Indeed if you look far enough back through the archive you'll read about an almost catastrophic design cock-up on my part. (But if you want to find out about that you'll have to do the hard work and discover the story for yourself!)
We've had a lot of 'musical numbers' among the carriages featured in Model Of The Week recently and this one continues the theme.
This latest 103 has nothing whatsoever in common with the original 103. That was a 1960s buffet car which was given a radical face lift in the late '80s and then pulled apart in the 2000s.
This 103 has blazed a new trail in 21st century carriage design on the FR.
Much longer and wider and looking like a slimmed down modern WHR carriage, but with obvious styling cues taken from the 'Barns', it shares the inset door vestibules with its larger cousins.
Passenger comfort was the primary concern with wider seat spacings with more leg room as well as easier access for customers in wheelchairs or with limited mobility with the double doors at one end.
The design has been repeated in two new Superbarns, 121 which has already entered service and 108 which is in the early stages of construction at Boston Lodge.
Our model was scratch built in styrene, including the roof which, as other previous posts on this blog detail, was rather tricky due to the design over the vestibules. It called for styrene to retain a curve with very little support - something it is usually very reluctant to do!
That I managed to beat it into submission is something I'm very proud of, but I'm not going to try it again - my model of 121 (and 108) will have brass roof skins!
No comments:
Post a Comment