Imaginary Rolling Stock

[BernardTPM]

Yes, no-one would want open verandas on a high speed goods!

Obviously no-one told the Southern that with their express brake vans then.

[BernardTPM]

Now if you want an interesting speculation, consider adoption of containerisation in the early/mid 19thC?

 

With easy transhipment of goods between wagons then many of the disadvantages of mixed broad and narrow gauge would be minimised. Wagons could all be railway owned, just the containers owned privately, and the speed and reliability of freight traffic greatly increased. 

Freight yards might contain instead of coal staithes working platforms where the containers would be swiftly offloaded...

By the 1930s just about all freight traffic might be in containers on flats and well wagons.

Containers were used from a surprisingly early date, but there is always the consideration of the added tare weight. When most large factories had rail connections the advantages of containers was less too and don't forget too that labour was cheap in the 19th Century. There was a considerable growth in container traffic between the Wars so the advantages were growing by then.

[JimC]

Yes, no-one would want open verandas on a high speed goods! It needs to be more like a parcel brake as above. Needs a rethink.

 

Think milk train brakes?

[rockershovel]

NER bogie coal hopper

 

 

 

LMS 40 ton hoppers

 

[cctransuk]

NER bogie coal hopper

 

6E9EED39-6B92-4093-9261-CEE5A4CB1FF7.jpeg

 

5CF09F17-69A2-4223-B441-CE56A12E15D3.jpeg

 

 

 

I hadn't realised that any of these had survived into the BR period.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[Corbs]

The NE hopper isn't too far off my photobodge.

 

Obviously no-one told the Southern that with their express brake vans then.

Well I did say no-one would want it must have got rather chilly out there! Edited January 28, 2018 by Corbs

[Zomboid]

Everyone knows that the sun always shone on the Southern Railway. Or at least according to their publicity department it did.

[The Johnster]

Brake vans seem to have never had anything more than the most basic consideration for their occupants, and most were very draughty indeed.  A bogie van like a Southern Queen Mary is a better rider, but still suffers from draughts as the leading door opens on to a veranda that faces into a wind which can be easily blowing at over 100 mph if we are talking about a 60mph express freight running into a strong headwind on a stormy night.  The van bodies were basically wooden garden sheds with stoves in them.  

 

Express freights were run with 4 wheel vans on the other 3 railways/5 BR regions, and some very fast running was (illegally) indulged in on the ECML fish trains.  If the vehicle in front of the brake was a van, as it often was on such workings, some shelter from the howling gale might be afforded, but consider the case of a 60mph part fitted bogie bolster train with an LNER/BR standard brake van, ballast mounted outboard of the axles where it is bound to cause a rough ride which will work the wooden cabin loose and create even more draughts, setting up a violent rocking which will shake out the lamps which have to be re-lit every 5 minutes so the guard has to go out on the veranda in the freezing gale.  The idea that his comfort was ever considered is laughable, and this went on well into the 1980s. 

 

Even the lovely Queen Marys only came about because the Southern inherited some unused locomotive frames from the LSWR's electrification scheme.

[Zomboid]

In this fantasy world though, we can give a toss about the wellbeing of the guard. Maybe not to the extent of some American conductors (not certain of the job title) who wouldn't take a train if the caboose had the cupola on the "wrong" end, but at the very least the guard has to ride in a van which can safely travel as fast as the rest of the train... If that 2-8-4 is supposed to be doing 75 at the bottom of Shape before climbing it, then it'll be capable of at least that coming down, and that means bogies, or seriously injured guards in a 4 wheeled van.

The increased speed of these fully fitted trains probably means that a dynamo to charge some batteries is possible, so let's go the whole hog and give him electric lights rather than those dodgy lanterns.

[PhilJ W]

Containers were used from a surprisingly early date, but there is always the consideration of the added tare weight. When most large factories had rail connections the advantages of containers was less too and don't forget too that labour was cheap in the 19th Century. There was a considerable growth in container traffic between the Wars so the advantages were growing by then.

I have a book called Londons Lost Riverscape, basically a photographic album of both sides of the River Thames from London Bridge to Greenwich taken in 1937. In one photograph it shows containers being loaded onto a ship, these containers appear to be the same size as the contemporary railway containers, the principle difference being they all had a flat roof.

 

NER bogie coal hopper

 

6E9EED39-6B92-4093-9261-CEE5A4CB1FF7.jpeg

 

5CF09F17-69A2-4223-B441-CE56A12E15D3.jpeg

 

LMS 40 ton hoppers

 

B040B334-FDAC-4BD1-9837-E44C1EDE39B4.jpeg

The fish-belly frame appears to be the same as contemporary bogie flat wagons.

[Corbs]

That's a bit titchy - especially when BR had this :-

 

B734849 .jpg

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Ah, that's more like it. I had considered a 3 berth, but I thought that to create a bridge in traffic flow between 4 wheel vans and bogie stock (serving branch lines and sleepy stations) 3 might be overkill.

