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

[Regularity]

40 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

wall-mounted radian electric heaters

Are they pi-shaped?

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Are they pi-shaped?

 

Being wall mounted, they radiate into 2 pi but not isotropically as they have linear parabolic reflectors. Corrected in post.

[wagonman]

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 it'll be etched pushrods with daylight between them before we know where we are. That way P4 lies...

 

 

 

It's the logical progression...

 

 

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Corrected in post.

Good, but in a way, a shame...

[richbrummitt]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

BR(W) 1950s, nebulous coastal location: Loddon Vale Model Railway Club's Erlegh Quay, a work in progress. Unfortunately the club website isn't responding for me this morning so I can't post a link but this photo was taken on it:

 

 

Please excuse the sunset glow - the hall has some wall-mounted radiant electric heaters!

 

I've seen this arrangement or one very much like it in real life. Was it you I was talking to at the LVMRC exhibition it attended? If so I had no idea we'd met in 'real' life 

[Northroader]

There still isn’t a D299 wagon visible on that club layout. You must be firmer with that lot, Stephen.

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

I've seen this arrangement or one very much like it in real life. Was it you I was talking to at the LVMRC exhibition it attended? If so I had no idea we'd met in 'real' life 

 

LVMRC normally runs two exhibitions - Swallowfield in May or Earley St Peters in September. We showed Erlegh Quay as very much a work in progress at Swallowfield in May 2019. If you were there, you could have been talking either to me, to Chris, who is the lead on the layout, or possibly Alan, who is the oldest of the triumvirate. Most of the BR(W) 1950s stock on the layout is his. It's also been at TadRail last autumn and at Kenavon this February, but on the latter occasion I was down with a nasty cold (possibly an earlier model of coronavirus as it left me with a hacking cough for some weeks afterwards - I'd had much the same the previous year).

 

3 hours ago, Northroader said:

There still isn’t a D299 wagon visible on that club layout. You must be firmer with that lot, Stephen.

 

It would be out of place for the 50s.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Compound2632
Two ws in Swallowfield

[richbrummitt]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

LVMRC normally runs two exhibitions - Swallowfield in May or Earley St Peters in September. We showed Erlegh Quay as very much a work in progress at Swallofield in May 2019. If you were there, you could have been talking either to me, to Chris, who is the lead on the layout, or possibly Alan, who is the oldest of the triumvirate. Most of the BR(W) 1950s stock on the layout is his. It's also been at TadRail last autumn and at Kenavon this February, but on the latter occasion I was down with a nasty cold (possibly an earlier model of coronavirus as it left me with a hacking cough for some weeks afterwards - I'd had much the same the previous year).

 

Swallowfield 2019 it would have been. I think we missed Kenavon this year. I don't recall why now - probably a birthday party. Tadrail I have never heard of. 

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, richbrummitt said:

Swallowfield 2019 it would have been. I think we missed Kenavon this year. I don't recall why now - probably a birthday party. Tadrail I have never heard of. 

 

Well, all being well, I shall look forward to meeting you in person at the Swallowfield show next May! Tadrail was at the Cottesloe School, Wing, organised by the Tring & District MRC. Highlight for me was a 7 mm scale micro layout featuring a number of lesser-modelled Midland wagons, including a 6-wheel flat truck, D329. There's a video from Swallowfield 2019 here; Erlegh Quay from 8:43. Hand of Compound seen in the first few seconds, pointing out the fortuitous rising damp effect in the retaining wall. Chris is very knowledgeable on 16 ton mineral wagons.

 

The Club website is now behaving for me, so here's a link. One of our members is a Great Western carriage enthusiast, hence the stock seen on Erlegh Quay there.

[Mikkel]

A nice collection of layouts. I can see the potential for a nice long 1900s goods train on Mearoke, when no one is looking!

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

A nice collection of layouts. I can see the potential for a nice long 1900s goods train on Mearoke, when no one is looking!

 

Indeed. There's more to life than RTR green engines and Mk1s. The previous roundy-roundy, Aldbrickham*, was condemned not very long after I joined the club but not before I'd run my G2 with 32 twelve-tonners on, and put my Jubilee through its paces with the Bristol-Bradford.

 

I see I have not escaped. The photos of Erlegh Quay on the "Club layouts" page were taken at TadRail. 

 

*Thomas Hardy's fictionalised Reading.

[Rail-Online]

Hi,

 

Another wagon query.  I had seen this well know Hebron image of a B12 on Brentwood bank in 1927 before.  In the train were two strange looking Midland style wagons.  Now we have access to the original neg it is possible to zoom in a bit and it reveals they are indeed very strange things, they appear to have toplights in the sides and ownership boards on their sides, presumably at the non sliding door end.  They also have low stepboards as if they are Tariff vans. I seem to vaguely recall one in the background of an Ipswich shot as well.  Any thoughts on what they are?  My only guess is PO beer vans.

 

Cheers Tony

 

 

[jwealleans]

Nah.  British built ROD 20T vans, sold to the Societe Belgo-Anglaise des Ferry Boats and now in use on the Harwich - Zeebrugge train ferry service.  

