How to make a departmental coach

At its most basic, this is the simplest of my re-workings of these Hornby coaches as it is nothing more than a repaint. Although black is not the most salable of liveries, it is likely that more of the six-wheelers that were still extant in the 1950s/1960s were in departmental black livery than were in the BR carmine which Hornby has produced.

In the first decade of BR, most departmental vehicles, including breakdown cranes and their accompanying vehicles, were black. Manning the breakdown train was voluntary, and by the mid-1950s BR was struggling to recruit sufficient volunteers so it sought to make the breakdown train a little less unattractive by replacing old vehicles with newer ones and painting them and the cranes, bright red.

As we are dealing with generic vehicles, we can take a ‘generic’ approach to the lettering of the coach, too. I opted to repaint a six-wheel brake third into matt

I made up my decals on computer in Microsoft Word using 8pt Gill Sans MT. A test print at 6pt made me feel that 8pt would print more clearly. Inkjet printers don’t print a solid yellow so it is necessary to print the yellow reversed out of a black highlighted panel on white decal paper. black and to ‘personalise’ it with homemade decals specific to my layout. So, it has become a Mess & Tool Van for the District Civil Engineer based at St Petrock, my main station. It is ideal for operation with a small crane such as the Dapol

I printed my decals on Transourdream inkjet white waterslide paper. After printing, it was sealed with Simply Sprays clear lacquer. Adhesion to painted surfaces can be a problem with home-made decals. I use Microsol and Microset decal-setting solutions to aid the process.

Booth Rodley kit or Hornby’s venerable hand crane. Indeed, either the R6004 hand crane or Railroad R6881 breakdown crane could be appropriate company for the coach but, in either case, I would repaint them black to match.