Finished Railcar

Job done. The Park-Royal Railcar is finished. At least it's completed to my satisfaction.

I know this isn't a perfect model. When Heljan eventually bring out their RTR version I'm sure that mine won't look as good, but then that wasn't the point. I had always wanted to build this kit and now I have.

Not all the faults are mine either. The side steps are incorrect as supplied and I didn't worry about scratchbuilding a new set of folding ones. There should be some side door handrails too, but these will be fiddly since they bridge the chassis/body divide and either need to clip into one or the other, or you better hope no maintenance is required...

Apart from this, well one side window (on the other side, you don't think I'm going to photograph it for the blog do you ?) is slightly fogged. I blame the passengers for breathing on the glass.

The lining isn't perfect but looks OK from  a normal viewing distance. In fact, to me, the whole thing looks fine that way. This has been a really satisfying project and one I'd recommend to anyone. It's not too difficult. If only I could get something similar in 3mm scale where I actually have a use for it !

Variable people quality

Look at this lineup, perfect illustration of the variable quality of 4mm scale people. I dug through my miniature figure box to find some occupants for the seats in the railcar and pulled out this selection. They are either whitemetal or plastic and of varying ages.

Prize for best detailed person goes, I think, to the lady in the middle who I think is of Arifix origin. Her proportions are right and the face is nicely carved. OK, the plastic is a bit soapy and prone to flash if you get a late moulding (earlier ones are sharper I find) but someone spent money finding a good pattern maker there.

On the right hand end we have Slaters plastic figures. They are a bit of a cliche nowadays as you'll see the limited range of poses on everyones layout but they are cheap, crisp and a nice hard plastic which takes paint well and can be chopped around if required. My only complaint is that they tend toward the two dimensional being a bit thinner then real people. Maybe I'm just jealous...

On the left hand we have Replica railways drivers which are very nice indeed. Both are well modelled and the guy on the end is in a useful pose. I like them although the range is a bit limited being spares from the RTR lineup. Well worth grabbing hold of for the diesel modeller.

Finally, the lady in the middle in the dark brown coat. A fairly typical cheaply made whitemetal figure. What is going on there ? I mean the overall proportions aren't too far out but the head is at best mis-shapen and at worst the result of some sort of steam hammer accident. There is next to no detail either. No idea who the manufacturer was of this one but I hope I picked it up cheap.

Of course with all of them going to live in the railcar, none of this matters. I'll just sit mishapen lady by the isle. Nicer moulded figures will get window seats.

Headcode - Plan B

So I tried to install my repainted headcodes. First I discover that you really need to do this before putting the etched interior in. The driving compartments are in the way otherwise. My solution was to cut a slot between the digits and slide them down. However I think that they are too small. At least they didn't seem to fill the windows for me - something I should have discovered before putting some glue on them but never mind.

As an added bonus the typeface appears to be wrong as well. Hmmm.

So, down to the computer and fire up the desktop publishing software. A few minutes with the ruler and then some nifty mousework, I managed to produce a sheet with a few versions of the headcodes on it. If you want the, download it from here (PDF file).

This time I separated the digits and slid them into place using tweezers and PVA for stickiness. The 1 is a bit wonky in this shot but the real thing was often less than perfect so I'm not going to worry. Actually the who roller blind thing on railways seemed to be less than perfect. Digits were rarely level because you would have to get out and look at the front to check, not something to be done on a wet day !

Installing seats

If finding colour photos of the outside of the railcar was tough, interior shots are impossible – unless you know different of course. If that’s the case and you tell everyone, I will have my fingers on my ears and hands over my eyes as it will be too late for me.

According to the Branchlines instructions, the floor is blue lino. Seats are blue moquette but there’s no indication if they are the same shade of blue. My feeling is that lino tends toward pale shades whereas seat materials are stronger colours. My eyes tell me that the windows aren’t that clear anyway and with the roof on some approximate colours will be fine. I have tried to be neat with the grab handles on the seat backs which are silver as these will be reasonably visible.

The interiors are a snug fit in the body but by flexing the sides slightly they will drop in with all the glazing in place. I used a couple of dots of superglue to make sure they don’t rattle although one half will also be screwed down when I bolt the chassis to the captive nut soldered to its floor.

One surprise – just how heavy all this brass makes the railcar. I still had to sneak a little lead in there thought in the entranceway which provides the best cover for a heavy floor. Mind you, if you were building this and fitting a quantity of whitemetal passengers, a test run or two over the layout would be advised to make sure the single axle drive can cope !

Purple - WHY ?

At the front of the railcar is a route indicator. Behind the rectangular windows should be some lettering. Someone very cleverly decided that the easiest way to supply this was to print it on the instruction sheet. This could be cut out and stuck into the model So far, so good.

