Power-door Mk3s

[davidinyork]

There are two types of Mk3 power-door conversion - those with plug doors converted for Chiltern Railways about a decade ago, and those with sliding doors for GWR / Scotrail / Crosscountry done more recently.

Hornby have done the sliding-door ones in OO, including correctly modelling the variations between coaches (and then inexplicably managing to use the wrong variation / coach number combinations with several of them!  ). Due to the relatively limited appeal / number of liveries, and the number of coach variations it seems unlikely that anyone will do either type of power door conversion in N gauge as a RTR model.

So far as I'm aware nobody has done a kit / 3D print of the plug door type, but I see that there are a couple of variants of the sliding-door type on Shapeways now:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/VVW9A4AVP/n-scale-mk3-sliding-door-ts?optionId=217071128&li=shops
https://www.shapeways.com/product/2MQVXQM2X/n-scale-mk3-sliding-door-tsd?optionId=217070549&li=marketplace

From the images given, it appears that both are missing the roof ventilators at the coach ends (most of them should have the square HST type, apart from some of the Crosscountry fleet which have three smaller Roevac ventilators on account of being coversions from loco-hauled Mk3a. The TS looks OK apart from that (and possibly the underframe details - difficult to tell). The TSD is less clear: one image shows the Scotail / Crosscountry version, and one shows the GWR one (different window arrangement).

Is there anyone here who ahs bought these prints and can comment on what the actual models are like?

There are of course missing variants too - GWR needs a TGS, Scotrail a TGBF and Crosscountry a TGS, TCC and TFD (which is the same bodyshell variant as the Crosscountry / Scotrail TSD, but different from the GWR TSD).

Thanks

[Bob Tidbury]

I would love a set of Chiltern Railways plug door coaches to go behind my Chiltern class 68  because my daughter is a Chiltern Driver but not yet on the 68s only the units  on all routes Though she has driven a 68 in the depot .
Bob Tidbury .

[CaleyDave]

I don't have experience but it looks like they are intended as drop in replacements for Dapol MK3 coaches.


I agree that the TSD is less clear, it looks like it is a ScotRail/Crosscountry style coach on one side and GWR style coach on the other so would be wrong for either unless you start cutting it up.

TGS and TGBF aside My temptation would be to start with the TS and fill in the windows to make the TFD, ScotRail/Cross Country TSD (fill the right most window on one side only) and TCC (Fill window 2 and 3 from the left on one side only).
Not sure How You would do a TGS/TGBF I guess possibly cut a shut with a Dapol Bodyshell (TGBF being a normal door and TGS being a door and a half from a TGS).

[davidinyork]

I agree that the TSD is less clear, it looks like it is a ScotRail/Crosscountry style coach on one side and GWR style coach on the other so would be wrong for either unless you start cutting it up.

Think all the variants are the same on the toilet side - one big window plated over. It's the corridor side where they differ, with Scotrail and Crosscountry retaining the full-size window, and GWR having it plated over and one of the old-tyle toilet windows placed half-way between the external door and the first of the remaining large windows.

[CaleyDave]

I agree that the TSD is less clear, it looks like it is a ScotRail/Crosscountry style coach on one side and GWR style coach on the other so would be wrong for either unless you start cutting it up.

Think all the variants are the same on the toilet side - one big window plated over. It's the corridor side where they differ, with Scotrail and Crosscountry retaining the full-size window, and GWR having it plated over and one of the old-style toilet windows placed half-way between the external door and the first of the remaining large windows.

This confused me as I had just looked up pictures because I am not local to the GWR HST's so I checked again.
You are right about the toilet side.
I was wrong but I worked out why I was confused, I think I assumed there was a standard design of TSD for GWR, it looks like there are two version?

The First 5 and last 3 converted appear to have a window missing behind the toilet and a small window on the corridor side like the Shapeways coach.
48102,5,8,11,14,41,44,47
Examples
48111 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/31074376@N06/52369152473/
48141 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/bigdan14025/51498396215/

The other type appears to be identical to the CrossCountry/ScotRail Design.
48117,20,23,26,29,32,34,35
Examples
48126 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/sboothby/51650873179/
48117 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/148600503@N05/49787159788/
48134 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/sboothby/52366211377/

So The first 5 sets (2,5,8,11,14) were built with the Small windows and the final 3 addon sets (41,44,47) were built with small windows with the balance (17,20,23,26,29,32,34,35 some of these were spares prior to additional sets being converted) being Large window.
As the GWR coaches were first and Last converted I can only assume that the Large window ones were for standardisation of Conversion whilst ScotRail and CrossCountry coaches were converted alongside. Presumably the final 3 GWR resubmitted the original plans and got 3 to the original specification they wanted with the small window?

[davidinyork]

I was wrong but I worked out why I was confused, I think I assumed there was a standard design of TSD for GWR, it looks like there are two version?

Hadn't spotted that, but yes, indeed it does look like there are two versions!

