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

[Compound2632]

More unseen van spotting and still thinking about refrigerated meat vans, I was reminded by a post of @Florence Locomotive Works's of an official photo of Lawley Street goods station dated 11 July 1911. This vantastic view is a crop from an enlargement on the Warwickshire Railways website:

 

 

The refrigerated meat van next to the Great Northern van is D372, of which 100 were built to Lot 372 of 1896; 50 were fitted with AVB through pipe, this is one of them. It has acquired oil axleboxes, having been built with Ellis 10A grease boxes, according to the official photo [R.J. Essery, Midland Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1980) Plate 151]. The van to the left, with the same style of bodywork (including narrow doorway, only 3'6" vs. 4'9" on later vehicles) but passenger running gear (larger wheels, J hangers to the springs, and clasp brakes) must be D374, of which 210 were built to Lots 444 and 480, of 1898 and 1900. I've not come across a photo of one of these before. Both appear to have the horizontally-boarded panel top left of the bodyside, as seen on the official photo of a D395 van of 1910 [ibid, Plate 218; MRSC Item No. 64129]. In that photo, the boards appear to be screwed or nailed in place, so it can't be a hatch. In the Lawley Street photo, there is what appears to be a label on the D372 van, so perhaps that is the purpose of this feature. 

 

The Great Northern van appears to be an 18 ft vehicle with clasp brakes (i.e. AVB) and footboards to the doors, which are cupboard rather than sliding, and no roof ventilators. I can't find an exact match for this [P. Tatlow, LNER Wagons Vol. 1 (Wild Swan, 2005) pp. 44-46]. 

 

In the row behind, there's a D357 14'11" covered goods wagon on the left. This has been given a brake cross-shaft and left-facing lever on the side opposite the brakes. Next to this is a cupboard-door van. The only such were the tariff vans D382, 250 built to Lot 433 of 1898, and the banana vans D365, 200 built to Lot 608 of 1905 and 25 with this style of door to Lot 649 of 1906. (The road vans built for the S&DJR in 1895 originated this style.) The lack of roof ventilators suggests it's a tariff van. The style of lettering - recently freshened up, by the look of it - differs from that illustrated in Midland Wagons [Plates 203 and 204]. The latter show around 9" M.R in the left-most panel of the framing; here we see probably 12" M in the same position, the R being in the next panel along, by comparison with a photo of a similarly-lettered sliding-door banana van built in 1910 [ibid, Plate 201; MRSC Item No. 64125].

 

Behind the Great Northern van, there's a standard D362 8 ton/D363 10 ton covered goods wagon demonstrating that Midland wagons were light grey when they came out of the paint shop!

 

Finally, in the third row back, the van half into the goods shed has louvres under the eaves but not on the lower bodyside and lacks roof ventilators, indicating that it is a D378 covered fruit van, of which 100 were built to Lot 370 of 1896.

 

An interesting selection of vans, demonstrating that the comparatively rare (compared to the tens of thousands of high-sided and low-sided opens) can be common enough if one looks in the right place. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[MR Chuffer]

39 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

demonstrating that the comparatively rare (compared to the tens of thousands of high-sided and low-sided opens) can be common enough if one looks in the right place.

I saw elsewhere the huge number of MR open wagons to covered vans (Essery quotes something like >60% open wagons to 2% for van) and I was thinking to structure my goods trains in such a proportion, but then realised this gives a false picture of goods trains' makeup. So many of the D299s were used for mineral traffic, many laid up in sidings as coal storage units, say 50%? So this would decrease the proportion of open wagons to covered vans, anyone care to venture a guess? My own would be that for a mixed traffic goods - non-mineral, I have 2 covered vans for every 8 open wagons, or 20%. And of course, mineral trains would be 100% open wagons.

 

The Bristol goods survey elsewhere on RMweb draws similar inferences, though post-WW1, and the other point of conjecture is that this is a picture, along with many others of Lawley Street on the same site, of goods being discharged undercover in and goods shed, and therefore more likely to be unloaded from covered vans than tarped open wagons.

