Berliner, looking for a suitable Staff Coach

Julian2011 said:

I had mentioned, elsewhere, the Arnold HN4297 Berliner Coach Pack, which was a bit of a "no-brainer" having done 3 years in Berlin and been Train Duty Officer on several occasions. I have found some examples of suitable Locos to haul them, but a small{ish} detail lifts it's head, if the years 1980-83 are to be taken into consideration. Umm.....

These are two of the coaches in the Arnold Pack.

There is a 1st Class coach and the one nearest to the loco, is a Staff coach, where there is a ladder and a periscope on the roof, which can just be made out at the rear of the coach. This is just fine, however, {isn't there always one of those?} the Staff coaches were refurbished to the colours in the picture, above, in 1985 and in 1980-3 were still in their original Cobalt Blue.

This information is, obviously, partly from memory and the dates confirmed at the top of the page, found here:
History - Rolling Stock

The coaches are, apparently, DB stock items, with modifications built into two Staff coaches. I am having slight problems searching for a victim suitable donor coach, to see if a 1980s version might be attempted. I have been looking at Google, but find it difficult to know what coach ID code would be correct / near so as to narrow the searches. The number from the above web page means very little to me, in terms of which bit might be the coach class - Salon üm 910 298, later 51 80 09-40 001-2 ), Berlin 1967

Would any nice person out there be able to assist in narrowing the search for a suitable coach type, which might get a dose of Cobalt?

Regards
Julian

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reddo said:

What a a lovely set Julian, the packaging is also a nice bonus. Arnold Coaches and Coach Packs
Great link to all that history too. V tempted 🤔

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Julian2011 said:

It is a delightful set, in the flesh, too and a good representation of all those years the RCT ran the daily trains to and from Berlin. The trains; just one of the bricks, which remained solid along with so many others, forming the barrier which prevented the Soviet Bloc from taking the risk of marching in to impose themselves, unwanted, on another section of Europe. It's rather ironic that they had built those very same barriers, which prevented them from spreading their influence into the rest of Berlin and built the resentment which brought them down. {Slap wrist - enough stuff!}

The tickets and regulation additions are a really good touch, too - a bit different to a second class from Salisbury to Waterloo.

Julian

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reddo said:

I did quite a bit of research on what is coming Julian ie as you say there are some nice models in the pipeline. I settled on this which will not make the purists happy but it will look elegant as a train in a uniform livery N Sound-Diesellokomotive BR 221 DB IV, inkl. PIKO Sound-Decoder Buy modeltrains | PIKO Webshop

I also found a couple of pre-owned Minitrix coaches incl the parcels coach, on Hattons for £25 for the pair so thats me done to make up a nice 7 car train, as I say not prototypical but will be a nice set. The First Class in red is actually shown in that link you posted in the Where are they now, maybe having been repainted.

I also concur with you idea to just run up a simple layout for fun as a backdrop and bought a backscene and Faller station as a starting point.

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