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

[Compound2632]

@Annie, looking at the Royal Mail rates, it shouldn't be more than £20, which I believe is 40 of your dollars?

[Mikkel]

Sorry to hear that Annie. But are you sure the info you want is actually in the new edition? I read Ian's original post to say he had the 2009 volume, but did not know the dates for introduction of new sheet styles. 

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Sorry to hear that Annie. But are you sure the info you want is actually in the new edition? I read Ian's original post to say he had the 2009 volume, but did not know the dates for introduction of new sheet styles. 

 

What would be really great is if someone who has the 2009 edition could take a good look at appendix 13 and tell me exactly what it does and doesn't say and if there are actual diagrams of the wagon sheets.  What would be even better is if appendix 13 could be scanned and a copy sent to me via email.

 

 

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

@Annie, looking at the Royal Mail rates, it shouldn't be more than £20, which I believe is 40 of your dollars?

 

Some of the second hand book sellers I've been buying from are really great Stephan and their charges for postage are round about what you said, ie - £20.  Others are just plain terrible and charge stupid prices due to using some kind of delivery agency or courier system instead of Royal Mail.  Mostly with second hand books I can hunt around and find the best price, but nobody seems to have the 2009 edition at the moment except for the HMRS whom I've always found to be near impossible to buy anything from.

[Buhar]

On 30/07/2020 at 13:02, Compound2632 said:

 

Brilliant close-up. But what went in the box? 

 

I note the number stamped on the iron solebar; presumably a continuation of the practice of carving it on the wooden solebar. 

Tracking back four or five pages and the little box on the solebar.  Browsing Caledonian Wagons I found a similar box was attached to those 30T bogie mineral wagons that were designated for general merchandise (not the Ratio one, that was a one-off).  The flip top was embossed "Invoices".

 

In the same book is reference to a 1910 investigation into demurrage charges.  In their evidence the L&NWR said railway companies always tried to return foreign wagons loaded and claimed they managed this in a third of cases.  I would count that as an achievement although I expect Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester helped to defer the empties from less productive places.

 

Alan 

[Compound2632]

31 minutes ago, Buhar said:

In the same book is reference to a 1910 investigation into demurrage charges.  In their evidence the L&NWR said railway companies always tried to return foreign wagons loaded and claimed they managed this in a third of cases.  I would count that as an achievement although I expect Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester helped to defer the empties from less productive places. 

 

It's been mentioned somewhere (one of those wagon loads threads possibly) that on the northern lines into London there was a steady steam of empty merchandise wagons being worked north (not mineral wagons, of which obviously there was an equally huge number) simply because the Great Wen consumed more than it produced. That's home company wagons not foreigners. 

[Annie]

On page 95 of the 1985 edition of Great Western Way there's the well known photo of an open wagon with cast plates and wearing a new looking tarpaulin/sheet.  The caption for the photo says, 'Tarpaulins already using large lettering'.  That would imply that earlier tarpaulins used small letters.  Lacking any further information and because I'm sick and tired of the whole darn thing  I'm going to letter my tarpaulins 'G W R' with small letters and that will be that.

 

I'm not going to buy the 2009 edition since comments about it aren't exactly glowing and besides that I refuse to buy any book on the GWR that has a diesel on the front cover.

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Annie

[Compound2632]

12 hours ago, Annie said:

On page 95 of the 1985 edition of Great Western Way there's the well known photo of an open wagon with cast plates and wearing a new looking tarpaulin/sheet.  The caption for the photo says, 'Tarpaulins already using large lettering'.  That would imply that earlier tarpaulins used small letters.  Lacking any further information and because I'm sick and tired of the whole darn thing  I'm going to letter my tarpaulins 'G W R' with small letters and that will be that.

 

 

Is that this photo? This style, with the letters G W R in full and the sinster dragon's wing that is the crest of the arms of the City of London, is what appears to be the up-to-1902/3 style, with the plainer style with just the letters G W (along with the sheet number etc. and the white cross for centering) appears to have come in around that time and have taken over by 1905. I know that still doesn't help for the 1880s.

[Annie]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Is that this photo? This style, with the letters G W R in full and the sinster dragon's wing that is the crest of the arms of the City of London, is what appears to be the up-to-1902/3 style, with the plainer style with just the letters G W (along with the sheet number etc. and the white cross for centering) appears to have come in around that time and have taken over by 1905. I know that still doesn't help for the 1880s.

That is indeed the photo.  'Great Western Way' has the entire uncropped photo though.

