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34 minutes ago, Northroader said:

 

Looking at the private owner wagons, Stephen, I’m adding a nice large indigestible lump of information, taken from Len Tavender’s “Coal Trade Wagons” which gives a lot more detail regarding the pentangle, a BRCW trademark, and attached oval hire plates. This would allow us to be able to do models from the engraving, making assumptions on the finish colour. While I was at it, I’ve thrown in a page of later turn of the century wagons hired out to the GWR, giving more detail of the hire plate.

 

 

Oh dear. As if I didn't have a long enough list of wagons I want to model...

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27 minutes ago, Northroader said:

I think the difference with Coatbridge, Jim, is that it was mainly centred on Iron, so it was fewer larger works, with ancillary metalbashing. Stoke was a sprawling conurbation, the “Five Towns”, actually six, plus Newcastle, and the potteries was a mix of large potteries, such as the “upmarket” folks Ive mentioned, also cheap range producers that you’d find in a basket on the market, and quite a lot of nearly “back street” places. My sister took me round one where I doubt there’d be more than a couple of dozen folks working there, brick two storey buildings, stores and workrooms round a cobbled yard with a pair of bottle kilns, and there were scores of suchlike places. Throw in the steelworks, and several large collieries all burning coal. Also the provider industries, such as the flint and bone mill, and ceramic glazing.93923548-FF5A-41C9-84DA-DD21B4B11FD4.jpeg.e0ca0333c8e3aabad796def817c3c777.jpeg

Looking at the private owner wagons, Stephen, I’m adding a nice large indigestible lump of information, taken from Len Tavender’s “Coal Trade Wagons” which gives a lot more detail regarding the pentangle, a BRCW trademark, and attached oval hire plates. This would allow us to be able to do models from the engraving, making assumptions on the finish colour. While I was at it, I’ve thrown in a page of later turn of the century wagons hired out to the GWR, giving more detail of the hire plate.

C2CB3356-4AE3-4BFA-98A4-B4ED3FAB22A2.jpeg.a0036c9028651882042a1dcab95683a6.jpeg6FE17067-089A-4D31-96FE-B4D4F2E416F8.jpeg.2addf5b52e767d5affeed3195bda7970.jpeg

4E7F9E6E-A7A5-477A-A565-E9F8F1CFFC3B.jpeg.77a4a7a743876df0e94b8138d43f845d.jpeg

 

I am fascinated by all this; the wagon variety and detail on that engraving posted earlier will repay study and these are a great set of drawings.

 

I'm drawn to the GWR one.  The GWR had been building 4, then 5 planks to 16' over the headstocks on metal channel-section u/fs from the 1880s, and had apparently abandoned rounded ends in 1883, so to see a wooden under-framed 15' open with wooden solebars and raised round ends built in 1904 for GW service is terribly interesting.  

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

I'm drawn to the GWR one.  The GWR had been building 4, then 5 planks to 16' over the headstocks on metal channel-section u/fs from the 1880s, and had apparently abandoned rounded ends in 1883, so to see a wooden under-framed 15' open with wooden solebars and raised round ends built in 1904 for GW service is terribly interesting.  

 

 

The Great Western built very few mineral wagons but hired them as required from the private builders. So these aren't wagons built specifically for the Great Western or to their designs but wagons the BRC&WCo had on hand in its hire fleet. That page lists the GW hired wagon numbers (with 0 prefix) and the corresponding BRC&WCo. fleet numbers, which appeared on the oval "Owners & Builders" plate. 

 

There's an example of a Gloucester RC&W Co RCH 1907 7-plank wagon with that company's owner plates as GW No. 06515 of June 1910 on the dust jacket of K. Montague's book on the wagons of that firm. I believe the Great Central went in for hiring mineral wagons in the same way.

Edited by Compound2632
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I think the GWR hired wagons were most likely to be seen where they were used for local distribution of coal sent from South Wales, say, by sea to ports like Hayle or Dartmouth. Anyhow, thanks for keeping the quote from my post, James, I’m afraid the original has been sunk with all hands. Naughty, naughty, Northroader.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The Great Western built very few mineral wagons but hired them as required from the private builders. So these aren't wagons built specifically for the Great Western or to their designs but wagons the BRC&WCo had on hand in its hire fleet. That page lists the GW hired wagon numbers (with 0 prefix) and the corresponding BRC&WCo. fleet numbers, which appeared on the oval "Owners & Builders" plate. 

