Carriageology - the study of Festiniog Railway rolling stock.
A made up academic discipline, maybe, but one in which consider myself reasonably well schooled after two decades scratch building FR carriages.
The latest model on my workbench is 123 which makes a fascinating case study in the development of the Barn design if you're interested in such things.
A quick recap:
123 is what used to be known as 101, built in 1970 as a First Class Observation Carr. Retired from that role a few years ago it was intended at first to scrap the wooden bodyshell and re-use the underframe for a new-build carriage. However, a counter proposal was put forward to refurbish the existing bodyshell, which was not beyond repair, turn the carriage around, downgrade it to Third Class, and place it at the Blaenau end of trains. This cunning plan also made use of the double doors in the guard compartment to create dedicated spaces for passengers in wheelchairs.
123 is fascinating because it has been adapted and altered many times over its 40 years and the carriage today, like an ancient building, shows evidence of the changes over the years.
Some of them are illustrated in the picture below...
1) These windows are 123's 'Back to the Future' feature. When first built the Barns had square edged windows, but during rebuilds in the 1980's they were replaced with rounded rubber sealed units which 101 carried up until its latest rebuild. Now, just like the new generation Barns (100, 103, 124) it has square-edged windows again.
2 The project to turn 101 into 123, however, was a very pragmatic affair which kept costs to a minimum by not replacing anything that could be reused. Hence 123 has kept the Beclawat half droplights it acquired part-way through its life as 101. Nearly all the other Barns (with the exclusion of 104) now have Boston Lodge designed and made wooden half droplights.
3 The beading is interesting too. Once again, to save time and cost, the panels were kept as they were when it was running as 101, whereas all the new generation Barns, and the rebuilt 105, have matching strips of beading beneath every window pillar.
4 The double doors have been retained to be used as access for wheelchairs. However, the bulkhead which divided the guards' area from the passenger accommodation has been moved further back. The double doors themselves are another feature of 101's 1980's rebuild. They replaced the original sliding door, which sister carr. 100 retained until it was scrapped.
5 Another of the changes to form the wheelchair area was to insert another window here in half of what was once a blank panel in the guards' van.
Yes, I know, I am very sad and a total anorak!
Anyway, here's how my 4mm model (another world first, perhaps?) is looking after a day's work.
