Converting a GWR V2 PBV into a W5 Hounds Van
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Chris Gwilliam
Source: Gazette Volume 19 No. 11 May 2016
The Great Western Railway passed majestically through its rolling shires, a green and pleasant land, but much frequented by foxes. Until the dawning of a new age of enlightenment, where you found foxes, you also found hunting. To hunt foxes you needed packs of foxhounds, and to increase their range of operation transport was essential. So in the early 20th century the GWR obliged the masters of four hunts by providing four-wheel vans reserved for the conveyance of hounds. These were conversions from V2 Passenger Baggage Vans, and were re-diagrammed as W5. Two of the V2s were themselves re-builds dating from 1877, using even older coach underframes of 1860s vintage with new bodies. The van for the Culmstock Hunt, which had both foxhounds and otter hounds, was converted to W5 in 1904, renumbered as 86, and survived in revenue service until 1931, at which point its body was de-mounted and used for storage. The Curre Hunt operated from near Chepstow, with a pack of pure white foxhounds. The van-to-hounds conversion for this hunt followed in 1905, was renumbered 46, moved to Badminton in 1917, and was withdrawn in 1929.
Non-identical twins, the 1905 van on the left, the 1922 version on the right.
The remaining two vans were built new as V2s to Lot 146 in 1877, but unlike the two above
were not re-numbered. No. 483 was
converted in 1903, and 480 followed in 1910.
Withdrawal dates were 1931 (or 1910,
expert opinion is divided) and 1925
respectively. GWR records show that 480
was branded ‘Return to Whitland’ at some
point, and 483 was allocated to the Swansea
division, both being fitted with two
additional roof ventilators; I have no photo
of the vents but I assume they were the
same ‘trumpet and wind vane’ pattern as
fitted to horseboxes of that period.
Tantivvy and Tally-ho – the hunt
for materials and information.
No kit exists for the W5, but a 7mm/ft
Diagram V2 etched brass kit does, and a
modeller wanting one of these rare hounds
vans can, without undue difficulty,
undertake the same conversion as the
GWR, which principally consists of adding
a droplight to the left-hand panel of the pair
of luggage doors on each side, which had
been blank until then. Bars were added to
the inside of the new droplights and to
the two small lights on the van end.
The former guard’s compartment became
accommodation for the whipper-in and
other hunt staff, so it presumably had
some sort of seating fitted. The only
photographs of a W5 I have found show
No.86 as a grounded body with lamp
brackets missing, so I do not know if
newer pattern brackets were fitted upon
conversion. I’ve assumed not, and gone for
the original smaller type. The ones in the
kit are not a very convincing shape so I
replaced them with spares from a
Blacksmith kit. As the van in its converted
state would carry non-railway personnel,
alarm gear would have been fitted, in
similar manner to contemporary horse
boxes. The IKB kit provided cast lugs for
the alarm apparatus, the BGS version did
not, so I used some little castings which
were originally part of a Dean bogie spring
hanger. The junction boxes were fashioned
from cubes of scrap plastic.
The vans already had dog boxes in their
V5 incarnation (visible as small ventilated
doors beneath the waist at the van end),
which were of course retained after
conversion, as the terriers which were
used to dig out foxes from their lairs had
to be kept separate from the larger hounds
in transit to prevent dogfights. Much of the
research on GWR hounds vans has already
been done. You need a copy of the Historical
Model Railway Society Journal Vol 14 No 9, in
which Jack Slinn has written the definitive
history. Additionally, Vol14 No.3 has an
article on the V2s, including a 4mm/ft scale
drawing. A tabular list of conversion dates
by J H Lewis is included with the kit
instructions, though it differs in some
details from the Slinn account.