 

There's an example of a Gloucester RC&W Co RCH 1907 7-plank wagon with that company's owner plates as GW No. 06515 of June 1910 on the dust jacket of K. Montague's book on the wagons of that firm. I believe the Great Central went in for hiring mineral wagons in the same way.

 

Yes, I appreciate all that.  The GW designs are for general merchandise opens, not minerals, so it's a somewhat chalk and ceese comparison.  it is interesting, nevertheless, that the company's policy lead to a fleet of very un-GW looking wagons in GW livery. I think that makes for an interesting model. 

 

If it's the Gloucester example I'm thinking of, it's livery has been reproduced RTR on a Mainline wagon, and probably since, no doubt using a RCH 1923 7-plank tooling.

 

All GW-designed coal wagons were for loco coal, and some privately built wagons had that branding.  Most seem not to have been used thus.  Atkins et al say very little about how these privately built coal wagons were used save that some were used for coal for GW steamships.  I can only assume that the GW hired them to businesses transporting coal.    

 

Anyway, these tend to be conventional 7-planks; Northroader's 4-plank with raised ends is more than a little distinctive in GW colours! 

 

 

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Returning to Coatbridge,

Northroader said:  'I think the difference with Coatbridge, Jim, is that it was mainly centred on Iron, so it was fewer larger works, with ancillary metalbashing.'

 

Far from it!  I can't remember the exact figure, but at one time there were a huge number of  open topped blast furnaces in the area.  See this image from the 1858 survey of Dundyvan Iron works.

 

1056551769_DundyvanIronworks.JPG.6fed3dd6668939b945af654394ad11d3.JPG

 

Note the furnaces at right centre and the 'coal pit' in the centre of Long Row.  I have seen an earlier map of this area which showed a row of blast furnaces on the opposite side of the road from Long Row where the 'Malleable Iron Dept' is shown on this map.

 

A quote from Wikipedia:

 

The town was vividly described by Robert Baird in 1845:[32]

“'There is no worse place out of hell than that neighbourhood. At night the groups of blast furnaces on all sides might be imagined to be blazing volcanoes at most of which smelting is continued on Sundays and weekdays, day and night, without intermission. From the town comes a continual row of heavy machinery: this and the pounding of many steam hammers seemed to make even the very ground vibrate under ones feet. Fire, smoke and soot with the roar and rattle of machinery are its leading characteristics; the flames of its furnaces cast on the midnight sky a glow as if of some vast conflagration. Dense clouds of black smoke roll over it incessantly and impart to all buildings a peculiarly dingy aspect. A coat of black dust overlies everything'.

 

I have seen it said that it could be difficult to tell whether it was day or night, so dense was the smoke.

 

Jim (who went to secondary school in the town and later worked in the town for 38 years)

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Coatbridge remained a pretty tough neighbourhood, from what I can gather. I used to know a woman who grew-up there in the 1940/50s, and she told tales of the bare-basic, one-room houses, with "hole in the wall" beds (there is a proper local name for them that she used, but I can't remember it), and "The Wufflet" roaring over the place day and night.

 

I did go there once in the 1970s to see the Sentinel VBTG locos at the Whifflet Foundry, which were among the last steamers active in the UK.

Edited by Nearholmer
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21 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Coatbridge remained a pretty tough neighbourhood, from what I can gather. I used to know a woman who grew-up there in the 1940/50s, and she told tales of the bare-basic, one-room houses, with "hole in the wall" beds (there is a proper local name for them that she used, but I can't remember it), and "The Wufflet" roaring over the place day and night.

 

I did go there once in the 1970s to see the Sentinel VBTG locos at the Whifflet Foundry, which were among the last steamers active in the UK.

The type of bed was known as a 'Box Bed' or 'Set in' bed and was common in the 'Single ends' (one room houses) in many parts of industrial Scotland.  Basically it was a bed built into an alcove in the room with a curtain which could be drawn across the opening to keep out the cold.

 

'Ra Wheeflet' was the local name for the area known as Whifflet.  It got it's name from the fact that it was originally a relatively flat area where the monks grew their wheat, hence 'Wheat Flats' > 'Wheaflat' > Whifflet.

 

To bring the topic back to railways, the Monkland & Kirkintilloch and Ganrkirk & Glasgow Railways both made an end-on junction with the Wishaw and Coltness Railway here.

