Barchester

Here's a simple quickie for you. Corridor connections aren't mentioned much but there is always a lot of complaints about the gap between coaches and how unsightly it is. Well here's a way to fill that gap on all corridor stock. The ones you see in the pictures below and fitted to the old Lima coaches have been there for 35 years or more. This is not my idea it is one I got from a Railway Modeller, I think, as all my magazines were destroyed in 'the flood but I do know it was an early fifties issue. Anyway I came across some old notes on the subject this afternoon so I spent about 20 minutes making up a pair and thought it might be a good subject for here.
The diagram below shows what's needed and although it says card you really need a thickish, soft, unglazed paper. For the pictures of the ones on the coach I used passe-partout from a photography shop because that was what was recommended in the article but what you see here of the almost finished connection is just some paper that I had been drawing on. The bit of paper with all the lines on it is white writing paper for clarity in the picture.
As you can see you need a piece of paper 70mm x 24mm with lines drawn on it at the intervals shown.
When your paper is marked out then all the lines shown have to be scored. Then bend the paper at the two horizontal lines, along the scoring of course. Straighten the paper out and start bending along the vertical lines until you finish up with a 70mm long length of concertina paper 3mm wide.
Now comes the magic bit. Take a firm hold with the finger and thumb of each hand on either side if one of the horizontal lines and bend down. You can see from the upper right bit what has been done. Now do the same to the other horizontal line. If you feel or hear a tearing sound ignore it as this is supposed to happen. Assuming all has gone as it should have done you can now unfold your concertina and you should have the object on the left. If you look carefully in the top left hand corner of what is now the connection, you can see daylight through the ends of the concertina, this was the ripping noise tearing neat holes across the corners of the concertina and allows the concertina to act properly. The last job in construction is to make a card end for the concertina, about 1/2mm thick will do and it needs to be smooth card as it is this surface that will mate with the corridor connection of the next coach in line. The other end of the concertina should fit neatly over the protrusion of your coach, which is supposed to represent it's corridor connection, and glued down. With a bit of luck you will have used black paper so there will be no need for painting but if you do have to paint then use a matt black.

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The next two photographs show the connections fitted.

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