More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, BlueLightning said:

 

Wolverton on the other hand............

... to say nothing of Earlestown:

 

[Northroader]

You’ve got me digging out my Atkins, Beard, Hyde, and Tourret now. It seems that the Thomas brake was the first stab the GWR had in 1897 (Thomas was the C&W works manager) There was a cross shaft with a rotary handle on each side carrying a worm gear. This engaged a rack moving the brake linkage. To get a full application you had to give the handle several turns, so it was slower to apply than a single move on a hand lever.

A redesign in 1902 with Dean, the CME getting the credit, saw the worm replaced, the cross shaft carrying a short lever on each side. Movement of the shaft pushed a toothed quadrant to apply the brake, the levers on each side moved in unison. A ratchet held the quadrant down when the shunter stopped pressing the lever down, and this just hung down. To release, either side was raised back up, moving the cross shaft,when a pawl was tripped and releasing the ratchet so the brake came off. This had several redesigns, adapting it for longer wheelbases, mixing with vacuum systems, and meeting the BoT need for RHS mounting, the two levers at each end being joined through rods to move simultaneously on to a common ratchet and quadrant, and adapting so that a brakestick could be used to increase pressure. Churchward was Deans assistant, and the various versions were Dean Churchward 1, DC2, etc.

[BlueLightning]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

... to say nothing of Earlestown:

 

No wagons (yet) but I do have David Jenkinson's coach book sat in front of me, with several pages marked for things I want! I suppose I'll have to get at least one loco at some point!

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Northroader said:

You’ve got me digging out my Atkins, Beard, Hyde, and Tourret now. It seems that the Thomas brake was the first stab the GWR had in 1897 (Thomas was the C&W works manager) There was a cross shaft with a rotary handle on each side carrying a worm gear. This engaged a rack moving the brake linkage. To get a full application you had to give the handle several turns, so it was slower to apply than a single move on a hand lever.

A redesign in 1902 with Dean, the CME getting the credit, saw the worm replaced, the cross shaft carrying a short lever on each side. Movement of the shaft pushed a toothed quadrant to apply the brake, the levers on each side moved in unison. A ratchet held the quadrant down when the shunter stopped pressing the lever down, and this just hung down. To release, either side was raised back up, moving the cross shaft,when a pawl was tripped and releasing the ratchet so the brake came off. This had several redesigns, adapting it for longer wheelbases, mixing with vacuum systems, and meeting the BoT need for RHS mounting, the two levers at each end being joined through rods to move simultaneously on to a common ratchet and quadrant, and adapting so that a brakestick could be used to increase pressure. Churchward was Deans assistant, and the various versions were Dean Churchward 1, DC2, etc.

 

So having the defect (from the BoT's point of view) of enabling the brake to be released from the opposite side to that from which it had been applied?

[Northroader]

Good question to which I don’t know the answer. Help!

 

edit, so I turn to my Atkins, etc, reading on it would appear that GWR was trialling the Morton type brake after grouping. The original BoT requirement for RHS brakes was not effective until 1939, and later introduced the need for release on the same side as application with this requirement. New build GWR wagons with DC brakes were phased out in the 1930s, being replaced by Morton. However you could still see DC brakes in BR days.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Northroader

[Simond]

It’s curious, given the inherent dangers of crossing under a train which may move without warning, that a brake which could be applied from either side, and equally, released from either side, was not mandatory at an early stage.

 

i wonder why a one-sided affair was deemed to be desirable.

 

best

Simon

[billbedford]

4 minutes ago, Simond said:

i wonder why a one-sided affair was deemed to be desirable.

1

 

Because the brakes would have been put on by a shunter walking along one side of the train. And I suspect there would have been moves to try to make the shunters consistently use the same side. 

[Spitfire2865]

You Brits and your wagon brake troubles.  

We Americans clearly got it correct right from the start!

