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

[Nick Holliday]

Rumney Models do an etch for a detailed sheet bar mechanism, and they have the instructions available on line which have some good diagrams showing how everything including the trapezoidal plate, goes together.

I thought that it was not generally approved to attach a shunting horse to the coupling, as there was the danger of the wagon over-running the motive power, hence horse hooks on wagon solebars.

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, moore43grm said:

Does this shot help ?

 

 

I believe that's an O11, with the wider top plank, self-contained buffers, and a number in the 86xxx series. (I'm getting worryingly good at this.) But I presume the sheet bar fittings were unchanged from O4 and O2?

 

2 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

Rumney Models do an etch for a detailed sheet bar mechanism, and they have the instructions available on line which have some good diagrams showing how everything including the trapezoidal plate, goes together.

 

That's one possibility, though I'd have thought the semi-circular guide would be a bit challenging as an etch, as it would need to bend and fold... Having had a look at the Rumney Models site, I see the etch is for LMS/BR sheet bars, so the semicircular guide is of a different pattern - which is unfortunate, because that's the part that most needs sorting out on the Coopercraft O4. However, the sheet bar with flattened ends, body locating casting for the pivot, and trapezoidal plate look to be just what I need for @TurboSnail's Brighton Open As - so thanks for pointing that out! I'm minded to go down @Craigw's Parkside route and do some late-period O11s as a by-product.

 

11 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

I thought that it was not generally approved to attach a shunting horse to the coupling, as there was the danger of the wagon over-running the motive power, hence horse hooks on wagon solebars.

 

Of course if this is an official photo, it might be a posed "how not to" illustration. 

[Nick Holliday]

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That's one possibility, though I'd have thought the semi-circular guide would be a bit challenging as an etch, as it would need to bend and fold... Having had a look at the Rumney Models site, I see the etch is for LMS/BR sheet bars, so the semicircular guide is of a different pattern - which is unfortunate, because that's the part that most needs sorting out on the Coopercraft O4. However, the sheet bar with flattened ends, body locating casting for the pivot, and trapezoidal plate look to be just what I need for @TurboSnail's Brighton Open As - so thanks for pointing that out! I'm minded to go down @Craigw's Parkside route and do some late-period O11s as a by-product.

 

The Rumney etch cleverly, assuming it works, has the guide in two halves, with the flange soldered to the semi-circular part, with ingenious notches in the etch to temporarily line things up. It seems the main difference from GWR and LBSC guides is the way it is distanced from the wagon body, but I would have thought the semi-circular bit is the hard part.

 

I' m not sure you need the trapezoidal plate for Open As, the Brighton seem to have forged the bar in one piece, circular for the main length, and flattened at the ends, which will be a  bit of a challenge. I'd be interested if there is a simple solution, as you can never have enough Open As on a Brighton layout. (According to Simon Turner of the Brighton Circle)

[Guy Rixon]

I've built the Rumney product, using it as an approximation to the gear fitted to SER wagons. It is not easy to make up. The clamping bars on the trapezoidal plate are separate parts and getting those on is a pain.

 

Apparently, MRD are to produce an etched version to the GWR pattern. I've also offered to print these parts. Discussion is on-going on the forum of the S4 society.

[Compound2632]

The Midland's short brake levers were touched upon last Tuesday. I was reminded of that while contemplating my pile of Coopercraft, as sheet bars are not the only vexatious question - there's also the Dean-Churchward brake gear. This was activated by turning a rather short handle - only about a fifth of the length of a typical ordinary brake lever. At first sight that appears to be a significant mechanical disadvantage, until one realises that the long lever only rotates through 20° or so whereas the DC lever rotated a bit over 90°, judging by the shape of the ratchet quadrant. So the work done applying the brake was about the same.

 

That doesn't help with the problem that Eileen's don't list the Bill Bedford 4 mm DC1 etch at the moment, only the 7 mm version. I'm reluctant to ask them about that at the moment.

[Northroader]

The Dean brake lever had a loop in it, in front of the disc, so that you could shove a brake stick through to get the extra leverage required.

[billbedford]

49 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

That doesn't help with the problem that Eileen's don't list the Bill Bedford 4 mm DC1 etch at the moment, only the 7 mm version. I'm reluctant to ask them about that at the moment.

 

Whether particular etchings are available depends mainly on sales. After-sales add-ons for wagons which were built in only a small numbers are not likely to engender enough sales to make them worth stocking.  