 

Jim

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11 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

I've corrected the orientation for you ...

 

918394822_NewZealand.jpeg.7266ea5ed0637616bf030e2f9cb48d65.jpeg

 

There's an area (housing estate) called New Zealand just within the southern part of the Derby outer Ring Road, no railway connection however. 

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3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

And, a station called "Sunnyside", which very definitely isn't. And, from what I was told, maybe on the basis of partisanship, town-hall steps that were extended into the highway in a deliberate attempt to disrupt the marching pattern of the other party.

Please try to keep up Kevin, there's a good chap:

 

 

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Talking of Sunnyside (of the planet) I do hope that the Turramurra bush fire doesn’t reach Cornwall, John. I was thinking about Coatbridge, so I was swotting up on Wikipedia, as you do, and thinking about old ironworks in general. The thing that hit me was that if you take the fact that the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was laid with rails weighing 35 lb/ yard, and I’ve done the calculations right, you’d need 3410 tons of iron rail for a double track main line of that length. Then take the boom in railway building following 1830, the length of lines involved, probably with heavier rails, where did all the iron needed come from? You need all of Jim’s blast furnaces, plus very many more from every site in Britain to magic up what was needed. All of it requiring manual handling of ironstone, coal, limestone, by thousands of poor sods living in those delectable hovels Jim and Kevin describe. Worrying thoughts, best try and get back nearer home.

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Rails were certainly a valuable commodity in short supply by the mid-1840s. It was the exposure of buying and selling of rails between his various companies that, along with other fraudulent activities, led to George Hudson's downfall.

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One needs to consider the wider context. The enclosure acts had taken away the common land that agricultural workers had used to grow  their own food and graze animals so they became dependant on wages earned.  Good in times of boom but not when times were hard. The introduction of increasing mechanisation in the 1800s was threatening jobs so there was an increasing number willing to seek a better life in the industrial areas. Not that it was a good life as we would know it, the choice of hard work in dirty smoky industries or possibly starving, unemployed or on very low wages in the countryside is not an easy one. So I assume there were plenty willing to accept life in those delectable hovels.  Those countries where the peasantry retained access to a bit of land for their own needs may have been slower to industrialise as they lacked the readily available workforce.

 

Don

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Compare E. Gaskell, North and South (1854) - also a source text for Midnight is a Place! The northern mill-workers deem the southern agricultural labourers to be "fair clemmed" - i.e. starving.

Edited by Compound2632
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In my ealier post I forgot to mention the Swing Riots. Another thing that was left out of the History lesson I had.

 

for the South East try https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/ageofrevolution/riots/the-swing-riots/

 

for Norfolk try http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/ruralife/norfolk.htm

 

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

One other thing about rail weights, while my mind is in a “well, fancy that!” mode, did you know that the Liverpool and Manchester was laid in 35lb/ yard rails, and the Talyllyn in 44lb/ yard.? 

 

I wonder what weight they were using on the L&M by the time the TalyLlyn was laid. In the early days there were a lot of problems with broen rails I believe

Don

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Rail weight increased pretty quickly. 

 

From LNWR Liveries:

 

GJR - Locke's double-headed rail, 84 lb

C&HR - 75 lb

L&BR, M&BR, C&CR - 60 lb

From 1876, steel rail @ 84 lb main lines and 75 lb branches

 

From Midland Style:

 

MCR 1839 - 78 lb

B&DJR 1839 - 56 lb

NMR - 65 lb

Birmingham & Gloucester, 1840 - 56 lb

Nottingham - Lincoln, 1845 - 65 lb

MR main line and branches, 1850 - 80 lb.

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9 hours ago, Northroader said:

I do hope that the Turramurra bush fire doesn’t reach Cornwall, John.

Thanks. The South Turramurra fire was finally extinguished yesterday and at the moment there are no fires within 60 km of us. However, fires can start at any time and, unfortunately, as often as not by human action whether accidental or malicious. As I've said on another thread, we have to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. At least, being on a ridge 200 m above sea level, we're unlikely to get flooded...

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Smoke from the bush fires has crossed the Tasman Sea and has darkened the skies over parts of the South Island.  We're supposed to be getting our own visiting smoke cloud here in the Waikato sometime on Wednesday.  So that should give you an idea of the size and intensity of the bush fires that the smoke is crossing some 2500 Km of ocean and is still thick enough when it gets here to darken our skies.

