- A Day at the Races -

A Dia G20 6-wheel Third Class Saloon seen prior to full restoration at Didcot. Photo courtesy of Wili Commons, and slightly cropped.

A day at the races, or maybe off for Summer hols in Devon. Whatever, the Great Western, like a number of other companies, liked to pamper its richer clientele and provided Family Saloons for private hire. These were a mixture of four wheel, six wheel and bogie coaches and they could be delivered and attached to an appropriate train at just about any station. Used extensively until The Great War, some even lasted in use through to the 1930s. Some coaches were quite luxuriously equipped and even had accommodation for one's servants, what a jolly splendid idea. And what a perfectly spiffing way to travel.

This build is to Dia G20 and, practically identical to Dia G19, the Great Western built more than 50 of these smaller coaches alone and two have survived [one at the Great Western Society in Didcot]. Originally built at 6-wheelers, some were converted to 4 wheels later in their life but I have elected the former and have converted a standard Ratio 4 wheel Brake Third underframe to that effect. Photo of that when it's been painted. This coach is not a family saloon per se however, but one which could be hired by families or groups to convey them to their destination together and in some comfort and privacy.

The Shirescenes 'kit' for this build comprises simply the sides and their associated furniture. The rest utilises parts from the ubiquitous Ratio Brake Third kit. Then one is left to determine the most effective way of attaching the relatively flimsy sides to the Ratio ends and chassis. With such large windows, a scratchbuilt interior will be needed, long upholstered benches and a long table in the main. I'm looking for appropriate photos for this. I've found one so far. The centre compartment is the toilet. Shirescenes have a clever etch for the droplights with the door hinges attached. They just need bending through 90' and pushed through the holes once the drops have been painted.

Here’s the etch, quite crisply done although I did find that some of the cross bars on the smaller central windows did not quite reach across for the full width.:

The first task involved removing each of the sides from the fret and folding up the long tabs on the top and bottom of each piece. For this, I was hugely indebted to a friend for lasering me a set of steel bending bars. These made the tricky job of folding up the long top and bottom tabs an absolute breeze, with no creasing or damage to the thin, fragile sides. The bars also allowed me to form the tumblehome.

These long tabs are essential for adding some strength to the sides and also make attaching them to the chassis and roof far easier. They can be bent up using a pair of steel rulers, but proper bending bars are far more suitable.

The centre window is for the toilet compartment, one on each side and accessed through the narrow centre passage. The coach, effectively, has two separate passenger compartments, one at each end and, whilst each can access each other through the toilet passage, I’m guessing that it would have been possible to have booked just one end for smaller parties with the central access door locked beyond the toilet. Supposition there, though.

Returning to this build, I found an illustration online from a GWR works drawing showing the internal fittings for this coach. It will comprise a full width upholstered high-backed bench across each end, lower benches running fore-and-aft in the two compartments and a long table between them in each also. All leather surfaces will be painted in dark red matt to simulate the sort of hard-wearing leather that would almost certainly have been used in a Third Class coach like this. These items have already been prepared for installation once the sides have been fitted.

The brass sides have been painted inside and had their exterior coat of cream and then, when dry, the lower chocolate was applied. The drop lights were then attached. This will be shown later.

The chassis has yet to be painted but the 6-wheel conversion was successful and it fairly flies when pushed along some track. The centre wheel set simply sits in an open cradle, allowing a couple of mm of sideplay each side and a small amount of radial movement.

Converting the original Ratio Brake Third chassis to run as a six-wheeler was straight forward but fiddley. In adding the centre axle-box/w-iron/springing assembly [cut from a scrap Ratio coach], great care had to be taken not to wreck the fixing plates that joined the springs to the solebar in the process. The tie rods, which are breathtakingly fragile, also needed very careful cutting to accommodate the extra axle box. The lower footboards required similar surgery and anyone who has built a Ratio coach will know that the footboards will fly into a thousands pieces if even spoken to roughly. The rather dusty photo shows this more clearly. The strips of white plastic card are there to ensure that the sides sit at the correct height. All of the wheels are Mansells and await painting. Photographic images of tourist sites around the GW Region have been attached to the inner ends as often happened in GW carriages.

The next photo shows the roof attached as a dry fit only and, after a great deal of trimming, everything now fits well. The chassis copes well with tight radii, too.

The sides were attached to the ends and floor with a minimum of drama although I would have liked to have glazed them first. As the ends of the sides needed to be super glued to the ends of the body, that wasn’t going to be possible because of the inevitability of misting. So, a fiddley task awaits and the interior can then be fitted. The gold lining at the waist needs redoing, too. Easy enough. The other side is far better. The door hinges show ell here, and door and commode handles have been fitted, too.

The commissioned transfers had also arrived. But I just wish I could source some less over-scale commode handles. I tried thinning them down with an emery board but they are just too fragile for that. If I had a jig, I could make them. It might be worth considering. I am also wondering about trialling some microscope slide cover glass for glazing on my next short coach. Jury’s out there.

And a shot of the interior, fitted after the glazing had been glued in place:

The interior fittings are pretty much as they would have looked: full width benches at end end, longitudinal benches with lower backs running fore-and-aft and a small table for each compartment. Unfortunately though, most of this will become invisible once the roof has been fitted!

With the wheels painted and the underframe and ends sprayed matt black, all that was left to do to finish the coach was apply the roof, make up some handrails for the step end, fix buffers, couplings and vacuum pipes and, finally, letter and number the vehicle. With so much handling, it was inevitable that small areas of paintwork required a little attention, but nothing that really delayed the conclusion. And here it is, ready for its next outing….

Victorian six-wheelers are such characterful vehicles and converting the standard Ratio chassis is well worth the effort. If you want to see the fully restored prototype, it is on display at the Great Western Society’s site at Didcot.