Edited February 16, 2021 by MR Chuffer
schpelling

[Compound2632]

On 16/02/2021 at 12:39, MR Chuffer said:

I saw elsewhere the huge number of MR open wagons to covered vans (Essery quotes something like >60% open wagons to 2% for van) and I was thinking to structure my goods trains in such a proportion, but then realised this gives a false picture of goods trains' makeup. So many of the D299s were used for mineral traffic, many laid up in sidings as coal storage units, say 50%? 

 

Date matters here, particularly for the Midland, which was van-poor in the 19th century - about 1.7% of stock in 1894. There was a great bust of van-building around the turn of the century, settling down to a steady steam thereafter, with the result that vans had risen to over 8% of stock by 1905 and 10% by 1921 - this trend continuing throughout the grouping and into BR days. 

 

As to the proportion of opens in mineral traffic, there are two lines of argument:

 

1. High-sided opens were built to replace bought up PO wagons. There were nearly 64,000 of the later, with 62,000 D299, 9,000 D 351, and another 5,000 or so of other mineral diagrams by c. 1902, 76,000 in total. Therefore 12,000 were not required for mineral traffic. This argument is weak on two fronts: firstly, the growth in mineral traffic throughout the period; secondly, the number of new PO wagons - 40,000 registered by the Midland by 1903, though, given the number of wagon building firms on the Midland system, not necessarily all destined to run over Midland routes.

 

2. Comparison with the LNWR and GWR, which had about 82,000 and 88,000 wagons respectively at the end of 1921 (of which around 14,000 vans in both cases). These companies made much greater reliance on PO mineral wagons, the LNWR having around 7,000 mineral wagons and the GWR essentially none (in both case, excluding loco coal wagons, which are not counted separately in the Midland totals - around 3,000 in the LNWR case). Taking the LNWR as comparable in size, extent, traffic, and wealth to the Midland, we could assume that its total of 81,000 goods (non-mineral) wagons was about the same as the number of wagons the Midland had in non-mineral traffic, leaving 41,000 Midland wagons in mineral traffic, at the end of 1921. Extrapolating back to c. 1902, that suggests that about half of the D299s were in mineral traffic (along with the 14,000-odd other wagons to mineral diagrams).

 

On 16/02/2021 at 12:39, MR Chuffer said:

So this would decrease the proportion of open wagons to covered vans, anyone care to venture a guess? My own would be that for a mixed traffic goods - non-mineral, I have 2 covered vans for every 8 open wagons, or 20%. And of course, mineral trains would be 100% open wagons.

 

One can look for photos of goods (not mineral) trains and also study accident reports. These show the trend one would expect, from goods trains being composed mostly of low-sided wagon (D305 and its antecedents) in the early 1880s to a higher proportion of vans in the 19th century. But be aware that vans were often concentrated in certain types of train - the Manchester-London express goods train that came to grief at Sharnbrook in 1909 included just three opens out of 24 vehicles; 18 of those vehicles had the automatic vacuum brake, all of them vans.

 

I would say that 20% is probably too high a proportion in an ordinary goods train but it does depend on date and locality.

 

I'm writing an article on this whole topic for the Midland Railway Society Journal - should appear in the Summer issue this year.

 

NB. I've lazily used the word "van" to cover all types of vehicles with roofs except livestock vehicles - ordinary covered goods wagons together with vehicles for specialised traffics such as meat, fruit, bananas, road vehicles, and gunpowder - but excluding passenger rated stock - horseboxes, fish, fruit & milk vans etc.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Compound2632]

From theory to practice. I've made myself a frame for making mineral loads:

 

 

It's made from 0.060" (1.5 mm) Plastikard and is designed to make loads from 55 mm to 62 mm long (covering everything from Slater's Midland coke wagons to 16'0" over headstocks wagons such as Coopercraft GWR opens) and from a minimum width of 25.5 mm (coke wagons again) to at least 30 mm. It is 5 mm deep to the top of the ledges with another 1.5 mm for levering out anything that gets accidentally glued in place. It's in two L-shaped halves, one fixed, the other held in place by a rubber band:

 

 

Also in that photo is an example of a card load base cut to size and painted with black acrylic.

