Some time ago I acquired very cheaply, through eBay, a box of plastic parts sufficient to construct most of a GWR B-set pair. The kits were made by Keyser and were the best part of 50 years old. One of the kits was unbuilt, the other partially constructed and painted and the lot was then put aside, my curiosity having been satisfied, concluding that assembly would be a complete waste of time. However, many months on I returned to box of parts and decided that landfill would be an unfortunate destination for these very old kits and at least an attempt to construct them should be pursued.
The models represent the 57ft. suburban composite coaches built to Dia. E116 in 1922. These initial bogie B-Sets were characterised by flat ends, semi-permanent coupling and an absence of buffers on the inner ends. The single First Class compartment in each coach was situated at the inner end, directly over the bogie.
Opposite was the starting point for the build. No floors or interior partitions were provided with these kits when originally issued and this lot also came without buffers, wheels, roof ventilators and couplings. There were no truss rod castings either. The partially-made model required disassembly and stripping, as did one of the roofs. One of the bogies needed to be disassembled, too, to reconstruct it more carefully.
In spite of the missing parts, the overall quality of the sides was quite good however and, although of battleship armour thickness, they measure up well against the drawings, the spacing between the compartments being reasonably accurate. Flush glazing would help reduce the impact of their thickness but I could see no easy way of achieving this. The ends had some fairly sparse moulded detail and their shape was a little odd, lacking a tumblehome at the bottom. That lack could not be easily remedied however as the ends had to match the sides when attached.
The sides and roof were steeped in neat Dettol for 72 hours to remove their paint. The sides emerged in good shape and required very little cleaning up. The roof, however, fell apart completely as the glue from earlier repairs had failed. The numerous glued joints had been heavily over-painted and this old damage was not obvious at the outset. It was clear that the roof was irreparable and an alternative needed to be sought.
In the photograph opposite, the lower image shows the original roof. The five pieces also contained further cracks. Finding a suitable substitute was difficult because of the need for it to match not only the outline of the ends but also the width of the body and have an ability to sit squarely along the tops of the sides. Eventually I used a scrap roof from an old Airfix LMS corridor coach. The upper image in the photograph shows one of these and the middle, the new roof cut to length with all surface detail removed. Miraculously, it was a close-enough fit, too. The photograph below shows it with the ventilator holes filled and roof ribs added. The original roof for the other coach was undamaged and simply required holes drilling for its ventilators. The second photograph below shows both roofs prepared and awaiting their ventilators.
Apart from the guttering, a little wider on one of the roofs, the similarity between the two roofs was a particularly happy outcome and put the build back on track.
The rest of the project was relatively straightforward, the difficult work having been undertaken above. The sides were primed and then masked up for painting. The droplights were picked out in dark wood and the brass work touched in. Lettering was then applied and the sides varnished prior to glazing internally. A pair of decorated sides in shown below, the incorrect positioning of the ‘First’ designation being remedied later. Correct carriage running numbers were also added later. The ends were also sprayed black.
Floors for each of the coaches were constructed from plastic card and carefully marked out to accept retaining screws for the bogies which had been assembled and had brass bearings inserted before their wheels were fitted. Before the floors could be fitted however, the sides and ends needed to be attached to form their box. To ensure that this was assembled completely squarely, magnetic brackets were used. These held the parts in place until they had fully cured and are highly recommended, particularly for vulnerable butt joints where there is no other form of support. The photograph below shows this well.
With both units fully assembled, the floors [now painted matt black] could be dropped in from above to rest on moulded ledges on the coach sides. Compartment partitions and seats were fabricated from thick card, painted appropriately and glued in place along with window grilles for the luggage compartment. The roofs could now be glued into place, having been sprayed black on the upper side and brown on the lower. The roofs were epoxied to the ends and then clamped for liquid cement to be run into their joints with the sides. The clamps remained in place for six hours.
The bogies were next fitted and the riding heights of both coaches equalised by using thin plastic card shims between the bogie tops and the floors. Underframe details was added by scavenging from some scrap Hornby Railroad coaches their truss rod and battery box mouldings. These were simply epoxied to the floor and are, cosmetically at least, moderately acceptable.
The build was completed by adding buffers and lamp irons at the ends of each coach, short magnetic couplings between them, vacuum pipes, dummy couplings and a tail lamp at the end of one and a short tension lock coupling at the end of the other. The photograph below shows the underframe and some other details prior to the build completion. The waist lining was a fine decal provided by Railtec, very effective and extremely easy to apply.
Finally, the completed pair, coupled together.
The apparent drop in running height of the second coach is caused by the phone camera lens and does not appear in reality!
By modern standards these are pretty primitive affairs and would not satisfy the requirements of some modellers. However, and accepting their shortcomings, they work for me as ‘train set models’ and pass the ‘3 ft rule’ quite comfortably. They are also the only cheap kits available for this particular diagram of B-Set coach: brass is the alternative, and one which would be substantially more expensive. And more difficult to construct, too. So, for less that £15 all in, it seemed a no-brainer and, actually, a really enjoyable build.