MRJ 24 and 28... still inspirational after 30 years

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
OK, upfront, come clean... these photos are mine, the model is not although I wish that I was the owner. This carriage started life as a Slater's 7mm kit for a GWR Brake Third to diagram T34 and as those who have a liking for a GWR coach from the late 1800s might notice the model is not a T34 (clue, the position of the Guard's door / look-out). Quite why the GWR decided to produce a batch of brake third coaches with the lookout at the very end of the coach has never been uncovered... neither as to why all of the brake-thirds on the Severn & Wye were of this diagram.

MRJ 24 and 28 offers two parts, of a three part, series on building / modifying the Slater's kits to represent the 4 and 6 wheel stock from the Dean era - those articles were written by Patrick Reardon who, at that time, was working on a model based upon the Shrewsbury - Hereford route in the late Victorian period. There have been several posts to WT which have alluded to the MRJ articles and I suspect that there could well be more given the carriage stock for a layout based upon the Henley-in-Arden branch circa 1900.

Sometime back I was talking to a well-known authority on FoD matters and we touched on our need for stock to run on our Scrufts Junction layout - said authority smiled and offered the opinion that I was going to have to build the relevant brake thirds by reference to MRJ 28. I was aware of the quoted article and considered the contents as being inspirational... I thought that "one day I might get round to emulating the words and music, and photos, of Mr. Reardon".

Peter, my son, has been progressing his Slater's S9 / V5 / T34 kits for Scrufts Junction recently and so I reminded the FoD authority about the odd-ball brake thirds for the Severn & Wye; "just what had he done to provide his S&W layout with appropriate stock" asked I. "Oh easy, I have a coach built by Patrick Reardon"... this was a well-kept secret as I have known this modeller for more than 30 years!

So here we are then, a model of a T49 brake third for the Lydney-Cinderford services, built from a Slater's T34 kit by Patrick Readon. The roof of the model is loose and slid lengthwise under pressure from the handrails.

Reardon 1.jpg

Reardon 2.jpg

Reardon 3.jpg

Reardon 4.jpg

Only by looking at the top (or bottom) edge of the sides can one discern the cut-n-shut nature of the construction. As yet I have not been able to work out how Patrick made the coach end with the lookout.
 
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ChrisBr

Western Thunderer
Having just read the relevant articles as preparation to starting my kits (which will be built as is) at some point in the near future, I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to study this example in the flesh.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
I spent some time with David White, at the Bristol Show yesterday, talking about this carriage... and trying to decide how the body had been built (which required some idea as to where the joins are in the body side).

Our consensus view is that the joins are as:-

1/ between the luggage doors and the lookout;
2/ underneath the vertical beading between the luggage doors and the adjacent passenger compartment;
3/ through the door of the passenger compartment closest to the luggage area.

I suspect that the compartment section came from a S9 side... at the time that Patrick was building these models the Slater's clerestory coaches had not been released and hence the S9 was the only 4-wheel coach with (at least) four third class compartments. The double doors are likely to have come from a V5 because, as noted in the MRJ articles, the brake third coach came after the S9 and V5. As for the "half-compartment / double panel" section... this seems to have been from the U4.

Funny thing about the model is that the roof is in one piece whilst the floor is from plastic sheet - clearly from the scrap box.
 
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