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

[Mikkel]

 

11 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I have always had the impression that all RCH wagon specs until the 1923 one were so generic that each manufacturer could basically make it up as they went along. So I'm by no means sure that any photo of a wagon would mean much without knowing the name of its maker. A bit like C3P0

 

Yes good point, specifically I'm building a couple of Slater's kits of the Gloucester 5-plank side door and 7 plank side- and end door types.

 

In the meantime Stephen has kindly provided information on Dave's blog.

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Mikkel

[Compound2632]

33 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I have always had the impression that all RCH wagon specs until the 1923 one were so generic that each manufacturer could basically make it up as they went along. So I'm by no means sure that any photo of a wagon would mean much without knowing the name of its maker. A bit like C3P0

 

But the wagon still had to pass inspection by a railway company before it could be registered. The railway company's inspector would be familiar with the RCH specification drawings, so there was an incentive for the builder to conform. Variation was in details such as the design of the ironwork, individual designs of grease axlebox, etc. Examples of the former would be Gloucester's V-shaped brake vee irons - without the ben to vertical on the solebar - or Eastwood's L-shaped rather than semicircular crownplates. It is such details that enable one to identify a particular builder's wagons in photos.

Edited August 28, 2021 by Compound2632

[Miss Prism]

I'm still not clear whether diagonals on the inside should be fitted on the Gloucester 5/7 plankers, and I find Stephen's D0267 diagram confusing.

 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

I'm still not clear whether diagonals on the inside should be fitted on the Gloucester 5/7 plankers, and I find Stephen's D0267 diagram confusing.

 

 

Gloucester wagons have a diagonal on the inside that runs from the the solebar up to the top corner, where it was forged into a strap-bolt, with a large nut on the outside end (with a wedge-shaped washer). Not well represented on the Slaters kits. Shows up moderately well here. There's a bolt through each plank from the diagonal, with the nuts on the outside having individual washers.

 

The drawing: the elevation is as the wagon is seen from the outside - unlike some where one half is an outside view and the other half as if looking outwards from the centre-line. Please explain what you are confused by and I'll try to elucidate!

 

Note, by-the-way, the long rods passing vertically through the sides, from top (holding the cap strip in place) to underside of side-rail.

[Miss Prism]

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Gloucester wagons have a diagonal on the inside that runs from the the solebar up to the top corner, where it was forged into a strap-bolt, with a large nut on the outside end (with a wedge-shaped washer). Not well represented on the Slaters kits. Shows up moderately well here. There's a bolt through each plank from the diagonal, with the nuts on the outside having individual washers.

 

Yes, that is vaguely coming back to me now.

 

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The drawing: the elevation is as the wagon is seen from the outside - unlike some where one half is an outside view and the other half as if looking outwards from the centre-line. Please explain what you are confused by and I'll try to elucidate!

 

Thanks for that, what was confusing me was the single outside diagonal, which seems very odd to me, and it is unlike the Gloucesters in that respect.

 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Thanks for that, what was confusing me was the single outside diagonal, which seems very odd to me, and it is unlike the Gloucesters in that respect.

 

The diagonal is at the end door end only, bracing the end knee. At the fixed end, the corner plate holds the body rigidly square. It is, I think, a less common arrangement than having diagonal bracing at both ends, either inside or outside.

[Compound2632]

Photographs of the interior of PO wagons are hard to come by. This one provides a variety of angles! As the caption says, it's certainly not 1885 as claimed - these look like wagons to the RCH 1907 specification, though many 10 ton wagons approximating to that spec had been built over the previous decade. These have diagonals on the outside, at the end door end only mirrored on the inside for the top 18" or so of their length. Note how thick the side knees are compared to everything else. 

 

 

[PenrithBeacon]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But the wagon still had to pass inspection by a railway company before it could be registered. The railway company's inspector would be familiar with the RCH specification drawings, so there was an incentive for the builder to conform. Variation was in details such as the design of the ironwork, individual designs of grease axlebox, etc. Examples of the former would be Gloucester's V-shaped brake vee irons - without the ben to vertical on the solebar - or Eastwood's L-shaped rather than semicircular crownplates. It is such details that enable one to identify a particular builder's wagons in photos.

Sorry, Steven, but I think we're at cross purposes. The point of my post was that the spec was so vague that a manufacturer could do pretty much what they liked, so a photo of the inside of any one wagon wouldn't depict the inside of another from a different manufacturer.

During the First World War many wagons from the 1887 and 1907 specs had to be scrapped because so many components were non-interchangeable. Wagons that would otherwise have been returned to service after a simple repair had to be scrapped because proprietary components weren't available. This brought about the 1923 spec which tightened up on interchangeability as well as further improving the design.  