 

After some experimentation and clearing up of mess, I've gone for the idea of clingfilm between the base and the frame. (Apologies, I haven't looked back to check who suggested that.) Now I've just got to work on my ballasting technique:

 

 

For this one, with the coarse ballast, I've got an extra card former in the bottom of the well so that the depth from the top of the former the load is being glued to to the lip of the frame is reduced to 2 mm.

 

Experiments continue.

 

Makes you see why folk prefer modelling vans!

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Compound2632]

On 12/02/2021 at 21:03, Compound2632 said:

I've submitted an enquiry to the National Brewery Centre.

 

... whose Collections Officer is currently furloughed and without access to a beer barrel. She hopes to be able to supply the dimensions once she's back on site later in the spring.

[Siberian Snooper]

She's not the only one without access to a beer barrel, or more importantly some of the content of said barrel.

 

 

[Penrhos1920]

Found this photo of some barrels next to a LB&SC wagon in North Mersey Goods Depot.  One of 5 photos relating to the scene of an accident involving Mr Johnson.  Judging by the 'illegal' prop under the door I suspect the prop shifted and caused Mr Johnson injury.

 

https://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10655853&itemw=4&itemf=0001&itemstep=1&itemx=36

 

 

[Compound2632]

29 minutes ago, Penrhos1920 said:

Judging by the 'illegal' prop under the door I suspect the prop shifted and caused Mr Johnson injury.

 

Under certain circumstances he or his employer may have been required to sign an indemnity waver, such as this [Midland Railway Study Centre Item 28926].

[Compound2632]

I'm afraid I've been rather ruthless with the running gear of the Mousa Models D370 meat van, bringing it up to date for the 1890s:

 

 

MJT axleguards and axlebox/spring castings, with 0.040" plasticard packing to set them at the correct height.

 

Progress on the NBR wagons has been delayed as my can of Halfords grey primer has run out. Thursday is supermarket run day, so I'll click & collect this essential automotive product on my way home.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[billbedford]

Those axleboxes look reeeeealy oversized. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by billbedford

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, billbedford said:

Thosw=e axleboxes look reeeeealy oversized. 

 

'Tis true. The Ellis 10A axlebox is 6¾" wide over the body; the MJT and Slaters representations are 3 mm. One can see why - they are designed to accommodate a 2 mm diameter bearing. At least my wagons are all obese together. In the same spirit I've cut out the spindly scale-sized brakes which I will replace with a Slaters moulding. Sorry!

Edited February 23, 2021 by Compound2632

[billbedford]

Sometimes this business feels like banging my head against a wall...

 

 

No doubt it will feel better when I stop. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by billbedford

[Compound2632]

Oh dear. I'm getting worried that if I carry on mistreating his kits like this, he'll refuse to sell to me.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Compound2632

[MikeOxon]

2 hours ago, billbedford said:

Sometimes this business feels like banging my head against a wall...

No doubt it will feel better when I stop. 

Any of us who are modelling in '00' are so used to gross errors that the odd millimetre is easily forgotten.  Sometimes, compromise in the smaller scales is inevitable but , if you can make it the right size, then you should do so.  Please take care of your head, Bill

[wagonman]

On 13/02/2021 at 18:56, Mikkel said:

 

Look at those sleepers, not only half buried but they also seem to be different lengths - or is that an illusion?

 

Probably typical colliery yard track... Photo taken at Newbury.

[Compound2632]

Here's the Mousa Models D370 refrigerator meat van assembled, although the roof isn't stuck on yet:

 

 

Compare Midland Wagons Plate 212 and you will notice, as I just have, that although I've added the roof handrail and the step-up stirrup, I've overlooked the door stop and the vacuum pipes. Some but not all of these vehicles were piped but none had vacuum brakes. I've used MJT buffers (the one nearest the camera looks wonky - bother) rather than the ones supplied, not from any dislike of the Mousa buffers per se but because they are, erroneously, the carriage type (and will be useful elsewhere). Also, looking at the official photo, I've made the stirrup too small - and I was following a Derby C&W DO drawing! The brake gear on these vehicles, or at least on the 1892 ones, had a single vee-hanger on the outside of the solebar and a vertical support behind, so the inner vee got the snip too. That left the outer vee rather fragile but I hope the stout cross-rod will provide enough support. The resin used for the underframe is quite flexible (as Bill mentioned in a recent post) which gives me confidence.

