Peter Lewis

Some years ago, whilst with a friend at a Swanage Railway gala, we took a brake van ride in their restored Queen Mary. It was very enjoyable in the smooth riding vehicle, and I remember remarking to my mate that it would make a fine addition to my O gauge fleet for use at local exhibitions. The idea was filed away in the mental wish list for a year or two until 2013 when I saw another Queen Mary at Midsomer Norton in the restored station. A photo of this one appears above.

Later in the year, whilst repairing various bogies on my stock, including some plastic Southern-style ones bought second-hand at Cornwall O gauge club's annual show, I felt the time was right to build a pair of Slaters 8ft Southern bogies that I’d purchased a while back. These went together very well but some 0.060in Plastikard was added to the top webs to strengthen them and allow the Hornby metal couplings that I use to be fitted. I also added some steps between the axleboxes made from the same size Plastikard for strength. Project 'Queen Mary' was born.

A Cheona softback book about brake vans has one or two photos, but the main reference was Southern Wagons Volume 4 by G Bixley, et al, and published by Oxford Publishing Co. An internet search suggests there are a few others preserved of the 25 built, and there are, I believe, O gauge kits by two manufacturers for these vans. Prior to the Southern Railway designed brake vans, there were 21 brake vans produced from redundant former LBSCR motor luggage vans.

There are as I understand, none preserved nor are there any kits that I am aware of. As I model the preservation era, this would be a model of a replica which allows for a little freelancing as I felt this might be necessary. There are 4mm drawings in the Oxford book for both vehicles and with the aid of the useful CPL conversion ruler it was easy to scale up dimensions. The chassis was made from some 5mm thick wood, with aluminium buffer beams and ABS plastic solebars. The wood for the chassis was a touch too thick but the buffer beams were made a little deeper which allowed the buffers to be at a scale height of 3ft 8in although they should really be at 3ft 5in. Since the wood floor was a solid sheet, this discrepancy was needed to allow the bogie wheel flanges to clear the underside of the floor by 1mm. The height of the front and rear platforms came out at a scale 4ft 5in, which was similar to the first batch bogie brake vans.

The couplings and buffers were fitted and the chassis plus bogies was checked over a test track with three crossovers in close succession. The vehicle ran as smoothly as the prototype. It was time to build the body. The prototype had a slight tumblehome and the cantrail was a scale 6ft 9in from the body base. I built mine without the tumblehome, and lowered the roofline so that cantrail to bottom of the body comes out at 6ft 3in full size which looks right to me, and is close to the later Queens.

The inner body is made from 0.060in Plastikard with Evergreen 0.040 x 0.080in strip styrene at the window ends. The inner ends are 0.120in narrower than the outer ends and both are made of 0.060in Plastikard. The outer ends butt to the edge of the sides and the inner ends slide in as per the plans in the book. Strips of 0.100 x 0.020in styrene hide the join between sides and ends. There is a top inner rail of 0.080 x 0.080in strip added for strength and to prevent warping. A piece of 0.100 x 0.020in strip was fitted down each end next to the doors, which were represented by some planking style Plastikard. The outer skin was made of 0.040in Plastikard, with 0.100 x 0.040in strip between. This allows window frames to be made larger than the window apertures, which in turn allows the finished windows to be dropped in and held in place by the roof. Thus they will not fall out or need gluing.

This idea was seen in the late David Jenkinson’s book on coach construction where he uses a double skin principle, which limits the chance of warping. Windows were made of 0.015in Perspex and the droplights of 0.015in Plastikard. The drawing shows that there are three droplights and one window, and that they are handed on each side of the body. The wider spaced windows being on the same side as the brake pipe which runs along the length of the chassis. Reverting to the chassis for a moment, the detail was built onto a piece of printed circuit board glued to the wood. Some N gauge rail was soldered in place to represent the v-hangers and some stainless steel tube of the right diameter plus Araldite was used to represent the two vacuum cylinders which appear to be on the same side as the closer spaced windows. Conventional glues were used with Humbrol polystyrene cement applied with a matchstick used for smaller pieces of Plastikard. Evostick or Araldite was used as appropriate for other materials. Superglue was used for any small items. I prefer the small cheap tubes of this stuff which lasts for ages if kept in a corner of the fridge, away from food items of course. Since this vehicle is what might be termed multimedia, there were few items to solder. That said, anything that can be soldered, should be, in my view.

Hand rails were made using 0.8mm brass wire, and vents above the droplights from 5/32 in plastic channel. The side duckets were a pair purchased some time ago at a Shepton Mallet narrow gauge model show. They were made from resin, so were sanded smooth, prior to fitting. They are a touch non standard, but seem in keeping with my version of the vehicle. The sandboxes were made of 0.030in Plastikard plus odd bits of bracket and pipe. The vacuum pipes on the buffer beam were of copper wire with fuse wire wrapped round and soldered at the ends. The lamps were made from 0.125in square styrene strip with a wire handle glued on and a lamp lens made from an item bought at a local craft shop. These lenses can be bought as gem stones or bling in packs of eight for around a pound and come in various colours including clear and red. My lamps may be termed generic, but they are cheap, and I place a lamp at both ends of my brake vans and locos since the staff on my railway are too lazy to move them when the vehicle changes direction.

The roof was made of card formed on a piece of pipe, and shellacked with button polish. When dry the gutters from styrene strip were superglued in position.

On the underside of the roof some 0.125in square styrene was glued on with Evostik to help locate the roof on the body. The roof was sprayed with car spray primer, then Volvo dark grey and then matt varnish. The body was also primed and sprayed with Plasticote in a suitable bauxite colour.

Yellow transfer numbers and letters were applied and overhead flashes added. The body was then also matt varnished. The chassis was painted black and, along with the bogies and end platforms, lightly weathered.

That about completes the brake van. It appeared in operation on my layout at some local shows last year. One viewer remarked “I like your Queen Mary.” Well, she runs like a Queen Mary so the work has been both worthwhile and fun.