An etched brass kit with white-metal components. Requires wheels (Slaters 7120 or similar)/paint/couplings and lettering to complete.

PROTOTYPE INFORMATION
These horseboxes were first built for the Furness Railway by the Metropolitan Carriage and Wagon
Co. in 1871. It is thought that initially five of these vehicles were built, and it would seem that a
further sixteen were built in 1880. These are all shown in the Furness diagram book as diagram 38.
The box is suitable for 3 beasts.
Difficulties exist in exactly determining what the Furness Railway livery was before 1896, though
the best guess is that, for the horse boxes, was a Carmine Lake. When the two coloured livery was
adopted, NPCS was painted blue, similar to that used for the lower body panels of the general
service stock. The official description of this blue was Ultramarine.
The Furness Railway chose the Smith’s Automatic Vacuum Brake system and this was first introduced
in the latter half of 1884. By the end of 1885 14 horse boxes had been piped only. As there
were 14 of the 17ft long horseboxes introduced from 1870 it is likely that it was these that were first
piped only. By June 1886 all 21 horseboxes had been piped only. However, in the first half of 1896
3 horseboxes had been converted from piped only to fitted status, and by June 1901 all horse boxes
had been converted to fitted status. Thus, regarding the brakes it can be said that before 1885 all
horseboxes had the single wood brake block operated by a lever on one side; nothing more than a
parking brake. After 1901 all horseboxes would have been fitted with iron brake blocks powered
from a vacuum cylinder.
Additional notes from Alan Headech. I am aware of only one photograph that shows the Metropolitan
built horsebox in a train and which may show enough detail to determine whether all wheels
were braked or not. In the photographs that I have, unfortunately, because of the foreshortening in
both views it is impossible to see any (power) brakegear in either photograph. However, a third
photograph includes an end-on view of one of these horseboxes which shows that the brake system
does not use a clasp brake arrangement. Thus, the vehicle is almost certainly fitted with a pusher
brake system (like most hand braked wagons), the power coming from the vacuum cylinder. The
hand brake lever was always arranged on the side facing the photographer with the groom’s compartment
at the left hand end and the timber brake block bearing on the left hand wheel. The end
view mentioned above also clearly shows the vacuum pipe and its flexible in the usual upright
position. If you are keen to get the details right the horizontal pipe running the length of the vehicle
and fastened to the underside of the frame appears to the left hand side of the drawbar (looking at
the end). The vertical pipe up to the ‘swan neck’ is not S shaped but leans in the ‘quarter to one
o’clock’ direction with a gentle crank near the top to bring it vertical before entering the swan neck.
The emergency valve and butterfly telltales are fitted at the groom compartment end.
By 1915 the earlier 14ft 6in long horseboxes were disallowed from being coupled next to the engine
on main line trains.

KIT HISTORY
The kit was designed in 1981 and released as part of the Sprat and Winkle, later Model Signal
Engineering (MSE), range under the guidance of Derek Mundy. It came to FourTrack Models in
1998.
These instructions were written in 2001 by John Shelley and are based on Derek Mundy’s originals,
thanks are due to Alan Headech, Mike Peascod and Paul Heath for information that has enabled the
prototype information section of these instructions to be enlarged .