View Halloo – the kit
The etched kit for the V2 was originally
made by IKB Models, and is now marketed
by the Broad Gauge Society. I’ve had one of
the former in stock for years, intending to
build No. 46 for myself, as I have a personal
connection: my late grandfather Sid
Gwilliam was at one time a bee-keeper for
Lady Curre. And then a friend bought the
BGS kit and prevailed upon me to build one
for him as well so I tackled the two in
tandem; I swithered for ages between lake
and pre-1908 chocolate and cream livery for
mine, before settling on the latter, and his
will be the same van but in the 1922 version
of the classic GWR colours. So far as I can
tell, these two vans were oil lit throughout
their lives, the kit also provides castings for
gas lamps and gas cylinders. The only
difference between the IKB and BGS
versions is that the former came with a prerolled
brass roof, the latter has none so you
need to source your own. I cut one to size
from a sheet of tinplate salvaged from a
canister which once held a bottle of single
malt whisky. The whisky of course makes a
good stirrup cup, though you might want
to delay drinking it until the conclusion of
each modelling session, as complex
soldering and a steady hand will be needed.
You will also need two new droplights of
course. I had brass spares in stock, but if
you don’t it’s no great hardship to cut a
couple to size from thin card or plastic,
using the ones on the etch as templates. A
coil of thin steel wire is provided to spring
the suspension if you choose to use the
system in the kit. I dislike it and went for an
alternative solution as outlined below. No
straight brass wire is provided in either kit,
and you’ll need to source a supply of
0.45mm, 0.7mm and some 0.9mm diameter
rod for brake pull-rods and the like.
I am increasingly exasperated by the
failure of kit providers to check contents;
more often than not I find promised parts
missing when I open the box. The IKB
version turned out to be minus all four
buffer castings and heads so I provided
replacements, smart pre-sprung ones with
brass shanks and steel heads which Adrian
Rowland used to sell when he was
marketing Northstar LNWR kits – ie taper
shank, round head, round baseplate. They
are a bit on the large side, but with internal
springs they are very easy to fit and I don’t
think the slight discrepancy in size is too
noticeable. The BGS kit was a serious
offender in the missing/wrong bits
department: it had only four cast door
vents, whereas six are needed. I found some
spare Mallard/Blacksmith 12in depth
etched vents and trimmed them to fit,
adding a backing piece of 0.018in brass to
each one to get sufficient thickness. It also
had eight right handed J-hangers instead of
four left and four right. I modified a
replacement set of Roxey castings from my
spares bin. There should have been two
castings for the oil-lamp bungs and again I
found a reasonable match among my
spares.
Hark Forward – the bodywork
While the body sides were still flat, I drilled
four 1.9mm holes in each of the LH door
panels where the new droplights are to go,
3mm in from the beading, scribed lines to
join up the four holes, then drilled a row of
1mm holes like postage stamp perforations
along the scribed lines, used a Stanley knife
to cut the tiny remaining webs, and
removed the rectangle of unwanted brass.
The ragged edges were cleaned up with
Swiss files. The cantrail has a fold back
section of brass. The instructions suggest it
needs to be folded through 180 degrees,
with the fold line on the outside, but this
prevents the roof fitting snugly so I simply
cropped it off entirely. The tumblehome is
easy to form as the lower panels are halfetched
and therefore bend readily. Just a
little finger pressure applied from the rear,
with the side held at a slight angle to a hard
surface, will do the job.
It’s easier to do this before making the fold at the base of the side, despite what the instructions may tell you. Once you have a curve of the correct profile, score the fold line until a witness mark appears on the rear, and make a 100 degree fold. The curves which need to be formed in the duckets (or guards lookouts if you prefer) are more complex, the lower panel needing to be formed into an S-shape, the top panel into quite a tight radius. I found that using the stem of a needle file as a former helped a lot. Droplights and the dog box doors can now be soldered in. The etch has plenty of small hinges to be folded into L-shapes, but I found them fiddly to handle, so I used longer pieces of scrap brass strip from the edges of the etch, and cropped them to size after they had been fixed in position. I also found that the slots pre-etched for the hinges needed enlarging slightly.
Drilling holes in the door panel for the extra droplight
Forming the curves on the duckets
Scrap strip inserted from the rear to make the hinges
The droplights have been added, one in lowered position and one ducket has been soldered in place
The door vents on the BGS kits are brass replacements from the Blacksmith spares as insufficient white-metal castings had been supplied
The end steps are replaceents from Blacksmith, with a brass peg added to attach them
The ends are not identical. The one with
the smaller lights goes at the hounds’ end,
and also carries the steps for roof access.
