Hornby SR Luggage Van
◆ GAUGE ‘OO’ ◆ MODEL R60021A BR/SR GBL Luggage Van/r60057 Sir Winston Churchill Funeral GBL Luggage Van ◆ PRICE £33.30/£36.90 ◆ AVAILABILITY Hornby stockists Web www.hornby.com
The design of luggage and parcels vans on the Southern Railway harked back to the antiquated-looking vehicles of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway. With their planked sides and numerous metal ventilator hoods they scarcely seemed to date from the same era as the passenger coaches with which they often worked, at least in BR days.
In the late 1920s electrification led the SR to rebuild some LSWR four-coach suburban sets, mounting the bodies on new underframes to create electric multiple units. This left a batch of relatively recent underframes on which were constructed 50 new gangwayed bogie luggage vans. Two more batches brought the total to 120 vehicles, completed at Ashford in 1930/1. Hornby has had a model of one of these bogie luggage vans in and out of its range since Tri-ang days. A good model in its day, it could be improved by replacing underframe detail and bogies with the correct pattern, while its opening doors were well enough done to hardly compromise scale appearance. It has, however, been long overdue for replacement by a model tooled in the 21st Century, and that replacement is now with us.
Hornby is currently offering three liveries, SR olive green, BR carmine and the one-off umber and cream ‘Pullman’ livery, and three different numbers for the red and green versions. The new Hornby model is based on S2464 which, as a pigeon van, was set aside in 1962 and painted in umber and cream livery in readiness for use as a hearse for the State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. Though it waited some three years until the wartime leader’s funeral in January 1965, it was not used in service during this time, and made only the one journey in this form. It was afterwards sold and transported to the USA where it served as storage on a golf course, before being repatriated to the UK by Swanage Railway members, restored and passed to the National Collection. This vehicle is now preserved at the National Railway Museum. It was one of 50 examples which served during the Second World War as stretcher carriers in casualty evacuation trains. Many of these cars received droplights in the centre doors and that is the version depicted by Hornby’s model.
As we have come to expect with modern Hornby rolling stock, there has been much attention to detail and dimensional accuracy. The undoubted play value of opening doors is no longer provided and the detail in the door area does look better as a result. The ‘nobbly as an artichoke’ nature of these Southern vans has been well captured with the planking detail, hinges and ‘L’-angle ribs and numerous bolt heads.
Separately fitted details include door grab handles, solebar pipework and gangway connections. Round-headed, blackened metal buffers are fitted and they are sprung, too. Vacuum hoses and chalking boards are included in the pack of customer-fit details. It appears that chalk boards, if fitted, were usually attached to one door of a pair.
The 8ft wheelbase Fox bogies are a new moulding and are really well detailed, with footboards and with brake blocks set for ‘OO’ gauge wheelsets. Blackened metal disc wheelsets are fitted and the NEM coupler pockets are fitted on a cam arrangement which allows them to open out slightly on curves. Tension-lock couplers are fitted and these could benefit from being shorter. Couple two GBLS together and there’s over 10mm between the buffer faces on straight track, which does not look at all good.
The carmine version has surprisingly – but correctly – little lettering, just the number and the maker’s plate details on the solebar, plus ‘on’ and ‘off’ arrows adjacent to the separately fitted brake wheel. There are also data panels on both ends. The tiny patch below the number can be read with a magnifier as ‘Distributed load 10 tons’ in white on a black panel. It is an amazing printing job!
The umber and cream model is based on the preserved S2464, and has even less lettering, though it does boast a yellow ‘cheat line’ between the umber and cream. Numbers, data panel and electrification warning signs are carried on the ends, while the ‘Distributed load 10tons’ on the sides is so discreet as to be almost invisible.
While it seems unlikely that many modellers will wish to run repeats of Churchill’s funeral, the model of S2464 has proved extremely popular. A matching luggage van to run with Pullman trains is a popular choice with modellers, while the widespread use of parcels vans across the BR network ensures that the carmine version will be in demand for layouts which are not based on Southern locations.
All in all another good choice of prototype, well executed by Hornby. I hope it will last in their catalogue as long as the Tri-ang version did! (CJL)