LMS Non passenger coaches WINDOW GRILLS

[RAO]

I have currently three LMS Non passenger stock on my work bench:-

Mainline 50' LMS Full Brake van D2007
Lima 42' LMS Luggage Parcel van D1870
Hornby/Dapol LMS Stove R D1796

All are being upgraded, Shawplan windows, Lanarkshire Models roof vent, new handle etc.

But what is the best and simplest way to replicate the internal window bars?

Thanks for your help.

[Terry Bendall]

I have done this by soldering 0.3mm brass wire to brass strips top and bottom with the wire long enough so the strips are not visible through the windows. Once made and painted, fix with a suitable adhesive.

Terry Bendall

[davebradwell]

You really ought to narrow the solebars down, at least on the 50ft if you're going to all that trouble - I haven't measured the others. It affects the relative positions of side/solebar/bogie sides. Solebars are a bit chunky, too.

DaveB

[bécasse]

My approach would be the same as Terry's but I would add that it is very worthwhile going to the trouble of making a jig which will not only speed up the "production line" but will ensure that all the grills look the same. Use chemical blackener rather than paint on the completed grills.

[Noel]

I upgraded a Lima 42ft van some 20+ years ago using SE Finecast glazing, with wire bars behind the glazing in a similar way to Terry, although stuck directly to the body, and plastic card for the shelves [if that is what they are] behind the bars of the central windows. The Lima BR mark 1 bogies were replaced by Comet LMS ones, and buffers, ventilators, brake handwheels and plumbing were replaced, or added, by whitemetal parts. It's not perfect, but my intention was to use what was then available to produce something that looked rather better than the Lima original.

[45609]

I was surprised to find recently that Lazerglaze for the Lima 42ft bogie CCT was not in the Shawplan range. So, I contacted Brian @Shawplan to ask if he would do some for me. I duly supplied a spare body and a few weeks later it was returned with two types of glazing. Some were plain and some had the window bars cut into the back face with the laser. I was pretty impressed with this and looked just right. I have just filled the bar grooves with a little dark grey paint and fitted them to the vehicle. A lot easier than spending time trying to make a jig, solder, and fit separate window bars inside.

Cheers...Morgan

[RAO]

Thanks for all your input.

However I'm still undecided, I might go for some etches with holes in to slide the bars into.

Watch this space!!!

[peterbkloss]

I upgraded a Lima 42ft van some 20+ years ago using SE Finecast glazing, with wire bars behind the glazing in a similar way to Terry, although stuck directly to the body, and plastic card for the shelves [if that is what they are] behind the bars of the central windows. The Lima BR mark 1 bogies were replaced by Comet LMS ones, and buffers, ventilators, brake handwheels and plumbing were replaced, or added, by whitemetal parts. It's not perfect, but my intention was to use what was then available to produce something that looked rather better than the Lima original.

I did the similarly but used white thread as in the photos I could find of the prototype in BR days everything that appears behind the windows seemed to be white

This is how I did it 5 years ago. not intended as an exhibition model it looks ok to me from a distance. I added an etched handwheel to replace the naff looking disk on the underframe. I also drilled out the buffer stocks and fitted MJT 'spare' sprung heads. Needs more weight adding and is on torsion bar 9' LMS bogies

Lima42ftint-1.JPG

the wire handrails on the door you will see are 'pulled out' at the top. I used these to secure the roof, having left a small strip from the old window mouldings, drilling 0.5mm right through. Replacement windows are SE Finecast from the 50ft full brake set, almost the right size. I added plasticard strips on the outside as well to represent the additional beading that is missing from the Lima body. This is the 'completed' job some paint touch up is required and I know the buffers should have the top clipped for the drop down flap from the end doors ....

Lima42ftext-1.JPG

[Noel]

I did the similarly but used white thread as in the photos I could find of the prototype in BR days everything that appears behind the windows seemed to be white

I think that it is probably pale grey, which is the interior colour in blue vehicles. In crimson and maroon the colour was apparently bauxite, apart from the bars, judging by a photograph of M37764M in "Modelling Railways Illustrated" Vol.1 No.3, which is what I followed. I have seen a colour photograph which shows BR SR green NPCCS with bauxite window grills, but I don't know where now.

I added plasticard strips on the outside as well to represent the additional beading that is missing from the Lima body

As originally built the beading was in two continuous lines immediately above and below the windows. Repairs led to sections being removed completely or sometimes replaced differently, or added to at a different level, but four complete lines is improbable, I think. M37764M has no beading between either set of doors and the ends, top and bottom beading on three out of four doors and the top beading only on the fourth and also between the doors. The other side may well have been quite different, of course.

