4mm B.S.L./Phoenix Coach Kits - A Retrospective.

[Mike Trice]

Hands up those who remember the old B.S.L (later Phoenix, not to be confused with Phoenix Precision Paints) Coach kits from yesteryear? No longer available other than secondhand they were simplistic by today’s standards but many modellers used them to provide prototypical trains for their layouts at a time when there was little alternative.

If you try and find information about these kits there is very little out there, so I thought it might be fun to create a topic dedicated to them on WT. I will try and cover a bit of history relating to these kits and even have a go at building a few.

This first post covers their history as I perceive it, following posts will show the way the kits changed over time. There will be photos, I promise, just not for this initial introduction.

At some point in late 1967 Ron Colman launched the B.S.L. range of 4mm coach kits through Hobbytime of West Wickham. The B.S.L. stands for Biggs Switchgear Limited which from recollection produced fabricated aluminium electronic chassis parts as its main business. Branching out into coach kits I suspect was a side line.

I have a soft spot for these kits as I worked as a Saturday assistant at Hobbytime around that time and I can well remember a display cabinet on the wall showing made up samples from the range made, I believe, by Albert Goodall.

By today’s standards the kits were quite basic featuring stamped aluminium sides to the appropriate profile, floors, cast whitemetal ends and wooden roofs. As initially launched these were body only kits, bogies and underframe fittings etc had to be sourced elsewhere. Assembly was by Evostik and/or Epoxy.

Before continuing I need to try and put these in context with what was available in 1967. This was before etched kits were available so the likes of Comet Coaches where still some years off (mid 1980’s). On the market were a few moulded plastic offerings from K’s and I think Ratio, metal stampings from MTK and some wooden kits from King’s Cross and CCW. Ambrico, Mopok and MAJ. Hamblings had various lithographs for various coaches and a range of parts to suit. The PC Methfix range of transfers existed (I think their coach kits were later) but Precision Paints (later to become Phoenix Precision Paints) had yet to be launched in 1972. Adrian Swain’s range of ABS castings were available. If I have missed any out, I apologise, as my memory is not what it used to be.

When originally launched the aforementioned Hobbytime were the main distributor although in later years Eames certainly stocked some of the kits. The first kits released were various LNER Gresley 61’6” types (probably the least suited to the punched sides lacking beading), quickly followed by one GWR and one SR type per month with the LMS bringing up the rear. Hobbytime’s owner Denis Hextall was a GWR man which probably explains the push to introduce the GWR kits. Albert Goodall was a friend of the shop and subsequently had an article published in the January 1968 edition of Model Railway Constructor on building the kits.

The kits went through a number of iterations and improvements starting with the B.S.L. name and subsequently dropping it for them to become Phoenix Railway Carriage Components. At some point Hobbytime were no longer involved which might have coincided with the passing of Denis Hextall and the closing of the shop.

At this stage I must mention Derek Lawrence and Lawrence Scale Models. Derek would make up the kits and them farm them out to professional painters, such as our own @LarryG (Larry Goddard). These still regularly appear on auction sites and tend to command reasonable prices. I say reasonable as I suspect commissioning a professional to build and paint them to the same standard would be quite pricy. My understanding from Larry is that Derek encouraged Ron to expand the range of prototypes in the range until there were way over 100. MJT did supply detailing parts to Derek in later years so some do appear under his later coaches. I have a couple of Derek’s coaches in my collection which I will show in a subsequent post.

In later years Ron approached me (when I was trading as MJT) to produce some of his castings for him. He had a number of casters that he used as he saw fit. One day he showed my how the kits were made. Blank sides were guillotined then placed in a jig. A matching die and punch for a specific window was loaded in a fly press and the window punched. The side was then indexed along and another window punched. When a door or different window was required the punch had to be changed and the new aperture produced. Ron kept extensive notes on which punch and its relative position to the side was needed. It sounds tedious but I suspect producing a batch of kits of similar types minimised the need to keep changing the punch tool. It was this standardisation of window/door types that allowed Ron to satisfy Derek’s request to produce more types.

On Ron’s retirement the whole shebang passed into the stewardship of the Southern Railways Group. Unfortunately time was not on their side as the rapid growth of etched brass kits resulting in falling demand, and the fact the punch tools were reaching their life span has meant the kits are effectively discontinued.

A lot of the above was written from memory which might be faulty. If anyone can add to the story please feel free to contribute.

