Suitable coaches?

[emjaybee]

Thinking ahead, so I can keep my eyes open in the second-hand market, I'm after some guidance on coaches.

I'm planning to have a LMS era branch line so am looking for a couple of suitable coaches. The tricky bit is that I'd like coaches that have the same level of detail as my Blue Riband BachFar Staniers. All my loco stock is high detail BachFar and look great with the Staniers, but I think the older GraFar stock would look out of place next to them. I'm not that clued up on coaches (my late uncle Rodney was the man for that) so don't really know what would have run on a branch line. I have a Fairburn and an Ivatt lined up for these duties.

[Steven B]

Ideally you need something earlier than the Period 3 Staniers done by Farish. Unfortunately there's nothing RTR of Blue-Ribbon standard.

Branch-line trains are likely to use older pre-grouping stock.

Etched Pixels have a range of kits from LMS constituents:
http://www.ultima-models.co.uk/catalogue/index-lms.html


Steven B.

[railsquid]

NGS Journal 4/17 has an article "Evoking a Sense of Place and Time" which has a brief overview of LMS coaching stock options.

[Newportnobby]

Having looked through the current Farish list on the website with Era 3 (The Big 4 - 1923-1947) there's not a lot at all.
On my small layout I run a couple of Era 5 Stanier maroon brakes (374-827) back to back so you could do the same with the Era 3 versions. They list 374-825B as due in the next couple of months but that means there should be a 374-825 and a 374-825A somewhere if you can find them
Note that all the versions of 374-825 are in LMS Crimson Lake

[PLD]

Unfortunately there isn't anything suitable available ready to run... The only LMS coaches to current standards are the Farish Stanier corridor stock, however they rarely ventured onto minor branchlines.

On branchlines The LMS used a mix of non-corridor stock and older corridor stock cascaded from mainline services. This did include new-build non-corridor stock throughout the life of the company.

Your best route to suitable stock is etched brass sides overlaid on an RTR coach. There are a number of etched brass sides available for Period 1 & 2 LMS coaches from several sources including Utima, Bill Bedford and Worsley Works.

In profile, the closest matching donor RTR coaches for most LMS Period 1 & 2 stock is the Dapol Maunsells.

[emjaybee]

Cheers for the info fellas.

The Bill Bedford stuff doesn't seem to be available in 2mm, and, I'll be honest, I can't make head nor tail of the Worsley info.

The Ultima looks the most likely, I've already got a few 6 wheel (Stove-R) chassis in stock for some of their wagons, so may go down that route, but really want something a bit "longer". I don't think I can do a "proper" coach kit justice with my skills so may have to get the bits and see if I can someone with more talent than I to build them.

Maybe some kind manufacturer will do a suitable RTR coach in the future for us picky buggers who are not so good with the tools!