[GWR 4-plank with straw load - ABS kit]

For anyone wishing to judge prototype fidelity, here's Reading Vastern Road yard, c. 1905:

 

 

Is there any way of distinguishing between hay and straw loads, at least 7 mm or 4 mm scale?

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

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.

[A CR D34 Trolley, part 2, in service]

Superb. The I is a centre-line marker to aid even loading, I suppose?

[A CR D34 Trolley, part 1]

1 minute ago, magmouse said:

if the railway company photographer did it, I would expect it to be more side-on

 

It is in the LMS collection, which I'm pretty sure means it was taken for the railway - illustrating an unusual load, for example.

[A CR D34 Trolley, part 1]

Is this one, just appearing on the left?

 

 

[Embedded link to photo in the Science Museum LM&SR Collection, caption says 1905 but I'm afraid I've learnt not to put much faith in their captions...]

[A CR D34 Trolley, part 1]

52 minutes ago, Dave John said:

I think I just about got away with the frame spacing in EM

 

Sorry, I had been under the impression you were P4. But the gist of my comment was 00, no way.

[A CR D34 Trolley, part 1]

Now this is a vehicle that, at 4 mm scale, really couldn't be built in anything other than P4! The Midland (like all the larger companies) had trolleys built on the same principal but with end platforms that more-or-less hide the inner frames and bearings. Mike @airnimal mad an S7 model of one a while back.

 

As to the weight, could you have used strips of lead or steel for the timber, flitched in plasticard? 

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

11 minutes ago, magmouse said:

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.

 

Yes, seeing the whole picture gives the eye more context. It becomes reasonably convincing that the axleguards are the same colour as the body side - they are in parallel planes under the same illumination. I would agree that if this is a photograph of a newly-painted wagon, it is not black - unless there has been some jiggery-pokery in the developing room to provide an image with better contrast.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

I have some questions:

1. Were wagon wheels and axles painted?
2. If so, why?
3. Did the GW manufacture its own wagon wheels and axles at this period, or buy them in from one of the specialist suppliers, such as that well-known Wednesbury firm, the Patent Shaft Co.?

Question 3 arises from my research into the MR C&W Committee minutes. Before the mid-70s, new wagons that were additions to stock were built by the wagon trade. They would quote for construction of the wagons but separate tenders would be put out for wheels and axles, and bearing and buffing springs, these being sourced from specialist suppliers. No doubt the wagon builders would also buy in such components for the PO wagons they were building. Then in the aftermath of the Great War, Reid several times complained that the limiting factor in the rate of wagon renewal was the supply of wheels and axles; at one point a batch was bought from a Belgian supplier.

 

Now, if I was to look at that photo of wagon No. 9669 with no knowledge of GW liveries to prejudice me, I think I would say that it was clear that the underframe - solebar, headstock, and running gear - was darker than the body. Note the change of shade on the headstock, even though the material seems to be continuous.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

27 minutes ago, Western Star said:

To my eye, this photo seems to present a wagon with black wheels / axle and that goes against all that we have been told for either the red or the grey liveries.

 

I can't recall the question being discussed. In fact, I don't think I can recall any explicit statement of the colour of wheels and axles for any wagon livery of any company, except for the Brighton, which is stated to have painted axles blue.

 

As an 00 bodger, they're a part of my models to which I am reluctant to draw too much attention!

[Netherport - an introduction]

Beautiful.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

8 minutes ago, MarcD said:

Plate 4 in LNWR wagons vol 1 shows the LNWR experimenting with the on 1 Dia 4 4 plank and 4 dia 2 2 plank fixed sides.the 4 plank has a paint date of 04/09. there is another photo on page 36 of a Dia 2 2 plank fixed side with a rail no date. How ever both ae ex works and do contain the dimonds on the sides which was not used aftr 1910.

 

This is the SE/LSW/GW type, described in the captions as the "Williams automatic sheet support". A date of April 1909 is reasonable; the photo was taken at Earlestown and everything looks freshly painted.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The Study Centre does have Drg. 2820 for the D304 wagons, item 88-D1092, but I have not yet seen this.

 

I have now seen this drawing but it does not advance us much. As one would expect from the photo, the drawing shows a mechanism that is a dead ringer for the drawings in Williams' patent but there is no note or comment on the drawing concerning it.

 

But the chronology remains curious. Williams' patent is dated 29 May 1902 and the Midland was using this design in 1906/7. However, the arrangement with the semicircular guide is evidently earlier - the Great Western was using it from the first building of O4s in 1901, as far as I can make out, but the South Eastern was using it at least as early as 1897 - vide Southern Wagons Vol. 3 plates 31, 33, and 36. Plate 33 is a close up of the end of steel-framed wagon No. 2284, with what is said to be a patent plate mounted just below the pivot plate. The South Western seems also to have been using it from around about the same date - Southern Wagons Vol. 1 plates 25 and 26, the latter posted above.