 

[LarryG]

Although my primary interest is in coaching stock, I gradually built up my business in the latter half of the 1960s painting Midland and LMS red locomotives. Freddie Bartholomew, who was in charge of Derby Works Stores, had given me a tin of Ripsoral Midland crimson lake that he had precured for painting the preserved M.R. Single. It was sent to J.T.Keeps, and later on ICI who duly mixed my crimson lake in cellulose paint. I met George Mellor (GEM) when we moved to North Wales, and we got on fine being ex. Oldhamers. He greatly promoted my expansion by getting the model shop owners of his era to use my painting & lining service.

By 1972, I had gone self-employed and one of my non-commercial clients was Derek Lawrence. On one occasion, he sent along an Exley MR clerestory coach that he had stripped and asked me to spray to make it saleable, so I gave it fully panelled Midland livery. Derek phoned from Sheringham to say he would like us to meet and discuss a business proposition involving BSL coach kits.. My only stipulation was that he build the bodies on the chassis and left the roof loose, otherwise painting coaches would not be commercial. I refused to be a partnership. This was around 1974.

Derek was a good organiser and soon got BSL to expand their range of GWR and LMS coaches. He would tell me we would be doing say GWR 'Riviera' thirds for the next couple of months, then brake thirds and so forth. It worked well for me, as mass-production painting for weeks on end suited me fine, as I could plan my income. I continued to paint locos for kit manufacturers, model shops and individuals. However, painting a locomotive that might take longer than was usual would actually lower my income and so by 1979, I had trimmed down to concentrate more on painting coaches.

The early BSL coaches had obeche wooden roofs, which initially proved to be a nuisance to paint. So instead of trying to seal the wood, I glued paper to them. The idea was passed some years later to David Jenkinson when he started to bring his beautifully built plastikard 7mm coaches over for painting.

When Derek moved to live in Congleton, we were able to meet every fortnight to three weeks to do a changeover. This went on from 1974 until Derek passed away in 2004. I made patterns for casting bogies, trussrods etc in the early 1980's, but packing small items turned out too time consuming and so the lot was taken up by Brian Brown at Westward Models. My attempts to get Derek involved in photo etching fell on deaf ears and in the end, Adrian Rowland (North Star) enabled me to develop my own coach parts from 2001 onwards. From 2005, I dropped painting and lining as a long overdue health consideration, and became a coach producer until retirement in 2018.

The coach that started it all...

 

[Hayfield1]

Larry

Thank you very much as I found your mini biography very interesting. I have always been very interested in your coach building posts, and found them both very interesting and enjoyable. Thank you

 

[Mike Trice]

I promised some pictures so here goes.

A first generation kit of a Gresley 61'6" Coach:


The kit comprises Stamped and profiles Aluminium sides, stamped aluminium solebars and floor, whitemetal cast ends, plastic moulded torpedo vents, turned ERG Brass Coach Buffers, wooden roof, glazing material and plasticard to make the interior partitions.

The instructions suggest using styrene strip to add the beading however for the demo models Albert Goodall covered the sides in Fablon (other sticky backed plastic is available) then cut out the recessed panels and peeled the surplus Fablon away.

The wooden roof of these was solid:


Included in my kit, for reasons that escape me, I also had a number of punched styrene sides although why they are included is a mystery. They are not mentioned in the instructions:


Generation two kit largely follows the earlier example however the mystery excess sides are not present:


Early feedback prompted the roof profile to be modified presumably in an attempt to reduce weight and this became the standard for the remaining wooden roofs:


Early product label:


A GWR kit:

Now like me you might wonder if the same profile wooden roof was used for all kit? The answer is no, they were prototype specific.

At some point the use of wooden roofs was abandoned and pressed aluminium ones supplied. This necessitated modifying all cast ends which now had to be shorter and revamping the sides to make them taller. This means you cannot mix early ends with later sides etc:


Note above the revised label dropping the "Hobbytime" reference and the inclusion of cast correct pattern vents.

Another step change for the kits in that the solebars are now split in two rather than a single pressing. Progress has also been made in the supply of door ventilators together with locating hole on the side. Label now reflects rebrand under the Phoenix name:

 

[John Palmer]

One of the inspirations for our P4 model of Burnham-on-Sea station, begun in about 1978, was an Ivo Peters shot of an excursion descending Pylle Bank. The formation consisted of an 8-car special traffic set comprising ex-LSW/Southern Ironclad stock in the 44x set number series. At an early stage we became aware that BSL/Phoenix had produced kits representing all the carriage types required for this formation, and the full 8-car complement of the necessary kits was accordingly purchased, along with some of the requisite bogie kits.

