Travelling in Style

Back, briefly, to model railway matters. I was at the Alresford Toy Train Festival over the weekend - it was the first one since 2019. having not been held for two years due to Covid.  As ever, one of my main motivations for going along, apart from all the fascinating layouts, was for the opportunity to peruse the stock of various traders.  You can generally buy decent second hand stuff at prices much lower than you can on eBay at exhibitions and toy fairs. Particularly if, like me, you aren't a collector and don't care if they aren't boxed or in perfect condition.  While, on the day, I was tempted by a number of locomotives, including a Triang Hornby L1, a Hornby M7 and a Trix Standard Class 5, (three rail, but Trix three rail isn't that difficult to convert to two rail), the fact was that I wasn't really in the market for another locomotive this year.  Instead, I was on the hunt for spares/repairs items and rolling stock.  In the end, my purchases were modest, confined, in fact, to a single coach:

This a Hornby Pullman Brake Parlour Third, something I've been trying to get for a reasonable price for some time - which this certainly was.  It supplements the three Hornby Pullman Parlour First coaches I bought in a bargain deal the last time I was at the Festival, in 2019.  These four Pullmans will replace the four older Triang Hornby Pullmans I already own, to form a model equivalent to the 'Bournemouth Belle'.  The older Pullmans weren't made to scale length, (in common with many model railway coaches of the late fifties and early sixties, they were shortened so as to get them around the tight curves of the track of the era), as can be seen when one of the brakes is compared to the new brake:

Being a Pullman Third Class Parlour, the new coach has a number rather than a name: Car Number 65.  Fortuitously, the real Car Number 65 made regular appearances as part of the 'Bournemouth Belle' during the sixties.  Which shouldn't be surprising really, as it was a 1928 pattern Pullman, a design which formed the backbone of the train during this period, (with some having been transferred from the Eastern Region when displaced by new Pullman coaches in the early sixties).  Here it is coupled to the other three Pullmans:

Like Car Number 65, the First Class Parlours are modelled on the 1928 pattern of Pullman car.  You might be able to discern the fact that the front two Parlour Firsts sport a slightly darker shade of cream on their upper panels to the other Parlour first and the Brake Third.  This is down to changes in Hornby's manufacturing processes and revised paint matching.  Hornby first introduced this, scale length, version of the Parlour First in 1975, with the brake following in 1981.  The earlier versions used the darker cream.  Indeed, an examination of the two coaches with this shade confirms that they also still use rivets to secure the bogies to the chassis, with the boxes they came in indicating that they were eighties, perhaps early nineties issues, manufactured in the UK, at Margate. The other Parlour First has the later clip in type bogies, but is still made in the UK, indicating that it is probably from the early 2000s re-issue of these coaches.  The Brake shares the clip-in bogies and lighter cream panelling of the third Parlour First, but is marked as being made in China, indicating that it is a post-2011 item, dating from when these Pullmans were re-issued as part of the 'Railroad' range.

The Parlour Firsts came with a selection of name transfers, (which I still haven't applied), three of which I know are appropriate for the sixties 'Bournemouth Belle': 'Lucille'. 'Sheila' and 'Ursula'.  Another available name, 'Agatha', I'm not so sure of, although I do know that it sometimes ran as part of the Western Region's 'South Wales Pullman' in the sixties and that there was a fair amount of interchange of coaches between the two services.  In point of fact, Hornby based this version of the Pullman Parlour First on the real 'Lucille', which still exists in preservation.  (In fact, it was originally the only name available for the model).  Anyway, here's another look at the front part of my version of the 'Bournemouth Belle':

As was typical for the prototype train in the sixties, a non-Pullman full passenger brake is coupled up at the London end, (in this case a BR Mk1 BG) - at some points toward the end of the 'Bournemouth Belle's' existence in the mid to late sixties, it ran without any Pullman Brake Coaches, instead sporting a full brake at either end.  Heading up the train is my Wrenn Rebuilt Merchant Navy 'Clan Line', (the real locomotive having been a regular performer on this duty).  Obviously, the real 'Bournemouth Belle' was considerably longer and included Parlour Thirds and both First and Third Class Parlour Kitchen cars, even once I've expanded it, realistically five to six coaches is the maximum passenger train length my layout can accommodate. Hornby do produce versions of all these cars and, if I can find a reasonably priced example, I might consider adding a Third Parlour Kitchen.  But, in the meantime, my current formation gives a reasonable impression of the real thing, which is really about the best you can hope for on a spare room based layout.

While my old, under length, Pullmans might have been displaced from the 'Bournemouth Belle', it won't be the end for them.  Instead, they'll be used on boat train duty - some boat trains were all Pullman, while others included one or two Pullmans amongst standard coaching stock.