 

So I suggest we should be looking for a Williams patent from the mid-90s for the arrangement used by the South Eastern, South Western, and Great Western. The Midland, coming later to the game, adopted an improved patent design - improved, I suggest, in that the sheet support did not have to be lifted up at both ends in order to drop it down to one side. But if this was an improvement, why did the RCH 1923 specification and later BR adopt the earlier pattern? Influence of the Swindon or Ashford C&W Drawing Office?

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

3 hours ago, kitpw said:

Marillier et al were Swindon wagon builders - I assume Swindon = GWR.

 

33 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Marillier was a GWR man, eventually becoming Carriage & Wagon Superintendent:

 

Kit's deduction is reasonable. Although the M&SWJR was undoubtedly the superior line at Swindon, its locomotive, carriage and wagon works were at Cirencester.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

15 minutes ago, magmouse said:

 

Which document are you quoting from?  I can't find that exact text, and I am looking at patent 11564, at the link posted by Kit.

 

Clicking on Kit's first link takes me to "Bibliographic data: GB190111564 (A) ― 1902-05-29"; scrolling down, there is the summary I copied alongside the diagram. But I note that going to the Description, via the menu on the left, there is also the sentence "As an alternative arrangement we can effect this by substituting a plate with jaws, working on a hinge, for the tumblers, and doing away with the channel guard. In this case the jaws of the plate will grip the end of the tube and hold it firm in the centre position." This fuller explanation of the alternative arrangement does not after all seem to me to correspond to the semicircular guide.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

The drawings don't show the semicircular guide of the GWR and LSWR types. Looking closely at the photo of the MR wagon @Compound2632 posted, it looks very like the drawing in this patent.

 

The description states:

 

Tarpaulin supports for railway wagons and other vehicles. The tube 1 has solid depending portions 2 pivoted to the ends 4 of the wagon. and, when elevated, is locked by tumblers 6 which engage channel guards 5 riveted to the arms 2.* The Provisional Specification states that a plate with jaws** may embrace the arms 2, the channel guards being dispensed with.

 

*Per the Midland example? The bit that sticks out to engage with the vertical part of the bar is pivoted.

**i.e. the semicircular guide with its semicircular cut-out to lock the bar vertical?

 

Or perhaps the semicircular guide is a GW invention, to avoid the patent. But then why do Atkins et al. think it is the Williams patent device?

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

Meanwhile, confirmation in an email sent a couple of hours ago by a reader and correspondent currently wishing to remain anonymous:

 

Williams is a bit of a rabbit hole, not helped by at least two changes of name. Llewellyn Henry George Williams (also known as Henry Williams), was proprietor of Henry Williams Ltd, Railway Appliance Co., Glasgow. As such, in the first decade of the 20th century, he took out a number of railway-related patents including:

• Improvements in and relating to tarpaulin (sic) string and rope fasteners.
• Improvements in and relating to rodding for operating railway switches.
• Improvements in and relating to railway switch levers.
• Improvements in apparatus for operating facing point guards on railways.
• Improvements in and relating to devices for supporting, protecting, fixing, unfixing, and manipulating railway and other wagon tarpaulins and the like.
• Improvements in and relating to Railway Signalling.
• Improvements in and relating to burners for oil lamps.
• Improvements in and relating to receiving and delivering devices for tablets, staffs, and the like on railways.

By 1925 was also proprietor of Llewellyn and Sons, Houghton Bridge Waggon Works, Greencroft, West Darlington.  Henry Williams Ltd continued under Owen R. Williams and Denis D. Williams (siblings or sons?), and was listed as a Key British Enterprise by Dun & Bradstreet in 1961. In 1927 he changed his name by Deed Poll to Llewellyn Henry George Wynn-Williams, and the latest patent I've found so far was taken in the early 1930s for Improvements in and relating to electric relay systems for marine, aircraft and similar purposes.

Finally, Henry Williams isn't to be confused with another Williams (possibly Richard Price Williams?) who came up with Williams Patent Points. The insane idea behind this invention was that the main line rails shouldn’t be interrupted by switches or crossings, and that the wheels of stock on the diverging routes should instead be lifted over the main line running rails by way of a cast piece moved into place. Several were installed by the Greenock & Wemyss Bay Railway in the late 1884, much to the chagrin of the Caley who had to run the line. Maj-Gen. Hutchinson of the Inspectorate wasn’t very impressed, and sanctioned a trial for no more than six months, in which time at least two derailments occurred every month. The G&WBR naturally blamed this on the poor construction of the Ferniergair Coal Company’s wagons (which, as an exasperated Caley pointed out, ran perfectly well over the rest of its system). At the end of the six months the BoT recommended the G&WBR to replace the points, but to the Caley's dismay the G&WBR wanted to persevere with various modifications. Somehow they got away with it until early 1887 when an exasperated BoT told the company to replace them, a process which didn't begin until 1888, and it was as late as 1889 before the BoT was  informed that the last had been replaced with conventional switches.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

Just now, magmouse said:

Could the TC have specified Williams, but actually an alternative (cheaper?) type have been actually fitted?

