D River

Yes, still reasonably local for the time being - although down the years the port has changed tremendously.

Look forward to seeing that - I used to spend ages shunting and waiting with car trains on the two lines to the right of the site, a lot of the track seen here at 43/44 berth was visible 15 years or so ago, but has been ploughed up since. The cranes went before that, there was a solitary Stothert and Pitt here about twenty years ago, but in pre digital times I never thought to photograph it. The track gauge appears to be the same here - the cranes were moved around the docks, so that makes sense. Despite looking I've not found any drawings detailed enough for models of these older S and P cranes, but to be fair I've not delved too deeply into the archives and they came in a range of designs. They don't feature in the Ocean Terminal Plans I have either, so it'll be great to see what you come up with. Best of luck with it 🙂

Gauges and crane rails... Having just mentioned different forms of crane rails, I took another look at a drawing I have of Dundee and found this - a mixture of the two types, just to add to the confusion. Photographs show a single rail on the outside and a double rail on the inside at Dundee and at Avonmouth. The second photo shows more detail of these arrangements - the central rail / double flange type used in London, and the double rail / single flange type at Bristol. This was also as used at Southampton East and West docks, with the final photo showing wheel detail from the East Docks. Just writing all that makes my head ache...😖

Track gauges and Google Earth...a bit more, Using Google Earth for the cranes I posted the photos of at the QE2 Terminal in Southampton's East Docks the gauge comes out at around 17'6". Using the same magnification and measuring tool the track gauge between the crane rails comes out at about 4.8 feet which is close to correct. The historic image layers (click on the date in the bottom left of the screen show the cranes I photographed in position on those rails back in 2007, again, the measurements appear to show 17'6" for these particular cranes. However, although cranes could be moved around the docks by the floating cranes there were different owners (as pointed out above) for The Town Quay and this had different cranes. Google Earth does appear to show the same 17'6" (ish) gauge in the West Docks to. Clicking through each image in the historic layers box does show some interesting anomalies however, photos that don't quite join, apparent changes in track gauge or what could be blurred out ship for two things...so it as only a guide as already mentioned. Its also worth mentioning that "Gauge" in terms of the crane rails was a centre to centre measurement as there were different forms. Southampton had pairs of rails with a centrally flanged wheel, London seemed to favour a central rail with outside flanged wheels and flangeway guards. As my own models were at 2mm and static I simply sat the wheels in a painted groove. I think that's called cheating...😬

The Stothert and Pitt drawings for DD2 cranes I have (one set in the Stothert and Pitt Book) show different gauges. The Port of London 5 Ton DD2's are shown at 13'6" gauge which is enough to straddle a wagon. However, it does seem to have varied port to port as the gauge in Southampton always seemed wider to me wondering about the docks, the photos below are around the QE2 terminal which Google Earth shows as circa 17'6"...

A bit late to the table I'm afraid, but I had some success building “wooden” trusses in square brass bar using a jig cut from 1mm cardboard. The truss was drawn on, its shape carefully cut out to the widths of the material being used, and then the card was stuck to a mounting board. This last part of the operation required using small sections the truss material to ensure accuracy, and two jigs were made to suit end and intermediate trusses. Individual truss sections were then cut from the material (square brass bar) and soldered up. Despite the heat the jigs survived and remained accurate for the whole build. Best of luck.

Eric - I think you have a very good point here, I'd forgotten there are different end plank arangements. It does very much look as though Dapol have created a hybrid as all the photos from the two batches I'd identified have the wider planks, and not the narrow arangement of the model. What a shame. I have amended the main post to reference your observations - I can see some end overlaying coming... Dave

Good luck with the brake gear, I found when building a group of these SR kits the filing of the moulding seams on the small pegs of the cross members and opening out the holes on the vertical levers was the key. The first set was a real pig, but once I’d learnt that lesson they all seemed to fall together. On the subject of “Bauxite” above, I have spent a lot of time looking at colour photos of trains of vans to try and get this right. What I would say straight away is that colour obviously varies due to the vagaries of lighting, shadow, film emulsions, original undercoats, varnishes, re varnishes and so on. However, even though we might not know what the actual colour “should” have been - there does seem to be quite a range of shades of bauxite in the average train. I am just finishing my 32 wagon fitted van train, and in doing so finishing the second of two Dapol Banana vans. As mentioned above weathering darkens them (the colour is “moulded” - not painted) but after setting out on fitted van train research I came to realise the variety of shades of “the same” body colour in the train was as much part of its character as the different designs of wagon. The Capital Transport colour albums are a good starting point, but I’m sure we all have plenty of books to choose from. Dave

Yes - I read this yesterday having finished my BR model - it is a good introduction to the kit option. I was at PECO back a while, and they said they were considering selling the Parkside chassis separately. If mix and match is possible then I think I will be use Peter Katy’s method for the 1/243 using the Parkside LMS kit. Dave

I did wonder if their wheelsets would be interchangeable - thanks for clarifying that. As for brakes built the wrong way round...I’ve done that a few time myself despite teaching people about them at work...

