On 05/01/2023 at 17:55, magmouse said:

 

1. I think the picture of 9669 strongly suggests they were - wheel rim, brake block, push rods, etc., all the same tone. It seems to me very unlikely the different materials and manufacturing processes involved would all arrive at the same 'natural' finish.

 

2. Why paint anything? But yes, a fair question, since a big lump of steel isn't going to rust much relative to the life of the item. Are wheels painted these days?

 

3. No idea.

 

 

Have a look at the whole picture:

 

 

The sun is high in the sky (see the shadows of the springs) leaving the sole bar in shadow - all but the front edge of the bottom flange, which just catches the light. That's why the sole bar looks darker. The darker end to the buffer beam is because the ends of the buffer beams are angled, so the L-section in the corner bends to tuck under and follow the diagonal cut of the beam. The light on the buffer beam ends is therefore at a skimming angle to the surface and lights it less brightly.

 

I'm convinced this wagon is all the same colour, and I am fairly sure (but less certain) it is grey, not black.

 

Nick.

 

I'm with you on it being grey, I feel Russel is mistaken in recalling them being black. There are plenty of pics in Atkins et al that steer towards them being grey. The shade was quite dark anyhow.

I'd always assumed the wheels to be black, but your picture is making me question that now. I'll have to chuck Mikkel's picture through my Orthochromatic filter in Photoshop ands see if I get the same results.

On 16/01/2023 at 22:18, 57xx said:

I'll have to chuck Mikkel's picture through my Orthochromatic filter in Photoshop ands see if I get the same results.

This statement has led me down a deep rabbit hole this week! 🙈 

Whilst I had already made an orthochromatic filer in Photoshop, I decided to revisit it. During the research I discovered the information I had used was flawed (someone else on a 'tinternet forum trying to achieve the same thing) but I then able to find enough info to make a better version. I also found out that, as usual, there is a lot of conflicting data out there!

The first monochromatic films were blue sensitive, no response to greens, yellows or reds. Then along cam orthochromatic films where they extended the colour sensitivity to include greens and yellows, but still not reds. Here is where the first conflict of info comes - some say they were still hypersensitive to blue, others indicate a lessened sensitivity to blue. The later is true for modern film stocks. So I made two filters, each with a different response to blues.

Then came panchromatic film that included red sensitivity. Some info I have seen shows the sensitivity to peak in the reads (over exposing that part of the spectrum). however, the deeper you dig, the more you find that there are as many sensitivity ranges as there are brands and versions of film stock! So I put a finger in the air and created a filter for this too.

Here is one of the sites I used for research:

https://www.analog.cafe/r/ilford-ortho-plus-80-film-review-hz9m

Look at the first picture of the tomatoes to show the dramatic effect ortho film has.

This site was handy for adjusting the filters using a copy of the colour parrot picture dropped into the templates and tweaked to match the corresponding b/w images.

So what were the results? Read on!

Firstly Mikkel's pic.

Ortho:

Panchromatic:

In contrast to a regular greyscale conversion, you can notice a difference in the red and "black" In either case though, it doesn't take a great leap in imagination to realise a slightly different dirty shade of black on the axleboxes could easily match the grey shade the red gives.

On to Nick's pics. I deliberately chose to start with the pic with the worktop "clutter" on, as the background items help with visualising the way different colours get rendered in grey on the different film stocks.

Ortho:

Panchromatic:

And finally one more ortho pic:

My take-away from this is that trying to determine colours from b/w images is a bigger minefield than ever (as I think we already knew anyhow really). Without knowing the actual film stock used, lighting conditions, exposure, developing process etc on any given picture, you won't know how the colours have rendered in b/w. If you know for sure the colours of the original subject in the picture e.g. the tomatoes, then a keen eye can work out the type of film used. If you're trying to work out what shade of red or grey was used for example and if other items in the b/w picture are the same, I refer back to Nick's statement:

Quote

It's amazing how easy it is for the eye/brain to be fooled, but careful observation can usually give some clues as to what is going on.

Wow - thank you for going so far down the rabbit hole on this one. Fascinating stuff. Thinking about this in subjective terms, your last photo, showing the finished wagon, has a tonality that reminds me of some of the reference pictures I have been using. These show wagons in ex-works condition, and early enough to definitely be in the red livery (G.W.R lettering on the left, etc.). Looking at these and asking myself, "are these painted black?", my visual sense is quite happy to accept the answer "yes". The last picture in your post gets the same response from me.