After some very kind help from forum members I now know that the sinster dragon's wing crest marking is mentioned in a RCH document dated 1884 which is the first time it's mentioned by the RCH.

And there is also an 1883 photo in existence of a tarp that has no dragon's wing and no white stripes.

Strangely though in the 1860s-1870s wagon sheets did have white stripes, but different to how it was done later on.

[Trains&armour]

On 18/08/2020 at 22:55, Annie said:

 

What would be even better is if appendix 13 could be scanned and a copy sent to me via email.

 

 

I have the 2009 edition. Do you still want appendix 13? If so, I will scan it.

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Trains&armour said:

I have the 2009 edition. Do you still want appendix 13? If so, I will scan it.

Thank you very much for the offer, but a very kind gentleman from this forum has already scanned appendix 13 for me.

[Nick C]

On 12/08/2020 at 13:43, Nile said:

Or did you mean Betacam? (the professional version of Betamax).

 

Totally off-topic, but the later digital versions of Betacam (HDCAM-SR) were in widespread use up until just a few years ago. 

[Compound2632]

Sorry folks, I seem to have ground to a halt for a bit here (personal reasons). Normal service will be resumed. I have started a carriage building topic but it contains no actual modelling of mine (yet), just theory and equipment:

 

 

[Penlan]

Back to Goods stock?
Just to show not every wagon was kept pristine on the GWR in pre-group day.

Photo posted by Gerald Dodd on FB - Old Rails Around Wales......
 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

Somehow all the red has been drained out of this picture!

 

That's a good end view of 3-planker No. 28457 - drawing attention to the three rings for lashing the sheet ties to (one hidden behind the labourer's arm.  The number is interesting (of course). The painter missed my trick of putting the middle digit on first to get it well-centred! The number isn't in one of the main blocks of 3-plank numbers, which lie in the 3xxxx range, so must be one of those I have noted as "various" - I can't recall if Atkins gives full details. I gather numbers in the 28xxx - 29xxx range can be rebuilt broad gauge or absorbed wagons, though this is evidently not such; presumably taking the number of a withdrawn one. O2s of Lots 518 and 534 also took numbers in the 28xxx range but not, I suspect, this one.

 

Is the location, date, or identity of this p/w gang known?

 

To my taste, this is a too muted colourisation. If it's to be an interesting exercise, I feel, colourisation should aim to represent the scene as it was, bringing it to life rather than keeping it in a sepia past. But the choice of colour will very often have to be made by the colouriser, if there is no good evidence.

[Compound2632]

Now, a while back I was building an etched kit for a Midland Railway D418 fruit and milk van. It really ought to be transferred to the carriage thread. It got stuck at the painting stage as half-way through my can of Halfords Rover Damask Red ran out and Halfords have discontinued these old Rover colours as stock items.

 

Anyway, I've just discovered that these vehicles, and also the D419 square-panelled design, were dual fitted (vacuum and Westinghouse brakes) or at least through piped for Westinghouse*. So, where did they roam? Westinghouse lines in connection with the Midland include the North British, North Eastern, Brighton, and Tilbury. Probably not the Caledonian (!) or Great North of Scotland. What about the Great Eastern? The Midland had access to south Lincolnshire soft fruit via the M&GN.

 

*The batch of D419 built for the S&DJR were vacuumed braked but Westinghouse piped only.

[Guy Rixon]

Also LCDR.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

Also LCDR.

 

I got my list of Westingouse lines from a 1922 document that puts SECR in the vacuum list. LCDR certainly a line in connection, unlike the SER - the Midland was Watkin's bugbear; Forbes its running dog.

 

Also Rhymney and Metropolitan District.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Compound2632

[Northroader]

The MR had an end on connection with the GER at Peterborough as well, so there would be through traffic.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

The MR had an end on connection with the GER at Peterborough as well, so there would be through traffic.

 

Peterborough was a very important point of exchange for mineral traffic between the two companies but I'm not aware of any through passenger (or passenger-rated) working. For Lancashire - Harwich passenger traffic, the Great Eastern was hand-in-glove with the Sheffield company - later Great Central. From the West Midlands, I think with the North Western. 

[Compound2632]

It's been a long while since I posted any actual modelling. I'm afraid that's largely due to having to cope with the illness and passing away of my father over the summer. Anyone with an interest in the history of Birmingham's railways may have come across Steaming Up to Sutton, a little book he researched and wrote on the pre-history and railway politics leading up to the building of the first railway line to Sutton Coldfield in 1862. First published in 1984 and reprinted in 1989, it is now out of print but copies are readily available at a reasonable price from the usual online second-hand dealers. Mike Musson's Warwickshire Railways website features (with permission) the plan of the original Sutton station, redrawn by me from an original that was unfit for photography.