 

This, but the nearest one doesn't have the brakeman's hutch:

 

[Rail-Online]

Brilliant!  I would never have thought of one of these - in fact I had not even heard of them!  Makes total sence as they would be bringing Dutch produce into London

 

Cheers Tony

[Miss Prism]

37 minutes ago, Rail-Online said:

Any thoughts on what they are?  My only guess is PO beer vans.

 

The sidevents and the steps make them equivalent to GWR Y2 Fruit vans, so I'm guessing fruit vans.

 

[jwealleans]

I believe the traffic was mainly fruit from Italy initially.   When the FS built their own vans, the white peak-roofed ones were used for cheese and anything else which needed cooling and the red-brown ones for fruit and vegetables.

[Compound2632]

@Rail-Online, I am in agreement with my learned friend @jwealleans. However, I think your supposition that they could be Midland isn't wide of the mark; the bodywork has many Midland features - especially the ends and the sliding door. It's got me wondering what the WD design process was - various C&W DOs pooling their drawings and playing lucky dip? Derby built 750 of these WD 20 ton vans to Lot 918, ordered 1 Jan 1917. See Midland Wagons Vol. 1 Plate 45. The Lot list gives two drawing numbers, 4542, 4528; inspection of the Midland Railway Study Centre C&W drawing register reveals a series of drawings for these vehicles, Drgs. 4528-4556, all with draughtsman listed as "G.E. Rly". They bear little resemblance to any contemporary design of Great Eastern van. Ashford and Lancing built batches of vans to the same design [Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 3 (OPC, 2000) Plate 5]. However, both the Derby and Lancing photos show wagons with no brake cabin; the body being symmetrical. In your photo, Tony, despite what Jonathan says, I believe both those vans do have the brake cabin; they're marshalled cabin-to-cabin - note the end steps, absent on the Derby / Lancing vehicles. Here's a good photo of the cabin end. Jonathan states that many of these were built in Britain too - unless he's confusing these with the Derby / Ashford / Lancing vehicles. Here's a photo of a shorter WD van, built by the Central Wagon Co. Same ends and door - with very Midland-like runners - but most un-Midland X-bracing for the sides. All very mysterious.

 

I've found this topic on that has more on WD wagons, including contributions from Jonathan, though it soon wanders off in the direction of Mesopotamia:

 

 

Note just how thick the sheet bars are on those two Great Western refurbished 4-plank opens are.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Compound2632
Comment on sheet bars.

[Darryl Tooley]

The two wagons behind the ferry vans are also interesting.  They look to be the long-wheelbase opens that the Great Eastern introduced for continental traffic, an otherwise rather camera-shy animal.

 

D

[Compound2632]

This is all getting rather continental. If you haven't found it, I recommend @Northroader's topic:

 

[jwealleans]

There is also this thread for anyone wanting to know more about the ROD vans, including the picture Bob Essery used.

 

Darryl, didn't those Continental opens have very prominent framing?   I believe the sixth vehicle in this photo is one of those with a van body constructed on top?

 

[Darryl Tooley]

Just now, jwealleans said:

Darryl, didn't those Continental opens have very prominent framing?

Dia 10, yes, but there is drawing in Tatlow (2005) of the later dia 69, which didn't.  With rounded tops to the ends, and the side stanchions cantilevered off the solebars (an unusual mixture of ancient and modern), I don't see what else they could be.  Curiously, though, the doors on the wagons in the photograph look more like those on the earlier type.

 

D

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, jwealleans said:

There is also this thread for anyone wanting to know more about the ROD vans, including the picture Bob Essery used.

 

Darryl, didn't those Continental opens have very prominent framing?   I believe the sixth vehicle in this photo is one of those with a van body constructed on top?

 

 

The second vehicle is pukka Midland. This looks like a fitted head - what does the headlamp code say? I'm not sure but I don't see much sign of a long brake lever and there's possibly just a hint of a J-hanger to one of the springs. It could be D360, with 3'7" wheels etc.

[Darryl Tooley]

The headcode says 'Class 'B' Goods', so there's no reason the Midland van couldn't be a common or garden D362 or 363.

 

D

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Darryl Tooley said:

The headcode says 'Class 'B' Goods', so there's no reason the Midland van couldn't be a common or garden D362 or 363.

 

Putting a straight edge to the line of axleboxes, they all seem to be at the same height so I suppose so. Some of D362/3 had through pipes, so it could still be a partly fitted train as far back as those passenger-rated vehicles. I'd assumed it was an express goods train of some sort on account of the big passenger engine.

[Compound2632]

I've finally fitted the plank load I made to one of my Great Western O4 5-plank wagons and roped it down according to the book (p. 28):

 

 

Someone remarked that the prototype number of ropes and sheet ties looks to much; here I've compromised by not wrapping as many times round the load as the instructions require. But those are genuine clove hitches on the buffer guides.

 

The final step is to add the sheet, following the Vastern Road c. 1905 photograph:

 

 

Here's the ensemble, O4 No. 76081, Lot 414; 4-plank No. 49012, old series Lot 556; and as runner, 4-plank No. 63499, Lot 98, per the photograph:

 

 

I'm afraid I haven't taken advantage of any of the more advanced techniques for representing wagon sheets that were discussed a while back; this is another of the Thomas Petith sheets. All the O4 now lacks is couplings; I have to make up another batch...

 

In better light, I'll try to get a shot from the same angle as the Vastern Road photo.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted