Vacuum fitted 12T vans.

[snowy1051]

HELLO, I would just like to know when did BR first use bauxite brown on fitted vans. I am modelling 1949 ish and I know a lot of Big Four fitted vans were still around, but am not sure what colour they would have been. Also when was the XP stamped on the wagon side first used? Many thanks for any info.

[The Johnster]

The bauxite and grey liveries were introduced immediately on nationalisation and were making their presence felt by 1949.  The majority of freight vehicles would have been in Big 4 liveries, but a massive program of upgrading of the better old wagons was getting under way and new builds were still to Big 4 designs.  There was an 'Ideal Wagons Committee' that was overseeing all this.  So as well as Big 4 wagons in their Big 4 liveries, they can also appear in Bauxite as new builds or repaints.

 

The IWC improved the better or more recent Big 4 wagons with new brakes, disc wheels, and vacuum fitted many of them, but some unfitted vans and opens were still being built.

 

XP originated long before and would have been common on fitted vehicles (except minerals, and few enough of those were fitted anyway in 1949).

[kevinlms]

HELLO, I would just like to know when did BR first use bauxite brown on fitted vans. I am modelling 1949 ish and I know a lot of Big Four fitted vans were still around, but am not sure what colour they would have been. Also when was the XP stamped on the wagon side first used? Many thanks for any info.

Don't forget that many LMS vehicles would have the remains of bauxite livery, although unfitted, because the LMS painted wagons bauxite from 1936, regardless of brake status.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The existing fitted wagons of the Big Four were already painted much the same brown as BR's bauxite when BR received them. Essentially nothing changed, especially as the  coating of grime once in traffic produced a wide range of appearance. The majority of vans in traffic in 1949 would have been the LMS and LNER designs with the single sliding door. These are going to be in traffic a long time yet, as BR's van build majored on cupboard doors, and many industrial customer's facilities could not accept these.

 

There are good colour photos available and these are worth inspection.Toward the end of steam in the early sixties, BR had presumably applied paint to most vehicles in traffic, and it is striking how practically no two vans adjacent in a typical fitted van train are a perfect colour match. That's the sum of colour variation of what paint had been applied, fading, and the adhering dirt.

 

(Unfitted vehicles were largely grey - there were exceptions - and BR's freight grey was significantly lighter than what had been typical of the Big Four.)

[kevinlms]

HELLO, I would just like to know when did BR first use bauxite brown on fitted vans. I am modelling 1949 ish and I know a lot of Big Four fitted vans were still around, but am not sure what colour they would have been. Also when was the XP stamped on the wagon side first used? Many thanks for any info.

Regarding the XP lettering, there were specific rules regarding usage of such wagons, mostly relating to using them on passenger trains.

 

Take a look at this earlier thread, especially post #20 (and other posts by The Stationmaster).

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/59577-what-does-xp-mean-on-wagons-eg-gwr/

 

Don't worry that it is a GWR question. Almost identical rules applied to all, the major changes were in the 1960s, when the maximum speeds allowed started to be reduced. Primarily because long runs on welded track, caused hunting and derailments.

[The Johnster]

As to the bauxite livery, it is true that the LMS and LNER were both using it by the time of nationalisation, but it was, in the case of the LMS, a much darker colour than the BR type.  And liveries were highly hit and miss anyway as the economy was plagued by post-war shortages; goods vehicles were painted in anything available that looked close enough and some opens were not painted at all, just varnished bare wood.

 

I would try to include some of the SR design vans in GW and LMS livery produced during the war at Ashford under the direction of the Ministry of Supply to use a stock of pre-cut planks that the works had on hand; wagons of the same overall design were still being built in '49, both of planks and plywood, and RTR is available from Bachmann and Dapol.

 

All this is muddied, almost literally, by the general filthy condition of the nation and especially it's railways, at the time.  Bombed cities still bore the scars, not just in bombsites and ruined buildings, but those that had survived were covered in soot, brick/plaster dust, and general muck from those that hadn't.   Everything looked grim and cheerless, and for many those years were indeed grim and cheerless.  Rationing was worse than it had been during the conflict, as everything was hobbled by an economy desperately trying to balance it's payments for the imports it could not manage without against the background of repaying the Americans for lease lend and struggling in the ultimate failure to retain the empire and our position as a premier world power; people were very afraid of another war, this time with the Russians.  Jobs were plentiful, but wages low and shops empty.  There had been a serious coal shortage over the cold winter of 1947, and production was still suffering it's aftermath.

 

Goods vans were not a high priority in this scenario.

[Il Grifone]

We solved the balance of payments problem in the end by simply ignoring it. I remember in my youth that it was constantly in the news. Now you have to look hard to find any mention of it and harder still to find the figures. IIRC it ended in the eighties, after the demise of the "I'm Backing Britain!" campaign of the seventies. The better Britain that Brexit is going to deliver (maybe). I won't add any more to this....

 

I can remember not being able to get trains, because everything had to go for export, and ration books!       and free orange juice and cod liver oil :( There was also free baby milk (powder) I can't remember mine, but my younger brother had it. (So did my daughter, but she quickly gave it back to us! She had to have the expensive gold (yellow really!) top SMA, not even the white top.)

 

We had another war (on the other side of the world in Korea) and then the final nail in the coffin of the British Empire the Suez crisis. (I heard that the Soviet Union threatened Us and France with nuclear war over this and not being supported by the U.S.A. we backed down. This was obviously not for public consumption (the source was American). It might not be true but would explain our speedy withdrawal.)