 

My father had been a train-spotter in his youth, usually dragged along by his next eldest brother. He said that they preferred Snow Hill to New Street as there was a better chance of "cabbing". They also made expeditions to the famous field at Tamworth, where the call of "clangers" would herald the high excitement of a "semi" roaring past. (This would have been early 1950s.) He had a formative influence on my own enthusiasm for railways: we moved to Shrewsbury in 1966, initially to a house near a level crossing on, I think, the line out to Welshpool, which still at that date saw some steam-hauled trains (I'd be glad if anyone can say whether this is correct, or whether it must have been one of the other lines); he took me, a toddler, to see the trains go by - apparently I was terrified of these great hissing monsters! We moved to Sutton Coldfield in 1972, to a house backing on to the ex-LNWR Lichfied Extension near Four Oaks station. So what with all this early Great Western and North Western influence, it's a mystery how I've turned out a Midland enthusiast!

 

We have taken in my father's cat, Daisy. A London and North Western cat if ever there was one: sleek, black, assured of her own superiority, and confident that she has the best dining arrangements. This has been a rather direct barrier to my doing much modelling, as it was decreed that the best and only place for her litter tray is under my modelling table...

 

Nevertheless, today I did some wagon work, lettering the G&SWR D10 box wagon. I mentioned a while back that Mr Stuart Rankin of the GSWRA had very kindly provided me with scans of the Association's file of documents on this type of wagon. I had been in doubt about the appropriate size of lettering. Close examination of two photos in this collection shows that the & S were smaller than the G W, as for mineral wagons, despite there not being the same constraint of the door ironwork. The top of the & S are aligned with the top of the third plank up, with the GW on the same baseline, so just spreading over onto the fourth plank. I've replicated this with the HMRS transfers:

 

 

A caveat has to be that both photos are of the 10 ton version of this wagon, with single-sided double brakes (with V-hanger) and both show grey rather than black ironwork. One, of No. 8191, is clearly an official (white tyres); unfortunately it's a poor photocopy of an original print so the paint date isn't visible. The other, of No. 16326, shows a wagon in rather worn condition - I suspect it's a post-grouping photo, and sometime well after grouping, on the grounds that there would have to be something sufficiently unusual about the wagon (i.e. survival of pre-grouping lettering) for it to be worthy of a photo. It's between a GW 4-plank open and a Midland D299, and, I've just noticed, it's got its number painted on the end, fourth plank up, between the end pillars. I've not seen that in other G&SW wagon photos where the end is visible, so I'll conveniently assume it's a post-1902 thing!

 

As it happens, I saw one of these wagons in a train only today:

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Mikkel]

I'm sorry to hear about your father, Stephen.  I didn't know he was a railway enthusiast and -author. It must be nice to have shared the interest. He clearly made a good job of passing it on.

 

The wagon looks excellent to my untrained eye. It has that look of proper 'mass'. And meticulously researched as always. I forget what you do for couplings. Plain 3-links?

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

And meticulously researched as always. I forget what you do for couplings. Plain 3-links?

 

I find that, increasingly, my wagons are chiefly intended as records of my research.

 

The couplings are Slater's 3-links, their part No. 4151.

 

My father's adult interest in railways was really only as a part of his interest in all aspects of local history. He was not a sentimental or antiquarian local historian; the research group grew out of a WEA evening class he started in the 1970s, on local history from original source materials. His students spent the first six weeks learning to transcribe 17th century wills and inventories. Anyone who hadn't dropped out had (a) been bitten by the local history bug (probably lurking between the pages of those dusty old documents) and (b) was qualified to read his handwriting. Perhaps something of that has rubbed off on my approach to modelling.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Compound2632

[Penlan]

On 26/09/2020 at 18:25, Compound2632 said:

.........Close examination of two photos in this collection shows that the & S were smaller than the G W, as for mineral wagons, despite there not being the same constraint of the door ironwork. The top of the & S are aligned with the top of the third plank up, with the GW on the same baseline, so just spreading over onto the fourth plank. I've replicated this with the HMRS transfers:

 

 

 

 

When I was a novice draughtsman in an Architects Office (1960/61), I seemed to be writing out the Roman Alphabet till forever.  It was suppose to be inducing proportions into my brain, apparently 
One of the things learnt though was that letters with round tops and bottoms had to be slightly (vertically) longer, so the illusion was they were the same height as the flat top and bottom letters.  There was also the 'air' between letters too! ! ! ! !
Just an aside.....
Oh, and that's a very nice looking wagon.

