Description
This kit represents the original form of these vehicles. They ran in tandem with a composite dining car (Tavern Dining Car) to D2664 (Comet S11BK) However these latter coaches proved so unpopular that they were rebuilt in 1950 to D2665 (Comet S14BK) and ran paired in this form until late 1959.
For the first two years the Tavern cars carried BR crimson and cream but with the crimson partly lined out to represent brickwork, and the cream areas rendered as ‘half timbered’. The coaches even carried an inn sign. Internally they were decorated to mimic an Olde English pub with ’tile’ floor, ‘oak’ beams, ‘whitewashed’ walls and lit by ‘lanterns’. At the same time as the composite diners were rebuilt the brickwork and half timbered effects were removed and conventional crimson and cream applied, although they retained the inn signs. In 1951 the brakes were changed from the Prestall system to the more conventional vacuum cylinder and ‘V’ hangers and small vacuum reserve cylinders, as supplied in the kit. In 1957 the coaches were re-liveried in BR(S) unlined green but still retained the inn signs. They were completely rebuilt in 1959 with a change in diagram number to D2668 (Comet S14AK).
They were not exclusively Southern Region property, with one set each to The Master Cutler, The White Rose, The Norfolkman and The South Yorkshireman and two sets to the Atlantic Coast Express.
