G & SWR Brake Van Progress

G & SWR Drummond Brake Van interior. 

I've completed the bracing structure on all the interior walls of the van now though the panelled doors are still under construction. The bracing struts are made from 2mm square hollow section brass and there are a lot of them. The floor of the guard's "house" is not part of the kit though the verandah floors are included. I made the inner floor from an etched wagon floor that I had left over from a previous project, this slides into place under the bottom of the inner bracing struts and is supported from below on spacers so it's on the same plane as the verandah floors.  I'll illustrate the underside of the van at a later stage to clarify this.

The doors are not glazed and I have no information on their inner surfaces so I'm panelling them in much the same way as the front. I've made a writing desk for one corner and a locker with a hinged lid for the opposite one. Lookout seats are under construction and the brake mechanism and handwheel will fit into a third corner; the fourth, being of restricted width because of the offset brake end door will remain empty. The kit itself is fairly compliant, it's not fighting back despite not being designed with an interior in mind, though the wheels caught on the underside of the superstructure when I tried them in place today. I cut out slots to ease the problem which would have been an easier task at an earlier stage before I'd half assembled the van.

In a gesture of generosity towards myself, in a moment of levity brought on by the approach of Christmas, I purchased from Andy Copp at Lochgorm Kits a set of etches and castings to build a HR d.24 brake van... so watch this space for details of the build in the New Year.




Interior detailing work in progress, desk and lookout seat in place.

G & SWR 16ton Drummond Brake Van.

G & SWR 16ton Brake Van from a Taff Vale/Dragon Models /Celtic Connection kit

I took these pictures on my new iPhone tonight to show the model taking on a three dimensional presence at last as I've been working in the flat on the components for the last few weeks. The kit is not really designed with an interior in mind, it provides no help so, as an interior is my main concern with this model, I've been finding it hard work. The van is a single-skin affair so the internal bracing struts are a feature of the model not only inside the guard's "house" but also on the verandahs where all the edges have had 2mm square brass section added, in a similar manner to the real thing, to give solidity to the structure. The inner partitions are likewise braced with square section as can be seen best in the upper photo. I have no specific G & SWR reference for a guards van interior so I'm basing the detail on what seems most likely, using other similar verandah-both-ends vans as exemplars.
I'm going to complete the basic structure of the van now, sides, interior partitions and floor and then add the rest of the interior to include the lookout-seat, brake mechanism, stove, locker and desk.
I've sourced some cast brass lamp irons from Slaters, these are not shown on the drawing but are clearly to be seen on the only photo I have of the van. This photo was supplied by the G & SWR Society and shows the vehicle in LMS days; I have no photo of it in earlier pre-grouping guise, only the drawing that came with the instructions.

Interior detail beginning to take shape.

Some guards vans were of single skin construction similar to the G&SWR van under construction, however others had a double skin, planks being fastened to the inner bracing struts to form the double skin. If the outer cladding was vertical the inner would usually be horizontal.