Lima Western Stock??

"Rob" wrote

I'd suggest Bachmann Mk1s in choc/cream (or maroon) for the passenger work or some china clay hoods for freight. Apart from those options it wouldn't go amiss for you to look at some period photographs.

John.

As Rob mentions he's a Southern fan, maybe a mix of green (Bachmann Bulleids & Mk1s?) coaches with maroon stock on inter-regional services might be an option, given a bit of 'modeller's licence'. Clay hoods is an excellent freight suggestion. I'd also suggest milk traffic, but a rake of Dapol (or S/H Wrenn/HD) 6-wheelers might be a pricey proposition!

David E. Belcher

Where abouts southern is your layout? SW, SE, Central?

Early on, westerns were not generally worked from & to southern stations, but mostly inter-regional... gotta agree with John, choc/cream, red/cream and/or maroon for pax, 6 wheeled milk tanks on goods creeping up to either vauxhall or taking the west london line for acton.

On my southern layout (south western div 1968 ish based on Basingstoke T/P but further north so lots of trip freights allowing just about any class of diesel), I only run the westerns with maroon and b/g mk1s, at this time westerns on freight was still something of a novelty. They represented top-link express locos, among the most powerful of the time. The odd one standing in for a warship could get away with green stock working a waterloo-exeter ACE (WR provided the motive power but SR always provided the stock for the ACE) but I don't know how common this was. Even the six class

47 allocated to SR (to replace steam on Bournemouth Belle + Others?) were "borrowed" from WR stock at Old Oak.

whatever - enjoy. I think the SR around this time offers so much fleiblity and variety in workings. Can't wait to get my all-over blue 4TC running with converted 33/1.yay!

Well I grew up in Surrey (Godalming and Farnham), but visited my Gran in Cornwall a lot as a child, where I watched a lot of Westerns go by. So I suppose I am moddeling Southern near a Western area? Actually, anyone have any ideas where that may be, it would certainly keep the local rivit counters at bay :-)

So could I run the weathered maroon Hornby coaches. I like them...... Thanks everyone Rob

I've just had a look at Derek Huntriss's 'The Heyday of the Westerns'. Whilst I couldn't find any shots of 'cross-country' services bound for the Southern, there were some of trains to and from the south-west in the appropriate period. What struck me was that the coaching stock in such trains in the late 1960s was almost all still in maroon, with trains from the north often containing pre-nationalisation stock- notably Stanier and Collett second opens/corridors. There often seemed to be several brake coaches, including some in the middle of the trains, presumably to give additional luggage capacity. Brian p.s There's a photo of a green Western (1037) on page 76 at the head of a largely unfitted freight on the GW main line,taken in 1963. The train has a fitted head of 12t vans- of the 10, only 1 is a BR standard one, the rest being ex-LMS, LNER and GW.

A few years ago, I was leafing through a book on the "Pines Express", which showed a Western on the service in post-S&D days at Bournemouth Central; it may well have worked through all the way from Crewe (or at least Wolverhampton LL or Snow Hill).

David E. Belcher