Garden Railway Forum

Inspired by others layouts I thought I would have a go at building an abandoned coach that has been lifted to the trackside on some sleepers:





I have no real plan with this one - will just see how it turns out and make it up as I go along although ideas are welcome

Cheers,

Tom
RWLR

you could use it as a station building !

You could stick a crooked stove pipe out of the roof.............

Its better than the coaches running on WWR. Swap?

Great ideas keep em' coming!

I put to much effort into my builds to swap them - even if they are only going to be sitting outside as junked

Cheers,

Tom
RWLR

Seeing as the body's on sleepers, you'll need a sleeper (preferably weathered) for a step to get people in and out of the coach - whether you devise hidden fixings to attach it to the coach or let it sit loose on whatever the coach is going to be sitting on is entirely up to you!

This has been shelved for a while as I need a replacement side panel as the one I have is broken and IP have no spares as this type of freelance coach is not made anymore:





Maybe I can get away with placing planking or corrugated iron on the other side?

Here is what I ended up with!

Nice - suitably rustic!

Hello Tom-Tom,

I think a combination of "scrap" materials would look convincing on the "backside". Some cobbled up light framing covered with an old wooden panel, some planks in various degrees of aging, a couple of sheets of tin (corrugated or not), an old metal sign (rusty and hung upside down or sideways) and finish with some bent nails and  2x4 braces to hold it all up. That would give you an abandoned look like the coach had rolled and the side had gotten torn up so the cobbed up wall was added when re-used as a tool shed or shelter. Otherwise, I think it's turning out great! Love the canvas!

My nickel's worth, anyway,

GW

The planking really does make it look more like an old abandoned/retired coach. You really want it to look weathered and rotten, so it's sort of a blessing in disguise that the side was broken, I think.

I saw on here last year sometime a fellow had a really good way of weathering wood: He made some very scale-like grain in wood bits by attacking them with a wire brush, then he used some kind of a wash like very thinned-down black paint to make the wood look grey and old. This treatment on at least a few of your planks would really make that coach look old and weathered.

I use Indian Ink well let-down with water to age and weather wood................

Hello All,

There are several weathering compounds on the market to weather wood to a nice tone, Weather-it and Siverwood to name a few. They are alcohol based so they dry fast and are non toxic in the fume dept. I have used such on my engine shed model (shown on the E S & I Engine Shed thread) I've also mixed my own using alcohol and black india ink with a few drops of Brown added. I've also heard of using ammonia instead of alcohol, seems it brings up the grain more. Of course you should wire brush the wood first to deepen the grain of the wood.

Here's a shot of the wood walls:


GW

I love your abandoned coach Tom. The fact that the kit had a broken side adds to the backstory of how the coach came to be taken out of service and used as a lineside shed.

Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement guys!

I have not forgot about the crooked stove pipe idea Brian

Not sure if I am going to go with this roof, however, it would rust up well and allow me to leave the building outside:

Make sure you heat the roof panels up to nearly red heat before you instal them - you need to "lose" all the plating and coatings before it will rust.

A corrugated iron roof would be prefect for this coach. Tinplate from cans weathers really nicely when left outside and it will rust all by itself eventually. Heating the tin red hot might be too successful in that it would rust too fast out in the weather and need replacing fairly often.

The trouble is often not the plating, but the coatings and glue used in the UK to stick the labels to the cans - the glue in particular just will not go away!

I agree Brian the glue is a pain!

I found by soaking the tins in boiling hot water then adding washing up liquid while scrubbing the surfaces of the tins removes the glue.