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

[Compound2632]

As far as I can see, the only authentic PO livery that Oxford Rail have done for this wagon is for ICI (Lime) Ltd., Buxton; this is based on a Gloucester batch of 200 of 1937 [vide W. Hudson, Through Limestone Hills (OPC, 1989) plate 292]. All the other liveries I've seen are 10 ton coal wagons - my suspicion is that unlike the 8 ton 5-plank wagons of yore, 12 ton 5-plank wagons were not used for coal traffic - they simply didn't have the volume for a full load of 12 tons of coal, whereas they could be fully loaded with denser minerals such as limestone. 

 

 

[Rail-Online]

Hi Wagonman,

 

Yes Oxford Rail can be very un-reliable with their liveries, especially for these 5 plank wagons.  If Bowler's were still in business in 1930 (the year I model) and the wagon livery was accurate for a, say 1920 wagon I would be quite happy to replace the 10 tons with 12 tons and run the wagon.  However if the livery was ficticious or a poor representation then I would not go down this route.  An exmple of such is the Busbys wagon. The only printed info on this is in vol 3 of the A G Thomas PO booklets and shows Busbys on a 12T 7 plank side door only wagon and in a straight lettering style rather than on a curve in an arc as depicted by Oxford (see below).  This depiction I suspect is pure fiction.  I have tried to contact Oxford Rail in the past with no response. 

 

Tony

Edited November 28, 2019 by Rail-Online

[Compound2632]

I'm not sure that re-lettering it 12 tons would really help, as, as I said, it seems to me improbable that a 12 ton 5-plank wagon would be used for coal. 

[Rail-Online]

I have read somewhere, Bill Hudson I think, that many small coal merchants prefered 5 plank wagons to 7 plank ones because they were of smaller volume, therefore they were easier to unload, more capable of unloading them before demurrage charges came into play, and they were better for cash flow as they could sell the full load easier.  However I suspect the real reason was they hired/leased the older (therefore smaller) wagons at a cheaper rate from Charles Roberts/ Gloucester etc.

 

Does not help for a new RCH 1923 wagon though except that once a small established business gets into a 'business model' based around the volume of smaller wagons there may be resistance to change....... 

 

Tony

[wagonman]

2 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

I have read somewhere, Bill Hudson I think, that many small coal merchants prefered 5 plank wagons to 7 plank ones because they were of smaller volume, therefore they were easier to unload, more capable of unloading them before demurrage charges came into play, and they were better for cash flow as they could sell the full load easier.  However I suspect the real reason was they hired/leased the older (therefore smaller) wagons at a cheaper rate from Charles Roberts/ Gloucester etc.

 

Does not help for a new RCH 1923 wagon though except that once a small established business gets into a 'business model' based around the volume of smaller wagons there may be resistance to change....... 

 

Tony

 

It's true that small traders generally preferred small(er) wagons, but it wasn't so much the physical size as the capacity that mattered. For the reasons you mention they tended to prefer 8 ton wagons to 12 tonners. They tended to own the wagons outright – after the seven years 'HP; leasing in the modern sense was rare. As a properly maintained, and not overworked, wagon could last 40-50 years – probably longer than the owner – the wagons built before 1923 would have been sufficient for the slowly shrinking market. Yes, there were exceptions...

[Compound2632]

While waiting for varnish to harden and rub-down transfer angst to subside, I started something a little different. Not a kit this time:

 

 

Although my working tile for this is "the liquorice wagon", it is intended as a representation of the Pelsall wagon, the sixteenth wagon in the goods train filmed at Bushey in 1897 (at around 0'30"). By comparison with the adjacent Midland D299 wagons, I think this wagon is 3'6" deep, with 10½” planks. The end planking isn't distinct; I've assumed the top plank is also 10½”, the four 9" planks plus the floor boards above the headstock. Length is harder to be sure of; I've gone with 15' over headstocks, 9' wheelbase, and 4' door.

 

Sides and ends are 0.040" Plastikard. The planking groves are first marked out lightly using a sharp blade then the blade - a 45° one - is run firmly along, held upright, against the edge of a steel rule, giving the prototypical beveled edge to the top of each plank. The solebars are Evergreen strip, 0.157" x 0.060" - scale 12" x 4½”. The thickness is fine but I think the height should be closer to 11", so about 0.3 mm has been shaved off the top where they protrude at the ends. Floorboards would typically be 2½” thick, so to allow for the solebars being a scale 1" too high, the floor is 1" too thin, which rather conveniently works out at 0.020". I will add an extra thickness of Plastikard under the floor between the solebars to pack the etched axleguard units out to the right position; not yet worked out how much that needs to be. The axleguard units were used to space the solebars; 0.040" x 0.010" Microstrip was added along the top of the face of the solebars to pack out to 28 mm, the width of the floor. (The curb rail would usually be thicker than the planking; sometimes it would be shaped to sit on top of the solebar, alternatively it would be just bolted in place.)

