As mentioned on one of the 3Rail posts, years back before Bachmann produced the 6 car unit I had made a big step in creating a Midland Pullman 6 car unit using the Tri-Ang body shell using cut and shut surplus power units to make the missing kitchen cars and using Southern Pride brass overlays for the windows. here are the units so far.. Power car 1 As original other than the seating is now only two seating units in the trailing end and not 3 as the original Western unit modelled, the Midland sets having a toilet against the vestibule and the Midland didn’t have the information blinds in the guards door. Showing the motor units and seats within. kitchen car 1 Cut and shut from the rear ends of two power cars, spliced back together and the remaining middle section cut out for the window inlay. From the other side. And inside. Half a kitchen and half seating. The three bays here and two in the lower car equated to around a coach of seating, so the kitchen area was approx central for the staff. Parlour car 1 Standard cars with the windows replaced with the brass etch inlays. The seating unit in this one hasn’t yet been painted and is loose inside.
The remainder of the Midland Pullman was of course mirror image, however I will still show the coaches etc as some have different stages of progression. Parlour car 2 Same as before but with the interior now painted.of note, I have not added the glass strips to either parlour car yet so the brass inlays are still loose and just painted. They need to be glued to the glazing and all 4 units then filed to fit. From the other side. Kitchen car 2 As before, cut and shut, trimmed and reglazed. You can see where the old doors were. Also of note is the end door is also blanked off at the kitchen end and the new door outline engraved in for the mid kitchen doors. These coaches have also had extra roof fans fitted which were not on the original coaches. Seems I also painted the floors in these. power car 2 Same as before. other side And the motor bogies of power car 1 and 2 which have had replacement wheels fitted I may look at changing the bogie side frames, but for now, they will have to stay as they are. this may just give me the kick to get this shelf queen going again. I don’t think I’ve touched it in 15 years?
Dear Andy, and others, that is a very impressive upgrade. For coach bogies, the prototype used Schlieren Bogies from Switzerland. Marlklin, Fleischmann, Trix, and others should have spares available, if possible, the older ones may be a better fit, in being larger than HO, but smaller than 00. Also the axle mounted generators would need to be removed, Regards to all, Echidna.
A lot of work, come on get it finished, otherwise it will haunt you forever, mine do. BTW if you convert it to run on DCC the omega wire pickup can be a source of problems as its electrical connection to the brass rivet in which the wire is soldered can be quite poor, minimal grip, dust and oxidisation can play havoc with a decoder. Jim
Looks great and definitely needs finishing. these are the sort of projects i always enjoyed. I did similar with some Trix/Dapol bodyshells to make a 4 car Transpenine DMU. Dapol only every produced the driving cars.
Ah, interesting.. Any known work arounds? I don’t normally do triang motor, but obviously this came with the territory of the model! one thing & forgot to mention is the Kitchen cars also used the chassis of the former power cars. The unpowered used a coach chassis so I could use that. Also used the left over seating sections from those power cars in the kitchen cars… yes. Maybe it is time to get on with it. My biggest fear now is Painting and masking the roofs.
Cheers! Your are right re the bogies. Sadly in the UK they didn’t give a great ride quality, which may be why they didn’t last long, that along with at the time the LMS lines were not as smooth as some of the other routes. (I assume a lot of point work rather than bad track??)
I did similar with the Hornby 110 dmu back in the 1990’s and made a 104 by changing the cab ends to white metal castings. Fitted flush glazing and had the shells painted, and that’s as far as I got. Another stalled project! Mind you, there is an RTR one coming soon!
Hi Andy the two workarounds I use, these omega wires appear on the L1, Polly/Nellie IIRC, Class 101 DMUs, and Dock shunter too. extend the wire a little and solder the wire directly to the, omega wire, how well that works depends on whether the omega wire is tinplated or not to allow soldering for power bogies, whether (1) is possible or not fit metal wheels and extra pickups to the unpowered bogie Example, one of my Blue Pullmans, fitted with DCC Concepts wiper pickups, thinned vertically to reduce the spring contact force, attached with self tapping screws. The tinned copper linking wires serve two purposes stabilising the pickups to keep them aligned soldering point for the wires Jim
That put me off such work, a lot of painting and re-applying the lettering, not doing it now, mind you I bought one pair of modified power cars that some one had made a reasonable rework to a WR Blue Pullman, whilst retaining all the old non-prototypical character bestowed on them by Tri-ang. Even worse I seem to recall that the original Tri-ang power cars and the chosen parlour cars would never have been together in the same set, unless I am confusing them with the chocolate and cream Pullman cars being mismatched, perhaps Echidna, you have some info on that? Jim
Me too, on most of my Tri-ang, Palitoy and Lima coaches and to raise the height of Trix coaches which are to a scale between 3.5mm and 4mm to the foot, metal look better and sound better over rail joints, nylon wheels also seem to create more muck. Jim
Apparently silver fox made replacement bogies to the correct size and shape.. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20487039...ar=505540337665&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
