Isle of Wight freight

[zephyrman]

Smallbrook Studios excellent Cattle Truck

 

 

 

 

 

[zephyrman]

Smallbrook Studios do excellent resin kits of the ex LBSCR vans and converted cattle trucks.

This is the standard van. Oddly the van chosen for this kit was for the one with the metal end stantions which was less common. However with filing and triming the more common vans can be modelled if you are carefull with the end moudings. Most vans had differing end vents also.

 

 

This the van from the standard kit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we have the converted cattle truck kit on the left, a modified van kit where I trimmed off the metal stantion to make the more common van, middle and right.

 

 

 

[zephyrman]

Examples of the d ifferent end vents.

 

 

 

 

[zephyrman]

[zephyrman]

[zephyrman]

An example of what can be built using kits.

 

 

[zephyrman]

Smallbrook Studios excellent LSWR road van kits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which can be kit bashed to produce the double varrandah ones.

 

[zephyrman]

I believe that Smallbrook Studios now do a kit similar to the 20t Road van that is the slimmer MOD type. Before they produced this I made my own using two LSWR road van kits as they are the standard size road van.

 

 

[zephyrman]

Sorry wrong pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Overner]

I posted this request on another thread but got no responses. As the IoW experts seem to be gathering on this topic, perhaps one of you could help.

 

Can anyone help with a small issue regarding toolboxes on the back of extended bunker Isle of Wight Terriers.

 

There are several instances of photos showing reduced size boxes offset to the right hand side but others show the same locos without. Does anyone know which locos had them, when they were fitted and when they were removed?

 

Any info would be really appreciated.

 

Colin

[IWCR]

The  tool  boxes  seem  to  be  fitted  on  differing  dates.  You  will  have  to  rely  on  dated  photos.

The  boxes  are  made  of  wood  and are  probably  readily  removable / replaceable.

Some  locos  also  (or  instead)  have  a  box  on  the  drivers  side  running  plate behind  the  side  tank.

Possibly  these  are  tool  boxes  but  they  could  also  contain  batteries,  push  pull  fitted  locos  used  an  electrical  system  for  bell  codes  and  for  a  regulator  position  indicator..

 

Pete

[Overner]

Many thanks Pete,

 

I was afraid the answer might be something along those lines. Finding photos of the locos which show the bunkers is like looking for a needle in a haystack as most photographers seemed to think that front three quarters is the only angle to use!

 

Is it possible that they were only needed when the locos were on push pull duties but could be left on or removed for non push pull working? I think I'll play safe and keep my models (Carisbrooke and Cowes c.1932) toolbox free until I can find a dated photo of the bunker end.

 

Colin

[bike2steam]

Many thanks Pete,

 

I was afraid the answer might be something along those lines. Finding photos of the locos which show the bunkers is like looking for a needle in a haystack as most photographers seemed to think that front three quarters is the only angle to use!

 

Is it possible that they were only needed when the locos were on push pull duties but could be left on or removed for non push pull working? I think I'll play safe and keep my models (Carisbrooke and Cowes c.1932) toolbox free until I can find a dated photo of the bunker end.

 

Colin

Have you tried this book ??https://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Terriers-Mike-Reed/dp/0946184461/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475584379&sr=1-1&keywords=island+terriers

[IWCR]

I  have found  a  photo  of  "Cowes"  in  1930  which  has  a  rear  toolbox,  no  other  clear  photos  of  the  rear  although  at  least  some  terriers still had  toolboxes  when  returned  to  Eastleigh  in  1936  (no12  certainly).

A  photo  of  "Carisbrooke"  at  Ventnor  West  in  the  late  30's  has  a  toolbox  although  in  an  late  1920's  photo  at  Bembridge  it  has  not. 

A  helpful  feature  is  the rear  r/h  bunker  lamp  bracket,  when  a  toolbox  is  fitted  an  extension  bracket  is  dropped  onto  this  lamp  bracket  to  position  tail  lamps  etc  clear  of  the  toolbox,  this  may  be  just  visible  in  a  3/4  side  view  from  the  front.