Thanks Adam

The new position is more typical of most fitted BR wagons using this type of chassis. I hesitate to say “all” as I have seen several variations, but despite crawling around under a great many fitted wagons whilst at work and at play, I have not yet come across the precise arrangement Dapol have chosen (further information welcome). The remaining brake arm was trimmed down until just the shaft pivot and a 7mm length of one side arm remained. This I then attached direct to the piston with Plastic Weld solvent - a representative rather than truly accurate arrangement. The solebars had their prominent holes filled and then their ends, where they are inserted into the buffer beams, packed with slivers of plastic on the outer side of the rebate. This helps “tighten up” the chassis. Next two small right-angle brackets from Plastruct “L” section were added to each solebar/floor joint about midway between ends and doors with the top flanges facing towards the centre of the wagon. A label clip was added to the pad present on each side at this point - the Eric Kemp photographs linked above are invaluable here for checking the chassis detail. Lastly, a larger “T” section bracket was added beneath the doors, noting that these are not central to the door openings. Replacement BR wagon vacuum pipes and dummy coupling brackets from Slaters components (part 7165) went on next, with this type of fitting featuring in most photographs. I decided not to fit steam heat pipes, despite having a set of the excellent DMR/Pheonix Precision lost wax examples to hand, as none are visible in any of the “Yellow Spot” period photographs - earlier comments notwithstanding. All the photographs I have seen do, however, show screw couplings, and a set of Dapol’s provided a good compromise between prototype fidelity and robustness. To fit these either their shanks required thinning and shortening or the height of the hollow plastic moulding behind the buffer beam can be reduced to floor level and the slot in the headstock enlarged. The wheels I chose to leave as supplied rather than attempt to replace with spoked versions. The pin-point axles are a non-standard length so a fair amount of work would be involved and the removal of the solebars and compensating beam from the floor to drill out the axle holes for bearings would seem to be the way to go; possibly sacrificing the as fitted compensation. The specific prototype photo mentioned earlier shows spoked wheels, but the later Eric Kemp and Paul Bartlett photos show three-hole discs. Wagon wheelsets, like axleboxes, were swapped around when wear or damage dictated, so I’m fairly relaxed about this choice. The last modification was aimed at reducing the “slop” in the chassis by inserting a ten thou Plasticard shim behind the compensation beam on the raised ribs at the back of each of the relevant axleguards. This improvement has been used on all of my similar Dapol wagons without compromising the compensation or free running. The last modification was the fitting of a cover plate (right hand end looking at the vacuum cylinder side of the vehicle) made from a 6mm square of 10 thou Plasticard where the heating pipes would have entered as seen in the Eric Kemp photos. Final finishing of the model saw the chassis and wheel faces repainted in a black – brown mix. The body had odd patches touched in to vary colours a little, particularly where the trunking would have been. Base weathering was a thinned mix of the black-brown enamel washed over and cleaned off immediately with a paper towel. The roof moulding also received an initial of coat of Testors Dullcote to take off some of the plastic sheen. Final weathering used various Humbrol powders on roof, body and chassis before several light passes with a Humbrol matt acrylic varnish aerosol completed the job. Hopefully these notes will provide an introduction to the model and prototype; my own model is an interpretation of the material I have been able to find and more information would be welcome. The Dapol product is a quick route to an interesting prototype, and I can see a couple more crossing the workbench to join my pre-nationalisation examples soon…

