The Master Cutler

Photo 1

Introduction
THE ‘MASTER CUTLER’ was a Pullman Car train which ran between Sheffield and London Kings Cross via Retford. It was introduced in 1958 (replacing a non-Pullman train which ran to Marylebone via the GC route). At the outset it was formed of six cars of traditional straight sided Pullman stock, but in 1960 was the first of the East Coast Pullmans to receive the new Metro-Cammel built Mark 1 stock. However, as no new Pullman brakes were built, it retained pre-war brake coaches at each end of the six car formation.

From its introduction, the train was hauled by diesel locos, initially one of the five English Electric type 4 locos which were the first main line diesels on the ECML (D201/6-9). Later it was worked by Brush type 2 locos, but this ceased when problems with the original Mirrlees engines resulted in them being derated before being reengined. At various times between 1960 and the train being discontinued in 1966 it was worked by the three type 4 prototypes – Falcon (built by Brush), Lion (BRCW/AEI) and DP2 (English Electric).

Those of you who remember my article in the February 2016 Gazette ‘A tale of three prototypes’ will recall that I have scratch built models of all three prototypes (as well as D201), so a model of the Cutler was an obvious choice for my next project. The only real question was whether to have all six coaches of the pre-war type, or include the later Met Cams. I chose the latter to avoid making too many similar coaches, and it is also historically correct since Lion and DP2 never worked the train in its original guise. Before starting a model I try and anticipate what the major problems will be, and concluded in this case that they would be the lining, and making the table lamps work realistically – these were one of the most distinctive features of Pullman trains when seen from the lineside. The lining problem was solved easily as Fox do transfers for both types of car, and some preliminary experiments with LEDs and fibre optics suggested the former was feasible, so all was set to start.

Metro-Cammel cars
I decided to use Westdale kits for these, with modified Easi-Build Commonwealth bogies, since the side frames (plastic mouldings) are cleaner than any others I have seen.

As always, the first priority is to obtain drawings and photographs of the prototypes. I struggled to find drawings of these vehicles, so put an appeal in the GOG online Forum. A member in Australia told me that there had been an article in the September 1994 issue of Modelling Railways Illustrated, and very kindly emailed the article to me. This included drawings which I was able to enlarge to the correct scale.

I found various sources of photographs, notably the HMRS book on Mark 1 coaches, and Paul Bartlett’s website. However, it soon became clear that there had been various changes to the underframe equipment during the life of the vehicles – air brakes were added in the late 60s, and, more noticeable was that the original pressure ventilation was removed from many vehicles after BR had sold them, giving rise to empty spaces on the underframes. Good photos of the roof were more difficult to find, and the sketch included in the kits had some errors, so I finished up visiting Pickering and photographing the NYMR Pullman set as it passed underneath the footbridge!

The Westdale kits consist of an aluminium wrapper which forms the roof and sides and is already bent to roughly the right profile, plus resin cast ends which include the recessed doors which were such a distinctive feature of these cars. To stick the ends to the body I roughened the mating surfaces and then used epoxy resin, but first some gentle bending was needed to make the aluminium portions of the roof and sides align as closely as possible with the ends so that the joins would eventually be invisible.

Afterthe epoxy had set, I filled any gap or step with Squadron Products White Putty, which can easily be sanded when set, and finally applied two or three coats of paint locally over the join followed by more sanding. Once the undercoat and top coats had been sprayed over the whole vehicle, the joins disappear. Photo 1 shows Wren completed, and on this and the adjacent cars the joins (which are at the inner ends of the recessed portion) are invisible. All the underframe details shown are whitemetal castings and included in the kit except for the J-shaped trunking near the bogies, which I made from plastic card and lined with tissue paper to simulate the lagging.

Westdale supply resin cast seats and tables, and I used these. The table tops incorporate plates and cutlery so it is just necessary to pick out the cutlery with aluminium paint once the tablecloths and plates have been painted white. I found the floor supplied with the kits to be too thick, raising the seats and tables too high in relation to the windows, so replaced the floors with ⅛in hardwood, which brought the levels just right.

The unpainted aluminium window frames were a very distinctive feature of these vehicles, and Westdale include these in the kits as etchings which fit from the inside so can be fitted last, after the body has been painted.

Although the etchings were a very light colour (probably nickel silver), I spray painted them all with Precision Aluminium (P983). The effect as shown in the close up of Wren (photo 3) is very pleasing.

In order to get the correct gap between adjacent coaches, I use the bottom of the gangways as the buffer, and have a bar coupling which is sprung to extend on curves by about 3mm, joining the two bogie pivots. This system was fully described and illustrated in my article ‘The Aberdonian’ in the February 2010 Gazette. As well as improving appearance, it enables the coaches to traverse a 5ft 6in radius curve, and I can propel a 12 coach train uphill. It is a complicated procedure to assemble and couple the coaches, so once on the track they stay there with no lifting off for remarshalling! On the Pullmans the RCH lighting jumpers are used to take the feed from the end coach to the table lamps throughout the train, but more of that later.

Photo 2 Photo 3

Photo 4

Brake coaches I already had a drawing of all-steel brake cars 77-80 built in 1928 for the ‘Queen of Scots,’ (published by CCW Productions in 1954), but was aware that there were many more brakes retained for use with the new Pullmans on the various East Coast sets. A very useful book Pullman Profile 3 – The All Steel Cars revealed that the remaining cars (67-72 and 81/2) had all been converted around 1960 from second class Parlour Kitchen cars, which had the same passenger accommodation so that the rebuild meant converting the kitchen to a Guard’s van. It was clear from photos that these cars had differences from the original brakes, both in the windows in the Guard’s van and arrangement of ventilators on the roof, and that not all were the same. I selected my prototypes based on the number of good photos I could find, choosing 79 (original) and 67 (rebuilt).

