HST Coach Formations

[Burnsy]

Hi all,

I am wanting to collect as many accurate sets of Class 43 HST's as I can as a tribute for their 40+ years of service. The key word being 'accurate'. After Abrail has seemed to have gone down, I was wondering if all you lovely collectors out there would be so kind as to offer a hand. I am more about whick Mk2F or Mk3 cars to buy for the most realistic setups going

I am mainly looking for:

New Measurement train;

GWR (again again);

LNER;

and Cross country.

Thanks!

[Burnsy]

Sorry if I am unclear. I am just asking for the coach formations so I can buy them myself. I am just here for the info and maybe some R numbers

[STG]

https://hattonsimages.blob.core.windows.net/mediaimages/HSTFormations01_hires.jpg

This image supplied by Hattons has the formations for the latest Hornby sliding door coaches (LNER , Cross Country, etc).

There was once a Hornby Magazine issue which had some other HST formations in, but I cant remember what issue it was

[atom3624]

This may help to some extent - thanks to Hattons:

https://www.hattons.co.uk/newsdetail.aspx?id=526

Al.

[davidinyork]

The Hatton's links above give the information for all three operators of power-door sets - and the models, from what I have seen, are accurate and include the correct individual details.

Note that the real XC sets feature a mixture of HST vehicles, and converted loco-hauled Mk3a coaches - and this is complicated by the TSs in the sets getting rotated round. I would advise looking online for an actual set formation for the year you are wanting to model, as some combinations have never occurred (the models do show the differences between the HST-built and Mk3a-built coaches).The basic formations (as in vehicle types) are unchanged from before the power doors were fitted.

With the Scotrail and GWR sets it's more striaghtforward as these are all built as HST vehicles.

With slam door sets it's harder to model them accurately with ready to run models as the Hornby ones are generic and don't include specific details. The LNER formation is given in the Hattons link.

The NMT is composed of Mk3s which are all notably non-standard in various ways, so anything made up of ready to run models won't be very accurate.

As regards other operators, the ex-LNER sets for EMR are as in the Hattons link with coach G removed to give 8-car sets - but so far only one set is in service. LNER models can fairly easily be used by changing the branding on the power cars and adding it to the coaches.

The GWR long-distance slam-door sets withdrawn over the past few years (last ones last year) had for several years often contained a mixture of green and blue coaches within sets, and the fleet contained several non standard coaches (couple from the prototype set, couple ex-MK3a, a number of open coaches converted from various types of buffet). There were several types of buffet, one of which was used in conjunction with the TCC composite coaches - so there's no single formation which is correct for these. Also, as with LNER, the same applies as regards detail - the slam-door models are generic so not always accurate for particular coach types.

[davidinyork]

One other point - the Platform 5 coaching stock book, which has a new release every year, contains specific HST formations (as in the numbers of the carriages in each set) so might be worth buying - it's not very expensive.

[Burnsy]

Nice

Thanks all. I have recently acquired the 2020 catalogue so that will help as well