Hi
I recently purchased this metal coach, it is 26.5cm long, and obviously had been mucked around with.
The windows had been partially border painted, new bogies added, and the old gangway vestibules had been replaced with plastic.
I could sense that the coach had been cared for, the paint was still glossy.
It was sold to me as a Fleischmann. It cost (including post) $30 to Australia.


Anyway, it arrived, and it turns out to be a PMP. I think it may be aluminium sheet - perhaps tin plate.
Made in France sometime between 1951 and 1960, an underframe from a Fleischmann coach had been glued on to the metal base plate.
The coach was easily dismantled, being screwed together.
I removed all window treatment, and all the glue residue that was used to fix it. Then off came the plastic vestibules, and I stripped the rough paint job from the roof. (From the underside of the roof, it was originally a brown/beige.)
The glued plastic underframe was prised off the base plate.


I cleaned and repainted the roof a nondescript beige.
I touched up a few spots on the coach with paint, and have found a match for the original roof colour, and will repaint it some other time.
The window material was replaced, it is held inside by very effective tabs.
Kitchen window frosting was done with tissue paper sandwiched between two layers of the clear plastic.
I cleaned off the glue on the base plate with solvent, and primed it. The underframe was repositioned using a small metal thread screw in an existing hole. (I hate using any glues on these old models).
The bogies (not original) are fine, and I have fitted AC wheels.
I have to acquire (or make up) some tin plate vestibules - like those on the 346 series Marklin coaches.

PMP had a comprehensive range of well made passenger and freight vehicles.
I found there are at least 3 different window pattern versions of this coach available, and suitable wagon lits, Pullmans, and fourgons are available in the PMP brand.
I had previously passed on these, because they were a bit long to fit my Marklin stock of the period.

The original coach was built as one of a series in 1940 in Belgium, and would have been seen on expresses to and from Copenhagen, and the south of France.
I intend to include it when running the Nord Express, which carried passengers to Paris from as far afield as Moscow, Berlin, and Stockholm.

regards
Kimball

Edited by user 04 March 2015 06:54:02(UTC)  | Reason: added underframe comment

Hi Chas and Ak,

Since March I have managed to find a few more PMP coaches, and created a set representative of the Nord Express circa 1948.
According to archival film, the SNCF coaches should probably be the Nord type, with the bow arch window tops, but they come up rarely.



regards
Kimball