Compound2632

Or, depending on period, one of the composites downgraded to third?

I should perhaps clarify that after aerosol primer, I'm always brush painting.

It might be worth mentioning how I fit the bearings. With a 2 mm dia bit, I drill out the plastic bearing from the rear face of the moulding and cut away any excess from the front. The MJT shouldered bearings won't quite go through this hole until a dab of MekPak is applied, so one ends up with a nice tight fit. I leave the moulded rim on the inside of the axleguard; this puts the bearings in just the right position for a splay-free snug fit to the Alan Gibson pin-point axles: The axlebox mouldings are a snug fit over the bearings.

What white primer did you use? I have found that the coverage of Precision paint is rather dependent on the primer - not that I've found a good white primer for this; Halfords grey plastic primer and red primer are OK but I've not been so satisfied using Acid 8 etch primer, which is a light grey. In other words, I think the issue may be paint chemistry rather than colour.

Some kit-building... Historical modelling, in fact. A pair of LNWR D4 opens from Ratio kits: The history of the Ratio LNWR wagon kits was discussed way upthread. On the left, off-white body and floor mouldings and black underframe mouldings, an early example - kit ref. 752, LNWR 4 plank & 2 plank, with instructions for all three of the original pairs of wagons, 751, 1 plank and ballast/dropside wagon, and 753, loco coal and traffic coal, all illustrated in LNWR livery, and with Pressfix transfers. The body mouldings come on a pair of sprues each of which have the one side and one end for each wagon. (I've built the diagram D2 2 plank wagon bar the wooden brake block, which I have yet to make.) On the right, grey body moulding, brown floor moulding, and buff underframe moulding, a later issue, as kit ref, 576, LMS traffic coal/4 plank wagon set, with instructions for these only, the colour photograph showing early LMS livery, and with waterslide transfers. There are four body moulding sprues, each with a side and end - one can see that these are simply half-sprues from the two kits. What, one wonders, became of the moulds for the other half of each, for the 2 plank and loco coal wagons? The latest issue,* under the Parkside by Peco label, as kit ref PC576, is substantially the same as this, with the same colour mouldings, but instructions in which the colour photo is reproduced in monochrome. Somewhere along the line the original transfer artwork has been lost; the kit now comes with a waterside transfer sheet with lettering of what looks to be the "nearest computer font" - which shows, most obviously in the different thicknesses of verticals and horizontals. *Or at least, as bought a couple of years ago. The 4 plank wagon can be built as diagram D4 or D9 depending on choice of axleboxes and brake gear, though I think the original choice of the carriage-type oil axleboxes was a bit eccentric, as the flat-fronted type appear to have been much more common. For the wagon from the early kit, I've adapted these axlebox mouldings to resemble the round-bottomed grease type, since I'd used those on the D2 2 plank, with fronts fabricated from Evergreen strip. The kit box contained a bag with Alan Gibson wheels (plain spoke - into the wheel store, split-spoke being used) and blackened buffer heads, which I used, and another bag with unblackened brass heads, which went into the buffer store. They came out again, as I found no buffers in the later kit... Both kits were second-hand and I'm uncertain what wheels were originally supplied. The "traffic coal" half of the second kit, representing the 10-ton diagram D54, is scheduled for cutting down and shortening to make another 15 ft 8-ton D53.

Photographs of both sides of the same 1870s engine must be pretty rare!

I don't know what led me to write Vignoles instead of Barlow - corrected in post. Vignoles rail was more of a low-profile wide flat-bottomed rail; similar idea.

Looks to me to be dumb-buffered; I'd say it's an old mineral wagon that has been stripped down to the cant rails to make a flat wagon, with just a couple of end boards left, rather raggedly, to restrain the load.

Earley, in the Unitary Borough of Wokingham - not at all Reading, as @Happy Hippo can attest. (Look out for the nesting herons next time you're down.) Being on the ridge twixt Loddon and Kennett, we look down on Reading. But the point about The Office being in Slough, with the firm's other office in Swindon (or was it the other way round) is that those are two places the natives of Reading can and do look down on. But myself, I'm from the West Midlands.

S.W. Johnson's Presidential Address to the I. Mech. E. includes a plate illustrating early Midland permanent way, which is reproduced in Midland Style, Fig. 1. This shows what at first glance looks like baulk track (and is so interpreted in Midland Style) but is in fact Barlow rail: Johnson described it thus: (Text cut, pasted, and tided up from pdf of The Engineer, 10 June 1898. Adobe's OCR struggles a bit; in place of "sleepers" it gave me, appropriately enough, "bloopers".)

