C10 Third from Triang clerestory coaches

by Mikkel Kjartan


GWR C10 all 3rd from Triang clerestories

All Third to Diagram C10, composed of two Triang Brake Thirds


The old Triang clerestory coaches provide some scope for conversions into more prototypical models. I had a couple of the Brake 3rds lying about, and decided to see what a bit of hacking about would produce.

Looking through Volume 1 of 'Great Western Coaches' by J.H. Russell, I found two drawings that seemed to fit the bill – namely the All Thirds to diagrams C10 and C22 respectively, both of which were built in fairly large numbers. I opted for the C10.

Items used

  • 2 Triang Clerestory Brake Thirds (compartment ends only)
  • Bogies and underframe details from a Hornby long Clerestory coach
  • Various bits of Plastikard (sheet and blocks) and clear styrene

Essentially, the C10 is composed from the compartment ends of the two Triang Brake Thirds. This may seem a little wasteful, but the residual brake ends can later be used for constructing a decent Brake Van to Diagram V5.

The underframe details from the long Hornby Clerestory were used since I also had these lying about, and because I like making do with what I have. These Hornby parts do require some modification, and could alternatively be replaced with separately purchased detailing parts. This will however add additional cost to the model.

Note that even for a simple and cheap project such as this, it really is necessary to have a scale drawing of the diagram in question to work from – such as the one in Russels book.


GWR C10 all 3rd from Triang clerestories

The C10 during construction, showing the two ends assembled

Main steps

  • Prepairing the main coach body

    Having dismantled the Brake Thirds into their constituent parts (including removal of the roof and the awful bogies), I used a razor saw to separate the compartment ends from the brake ends. Put crudely, one body was cut just after the 11th window, the other just after the 13th window see picture above). The two compartment ends were then carefully worked with wet-and-dry sandpaper to ensure a good fit, and joined together with superglue. The remaining brake ends were set aside for subsequent use on another project for a 4-wheel V5 Passenger Brake Van.

  • Cutting and shutting

    The next step was to shorten the outermost panel at both ends of the new coach body, as these are too wide if compared with the drawing in Russels book. This was done by cutting off the ends entirely with the razor saw, and removing about 2mms of each end panel with a file. This is a slightly tricky operation as the plastic can be rather brittle here, and some slight rebuilding of the panel with plastic putty was necessary. The shortened end pieces were then refitted to the coach body.

  • Bogies and underframe

    I next set about making the two Dean 8'6" bogies that were typical for these types of coaches. For this I used the Dean 10' bogies provided on the long Hornby Clerestory coaches. These bogies are roughly speaking longer versions of the 8'6" type, and were basically cut into three parts, appropriately shortened and then reassembled with superglue, filler and patience. This was a rather dreary job as the Hornby bogies are made from a very uncooperative type of plastic, but the only alternative 8'6" bogies I could find were Blacksmith etched brass items, which I thought was rather over the top for this kind of project. Having fitted the bogies to the coach body (using small bolts and Plastikard packing) I then poached further undeframe details from the Hornby long clerestory. This included step-boards, tanks and V-irons, all cut about to fit the C10. The stepboards were removed on some of the C10s in their later days, so it is legitimate to leave them off if you like.

  • Roof and interior

    The two roofs from the Triang Brake Thirds were then treated much like the coach bodies: The compartment ends were cut off and joined into one piece, and the outermost sections were then 'cut and shut' to fit with the windows and ventilators on the body below. Finally, inside the coach, compartment dividers were made from Plastikard sheet, and simple seats were cut from blocks of Plastikard. Windows were glazed with 0.25mm clear styrene from Evergreen.

I painted the coach in a simplified version of the pre-1908 livery, using HMRS Pressfix transfers for the monogram and class designations. Further detailing is of course possible, but for me this was a 'cheap and cheerful' project which does not really warrant any further expense. The end result is a coach which was fairly quick to build, and close enough to the general outline of a C10 for me to accept it as such – although it obviously does not stand comparison with more advanced examples, such as the similar C10 from Slaters.