 

The dumb buffers are built up with a layer of 0.020" Plastikard then a piece of 0.060" Evergreen strip. I made these, and the solebars, over-length, so they can be filed back to length (5 mm) together, checking all the while that the needle file is parallel to the wagon end. 

 

End pillars are 0.060" square Evergreen strip, at 9 mm between inside faces. 

 

The washer plates are 0.030" x 0.010" Microstrip. The J-shape was built up by cutting the end of the vertical at around 20°, making a similar cut in the end of a piece of Microstrip, butting up and MekPak-ing in place, then repeating the operation once the first bond had hardened. With a bit of tidying up, it passes, especially after the Microstrip has been run over with a fine needle file to thin it down to nearer 0.005" - scale ⅜”, which was typical thickness. The door hinges, in contrast, are built up as a double layer of Microstrip, with representations of the hinge mounts and door fasteners. This wagon is unusual in that the hinges are on the bottom half of the curb rail; usually they're on the top half. 

 

Now I'm peering hard at the film to work out how the corner plates go. I think they're narrower than usual, possibly with a separate wider piece at the top. I think this is the arrangement in the second wagon from the front here:

 

 

NRM DY 4064,  released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

I think the wagon right at the front has a different arrangement, with a vertical washer plate and no wrap-round corner plate, except for the piece at the top.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Northroader]

Nice job, what was the magic incantation you used to stop the plastikard from warping?

[Compound2632]

32 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Nice job, what was the magic incantation you used to stop the plastikard from warping?

 

Give it time.

[airnimal]

When I scribe the sides of my wagons, I always do both sides to prevent the plastic from warping even if they are never seen.

If you want the sides to bow outwards I find it best to pre-bend the sides before they are assembled.

What glue are you using ? 

The reason I ask is when gluing the end pillars on to the body, I find that if you use the stronger glues it will bow the ends in over time.

I now use Limonene on these parts and on thin plastic parts.

Mike

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, airnimal said:

When I scribe the sides of my wagons, I always do both sides to prevent the plastic from warping even if they are never seen.

If you want the sides to bow outwards I find it best to pre-bend the sides before they are assembled.

What glue are you using ? 

The reason I ask is when gluing the end pillars on to the body, I find that if you use the stronger glues it will bow the ends in over time.

I now use Limonene on these parts and on thin plastic parts.

 

Thanks, Mike. This is very much a test piece since I haven't tried building a complete wagon from Plastikard from scratch since some of my teenage efforts. I'm using Slaters Mek-Pak. 

 

Plan B is to have internal strengtheners and a false floor a few millimetres below the top of the sides - and ventilation holes to avoid fully enclosed spaces.

[Mikkel]

The liquorice wagon looks delicious. Dumb buffers is becoming a theme for you, Stephen 

 

The Bushey video is superb, I can't normally watch BFI Player from abroad but managed to this morning. It's the best video I have seen from the period I think. 

 

 

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Dumb buffers is becoming a theme for you, Stephen

 

Yes, I'm on a roll there. From the Bushey train, I have my eye on at least the pair of Drake & Mount wagons and the Lilleshall one. Then more Huntley & Palmers. 

[Compound2632]

We’ve not seen much of this topic’s eponymous wagon for a while. Some time ago I built a couple of the Mousa Models printed resin kits, turning them out as loco coal wagons:

 

 

This livery style appears in many photos – the coaling stage ramp seems to have been a favourite background for photographs of glamorous express passenger engines in the 1890s and early years of the 20th century. The photo of 2203 Class 4-4-0 No. 233 at, I think, Kentish Town, Plate 95 in R.J. Essery & D. Jenkinson, Midland Locomotives Vol. 2 (Wild Swan, 1988) is a rather good example.

 

I was leafing through backnumbers of the Midland Railway Society Journal when I came upon a centre-page spread of an altogether less glamorous engine, 480 Class 0-6-0 No. 371, in distinctly dingy condition, at an equally less glamorous location, Westhouses shed, at some time between March 1898 and February 1903; probably nearer the later date [D. Hunt & I. Howard, in Midland Railway Society Journal No. 52 (Summer 2013) pp. 11-15]. On the coaling stage ramp is a line of four loco coal wagons, lettered in a different style that I’ve not seen elsewhere:

 

 

The wagon numberplates can just about be read; of the four, I’ve modelled 29879 and 109784.

