Jump to content

Four Wheel Coaches


Jeff Mennell

Recommended Posts

 4 wheel passenger carriages (and 6 wheelers too) were pretty much extinct on the main line by the end of the 1930s. although plenty had been sold to light railways these too were nationalised in 1948, and BR wasted no time in scrapping them.  A few old carriages had been converted to parcels vans and engineer's mess vans. and these survived into the 1960s. The very last 4 wheelers were used in the Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley railway near Swansea which was closed to passengers in 1953. Although part of GWR and BR this was virtually a colliery line and was primarlly for bringing coal from the collieries to the port. This line had a very restricted gauge and all coaches had their roofs lowered.  As an aside, the class 03 diesel shunters allocated to that line by now freight only had the cab roofs lowered too.

 

A lot of branch lines were operated with a single bogie carriage, which was another way to deal with short platforms when loadings were light. A brake composite was usually the type provided.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No reason in the world why the Hornby 4 wheel coaches cannot be repainted into BR livery, I had a mix of GWR, LNER and SR 4 wheelers and resprayed the lot into LMS livery, the 4 wheel coaches are a perfect choice for a layout your size, nothing worse than tail chasing trains.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jeff,

The Triang 9" are not particularly accurate, but the non-corridor suburbans look fairly realistic - based on BR Mk1 non-corridor coaches (Bachmann make a more accurate but, naturally, more expensive version).  If you want short bogie coaches, then the Hornby ex LNER Gresley and Thompson non-corridor coaches in BR maroon or crimson are superb and very suitable, and they can manage first radius curves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jeff,

The coaches to look for are normally described as suburban or non-corridor coaches so include one of these two phrases in your search.  Hornby have made two types of Thompson coach over the years.  The older type is a long and not very realistic corridor coach in a fake teak appearance - there are lots of these going cheap on ebay but they are not what you are after.  You want things like R4576 and R4577 (A or B) - most will be brand new and boxed, so a lot more expensive.  Similarly with Gresley coaches - the newest models are what you want.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Doc, I had a look on ebay and see what you mean. The more recent ones are mega expensive and the older ones in crimson have printed windows and so not very realistic. I will keep looking and wait for a bargain or two. Many thanks for the help as it was exactly what I needed.

 

Jeff

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would run what you like. All that fally off fancy detailing is to some extent academic as OO is inaccurate as the track gauge is 16.5mm unless you go to EM/P4 finescale 18.83mm. Unless you go finescale 18.83mm back to back track you can never accurately represent the real thing as the models will be running on "narrow gauge" track. OO 16.5mm track is known as "narrow gauge" in the trade. The sleeper space of most mainstream manufactuers track is also 3.5mm HO scale, Peco are at present addressing the sleeper issue I believe at present with some more accurate track work but it will still be narrow gauge 16.5mm OO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Jeff Mennell

If you go down the four wheel coach path also try and find a couple of the VR Z four-wheeled brake van's to go with them

Not the ghastly BR repaint blue ones but the orange birdcage one.

It has been commented on this forum that it has a slight LNER look to it so is a good candidate for a re-paint.

/media/tinymce_upload/7c5d4d5737c51c07bddd8517b7d8dfa4.jpg

The one over by the goods shed in this very unrealistic picture the pacers usually don't come out at the same time as the steam hauled stock.

regards John

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
  • Create New...