Well, since people were polite enough to ask, here are some pictures of my re-cycled 52’ Gresley coaches. Other people have done the same thing, but these ones are all my own! I’m sorry I’ve forgotten the diagram numbers. I keep meaning to write them on the bottom of the vehicles, but they are all based on drawings and documents from Messrs Harris and Campling, and on some of Mr Banks very useful published articles.
I should say that they do look much better on my railway than in the very inadequate photographs. (Apart from all the clumsy detail, the way I set up the camera seems to show a bow in some vehicles that isn’t really there!)
They are all made from chopped up side panels from the old Hornby ‘short’ Gresley coaches, re-assembled onto a sheet plastic strip along the lower coach sides. New partitions provide structural strength. (It was quite tricky getting these to the right shape – and I’ve kept a template in case I do any more!) The ends are cast white metal from 247 developments, except for the brake end which is plastic. The roofs are re-cycled Hornby, with new ventilators and other detail.
When planning the cutting of the original Hornby body shells, you have to sacrifice some roofs, in order not to damage the cantlines on the side sections you want. I think it took eight donor vehicles to produce the three models. The brake compartment sides are in short supply, and in the case of the four-compartment brake, I had to change the mouldings with thin plastic. (You have to pare away the moulded look-outs as well.)
The first one I made, the five compartment brake, has an underframe with plastic solebars. These were not entirely satisfactory, so for the others I developed a brass structure made up of:-
- Brass channel solebars, with a wooden strip insert to reduce the apparent depth of the web.
- These are soldered to brass cross pieces to give structural strength.
- The cross-members, rodding, and turnbuckles are all made up from brass.
- The queen posts are made from small brass bolts, with the the thread filed off after the rodding was secured with nuts.
- Plastic sheet was then glued and bolted to the brass to allow the structure to be secured to the body and additional details to be added.
- The battery boxes, dynamo’s, brake cylinders and and ‘V’ hangers are mostly scratch built from plastic, with some MJT components on some of the vehicles.
I was very poor when I made these, (and I am again now – the banking crisis having killed my overseas contracts!), so I also re-used the Hornby bogies. They may be crude but they run well and reliably.
The roofs are removable, because I have ideas to fit lighting to them eventually.
The overscale rain strips are all my fault. (Sorry they look so bad in the photographs.) When I fit the lighting I will have to replace them.
The livery is original Hornby, worked up with my favourite acrylic wood shades. I like to think it gives a suitable battered and in-service for four years look! The glazing is partly from SE Finecast (they do glazing packs for the original short Hornby coaches) and partly individually cut from acrylic sheet. This is fine provided that not too many escape onto the carpet!
To match the rake, I built a Kirk/Coopercraft CL. This has the same brass underframe, 247 ends, Hornby bogies and a Hornby roof. (This process does leave you with a lot of spare roofs). The windows here are all individually cut and fitted. The side I photographed happened to be the one where I had more difficulty with the adhesive. Never mind – it’s a cold day and the steam heating is on!
(Now I do have some of the adhesives that don’t damage clear plastic)
Of course, as soon as soon as I had finished this rake, Hornby produced their excellent new models. I have three of them – but haven’t dared to start weathering them yet!
Compared to them, my own re-cycled vehicles are clumsy with overstated detail. They also cost a lot less money!