The  toolboxes  certainly  predate  push  pull  equipment  and  first  appear  in  photos  in  Isle  of  Wight  Central  days  after  the  bunkers  were  enlarged.  The  SR  imported  terriers  appear  not  to  have  had  them  to  start  with  but  (some?)  were  later  fitted. 

Generally  it  appears  rear  toolboxes  were fitted  but  there are  photos  of  locos  (including  ex  IWC  ones)  without  them  which  would  indicate  they  are  readily  removable.  Photos  of  the drivers  side  mounted  box  are  rare   and  I  have  not  yet  found  a  photo  showing  both  on  the  same  loco  and  at  the same time.

 

Pete

[Overner]

Thanks  bike2steam, it's one of my first ports of call for Terrier info but, unfortunately, has very few photos of help and no mention of the 'mini' toolboxes in the text.

 

Thanks Pete - the info about the lamp brackets is really helpful. I'd spotted the projecting bracket on one or two photos without registering its significance and had no idea that it was a removable extension. I chose the two locos I did to try to illustrate two noticeably different appearances so maybe I should model Cowes with and Carisbrooke without to fit that philosophy. Now I need to find one decent photo to work out approx. dimensions.

 

By the way, I'm working with two Dapol (7mm) first batch, mainland Terriers - not the new extended bunker variant.

 

 

Many thanks to you both

Colin

[bécasse]

These may be of some use. First is an aerial view of Bembridge, undated, but presumably 1930's. showing at least 4 covered vans and a brake I would guess. Second pic is of one of the two most famous 00 models of Bembridge, showing the covered coal staithes. Incidentally, , whilst Medina was a much bigger operation, I don't see any mention of St Helen's Quay in the histories recited above. My father worked there for Pickfords, who were the SR's agents, in the 1930's. It was very busy with rail borne, mostly coal traffic, and he told me that it was the main entry point for the Island's coal at that time. Not sure if that was true - it seems unlikely. Maybe he meant for the eastern end. It included a train ferry dock (from Langstone on Hayling Island), although this was supposed to have ceased use many decades before. I have an aerial shot of St Helens showing several rakes of open wagons in the complex of sidings there, which I will try to find.

 

The Aerofilms aerial photo of Bembridge station dates from the summer of 1937, and the vans standing in the siding had probably been, or were about to be, used for PLA traffic (of which there was a lot on the Island). There was very little van-borne general goods traffic in the Island at all (after the grouping anyway) and certainly not to Bembridge, where virtually all the goods traffic comprised domestic coal for the two merchants based there. The goods propelled in in the early morning all the way from Brading, usually leaving the brake van at St.Helens (the guard riding on the loco), the wagons were left at Bembridge all day as the loco returned to Brading with the 2-set that had been stabled in the platform road all night. After the last passenger turn at night, the loco left the 2-set in the platform, collected any (empty) wagons, called at St.Helens to shunt and collect the brake and then ran to Sandown to leave the wagons (which were worked back to Medina the next day via Merstone), before returning to Ryde LE. The PLA vans were probably worked in and out attached to passenger workings at timings that coincided with the working of PLA specials on the Ventnor line, facilitating shunting at Brading.

 

The model pictured, by the way, was P4 not 00. Study of the way in which the layout was effectively made up of three long curved points which ran into each other demonstrates why a scale model of Bembridge is only possible if the track gauge is also to scale. Virtually everything that can be seen in the photo, bar the track, loco and rolling stock, was my own handiwork, now almost half-a-century ago. It was the very first P4 layout to be completed, first being exhibited at the MRC's show at Central Hall at Easter 1971. Like the aerial photograph, the model was set in the summer of 1937, although certain liberties were taken with the trains to provide variety.

[North Cowes]

As I am quite new here, I have been reading all the isle of wight threads. I had one question I had not been able to find in any book or in the forum. In roughly what year did the vectis cement wagons change to blue circle livery?

 

I was needing to know which livery I should be using for my period of modelling.

 

I have also found on the internet some film of cement works traffic, it shows from the chalk pit, through Newport and to the cement mills. I will put the link up later.

 

Simon 

[North Cowes]

Here is the film I found online of the cement traffic.

 

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/3163

 

Simon

[johnofwessex]

How did goods get over to the IoW?

 

I assume that parcels/mail came over on the passenger ferries.