Two small holes need drilling for handrails
at the step end, best done when the part is
still flat. It will be easier to add the steps
before the ends and sides are seamed
up, except for the ones immediately
above the buffers, which are best
left until after the sides and
ends are assembled. No slots or
witness marks are provided for
the end steps. I did not much care
for them anyway as they were too
skinny, etched to half-thickness,
and thus had no fold line for the up-
stand, so I
rejected them in favour
of spares from an old
Blacksmith kit, and trimmed off the
half-etched steps which are attached to the
buffer backing plate. The drawing in Jack
Slinn’s article (HMRSJ Vol 14 No3) will help
with positioning. I marked in pencil, centrepunched,
and drilled 1mm holes to take
0.9mm wire pegs which I soldered to the
underside of each step so that they could be
attached from the rear of the end panels,
and not sweated onto the surface, giving a
much stronger result.
The kit is designed to have a double skin
at each end for strength but the body is
perfectly rigid without the inner skins and
they serve only to add unneeded weight so
I dispensed with them. If you intend to
secure the body to the underframe with
screws inserted from below you would do
well to solder a pair of nuts above the outer
holes behind the headstock, which need
washers to decrease the diameter. You will
also have to drill matching holes in the
underframe. Don’t use the pre-etched one
on the centre line as it will impede the shank
of the coupling hook. I did not bother with
this complication, and simply glued body
and underframe together with Evostick
after painting.
The corners were seamed up next, giving me a four sided box. Two strips of brass were soldered at cantrail level across the body, to give some rigidity and to provide a hand-hold during painting. The small parts can now be added: door ventilators (modified as described above in the case of the BGS version), backing plates for the T-handles, lamp irons, and last of all the vacuum hoses, which are white-metal and vulnerable to handling: at the compartment end the pipe is offset left of centre, and vice versa at the hounds’ end. Once the body has been washed and is paint ready, a card floor and a partition between the two compartments can be glued in place.
A Stanley knife was used to score the fold lines in the end before making the angle
Marking the position of the end steps before drilling holes for brass pegs
Scrap brass strips between the sides provide rigidity and a hand-hold
The alarm gear was cobbled up from spare bits and wire
Gone to Ground – the underframe
I’ve built lots of IKB coaches, and I loathe
their sprung suspension system, which runs
like a Stonehenge slab on logs – apart from
which it looks ridiculous. What’s the point
of providing lots of intricate brake detail if
the appearance of the running gear is
ruined by wholly unprototypical inside
bearings? Nowadays I go for simplicity and
make no use of any of the suspension
components.
If you are going down my
route, and not the designer’s, you will need
to site the axleboxes by eye, as they will not
be merely cosmetic but will be doing the job
for which they were designed by the GWR.
They will also need drilling out to accept
Slater’s bearings; some of my castings had
dimples at the rear to help with this, some
did not. You will not need to drill too
deeply. Be warned: my option is not for the
faint-hearted. But that’s true of the IKB
method as well; I would only recommend it
to an experienced modeller with a
masochistic streak.
I folded down the headstocks and the
stirrup shaped brackets for the brake
rigging, but not the tabs in the floor for the
redundant suspension. Now fold the long
seams on the solebar/W-iron components
and offer them to the floor pan. There’s a
long slot near the middle of the solebar to
accept a matching tab on the floor. Attach
an axlebox to each W-iron with just a dab of
low-melt solder, and try fitting the wheels
and bearings.
If you are lucky you will get
axles which are parallel to each other and
(in both planes) parallel to the headstocks,
with all four tyres touching the ground
when placed on a level surface and rolling
freely in a straight line. If not some fiddling
and re-fitting may be needed. Also, there
should be no end-slop on the axles; if that’s
the case you will need to add a couple of
packing washers. It’s also worth trial fitting
a buffer casting and checking to see that
the ride height of the underframe matches
that of another vehicle which you know
to be correct (I used a Parkside van as a
template). Once you are satisfied,
seam up the solebars to the floor, add a dab of
solder at each corner where solebar meets
headstock, and add a little more low-melt
to reinforce the axleboxes.
The solebars and W-iron etches tacked to the floor
Checking the ride height against another vehicle of known
accuracy.