At a later date, Branchlines introduced a detailing kit for the BSL Ironclad series that included etched bolections, solebar overlays, gangways, battery boxes, V hangers and queenposts, and we also acquired sufficient of these kits to detail the chosen Set 441. An incidental reason for this choice of set is that it included Third Brake no.3204, with which we were intimately familiar from its time in the hands of the Somerset & Dorset Circle at Radstock (and of which we took a good range of photographs).

Here is a picture to show the components of one of the most distinctive vehicles in the set, former Pantry Third no.714:
The kit represents this in its original incarnation as a pantry vehicle. In this form the pantry occupies what subsequently became an additional compartment at the r/h end of the carriage; as can be seen the supplied side will need additional quarterlights fretted out on either side of the door to the former pantry. The corridor side presents a rather more substantial problem: the asymmetrically-positioned door opposite the pantry at the l/h end has been suitably marked by manufacturer scribing, but the single original frosted longlight to its left was replaced following conversion by windows in a mirror-image configuration of those to the right of the r/h door. That's going to be a trickier problem to overcome.

Five of the set's eight vehicles were fitted with 'VS' bogies of the type represented by the castings visible in the photograph. The remaining three were to Surrey Warner's outside framed design known as Dreadnoughts; I believe BSL at some stage produced castings for these, but we didn't get round to acquiring any. In any case, the appearance of the 'VS' bogie castings barely passes muster by today's standards, and custom etchings to represent both the 'VS' and Dreadnought bogies would now be more appropriate. The Dreadnoughts were fitted to the former Pantry Third, another Third and the only First in the formation.

Broadly the kits follow the design pattern of the first BSL kits to be introduced, but an aluminium pressing has taken the place of the wooden roof in the initial kits. Provided it adequately overhangs the end casting when the body is assembled, this will be an improvement, as representation of this overhang using the wooden roofs was problematic since they located inside the end castings.

Currently a rake of proprietary/kit Maunsell vehicles is in use to represent one of the excursions on our Burnham layout - taking advantage of the capacity designed into our fiddle yard to handle the Ironclad set, we actually deploy a 9-car set, hauled by an LMS 4F, better known to S&D crews as an 'Armstrong'. Not sure that sufficient anno domini now remain to us to assemble it, but I still yearn to see in action the BSL Ironclad set, clad in a mix of Blood and Custard and re-varnished southern malachite.

 

[hrmspaul]

Having a history of some of the earlier examples of introducing finer scale modelling is a good one.

I think your introduction is mis-leading about some of the contemporary coach kits. Although I am no expert on PC models I believe they introduced the concept of a body of a clear styrene (or similar) over which a pre-printed side could be laid. They used it to reproduce the complex liveries of mainly pre-grouping stock but it lacked the 3D of such coaches with their relatively thick wooden sides with beading. Mopok used the same construction technique but adapted it to steel sheeted rolling stock which means that a printed side of a few micromillimeters accurately represented the 1/8in sheeting of more modern stock. Something RTR has been striving to reproduce, usually badly, ever since. Mopok also used Adrian for casting. After Mopok as Kemilway went bust Adrian Swain (ABS) produced kits using a similar methodology. I still have 4 of his tubes that have never been unwrapped.

My two teenage attempts at BSL kits, a GWR and a LNER full brake remain unfinished somewhere in my mess. As the prototypes were a steel sided coach their thin aluminium sides did the job well. I did manage to finish a Mopok CCT but also have several of their kits un-started. I'll never be a modeller, photography and getting RTR manufacturer's to reproduce those photos is much easier, and satisfying
Paul

 

[Mike Trice]

I think the PC Coach Kits were not introduced until after 1967 so I did not include them. Of course I could be wrong ;-)

Addendum:
Instructions for one of their kits is dated 2/75.

 

[Mike Trice]

Once the body kits were introduced B.S.L. produced a generic underframe kit featuring variable length steel trussing, 4 battery boxes, 2 vacuum cylinder sets and one dynamo. Whereas it is fairly straightforward to find body kits second hand, underframe kits seem rarer. My example kit is incompete and is missing 3 battery boxes and two vac cylinders:


As has been mentioned in @John Palmer 's post above bogie kits were introduced comprising enough parts to build a pair of bogies complete with Romford/Jackson wheels:


Here is an LMS bogie kit complete with what appear to be aluminium wheelsets. No idea who supplied those:


At some point a new bogie design was introduced comprising an etched subframe and plain sides with an adjustable height mechanism under the "Adjustaride" name. Unfortunately I do not currently have one of these to photograph.

The early release of seating was a crude affair based on some unknown moulding:


Here showing the cross section:


Later seating packs comprised specially moulded seats of different widths. These look suspiciously like Southern Pride mouldings:

 

[Mike Trice]

A couple of coaches produced by Derek Lawrence under Lawrence Scale Models.