I decided to scratch build these cars using plastic card, but using the resin moulded ends and window frames from Peter Cowling. I also used his moulded polystyrene roofs, which have the correct profiled ends. The sides are made up of two layers of plastic card. The outer layer is 0.020in, with apertures just big enough to fit the visible part of the window frames. The inner layer is 0.06in with larger window apertures to fit the whole window frame which, again, are mounted from the inside after painting. The quality of the resin mouldings is excellent, but care is needed when fitting the sides to the moulded ends to ensure the total length exactly matches the roof, which comes complete with domed ends. One distinctive feature of these cars was the rivets securing the roof sections to each other which are very prominent. To reproduce these I used Archer rivet strips which are expensive but very effective, see photo 4. I later discovered that the 7mm Narrow Gauge society sell a similar range of rivet transfers which are much cheaper.

I used Peter Cowling’s tables and chairs for these two coaches. The tables are resin mouldings but the chairs are cast in plaster. I used a set of old CCW bogie sideframes for one of the coaches, and Wayoh for the other – the diff erences are minor.

Table lamps One very distinctive feature of Pullmans was the table lamps which were always lit in service and very noticeable as a train went past. My first thoughts were to conceal a small LED under each table with a fibre optic pipe up the table lamp to the shade, but this did not give enough light where needed, so I looked for suitable LEDs. For the Met-Cams I found that a 3mm clear LED was suitable, with the tails bent over so that they are touching each other. I then insert a piece of paper between the two tails and soak it in superglue. When it is dry I file the paper (which by now is hard with the superglue) so that it is a thin sliver flush with the tails as shown in photo 5. I paint the bowl of the LED white to give a more even light, and the top cap black and then aluminium. The prototype finish is aluminium, but when I painted this onto the bare metal I could not understand why the lights all ceased working until I realised that metallic paints are electrically conductive! Although these 3mm LEDs are over scale (they should be 2mm in diameter), I think they are quite realistic – I will leave the reader to judge from the photos. For the brake vehicles, I used the resin shades supplied by Peter Cowling. These are a realistic shape and translucent so that sufficient diffused light shines through. Photo 5

I used 2.8mm lighthouse LEDs from ALL Components, bending the tails so that they look like the column of the lamp. Photo 5 shows the various steps in the process, the left hand one is as bought, and by carefully gripping one tail at a time with tweezers adjacent to the body of the LED, the tails can be bent into the shape as shown on the middle sample. If you attempt to bend the tail without holding it with tweezers the body will break. The middle sample shows the narrow strip of paper inserted between the tails, and the right hand one after filing the paper/dried superglue flush with the tails.

Photo 6

Photo 6 shows the lamps fitted to the tables, with the tails pushed through a hole in the top of the table and the resistor soldered to one tail, whilst photo 7 shows the lights with the shades fitted and the tails painted. Photo 8 shows the finished vehicle with the lamps lit. Circuit diagram for Pullman table lamps

Photo 7 Photo 8

Power for the lamps is picked up by one of the brake coaches, each bogie having insulated wheels on one side only. It is fed along the train by the RCH lighting jumpers which in model form are simply lengths of thin cable soldered to a ¾in pin at each end, the pin being pushed into a hole in the end of the coach at the right height. The pin is long enough to protrude inside the end of the coach where it contacts a piece of nickel silver strip to provide electrical continuity. Large capacitors (2000 microfarads) are fitted in both brakes to stop the lights flickering if contact is lost momentarily. These charge continually through a 100ohm resistor, which protects the capacitor from excess current. When contact is lost, the capacitor feeds the LEDs and their resistors, keeping the lamps alight. The schematic diagram helps make this clear.

Painting and lining

The Westdale bodies and all the bogies were first sprayed with Precision self etch prime from an aerosol can (I hesitate to use this in my airbrush, although many modellers do so successfully). On the Plastikard coaches I used Precision white primer, then on all coaches I sprayed the cream portion around the windows using Precision Pullman Cream (P850) diluted 50% in my airbrush. After waiting a few days for it to harden, I masked the cream area around the windows, and sprayed the rest of the bodyside Pullman Umber (P851). After a further few days, I removed the masking tape and sprayed the whole of the bodysides with Precision gloss varnish so that the transfers would stick without showing the carrier film. After a further few days I masked the whole bodyside and sprayed the roofs Precision P962, roof dirt, mixed on different coaches with P130 and/or P131, to give slightly different shades of matt grey on the roofs.

The lining and lettering are with Fox transfers. They do suitable names etc for all the vehicles I needed. Their bodyside lining is thicker than scale thickness, but this helps to apply it in a straight line. However the lining around the doors needed thin lines and I therefore had to resort to cutting sections of lining longitudinally. By the 1960s the lining on Pullmans had been simplified compared to some earlier versions, but even so I had to further simplify it around the windows on the brake cars.

After completing the lining, the whole vehicle was sprayed with Ronseal Mattcote (diluted 50% with white spirit). Underframes and bogies were sprayed with Precision P960 Frame Dirt. Although underframes are painted black, after a few months in service the dirt gives them a brown hue.

Photo 2 shows the whole train hauled by my scratch built D201 (now 30 years old) rounding one of the curves on my layout. With a better background and a bit of imagination it could easily be coming into Retford on the up journey.