 

These different lettering styles, not seen together, raise some questions about loco coal wagons in general and the Midland’s use of them in particular. Some railway companies didn’t have loco coal wagons at all, for example the LBSC contracted the supply of loco coal to Stephenson Clarke. The Great Western went in for purpose-designed iron coal wagons – but it didn’t have its own fleet of mineral wagons. Others, such as the Midland, set aside some of their standard mineral wagons for the purpose – although in 1909 one lot of 1,000 12 ton wagons was built specifically for loco coal, D204, and also the various experimental 15, 20, and 30 ton wagons were lettered for loco coal. The 80 D301 wagons built for the S&DJR in 1902 were for loco coal and, like goods brake vans and engineering vehicles, remained S&DJR stock after the rest of the goods stock was divided between the Midland and LSWR in 1914. To me, this suggests that there was some financial or accounting advantage in having wagons dedicated to loco coal traffic, which was not a revenue-earning traffic. Nevertheless, they are numbered in with the revenue-earning fleet, as were other non-revenue vehicles such as ballast wagons and crane match wagons.

 

It’s also clear that other wagons could be used for loco coal – there are plenty of photos showing regular D299 wagons on coaling stage ramps, mixed in with ones branded for loco coal, and also colliery wagons, such as the Dinnington Main Colliery wagons seen here on the Derby coaling stage, 25 November 1909:

 

 

NRM DY 2115, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

I had an interesting discussion on this with @Dave Hunt and @Crimson Rambler at the Warley show a couple of weeks ago. The latter reminded us that the Midland’s management of its contracts with colliery companies for the supply of locomotive coal were scrutinised in Maj. Pringle’s report into the Aisgill disaster. The contracts for Carlisle shed were with local collieries, Naworth, near Brampton, and Blackett, Haltwistle – both on the North Eastern’s Newcastle & Carlisle line. Obviously Carlisle is a bit of a special case, being remote from the coalfields the Midland served, and there’s no evidence what wagons were used but it does suggest that there might be sets of wagons working in circuit between a given shed and the colliery contracted to supply it. This could explain the difference in lettering and also why wagons with the same lettering are seen together: perhaps, when Westhouses shed opened in the 1890s, a new contract for loco coal supply was set up and extra loco coal wagons were needed. These might have been drawn from existing stock, already lettered with the large M R, with just the additional Loco Coal and Stores Dept. lettering added.

 

My models are also drawn from existing stock: a while ago, before I discovered that The Slaters kit could be bought through POWSides*, I bought half-a-dozen built examples on Ebay. These had the usual problem of the headstocks not being correctly lined up with the solebars:

 

 

Fortunately, after soaking in Precision SuperStrip, the wagons broke down into their component parts quite easily and were straightforward to rebuild. I’ve set the over-scale 3-link couplings and hooks to one side – they could be more compatible with the Dingham couplings. Now that I’ve got the hang of the Archer resin rivet transfers, I added a bit of extra detail to the solebars and on 29879, added the extra vertical end washer plate:

 

 

I’ve come to the conclusion that the first Archer rivets I got are too small – they’re the HO ⅞” size, corresponding to about ¾” in 4 mm/ft scale. Most bolts on a D299 wagon were ⅝” diameter, which means that the nuts (which the rivets represent) should be 1” over the flats – 0.33 mm at 4 mm/ft scale. At 7 mm/ft scale, 0.33 mm represents just under ⅝”, so I’ve now bought some Archer O ⅝” size rivet transfers. These look more the thing; I plan to use them on the Pelsall wagon.

 

On these wagons I’ve also tried to represent the interior ironwork with microstrip:

 

 

These wagons were built using countersunk bolts, so there’s no need to represent boltheads on the inside.

 

Transfers are all Pressfix: the M R and Stores Dept. lettering are from the HMRS LMS pre-Grouping constituents sheet and the tare weights and builders plates from old Slaters sheets. The Loco Coal lettering is a smaller size than the “Loco Coal Only” lettering; the transfers for these are from the HMRS Scottish pre-Grouping sheet. This and the old Slaters sheet need a bit of encouragement with MicroSet but the LME pre-Grouping ones are superb. When pressing the transfer down, I push it well into the plank grooves – lettering was painted on, not made of paper cut-outs! After a spray with Humbrol matt varnish, a weathering wash helps to enhance the effect.

 

*The Slaters kits don’t seem to be available from POWSides since they’ve been re-issued by Slaters. Not a problem for the Midland D299 and D305 wagons but unfortunately this means the PO wagon kits are currently unavailable, not yet having been re-issued by Slaters.

