The GNR Howlden flat roof coach project

About 9 months ago I decided to start work on a rake of GNR coaches, mainly to run with the upcoming Rapido Stirling single. My Initial plan featured a pair of 4 wheel coaches and a rake of 5 6 wheel coaches. Since then I have done significantly more research and realized that just making a base rake of 6 6 wheelers would be best.

As of today I have gone through multiple drafts of the chassis and body design and I am at a point were I am happy with the overall design.
When it came time to design the chassis I split all the coaches into 3 different chassis types: A, B & C

Type A will not be used in this rake of 6 but I do plan to make a coach for it at a later date

So far I have managed to form a slightly dodgy list of 23 different diagrams and out of those I've settled on the following 6:

• Dia. 301 BPZ (full brake) -Type B chassis
  
• Dia. 34A BTZ (4 comp. brake 3rd) -Type C chassis
  
• Dia. 245 TZ (5 comp. 3rd) -Type B chassis
  
• Dia. 156 CZ (5 comp. composite 1st/3rd) -Type B chassis
  
• Dia.164C CLZ (4 comp lavatory composite (shared) 1st/3rd w/ luggage compartment) -Type C chassis
  
• Dia. ??? FLZ (4 comp. dual-lavatory 1st) -Type C chassis
  

So far I only have the CADs for the full brake and lav. comp., but they'll do (Note that I will add some more detail on the roof and that none of the wire parts have been modeled)



Ends:







Full brake:







Lav. comp.

Update #1 20 September 2024

All of the sides have been designed and printed and I could not be happier... The money I spent on the .2 mm nozzle was definitely worth it!

[Super]

The sides look fantastic D9D...excellent 👍

After an enormous amount of pain I've finally finished the updated CAD for the 3rd class compartments, now did I need to add this much detail... NO! but is it impressive... yes! and I had a lot of fun which is what really matters!

[Super]

The compartments look fantastic DDO 👍

Can you remind us what printer you are using?

I'm using the mingda magician X but with a .2 mm nozzle, rather than the usual .4 mm, although I'm not certain if the mesh pieces are going to print..
It has surprised me in the past, like with the clarity of the vents above the doors..
I've found that I have to use a raft for these prints and with the .2 mm nozzle the top of the raft is quite slippery so the first layer is often a bit of a mess... Currently I haven't found a solution but I 'll keep trying

First class compartment:

[Super]

I am getting anxious to see how this turns out printed

A small update but now I've made a new chassis for de Dia. 156 composite (the one that I have used to test out the new interiors). Previously I had been using the chassis made for the Dia. 301 full brake and Dia 245 5 comp. third for it, but the length of the full brake and the third come in at a scale 32' while the composite comes in at 32' 10". In 4mm scale the 10" become 3mm.I thought that wasn't relevant until I actually leghthend the chassis by 3mm when I saw just how big of a difference it made!