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

Today's lesson is written in the Second Book of Essery, the eighth chapter, beginning at the second verse:

 

Creosote Tank Wagons.

 

There are three diagrams listed:

 

Diagram 729, Drg. 866, 40 wagons built to five Lots: 282 (ordered 29 June 1891), 320 (ordered 7 June 1893), 332, 431, and 474. Lot 320 is listed as being with steam pipes. The diagram reproduced as Fig. 117 shows a 5'0¾" diameter tank of 2,060 gal capacity on a steel underframe, 18'0" over headstocks, 10'6" wheelbase.

 

Diagram 830, Drg. 3925, 12 wagons built to Lot 839 ordered on 5 Sept 1913. The diagram reproduced as Fig. 118 shows a 5'6" diameter tank of 2,120 gal capacity on a steel underframe, 16'0" over headstocks, 9'6" wheelbase. The diagram gives the numbers 48-59; Plate 259 is an official photo of No. 48 (Midland Railway Study Centre Item 64009).

 

Diagram 838, Drg. ?, 6 wagons, date ? The diagram reproduced as Fig. 119 shows a 5'4" diameter tank of 2,000 gal capacity on a timber underframe, 14'11" over headstocks, 9'0" wheelbase. The diagram gives the six numbers 19-22, 33, 34. Plate 260 is an official photo of the type shown in this diagram (Midland Railway Study Centre Item 64643). This shows a numberplate of the usual pre-1913 size and shape but rather oddly lettered. It appears to read M  R  N  41 on the top line, where one expects to read MIDLAND, with the space below, where the number usually appears, left blank. 

 

A resource that appears not to have been available to Essery back in the 1970s is the Derby Carriage & Wagon Drawing Register; this is available as a searchable database on the Midland Railway Study Centre Website. Entering "creosote" as a search term and selecting "Carriage & Wagon Register" and "Description" draws down sixteen drawings of Midland origin and one LMS. The Midland drawings are in three groups:

• Drg. 866, dated 7 July 1891, "Circular Creosote Tank" and four detail drawings (including Drg. 855 "Number plate for Creosote & Gas Tar Tanks", along with Drg. 972, dated 5 May 1893, "Steam Cock for Creosote Tank". 
• Drg. 3569, dated 2 Nov 1911, "2060 Gallon Creosote Tank Wagon" and three detail drawings.
• Drg. 3945, dated 13 Aug 1913, "10 Ton Creosote Tank" and four detail drawings.

There is also Drg. 3061, dated 14 July 1908, "Outlet Cock for Creosote Tank"; quite possibly this is for a fixed tank in the wagon works or elsewhere.

 

It's generally the case that for a new design, drawings were prepared after the Lot had been raised - no working ahead of project! So, I think it's fairly clear that the mystery diagram D838 dates from 1911/12 and was to Drg 3569. However, there's a problem with the description "2060 Gallon Creosote Tank Wagon" since that's the capacity claimed for Fig. 117, which purports to depict D729. The lack of a Lot is a puzzle, though.

 

I have had sight of a scan of the Study Centre's copy of Drg. 866. This shows a tank wagon that looks very like Fig. 119 and Plate 260 and is endorsed "Lots 320, 332, 431, 474" and "Note - Steam pipes in Creosote Tanks only in Lot 320 / " 332"; the steam pipes are drawn in. The Midland had a bad habit of updating and re-drawing drawings while retaining the original drawing number and date; this is presumably a re-drawing for Lot 320, adding the steam pipes, then with annotations for subsequent lots.

 

I think it is fairly clear what's going on here: a simple mistake in the compiling of Midland Wagons: Figs. 117 and 119 have been transposed. Fig 119 actually represents D729 (the six numbers listed are perhaps those of the last lot); Fig 117 represents D838 (quantity now unknown, since the supposition of six was based on the six numbers listed on Fig 119). The 10'6" wheelbase steel underframe is much more likely for 1911 than 1891. There is, I believe, no known photo of a tank wagon to this diagram.

 

By a bit of textural analysis and reference to non-scriptural sources, a corruption in the sacred text can be emended.

 

So, as the Superintendent of the Line's Circular would say, amend your copy accordingly.

 

I'm grateful to Tony @Rail-Online for asking a question that led me down this path.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Compound2632
Correct link to MRSC Item No. 64643 inserted.