Compound2632

Turton's Thirteenth Collection (Lightmoor Press, 2014) pp. 68-69 has an article on F. & R.H. Johnson of Derby, who had a number of S.J. Claye-built 5-plank, 8-ton wagons, including No. 16, a photograph of which appears; the date seems a bit ambiguous but to my eyes it has more the flavour of an 1890s wagon. Fortuitously, this photo appears on Lightmoor's website, advertising this volume: [Embedded link] This wagon has a number of points of similarity with the Newington wagon - the door filler piece and wooden stop-blocks - but differs in having the diagonal straps inside, rather than outside, the sheeting. Note how the diagonal strap terminates as a bolt projecting through the corner-plate.

https://www.monksgate.co.uk/shop/midland-railway-water-tank-panel-plain-r69bc-sms4g-azc62-n26p6-7dy5n-e8xe2-wml49-e6xw9-pwjf6-9y6wk-3wzrm

Another topic that has been discussed hereabouts. just the one in 1895, I think, established by a Mr Lloyd-Price: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_whisky#Revival. See also: https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/32565#?xywh=-1%2C-48%2C700%2C536 and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frongoch_internment_camp. The climate of Welsh Methodism and the Temperance Movement was rather inimicable to the whisky business.

But of course. The 'Eupatoria' of which this engine was a renewal was a member of the Alma sub-class of 1854/5 of the Iron Duke class: Alma, Balaklava, Crimea, Eupatoria (no battle beginning with D!), Inkerman, Kertch, Sebastapol - all renewed as Rovers.

I had to look that up. I was expecting it to be the name of some Greek nymph but it turns out to be a Crimean War battle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Eupatoria.

We have a comb for the purpose on one or other of our bedside tables; being sat on while administering several hundred combs inbetween trying to drink one's tea and do a sudoku is part of the morning ritual.

The classic early (pre-continuous brakes) photo of such a set with Terrier 'Poplar' that Dapol have used in their advertising was taken at Selsden Road North Signal Box, near Croydon. So not exactly a bucolic Sussex byway, Am I right in thinking that it was only carriages transferred the Isle of Wight that survived long enough to receive Southern livery?

A couple of pictures of Johnson 4-4-0s have been posted, and very elegant they look. But at the time of the accident, 446 was a very different-looking engine, having been rebuilt with the larger-diameter H boiler in December 1905. Here's 444 rebuilt in the same way, along with another unidentified H-boiler rebuild, at Armathwaite on 3 August 1911: [Embedded link to catalogue image of Midland Railway Study Centre item 88-1996-71_4, Derby official photo DY9599.] It was rebuilt as a 483 Class superheated 4-4-0 (the precursor of the LMS standard 2P) in March 1921.

As PTA Chair, a good few years ago, I had to help run a Bingo evening or three. We had an excellent caller.

Come now, like "59, five and nine, the Brighton line" it's a well-established bingo call, recognised even by Bingo-players who weren't playing before 1923 - and there are such.

The Bachmann model is at least a very decent representation of an RCH 1923 specification wagon, right down to the post-war capping strip brackets, so if one was presented with the inappropriately SECR-liveried model one could at least get to work distressing it, obliterating the lettering, to end up with a decent model. What I was alluding to is far, far, worse.

S. Turner, Private Owner Wagons of the South-East Part 2 (Lightmoor Press, 2022) pp. 146-7. Part view in a photo taken a Lewes c. 1905, with a sketch based thereupon. Turner reports that the firm had at least 14 wagons, numbered 100-113, hired from S.J. Claye of Long Eaton from 1895 until at least 1909, with No. 111 repaired by Claye in 1914 after being damaged by the LB&SCR. Nos. 106, 107, and 113 were recorded at Sheffield Park in Nov 1899 - Jan 1900, giving spot on topicality. Rapido's 5-plank model is a good match for the wagon in the photo, as far as it can be seen, with side knee washer straps turning outwards at the bottom and external diagonal straps. There are two visible departures from the wagon in the photo: the lack of the half-round batten on the side rail below the door and the lack of wooden door stops - one can just about be made out in the photo, so they're shown on the sketch. These would be easy enough to add to the model. The rest is darkness; I'd want to find photos of other Claye-built 5-plankers of the period. Dimensions are also guesswork, I think. From the Midland Railway PO Wagon Registers, Claye was building in 1897 8-ton wagons with internal dimensions either 14' 6" x 7' 0" x 3' 1 1/2" or 15' 6" x 7' 0" x 2' 11", with full-height side doors (add 6" to length and width to get length over headstocks and width over side sheeting). Of course the wagon in the photo might not be one of Newington's 14 Claye wagons but there's no evidence the firm had any others. Unless Rapido and the Bluebell have information not in Turner, the brown woodwork is a guess, as far as I can see, and a guess in the face of probability, which says grey is most likely! Also, from the photo in Turner, I think the lettering is shaded black - this is half-heartedly suggested by the sketch, which is faithfully reproduced by the model. The purchaser is left to supply their own number (LH end, bottom plank, I suppose), tare weight and Load 8 (probably) Tons (customarily LH and RH ends of the side rail, respectively) an registration plate on the solebar. The photo isn't sufficiently high resolution to read the oval owner's plate, which ought to tell us that it is S.J. Clay's; we also lack his builder's plate and perhaps a 'For Repairs Advise' plate. All nitpicking of course (not rivet-counting - no rivets in a PO wagon) on what is a very nicely-done model which I hope boosts the Bluebell Railway Goods Division's coffers so that more full-sized vehicles can be sympathetically restored and maintained. Things have certainly moved on from just a few years ago when such a commission would likely have used a 17' 6"-style wagon model with steel underframe and 10 ft wheelbase - mentioning no names but you know who I mean. (The horror! The horror!)