 

Some would have come direct by sea such as coal

 

But how was the rest of the traffic taken across?  I assume that there must have been some sort of railway freight ferry 

[StephenB]

Medina wharf midway between Cowes and Newport.

 

Stephen

[Pacific231G]

On 26/10/2019 at 21:53, johnofwessex said:

How did goods get over to the IoW?

 

I assume that parcels/mail came over on the passenger ferries.

 

Some would have come direct by sea such as coal

 

But how was the rest of the traffic taken across?  I assume that there must have been some sort of railway freight ferry 

 

On 26/10/2019 at 22:34, StephenB said:

Medina wharf midway between Cowes and Newport.

 

Stephen

St. Helen's Quay on a short branch off the Bembridge line was the island's main docks until Medina Wharf was upgraded by the SR soon after the grouping. It closed as a railway port in 1954 with closure of the Bembridge branch, leaving Medina Wharf as the Island's docks. though it too was eclipsed by the development of Ro-Ro Ferries that could take lorries.  Despite the focus on Medina Wharf, St. Helen's Quay had remained significant during the 1930s as can be seen in this photo,

http://www.pplmedia.com/POY/POYdata/magnify/72178.jpg 

For a short time there was a train ferry  using the PS Carrier, a vessel that had been used on the Tay before the infamous bridge was built and, after being a reserve ferry on the Forth crossing, again  during the building of the new Tay bridge. It ran between Langstone Harbour and St. Helen's from 1883 until 1886 and carried about ten wagons but proved unprofitable. The more difficult sea conditions in the Solent limited the days when it could make the crossing and, without a locked train ferry basin,  the Solent's larger tidal range necessitated an exceptionally long link span (It was also only a reserve ferry on the Forth because it was rather inefficient so that probably didn't do much for the Langstone-St Helen's service)

https://www.islandeye.co.uk/history/trams-trains-and-stations/st-helens-station-steam.html

There used to be a model of the ferry and its link bridge in the Bembridge Museum. but I don't know if it's still there

 

The 1896 OS 25 inch map shows the track plan of St. Helen's Quay very clearly and, ten years after it closed, the remains of the train ferry facilities are very clear

https://maps.nls.uk/view/105990751  should take you to this map but if not it's in the National Library of Scotland's online OS map archive.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Mike Storey]

On 27/10/2019 at 00:28, Pacific231G said:

 

St. Helen's Quay on a short branch off the Bembridge line was the island's main docks until Medina Wharf was upgraded by the SR soon after the grouping. It closed as a railway port in 1954 with closure of the Bembridge branch, leaving Medina Wharf as the Island's docks. though it too was eclipsed by the development of Ro-Ro Ferries that could take lorries.  Despite the focus on Medina Wharf, St. Helen's Quay had remained significant during the 1930s as can be seen in this photo,

http://www.pplmedia.com/POY/POYdata/magnify/72178.jpg 

For a short time there was a train ferry  using the PS Carrier, a vessel that had been used on the Tay before the infamous bridge was built and during the building of its replacement. It ran between Langstone Harbour and St. Helen's from 1883 until 1886 and carried about ten wagons but proved unprofitable. The more difficult sea conditions in the Solent limited the days when it could make the crossing and, without a locked train ferry basin,  the Solent's larger tidal range necessitated an exceptionally long link span.

https://www.islandeye.co.uk/history/trams-trains-and-stations/st-helens-station-steam.html

I don't now if it's still there but there used to be a model of the ferry and its link bridge in the Bembridge Museum.

 

The 1896 OS 25 inch map shows the track plan of St. Helen's Quay very clearly and, ten years after it closed, the remains of the train ferry facilities are very clear

https://maps.nls.uk/view/105990751  should take you to this map but if not it's in the National Library of Scotland's online OS map archive.

 

 

 

Absolutely. My father was an assistant clerk for Pickfords, when they were the Southern Railway's shipping agents at St Helens Quay, in the late 1930's. When the SR took over the role from Pickfords, in 1938 I think, his mother forbade him to transfer because of the closed shop - she regarded trades unions as the Devil (she was not a very nice person in most respects) which I guess was following the HMG propaganda for the 1926 General Strike, and he inherited many of her views .......