Very Vintage Carriage

Sometimes models imitate reality in more ways that just appearance.

Our carriage 19 is a case in point.

The real one was the last of the FR's 'bowsiders' to be restored after the preservationists' took over, taking many years to get back into traffic.

Even then it didn't take them close on the near three decades it's taken us to complete our vintage carriage fleet.

Once upon a time, when we started modelling the FR in 009 there was only a kit available for one flavour of bowsider - the first pair 17 and 18, from Langley - and it wasn't until many years later that Worsley Works came up with a set of basic body etched for the second pair.

(The four are not identical, you see. This irritating FR habit goes right back to Victorian times.)

When we were first building Dduallt the intention was to have all the locomotives and rolling stock finished in the condition they were in in 1988.

That has withered away over the years and now our stock boxes are a right mish mash.

In 1988 19 was the last bowsider left in all over red livery and for a long time intended it to be at the top end of a full set of red carriages along with 11, 105, 106, 12, and 16.

I can't remember when we bought the etches for it but what I do know is that Himself made a start on it, then obviously got distracted by something else, and it has sat for years with the basic body and frame put together but that's all.

I made an interior for it, which you can see in the picture below, and that was when I was living in my previous house which we moved out of nearly 9 years ago!

Finally, though, its time has come and he's resumed work on it, fitting Dundas FR bogies and Greenwich couplers, making up the truss rods and soldering the roof on.

There's still the question, though, of what colour to paint it.

When the Victorian bogie carriages all went through extensive restorations at the start of this century they either emerged in incredibly ornate Victorian splendour or dowdy inter-war colours.

Unfortunately for Himself, 19 emerged in a rich dark plum livery, complete with gold leaf around the panelling, just like the curly roof van.

Very sportingly he's declared that is willing to give this a go.

The fun and games of painting it are a little further down the line.

The most immediate question is how we're going to reproduce the lamp pots along the roof?