[Corbs]

The LMS got there before you - 40T bogie brakevan to Diagram 1799 for the Copley Hill - Armley Branch.

 

What needs to be remembered is that, if traffic and operating conditions required them, the Big Four and BR were perfectly capable of designing and building innovative rolling stock.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

ah, this one?

 

[Lu4472ke]

how about a single ended bogie toad?

[Corbs]

how about a single ended bogie toad?

 

Should we give the poor guy a ducket?

[BernardTPM]

A simple answer would be to use the passenger full brakes on express goods too.

[FPH 603]

Let's venture into the world of carriage stock for a change (just for a moment at least, Corbs' first post did say Carriages and Wagons!) To start off with I've redesigned the RUB (Resturant Unclassified Buffet)

 

[DavidB-AU]

A couple of ideas from the other topic.

 

 

 

Cheers

David

[Invicta]

A surprising amount of bogie stock actually made it off the drawing board....

 

RO571-600x600.jpg

 

 

That Ratio 'Caledonian Iron Ore Wagon' kit may be about as close to imaginary as it's possible to get, without actually being a figment of someone's imagination- There were a couple of threads about it on here a few years back, which IIRC came to the conclusion that Ratio's kit was of a one-off prototype wagon, and which probably never saw so much as a lump of iron ore, as any use it saw might have been for general merchandise traffic. (As I recall, the Caley did have bogie iron ore and loco coal wagons, but they were steel-bodied, rather than the wooden-body of the Ratio kit)

 

This was a particularly reassuring discovery for me, as I was part-way through building half-a-dozen of them, so am now the proud owner of a completely fictional LMS iron ore train...Still, 'it's my trainset' and all that....

 

I do like the look of the LMS bogie van, coke hopper and brake van in the OP-  and every time I look in the Bob Essery LMS wagons book, that Copley Hill branch brake van catches my eye, and I find myself thinking it's just the thing for my iron ore train- Seeing Corbs' model has me pondering butchering a couple of Parkside Midland brake van bodies onto a longer chassis and a pair of bogies...

 

The big LMS bogie 'Stonebridge Park' coal hoppers were impressive beasts, weren't they-  there's something quite continental about the appearance of them- Lima used to offer some kind of continental bogie hopper wagon in 'NCB' livery when I was a kid, and the first time I saw a pic of the LMS hopper, it always struck me back then that they were vaguely similar in shape to that Lima toy

 

At the risk of diving off into wishlisting territory, if Hatton's fancy a little project to follow on from the ICI hoppers... I'm not sure if there's even a kit available for these?

Edited January 29, 2018 by Invicta

[Corbs]

They are similar to the Tyne Dock hoppers, for which there are a couple of kits

 

7mm

http://www.finescalebrass.co.uk/john-firminger-tyne-dock-hoppers.htm

 

4mm - Dave Bradwell

http://georgedentmodelmaker.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/tyne-dock-wagon-re-finished.html

[cctransuk]

That Ratio 'Caledonian Iron Ore Wagon' kit may be about as close to imaginary as it's possible to get, without actually being a figment of someone's imagination- There were a couple of threads about it on here a few years back, which IIRC came to the conclusion that Ratio's kit was of a one-off prototype wagon, and which probably never saw so much as a lump of iron ore, as any use it saw might have been for general merchandise traffic. (As I recall, the Caley did have bogie iron ore and loco coal wagons, but they were steel-bodied, rather than the wooden-body of the Ratio kit)

 

This was a particularly reassuring discovery for me, as I was part-way through building half-a-dozen of them, so am now the proud owner of a completely fictional LMS iron ore train...Still, 'it's my trainset' and all that....

 

I do like the look of the LMS bogie van, coke hopper and brake van in the OP-  and every time I look in the Bob Essery LMS wagons book, that Copley Hill branch brake van catches my eye, and I find myself thinking it's just the thing for my iron ore train- Seeing Corbs' model has me pondering butchering a couple of Parkside Midland brake van bodies onto a longer chassis and a pair of bogies...

 

The big LMS bogie 'Stonebridge Park' coal hoppers were impressive beasts, weren't they-  there's something quite continental about the appearance of them- Lima used to offer some kind of continental bogie hopper wagon in 'NCB' livery when I was a kid, and the first time I saw a pic of the LMS hopper, it always struck me back then that they were vaguely similar in shape to that Lima toy

 

At the risk of diving off into wishlisting territory, if Hatton's fancy a little project to follow on from the ICI hoppers... I'm not sure if there's even a kit available for these?