Of course, there are other photos that don't give that impression. The difficulty with all this is we are trying to pin down the timing of a change of colour of the wagons, where we have a good sense of the earliest and latest likely dates, but the available photographic chemistry is changing over the same period. As you say, going from known colours to an explanation of why they render in a particular way in a particular photo (the tomatoes) is one thing. Going from unknown chemistry back to specific colours, especially when one of them is grey anyway, is another.

Nick.

And of course it's not just a question of the chromatic response of the plate or film but also of the surface finish of the object - whether gloss or matt. Two surfaces of the same colour under the same lighting conditions will appear different depending on the proportion of specular to diffuse reflection.

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

And of course it's not just a question of the chromatic response of the plate or film but also of the surface finish of the object - whether gloss or matt. Two surfaces of the same colour under the same lighting conditions will appear different depending on the proportion of specular to diffuse reflection.

Very much so - especially with black and dark colours, where when they catch the light you see the reflection of the light source (the sky in the case of outdoor photographs), and where they don't, you see very little as there is neither diffused light not specular reflection, so they go very dark.

Which brings us back to boiled linseed oil on another thread...

Nick.

55 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Wow - thank you for going so far down the rabbit hole on this one. Fascinating stuff. Thinking about this in subjective terms, your last photo, showing the finished wagon, has a tonality that reminds me of some of the reference pictures I have been using. These show wagons in ex-works condition, and early enough to definitely be in the red livery (G.W.R lettering on the left, etc.). Looking at these and asking myself, "are these painted black?", my visual sense is quite happy to accept the answer "yes". The last picture in your post gets the same response from me.

You're welcome, Nick. I love understanding how things work and love a challenge in creating things too so this topic encompassed that. Maybe getting an SLR for my 18th birthday many decades ago and shooting many rolls of b/w also had an influence.

7460 does look very black doesn't it. Contrast that with what we would also say is a red wagon on the workbench and there is quite a difference in shade there due to less red spectrum that we might imagine. Similarly, looking at 632 in panchromatic, I would have said that is a grey wagon if I didn't know any better.

55 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Of course, there are other photos that don't give that impression. The difficulty with all this is we are trying to pin down the timing of a change of colour of the wagons, where we have a good sense of the earliest and latest likely dates, but the available photographic chemistry is changing over the same period. As you say, going from known colours to an explanation of why they render in a particular way in a particular photo (the tomatoes) is one thing. Going from unknown chemistry back to specific colours, especially when one of them is grey anyway, is another.

I omitted to include some key date info in my post that you have brought up here as a very valid point. As you say, the change from red to grey livery also coincided with when panchromatic film stock* became available (mid nineteen noughties). Quite a lot of texts say it was prohibitively expensive so didn't come into common use until much later, so you might expect most pics of the era still to be using ortho film. Would the cost have been an issue to a large company like the railways? That really could throw a spanner in the works when trying to analyse a photo.

Another related thought, the penny really dropped as to where photographic grey liveries came from when reading about the monochromatic blue sensitive films.

*Edit, probably a more correct term for the era is plates rather than film stock.

12 minutes ago, 57xx said:

Quite a lot of texts say it was prohibitively expensive so didn't come into common use until much later, so you might expect most pics of the era still to be using ortho film. Would the cost have been an issue to a large company like the railways?

Well, the railway company photographic archives are huge, with tens of thousands of images, and the late 19th and early 20th century seems to have been a period when the companies were keen to record what they were doing - it's not entirely obvious why, but we should be grateful.

This is entirely speculative, but given the scale of the operation, run by the companies' own photographers, they may well have being doing the whole process in house - preparing the glass plates, processing and printing as required. They might well have stuck to tried and tested processes some time after 'better' technologies were available. Does anyone know about the photography departments of railway companies?

19 minutes ago, 57xx said:

Another related thought, the penny really dropped as to where photographic grey liveries came from when reading about the monochromatic blue sensitive films.

Yes - vital to see detail given the dark, often red and green liveries of locos.

Nick.

Fascinating, thanks for experimenting with this.

Interesting how the orthochromatic seems to register red/black differences better than panchromatic, despite being the earlier type. And how the red looks darker than black in the first ortho shot of the one-planker.

I think someone on here, possibly @MikeOxon, compared grey and red wagons in a similar way. 

Thanks for reposting this information, Mike. The sensitivity charts are a really helpful to illustrate what is going on with the different types of emulsion. The dates are also useful for us, with red-sensitive emulsion only arriving in 1906 - and presumably, as discussed, there would be a fairly extended period before the new technology was fully adopted.

Nick.

Thanks, Mike - more helpful information to put this in context.

Nick.

Thanks, Graham - all that is interesting information.

