Blue Pullman

Project has seemingly died a death due to very little commercial support. Shawplan have moulds for the Schlierin bogies and are trying to produce moulds for the coach side using Kitmaster panels as templates but they are a long way from producing kits. I had a long chat with them at the Bristol MRE a few weeks back and begged them to come up with something. If they can produce a kit that sells for less than £30 each then they will sell loads of them considering the ludicrous prices they fetch on Ebay.

SP are out of stock of etched window panels for the Westerns at the moment and the lead time for Chris Leigh bogies is upwards of 2-3 months!

I have 3 cut and shut Triang coaches (two ends of a trailer car glued together) ready to receive new window overlays and a repaint. I have done the window overlays for the 2nd class parlour car out of plasticard. I have recently acquired a full length scale marshalling diagram of the western units on E-Bay (all 50 ft of it) and I have used that to produce the window overlay but they don't look quite right yet. Tricky job is scaling down the coach length to fit the Triang chassis and then distributing the windows along the length so that they look right.

I have 1 8 car set and 1 6 car set in Grey/Blue and 4 trailer cars that I may break to produce a couple of 2nd class parlours to up the 6 car set to an 8 car Western set.

PS Go to the BluePullman group at Yahoogroups for more info.

HTH Andrew

Hi all,

About 10 years ago, before Shawplan or Southern Pride brought out their etched window panels, I had the same idea myself and had panels for an 8-car Western set etched to order by Bill Bedford. Last time I saw his list they were still shown as available. I've got all the Triang coaches I need now and this will be the next project on the workbench - I'm just short of a couple of bogie sides. I'll post some pictures somewhere suitable when it's done.

(Incidentally, around the same time, I picked up 4 trailer cars in The Signal Box, Rochester for £3 each, and later on the same day a complete but scruffy 5-car set at the Maidstone Toy & Collectors' Fair for £20. How times change. The cars from Rochester had the window inserts missing, which was what first gave me the idea of getting some replacements etched.)

Stuart

Thanks to all who have responded to my request for info:

"Stuart Pearce" wrote

I have just downloaded his list dated 8th Jan 04, and they aren't shown in there, but that is still an avenue of enquiry.

And I thought the two trailers I go for £15 each a couple of years was a bargain! They were poking out of one of the boxes hiding under a trade stand, good condition, scale wheels fitted (even though they were OO) and decorum went out the window! The going rate at the time seemed to be £25, and last month I saw some for £35. Each.

I had a cheap pair of driving cars, but one had a missing window insert. At another trade stand I saw a cracked body shell for £1, but it had good window inserts. Another bargain!

Hello,

I have fond memories of the Blue Pullman running on the midland route and noticed this in the June British Railway Modelling mag; Auction report (page 78) Blue Pullman boxed set RS52 complete with instructions & in mint condition. sold for £90. I didn't think that was too bad considering what you can pay nowadays for a single loco.

Dave

Dave Garrett wrote:-

Visit a general auction rather than a specialist auction and no one seems to know the value of model railway stuff. Seen stuff knocked down for 50% or 25% of what it was really worth.

(kim)

"KimPateman" wrote

And conversley I've seen stuff sell at local general auctions which could have been bought more cheaply in my shop.

John.