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"Jurassic Models" ? Well Almost !!


Dad-1

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My Blog tends to chart my workbench activity. With more than a few wagon builds as I needlessly add

even more to the overall collection.

I've decided to try and clear some inherited kits which while very good at their time of issue are now

beginning to fall short of later models. However first I thought I'd add a picture of the Cambrian Dogfish

in it's current decaled but not weathered state.

 

IMG_3747.JPG.f7207380ddada8b03aa153c232ea1160.JPG

 

Right, next I started was a very old Ratio kit, one of a few that have disappeared from the Ratio range.

The Ratio GWR Open 'C', LWB timber/pipe wagon - kit number I don't know, not bothered to search for that !

The kit has the modern Ratio problem of 'W' irons being rather too far apart for modern wheel sets. You need

to add plasticard, or any other material spacers between the ledge of Top Hat bearings and the axle hole. Here

you see before & after.

 

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Having got this far I realised I had much missing, the 'V' hangers in particular, although mouldings were there for DC III brakes

there were no levers. Add to having no instruction I asked and will be getting instructions in the near future to back into a box !

 

O.K Ratio kit number 1501 from the 'New' 1500 series. My packet had the original wrapping from Ratio at Chorleywood on it

there was a pre-decimal postage stamp. As Decimal currency was introduced in 1971 this kit must be OVER 50 years old !!

I started without any searching and when built I thought I'd look to see if there was any information On-Line for a 5 plank

Coke Wagon ? Nothing !! As coke was light the problem was volume not weight so all the information I could fine referred to

7 & 8 plank wagons - Why would you uses only a 5 planker ?

Markings will have to be fictitious, my thoughts are of a small towns gas works P.O. wagon.

Any suggestions on this would be welcomed - but not scrap it !!

 

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My problem now is getting Bachmann narrow couplings, where I need the NEM pockets for my Peco PA34 mountings. I have good

rolling chassis, but to test will need to rob couplings from existing stock.

 

Geoff T.

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It's a long time since I dabbled with stamp collecting as a boy - but I think a pre-decimal version of the current "definitive" stamps was issued, probably around 1968-9. So with a stamp from the original EIIR definitive set your kit really can't be later than about 1968

 

Put another way - I cannot ever remember seeing a stamp like that "in real life" , so that pushes it back to the 1960s ; and Ratio were certainly in Dorset by 1975-6. The coke wagon and the Tube C had gone from the range by then - probably several years gone. If the Coke wagon kit was "new" - it had to go through its entire production life by the early 70s.

 

It's a sobering thought that our current basic stamp design has been with us for over 50 years - longer than even the Victorian "penny red"

 

The extension planks above ("raves") make the coke wagon de facto an 8 planker - the gaps probably make it roughly equivalent to 9 plank . So it isn't really a 5 planker. I assume that this was done a] to lighten the overall structure and reduce the centre of gravity and b] to enable the wagon to be converted down to a 5 planker (commonly used by small coal merchants, rather than major collieries and big users)

 

I have an unbuilt Ratio coke wagon in the cupboard (second -hand : I'm not that old)

Edited by Ravenser
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Thanks for the reply Ravenser,

 

It's quite entertaining trying to unearth as much of the historic kit information as possible.

Still much to do, but here it is with the only coupling I have being harmonized with my existing

stock, which out of interest is my only other coke wagon.

 

IMG_3792.JPG.e673160231b6b0470957151c359d2dbc.JPG

 

As expected it runs well at the end of a train. Until I can find another coupling it can't be heavily loaded with a string

of wagons behind. Not weighed it either, but I really don't think it needs, or would benefit from any

 

As a 5 planker I expected it to be lower than the more usual 7 & 8 plank coke wagons, however the fact it has 3 raves

rather than 2 brings it very close as can be seen in the picture. The Thomas W Ward wagon is my only other coke wagon

and is a Mainline model that's had the original coupling mountings sawn off and replaced with Peco PA34 mountings

fitted with Bachmann couplers. The original wheel sets have been replaced with Dapol, whereas the Ratio kit wheels

are Hornby, note the deeper flanges always handy should you end up with a less than flat chassis. This wagon is flat,

no diagonal rock at all.

 

Shortcomings, not really that bad, no side door buffer strips as you find on say, the Dapol 16 ton mineral, but then there

are none on the Mainline wagon either.

 

Back to some painting and perhaps dreaming up my P.O. markings, I wonder 'Bridport Gas' ??