Springing the buffers
Fit the brass running board supports before attaching the
J-hangers with low-melt.
J-hangers attached to the spring castings.
There are overlays with full rivet detail for the solebars. Note that these are handed, the one with five extra rivets at the centre line goes on the side of the underframe with the V-hanger. With this V-hanger on the near-side, the end with the steps will be to the right, and it’s worth scratching this information somewhere on the underframe so you get it right when body and base are finally united. The headstocks have overlays for the buffer backing plates and the coupling pockets. If you have found replacement end steps of 0.018in thickness you’ll need to crop off the half-etched steps which are attached to the buffer backing plates at the hounds’ end of the vehicle. Two styles of pocket are provided; you’ll need the one with the longer backing plate to blank off the holes for the safety chains which would have been removed upon conversion to W5 if not before. The broader horizontal of the pocket is nearer the track. The BGS buffer body castings had been predrilled (1.5mm I think) but to take the brass tube provided for the buffer shanks you’ll need to re-drill 1.7mm.
Cut the tube into four equal lengths and glue or solder them to the blackened brass buffer heads. You can now choose whichever method you favour for springing the buffers: I soldered four pieces 0.9mm nickel silver straight wire about 85mm long into the other ends of the tubes, slid the tubes into the buffer body castings, cranked the wire 90 degrees and soldered the ends to the floor inboard of the wheels. The etch has a very neat set of screw couplings: it’s a good idea to fit the couplings at this point, before brake rigging makes access to the rear of the headstock difficult. I added the J-hangers at this juncture, which was not clever, as the low-melt solder re-melted and detached the parts when I later used a higher melting point solder to attach the running board hangers. On the second van I learnt by the mistake and did things the other way round.
Running boards folded and in place.
Close-up of outside pull rods. Less solder would have been clever.
To the best of
my knowledge these vans retained their
lower running boards for the whole of their
working lives. The hangers require a fairly
complex series of folds to achieve the
correct shape – a drawing in the kit shows
you how, but I reversed the parts so the fold
lines were on the outside. If you have a
mind to, you could substitute the lovely
lost-wax castings from Slaters, which are
rather more robust than the etched ones
provided.
Whipper-in – making it stop
Now for the interesting part – the intricate
outside brake rigging. The etched sheet is
like a lace doily with hundreds of little bits,
so great patience is required, as well as a
decent command of Anglo-Saxon.
The completed brake-gear, with gaps left in the diagonal pull-rods to avoid trapping the axles in place.
An exploded drawing shows where to put
things; just be methodical, and stop when
your eyes get tired or you run out of
vocabulary. Note that two styles of brake
shoe are provided. The ones shaped like
bow ties are the ones you need. The halfmoon
shaped shoes are for inside rigged
brakes, so put them in your spares drawer
along with the associated triangular yokes.
The HMRJ drawing shows the vacuum
cylinder with the ‘rabbit-ear’ pattern of
cranks, and in the absence of photo
evidence that’s the sort I used, not the
straight levers. Again, both sorts are on the
etch. I omitted part of the diagonal pull-rods
from the vacuum cylinder to the outer brake
levers to avoid trapping the wheels in place,
but otherwise I think I used almost all the
bits provided.
Hunting Pink – the painting process
The painting and lining is fairly complex as
they were almost certainly fully lined
throughout their lives, and post-1927 plain
chocolate and cream will not do. They
started in the ornate pre-1908 livery, with
chocolate lines inside the cream panels and
on the door vents, and chocolate ends lined
black, with gold and black lining on the
beading. Then they went into lined all over
1908 chocolate and/or all over lined 1912
lake upon repainting, and at the repaint
after 1922 they reverted to lined chocolate
and cream, but minus the chocolate lines in
the cream panels, and with plain black ends.
I sprayed both entire bodies with a satin
black aerosol (which also serves as a top
coat for the ends on the 1922 version). Then
I airbrushed Comet cellulose chocolate over
the entire early van, and the sides of the
1922 van, with the ends masked off. Next
day, more masking of lower panels and all
ends, and a coat of Comet cream on the
upper panels. Wait another day. A coat of
varnish was then airbrushed on to protect
the cellulose paint, which is vulnerable to
damage if any mistakes are made in the
lining-out and attempts are made with
thinners to correct matters. I used Wickes
interior satin, which I thinned 60/40 with
petrol (used outdoors of course). I was
using it for the first time and found that,
even well stirred, it dried slightly glossier
than the 50/50 mix of Ronseal gloss and
Ronseal matt I have used until now.