Wonder whether it relates to ownership? The GWR HST fleet is a mixture of Angel / First Rail Holdings / Franchise Asset - I have a list of the power car ownership but not of the trailers, but they are certainly mixed. If anyone has the latest Platform 5 book to hand I think that has ownership details (the Scotrail HST fleet is all Angel-owned. XC's is a mixture of Angel and Porterbrook).

[CaleyDave]

I was wrong but I worked out why I was confused, I think I assumed there was a standard design of TSD for GWR, it looks like there are two version?

Hadn't spotted that, but yes, indeed it does look like there are two versions!

Wonder whether it relates to ownership? The GWR HST fleet is a mixture of Angel / First Rail Holdings / Franchise Asset - I have a list of the power car ownership but not of the trailers, but they are certainly mixed. If anyone has the latest Platform 5 book to hand I think that has ownership details.

You are on the money!

Checking the 2022 Platform 5 Book
48102,5,8,11,14 Are First Group Owned
48117,20,23,26,29,32,34,35 Are Angel Trains
48141,44,47 Are Great Western (Directly) Owned

All Scotrails TSD are Angel Trains.

CrossCountry TSD and TFD are a mixture of Angel Trains and Porterbrook, depending on their origin, but all to the same design.
TFD 41193,4,5 ex Loco hauled Porterbrook
TFD 41026,35 Angel Trains
TSD 42366,71,74,76 ex Loco hauled Porterbrook
TSD 42379,80 Angel Trains

[davidinyork]

I was wrong but I worked out why I was confused, I think I assumed there was a standard design of TSD for GWR, it looks like there are two version?

Hadn't spotted that, but yes, indeed it does look like there are two versions!

Wonder whether it relates to ownership? The GWR HST fleet is a mixture of Angel / First Rail Holdings / Franchise Asset - I have a list of the power car ownership but not of the trailers, but they are certainly mixed. If anyone has the latest Platform 5 book to hand I think that has ownership details.

You are on the money!

Checking the 2022 Platform 5 Book
48102,5,8,11,14 Are First Group Owned
48117,20,23,26,29,32,34,35 Are Angel Trains
48141,44,47 Are Great Western (Directly) Owned

All Scotrails TSD are Angel Trains.

CrossCountry TSD and TFD are a mixture of Angel Trains and Porterbrook, depending on their origin, but all to the same design.
TFD 41193,4,5 ex Loco hauled Porterbrook
TFD 41026,35 Angel Trains
TSD 42366,71,74,76 ex Loco hauled Porterbrook
TSD 42379,80 Angel Trains

Thanks for looking that up!

As regards the XC ones, so far as I recall, prior to the sliding door and retention tanks going in there were two variations - the TFDs and ex-LHCS TSDs had swing.door toilets with one big window panelled over, but the other two (Angel-owned) TSDs had smaller disabled toilets with no big windows panelled over - think those two sets (XC04 and 05) were the ones which came from MML, and those two TSDs were formerly TFDs and were reseated as standard because two first class carriages weren't needed.

[davidinyork]

In view of the above, looks like Hornby could well be on course to get this one wrong:
https://uk.hornby.com/products/gwr-mk3-sliding-door-trailer-standard-disabled-tsd-48126-era-11-r4895b?

The same catalogue number with a letter on the end normally indicates the same variant with a different running number - and R4895 and R5895A are (correctly modelled) 48108 and 48111 respectively...

[geoffc]

There are two types of Mk3 power-door conversion - those with plug doors converted for Chiltern Railways about a decade ago, and those with sliding doors for GWR / Scotrail / Crosscountry done more recently.

Hornby have done the sliding-door ones in OO, including correctly modelling the variations between coaches (and then inexplicably managing to use the wrong variation / coach number combinations with several of them!  ). Due to the relatively limited appeal / number of liveries, and the number of coach variations it seems unlikely that anyone will do either type of power door conversion in N gauge as a RTR model.

So far as I'm aware nobody has done a kit / 3D print of the plug door type, but I see that there are a couple of variants of the sliding-door type on Shapeways now:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/VVW9A4AVP/n-scale-mk3-sliding-door-ts?optionId=217071128&li=shops
https://www.shapeways.com/product/2MQVXQM2X/n-scale-mk3-sliding-door-tsd?optionId=217070549&li=marketplace

From the images given, it appears that both are missing the roof ventilators at the coach ends (most of them should have the square HST type, apart from some of the Crosscountry fleet which have three smaller Roevac ventilators on account of being coversions from loco-hauled Mk3a. The TS looks OK apart from that (and possibly the underframe details - difficult to tell). The TSD is less clear: one image shows the Scotail / Crosscountry version, and one shows the GWR one (different window arrangement).

Is there anyone here who ahs bought these prints and can comment on what the actual models are like?

There are of course missing variants too - GWR needs a TGS, Scotrail a TGBF and Crosscountry a TGS, TCC and TFD (which is the same bodyshell variant as the Crosscountry / Scotrail TSD, but different from the GWR TSD).

Thanks

At £300 for four kits plus the paint, decals, 8 bogies and time, I will use four Dapol GWR coaches. With my eyesight I feel that the differences will not be that noticeable when running.

Geoff