\

(Image is public domain if anyone somehow thinks I would even claim I could do engraving)

Edited March 1, 2019 by Spitfire2865

[wagonman]

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

 

Yes, it was L.R. Thomas, Carriage & Works Manager at Swindon (of whom little seems to have been documented, although I know someone who is looking into that).  PS: The brake was named after him, i.e. the Thomas brake.

 

The Thomas brake, so called, was a sort of screw mechanism that underwent trials c1897 but was dropped in favour of what we know as DC1. Whether Mr Thomas had a major input into designing that as well, I know not.

 

Edit: Northroader beat me to it.

Edited March 1, 2019 by wagonman

[wagonman]

1 hour ago, Spitfire2865 said:

You Brits and your wagon brake troubles.  

We Americans clearly got it correct right from the start!

\

(Image is public domain if anyone somehow thinks I would even claim I could do engraving)

 

We've got lots more overbridges than the US railroads...

[Mikkel]

Cheap and cheerful rendition of the Thomas brake. There wasn't much to be seen from the side!

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Mikkel

[Poggy1165]

I suspect a major factor in the choice of braking arrangements was cheapness and what was the minimum that they could get away with. PO wagons seem to have almost all had one brake until it was made mandatory for them to have a lever on both sides. Even some railway companies seem to have been more "careful" than others when it came to spending money.

 

Given that wagons could be shunted randomly, so that all the single levers would not necessarily be one one side, I should imagine that pinning down brakes at a location like the top of Worsbrough bank (to give up one random example) was no sinecure, especially not on a wet and windy night in February.

[Northroader]

In oldtime French practice, the majority of goods wagons didn’t have any form of hand brake. Just from what I can see by counting in pictures of goods sidings, only something like one in four, one in five did. You can pick them out because the brakes were normally applied by means of a vertical stand at one end of a wagon, usually with a shelter placed for a brakeman to sit in. There was a brakevan at the head of the train, which appears to serve a roadvan function, a brakefitted wagon with brakeman at the rear of the train, and maybe a few more manned scattered along the train.

[Simond]

Bill, Poggy,

 

thanks for the thoughts.  I’m more inclined to Poggy’s point of view, that spending as little as possible was more desirable than protecting the staff.  

 

Shunters had a dreadfully risky job, and it can’t have been made easier by the need to cross the tracks, perhaps between wagons, in the dark, to release brakes, or worse, apply them on moving wagons.

 

best

Simon

[Compound2632]

To compensate for not doing much real modelling recently, I’ve been delving into the Board of Trade Accident Reports to be found on the Railways Archive website. Following on from my posts about the accident at Whitacre on 18 August 1903, I’ve been rooting out those reports which cast light on the make-up and operation of goods trains on the Midland in the late 19th / early 20th century. These reports, compiled by the investigating officers of Her Majesties’ Railway Inspectorate – drawn from the Royal Engineers, are a mine of information on the working conditions and practices of the day, as described in statements given by ordinary railwaymen. In addition, there is usually an appendix giving details of damage to rolling stock and permanent way. It’s the latter I’m chiefly focusing on, though in using this information to inform my modelling, I’m very mindful that these “useful” accidents resulted in injury or death to railwaymen and the travelling public.

 

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon them. 

May their souls, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

 

The earliest accident to have caught my attention was at Wath-on-Dearn on 29 August 1887. The 2:30pm coal train from Treeton to Leeds, an unidentified 0-6-0 hauling 33 wagons of coal and a brake van, got into difficulties when the cotter pin securing the drawbar of the 22nd wagon broke as the driver put on steam, resulting in parting of the train. At this point, the whole of the train was within Wath’s down home signal, so signalman James Wood gave ‘train out of section’ to Manvers Main box but did not accept Manvers Main’s ‘is line clear?’ request for the 12:20 down Leeds express, so  signalman Edward Morgan there kept his down signals at danger.

 

Meanwhile, the crew of the goods train were trying to draw forward to shunt into a siding, using a rope to attach the rear dozen wagons and the brake van. This wasn’t successful – the rope broke several times – and in setting back, the rear of the train was pushed back past the home signal and into the section.

 

This wouldn’t have been too bad if the driver of the express, William Bramley, had been keeping a good look out but he had been assisting with firing – his fireman had only started work with him a few days earlier and was evidently felt to be in need of training. Bramley failed to observe the signals at Manvers Main, including the Wath distant (which was on the same post as the Manvers Main home). Too late he saw the obstruction and despite reversing the engine there was a severe collision, the engine of the express demolished the coal train brake van, No. 458, as well as the last coal wagon, and ended up on its side. The leading bogie composite brake reared up to end perilously hanging above the coal train. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, but the un-named fireman of the express was too badly injured to be able to appear at Col. Rich’s enquiry.

 

The report lists damage to the rearmost seven wagons of the coal train, all belonging to the Rother Vale Colliery Co. Their numbers are given as 1370, 1432, 1438, 1383, 1428, 1366, and 1359. Several of them can be seen in a couple of photographs:

 

 

NRM DY 289, the wagon under the carriage appears to be No. 1370;

 

 

NRM DY 288, the Rother Vale wagon nearest the camera would appear to be No. 1386 or 1388, so an undamaged wagon.  These Rother Vale wagons appear to all be of the same design – 7 planks, dumb buffers, and conventional single-sided double brakes. They are in a number range of 80 or so, suggesting that they could all be from the same batch – though it seem surprising that they should be marshalled together. Did the Rother Vale Colliery actually have 1400+ wagons?

 

The inscription on the wagon nearest the camera in the second photograph isn’t quite decipherable. This wagon is of a different design: there is no curb rail, except below the door to provide a mounting for the hinges, and it has the single-shoe Scotch brake. This is probably the ninth or tenth wagon forward from the end of the train, so not the one with the failed drawbar cotter pin.

 

Col. Rich placed the blame for the accident squarely on the negligence of driver Bramley but he was also critical of the goings-on of the goods train crew and signalman Wood, who had not been justified in giving ‘train out of section’ to Manvers Main when the detached portion was only just within his home signal. However, the final paragraph of his report pulls no punches: “The waggon [sic] from which the draw-bar was pulled out belongs to a trader. The cotter with which the draw-bar was fastened to the waggon, is a very insecure mode of fixing.”

 

This accident took place just at the period when the Midland was buying up private owner wagons on its system, breaking them up and replacing them with standard D299 wagons as quickly as possible. I think we can see why.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Rail-Online]

Interesting!  Rothervale (often spelt as Rother Vale) in this period were a large operator. 1400+ wagons does not surprise me although suspect there were less lower numbered, and therefore assumed older, ones in use on the by that time.   The 'scotch brake' wagon is also has hopper discharge if the 'V' is to believed and therefore was quite specialised, probably on a circuit working from colliery to steelworks or similar industrial user.

 

Tony 

[wagonman]

These Rothervale wagons are too early to be found in the surviving Midland Railway PO wagon registers, alas.

 

Perhaps the MR was buying up these wagons faster than it could replace them as there are a number of photos around showing dumb buffered exPO wagons still in use with MR branding!

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, wagonman said:

These Rothervale wagons are too early to be found in the surviving Midland Railway PO wagon registers, alas.

 

Perhaps the MR was buying up these wagons faster than it could replace them as there are a number of photos around showing dumb buffered exPO wagons still in use with MR branding!

 

A question about registration: I understood that the requirement for inspection by and registration with one of the railway companies was introduced by the 1887 RCH agreement. The Wath accident took place in that year, so the wagons we see have presumably not been inspected or registered under the terms of the RCH agreement. Was there in fact any system in place before 1887 or did the railway companies simply have to accept the wagons supplied by the traders?

 

What were the rules on which company a trader registered with? Would a trader whose premises were served by the Midland be obliged to register with the Midland? One sees examples of out-of-area registrations where a wagon on hire to one trader is subsequently hired out to another trader in a different part of the country.

 

A quick look on the National Archives website shows that the Midland Railway private owner wagon registration books go back to 1887, starting with registration No. 1. Assuming that the number of registrations is one per wagon rather than one per trader or batch, by 1894, 16,000 RCH 1887 specification wagons were registered with the Midland and by 1903, 40,000. It's interesting to compare those numbers with the numbers of D299 wagons built - 42,000 by mid 1894 and the full 62,000 by 1903 - coal traffic continued to grow. By buying up the pre-1887 wagons, the Midland was subsidising the traders' purchase or hire of wagons to the new specification.

 

According to the table on p. 39 of Midland Wagons Vol. 1, which is taken from the Carriage & Wagon Committee minute book, at 31 December 1894 there were 21,260 ex-PO wagons in the Midland fleet - interestingly pretty much the number of D299 wagons built between mid-1894 and 1903 - the story goes that the very worst bought-up wagons were broken up pretty quickly but evidently those that were serviceable were kept until D299 production caught up with the purchasing programme. Midland Wagons Vol. 1, Plates 21, 22, and 49 show a couple of examples at Wellingborough in 1894. According to Midland Style, the practice of displaying the company initials in large letters began with these bought-up wagons.

 

 

[wagonman]

I can't say what the Midland did but the GWR definitely had its own system of wagon registration in place by 1870 and it was retrospective as the early registers had a column for "age of wagon"; some of them go back to c1860 and the dawn of PO wagondom (!). The new regulations of 1887 caused them to start a new system of numbering. Previously the numbers had carried a letter prefix: 'A' and 'B' series were 8 tonners and 'C' and 'D' were 10 tonners (mostly). When the new series started in 1888 the numbers were prefixed 'NP' until c1891. Once again there was a separate series of numbers for each capacity. 

 

NP1 was an 8 ton wagon operated by James Townsend of Cheltenham and registered on 6 Jan 1888. The wagon was built by, and hired from/financed by, the Midland Wagon Co.

 

I'm sure the MR would have had a similar system in place pre 1887 – it just hasn't survived. The LNWR certainly did. Wagons were usually registered by the company through whose territory they mostly ran but so far as I know this wasn't obligatory, just convenient.

 

 

[Compound2632]

Halfords red primer: I was perturbed by Phil Parker's Friday entry on his blog, reporting the apparent discontinuance of Halfords red primer in spray cans. Some time back I came to the conclusion that this paint is a good match for red lead and hence for red pre-grouping wagons: Great Western, South Eastern, Caledonian, etc. On my Saturday shopping circuit, I thought I'd check this out. My local Halfords (Winnersh) has a plentiful supply of both the standard red primer, in large and standard cans, and the plastic primer version. I suppose this might just be old stock, so I've bought a can to be on the safe side!

Edited March 30, 2019 by Compound2632

[Penlan]

On my way in morning to get some in stock 

 

[57xx]

That was a good spot, Stephen, looks like I'll be off to grab a couple of cans too. 

[Compound2632]

The Wath-on-Dearne accident provides a window on the state of mineral trains on the Midland at the time when the company was at the forefront of the drive to introduce national standards for private owner wagons, with Clayton on the RCH committee drawing up the new standards, and busily buying up and withdrawing sub-standard wagons such as the one whose broken draw-gear contributed to the accident.

 

Moving forward to the end of the century, an accident on 1 December 1900 at Peckwash, on the North Midland line a few miles north of Derby, might be taken as illustrating how mineral trains had changed. This accident has been written up by Dave Harris; his account draws on Maj. Pringle’s report to the Board of Trade.  A mineral train from Shirland Colliery to Chaddesdon, hauled by a 1357 Class 0-6-0 No. 1433 of Burton shed, got out of control on the up goods line, ran through the junction with the up fast, demolished the stop-block and fell down an embankment. The wreckage fouled the up main line and was hit at low speed by the engine of an express goods train from Rowsley to London, Leicester-based Neilson 0-6-0 No. 1882.

 

The mineral train was made up of 44 loaded and 5 empty wagons, with a 10 ton brake van – at least 600 tons. The report lists ten wagons that were destroyed or damaged. They are all Midland vehicles, described simply as “Waggon”, though I’m fairly confident they are all 5-plank wagons, either D299 or the end-door variant, D351. Five of them have numbers in the 50-70 thousand range, entirely consistent with them being D299 wagons built as part of the buy-scrap-and-replace programme. The Midland’s wagon stock before that programme started seems to have been somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand; the purchase of 66,000 private owner wagons brought the total up to the 100,000 mark by 1890 – D351 wagon No. 100000 was photographed when new built as part of Lot 244, ordered in May 1890. Four of the wagons have numbers above 100000 – the presumption would be that these are wagons from 1890s Lots. One has the very high number 139823 – larger than the Midland’s total wagon stock either in 1894 or at Grouping. Essery, Midland Wagons Vol. 1, notes other D299 wagons in this range – 138073, 138978 – I wonder if this represents a blip in the renewal programme: were new wagons being put “on the books” before old PO wagons could be written off? One wagon is recorded as “completely smashed up”; this has the unusually low number 8842. There’s just a chance this could be a pre-D299 high-sided wagon, of which there were over 12,000 still in service at the end of 1894, six years before this accident.

 

At least some of these wagons was carrying lime and others limestone. Shirland Colliery was at the end of a short branch off the North Midland line just north of Wingfield. That seems an unlikely place for lime traffic to originate from. In his evidence, the guard, Arthur Quinby, stated that the train’s last stop had been at Ambergate North Sidings, so maybe the wagons of lime and limestone were attached there, having come down the Peak Forest line.

 

The Midland’s photographer visited the site of the accident. One of his photos, DY 1043, shows a D299 wagon in the ditch at the foot of the embankment:

 

 

[Reproduced from Dave Harris’ site]

 

This wagon has the Ellis 10A axleboxes, marking it out as of 1890s vintage. It hasn’t suffered much visible damage – there’s a displaced floor plank; were these nailed down? It could be No. 139823: according to the report, this suffered bent axleguards and buffer rods but no damage to the bodywork. Is its condition consistent with having been loaded with lime? The interior ironwork looks pale. Also, there’s no sign of insignia – where is the 18” M that ought to be prominent?

 

How would lime travel? Loose or in sacks? In either case one would expect the wagon to be sheeted.

 

The names of the enginemen of the mineral train are not recorded in the report – only the names of witnesses giving evidence are given – but Harris gives them: driver Henry Hitchcock and fireman Frederick Teagle, ages 33 and 22 respectively. After the breakdown gang had removed six wagons piled up on top of the engine, their bodies were discovered on the footplate, buried in lime. The regulator was wide open and the reverser in backwards gear; the steam brake cock was wide open and there were flats on the wheels of engine and tender. One can only hope that Hitchcock and Teagle met their deaths instantaneously in the impact of the collision.

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[31A]

On 30/03/2019 at 17:23, Compound2632 said:

Halfords red primer: I was perturbed by Phil Parker's Friday entry on his blog, reporting the apparent discontinuance of Halfords red primer in spray cans. Some time back I came to the conclusion that this paint is a good match for red lead and hence for red pre-grouping wagons: Great Western, South Eastern, Caledonian, etc. On my Saturday shopping circuit, I thought I'd check this out. My local Halfords (Winnersh) has a plentiful supply of both the standard red primer, in large and standard cans, and the plastic primer version. I suppose this might just be old stock, so I've bought a can to be on the safe side!

 

Thank you for the warning, and I just thought I'd mention for anybody in the York area who might want to stock up that Halfords in Foss Islands Road had several cans in stock in two sizes this morning.  I left most of them on the shelf!  There was also a Red Plastic Primer, which I assume would be the same colour and OK for painting plastic kit / scratch built models.

[Turin 60]

Bought some red primer from my local Halfords, the assistant said she wasn't aware of the paint no longer being stocked and on checking their central ware house currently they have about a thousand cans in stock, so perhaps don't panic........yet.

 

John.