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2 minutes ago, Annie said:

Smoke from the bush fires has crossed the Tasman Sea and has darkened the skies over parts of the South Island.  We're supposed to be getting our own visiting smoke cloud here in the Waikato sometime on Wednesday.  So that should give you an idea of the size and intensity of the bush fires that the smoke is crossing some 2500 Km of ocean and is still thick enough when it gets here to darken our skies.

Yes, the fires in northern NSW and Queensland are still burning over very large areas and are likely to continue for some time.

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I have been catching up and came across some modelling by the esteemed MC which I feel deserves more attention than it got:

 

On 02/11/2019 at 23:14, Northroader said:

Now here’s an engine pulling a tale behind it. It’s the result of an eBay adventure around a year ago

 

Impressive work on bringing that loco back to life. I very much like the philosophy of such projects. It carries something forward. Accuracy is nice, soul is key.

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Mikkel’s kind postulation that a model needs soul as well as accuracy has cheered me up no end, even if Washbourne is part of the Faustian State Railways group. I have to confess that the last three weeks I haven’t really managed much in the way of modelling, which is why I’ve been wittering on about such things as the Knotty. My better half had an operation at the GWH for something we can’t really discuss on a public thread, and it being the NHS she was discharged less than 24 hours later into the care of a “responsible person” (me! - hah!) Very slowly on the mend, but with the TLC involved it’s much easier just to play on RMweb than model. Anyway, for me Sunday morning is a good modelling time (sorry, vicar) so I actually grabbed a couple of hours, and I managed to get a stage progressed, to a running chassis.

9BF8FEE8-3774-4A88-974A-AD59C900B7C1.jpeg.f7b251f908ab7140d31a1eb48f52f6b6.jpegC1CCCBAC-015F-43B1-8D3F-D0EDDBED034E.jpeg.bf4000643dafd34597e482a5075ea0f7.jpeg

What we’re looking at is the first outside framed model I’ve attempted. It started off as a tank engine for a particular line, but then as things went on I became clear it wouldn’t really do for a branch loco for that line, and after collecting dust I finally found another prototype for another line I was interested in, only as a tender engine, the search being complicated as it’s only got 4’ wheels, and so well into the build the back end was shortened quite a lot. It starts off with inside frames as normal, and the outside frames are really dummy. The guy who designed the outside frame MR Kirtley 0-6-0 for Slaters did it like that, so it’s good enough for me, and makes sense. The brass strips for the inside frames are soldered together with the brass bars for the side rods on top in the right position, then  a 2mm pilot hole for each wheel centre through the lot using my vertical press drill, a handy piece of kit. Then it’s unsweat everything and clean up, knowing the wheel centres all match for the frames and siderods. After setting up with spacers and axlebushes, I put dummy axles in and fit the siderods to these. This is necessary to ensure everything will run smoothly before the wheelsets are assembled, because the wheels go on the axles as a push fit on a fine taper. ONCE THEY'RE ON DON’T EXPECT THEM TO COME OFF AGAIN. As a result I have to think through carefully stages such as mounting motor and gearbox, and pickups, frame painting, before I take this step. The outside flycranks are quartered onto the axle ends and secured by the teeniest little cross slotted screws you ever saw. I put them all together with this tiny little screwdriver which I’ve since lost. The siderods can go on, and running checked up, and thankfully it went well, mainly due to the precautions I’ve described. The footplate secures to the inside frames with screws through the frame spacers each end and holes cut to clear the wheels and motor. This forms the base for the superstructure and the bufferbeam and dummy outside frames are mounted on it. There are dummy axleboxes, shaped like triumphal arches, added on top. One thing I discovered is that being an 0-6-0 chassis with a long wheelbase, the outer axles need some sideplay, and the dummy frames and boxes can inhibit this. The frames needed careful setting, and I’ve given the front and back faces around the axleslots a good doing over with a small grindstone, so from the front and on the chassis they look flat and square, but everything goes concave around the wheel and fly crank bosses to get some clearance. It works going through the reverse curve at Washbourne, although I find the platform edging  flagstones might need a trim back in places. Now there’s just the superstructure and tender to do, and as I lost the rear pickups when I shortened the frames, tender pickups would be a good thing to have.

Edited by Northroader
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