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

 

Whether particular etchings are available depends mainly on sales. After-sales add-ons for wagons which were built in only a small numbers are not likely to engender enough sales to make them worth stocking.  

 

Ah, but: they were reportedly in stock relatively recently, so I must just be too late. The 7 mm version is listed. I presume it's a case of listing them until stocks are exhausted? My understanding, Bill, is that you are no longer etching except for your own kits?

[billbedford]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah, but: they were reportedly in stock relatively recently, so I must just be too late. The 7 mm version is listed. I presume it's a case of listing them until stocks are exhausted? My understanding, Bill, is that you are no longer etching except for your own kits?

 

Well, if Derek keeps getting orders for a particular item he will most likely re-order them. But remember that all the etchers are on lockdown for the duration so it maybe some time after they start up again before all the orders on hand will be satisfied. 

 

I haven't been involved with producing the small etches for over 10 years.  

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

Well, if Derek keeps getting orders for a particular item he will most likely re-order them. But remember that all the etchers are on lockdown for the duration so it maybe some time after they start up again before all the orders on hand will be satisfied. 

 

I haven't been involved with producing the small etches for over 10 years.  

 

Well, yes, as I said, it wasn't something I was going to ask him about under the current circumstances. I have several DC1 wagons with a few more coming, all waiting patiently for their swan-neck levers and quadrants - the ones that have waited this long can wait a little longer! I suspect that the new wagons are going to be stopped for BGS transfers too. 

 

You appear to confirm what I suspected, that the artwork for the "Bill Bedford" etches is held by either Eileen's or the etchers.

[billbedford]

Then you would be wrong. 

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, billbedford said:

Then you would be wrong. 

 

I shall cease from idle speculation.

[jwealleans]

Wizard list Bill's DC etches as well as the Mainly Trains one if that helps?

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

Wizard list Bill's DC etches as well as the Mainly Trains one if that helps?

 

I'll see if I can find it...

 

... found (surprisingly easily, for once):

• Mainly Trains, 51L item MT236 - Dean Churchward vacuum fitted (type II I think)
• Bill Bedford, 51L item CES920/4 - Dean Churchward type III

These are not the brakes we're looking for!

[mike morley]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

That doesn't help with the problem that Eileen's don't list the Bill Bedford 4 mm DC1 etch at the moment, only the 7 mm version. I'm reluctant to ask them about that at the moment.

 

I asked the question a week or two ago.  It has gone out of production because of technical issues and won't be reintroduced.

 

Edited to add that the Mainly Trains etch is mostly aimed at DCII's with clasp brakes. 

Edited April 18, 2020 by mike morley

[Miss Prism]

'technical issues'?

 

[Mikkel]

19 hours ago, moore43grm said:

Does this shot help ?

 

 

Note horse in the four foot. Yes this is no doubt a posed shot - but I have seen the same thing in other photos too, and it is always when there are no exposed sleepers for the horse to trip over.

[mike morley]

20 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

'technical issues'?

 

The nature of which were undefined

[Compound2632]

Also, I note the signwriter had trouble working in the space between the end stanchions. He has my sympathy.

 

A pre-O5 conventionally-braked grease-axleboxed 4-plank wagon is taking shape. I have a cunning plan for a trio of wagons, two laden with planks and sheeted, the third a runner, inspired by a photo of Vastern Road yard, Reading, c. 1905, illustrating the second part of an article on Reading goods yards by Chris Turner in Great Western Journal No. 81 (Wild Swan, 2012):

 

 

[Crop for educational purposes; original credited to NRM.]

 

I've a whitemetal 4-plank that will be handy for the empty runner - though I note the short door stops and circular bang plates. Number 6xxxx? The third wagon is an O4 with cast plates but the sheet rail will be nicely hidden. There is another line of wagons laden with planks on the line behind, so it's a bit tricky to disentangle the load on the 5-plank from the load behind!

 

I did mention the idea of cutting a 5-plank down to 4 planks, hidden under a sheet. It occurs to me that it ought to be possible to do a 3-plank that way too. 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Mikkel]

12 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

inspired by a photo of Vastern Road yard, Reading, c. 1905, illustrating the second part of an article on Reading goods yards by Chris Turner in Great Western Journal No. 81 (Wild Swan, 2012):

 

 

There's a lifetime of modelling in that one photo. I remember you had a good personal experience with the photo too, at an exhibition I think? The crane is also very modellable by the way.

[richbrummitt]

45 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Also, I note the signwriter had trouble working in the space between the end stanchions. He has my sympathy.

 

A pre-O5 conventionally-braked grease-axleboxed 4-plank wagon is taking shape. I have a cunning plan for a trio of wagons, two laden with planks and sheeted, the third a runner, inspired by a photo of Vastern Road yard, Reading, c. 1905, illustrating the second part of an article on Reading goods yards by Chris Turner in Great Western Journal No. 81 (Wild Swan, 2012):

 

 

[Crop for educational purposes; original credited to NRM.]

 

I've a whitemetal 4-plank that will be handy for the empty runner - though I note the short door stops and circular bang plates. Number 6xxxx? The third wagon is an O4 with cast plates but the sheet rail will be nicely hidden. There is another line of wagons laden with planks on the line behind, so it's a bit tricky to disentangle the load on the 5-plank from the load behind!

 

I did mention the idea of cutting a 5-plank down to 4 planks, hidden under a sheet. It occurs to me that it ought to be possible to do a 3-plank that way too. 

 

 

Looks like 6--99 where I think -- is 34, though I've not checked Atkins et al. 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, richbrummitt said:

 

Looks like 6--99 where I think -- is 34, though I've not checked Atkins et al. 

 

Reasonable. No. 63499 was from Lot 98.

[Compound2632]

On 18/04/2020 at 19:02, Mikkel said:

 

There's a lifetime of modelling in that one photo. I remember you had a good personal experience with the photo too, at an exhibition I think? The crane is also very modellable by the way.

 

I first came across this photo a few years ago, in an exhibition put on by Reading Museum to celebrate the coming of the railway to Reading. I was fascinated then by the variety of wagons and traffic to be seen - notably dumb-buffered coal wagons from North Warwickshire collieries, along with many local coal merchants, including C. & G. Ayers. I can't remember if it was they who we had do a house move for us, or whether they were just a firm we had quote. After we moved to Reading in 1995, we rented a flat in the centre of town but after about 18 months bought our first house, a Victorian end-of-terrace in Lynmouth Road, off the other side of Vastern Road from the goods yard. We bought a considerable quantity of baby equipment from the Mothercare now on the site of the goods yard.

 

Mention of C. & G. Ayres reminds me of an annoying discovery I made very recently. Quite a long time ago I had a go at upgrading a Hornby 6-plank wagon. I only have a photo of it in unmodified form:

 

 

At the time there was some discussion of numbering and livery - noting Hornby's very fine printing of the Birmingham RC&W Co. owners, builders, and load plates. It was noted that POWsides do transfers for two Ayres' liveries; one per the Hornby model, for No. 400, and one in red, with white letters shaded black, for a 7-plank wagon No. 360 - designed for the Slaters Gloucester 1887 RCH side and end door wagon. However, I recently found on Mike Musson's Warwickshire Railways website a photo of an Ayres wagon in the green and yellow livery, with a caption by Keith Turton. He states that this livery was introduced in 1910 on a batch of wagons built by Birmingham RC&W Co. but prior to this (i.e. at my c. 1902 target date) Ayres' wagons were red. Bah!

 

Turton mentions that Ayres were supplying domestic coal from North Warwickshire collieries, but rather in the LNWR-dominated Nuneaton and Coventry districts rather than my favoured Midland Tamworth area (though both companies were present in both areas), whilst gas coal was brought from the Barnsley area and North Wales - giving an interesting insight into the range of a local coal merchant's wagons - albeit a large merchant serving a major town.

 

There are no Ayres' wagons in the Vastern Road or Kings Meadow photos, though there is a large container of theirs in the Vastern Road photo and a covered cart attached to a small traction engine in the Kings Meadow photo - unloading from an iron mink. Confirming the preference for Warwickshire coal, the Vastern Road photo has wagons from Wyken Colliery near Coventry - the relevant extract from the photo is on the Warwickshire Railways site, also showing wagons of other Reading coal merchants, along with the C. & G. Ayres container.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Compound2632]

I've finished putting the Coopercraft 4-plank wagon together but got distracted by @Lecorbusier drawing my attention to a version of the early silent film The Kiss in the Tunnel released by the Bradford film pioneers Riley Brothers in 1899, though there is some reason for supposing that the train sequences may have been shot as early as 1896, just a year or so after that Louis Lumiere's famous l'arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat. It isn't the snogging scene that's of interest here, but the train, which goes into the tunnel headed by a 0-4-4T, which comes out a 4-4-0. Tim is keen to identify the tunnel and station but I wrote him an essay on the carriages instead, which I might as well share here:

 

The carriages are all six-wheelers. The first train is, from the engine:

• D504 third brake
• D493 third
• 2 x 29 ft 4-compartment first of 1875
• 2 x D493 third
• D504 third brake

The 29 ft firsts are interesting vehicles. They date from Clayton's first years as Midland C&W Superintendent, before the Litchurch Lane works were opened. During this period, large numbers of carriages were ordered from outside builders, including these, 50 of which were built by Metropolitan and 50 by Ashburys. They were the outcome of a bit of a saga, beginning with them being ordered as 5-compartment third class carriages. Built as 4-wheelers, they were converted to 6-wheelers c. 1880. Many other carriages built around the same time were renewed in 1898-1900 (by square light clerestory stock) but these firsts continued in use into the 20th century [Lacy & Dow, Vol. 1 pp 51-52]. They can be readily distinguished in train photos by their lower roofs (10 ft radius giving 7'1" internal height at centre compared to 8 ft radius, 7'4" internal height for carriages built from c. 1880) and individual steps to the doors, rather than continuous upper footboard. The ones in the film have been given gas lighting. The fact that there were so many of these firsts goes some way to explain why, when 31 ft 6-wheelers were being built in the 1880s, there were a great many D493 thirds and D504 third brakes but only 200 D516 composites - very little first class accommodation. 

 

The rear third brake has footsteps in a diagonal line across the carriage end, with a long handrail on the roof - the latter can be seen on the other carriages too. This indicates that they have steps at each end and standard long buffers - i.e. not a close-coupled set.

 

The second train is made up of a pair of close coupled sets. Looking at the leading D504 third brake, there is a short handrail on the roof and a curved handrail on the carriage end. This indicates that there are steps on both sides in an inverted V - compare Lacy & Dow, Vol. 2 p. 268, fig. 346, showing train of close coupled 6-wheelers at Castle Bromwich. (The close-coupled ends had no steps.) The next two carriages are 4-compartment firsts but with a continuous footboard. This indicates that they are to D292, 30 ft firsts built in 1883 for close coupled (short buffered) trains. Apart from being a foot shorter, it has all the standard features of the 31 ft 6-wheelers including the higher roof. (I'm trying to work out how to make one for a Birmingham set by slicing up Slaters 6-wheeler parts.) The full makeup of the train, from the engine, is:

• D504 third brake
• 2 x D292 first
• D493 third
• D504 third brake
• D504 third brake
• 2 x D292 first
• D493 third
• D504 third brake

i.e. two identical close-coupled sets. The bulk of the short-buffered carriages were built to Lots 73-75 in 1883, being allocated to Leeds & Bradford, Birmingham, Manchester South District, Otley-Ilkley, and Sheffield. More short-buffered thirds and third brakes were built up to 1892 but no more firsts. From the quantities built, Lacy & Dow reconstruct the formations of the sets for the various areas [Vol. 2 p. 264]. The photo p. 268 confirms BT/T/F/T/BT for the Birmingham area; I've recently seen a photo of a Keighley &Worth Valley train made up BT/T/F/F/T/BT, which looks like one of the Otley -Ilkley sets. I suspect that the nine-coach Leeds-Bradford sets and the ten coach Manchester sets were found to be insufficiently flexible and so may have been re-formed using additional third brakes to make shorter sets such as the BT/F/F/T/BT sets we see in the film. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to help to narrow the location down between the West Riding (where the film makers were based) or the Peak Forest or Dore & Totley lines, where the Manchester sets might have ventured - or Sheffield sets in the latter case.

 

The 4-4-0 is a 6'6" slide-valve engine. I'm inclined to think it is one of the first series, the 1312 Class. Above footplate level, the frames don't seem to me to extend very far forward from the smokebox. According to Summerson Vol. 3, in 1892, 1902, and 1908 the 1312 Class were all at Liverpool. Not sure how this helps with identification...

Edited April 19, 2020 by Compound2632

[BWsTrains]

Sadly free BFI films are not available outside the UK, in OZ anyway.

Colin