Prepared by Martin Wykes (concept, text, design, photos and models) for The British 1:87 Scale Society © British HO Models Ltd 2003. With thanks to Stephen Ellingham for prototype information.
The only coach type supplied with the HO Eurostar sets from Hornby, Jouef or Lima was the power-end car. If you can find spare examples of these, you can convert them into any of the other three types of Eurostar coach: the floating intermediate car, the floating buffet car, and the divisible centre car.
If you can find enough spare coaches, you could build a convincing full-length train of 14 or 18 units. This guide covers the main steps. If you wanted to, you could also address some additional issues: certain grilles and logos should be in different places on different car types; the wheel arches should be of uniform shape; and the cars should be closer together at the bogies.
Eurostar power-end car
Additional bogie coupling clips and corridor covers (phone East Kent Models on 01227 770777 for price and availability)
Plastic sheet, 0.25mm, 1.5mm, 2.5mm thicknesses
Plastic rod (0.25mm, 2mm dia.)
Adhesives
Pan head bolts 22mmx3mm + nuts
Brass tube, outside diameter 4mm, inside diameter 3mm, cut to 6mm lengths
Washers, brass etch type, outside diameter 7mm, inside diameter 3mm, thickness 0.3mm (item MT937 from Mainly Trains,
phone 01984 634545)
Paints
Files, knife, saw (or cutting disc)
Drill with 3mm bit
1. Start by dismantling the spare power-end car. Remove the articulation bogie by pulling it horizontally. Remove the other bogie by pulling it downwards. The chassis and windows are one piece and the windows lock the chassis to the body: prise the body away from the windows on one side and insert thin card to stop the two parts locking together again; then prise the body from the other side; the body and chassis should separate. Remove the coupling clip by squeezing the inside portion and pulling it from the outside. Retain all the parts as most will be reused later.
2. Cut the body as shown in the drawing, and cut the chassis/window moulding back from the bogie centre line another 9mm, as shown above. This will give enough room for the coach to move around the bogie, which will be of the articulation type (discussed later).
3. Glue a strip of 1.5mm thick plastic sheet to the chassis floor, then glue or screw a connector clip on the centre line of the coach, as shown below. This functional setup works well, but if you want a better cosmetic finish, fill in the exposed end with plastic sheet.
4. On the coach body, cover the grilles with rectangular panels made from 0.25mm plastic sheet. Fill any gaps, and chamfer the lower edges of the panels to match the shape of the coach sides. If you paint the panels very carefully, you may not need to repaint the whole model.
5. To make an articulation bogie from the spare one, cut off the clip and drill a 3mm hole where it used to be. Insert a pan head bolt from below, and over this place the following items, in order: washer, tube, washer, tube, washer, nut. You may want to secure the nut with thread lock.
6. The divisible centre car is in reality very slightly longer than the power-end car, but it would be difficult to correct this. As a minimum, you could hide the ventilator grilles on this car using plastic sheeting as before, but if you also want to cut holes for the additional doors and windows (see below) you could do so for the body and panels separately, which should give a neater result. An alternative would be to score or simply paint representations of the additional doors and windows onto the new panels. Use the inset image below to help you create the new doors and windows on both sides of your model.
7. The coupler on one centre car must be converted so that it can connect to the other, as described below. The plate is 2.5mm thick and the pin is 5mm long. Glues may not work on the original coupler, so you might have to secure the parts together with a tiny screw.
8. The cut end of your new car will need power connector boxes set back in a recess as shown in the photo for step 9. You could also correct the appearance of the roof here by filing off the bolt heads, filling in the panel recesses, and joining up the roof ribs with plastic rod.
9. The power connector boxes should be at the edge of an indented section of roof, which you can create by removing the area shown in the photo below. The boxes should actually be square: the length and width should be the same as the length of the box on the model.
10. Not for the fainthearted! This involves considerable cutting and rejoining skills. The starting point is a power-end car that you should probably shorten first. You must carefully select an area around the windows that, when inverted, will place the windows at the new correct height. The reinserted windows will not be the correct configuration for either side. You will have to enlarge or fill in the window recesses as appropriate. (For reference, I have included images of the Kato Eurostar buffet car.)