[Hardwicke]

Thanks for all your input.

However I'm still undecided, I might go for some etches with holes in to slide the bars into.

Watch this space!!!

I suppose you could drill some metal strips clamped /spot soldered together and subsequently use wire.

[Noel]

I think that it is probably pale grey, which is the interior colour in blue vehicles. In crimson and maroon the colour was apparently bauxite

I've been looking at the Carriage Standards Committee minutes in the supplement to "BR Mark 1 Coaches";
3/5/52 the Appendix to 760 gives Guard's compartment colours as white ceilings, with buff walls for the guards area and terra cotta for the luggage section.
30/7/58 changes the wall colours to stone and red [which probably means red bauxite, judging from contemporary wagon colours] respectively.
Essentially these changes seem to be more about names than an actual significant change of colours. There is no reference to NPCCS, but also no reason to suppose that they differed.

[peterbkloss]

I think that it is probably pale grey, which is the interior colour in blue vehicles. In crimson and maroon the colour was apparently bauxite

I've been looking at the Carriage Standards Committee minutes in the supplement to "BR Mark 1 Coaches";
3/5/52 the Appendix to 760 gives Guard's compartment colours as white ceilings, with buff walls for the guards area and terra cotta for the luggage section.
30/7/58 changes the wall colours to stone and red [which probably means red bauxite, judging from contemporary wagon colours] respectively.
Essentially these changes seem to be more about names than an actual significant change of colours. There is no reference to NPCCS, but also no reason to suppose that they differed.

Sadly (for me) having checked Paul Bartlett's site (https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/lmsparcels) it seems I took the white bar /shelve thing from the BR blue period photos and the ones of red liveried versions the bars and shelves look darker (being B&W photos)

Bit hard for me to correct without major surgery! Maybe the plastic mounts for the bars aren't too well stuck down I can only hope ....

As for the beading, there are some 'red' liveried ones with full beading - the beads I added were the broad ones in between the thin ones, missing from my Lima bodyshell. RW Caroll's Flickr albums showed M37217M and M37251M standing in sidings somewhere in the Birmingham area pre 1965 with a full set of beading and I numbered mine after the latter.

[Noel]

As for the beading, there are some 'red' liveried ones with full beading - the beads I added were the broad ones in between the thin ones, missing from my Lima bodyshell. RW Caroll's Flickr albums showed M37217M and M37251M standing in sidings somewhere in the Birmingham area pre 1965 with a full set of beading and I numbered mine after the latter.

I would love to see those photos, and see what else he has put on there, but Flickr is being its usual very unhelpful self and denying all knowledge of RW Caroll. I have found the following:
https://www.lmssociety.org.uk/topics/npcs.shtml M37714
http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10094.htm
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/24157531778/in/photostream/ the location of the thinner beading matches that on M37714
The first one is not a very good reproduction; there is a better one in "LMS Coaches", Jenkinson and Essery, which shows beading only under the horizontal lining. Most interestingly, "LMS Coaches" apparently does not show the numbers you give at all, although they fall into gaps in the Motor Car Van range. This may be because they are BR built, as the authors seem to have ignored post-1948 construction, even if to an LMS diagram. "Historic Carriage Drawings", P Tatlow quotes the same number series as Jenkinson & Essery, but shows a 1951 photo of M37759 with the same beading as M37714, but with what may be panel joints without any beading, in some of the locations you have put the wider beading on your model. [It also has the twin double lining out originally applied to non-corridor coaches before instructions were issued circa 1950/1 that non-corridor coaches should not be lined.]

[Hardwicke]

Thanks for all your input.

However I'm still undecided, I might go for some etches with holes in to slide the bars into.

Watch this space!!!

I suppose you could drill some metal strips clamped /spot soldered together and subsequently use wire.

If it's a plastic coach then some Slater's square or at least 40 thou plastic drilled equally and at squarely should provide anchors for the bars

[Daddyman]

Flickr is being its usual very unhelpful self and denying all knowledge of RW Caroll.

I find it's often better going from google: I put in "R W Caroll" [no inverted commas] and it immediately suggested "R W Caroll collection"; second entry was the Flickr pages and then it's just a question of selecting "Albums" once on Flickr. Presumably they're in the "Rolling stock" album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/albums

[Noel]

Thank you for that, David. I should have thought of it myself...

[bécasse]

[It also has the twin double lining out originally applied to non-corridor coaches before instructions were issued circa 1950/1 that non-corridor coaches should not be lined.]