 

I feel the need to have sight of Drg. 2820...

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

3 minutes ago, magmouse said:

but the something doesn't quite look like 'Williams'.

 

I'd say it is WILLIAMS - just the W isn't very clear. Certainly the ILLIA. Clearer than PATENT!

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

20 minutes ago, magmouse said:

There isn't an indication in Atkins of the source of their information.

 

A general problem not just with Atkins but with similar learned tomes on Great Western subjects, I find. My unproven suspicion is that it's bound up with a lot of official Great Western documentation having made its way into private collections, which is very bad practice from the point of view of conservation.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

2 minutes ago, magmouse said:

I wonder if there is some confusion here? If this is the Williams supporter, then the GWR type is something else. 

 

Well, my authority for saying the type used by the Midland was Williams' patent rests on that Traffic Committee minute. The cost in 1906 was £3-8-0 per vehicle, nothing being mentioned about royalties. The minute relating to the Carr's biscuit wagons makes no mention of sheet supports: "Resolved that ten open goods wagons fitted with passenger undergear and automatic vacuum brake complete be built for running on express goods trains in accordance with the plan produced in lieu of the same number of ordinary goods wagons on the broken up list the additional cost being estimated at £33-10-0 per vehicle or £335 for the ten trucks."

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

The sheet supporters fitted to the 100 Midland D299 wagons lettered for return to Six Pit in 1906 were of the Williams Patent type, according to the relevant Traffic Committee minute. The one known photograph shows that these lacked the semi-circular guide, the arrangement being repeated for the D304 Carr's biscuit wagons authorised the following year:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of Midland Railway Study Centre item 88-G5/36.]

 

I have not found any drawing in the C&W Drawing Register that would apply to the fitting of supports to the D299 wagons. The Study Centre does have Drg. 2820 for the D304 wagons, item 88-D1092, but I have not yet seen this.

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

57 minutes ago, magmouse said:

And no sign of washer plates, though there must have been something on the inside where the bolts holding the spacer blocks on ended up. Equally, there is no sign in the picture of the bolt-heads and washers for the T-irons, so it may just be the photo isn't resolving what is there.

 

I think an L-shaped washer plate for the inside top of the corner can just be made out but otherwise the Great Western (and the SECR) made great use of coach bolts that required no additional washer at the head end and were, I think, countersunk into the woodwork, so are well-nigh invisible.

 

37 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Apparently, an alternative design by Marillier was tried but not adopted - there is a photo of this. Anyone know who Williams was? Or a way to get hold of the patent? A quick online search didn't produce anything.

 

There is a biography of Frank Marillier (1885-1928), who was Swindon Carriage & Wagon Works Manager from 1902, in Tony Wood's Saltney Carriage & Wagon Works (GWSG / Wider View, 2007). This includes a table of his patents, including the cattle truck gate lock, held jointly with Frederick Wright, the Locomotive Works Manager, but nothing on sheet rail supports. The references Wood gives for these are in the TNA RAIL 252 series - the GWR documents series. As far as I can find, Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 3 (OPC, 2000) makes no particular mention of the origin of the sheet supporter on the SER/SECR though they record Maunsell's appointments of G.H. Pearson and Lionel Lynes from Swindon as Works Manager and Chief C&W Draughtsman, which accounts for the GW features of SECR wagons from the Great War onwards, with steel frames and external knees etc. 

 

No sign of Williams!

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

4 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

The plates/straps on the insides of the ends (to match the supporter bits) are very logical, but I haven't spotted them on any prototype pics yet.

 

These are derived from the RCH drawing linked. It's perfectly possible that this drawing follows an existing railway company drawing - possibly delving in TNA RAIL 1080/387-9 might reveal something. The 1923 drawing is for a 17' 6" wagon so is presumably a revision of an earlier drawing; the SECR was using this pattern of sheet support from the late 1890s so I'll risk suggesting it was an invention of Wainwright's and not a Great Western innovation at all!

[GWR 4-plank wagon]

As I'm sure you've seen, Mike Osbourne @airnimal uses the Slaters S7 wheels which he improves by, I think, thinning the back of the spokes, which inevitably have a V-profile for release from the mold. It's all a question of how far one is willing to go! (And hardly for an 00 bodger such as myself to pontificate on.) But I agree, one can get away with a lot more on wagons with double-side brakes, tiebars, etc. where the general business distracts the eye.