In comparison to the coaches that I use on Portchullin, most coaches from the 1920s (my chosen period for Glenmutchkin) are shorter and in many cases, even without considering the six wheeled vehicles, a lot shorter.  This was driven by the technology and in particular the materials available to the railways of the time.  There were exceptions though, and my present build is dealing with one of these – an East Coast Joint Stock 12 wheeler.

In the early 1890’s, the journey north was all about speed and culminated in the Railway Races to the North where the rival east and west coast companies competed to get their services to Aberdeen first.  This came to an abrupt end in July 1896 when a west coast train took curves too fast at Preston and left the rails.  Although the loss of life was relatively limited (for the time), excessive speed as a result of the desire to “speed to the north” was firmly blamed.  As a result, the competing companies agreed no longer to race each other and instead sought to compete on the basis of the quality of their service and the luxury of their trains.

A GNR small altlantic hauling an ECJS express at the turn of the 19th Century made up predominantly of 12 wheeled stock

One product of this competition were some really fine 12 wheel coaches built for the East Cost Joint Stock Company (which was a joint company with the GNR, NER & NB contributing to the cost for trans-company trains).  Built from 1896 onwards, these were several different lengths (this particular example was 66’11″) but all were long, seeking to use length and mass to iron out any track irregularity.  To support this length of coach, six wheeled bogies were used, although these were rather infant in their design and used big transverse leaf springs as bolsters.  In addition to being really characteristic and obvious – so they need to be modelled – I suspect they gave a somewhat bouncy ride!

Barry Fleming’s scratchbuilt body and part completed roof

I have been given a big headstart on this build by virtue of being given a nearly complete body/roof for a luggage composite (diagram 6 for those in the know).  This was scratchbuilt by the late Barry Fleming in the 1980s and is a class bit of modelling!  Barry gave it to my father, along with a couple of other coaches, to complete but as he has not managed to get this particular one, he has passed it to me to have a bash!

My etchings back from PPD

One of the reasons that this model was put to the back of the queue previously was that almost none of the parts required to complete it – in particular the bogies – were available, so it was all going to be a scratchbuild.  As I was pouring over the drawings and pictures in the bible on things ECJS it dawned on me that the missing parts would be best dealt with as an etch and given my developing skills in etch designing, I might was well have a go.  This is the product, an underframe, some cosmetic bogie sidesand some underframe details fresh back from the etchers.

The basic underframe has fold up solebars and buffer beams.  Each of these also has integral fold over layers to laminate on the cosmetic exterior.  This just about worked for the solbars but definitely did not for the buffer beams which distorted due to their thinness.  I will make these seperate pieces next time, but might use folding jigs.

Coaches of this era tended to have four truss rods, each with a pair of queen posts.  Stealing an idea from Alistair Wright’s designs, I made the queen posts up by a long etch that has a half etch length to wrap around the wire used for the tie rod.  By folding this over the wire and then laminating the two parts together, a robust and simple post can be created.  As it is two layers soldered together, it has the strength to allow it to be filed to a round shape to create the appearance of the original.

Although originally gas lit, by the time I will be modelling this vehicle it was electrically lit.  Whilst I probably could have bought cast batter boxes, I decided to include them in the etch and very pleased I am too – they have come out much more crisp than any of the castings I have seen and were really easy to both draw and make.  The remainder of the fittings seen here were bought in castings though, typically from Comet Models (now distributed by Wizard Models).

And this is where the underframe has presently progressed to.

I will describe the building of the bogies in the next installment, they are not for the faint-hearted!