First up is a Gresley Buffet Car painted by Frank Rainger:







Close up you can see how the lining substitutes for the missing beading. Presumably much quicker to paint than laboriously adding real beading. It is only up close that the subterfuge is evident:


The underframe in this instance includes some MJT fittings:


Frank's signature. Bogies I think are GEM equisprung:


Now a SR Push Pull Composite:




B.S.L. underframe fitting used but not the battery boxes:


Model painted by our own @LarryG in March 1984:


Not certain what bogies have been used here or what make of wheels:

 

[LarryG]

My SR 8' bogies are on the above S 6681 S. Derek later admitted he made a big mistake not buying out my range of bogies and trussrods. Frank Rainger painted the teak's before David Studeley joined the team.

My initial 'teak' finish was simplistic using a spray gun. It was how Exley had done theirs. Lining, when required, was in yellow with a dark brown 'shadow' to give the impression of relief.

Later on, I did proper graining & feathering on coaches built for my own use (after Dave Studely sent me one of his modified brushes), but never on Lawrence Scale models coaches.

I have found some colour slides of coaches we did over the years, which I'll post later

 

[Mike Trice]

I have found some colour slides of coaches we did over the years, which I'll post later

Yes please!

 

[LarryG]

I have uncovered a few photos taken by Derek at his Congleton workshop. An early Lawrence Scale LMS production model was a LMS Period I 2-window open third. This has a metal roof. Later on, the bar between the twin windows was snipped out to produce LMS 'Neutral' coaches...


A good many of these bow-end and flat end Diner composites were produced. BSL pressed trussrods and plastic battery boxes.


Lawrence Scale models also built etched coach kits such as this (Mallard?) LNWR steam railmotor.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

I did build some of the Centenary coach kits, still have them waiting restoration but to be honest when the Airfix ones came out they were put to one side. The Airfix ones presented less of a challenge, locomotive wise. I think at least one or more of the BSL ones had a plastic roof.

 

[Mike Trice]

Yes they are quite heavy. The Lawrence Buffet Car weighs in at 0.25kg.

 

[LarryG]

Some more DCL coaches. An LMS Buffet shortly after painting. I fitted glazing so I could add the Stones vents. Interior would be fitted at Lawrence Scale models workshops. Etched zinc sides on BSL components...



A fully completed BSL SR Maunsell coach photographed by DCL...


An ex Southern Railway TPO photographed by DCL. This coach had etched zinc sides.....

 

[LarryG]

Lawrence Scale Models produced a short run of GWR 12-wheel Special Saloon Car 9002. I suspect the sides might have been from the range of 4mm Westdale shells that Derek took over...



Bogies were by Larriparts...

 

[Mike Trice]

I have managed to acquire some further accessories.

I now have a full underframe kit plus samples of the two types of moulded compartment seats. The 1st class seats have arm rests:



I meant to include the next item last time, but forgot. Not a BSL product but a third party accessory from R&T Model Products. These feature die stamped thin teak veneers for attaching to the Gresley Kits. Now everyone could emulate Joe Rowe:

 

[Ian Rathbone]

Frank Rainger was a brilliant coach builder and painter. I never met him but, through a third party, I acquired his ruling pen, which I still use as my principal pen, and most of his paints, some of which I still use.

I only built one BSL coach, (the kit was on offer for a price I couldn’t refuse at the Headington shop of OPC).

Here it is forty odd years on.

View attachment 242554

Ian R

 

[James Spooner]

Frank Rainger was a brilliant coach builder and painter. I never met him but, through a third party, I acquired his ruling pen, which I still use as my principal pen, and most of his paints, some of which I still use.

I only built one BSL coach, (the kit was on offer for a price I couldn’t refuse at the Headington shop of OPC).

Here it is forty odd years on.

View attachment 242554

Ian R

Hi Ian,

Sadly I can’t get that page to open. Is there any other way you can load it up?

best

Nigel

 

[Mike Trice]

I did build some of the Centenary coach kits, still have them waiting restoration but to be honest when the Airfix ones came out they were put to one side. The Airfix ones presented less of a challenge, locomotive wise. I think at least one or more of the BSL ones had a plastic roof.

I had never heard of the BSL kits featuring plastic roofs until I came across the following model:


It is 57'0" Stanier Brake Third I acquired as part of a job lot:


To all intents it did look like a BSL kit:



I took the opportunity to slide a knife between the sides and solebars then along the roof until the side popped off (I wanted to see if it worked for a later project) and there on the ends were the legend "BSL". The roof on this model is definitely ABS plastic, not metal.