 

I've probably come across as rather critical of this kit, which would be an unfair impression to leave. I've made a number of modifications to suit my taste, judgement, and observation of the prototype but I wouldn't have built a D370 meat van at all - certainly not over a couple of days - if it wasn't for the kit. There are numerous features I would have struggled to represent satisfactorily, notably the end ladder, door furniture, and side rail support brackets, that the kit has done for me.

 

Can Bill be persuaded to do the 16'6" version - D372 and D374?

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[billbedford]

D.374 might be a possibility. It is sufficiently different from D.370 to make it attractive, and it could be run in passenger trains. 

 

I have been asked to do a D.375, that should be D.376.  but since there  were only 3 built it may not be worth while. On the other hand, many layouts seem to have an over abundance of wagons that would never have be seen in a life time of watching trains. 

Edited February 24, 2021 by billbedford

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

D.374 might be a possibility. It is sufficiently different from D.370 to make it attractive, and it could be run in passenger trains. 

 

D374 and D372 differ only in running gear (and you've seen what I've done to that). 

[billbedford]

Yes, but D374 has 3'7½" wheels and AVB. 

[Compound2632]

On 24/02/2021 at 21:20, billbedford said:

Yes, but D374 has 3'7½" wheels and AVB. 

 

That's what I meant by running gear. The body is identical, per the photo I posted earlier, which I post again, further cropped, D374 on the left, D372 on the right, annoying tilt wagon at the front:

 

 

As I remarked before, these both have the horizontal boarding top left which from the copy of Drawing 1102 in the Midland Railway Study Centre collection is not how they were built, see also Midland Wagons Plate 217. That's a detail that would be easy to add but an appalling nuisance to remove from a printed resin body!

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Mikkel]

Nice work Stephen. It would seem that, unexpectedly, sometimes the customer is right.

[Jol Wilkinson]

All customers are right all of the time, or so they believe.

[Compound2632]

On 25/02/2021 at 08:07, Mikkel said:

Nice work Stephen. It would seem that, unexpectedly, sometimes the customer is right.

 

On 25/02/2021 at 09:36, Jol Wilkinson said:

All customers are right all of the time, or so they believe.

 

Not for me to comment. All I would say is that Bill justly pointed out the obesity of the Ellis 10A axleboxes. 

 

I do have the advantage that I have scans of drawings from the Derby C&W DO that are in the collection of the Midland Railway Study Centre, specifically drawings 419 "Refrigerator Van" (a version drawn for Lot 305 or Lot 333; D370), 1102 "Refrigerator Van Lot 372" (D372), and 425 "Detail of Ladder and Steps for Refrigerator Van", although all the modifications I have made to the kit are ones that can be made with reference to Midland Wagons alone.

 

I became dissatisfied with the ride height so took out the axleguards, removed the plasticard spacers, and glued the axleguards back in so that the solebars are resting on the cast spring-shoes - an advantage of using a cyanoacrylate, which breaks under shock...

 

 

I've also added the door stops, vac pipes, and step on the end of the headstock - a little bit of bent brass. 

 

I've collected the Halfords grey primer...

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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[Regularity]

You paid for the product so you can do with it what you will: it fundamentally suited your needs and you have a model which you might otherwise not have got around to building so quickly. The fact that you wanted to change some of the design features is entirely up to you. The fact that you were able to do this speaks volumes for the soundness of the original components.

 

This is the difference between "building a model of X using Y's components/kit", and "building Y's kit of X". 

(Even if Y's kit of X happens to be perfect for you, these are different mindsets.)

 

[Compound2632]

On 25/02/2021 at 16:21, Regularity said:

This is the difference between "building a model of X using Y's components/kit", and "building Y's kit of X". 

 

Talking of which, I'm half-way through building a model of a Midland 4-plank open out of a Slater's D299 kit:

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
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