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Sorry, Steven, but I think we're at cross purposes. The point of my post was that the spec was so vague that a manufacturer could do pretty much what they liked, so a photo of the inside of any one wagon wouldn't depict the inside of another from a different manufacturer.

 

I hope we can converge on the middle ground - the 1887 specification provided a set of requirements to which a wagon had to conform in order to pass inspection and registration but the builders had considerable liberty as to the design details, so that, as you say, many builders had some distinctive ways of doing things that make their products distinguishable. But there were things the definitely couldn't do, like build wagons with dumb buffers or non-standard journal dimensions. A the modeller with, say, only a photo giving an oblique view of the exterior of the wagon has to infer the layout of the interior ironwork based on (a) a general knowledge of how wagons were built and (b) deduction based on the positions of exterior ironwork, bolts, etc.

 

2 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

During the First World War many wagons from the 1887 and 1907 specs had to be scrapped because so many components were non-interchangeable. Wagons that would otherwise have been returned to service after a simple repair had to be scrapped because proprietary components weren't available. This brought about the 1923 spec which tightened up on interchangeability as well as further improving the design.  

 

Before the Great War, the principal wagon builders maintained networks of repair outposts at major marshalling yards around the country, each equipped with stocks of the company's standard components. After the Great War, this part of their business was formed into a separate company, Wagon Repairs Ltd. I can see that standardisation of components would be very much in the interest of the new company; I have to say that I hadn't really thought of the 1923 RCH specification exactly in that context.

 

Can I ask what is the source of your statement about wagons being scrapped during the Great War due to non-availability of bespoke parts? It sounds plausible but I've not seen it stated before. "Many" is a relative term - several thousand could be "many" but still a drop in the ocean of over half-a-million.

[PenrithBeacon]

Mine of information SG as well as NG

[Compound2632]

@PenrithBeacon, I shall have to persuade a friend who is into the period - propelled by Bachmann's Baldwin - to buy a copy if he doesn't already have it. Then I'll borrow it...

[Mikkel]

I'm trying to make a rough sketch of the interior ironwork on Gloucester wagons to RCH 1887 specs, so that I can indicate it on my wagons. This is a first draft.

 

I'm not clear from the discussion till now whether there would have been only one interior diagonal per side on the end door versions. The bolt pattern on the Slater's wagons indicate two, so that's what I have tentatively shown. 

 

I'm also not sure how the diagonal would have interacted with the corner plates, so have not finalized that bit yet. I assume the diagonal would have gone all the way to the top corner (it certainly did at the end doors, if I understand Stephen correctly). But then it would have to overlap the vertical plates, as per Dave's build. Does that mean it was bent outwards over them - seems strange?

 

Any corrections and comments would be very welcome.

 

Note this is seen from the INSIDE, which is what you need when detailing the interior of Slater's kits.

 

 

 

Edit: Below is an updated sketch, based on discussion and Stephen's drawing below. Am inserting it here in order to avoid anyone being misled by the earlier draft above. 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Mikkel
Spotted a couple of issues

[Compound2632]

On 29/08/2021 at 19:42, Mikkel said:

I'm trying to make a rough sketch of the interior ironwork on Gloucester wagons to RCH 1887 specs, so that I can indicate it on my wagons. This is a first draft.

 

Any corrections and comments would be very welcome.

 

Remember that the diagonal goes through to be bolted onto the solebar - where it is visible - and at its outer end turns into a stud onto which the large nut is threaded (with the wedge-shaped washer). It follows the diagonal line of bolts on the outside. This makes the layout inside a bit different to a wagon without internal diagonals, such as the Midland high-sided wagon. 

 

Does this very crude sketch help? Outside view, with interior ironwork dotted except the top corner bracket where I forgot. I'm not really certain what that bracket looks like; whether it interacts with the diagonal at all.

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Compound2632]

Also, I think it is probable that there is a washer plate for the bolts through the end pillars.

 

South Wales is a good place to go looking for views of wagons from above, the valleys being narrow and steep-sided. In Turton's Fourth Collection, there's a photo (p. 86) of the incline to Gwaun-cae-Gurwen, with, in the foreground, a line of empty New Cwmgorse wagons - 7-plank end-door wagons which are clearly carrying Gloucester builders, owners, and "for repairs advise" plates. (They appear to be of the same type as the two 1902-built Gloucester wagons illustrated in the article on New Cwmgorse Colliery on pp. 28-29.) The rounded coach-bolt heads of the bolts through the end pillars can be clearly made out. The corner interior ironwork is as previously described, with the L-shaped bracket at the top, for the four bolts going through the top of the corner plate, the diagonal passing through the end just below the bracket, and the four vertical washer plates. Unfortunately, the wagons are all the same way round with the end door facing the camera, so the inside arrangement of the diagonal is unclear - I think it must be fixed to the end knee.