The second digit looks rounded top and bottom - 0, 3, 6, 8, or 9 - and the third flat-topped but round-bottomed - 5? Neither 33xxx or 38xxx are 3-plank series, the former being mostly loco coal wagons and the latter cattle wagons. 36547 was from os Lot 294 and 39547 os Lot 323, but both these were built square-ended. That would leave 30547 of os Lot 188 but that lot ought to have wood end pillars rather than iron stanchions, surely?

That's not physics - it's biology. But the same two rules apply to the digestion of cake by large mammals.

Except to remark on that one really shouldn't put H0 rolling stock behind an 00 locomotive.

Looking good! It would almost be a shame to cover up all that lovely detail with a sheet.

This is true but Powsides do a good few for Gloucester wagons based on Gloucester official photos taken in the late 1890s and early 1900s, which is good for my 1902 date! (Too many nearly-new wagons, not enough old dumb buffers - which is tolerable in a Midland context but poor balance for other lines.) On the other hand, the Slaters Gloucester wagons have the round-bottomed Gloucester type 4 axleboxes of the early 90s rather than the square-bottomed 4S ones seen in all those photos. Fortunately Dart / MJT have cast whitemetal ones, or one can use the Cambrian Models Gloucester underframes.

Jonathan now has a full set of instructions for the 4mm ones, thanks to @mikeallerton posting them on my carriage-building thread.

My Bishopbriggs uncle and aunt, both from south of the border, for many years never voted as their votes would have cancelled out - he Labour, she Conservative. But once the SNP became a significant force, they both started voting - he Labour, she Conservative...

A modeller of the SECR clamouring for Midland opens - music to my ears! Although to be fair, balanced, and open minded, I think Great Northern ones would also be useful to you - there was a great deal of mineral traffic via both companies passing onto the SECR and LBSCR.

At your period, Evans and Bevan's sole colliery was Seven Sisters, Neath, producing anthracite: http://www.dmm.org.uk/company/e1007.htm. Headleys has an entry in Turton's Tenth. The Headley brothers were proprietors of Cwrt-y-Bettwys colliery ate Coed Franc near Neath, Brynwith and Raglan collieries at Pencoed, east of Tondu, and Garnet Colliery at Jersey Marine. The two Gloucester wagons of 1902 illustrated are marked Empty to Raglan Colliery Sidings. As far as I can make out, these were all anthracite.

In 1923, the directors of the Ruabon Coal & Coke Co. were Charles B.O. Clarke (Chair)*, H.D. Dennis (Managing Director), P.S. Godman, G.N.E. Hall-Say, H. Kent, and Sir Stephenson H. Kent, KCB: http://www.dmm.org.uk/company/r1004.htm. Clarke and Kent were also directors of Powell Duffryn among other coal firms. A partial list of Great Western directors reveals no overlap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Directors_of_the_Great_Western_Railway, which is not to say that at some period the two companies may not have had directors in common. *His parents must carry for the blame for the misery he undoubtedly suffered at school in consequence of his middle initials. It would appear that HRH was down one of the pits of the Wynnstay Colliery Co., whose directors in 1923 were L.E.W. and T.F. Edgerton: http://www.dmm.org.uk/company/w1043.htm. The Durham Mining Museum website is a really useful tool, though it does not have a complete list of collieries.

Yes, No. 10282 is in my little list! (Psst - the headstocks should be square-ended not slope ended.)

Paul Merton had the ultimate riposte to the Baconian, Oxfordian, etc. authorship fantasies: they are the product of snobbery by people who can't accept that the greatest poetry and drama the world has ever heard was written by someone who spoke with a Brummie accent. This was illustrated by a rendition of the "To be or not to be" monologue in perfect Brummie...

Schools are required to have a "British Values Statement" amongst their paperwork. These are unexceptional statements of what I would consider generally-accepted human values but I find they are increasingly un-British compared with the values espoused by those said to be representing us, or with Government policy.