G & S W R 16T Drummond Brake Van complete

Photo from the archives of the G & SWR Society.

The G & SWR Society kindly supplied the above photo from their archive of the brake van in pre-grouping livery which I used to complete my model. I drew the number and maker's plate by hand then scanned the drawings, sized them on the computer and printed them on the inkjet. Transfers are HMRS from their sheet no. 20. 

 

Drummond 16 Ton Brake Van

 

The mid grey colour of the van is of my own devising. I have outlined the panels and planks with a darker shade but have not carried out any weathering. The van measures 120mm overall and weighs a chunky 300g... and runs superbly. Note that the lower foot boards have been thickened to 0.9mm which is near the inch and a half of the real thing. 

Note the lamps in place and guard on the look out.

I painted the end of the van red which I think is possibly correct for a van in pre grouping livery. It also adds to the attractiveness of the colour scheme. The van ends featured curious double doors which opened outwards, their purpose escapes me. The roof, which can be removed to view the interior, is held in place by a screw in the chimney which locates into the top of the stove pipe inside the van. The guard in his red trimmed cap is from a "Heroes of the Footplate" figure, he has been repositioned slightly to fit into this particular van.





The interior is fully furnished and fitted.

The brake van is of the single skin variety, there is no inner planking so the structural framing is visible and has to be modelled which is probably a more onerous undertaking than furnishing the van. No helpful information has come down to us from G & SWR days, which leaves the field wide open to the imagination, so I opted for a contrasting maroon and cream interior and avoided any horizontal colour divisions as this would have been too difficult to paint in the confined interior. The floor planking was painted, dry brushed and lined and in turn contrasted attractively with the maroon fittings. I used a lot of masking tape when I painted the interior and left the window glazing until last so I could access the interior by poking my brushes through them. Only the stove, the inner brake mechanism and the corner storage box were painted separately and glued in place later.   

G&SWR Brake Van Inside and Out.

G & SWR Drummond Brake Van Interior

Apart from the brake hand wheel, which is in the post from LGM, the interior fittings are complete though I plan to add a few more small items, a sweeping brush and possibly a few of the guard's personal items, later at the painting stage. The stove is a brass casting from Slaters, the stove pipe is threaded 10BA to take the screw in the chimney above which holds the roof in place. The brake mechanism in the left hand corner is a w/m casting from Invertrain's "Heroes of the Footplate" range ; everything else in the van interior I made myself.
There are no photos extant of G & SWR brake van interiors, in fact interior details of pre-grouping brake vans are in short supply in general. However I was helped by a drawing of a Caledonian Railway 6-wheel brake van which showed some of the interior fittings, the rest is a reconstruction based on probability. There is not much room left in the interior when all the fittings are in place so I presume that these vans were not used for carrying small consignments of freight nor even parcels as there just isn't room.



It's a busy place under the van

The brake rigging seen here is built from the etches in the kit though the manner in which the central supports are mounted is of my own devising. The replacement self contained buffers simplify matters beneath the van, which the transverse piano wire arrangement of the kit might have complicated unnecessarily, leaving plenty of room for the coupling hook spring seen in the foreground.