With the (very welcome) growing interest in the "Grey & Green Era", i.e. just before the "Black & Tan Era", which is now evident, I was thinking about what coaches would be suitable on such a layout. It is an excellent period for modelling - probably the best in fact - due to a mixture of steam and diesel, ancient wooden coaches of both bogie and six-wheeled varieties, and the sheer variety in both passenger and goods trains. The vast majority of both had barely two items of rolling stock of the same type.
We're looking at the late 1940s through to about 1963, when steam ended on CIE. The UTA (also with grey wagons and green coaches!) was just as diversified, with the added interest of a motley fleet of railcars of many different types, including some one-offs like former NCC No. 1 (now at Whitehead).
My curiosity was aroused by Noel's old repaint of an elderly Triang coach into black'n'tan, featured here recently, and Mike84C's article some time ago about converting two old Hornby "Thomas the Tank" carriages into a very credible version of a GSWR six-wheeled first.
Clearly, a great variety of coaches is necessary to create an accurate look for the period. The UTA aspect is easier, as there are now kits for GNR and NCC types of vehicles, plus AEC & BUT railcars. I am unaware of any MPD cars, but some varieties of this species can be made reasonably convincingly by surgical procedures on some types of bought LMS coaches.
CIE - someone really needs to produce a decent six wheel chassis! Manufacturers might comment?
We have recently seen an excellent start made on Bandon, and an existing masterpiece of Ballyshannon and hopefully we'll see more of this era. So what can we use, other than the painstaking procedure of building actual models of actual carriages from scratch?
In terms of "new" stuff, we have IFM's Park Royals and Bredins, and now there are several kits of laminates available. (The new IFM laminate brake is too late for the 1950s, but the full standard coach is just right). Worsley Works do the "scratch aid" kits for a GNR K15, which in the 1958-63 period could be seen on a number of lines on CIE, particularly the DSER. They also do several nice GSWR six-wheel kits, but you'd have to be a brass-proficient modeller to assemble them. (Dare we call such folks "brass necked"?)
But I was in Mark's Models yesterday and noticed the Roxey kit, for about €10, of a grounded coach body. This appears to be modelled on either a GWR or Midland Rly (England) design, as it has curved-in ends. The only railway company in Ireland to design carriages like this was the WLWR, and many of their coaches didn't survive long into the 1901 amalgamation with the GSWR. But - with a Mike84C type job, two of these together could make a credible bogie coach, or a West Cork style short wheelbase 6-wheeler.
These would NOT be accurate models of anything, but would look the part, with design features not unlike those of GSWR-era Inchicore.
There are a number of Roxey plastic kits which can be "botched" to make models at least as convincing as those mentioned initially, which thus create the "feel" of the period without being necessarily strictly accurate.
The beauty about such a system is that each model would be a one-off, exactly suitable for train make-ups of the day, where a brand new laminate might sit with an 1887 Midland six wheeler, a new tin van, and an old GSWR side corridor bogie.
Curiously, while MGWR six wheelers saw out the six-wheel era (the last runs being in 1963), MGWR bogies did not fare so well despite being just as well built. However, a few were to be seen; there was a beautiful side corridor composite in West Cork - pure Broadstone - in the 1950s.
So, sides of suitable donor vehicles are well available. We just need a good six wheel chassis of scale 30ft length.......buffer to buffer that equates to 128mm in 00 scale.
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jhb171achill
With the (very welcome) growing interest in the "Grey & Green Era", i.e. just before the "Black & Tan Era", which is now evident, I was thinking about what coaches would be suitable on such a layout. It is an excellent period for modelling - probably the best in fact - due to a mixture of steam and diesel, ancient wooden coaches of both bogie and six-wheeled varieties, and the sheer variety in both passenger and goods trains. The vast majority of both had barely two items of rolling stock of the same type.
We're looking at the late 1940s through to about 1963, when steam ended on CIE. The UTA (also with grey wagons and green coaches!) was just as diversified, with the added interest of a motley fleet of railcars of many different types, including some one-offs like former NCC No. 1 (now at Whitehead).
My curiosity was aroused by Noel's old repaint of an elderly Triang coach into black'n'tan, featured here recently, and Mike84C's article some time ago about converting two old Hornby "Thomas the Tank" carriages into a very credible version of a GSWR six-wheeled first.
Clearly, a great variety of coaches is necessary to create an accurate look for the period. The UTA aspect is easier, as there are now kits for GNR and NCC types of vehicles, plus AEC & BUT railcars. I am unaware of any MPD cars, but some varieties of this species can be made reasonably convincingly by surgical procedures on some types of bought LMS coaches.
CIE - someone really needs to produce a decent six wheel chassis! Manufacturers might comment?
We have recently seen an excellent start made on Bandon, and an existing masterpiece of Ballyshannon and hopefully we'll see more of this era. So what can we use, other than the painstaking procedure of building actual models of actual carriages from scratch?
In terms of "new" stuff, we have IFM's Park Royals and Bredins, and now there are several kits of laminates available. (The new IFM laminate brake is too late for the 1950s, but the full standard coach is just right). Worsley Works do the "scratch aid" kits for a GNR K15, which in the 1958-63 period could be seen on a number of lines on CIE, particularly the DSER. They also do several nice GSWR six-wheel kits, but you'd have to be a brass-proficient modeller to assemble them. (Dare we call such folks "brass necked"?)
But I was in Mark's Models yesterday and noticed the Roxey kit, for about €10, of a grounded coach body. This appears to be modelled on either a GWR or Midland Rly (England) design, as it has curved-in ends. The only railway company in Ireland to design carriages like this was the WLWR, and many of their coaches didn't survive long into the 1901 amalgamation with the GSWR. But - with a Mike84C type job, two of these together could make a credible bogie coach, or a West Cork style short wheelbase 6-wheeler.
These would NOT be accurate models of anything, but would look the part, with design features not unlike those of GSWR-era Inchicore.
There are a number of Roxey plastic kits which can be "botched" to make models at least as convincing as those mentioned initially, which thus create the "feel" of the period without being necessarily strictly accurate.
The beauty about such a system is that each model would be a one-off, exactly suitable for train make-ups of the day, where a brand new laminate might sit with an 1887 Midland six wheeler, a new tin van, and an old GSWR side corridor bogie.
Curiously, while MGWR six wheelers saw out the six-wheel era (the last runs being in 1963), MGWR bogies did not fare so well despite being just as well built. However, a few were to be seen; there was a beautiful side corridor composite in West Cork - pure Broadstone - in the 1950s.
So, sides of suitable donor vehicles are well available. We just need a good six wheel chassis of scale 30ft length.......buffer to buffer that equates to 128mm in 00 scale.
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