Scalefour Forum

I'm currently preparing working drawings for scratchbuilding various Great Western Dean-period coaches, referring mainly to J.H. Russell's "GWR Coaches Vol. I" and to an excellent article by John Lewis in the 1981 Model Railway Constructor Annual, which gives detailed dimensions for the various standard panelling arrangements.

I'm struggling however to find any values for the following dimensions, if anyone could help please:

1. Panel and window corner radii. A dimensioned GWR carriage framing drawing reproduced in "GWR Coaches Vol. I" appears (under a magnifying glass) to give a 2" corner radius for door droplights, but no others. I can't find any corner radius values in the John Lewis article, although the dimensions given allow the radii for panels with fully semicircular ends (waist panels and the narrower window height panels?) to be deduced.

2. How far back the glazing is set from the external panel faces.

3. Visible depth/thickness of panel mouldings and bolections. The framing drawing I mentioned above appears to give at least some of these dimensions, but they're not quite legible on my copy. The GWR diagrams give the internal width of most coach designs as 6 3/4" less than external width, e.g. 7' 6" internal and 8' 0 3/4" external. The "odd" 3/4" is quoted in various sources (including both those above, I think) as due to 3/8" moulding thickness each side. However, is the external width measured over the main panel edge mouldings, or the window bolections? If the latter, are the bolection and panel edge moulding 3/8" thick in total, or each?

Thanks in advance.

Andrew

Andrew - here are some notes.

The 1/4" dimension for the side to the glass of a quarterlight/longlight is estimated, and probably varied a bit between eras. The shape of the 'sloping' bit of the bolection is more complicated than that sketched here - you know what I mean.

Most of these dimensions were taken from Didcot's City stock, which is mid-Churchward era.


T-handles are 4 1/2" wide. T-handles stick out 2 3/4" from lock faces. Locks are 1/4" thick. Droplight opening radius = 2". Flush window radius in corner = 2 1/4" (this is on Collett stock). Hinge thickness at base = 7/8". Hinge length = 3", or 3 1/2" over the bolt that runs up the length of the hinge. Coach G handles: 28mm wide at widest point.

A moulding dimension of 1 1/2" x 3/8" was used almost universally by British carriage builders.

Many thanks both for your replies, I don't think I'd have easily found those dimensions elsewhere. Russ, particular thanks if you prepared those diagrams especially!

I've added these dimensions to the drawing I'm working on at present (what John Lewis refers to in his article as LE7N panelling, one of the later and more common arrangements) and they look correct compared to existing drawings and photos.

The only significant dimension I think I was still missing (apologies if I've missed this in the replies) was the corner radius of the main panels. However, since my original post I've found a square-on, close-up photo of this type of panelling in J.N Slinn's Great Western Way (page 58 of the first edition). From this, I'm pretty confident that

1. The 5" high waist panels did indeed have semicircular ends;
2. A radius matching this (i.e. 2.5") was used throughout the main panel edge mouldings, except where particular panels were too narrow to accommodate it, in which case they were given semicircular ends.

If anyone can confirm this or knows differently, please let me know.

Thanks again,

Andrew

Andrew GW wrote:Russ, particular thanks if you prepared those diagrams especially!

I did, but it didn't take long, and I needed to get my thoughts together on the subject anyway.

Good thinking on the 2.5" moulding radius. That makes sense.

I've got some 3-arc roof radii dimensions somewhere, if that would help.

Thanks again Russ. Sorry for the slow reply, busy few days.

I'm pretty certain (I don't have them handy) that I do have figures for the roof radii thanks, though no harm in comparing notes if you like. Also I haven't drawn the end elevations yet, so I may get back to you if the numbers I have don't add up!

Andrew - for 3-arc stock, I could find only the standard radii for 8' 6 3/4" wide stock, and even then I couldn't track down the actual position of the minor radius.