My own research - less comprehensive than yours - came to the conclusion that either no 4-plank wagons were fitted with sheet supporters from new, or only a small proportion, possibly the last ones to be built (noting that 4-plank wagons were still being built after the first 5-plank wagons were introduced, which seem to have had supporters from new).

And, yes, I had noticed to two possible heights for the pivot point. I chose for the wagon described in this blog entry to go for the higher position, but I have built another with a sheet rail in the lower position (to be described in a future blog post). I wanted to do this for variety, especially in the ridge height of my various sheeted wagons. With the lower position, the end number has to squeeze between the corner plate and the end stanchion. On the prototype this was managed by the painters painting very squashed up numerals - I elected for a number with three ones in it: 41211! See below.

Regarding whether the bar is common to the two types, I would say it can't be, as the length of the vertical part of the bar is determined by the distance from the pivot to the top edge of the sides of the wagon. The bar, when lowered, has to land exactly on the top edge, otherwise it would be in the way and prone to damage. Looking at photos of wagons with the bar lowered, this is always the case. The size of the bar is determined not by how far up the pivot point is, but how far down it is, below the top of the wagon sides and ends. Look at pictures of the 7-plank wagon to see this.

I would expect all the other parts to be the same - the semicircular guide, the pivot casting, and the spacer blocks. The trapezoid piece of sheet metal attached to the verticals is probably the same, I would think, with it's vertical positioning adjusted in relation to the top edge of the wagon ends.

Is there somewhere where we can see the work of your S7 group? It would be great to have a look.

Nick.

3 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Is there somewhere where we can see the work of your S7 group? It would be great to have a look.

Yes please!

1 hour ago, Western Star said:

The five involved in this crazy escapade are  Chris Brown, Ian Haynes, myself, my son and Tony Overton...  yes Stephen, I do mean to say that one of us likes D299, D305 and D351.

Come now, Midland wagons - who could resist? No need to make excuses!

A footnote on Williams' patent sheet supports:

Somerset [& Dorset] Joint Committee minutes, TNA RAIL 626/5:

5 August 1903

2721      Fitting Goods Wagons with Williams’ Patent Sheet Supports

                              It was agreed that, in carrying out renewals, 50 wagons be fitted with Williams’ patent sheet supports, at an estimated cost of £181.5.0 as recommended by the Officers by their minute No. 5507.

This would seem to imply that the sheet support was added to newly-built wagons only. Renewals were probably at the rate of 50 - 60 per year at this time, the rate being based on a nominal 20-year lifetime. Wagons built as renewals were built at Highbridge.

Then:

2 May 1906

2935      Sheet Supports for Goods Wagons

                              The recommendation of the Officers by minute No. 5865 that fifty additional patent sheet supports for goods wagons be obtained through the South Western Company at an estimated cost of £140, was approved.

... which I think suggests these were to be retrofitted to existing wagons, as they came through the works. 

This suggests that by 1907-ish, 100 S&DJR high-side wagons, out of about 700, were fitted with the LSWR version of the sheet supporter. There is one official photo of a standard 8-ton wagon so fitted; the wagon is No. 141, built at Highbridge in 1886 and sporting the Midland type 8A axleboxes of that period [DY8581, plate 70 in Colin Maggs' Highbridge in its Heyday].

Thanks, Stephen - another bit of the jigsaw. I assume the reference to “South Western Company” is the LSWR? I also assume you have worked through all the minutes for the intervening years, so we know there were no further orders for sheet supporters in between these two?

Nick.

23 minutes ago, magmouse said:

 “South Western Company” is the LSWR? I also assume you have worked through all the minutes for the intervening years, so we know there were no further orders for sheet supporters in between these two?

Correct on both counts.  That photo of wagon No. 141 is square on so one can't see whether it has the simple catch or the semi-circular guide.

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

That photo of wagon No. 141 is square on so one can't see whether it has the simple catch or the semi-circular guide.

If the mechanisms were obtained via the LSWR, it seems likely they would be of the same type the LSWR were using, with the semicircular guide and the Williams Patent text on, as we looked at before.

Nick.

On 13/10/2023 at 20:17, Compound2632 said:

That photo of wagon No. 141 is square on so one can't see whether it has the simple catch or the semi-circular guide.

I had overlooked the photo of No. 334, p. 61 of Stephen Austin's Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway A View from the Past. It's a partial view in a photo of the very pretty little 2-4-0 No. 16A; it has flitched frames and Ellis 10A axleboxes, so could well be one of the renewals of 1903 authorised to have the sheet supports. The outside of the end isn't visible but the trapezoidal plate is in evidence.