The Dapol model is of the British Railways diagram 1/242 vehicles. Banana imports were important to the post war railway, and the British Railways building programme included steam heated wagons to serve this traffic. Early construction followed LMS practice with vertically planked bodies and the first two diagrams, 1/240 and 1/241, were mounted on a nine-foot wheelbase chassis. The next diagram, 1/242, had a similar body but became the first to employ a ten-foot wheelbase chassis. The final diagrams for banana vans with vertically planked bodies were 1/243 and 1/244 before construction of ply-sided vehicles commenced. These diagrams were built without steam heating from new, with at least the first just being through piped, and the body strapping and mounting arrangements were again revised. The 1/244 vehicles employed a later chassis design with 8-shoe brakes. The 1/242 wagons were ordered to four lots between 1952 and 1956 and all were built at Faverdale. Photographs show that vehicles of the first two lots were built with a triangular gusset plate arrangement between the body and solebar. In the final two lots this arrangement was changed to extended diagonal side strapping attached to solebar mounting blocks, and it is this version that the model represents. This means the model covers the last two lots of diagram 1/242 and that furthermore they appear to be in their later “Yellow Spot” condition. For the record the lots were 2739 of 1955 numbered B880730 to B880979, and 2866 of 1956 numbered B880980 to B881129. The Dapol body moulding therefore covers four hundred wagons in total. (HOWEVER - SEE ERIC KEMP'S POST BELOW REGARDING THE END PLANKING, PROTOTYPE PHOTOS OF THESE BATCHES ALL SHOW WIDE END PLANKS BUT Dapol HAVE MODELED A NARROW PLANKED END) So what of the “Yellow Spot”? For a long time, I naively thought this simply denoted “Banana Traffic”. When I began to read about the traffic I found it was actually used to denoted vehicles either built or retro-fitted with insulation of a standard not requiring steam heating. This took place because of changes in the banana import and distribution industry whereby the heated journey – which was part of the ripening process – was dropped in favour of an insulated journey to depots where the ripening took place. Warminster and Lingfield spring to mind in the South. This is a much-simplified explanation and more detail can be found in, amongst others, volume four of the “Southern Wagons” series of books. For modellers the “Yellow Spot” provides some potential traps and it seems that there was a transition period whilst the changes took place. The unheated diagram 1/243 vehicles were built with through piping to supply earlier heated vehicles if required. For the earlier diagrams and pre nationalisation vehicles photographs seem to show the situation was more complex. Some pre-nationalisation wagons appear with the pipes and a yellow spot, some with the pipes removed and no yellow spot, and others with pipes removed and a yellow spot. This must have made the shunter’s job fun, although in practice I would guess that there would have been local or traffic instructions or allocations to specified traffic flows which would have prevented marshalling being a problem. All this means it is difficult to be certain of dates for individual vehicles for removal of heating and then the steam heat pipes. So, now to the model. In my own library I very quickly found a photograph of the specific vehicle I had purchased in Don Rowlands “British Railways Wagons - The First Half Million”. This was quite murky as printed, but I found a few other close-up photographs of the four hundred vehicles covered by the model, included some in a video of photographs that Eric Kemp had uploaded to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbUHJ2G2cQI Paul Bartletts excellent site also has a few pictures: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brbanana Thanks to both for sharing their resources. The model I purchased is numbered for a vehicle built as part of the third lot, B880876, and whilst I could not find an as built view of these later lots, the Cheona “British Railways Vans” book contains a good three-quarter view of B880680, the lead vehicle of the previous lot. As new that vehicle was fitted with spoked wheels, screw couplings and steam heat connections. The visible end (right-hand end when looking at the vacuum cylinder side of the vehicle) carries the box section steam heat trunking serving the interior heating. The less distinct 1963 photograph of my subject shows spoked wheels and screw couplings to be discerned and it does show the same end as the earlier van which, by this date, does not have the steam heat trunking. It is not possible (in my copy) to see if steam heat connections are present. A further photo of B880864 in the Cheona “British Railways Vans Volume 2" shows spoked wheels and no steam heat connections, and a plated aperture on the end just below the roof pipework entered the body. One of the Eric Kemp photos provides more of an end view of the same end of B881014 of the last lot which, this bears marks suggesting the trunking has been removed and a similar cover plate. This van has three hole disc wheels. The model itself has an unpainted plastic body moulded in the correct bauxite colour that represents the prototype well. No end trunking is present and door furniture detail, although solidly moulded, is well executed. The roof is similarly pre coloured and features long rain strips and no raised end ribs, which matches the photographs. The chassis is the now standard Dapol compensated 10-foot wheelbase BR version with some commendably fine detail, although it retains the prominent mounting holes from the earlier BR van models. Sprung 4-rib type buffers, sprung plastic coupling hooks and metal three link couplings are provided, along with 3-hole disc wheels. The vacuum cylinder arrangement as modelled does not appear to be typical of the BR ten-foot chassis vehicles in general, and the vacuum pipe emerges through the buffer beam rather than curving up from beneath. No dummy vacuum coupling and bracket are provided. I wanted to make a few improvements to my own model, and apart from weathering, most of the work was concentrated below the body. A start was made by removing the wheels, couplings, vacuum pipes and brake cylinder. The later was achieved by first cutting through the brake arm at the end furthest from the crossbar. This can then be swung away from the remaining portion of the arm attached to the piston. The glue joint between the cylinder and chassis was broken using a pair of mole grips holding the cylinder fore and aft with card packing. The piston was cut off flush with the cylinder before drilling that to take a 1mm plastic rod in its place. I removed 2.5mm of plastic from the cylinder top and applied epoxy resin to its inside walls before repositioning it up against the chassis cross and longitudinal members. The idea is that the glue forms a joint with the floor inside the open end of the cylinder and does not stop the movement of the compensation beam.

I recently purchased one of the new O gauge Dapol British Railways Banana vans, and after doing a bit of research and making a few changes to it thought the following notes might be of interest. They represent the distillation of my researches but are by no means definitive, and more information would be welcomed.

DD2 Cranes - a few months ago I mentioned I was making a pair of these, and here they are, finally finished. The scale is 2mm/foot, materials Brass and Nickel Silver with fly tying thread for the rigging.