Two in the one year! Good grief, what is happening! Or, building a HV 'Redfern' passenger brake van.

As promised, I am making a bit of an effort to add some posts to the blog.

This one is about building this:

 This is well out of period for Lambing Flat, but I like it! 

It is a 'Redfern' passenger brake van, one of the series of passenger carriages referred to as the 'Redfern' cars, which entered service from 1884. This particular variation had a small guard's compartment at one end, a large luggage compartment in the middle and two second class compartments at the other end. They were coded HV from 1892 and the model represents the (probably) appearance of the van in the 1890s, with original paneled body and painted in the fully lined purple brown colour scheme. This particular type was built for the southern and western system (the vans built for the northern system had some major detail differences) and it looked like this until around 1910 when they were rebuilt with plain tongue and grooved siding and the passenger compartment were replaced with another goods compartment accessed by double doors similar to the existing luggage compartment. In this rebuilt form they lasted in revenue service until around 1930. Some then went into W&W service and lasted into the 1960s, at least. 

The model is constructed from a Rails North urethane kit that was only available through the annual modelling the early days of the NSWR convention under the 'Old Buggers' label. I obtained it at a convention some years ago and had started to build it, but had then put it back in the unbuilt kit drawer, where it languished for some years. For some reason (one that I don't even know!) I pulled it out recently and restarted work. It was built pretty much as the manufacturer intended, but with a little added detail.

Here it is on 13 April 2017, the body has been assembled and the roof fitted, and the chassis has been pretty much finished. I've fitted all the foot boards, using timber strips glued to staples and soldered up the truss rods from brass wire. I lost one of the buffers, but, luckily, I had some very old British buffers in the parts collection that were pretty much identical, and sprung as well! The roof has been 'canvassed' with tissue paper and extra details, such as the drawer hooks and lamp irons added. The handrails on the roof and ends have been made and fitted (the brass grab rails and door handles on the sides will be added after painting). It was now ready for painting to start.

By 6 June it had been painted and lined (the lining took a loooong time!), the brass grab rails and door handles had been fitted and it had been decaled, but the glazing and basic interior had yet to be fitted. The slightly yellow lighting makes it look redder than it actually was (see photos of the completed model). The lining was done by hand, using a bow pen and Tamiya yellow paint, except for the lines around the ventilators, which were decals from an old N scale decal set for RUB cars. The lettering came from various decal sheets in my collection (one tends to accumulate that sort of thing over 40 years or so... )

By the 19th of June, it was finished, weathered and accepted into service on the layout. Here it is, trying not to look too out of place by hanging out with some of my other 'early days' vehicles. An interesting and unusual vehicle to have on the layout and quite simple to build, though the lining was a bit of an ordeal!