Building a coach for Gwalior Light Railway
Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:24 pm
This is a short account of how I built a coach to be pulled by the loco described in a post in the Steam Loco section "Something for myself...." The coach is an odd and interesting one. It can be first seen in Satow and Desmod's book "Railways of the Raj". Although much rebuilt was photographed by a friend at Gwalior in the 1990s. The coaches and similar ones were supplied to the GLR by Kerr Stuart for its opening. In fact all the first generation stock had the same basic design. Tumblehome body with a double roof running on a steel bogie underframe. 3 different types can be seen in the photograph. One coach has no balcony and 3 side doors, The others are 4 windows one end entry and balcony, and a very attractive 3 windows with a double balcony. The type I wished to build was the one I had most photos of. A 5 window, single entry end balcony coach.
No drawings exist. A long search found that drawings of the stock survived into the 1960s, and were then lost. What does survive are works photos of most of the stock supplied to the GLR. These are held by the Hunslet archive at Statfold Barn. So it was a case of try to produce a drawing for myself. The only dimension I knew was the width for the stock - 6 feet 3 inches. A dimensioned sketch of a shrt train is to be found in "Light Railways" by Mackay. So on this basis and after averaging the widths of widows and doors in 16mm scale models of contemporary stock a drawing resulted that could be overlayed on photos on the computer. This was altered and tweaked until it looked OK. I am afraid it is a case of if it looks the same it is probably as good as one can get .
Construction of the model was mostly from parts I could draw and cut out on the laser cutter. The underframe was assembled from parts cut in perspex. It was detailed with lace pins for rivets. The bogies which look to be correct are Swift Sixteen's DHR pattern -assembly of these is simple and detail and running are excellent. The balcony rail was assembled from sheared 0.5mm nickel silver. This was soldered together on top of a printed plan extracted from the drawing. The coach body with its tumblehome sides needed a press to be assembled in. This was formed from 2 sheets of thick aluminium. The 3 part 1mm mount board sides were dampened on the glue face and glued up with PVA. The formed side was kept in the press for 24 hours. They come out formed and firmly laminated. There are slots in the middle layer to accept the droplights. The construction of the ends is similar.
These pieces plus the double thickness floor are given a couple of coats of car primer, this being used instead of shellac. Assembly is with gel superglue. The interior of the coach is fully detailed with two bench seats. The droplights are made in 3 layers of thin card. The 2nd and 3rd layer have the slots in them raised by 0.4 and 0.8mm. This gives the illusion of a venetian shutter angled louvre. Simple to do with the computer art work and laser cutter, near impossible to do quickly any other way! Only the door and end window were glazed on these coaches. The panelling (pre-primed) was applied with PVA then the coach was well primed again. The roof is made from two preformed aluminium roofs separated by perspex strips.
Assembly was with super glue(next time I will use rapid epoxy(super glue is too brittle). On the underside of the inner roof are the ribs that the roof had. These are used to retain the roof on the coach body. Painting is a mixture of Halford's car, and Tamiya acrylic. The finished coach has had a couple of coats of Gameworkshop, clear coat.
The choice of building this coach is quite sensible, since the GLR coaching stock is all of the same shape and general design. I think it will be a simple matter to generate drawings for all the coaches in the train at the start of the post. With a bit of luc,k at Statfold barn, there might be enough photgraphic information to build the luggage and brake van.
Lessons learnt - mount board is a wonderful material to use with a laser cutter, perpex varies a lot in its ability to be bonded. Aluminium does not easily glue with superglue. Tumblehome bodies should not be avoided, you just have to bend up some 1/8" aluminium and buy rather a lot of bulldog clips.
No drawings exist. A long search found that drawings of the stock survived into the 1960s, and were then lost. What does survive are works photos of most of the stock supplied to the GLR. These are held by the Hunslet archive at Statfold Barn. So it was a case of try to produce a drawing for myself. The only dimension I knew was the width for the stock - 6 feet 3 inches. A dimensioned sketch of a shrt train is to be found in "Light Railways" by Mackay. So on this basis and after averaging the widths of widows and doors in 16mm scale models of contemporary stock a drawing resulted that could be overlayed on photos on the computer. This was altered and tweaked until it looked OK. I am afraid it is a case of if it looks the same it is probably as good as one can get .
Construction of the model was mostly from parts I could draw and cut out on the laser cutter. The underframe was assembled from parts cut in perspex. It was detailed with lace pins for rivets. The bogies which look to be correct are Swift Sixteen's DHR pattern -assembly of these is simple and detail and running are excellent. The balcony rail was assembled from sheared 0.5mm nickel silver. This was soldered together on top of a printed plan extracted from the drawing. The coach body with its tumblehome sides needed a press to be assembled in. This was formed from 2 sheets of thick aluminium. The 3 part 1mm mount board sides were dampened on the glue face and glued up with PVA. The formed side was kept in the press for 24 hours. They come out formed and firmly laminated. There are slots in the middle layer to accept the droplights. The construction of the ends is similar.
These pieces plus the double thickness floor are given a couple of coats of car primer, this being used instead of shellac. Assembly is with gel superglue. The interior of the coach is fully detailed with two bench seats. The droplights are made in 3 layers of thin card. The 2nd and 3rd layer have the slots in them raised by 0.4 and 0.8mm. This gives the illusion of a venetian shutter angled louvre. Simple to do with the computer art work and laser cutter, near impossible to do quickly any other way! Only the door and end window were glazed on these coaches. The panelling (pre-primed) was applied with PVA then the coach was well primed again. The roof is made from two preformed aluminium roofs separated by perspex strips.
Assembly was with super glue(next time I will use rapid epoxy(super glue is too brittle). On the underside of the inner roof are the ribs that the roof had. These are used to retain the roof on the coach body. Painting is a mixture of Halford's car, and Tamiya acrylic. The finished coach has had a couple of coats of Gameworkshop, clear coat.
The choice of building this coach is quite sensible, since the GLR coaching stock is all of the same shape and general design. I think it will be a simple matter to generate drawings for all the coaches in the train at the start of the post. With a bit of luc,k at Statfold barn, there might be enough photgraphic information to build the luggage and brake van.
Lessons learnt - mount board is a wonderful material to use with a laser cutter, perpex varies a lot in its ability to be bonded. Aluminium does not easily glue with superglue. Tumblehome bodies should not be avoided, you just have to bend up some 1/8" aluminium and buy rather a lot of bulldog clips.