Garden Railway Forum

Over the past month I have been building these IP engineering freelance coaches. I'm pretty pleased with how they have turned out. There was a bit of a debate on the colour scheme though, we didn't know whether to go varnish or paint. In the end it was between blue and cream or varnished.......as we have no other wooden coaches we went for the varnished look! Inspired by a BR Gresley coach, they are teak with a pine overlay. I think they look rather smart.
Whole set with my Russell

From afar....

So the kits were the two compartments with Luggage compartment coach

Three compartment coach

And the two compartment with guard compartment coach

Whole set from the front

Whole set from the back

Other side

The railways project manager is satisfied it’s a job well done!

I’ll post some pictures or maybe a video of them running during their official test runs!

Looking good! I need to get my second freelance coach fitted. Finished the guard with 2 comparment carriage in blue and cream. Makes a nice contrast to the varnished ones

Those do look smart. I have been wondering what kind of coach to build next; I think I shall make one of those.

LlanpwllBrynwyn:73983 wrote:Looking good! I need to get my second freelance coach fitted. Finished the guard with 2 comparment carriage in blue and cream. Makes a nice contrast to the varnished ones

It may have been your Blue and Cream coaches that I saw which gave me the idea of colour scheme. I think B/C looks really nice in their own way, maybe that livery on the next set of coaches!!

Keith S:73995 wrote:Those do look smart. I have been wondering what kind of coach to build next; I think I shall make one of those.

They are nice and fairly simple to build. I think I spent more time preparing all the part than assembling. I prefer to do all the painting on them first then assemble, I find that's the easiest way. Considering that all three coaches where from the same range bought at the same time there were a number of differences. One was the door vents on two coaches were wood yet one was white metal castings!

A few pictures of the coaches on their test runs hauled by my Silver Lady......

Very Nice, I am sure Mr Gresley would approve.

I love what youve done there. The nice to see a rake of different types of carriages toon I would just like to ask Are those the buffers that came with the kit?
And were there any further improvements add on or were the built out of the box?

Well done though. Top work :-)

Sylvian Tennant:74019 wrote:I love what youve done there. The nice to see a rake of different types of carriages toon I would just like to ask Are those the buffers that came with the kit?
And were there any further improvements add on or were the built out of the box?

Well done though. Top work :-)

Thanks for the comments. The coaches are built as they come out the pack, the only thing I may add is some roof vents so I'll keep an eye open at a show for some! The kit comes with IP buffers but I bought some Roundhouse styled buffers and fitted those instead because I have a problem with IP buffers "Bufferlocking" through points and on corners. The Roundhouse ones have less of that problem.

Here is a video of them in action.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilgMvHdbnOA