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


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@Guy Rixon, there's a slight mis-registration of front and back of the mold that leaves a very small step on the top and bottom of the dumb buffer, easily fixed with a needle file or even scraping with a craft knife. Otherwise, having got the body square and the corners done neatly, the solebars were an easy fit - a bit of fettling of the headstock to get them to slide in. that's all. The tricky bit that I took more care on this time was the fixed corners. The sides and ends do need a bit of cleaning up to give good flat surfaces (registration again) but the main problem is that the inside vertical strapping, which the inside of the end butts up to, is too near the end, forcing the end to stick out. So that needs filing back a bit.

 

I wouldn't say its the best whitemetal kit I've come across (in my limited experience) but not the worst, either. I'm winding myself up to scratchbuild or kitbash some more dumb-buffer wagons. One thing I would say about the dumb buffers in this kit is that they are not square enough in section.

Edited by Compound2632
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More numerology, venturing South of the River. Late in the evening of 7 July 1900, a passenger train from Victoria to West Croydon ran into the rear of a detached portion of a Battersea to Norwood Junction goods train, near West Norwood. In his report, Lt. Col. von Donop gives an unusually detailed listing of the damaged rolling stock, including the build year of the passenger carriages. He distinguishes between Brighton Open A and Open D wagons, listing Nos. 8612, 9461, and 8654 as Open A and 967 as Open D. This tallies with the impression gleaned from G. Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 2 (OPC, 1985) that Open Ds generally had lower numbers, whereas Open As have higher numbers. In fact, all these Open As can be identified as steel framed vehicles, later SR diagram D1371, as Bixley lists Nos. 8501-8800 as built by Cravens in 1896 and 9051-9550 as from the Birmingham RC&W Co. in 1897, these all being additions to capital stock – i.e. previously unused numbers. These are not the same design of Open A as the 5&9 kit, which represents a Stroudley-era wagon. The brake van, No. 190, would also appear to be a Stroudley vehicle, going on the numbering information in Bixley. (Confirmed - see Brighton Circle here.)

 

Annoyingly, he’s rather less forthcoming about the two Midland vehicles damaged in the collision, Nos. 70681 and 113609, simply described as “truck”. Intriguingly, “high side” wagons Nos. 70981 and 113175 were involved in the accidents at Whitacre and Sharnbrook respectively, whilst “wagon” No. 113777 was in the Gretna collision of 1901 and D299 No. 113953 was caught by the official photographer (DY 3501). The only other known wagon in this 113xxx range was No. 113728, a D673 12 ton wagon built no earlier than 1913 – possibly a D299 replacement? Could this 113xxx range be entirely D299 wagons built as additions to stock in the early 1890s?

 

The goods train had separated between another Brighton wagon, No. 6338, and a Midland covered goods wagon, No. 7459. Sorry to say, the Midland vehicle seems to have been at fault: according to Mr Richardson, the Brighton’s district locomotive superintendent, it had an improperly welded coupling link that had broken; although he does also mention the broken drawbar of the Brighton wagon. Further Midland villainy is exposed in the testimony of the passenger train guard, John Wellbelove, who had worked excessive hours – 7 am to 12:30 pm – the previous day, having had to work a Midland excursion train in addition to his usual shift, which should have been 2:30pm – midnight.

 

This goods train included several of the home company’s wagons, though trains of the southern companies are notorious for being made up only of foreign wagons. An instance of this is provided by Col. Mandarin’s report on the derailment of a LSWR goods train from Willesden to Southampton between Camberley and Frimley on 29 May 1899. The train was made up of 28 loaded wagons behind Drummond 700 Class 0-6-0 No. 695. All these vehicles together with the two LSWR brake vans are listed as damaged. Not surprisingly, given that the train originated at Willesden, the wagons are from the lines to the north and east: six LNWR, four Caledonian, eleven Great Eastern, one Great Central, three LT&S, two North Stafford, and a PO wagon. The latter was from Ellerbeck Colliery, in the Wigan coalfield; as a  mineral wagon it does seem a little out of place – compare the train in the BFI Free film shot at Bushey in 1897, which is mostly made up of mineral wagons.

Edited by Compound2632
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You're a bad influence, Stephen. Whilst contacting Slaters to enquire about getting a spare solebar for my MR cattle wagon that I got via Coopercraft many years back and had an incorrectly packed short solebar, I was browsing the website and accidentally ended up with three D299s and another D305 in the shopping basket. :)  Noticing the lack of planking detail on the floor, I decided to go back to page one of this thread and start reading again for any gotchas, glad I did and found your step by step guide tucked away.

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The south was a net importer of goods from the north - the LSWR Willesden - Southampton train mentioned in my previous post was made up of 28 loaded wagons. To further illustrate the point, an accident at Chelsea on 23 December 1901 involved a LNWR Hither Green - Willesden goods train, made up of 23 empty wagons and two brake vans. Maj. Pringle's report lists the damaged wagons, which include Griff Colliery No. 476 - Griff was near Nuneaton, on the eastern side of the north Warwickshire coalfield, a refrigerator van (presumably LNWR) and four described as "Trader's waggon". This term suggests a PO wagon, but the numbers given for three of them are in the 50,000s which strongly indicates that they are railway company wagons. In the absence of any other information, I assume they are LNWR open wagons - perhaps D2 and / or D4. Perhaps what Maj. Pringle means by this is a wagon used for merchandise - goods dispatched by a trader - as opposed to a mineral wagon; but it's an odd term which I've not encountered in any other accident report.

 

The Stephenson Clarke wagons I'm building are from Roxey, under the Chatham Kits label - do all these originate with Eric Gates? Another in this range is a rather tempting-looking 5-plank dumb buffer wagon with raised ends, based on examples in the fleet of the London coal merchant partnership of T.S. & C. Parry. Several such wagons were involved in an accident on the North London Railway at Devons Road (noting that that Gazette item gives the partnership's main address as Caledonian Road), on 12 march 1900. Lt. Col. Yorke provides us with a handy little table of the damaged goods wagons, giving capacity, type of buffers, and for the newer wagons, date of build. There are five Parry wagons involved, three of which are dumb-buffered, so can be fairly presumed to be like the kit. They probably date from before the 1887 RCH specification, which required sprung buffers for new construction. The sprung buffered wagons are an 8 ton one of 1890 - perhaps Parry's old specification brought up to date - but also a 10 ton wagon of 1889. The other coal wagon is from another large coal factor, Rickett. I haven't yet tried to track down the firm of Smith that ran tank wagons.

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Apropos terminology:

 

On 17/09/2019 at 15:24, Compound2632 said:

Annoyingly, he’s rather less forthcoming about the two Midland vehicles damaged in the collision, Nos. 70681 and 113609, simply described as “truck”.

 

I've encountered the term 'truck' before in documents from the period, e.g. in these 1890 court proceedings related to a certain GWR affair. I still haven't worked out whether it signifies a 'wagon' in broad terms (i.e. including vans), or an Open specifically, or something even more specific. Any thoughts?

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Ah yes, the slipper boy.

 

Oxford Dictionaries Online has "British A railway vehicle for carrying freight, especially a small open one." That will be a definition based on usage in contemporary sources although from several of the examples, I think they're in some cases contemporary sources quoting older texts. The impression I get is that "truck" is the layman's term. Will research further.

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D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920) Chapter 9 - in which Gerald Crich cruelly forces his terrified horse to stand at a level crossing on a mineral line as a train goes by:

 

"The locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on the brakes, and back came the trucks rebounding on the iron buffers, striking like horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer in frightful strident concussions."

 

"Meanwhile the eternal trucks were rumbling on, very slowly, treading one after the other, one after the other, like a disgusting dream that has no end. The connecting chains were grinding and squeaking as the tension varied..."

 

"They could see the top of the hooded guard's-van approaching, the sound of the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from the intolerable noise."

 

An example of a highly literate but non-technical writer. "Hooded guard's van" is curious - suggestive of a birdcage look-out rather than side duckets? Birdcage lookouts were not a feature of Midland, Great Central, or Great Northern brake vans as far as I'm aware; could this be an internal colliery line brake? (Nottinghamshire coalfield.)

 

 

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"Hooded" could well describe the appearance of the veranda on a more typical brake (or break) van. It's a long train which would argue against an internal colliery line.

 

Thank you for these nuggets. 

Alan 

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2 hours ago, Buhar said:

"Hooded" could well describe the appearance of the veranda on a more typical brake (or break) van.

 

Yes, I see that.

 

2 hours ago, Buhar said:

It's a long train which would argue against an internal colliery line.

 

 

The presumption that it's a colliery line is based on the opening paragraph of the chapter:

 

"GOING HOME from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descended the hill between the picturesque cottages of Willey Green till they came to the railway crossing. There they found the gate shut, because the colliery train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the small locomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between the embankments. The one-legged man in the little signal-hut by the road stared out from his security, like a crab from a snail-shell."

 

Further along the road is "the second level-crossing, that went over many bright rails" - which sound more like a main line. 

 

It's not all trucks, though: "the black railway with the trucks at rest looked like a harbour just below, a large bay of railroad with anchored wagons."

 

On a less elevated literary plane, in the Rev. Awdry, it's trucks all the way, apart from Scruffy, described as a private owner wagon.

Edited by Compound2632
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"colliery train" may simpler refer, imprecisely, to a coal train. Similarly, the "many bright rails" may have the emphasis on the many, rather than the brightness, although a mainline in regular use would have very polished rail heads, and a branch line to a coal mine, despite daily use, may not be as polished.

 

Ultimately, though, DHL is not concerned with an accurate description of the railway scene, merely an evocation of it in the surrounding environment, so his language will not be precise enough, or perhaps not modern enough (he says "railroad" which was archaic in England by then), to satisfy the rigorous expectations of a railway enthusiast, and you may be trying to read too much into this.

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Thanks Stephen, delightful stuff.

 

I have had a further look at various railway-related court proceedings, which typically involve several staff witness statements about theft etc. The cases I looked at went from the 1840s to the early 1900s. What stands out so far is that the term 'truck' is used by the railway staff more or less throughout. Only once did I find mention of the word 'wagon', and that was in reference to 'Wagon Works'. By contrast, horsedrawn road vehicles are referred to as 'vans' and 'wagons' !

 

The trucks in question contain a variety of goods, including  spelter, crape (crépe), firkins of butter, potatoes etc. One is even referred to by number, i.e. truck no. 170 in 1843, a BG vehicle I assume. I don't have BG number lists but assume it was an Open.

 

So this suggests to me that 'truck' was the common term among the staff up to at least the early 1900s. Whether it included vans or these had a special designation is still unclear to me. The goods mentoned include fine silk, but since most wagons were Opens until quite late in the day, I suppose even such fine goods might have been carried in Opens.  There is no mention of thieves 'breaking in' when stealing goods from trucks (they tend to force crates open or simply nick smaller containers) which I suppose also suggests that the trucks in question were Opens.

Edited by Mikkel
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A D299 mystery:

 

123404497_Seacombeaccident.jpg.b1846f81ea357be7aa34df69c0f4bc72.jpg

 

This little photo, which shows some of the Midland Railway's standard 8-ton trucks from a variety of interesting angles, appears on the Railways Archive website as an illustration to the entry for an accident that occurred on the Wirral Railway on 4 March 1908. Reading Lt. Col. Druitt's report, it's clear the photo has nothing to do with the accident. So, when and where? I haven't yet found anything in the Railways Archive that corresponds; it may not even have been a reportable accident.

 

I cam across this while looking through accident reports for the Great Central - those involving goods trains include mention of many PO wagons for which there appears to be little or no other evidence.

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On ‎31‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 09:17, Compound2632 said:

 

Hat duly raised. The rub-down BGS Society transfers I used for my red wagons were fiddly enough.

 

 

Where's Simon? I was expecting him to post an S-scale example to deflate my hubris.

 

What is the BGS Society, excuse my ignorance..

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On 20/09/2019 at 17:06, Compound2632 said:

A D299 mystery:

 

1316503371_Seacombeaccident.jpg.c286f1775d74e96ac6b7ea8228f5d315.jpg

 

This little photo, which shows some of the Midland Railway's standard 8-ton trucks from a variety of interesting angles, appears on the Railways Archive website as an illustration to the entry for an accident that occurred on the Wirral Railway on 4 March 1908. Reading Lt. Col. Druitt's report, it's clear the photo has nothing to do with the accident. So, when and where? I haven't yet found anything in the Railways Archive that corresponds; it may not even have been a reportable accident.

 

 

A larger version of this photo on the Picture the Past website. The number of the nearest wagon is almost but not quite legible! Other Midland photos on this website include Derby officials, so this could be one, but it doesn't look like the usual format.

 

This illustration of the accident near Belper on 29 October 1859 has an interesting variety of early mineral wagons, rather well-observed - note the side knees of the wagon in the river, the variety of corner bracing, and the mix of dumb and sprung buffers. A couple of Clay Cross Co. wagons, Easter Iron Mine (Forest of Dean) or Eastern Counties Railway? - either seem a bit unlikely, though possibly the latter as there's also Norfolk Counties Coal...

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2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The number of the nearest wagon is almost but not quite legible!

 

53579 - although I'm not 100% on the second "5".

 

MR_Crash_Crop.jpg.1650c6902d9feacc23b29f0b7736089b.jpg

Edited by K14
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More D299 in distress - "waggon smash" at Morton Colliery, Derbyshire. Both these wagons have the extra vertical end strapping. The one upside down at the bottom of the heap appears to have Ellis 10A axleboxes, whereas the other one looks to have the earlier 8A boxs (though it's lost one). The D305 dropside wagon on top also has 8A axleboxes, numberplate left of centre, and no stop blocks on the ends of the dropsides, all marking it out as an 1870s/80s build to drawing 213. No. 2211? There's one more D299 lurking in the background.

