Good morning!
Another set of thanks are due for overnight contributions.
David P: Of the three derivatives you kindly selected, I think the (?) Ambulance Van struck a real chord, for it reminded me of WW1 rail vehicles. The Great War not only claimed the track of the L and CR- taken away temporarily in 1917 for use in France, or for melting down for munitions, we can't be sure at this stage -but at least one of its platelayers who is pictured in his Sunday best for a company picture in 1909 never returned from war service. I'll store that particular vehicle as a future project if I may.
David T: Oddly, for Opening Day of the model version of the Caradon line, I had to cobble together a horse carrier from a LGB stake wagon and some coffee stirrers for the benefit of the little daughter of friends of ours. That's a real suggestion, thanks. We do know that the GWR tried out a number of ideas on the Caradon line between 1910 and 1914, so, who knows, a horse box could have been one of them. Plate iron boiler bogies were certainly used by the GWR to take the parts for Britain's last new Cornish Mine Engine up the line in 1910, so there's another project!
Steve D: That's a veritable encyclopaedia of LGB Post Vans. I now know infinitely more than I did before I asked for help - and many thanks for that input. I did follow the advice posted about using Modelstrip and bagging the parts overnight in a warm place: the net result as Gizzy suggested is that a layer of grey primer has been removed after careful washing, and at least now some wood grain in the moulding is showing through. Sadly, a very thorough job indeed had been done by the previous owner in scraping/abrading the excellent LGB artwork so that only the yellow post horns and the yellow lining around the windows shows signs of survival. Your pictures show a moulded small LGB logo in the top left corner of one of the sides and there has been an unsuccessful attempt to remove this as well.
Garrett: Encouragement much appreciated. As you will see from all the above comments, a 1917 Royal Mail refurbishment is probably the most appropriate outcome for me! The additional lighting for the parcels compartment is not a bad idea at all; I've got a spare lamp holder and bulb somewhere.