Back in the days of old money, Airfix instructions were in black and white. To be honest, when this kit was designed, everything was in black and white, colour not having been invented. By the time the kit I bought was produced, some numpty graphic design bod at Dapol presumably decided this wasn’t radical enough and opted for dark purple instead. (I know it looks red in the photo - I assure you in real life it's a regal purple)

Now, I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure that British Rail never used purple as a background on destination or indicator blinds. Not even your new fangled railway companies with their crayzie liveries have tried this one. Therefore I’ve got to fix this. The ideal solution would be make up new blinds with transfers. That’s not a goer as the typeface is a bit weird (does anyone know what it is called ?) and the only transfers I have in it are for a Class 20, whose headcode box is a lot bigger than the one on the railbus. I’m not buying a pack of letters for 2 digits on one model – far too tightfisted

Plan B involves doing something on the PC. I probably could find something nearly right but to be honest that meant going downstairs and switching the thing on and quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered.

Which leaves plan C. Paint over the purple with black. The result doesn’t need to be perfect as the “glass” it will be visible through is s scale 8 inches thick. Careful brushwork is giving promising results although I think I’ll need to do the white as well. If I can find my white gell pen and it hasn’t dried up then that will be the tool for the job.

If not I’m back to plan B.

Glazing the railcar

The place where an injection moulded plastic kit scores over all others is when you get to glazing. The parts are moulded so they fit nicely in the openings and the result is flush with the sides. This is especially important on the corners where the prototype designer incorporated curved glass. The only other way I can think of achieving this effect would be with some vac-formed plastic and even then it would be a fiddle to fit, albeit slightly clearer. Bending flat styrene would never work as the natural spring back would defeat any glue used to hold it in place no matter how much bad language went into fitting it.

Anyway, the first job I did was painting the bars on the side windows that represent those greatly missed opening sections. Matt aluminium from my nearly empty Humbrol pot (why don’t they do this anymore, it’s so useful) applied with a fine brush looks good. Where the paint ended up in the wrong place I used a sharpened matchstick to move it before it dried. Not a totally successful trick but better than nothing.

Glazing started at the front. I found that separating the four window part into two side and windscreen pairs made the install a lot easier. The gap between the flat panes could be reduced ever so slightly with the resulting join invisible behind the pillar. Working my way around the body I tacked the “glass” in with plastic cement (Revell Contacta) and then washing some Mek Pak along the top to get a nice strong join. Handling the parts with tweezers meant only one slightly fogged corner and that I can write off as weathering.

Dirty underframe

Photos of the Park Royal railcar are surprisingly difficult to find. Colour pictures appear to have been taken on film based on unicorn skin. The only ones I’ve found, in "Scottish Region Colour Album No 1" by George C. O'Hara, are gloomy and really only show the vehicle end on.

Only a single picture gives me any indication of the state the sides got in after a little running. Basically the underframe is filthy. Really filthy. This contrasts with pretty clean bodywork. At a guess these things were looked after by the shed staff who cleaned the shiny bits and ignored the rest. I’ve never entirely understood this, surely you want the mechanical bits kept clean as well so the dirt doesn’t stop them working ?

Anyway, in mode form my solution has been to paint everything below the body with Precision Weathered black. This was dry-brushed with some rust and gunmetal. Then the mechanical bits are airbrushed with a few dilute coats of track colour. Finally I brought the body and chassis together and wafted more very dilute brown along them both. The look I’m going for is a railcar that is in service and has been cleaned but not recently.

Smoothing sticks

Being a good boy, and because I knew things would go wrong if I didn't, the railcar body was left overnight to harden properly before I attempted to sort out the joints and other imperfections.

Fortunately the previous owner had already removed all the raised lining lines moulded into the surface by Airfix. The job wasn't shabby either - when I try this I usually excavate chunks of plastic that should be retained. Obviously care and a good sharp blade had been used to good effect.

All I needed to do was smooth the corner joins and polish the plastic up a big. When doing this, emery paper on it's own isn't a good thing as fingers have a tendency to make hollows in the surface due to inconsistent pressure being applied. A better plan is to attach the abrasive to a board.

Better still, these smoothing sticks came from a tool shop in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter although I think you can get them from Squires now. Each is fitted with a different grade of emery - the black ones are various flavours of medium and the pink ones very fine. Not the cheapest tools as I recall but very good for this sort of task and I now have very smooth joints.

Axle power

The railbus is only powered on a single axle - this should be more than sufficient for a tiny rail vehicle that will never pull anything. The gearbox folds up and is soldered to the chassis plate.

A little open frame motor screws into place and then wheels ans gears are fitted. The last owner strengthened some of the bends with fillets of solder, not a bad idea as the brass is pretty thin.

The gears don't have grub screws to retain them. On the axle a dollop of superglue does the job (Loctite would be more engineeringly but I don't get on with it) and the worm pushes on to the motor shaft without fixative.

The result seems to work OK., Top speed doesn't seem too mad but I'll get a better idea once the other wheels are in.