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A Tale of a "B Set."
I expect most modellers of the GWR in 00 gauge will have an example of a 2 coach B-Set running on their layout and mine is no exception. The most popular is probably the r-t-r Airfix, now Hornby, 60' B-Set to Diagram E148. The pair modelled by Airfix are ideal for my layout as they represent Nos 6894 and 6895, which ran on the Andoversford line for many years, into BR days.
However, when buying a job lot of coach bits and bobs on an auction site a few months ago, I came across a pair of B set coaches in bits and in a very poor state. After some research, I found these to be the remains of a Ks B-Set plastic and metal kit to Diagram E116 with 9' bogies. The parts themselves were primitive by modern standards (there is no floor or compartment partitions) and the 2 roofs were really brittle. An attempt had been made to build the kit but the previous owner had thought better of it. One of the coaches had no bogies either.
I nearly threw the whole thing in the bin but these earlier, and rather larger, B Set coaches intrigued me. After more research, I found out that they had been introduced by the GWR as early as 1922 and were all allocated to the Bristol Division. They survived until 1962 so BR livery would be OK. I chose the 1930s "shirt button" livery. I fitted floors, compartments and some seated figures. At the moment, they both run on 9' scale "Centenary" bogies from Hornby which aren't strictly accurate (9' fishbelly bogies were used on the prototypes) and I'd really like to replace the roofs sometime as they are a poor fit. However, they don't look too bad. I've included a photo of an E116 next to an Airfix E148 for comparison. It's strange that the single 1st class compartment to each coach is at the potentially "bumpiest" end, near the close coupling between the 2 coaches! This isn't the case with the later series of B Sets!
I assume that the Ks kit of these coaches has long been discontinued but they do still turn up at auction I'm sure.
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