 

Many, many years ago I hacked one of the Lima continental models into an ex-LMS Stonebridge Park hopper - if I can lay hands on it I'll post a photo in due course.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[DavidB-AU]

Back in the 90s there was a proposal to convert surplus Mk 3 sleepers into 125mph Post Office Stowage Vans. The idea was the reduced journey time over the 90mph TPO would allow mail to be sorted at each end rather than en route. But the class 325 became the preferred option.

 

 

Cheers

David

Edited January 29, 2018 by DavidB-AU

[BernardTPM]

I'd guess the whole of the IC250 would fit in this topic, albeit that it was in the imagination of British Rail rather than made up by one of us!

[The Johnster]

A simple answer would be to use the passenger full brakes on express goods too.

 

Hmm.  More problems; a GUV would be better as you could include a ducket, and how does the guard access the lamps?  He has to remove the red shade from the side lamps of part- or unfitted trains so that they show a white light to the rear in loops, refuge sidings, and on goods or relief lines running parallel to main lines, and occasionally has to relight lamps that have gone out.

 

Of course, one could replace the lamps with electric ones, but these would still need to carry oil lamp back ups which would have to be accessible from the inside the van.  We are back to verandas and the draught issues.  Also, a GUV weighs 10 tons more than a standard 20 ton brake van, which may mean the loss of a revenue earning wagon on some fully loaded services, or more powerful locos/bankers/double heading, increasing costs; despite what Beeching led you to believe, BR hated increasing costs!  

 

An electric lamp system suggests a battery and dynamo which the GUV already has, and this sort of leads almost by default to electric heating for the guard rather than a coal stove, but I would have doubts about the ability of such a system, designed to power low wattage internal lights for the GUV, would cope with the demands of an electric fire.  The guard's actual accommodation would need to be a fairly small partitioned area inside the GUV so as to be heated effectively, and of course he could have a light to work with as well.

 

I sketched out a new design for a brake van in the 1970s while I was a freight guard at Canton; it was a CCT body with an internal compartment, duckets, and opening end windows for access to the lamps, mounted on a bogie bolster E chassis with commonwealth bogies; I reckoned it would run smoothly up to 60mph, the speed of fast freight in those days.  The CCT is wood lined internally and should have resisted condensation.  I retained the oil lamps and coal stove, but included a large bunker that would have acted as extra ballast and provided about a month's supply.  I included a closable vent to supply air beneath the stove to draw it as well.  The duckets had manually operated wipers to improve vision in bad weather.  Electric or Calor Gas lamps and heating were rejected as I reckoned the fittings and battery would be subject to theft in some goods yards; as I say, they'd have needed backups anyway and BR would never had provided the cash in those days.  All the other components were available, ideally from withdrawn stock, and it needed no new build work, so should have been fairly cheap to provide.

 

I put it in the suggestions box, and to my surprise got a response; it was not unreasonably rejected on the grounds that the fleet of bogie bolster Es was fully employed and none could be spared, and that other bogie bolsters were too long for the brake linkage, which was why I'd specified Es in the first place  (this would apply to a BG/GUV based van as well), and would lose braking strength and be prone to twisting and breaking; on the BG/GUV a separate vacuum cylinder close to the bogies did the necessary, and the hand brake on the BG was only designed for parking, not holding a 1,000 ton freight train back on a gradient!  This response suggests that someone actually considered my idea for about 5 seconds, which is 6 seconds longer than I thought they would!

 

A CCT based brake van might have been possible, but I wanted to improve things beyond 4 wheeled vehicles.  It would make a good model, with end windows, duckets and stove pipe.

 

It would have been finished in Railfreight red and grey livery, and have had through vacuum and air pipes, retaining the Oleo buffers from the bogie bolsters.  That someone presumably in a position to do something about it on BR was prepared to give this idea 5 seconds of his time when most brake van work had a decade at the most to go was remarkable, and a vindication of the suggestion box IMHO!

 

Nice imaginary concept for someone to have a go at.

[Talltim]

Hmm, I think I have a redundant CCT body and Bogie Bolster E. Presumbly using longer bogies would mean the centres would need to be moved inward? Did your plan have the end doors replaced by plain metal?

Also, I get the impression that you were thinking externally mounted lamps? Any reason why they shouldn't be internally mounted, just inside a window?

Edited January 29, 2018 by Talltim

[The Johnster]

Hmm, I think I have a redundant CCT body and Bogie Bolster E. Presumbly using longer bogies would mean the centres would need to be moved inward? Did your plan have the end doors replaced by plain metal?

 

Yes, with opening windows (standard BR sliding) to access the lamp brackets, inspired by GW toads' cabin end.  Doors were to be sealed up except 2 with windows in to access the central guard's compartment, which would have had a similar layout to the standard brake van's but a little smaller, and have had end doors to access the empty space/coal bunker area of the CCT for access to the lamp hatch windows; the guard would never have had to go out into the open air while the train was running.  Long, perhaps 6 feet footboards and handrails each side of the side doors into his compartment would have assisted safe boarding and leaving the van.