 

There's also a photo of the mopping up operations. The steam crane is one of the four Cowans Sheldon ones of 1893 -  possibly No. 27, allocated to Derby. It's gained a bit of weather protection. The mess coach is one of the old 29 ft composites of 1875 converted to departmental use c. 1897/8. Several of the D305 wagons have the dropside stop blocks, i.e. are to drawing 1143, built from 1897 - but in large quantities from 1905. They are the wagon of choice for carrying away the damaged wagons - the Midland not having any lower-sided wagons in any great quantity. The signal box is, I believe, Pilsley Junction. It looks to be either type 3B or 4B, i.e. after 1898. Unfortunately I don't have a list of signal box renewal dates. 

 

Photo late 1900s/early 1910s?  

 

Also, going back to that drawing of the 1859 accident at Belper and the primitive strapping on the corners in lieu of corner plates (see also the wagons in this photo of the accident at Old Milverton in 1861), it seems wagons with this method of construction survived into the 20th century. This photo at Towneley Colliery on the L&Y Copy Pit line, from the Disused Stations website, is after 1906, when that style of big L&Y van with sliding door was introduced. The shiny new Towneley Colliery wagon to its left could be an RCH 1907 standard wagon. Also freshly repainted are two old 4-plank wagons, No. 133 and another, with the "primitive" corner strapping. Are they ex-dumb buffer wagons? The buffers look as if they might be the self-contained type often fitted to converted wagons. The rather shabby 4-plank wagon No. 38 between them is of marginally more modern design. All three have tiebars between the axleguards, as if putting the brake hard on was going to be a strain on the constitution. Note the wider second plank up on the one on the right.

Edited by Compound2632
Added Towneley discussion.
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On 17/09/2019 at 14:24, Compound2632 said:

... Col. Mandarins report on the derailment of a LSWR goods train from Willesden to Southampton between Camberley and Frimley on 29 May 1899. The train was made up of 28 loaded wagons behind Drummond 700 Class 0-6-0 No. 695. All these vehicles together with the two LSWR brake vans are listed as damaged. Not surprisingly, given that the train originated at Willesden, the wagons are from the lines to the north and east: six LNWR, four Caledonian, eleven Great Eastern, one Great Central, three LT&S, two North Stafford, and a PO wagon. The latter was from Ellerbeck Colliery, in the Wigan coalfield; ...

… proved to be interesting reading for a North Staffordshire Railway modeller always on the trail of details and photos of Knotty wagons. I recognised the number 323 as one we have a photo of in the NSR Study Group, but until now I didn't know the accident it originated from.

 

The accident report records two NSR wagons in the train as:

2850 – North Stafford  Waggon – Two axles, four axleguards, buffer rod, and two drawbars, bent; side spring and two spring shoes, broken.

323 – North Stafford Waggon – Headstock, drawbar and side flap, broken; headstock and brakework, damaged; and axle bent.

The photograph of 323 appears as figure 14 in the late George Chadwick's book "North Stafford Wagons" and also is I believe HMRS photo ref no V1363. But I don't ever recall seeing a photo of 2850. As it appears the wreckage was photographed, does anyone know whether 2850 was also captured? According to the plan in the report it was some distance away from 323, and would have been relatively undamaged. Even a distant photo would be useful to see which type of wagon it was.

 

 

NSR_3plank_open_wagon_323_in_accident.jpg

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@5D_Stoke, isn't it marvelous how these pieces of the jigsaw slot into place! From that photo, LNWR No. 545 is evidently a D1 1-plank wagon - note the characteristic cut-away ends of the headstock. Presumably the wagon inbetween is LNWR No. 66599 - it seems to be a 4-plank wagon, so D4. 

 

The other point the plan makes clear is that the list of damaged wagons in the report isn't in the order the vehicles were marshalled in the train. 

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For various reasons, I've not been making very much modelling progress this year - exacerbated by my bad habit of moving on to the next interesting project before the previous is properly finished. Sometimes I get stuck for inspiration, motivation, or technique. Especially over the last few weeks, I've spent far too much modelling time faffing around on other things and pontificating on other people's topics. So in a bid to motivate myself, I thought I'd take a class photo of my works-in-progress. Some of these are nearly there, others have been hanging around for over two years, I'm ashamed to say:

 

1281145267_EarleyRCWCohallofshame22Oct2019.JPG.6cb1d94aae6f2e4d3dea2918c85dc212.JPG

 

That L&Y "Tintab" brake van (rear left) was so very nearly finished when @Spitfire2865 pointed out that I'd put the side-lamp on one side on the wrong side of the door... Still, I remain grateful to them for the pronunciation of "Schenectady": Skeh-neck-tedy.

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