 

Geoff T

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10 hours ago, Ravenser said:

Put another way - I cannot ever remember seeing a stamp like that "in real life" , so that pushes it back to the 1960s

 

January 1954 issue, I think, from a helpful website of UK stamps.  Of course, it could have been posted later....

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Thanks for the extra info snitchthebudgie.

Proves it's not a New kit !!

 

Pinched a coupling with NEM pocket from another wagon and fitted on. It runs well as expected.

I decided to finish the body painting with some dark grey.

Apart from hanging door stops it's very good. now needing those decals.

 

IMG_3793.JPG.d6be8b3f275d7db7b30950f994a59856.JPG

 

Obviously the chassis needs painting black and the whole thing weathering.

 

I was wondering what might make a reasonable coke load. All my various coal substitutes are far too black.

I'm thinking perhaps woodland scenics medium cinders would do, only I don't have any for a final appraisal.

 

Now I have more info on the Open 'C' I'll probably get back to that. Making up 'V' hangers and such that's missing.

 

Geoff T

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Just got dates of 1959 - 1961 at Chorleywood, then moved to a new address.

So this kit was produced as near to 60 years ago as can be reasonably calculated.

 

Information from the Brighton Toy Museum.

 

Geoff T.

Edited by Dad-1
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Free at last!

 

Not bad for a kit of that age. I like the idea of a town gas works for the lettering. Or maybe letter it "Ratio & Co., Chorleywood" :)

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Ratio & Son...

 

I think the business passed through two generations of the Webster family before Peco bought it

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I've prepared a couple of decals, 'Bridport Gas' in red on a yellow oval

outlined in black. Factious of course, except that there was a Bridport

Gas & Coke company.

 

Geoff T. 

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I’m new to this forum so excuse any howlers I make. As a further observation on the Ratio ‘5 plank’ coke wagon kit found by Dad-1 I offer these thoughts. I bought this wagon (see below) wheel-less and unloved as part of a job-lot of wagons on the bay of E (I only wanted the Palvan!).

 

Above the solebars my wagon seems identical to Dad-1’s kit but below is completely different apart from having a 10 foot wheelbase. It has no sub-floor ‘frame’, the floor is in two halves and without plank marks. Dad-1’s kit has a steel solebar and what seems to be a hole for capstan/horse haulage. My wagon has the steel solebar but no hole! I also think the buffers are quite different, mine being more spindly as if for a fitted van and not stubby RCH mineral. I think someone broke off the coupling hook on my model too.

If I didn't know it was Ratio I’d say my wagon was early Parkside or Kirk in origin. Page 8 of Ian Rice’s ‘Getting the best from plastic kits’ has a photo of this kit but he’s tinkered with it to use a Ratio 10 foot underframe kit. I’m wondering if that’s happened to my wagon.

As I'm modelling 1955-60 BR I’d just give it a random P number and weather it a lot as by 1963 nearly all these Private Owner wagons and LMS/LNE wooden wagons had been dumped in sidings or burnt according to Dave Larkin.

I've subsequently found two pictures. One of an unknown prototype and one a model of an LNWR wagon at the NRM which suggest that these type of coke wagons were once quite common but as beyond living memory have been forgotten. If I've en-fringed any copyright please let me and I'll credit you or remove them.

 

 

Ratio kit (1).jpg

Ratio kit (3).jpg

images.jpg

lnwr_10_ton_coal_and_gas_coke_wagons_at_nrm_by_rlkitterman 2.jpg

Edited by 21D
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Having just got back from a trip to watchet just now I have picked up some old kits at a junk shop on the harbour from after a hot dog for dinner I went upstairs to the junk emporium , 

 where I bought a job lot of kits, mainly a collection of coopercraft kits  with made in swain street watchet labels on so they traveled around three hundred yards in thirty years from being made !

 But in the job lot were two coke wagon kits which is why I found this thread trying to find out about these kits as I haven't had any of theses kits befor, I presume I am going to run in to the to wide apart axelbox problem found with the open C and N.B cask wagon ,which I cure by packing out the brass bearing cups with 2mm washers behind the flange of the top hat bearings,with just enough. Of the bearing left to locate in the axelbox hole, 

 if your still reading are there any transfers I can use on these coke kits out there like  dad 1 s Bridport Gas  ones which I like , but perhaps I ought to put Sturminster Newton Gas Co to reflect there beginnings ?

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Try POW Sides . \their range should cover nearly everything

 

A smooth floor without planking sounds more like Slaters than Ratio

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