 

As stated the bauxite came in almost at once, but the huge stock of wagons meant that pre-nationalisation liveries lingered on for years. (They were grey and brown anyway and were often just rebranded.) I recall seeing a van in the late fifties still proudly proclaiming 'G W' in large letters twenty odd years on from the introduction of the small lettering.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Il Grifone

[clecklewyke]

I lived near the wagon works in the old Hull and Barnsley Springhead depot - heaven to a young boy!

 

I don't recall ever seeing a grey painted open wagon. Their were many open wagons made or repaired there but their woodwork was always unpainted. Only their metal work was painted grey.

 

Ian. 

[kevinlms]

The existing fitted wagons of the Big Four were already painted much the same brown as BR's bauxite when BR received them. Essentially nothing changed, especially as the  coating of grime once in traffic produced a wide range of appearance. The majority of vans in traffic in 1949 would have been the LMS and LNER designs with the single sliding door. These are going to be in traffic a long time yet, as BR's van build majored on cupboard doors, and many industrial customer's facilities could not accept these.

 

There are good colour photos available and these are worth inspection.Toward the end of steam in the early sixties, BR had presumably applied paint to most vehicles in traffic, and it is striking how practically no two vans adjacent in a typical fitted van train are a perfect colour match. That's the sum of colour variation of what paint had been applied, fading, and the adhering dirt.

 

(Unfitted vehicles were largely grey - there were exceptions - and BR's freight grey was significantly lighter than what had been typical of the Big Four.)

Another thing, a considerable number of LMS vans (not sure about the LNER - it may have applied too) were modified to have vacuum brakes fitted, but this was different to those built as such. Usually they had 8 brake shoes, a tie bar between the axle boxes & diagonal strapping added to the left of the doors.

[Fat Controller]

Another thing, a considerable number of LMS vans (not sure about the LNER - it may have applied too) were modified to have vacuum brakes fitted, but this was different to those built as such. Usually they had 8 brake shoes, a tie bar between the axle boxes & diagonal strapping added to the left of the doors.

Both companies stock that was built vacuum-fitted had 8-shoe brakes. In the case of the LMS stock, there were also longer springs on J-hangers. The non-fitted stock had two-shoe Morton brakes. This had a second pair of shoes fitted on the side that didn't have any, along with tie-bars and either new buffers or collars on the existing. I'm not sure if the strengthening diagonal on the side was connected to the fitting of vac-brakes, or simply coincident with it. Certainly, not all ex-unfitted vans were fitted with the diagonals, whilst some received internally-fitted ones, evidenced by lines of bolt-heads.

[The Johnster]

We solved the balance of payments problem in the end by simply ignoring it. I remember in my youth that it was constantly in the news. Now you have to look hard to find any mention of it and harder still to find the figures. IIRC it ended in the eighties, after the demise of the "I'm Backing Britain!" campaign of the seventies. The better Britain that Brexit is going to deliver (maybe). I won't add any more to this....

 

I can remember not being able to get trains, because everything had to go for export, and ration books!       and free orange juice and cod liver oil :( There was also free baby milk (powder) I can't remember mine, but my younger brother had it. (So did my daughter, but she quickly gave it back to us! She had to have the expensive gold (yellow really!) top SMA, not even the white top.)

 

We had another war (on the other side of the world in Korea) and then the final nail in the coffin of the British Empire the Suez crisis. (I heard that the Soviet Union threatened Us and France with nuclear war over this and not being supported by the U.S.A. we backed down. This was obviously not for public consumption (the source was American). It might not be true but would explain our speedy withdrawal.)

 

As stated the bauxite came in almost at once, but the huge stock of wagons meant that pre-nationalisation liveries lingered on for years. (They were grey and brown anyway and were often just rebranded.) I recall seeing a van in the late fifties still proudly proclaiming 'G W' in large letters twenty odd years on from the introduction of the small lettering.

 

We didn't ignore the balance of payments, we eventually balanced it by destroying our manufacturing base and it's reliance on imported raw material, and eventually paying off the lease lend money to the Merkans.  The abandonment of Imperial aspirations, which was still going on in the 60s in places like Aden and Indonesia, and expensive white elephants like Blue Streak and TSR2 (controversial, and I'm not trying to bump a dead debate, honest, but they were costly beyond the nation's means) helped this.  Concorde proved another white elephant, never made a penny for us or a centime for the French; the money might have been betters spent on electrifying railways that should have been done before 1980, the GW and Midland systems in their main line entirities and Trans Pennine.

[hmrspaul]

I lived near the wagon works in the old Hull and Barnsley Springhead depot - heaven to a young boy!

 

I don't recall ever seeing a grey painted open wagon. Their were many open wagons made or repaired there but their woodwork was always unpainted. Only their metal work was painted grey.

 

Ian. 

After 1959 they should have been painted.

 

Paul

[The Johnster]

Which would make them the exception rather than the rule by then; most unfitted wagons and vans had either been scrapped or upgraded to vacuum fitted in accordance with Ideal Wagon Committee instructions.  I cannot recall any grey open merchandise wagons, steel or wooden, that were unfitted in revenue service by my time as a guard at Canton in the 70s, but there were a few around in the 60s.

 

Now, if we are saying that no opens were painted grey until 1959, which I'm not sure we are, that means a rethink for some of my stock; 1959 is right at the end of my period and I wouldn't want too many grey opens if that is not appropriate; one is probably enough and the others have to either be in big 4 liveries or with unpainted woodwork.  

 

We are drifting OT, though, and I will open a new topic.

Edited May 20, 2018 by The Johnster