Which in itself is a very useful observation as there seem to have been some doubts as to whether that lining as applied to all-crimson non-corridor carriages was also applied to crimson NPCS vehicles. This confirms that it was. Incidentally, although the instructions concerning the non-application of lining took some time to be agreed and be published, the actual practice seems in a lot of works to have ceased much earlier as very few vehicles actually bore the lining. The simple fact was that on most vehicles with waist panelling, which formed a significant proportion of the non-corridor carriage fleet in early BR days, the lining looked awful and, with skilled craftsmen able to apply the lining in short supply, it was an easy decision for a work's manager to simply say don't do it with little fear of retribution from above.

[Noel]

An interesting site I hadn't been aware of before, including several locations I was familiar with in the early to mid-1960s, and locos I saw at the time as a trainspotter....
The LMS vans are in the GWR locos album https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/4809659192/in/album-72157621174694535/ or [a little better] https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/5603121296/in/album-72157621174694535/. I'm sorry to add to your problems, peterbkloss, but you have mis-read the numbers; they are actually M37717M and M37751M. Old Oak Common, incidentally is in west London; the pannier tank is on the Paddington ECS line.

[Noel]

Which in itself is a very useful observation as there seem to have been some doubts as to whether that lining as applied to all-crimson non-corridor carriages was also applied to crimson NPCS vehicles. This confirms that it was.

In case you don't have the book, M37759 has the 'as built' two lines of beading, with the lining applied just above the upper beading and, with a slightly bigger gap, just below the lower beading. The effect is a little odd... The LMS built them with passenger lining, so the previous practice was presumably continued with the BR lining until they were told to stop. Other possible candidates, therefore, are the various full brakes, but presumably not other vans, horse boxes, etc.

[peterbkloss]

An interesting site I hadn't been aware of before, including several locations I was familiar with in the early to mid-1960s, and locos I saw at the time as a trainspotter....
The LMS vans are in the GWR locos album https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/4809659192/in/album-72157621174694535/ or [a little better] https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/5603121296/in/album-72157621174694535/. I'm sorry to add to your problems, peterbkloss, but you have mis-read the numbers; they are actually M37717M and M37751M. Old Oak Common, incidentally is in west London; the pannier tank is on the Paddington ECS line.

Ha what is there more to say at least a simple pressfix swap will fix that one

[peterbkloss]

An interesting site I hadn't been aware of before, including several locations I was familiar with in the early to mid-1960s, and locos I saw at the time as a trainspotter....
The LMS vans are in the GWR locos album https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/4809659192/in/album-72157621174694535/ or [a little better] https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/5603121296/in/album-72157621174694535/. I'm sorry to add to your problems, peterbkloss, but you have mis-read the numbers; they are actually M37717M and M37751M. Old Oak Common, incidentally is in west London; the pannier tank is on the Paddington ECS line.

Thank you Noel for correcting the numbers for me - sadly the Railway Modeller magazine that had the article in the LMS Society wagon series for this van once in my possession got trashed in a house move and so a possible source for the number range was lost and I misread the number in that pair of photos - and yes If I'd read the caption properly I would have realised where it was ... anyway I've made a start in correcting my errors:

Lima42ft-renum.jpg

The varnish has dried much more matt than in the photo fortunately

BTW can anyone guide me to which issue of RM had the drawings for this CCT/PMV?

[peterbkloss]

Further on my voyage of discovery I found a drawing on the LMS society web site (coach drawings):

https://www.lmssociety.org.uk/LMSCoaches/D17_495.png

[the following hs been heavily edited from my original post - in my enthusiasm I wrote ahead of fully examining the drawing above, I have taken a ruler to the drawing to try to work out exactly what can be seen when one is looking through the window ... write in haste, repent at leisure - apologies if you have read the original and coughed]

I was puzzled by the strange spacing of what looked to me like the edges of several shelves of differing thickness showing in the central windows in the photos previoisly mentioned but now I realise from the drawing there are only two large hinged shelves: (The drawing linked to above shows the shelves both in an interior end view and a plan view). What looks like a thick horizontal 'bar' in the middle of these windows seems to me to be the meeting of the inner edge of the lower shelf when raised and the hinged base of the upper shelf. The other horizontal 'bars' visible through these windows are the middle slats of the shelves again only visible when stowed up against the sides. Presumably the shelves are made of slats to save weight, cost and to allow daylight into the van when they are stowed up. I hope this interpretation is correct, it looks as though the slats are not evenly spaced or some have 'fallen' out - I stand to be corrected (but then, that is what the society is about in part ... eliciting the truth about things from the distant past)

I am now working on depicting the bars and shelves (raised) on replacement inner frames for the windows on my model. I'll post the results in my own workbench thread