Mol_PMB

The ends are coming together and here’s a trial fit of the sides and ends together: Hopefully I’ll get the end details completed today. Roof and bogies still to tackle, plus various odds and sods.

This morning I made the rest of the seats and then I formed and detailed the sides. The next task is the ends.

I've done enough for half a carriage, and now I need a drink! You'll probably never be able to see these once the carriage is assembled... More tomorrow, I need to decide whether to tackle the bogies or the body once I've finished the seats.

These coaches originally had rather elaborate cast iron seat frames, which I thought I would try to replicate in the etch. These are small excerpts of IRRS drawing and photo to show the seat detail: I've just made the first one - a bit fiddly but it went together well: There's quite a lot of these to do...

I've started building the underframe, which should be suitable for a selection of different GSWR 50' coaches. Here's the progress so far:

Looks great, many thanks for sharing your approach. I agree about the look of the IRM wheel and I may yet be tempted to swap them out for a finer profile as you have done.

I’ll see if i can think of a better way of designing it…

Here's my second Park Royal with added detailing and partial re-livery. It's not quite finished yet, I want to matt varnish the green to tone it down a fraction, and weather the roof and underframe. But already it nicely illustrates another of the liveries IRM didn't offer. Once Bulleid had retired in 1958, Inchicore quickly stopped outshopping new vehicles in unpainted aluminium, and also discontinued the silver-painted underframes and bogies that had been standard on new stock since 1954 (whether green or unpainted bodies). Around the same time the former GNR stock was absorbed and a new livery drawing was published, showing underframe, bogies, ends and roof in black. The main body colour remained green but I think the shade or painting process changed slightly, and the previously unpainted window toplights were painted green too. Since 1956 the '2' class digits had become standard on the doors, and from late 1959 it became normal for the carriage number to be shown near both ends of the carriage. The suburban Park Royals were built in 1954-5 so they came due for repaints in 1960-2. Some of them received this last variant of the green scheme, some got the early BnT scheme like the model I did last month, but many went straight into the standard BnT in 1962. I've finished this as 1410, which received this late green livery by March 1961 when it was formed in the last passenger train on the West Cork lines. I've regauged the bogies as before, and added the vestibule seat backs plus some interior painting and passengers. On this one I've also corrected the arrangement of vents and ribs on the roof. Now that's basically finished apart from the weathering, I can move on to an exciting new project for the weekend...

Loosely on that topic, I wish I'd put my hand up to encourage a downsized Alphagraphix F6. These little GSWR Ivatt tankies are growing on me! I bought this original slide on eBay recently, the photo was taken by Ken Cooper on 13th June 1955 and the slide was sold with copyright. Also of note in this fairly early colour image are the 30' carriages in the background - a GSWR 6-compartment third in plain dark green on the left, and an MGWR 1st/3rd compo in the late 1940s elaborately lined green livery on the right.

Just one left at IRM/AS - who's going to snap it up? Mark's Models still have a few, but even there some variants have already sold out. What have we got to look forward to next? The status page on the AS website shows the following: (Excuse the Electrostar) All the three remaining Irish projects are still shown in the Tooling & Decoration stage - is this right? The ICRs will have to be delivered by DeLorean to achieve Q2 2026... Given they typical time elapsed from announcement to delivery it must be time for another product announcement soon? Otherwise there will be nothing for us to buy in 2027.

Nice photos! The green roof above those tenders belongs to a B101 class. I have a slide to scan and add to this thread too...

Great to see so much surviving and in good nick. Thanks for taking and sharing the photos!

Very nice! I must spend some more time with that video... My understanding is that the railcars were originally delivered in dark green with waist line, and that the first 3 buffet cars and some of the open seconds had the same livery. In the mid-50s the coaches did not have snails - only the railcars. Later buffets and open seconds were in a lighter experimental shade, before standardising on brilliant green. Roof colour of these is uncertain. However, they quickly became dirty.

