchings were slightly different because of this fact. The compartment side shows the bottom and top halves soldered together ready for joining to the luggage section...

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Gresley brake ends were narrower at the guards end

Well you live and learn. I never knew this fact (and that I do not really pay any attention to Gresley coaches other than the Pullman gangways and buckeye couplers).

Is the narrowing of the brake ends is as obvious as the SR Maunsell restriction 4 stock?

 

[LarryG]

Well you live and learn. I never knew this fact (and that I do not really pay any attention to Gresley coaches other than the Pullman gangways and buckeye couplers).

Is the narrowing of the brake ends is as obvious as the SR Maunsell restriction 4 stock?

The narrowing of a Gresley LNER coach was abrupt with a rounded corner and quite unlike the tapered change of width on a SR Maunsell coach....


......Which leads me neatly to the smooth sided stock designed by Gresley. ....


This kit for a Dia 169 Tourist brake third was produced my my late friend, John Fozard under the brandname of North Easter Design. I produced this model from the initial test-etch and it represents the earlier batch with shallow window vents. The prototypes had plywood body panelling screwed to teak framing.....


It is interesting to note that when given BR red & cream livery, the waist lining was exactly the same height as on Thompson coaches and not as on Gresley wood panelled stock....

 

[LarryG]

LNER non-teak coach sides come in one piece (naturally), and there is little point in using a Hornby Gresley coach as a donor. I extended one of my surplus LMS floors and used the flat fold-up ends as false ends on which to glue LNER end castings. The correct MJT roof extrusion was also used, but seeing as these do not have a rebate to fit between the sides, it is important to solder a strengthening piece along the top edge of the coach side as was added to the Gresley sides....


The basic 'box'. I also used my own solebar etchings and drilled them to take stepboards...


Comet Models Gresley bogies were used....


....However, I considered they were too wide because of the thickness of the whitemetal cosmetic sides....


This view shows how much they stuck out beyond the body sides....


I removed the brass sideframes and narrowed the top plate, then the cast sideframes were soldered directly to the top plate to produce a narrower bogie....


An interior was made from Plastikard and Southern Pride seats....


A finished Thompson corridor third. Bachmann has since relieved modellers of the chore of building Thompsons although they could be useful donors for producing coaches not in Bachmann's range....

 

[dibateg]

I used to spend ages filing down the backs of those Gresley bogie sideframes, I suspect they were originally designed to be used as part of a white metal bogie without the brass sub frame. They were far too wide otherwise.
Thanks for the tour through the coaches Larry - the Tourist brake is lovely.

Regards
Tony

 

[LarryG]

The Thompson corridor composite was shorter than the other Thompson's at 58'. The flat inner ends were set back to allow for the thickness of the cast whitemetal bowed ends...


The interior was made from a surplus Hornby Gresley interior..........


The usual BR red and cream livery....


John Fozard had planned a complete Thompson range, which of course included the rounded window versions as shown below...


A 0 gauge Thompson brake third with paintwork by fellow model painter, Dave Studely. In my book, he is one of the best 'grainers' around.....

 

[oldravendale]

As one who knows the square root of nothing about coaching stock I'm not really proficient to comment on the wood graining, although that Thompson Brake Third is quite remarkable.

I had a go at this as a "once only" exercise on a couple of original D & S Models 4mm kits from Danny Pinnock to go with an original Rosebud Kitmaster GNR No 1 - I'm not certain that they are entirely appropriate but I wanted a couple of vehicles to run with it. Bear in mind also that the amount of info available at the time was very limited - no WT and precious little internet, in fact probably none at the time. I know it was a long time ago because I've not touched any 4mm for years - probably 20 or 30.

Anyway, these were painted using a matt stone base and a gloss teak top coat which was scrubbed in to the base coat and worked until almost dry. The streaking and graining can then be controlled. This was not dry brushed as we understand it, as the paint went on wet so that it flowed in to the nooks and crannies. After applying transfers a semi matt varnish was applied. All paints were enamels sprayed on with a Humbrol spray gun.

Having seen the image above I'm now aware that my efforts are rather light and need more shading to detail different panels. However, in truth I'm very unlikely to ever have to apply graining to any of my builds in future.

Incidentally, I'm so impressed by Danny's kits that I've bought several in 7mm with the intention to build and paint them in BR livery.

Brian

 

[LarryG]

Graining models is not an easy job Brian, but you have made a fine job of the GNR bogie. When lining has been applied and handles picked out in brass, it should look fine.

Hornby's initial launch of Gresley coaches in teak livery was quite a revelation. The company would have been on a real winner had it paid more attention to the lower waist beading, tumblehome and an over-wide underframe. But we are where we are, as they say, and after narrowing the underframe, I used the teak livery and added some darker brown on the framing to represent unlined teak as I saw it in early BR days up to around 1954.


The same was done to a buffer car. The raised beading was lined in a mucky straw colour which was meant to represent highlighting rather than lining. To this end, I added a dark brown shadow line under the horizontal beading....


When I eventually got around to replacing the sides with etched brass ones, it was time to learn how to apply grained teak. Dave Studely kindly offered advice and sent me a paint brush he had altered to do the actual graining using Humbrol tan and dark brown gloss paint. The rest was up to me. 'LNER in Transition' had just come out and I saw that, contrary to common beliefs, lining out and white roofs had re-appeared in the late 1940's; no doubt a last fling by the men of Doncaster. So I started to line my coaches out .....

 

[LarryG]

The coach below had been sprayed in a cream-ish sand colour as a base for the graining which would follow....


Humbrol gloss Tan was brushed on a few panels at a time starting above the waist. Then Humbrol dark brown gloss was worked in using a stiff brush (bristles about 4mm long). Knotting was done with a fine brush and then the stiff worked it in and feathered the graining. The raised panelling was then lined out in a purplish-brown.....


The camera lens has perfect eyesight. We humans on the other hand have not. I wonder if we sometimes forget this in the digital age. Personally, I use the camera as a tool to highlights any mistakes so that they can be corrected before the model goes out to the customer or is posted on here!

The actual graining is not really visible on the model, not would it be visible on a real coach from the same scaled up distance.


A real coach from a photo taken I think by Mike Trice....