Scalefour Forum

Dapol have recently released a 4mm scale model of the GWR streamlined railcar. The model depicts one of those ordered in January 1935 to lots 1546 and 1547 meaning it can cover railcars number 8 to 16 (number 17 was ordered at the same time but was a parcels version). Overall first impressions are good. Not being all that familiar with the real thing it looks the same as the pictures in 'The History of the Great Western A.E.C. Diesel Railcars' by C.W.Judge. There are a few things that stand out immediately though as room for improvement. The interior isn't great being a 1 piece moulding with a huge lump in the middle to over the underfloor (well below the window line anyway) motor. With something with such big windows this isn't ideal. The bogies look very under nourished.

First steps in converting to P4

The model uses a single driven bogie which has split axles, picking up through the bearings. The other end is a more traditional coach type bogie with wipers on the backs of the wheels. You might be able to use the Branchlines class 108 conversion for the power bogie as it looks a similar arrangement but as I didn't have one I can't say for sure.


I used standard wheels and drilled the center gear out 2mm to fit. I disconnected the wire from one side and used a little bit of copper clad and phosphor bronze wire to arrange new pick ups.


At the 'trailing' end things don't looks so easy. The bogie is very, very narrow. No doubt a compromise to allow any sort of swing on the full skirted versions on 00 curves. You can see from the picture that a standard 26mm axle is wider that the bogie. You might be able to fit P4 wheels on the original axles as they do just about fit between the sideframes but...


... lets face it the super skinny bogies look more than a little bit naff. The quite low relief details really don't help either. No doubt another compromise for the skirted models.


The powered end has plug on sideframes, like a Heljan diesel so these can be easily spaced out to something approaching the real thing. The difference is quite marked to my eye for as good as no effort.


This is the driven side after its been re-spaced - the additional drive details go some way to mask the low relief nature of the basic sideframe.

I await a Brassmasters 7 ft bogie to redo the trailing end with new pickups which should kill both of the problematic birds with the same piece of small aggregate!

Jim,

I can't wait to see how you get on with this P4 conversion as I would like one myself, the photo of the chocolate & cream one on the Dapol website looks great.

Just wondering if this might be renamed Dapol GWR railcar or the like, as some may not find this under flying banana

Done

As mentioned last time I planned to use a Brassmasters 7ft bogie for the none powered end of my GRW railcar.

The Brassmasters bogie is longer overall than the Dapol one - you can see the adjusted one at the top of the picture.

Here is the bogie in position with pick ups on the far side. The near side picks up through the bogie itself. If all you want it a p4 railcar then you can stop here. I tested mine at this point and all seemed fine but its worth noting that the pickups are wired the opposite way round at each end. The red wire at this end goes to the opposite rail at the other. A bit odd!


Naturally I didn't stop there. This is the interior without the body. That huge moulded lump has to go.

The culprit is this huge motor. No idea why its this big, the thing only has to move itself and you can't couple it to anything anyway! The Mashima sitting on top is a 1020.

The good news is the motor and its mounts simply unscrew from the underframe. I mounted my 1020 on a bit of 80thou plasticard and on the floor. By moving the motor back from its original position you can mount the flywheel lower too. A bit of 1.5mm ID/ 2mm OD tube meant I could use the original flywheel which contains the universal joint. The drive shaft was cut in half and lengthened with a bit of tube. There's a small lip in its channel at the motor end that needed to be ground away. While I was hacking the chassis about I cut a hole to allow me to represent the engine. Spares from the Heljan class 128 underframe sprue did the job.

Next, the interior and finishing.

Is this a useful shot?

I realise it's No 4 so there are considerable differences.

Yes but it’s still handy. Thanks for posting it

A note of caution; this morning I tried as set of Branchlines '108' stub axles in the motor bogie, they are too loose a fit. Jim's method of drilling through the gear muff appears to be the way to go.

Tony Comber

Thanks for that Tony. That answers that question then. I’ll add a note to my site if that’s ok with you?

With the motor sorted out I cut away the molded hump (as well as the seats) and added a new floor from 20thou plasticard.  The replacement seats were from DC kits (I think).  The interior was then sprayed a reddish colour as that's what pictures seemed to show. I added some curtains (drawn up in photoshop and printed) along with 3 passengers - Brettell road being very sparsely used by the public.

Although I will be keeping the railcar as no14, I removed the numbers in preparation for adding the later off white version at the other end to the way Dapol had them.  The numbers came of very easily with a spot of turps substitute on a cotton bud.  Be very careful around the lining as that comes off almost as soon as you look at it!

I can draw a line under my Dapol GWR railcar project as its now weathered and finished. The new numbers came from Steve at Railtec transfers (http://www.railtec-models.com/index.php). Here are some pictures of the end result.

Hi Jim,

Love the weathering. You've made a lovely job of that and turned it into something rather special.

John.

I would second that ... inspirational stuff

It’s quite staggering how different the railcar looks compared to the RTR model out of the box. A lovely job, Jim.

Philip