Nice - I like the green roof. I'll be doing that on a Park Royal soon. Sorry I missed your post while I was away.

I can't imagine that England will last through the next round - and I hope they don't. I want to be able to enjoy a quiet sport-free night in my local pub!

Something for the weekend?

There's only a handful left now...

I don't think either has opened for bookings, and it's getting fairly short notice for the August one now. On the last trip I did hear some comment about difficulties getting a suitable path. Hopefully the RPSI will soon confirm one way or the other.

Best hope that Norway don’t meet Iceberg in the semis then…

Some progress with the roof conversion and the revised livery. This coach is now 1410, one of the Park Royals fitted for AEC railcar working and included in the last passenger train on the CBSCR in March 1961, quite freshly painted in this 1959-1961 livery. The roof is still to have a spray of grime, but I'm reasonably happy with the new arrangement of ribs and vents. The ribs I've added with lining tape are slightly more subtle than the moulded ones, but the difference isn't huge. They are now in the correct places, as are the 10 pairs of vents (IRM had 9 pairs). The repainted interior and the passengers are nearly ready, but I still need to re-gauge the bogies. I'm enjoying this conversion and FOMO got the better of me - I have bought 2 more... I may never get round to doing anything with them but I doubt they'll lose value. I have some 1980s era conversion options in mind including one with a guard's compartment, also a former suburban with toilet added, and possibly even an ambulance car. Or they might just have their underframes and bogies robbed for other vehicles.

I was away on holiday for a couple of weeks and have been very busy at work since, but I have a day off today so I'm hacking one of my green Park Royals that arrived this week (I had delayed them to avoid my holiday period). This is a green one with black ends. I am going to finish it in the 1959 era livery, with black roof and black underframe as well (swapped from another Park Royal). It will retain the outward-opening doors as provided by IRM. I also plan to retain the IRM paint but give it a matt varnish to hopefully tone it down a fraction. I have repainted the toplight frames into a similar shade of green (typical of a late 1950s repainted coach) and removed the numbers. I will be adding new numbers near both ends of the coach (introduced in 1959) as well as '2' class digits on the doors (introduced in 1956). I have also been repainting parts of the interior and preparing seat backs and passengers. I have decided to do a 'partial' roof job on this one. I have removed the three roof ribs that are in the wrong place, and all the vents - I have plugged the holes and drilled new ones in the correct places: Since taking this photo I've put a bit of paint on the rubbed-down parts to see if they are smooth enough. If so, then I'll add the missing roof ribs using lining tape, hopefully this won't be too much off a mismatch to the existing ribs. Then I'll refit the vents - I'll need two extra vents which will come from a Park Royal that was badly damaged in the post and I have stripped for parts. I have plans to do another one in original condition with inward-opening doors and a green roof - with a full body repaint in brilliant green. I may rub down the entire roof on that one, and replace all the ribs. I'll see how this one turns out first though.

My last 3 green ones arrived safely yesterday, and I've only started hacking one of them so far. I'm trying to resist the temptation to buy more, there are so many options for modifications, but I think I've probably got enough for now. I'll save myself for some main line variants in future (hopefully).

From personal experience (of walking through a working XA class), you would have got filthy walking through a Crossley-engined A class! I expect some drivers would gone via the trackside.

I confess I’m still teetering on the edge of ordering a blue one to join my maroon example. I see the final incarnation of 102 is sold out, but the others are all still available. Has anyone succeeded in doing a 21mm gauge conversion yet? @Horsetan? If that’s feasible I would be more tempted.

Many thanks. There are quite a few photos out there depicting them in a darker green than the 1958 light green. However, my belief is that there was an intermediate shade of green first used in 1954 ‘Brilliant Green’ and that the Park Royals were originally outshopped in that. It was lighter than the 1940s dark green, but darker than the 1958 light green. I’m hoping to demonstrate this by painting some models in the three shades and comparing to photos which show the different shades. But this takes time and I’ve been away from home a lot recently. Please bear with me…