Early coaches.

"Ken Wilson" wrote

No idea, but Hornby did some early Liverpool & Manchester Railway coaches to go with their OO-scale model of Stephenson's *Rocket*, sadly now long out of production.

John.

As you are asking specifically for c. 1840 coaches, this may be a bit off target, but it could still be of interest to people modelling the 19th century scene. In N gauge, the Japanese manufacturer Micro Ace makes some 4-wheel coaches dating from the 1870s. These were British-built, although I don't know how closely they resembled coaches used in Britain. They are available via the Hobby Search website, even though they are not actually listed on the English pages. (The product code is Micro Ace A0274)

can see a photo at the address below.

Coaches from the Hornby "Rocket" set. Second hand.

The larger companies made their own.

Annie and Clarabel are shortened modern carriages. 1860 would be lower, narrower and have more compartments for the length.

Trix Produced some early coaches as par of the Der Adler set:

Bachmann USA produce a few early models, the DeWitt Clinton is probably of most interest: These however model foreign prototypes and are th HO scale.

Craig

wow those prices are outrageous! I have seen Bachmann's complete set of three (Clinton, Lafayette etc.) go for less on eBay. In fact, Walthers has the Clinton for $50US

I was going to buy them and display them in a case until I saw them in real life - they are so small that even at >

Hi Ken, There are some kits of broad gauge protoypes from 1838 onwards available from the Broad Gauge Society:

'm not much experience of the early GWR coach designs so they may or may not look like what you need. At best they will need narrowing to suit the narrow-gauge loading gauge. Cheers, Bill.

-- "rabbits" is "rarebits"

IIRC the GWR did something similar, converting some broad gauge stock to the other gauge.

Over the last 20 years or so of the broad gauge all new stock was constructed to allow easy conversion to narrow gauge, the ultimate demise of the broad gauge did not come as any surprise. Convertible coaches generally bodywork built to the narrow loading gauge, but fitted onto broad underframes. These coaches would have been much more modern in design than the 1840s/50s types. There is at least one genuine convertible coach with the GWS at Didcot, I believe the long term plan is to rebuild it in broad gauge form, Cheers, Bill.

Looking at some of the extant photos, it seems to me GWR also built a number of narrow bodies coaches on wide broad-gauge frames. I think they just mounted them on "narrow gauge" frames when the time came. Is my speculation correct?

Ah, thanks Bill, that confirms my guess, ignore previous post.