[Andy Hayter]

Your dissertation on loco coal only raises a fundamental question, why have wagons dedicated to this and only this duty?

Was it to ensure that only the correct grade of coal was delivered?  This would imply that the MR and many other companies had no faith in their own wagon and load tracing systems, so seems rather unlikely.

 

Nice modelling by the way.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Your dissertation on loco coal only raises a fundamental question, why have wagons dedicated to this and only this duty?

Was it to ensure that only the correct grade of coal was delivered?  This would imply that the MR and many other companies had no faith in their own wagon and load tracing systems, so seems rather unlikely.

 

 

I'm convinced there must be some accounting reason around wagons used for non-revenue-earning activities. 

 

Needs primary research!

Edited December 3, 2019 by Compound2632

[Dave John]

I have often wondered why LOCO COAL wagons were so marked by all the pre grouping companies and your guess that money was involved seems correct. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-tax_post

 

From which;

 

"The railway companies were initially allowed some coal free of duty for their engines." 

 

The wiki concentrates on London and suggests that the taxes were stopped in 1890 but I'm wondering whether some general tax exemptions for locomotive coal succeeded them. 

 

Anyway, I had never heard of Coal Tax Posts, so I have learned something today. 

 

 

 

 

[Northroader]

I would have thought that the coal supply to loco depots would have been a fairly steady quantity, so you could have a dedicated fleet to move it, and branded to discourage the traffic department from grabbing it to disappear into a general pool of wagons standing around loaded in sidings, as it would be regarded as critical to keep the depots supplied. (Oh dear, a single sentence, I must improve my punctuation)

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

(Oh dear, a single sentence, I must improve my punctuation)

Starting with the missing full-stop?

[Mikkel]

15 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The Great Western went in for purpose-designed iron coal wagons – but it didn’t have its own fleet of mineral wagons.

 

In "GWR Goods Wagons", Atkinson et al  point out that the Loco Coal wagons were 'designed for use in the company's coaling stages', so that may be another reason for having dedicated wagons (incidentally, 250 wagons were purpose built for the GWR steamships). That said, the GWR did also purchase and hire some wooden wagons for Loco Coal.

 

15 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Some time ago I built a couple of the Mousa Models printed resin kits, turning them out as loco coal wagons

 

These and the rebuilt Slater's kits look very good. The loco coal liveries suit them. 

[Compound2632]

The backdated Cambrian LB&SCR Open A missed out on the mass weathering as I was awaiting a further lot of transfers from POWSides. Those arrived this morning so here we are:

 

 

The black needs touching in a bit in places. I've gone for a known number this time: Southern Wagons Vol. 2 lists 5524 as an 1898-built wagon with double block brakes; I'm hoping that as 1898 is at the early end of the range for these wagons, it could have at least started life with the wooden sheet rail (per op. cit. fig. 5) rather than Williams patent rail. In other respects, my reference has been 1902-built 5751 (op. cit. plate 22). 

 

The wagon has been weighted to 36 g, comparable to the whitemetal wagons, by gluing a couple of pieces cut from a roll of lead flashing and squashed flat in my bending bars with the help of a G-clamp as vice:

 

 

Buffer heads are MJT 12", sprung for the heck of it.

 

Stroudley and Billinton Open As compared:

 

 

Now I need to finish the Smallbrook cattle wagon which is what got me started on this outbreak of Brighton wagon building!

Edited December 6, 2019 by Compound2632

[2996 Victor]

Excellent, as always. Please keep 'em coming, Stephen!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[LNWR lives on]

Excellent work as always, I love watching this thread.

 

Where did you acquire the Archers Rivets from?

 

David

[Compound2632]

41 minutes ago, LNWR lives on said:

 

Where did you acquire the Archers Rivets from?

 

 

DCC Supplies. They don't have stock of everything; it was a case of looking through what was in stock and making a guess at what would be about right.

[wagonman]

On 09/12/2019 at 07:04, LNWR lives on said:

Excellent work as always, I love watching this thread.

 

Where did you acquire the Archers Rivets from?

 

David

 

They're also available from Historex – if you can plough through all the military stuff! https://historexagents.com/#product-gallery

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, wagonman said:

 

They're also available from Historex – if you can plough through all the military stuff! https://historexagents.com/#product-gallery

 

Hum. They list mostly 1/35 scale stuff - if the generic lettering is available in other sizes, it could have potential for PO wagon lettering. I found the human eyeballs a bit unnerving and what was the context for the German Heere Division's support of CND?