Gone South(ern) for the Winter!

[John Candy]

I have a vast number of carriages and wagons under construction but had nothing "Southern" on the list.

I remember from the 1950's seeing the A.C.E, the Bournemouth Belle and the Ocean Liner expresses roaring through Wimbledon behind Merchant Navy, West Country and Lord Nelson classes and the consist would include at least one bogie passenger luggage van (PLV).

A total of 120  of these Maunsell era vans were built from 1930 and had the distinctive outside-framed appearance which originated with the 4-wheel GUV vans of the SE&CR (the railway from whence Maunsell ascended to the Southern). Unusually, they had gangway connectors at the ends and had long been on my "to do" list.

Although branded "Luggage" they were also  used for parcels, mail and newspaper traffic and some were adapted for use in wartime casualty evacuation sets.

There were 5 different diagrams, the differences principally being slight variations in length and bogie wheelbase (a consequence of them being mounted on the underframes of withdrawn LSWR stock).
The original Fox 8ft bogies were retained but with changes to the bolster springing (coil springs replaced the elliptical springs).
I selected Diagram 3100 built 1930 with a length of 51ft 3ins over corner posts and 36-3 WB.

Photos are attached of the loosely laid out 3D prints from the OpenSCAD files (sorry, not very good....poor lighting and long exposure resulting in camera shake) .

John.