While the varnish was drying I got on
with the roofs, using scrap brass from old
etches for sweating on the rainstrips, which
have a very shallow arc. 0.9mm brass rod
would also be a suitable material. The
lamps and bungs were inserted in holes
drilled on the centre line, positioned using
the V2 drawing referred to earlier and some
guesswork based on photos. The washed
roofs then had a coat of grey aerosol
undercoat, a white topcoat, and brushpainted
Humbrol Matt Chocolate below the
rainstrips; the cellulose chocolate can’t be
brushed as it dries too quickly, and masking
to spray it would be likely to cause the
white to lift.
The underframes were coated in aerosol
satin black, then airbrushed with a thin coat
of varnish to which a few drops of matt
chocolate were added. Plain black always
looks artificial to my eye. The Mansell
wooden wheel centres were brushed with a
50/50 mix of matt chocolate and red oxide
enamels, and stray spray was removed
from the tyres with cellulose thinners on a
tissue. Running boards were always
unpainted wood, which I replicate with a
brushed mix of pale grey and chocolate
enamels.
The lining out requires patience and a
steady hand. I always start with Humbrol
85 black horizontals, then verticals. Then I
use a bow pen to draw in arcs at on the cusp
of the beading at each panel corner in
Humbrol 24 Desert Sand, then yellow
horizontals, then verticals. The horizontal
beading around the waist panels is very
narrow, so it’s tricky to get yellow/
black/yellow on the beading without the
yellow falling into the panel. A cocktail stick
with a wedge cut in one end is a good tool
for removing any minor areas of stray paint.
More major errors mean a wipe off with a
tissue and white spirit, and a second
attempt. The pre-1908 example, as detailed
above, also needed a very fine brown line
on the flat of each panel about 2mm in from
the beading, and on the ribs of the door
vents.
The body has been airbrushed in cellulose GWR chocolate, then masked ready
for the cream to be applied to the upper panels.
Underframe, body and roof of the 1905 version ready for
final assembly using Evostik.
Who Let the Dogs Out? – The
problem of lettering the Hounds
door
No transfers are available for the word
HOUNDS in the door panel, but the
word can be built up using letters
from RESTAURANT and THIRD
CLASS on the 4mm HMRS sheet, the
7mm ones being too large. There’s no O,
but an inverted C with the gap in the
circle touched in with a tiny dab of paint
will do the job. Strictly speaking the H
should be a little larger than the rest, but I’ll
live with the slight discrepancy. Placing the
crests is a bit problematical as photo
evidence is scant. Normal practice was to
avoid putting the large round gartered crest
on doors, but as close to the centre line as
possible. However, one of the photos in Jack
Slinn’s V2 article shows a crest on a door. In
the end I decided to go with another photo
in the same article, which has the crest offset
towards the dog box. The running numbers
changed positions between the two
versions of the chocolate & cream livery.
The pre-1908 van had its numbers in the
panels beneath the cantrails, the 1922
version had them placed in the waist panels
near the ends.
There are dozens of commode handles
and T-handles on the etch, but they are flat
and flimsy, so I jettisoned them in favour of
a set of Slaters’ lovely lost-wax commodes
I’d bought in, and some lost-wax T-handles
from, I think, an old RJH kit. The longer
handles alongside the former guard’s doors
were formed from 0.7mm brass wire
instead of the ones on the etch. The whole
caboodle then had a second coat of satin
varnish to protect the transfers, before
glazing and insertion of window bars.
The final assembly of underframe, body and roof can then be made. End handrails from 0.7mm wire were formed, fitted and painted black. A very light dusting of weathering powder on the underframe and ends completed the operation. Overall, an enjoyable project and the end result was two rare but useful vans. Or am I barking up the wrong tree? Sorry, I’ll get my coat.
The 1922 version completed and ready for dispatch to its new owner.
The 1905 version completed.