DM4 Restoration

A Dundas 4-wheel Coach Restoration 

Completed restoration

The early Dundas 4-wheel coach below once belonged to Norfolk 009 Group co-founder Ray Fothergill.  It is one of the only items I have from his "Fother Valley Railway", after he sadly died in about 2011.

The coach is a DM4 and dates from about 1981 when Dundas had just started,  it has the white metal sole bars and gives the coach a nice bit of weight.
What would we have done without Dundas Models?

So I thought it was about time I did the right thing and re-painted it for use on Shortwaite Hill, which I am sure he would have liked.

I did think about trying to strip the body, but as I've never attempted this before, from plastic anyway,  I took the easy way out and carefully sanded the panels with 500 grit foam-backed paper.

Here is the completed coach before adding weathering.

I added some seats and seated passengers, re-glazed it, and retained the original roof adding new rain strips and gas lamp tops.  I am having a dilemma concerning which couplings to use for the stock, and at the moment it is fitted with "period" Peco GR-101 couplings with a loop only on one end of the vehicle.
For the SHLR livery I played around with brown, cream and tan colours but decided to use Humbrol 133 "brown" and 71 "oak" cream.