Or Swindon. (For those who recall The Office, a reminder that Ricky Gervais is a native of Reading...)

{Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 60914.]

I suspect that the artist has distorted the proportions a fair bit. Rail lengths at this date were no more than 20 ft. Even if it is baulk road, the cross-timbers would be much closer together than in the picture.

The Monsal Dale illustration is on p. 148 of this edition: https://archive.org/details/midlandrailwayit00will/page/148/mode/2up. I wonder if what we're seeing is track with the sleepers ballasted over except at the rail joints? Compare this pre-1867 photo of Bedford: [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 60128] and Kirklington in 1871: [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 61747]

Embedded link to catalogue image of MRSC 77-12462-07. The extensive online catalogue description of this item reads: Embedded link to catalogue image of MRSC 70780, Bugsworth station building, Nigel Hadlow photograph. As for baulk road, @Crimson Rambler.

Ah, I hadn't thought of it being a lime or limestone wagon, originally, in which case, as I understand it, it might well not have been requisitioned in 1939 and hence have evaded the P-prefix series. But I'm not well-up on this period. Larkin's Acquired Wagons Vol. 5 seems only to include such wagons built to the RCH 1923 specification. I think your suggested dimensions are about right though I think it may be as short as 15 ft over headstocks. Cambrian's Hurst Nelson wagon ref C52 might be a good starting point in 4 mm scale - scrape off the outside diagonal straps, trip the axleboxes to round-bottom shape, and straighten up the vee-hanger!

Excellent spot! On that wagon, Co Ltd is written CO LD with the O and D superscript with a dot or dash underneath - so the D is easily mistaken for F!

I'm not sure one should read Pearson's baptism in the C of E as evidence of his not being a Quaker. Although Quakers did not practice baptism and were, with Jews, exempt from the Clandestine Marriage Act, 1753, which made marriage in the C of E the only legal form of marriage, there were all sorts of social and economic reasons for occasionally conforming.

D'y'think? Looks vertical on the solebar to me? Raised ends not a typical Gloucester feature?

On a second stare, I think the next line of writing reads "COAL FACTORS".

Beyond it being a pre-1923 private owner wagon, I doubt there's more to be said - It's a shame the photo isn't just a little sharper to confirm the capacity marking above the number but my money would be on 10 tons. Curved raised ends and diagonal straps inside the side sheeting, with the bottom end bolted to the solebar. Any other offers?

This postcard view of Delph has provoked some discussion on the L&NWR Society Facebook group: There's a Coal Tank lurking, a D17 6-wheel brake and coupled to it I think a D4 open, with the long lever for its single brake block dropped. But that's about it for Wessery. Midland wagons in abundance: front row, from left to right, 3 x 8-ton highside with end door, D351, 2 x 8-ton highside, D299, and, on the coal drops, 8-ton hopper bottom, D343. The two Midland wagons to the left of the next row are bigger, they're 12-ton mineral wagons, I think D352 rather than the later D673, chiefly on the grounds that the photo must be pre-Great War, with several dumb-buffer PO wagons in evidence. D352 were built 1906-1910, so I'd say the photo is c. 1910 +/- 2 or 3 years. As to the PO wagons, there are several from Staveley and Sheepbridge, several of which have cupboard doors. The Midland PO registers reveal that both companies built their own wagons and several batches are recorded as having cupboard doors. My guess is that the Midland wagons are all in coal traffic and have come along with the Staveley and Sheepridge wagons from Derbyshire. As to the others: J.W. Fry is apparently a coal merchant based in nearby Greenfield and New Moss Colliery was nearby at Audenshaw. Here's another of their wagons: [Tameside Council Facebook page.] There are another four wagons with what I think is a common inscription on the top two planks - including the freshly painted wagon at the right-hand end of the front row. My best attempt at reading that is "WATTBOTTOM BRAN & GOLF" - I hope others might be able to do better!

Ah but you see, that is what these drivers have - vehicles customised to be incapable of any other speed. A couple of villages with 20 mph limits and speed cameras should sort them out.

i see what you mean. My impression is that the buffer-like object we're seeing is not the wagon buffer.

Huh. Just to start the alternative ball rolling, how about: North by (London &) North West(ern). The Hunt for Red Engines.