Bachmann GWR Collett Coaches
The Collett coaches were the final coach development by Palitoy before the drawing
office was closed down in 1983 and only one batch of each livery was sold under the
Mainline Railways name. It seems that there were none amongst the residue stock bought by
Dapol when the Mainline warehouse was cleared out. This was because the original batches
had completely sold out and Palitoy were about to reorder when the decision to closedown
the operation came through.
Kader used the tooling to produce some Collett coaches for Replica Railways in 1987 and
1988. However, before doing so, Replica paid to have the tooling modified, as there was
some distortion of the mouldings due to poor mould design, and the height of the windows
had to be changed. The Replica and Bachmann Colletts are therefore slightly different from
the original Mainline ones.
Six models are reviewed here, three in GWR chocolate and cream livery and three in BR maroon. Three different coach types are represented
The former Mainline model of a Collett C77, third class, side corridor coach is
represented by two examples here. In GWR 'shirt-button' livery we have No.1127 (34-051A)
and in BR maroon we have W547W (34-201). A lot of this style of coach were built by the
GWR at the end of 1938. They had eight 3rd class compartments with four doors on the
corridor side and two on the other side. Some of the windows were fitted with sliding
vents and the drop lights in the doors were shorter than the fixed windows.
This is from the tooling of the Mainline Collett C77 third corridor coach but printed as a 1st/3rd composite. Structurally there is no external difference between this model and those of the all 3rd and all 1st models. The three examples here are GWR 'shirt-button liveried GWR No.6609 (34-077) and 7055 (34-126A) and a BR maroon W7010W (34-151)
The brake 3rd is
from the Mainline model of a Collett E159 brake composite coach. These were built
in the late 1930s with five 3rd class compartments. There were three passenger doors on
the corridor side of the coach and two on the other side. Here the model has been produced
as an all-2nd class brake coach in BR maroon as W1656W (34-176).