 

There is one odd one out, with coach bolts rather than washer plates in the corners, it also has Ellis-type axleboxes, which were not standard Gloucester issue. It also has some minor differences in the layout of the lettering.

 

The photo is apparently no later than 1907, when the incline was replaced by an avoiding line, but after c. 1902/3, not only by the dates of the Gloucester batches of wagons for New Cwmgorse, but also by a GW O4 with cast plate on its end, which I think may read 76118 (which would make it Lot 414).

Edited August 29, 2021 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

When I'm back from my second holiday, I'll post some more sketches. 

[Mikkel]

Many thanks for that sketch and the details, Stephen. I think I have enough basic understanding now for what are essentially a bunch of styrene strips in my own current builds - though no doubt I shall mess it up anyway!

 

No doubt several of us would be interested to see your further sketches if and when you feel so inclined. That said, I can recommend not thinking about trains for a few days during the holidays. Turns out there's a whole other world out there!  

[Penlan]

A bit off topic, but some help needed.
I use to have the LMS Wagons Volumes many years ago, but they seem to be out on long term loan, well my interest is pre-grouping, so I'm not to bothered,  however I'm aware in the books there are references to pre-grouping designs.
What a colleague is looking for are the LNWR GAS OIL wagons, not the carriage lighting gas supply wagons, but the oil wagons that the gas was manufactured from.  There were 11 of them at one time in LNWR days. 
I suspect they would be a smaller version of the LMS Dia 1816 etc.,  wagons as shown in Essery & Morgan's 1977 book 'The LMS Wagon' (which I still have).  And on page 83 of that book is the Carriage gas twin tank wagon, NOT oil.
If somebody can flick through their volumes of LMS Wagons and see if there's a mention or photo of the LNWR Gas Oil wagon I and my colleague would be very grateful.

[Rowsley17D]

1 hour ago, Penlan said:

A bit off topic, but some help needed.
I use to have the LMS Wagons Volumes many years ago, but they seem to be out on long term loan, well my interest is pre-grouping, so I'm not to bothered,  however I'm aware in the books there are references to pre-grouping designs.
What a colleague is looking for are the LNWR GAS OIL wagons, not the carriage lighting gas supply wagons, but the oil wagons that the gas was manufactured from.  There were 11 of them at one time in LNWR days. 
I suspect they would be a smaller version of the LMS Dia 1816 etc.,  wagons as shown in Essery & Morgan's 1977 book 'The LMS Wagon' (which I still have).  And on page 83 of that book is the Carriage gas twin tank wagon, NOT oil.
If somebody can flick through their volumes of LMS Wagons and see if there's a mention or photo of the LNWR Gas Oil wagon I and my colleague would be very grateful.

 

According to LMS Wagons Vol 1 D1816 etc were Travelling Gas Holder Trucks and all coded GAS. Essery says that D1816 were built on ex-LNWR chassis as were two trucks to D1825. I cannot find any reference to Gas Oil wagons in Essery.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Penlan said:

A bit off topic, but some help needed.
I use to have the LMS Wagons Volumes many years ago, but they seem to be out on long term loan, well my interest is pre-grouping, so I'm not to bothered,  however I'm aware in the books there are references to pre-grouping designs.
What a colleague is looking for are the LNWR GAS OIL wagons, not the carriage lighting gas supply wagons, but the oil wagons that the gas was manufactured from.  There were 11 of them at one time in LNWR days. 
I suspect they would be a smaller version of the LMS Dia 1816 etc.,  wagons as shown in Essery & Morgan's 1977 book 'The LMS Wagon' (which I still have).  And on page 83 of that book is the Carriage gas twin tank wagon, NOT oil.
If somebody can flick through their volumes of LMS Wagons and see if there's a mention or photo of the LNWR Gas Oil wagon I and my colleague would be very grateful.

 

One would think the place to look for a LNWR wagon would be in the three volumes of LNWR Wagons but from inspection of those (and the supplement) it would appear that the LNWR did not admit to having any tank wagons of any description. I find this surprising, since the Midland certainly did - at first creosote wagons, later petroleum, along with some for carriage gas - never more than 52 altogether.

 

I do not have and never have had the multi-volume LMS Wagons but I do have the Essery & Morgan book. Looking at the gas tank wagon in Plate 20C, I would say that is most clearly of LNWR origin, the underframe looking as if it could be recycled from a 4-wheel carriage of very great antiquity - 1850s/60s. But I note that vehicle is in LMS passenger livery (the serif lettering etc.) and is next to a passenger vehicle. So I wonder if the gas oil wagon you are looking for was also NPCS rather than goods stock? (The Midland carriage gas vehicles, though counted by the Midland as goods stock, were also given passenger livery by the LMS.)

[Northroader]

The oil gas for carriage lighting was supplied at a central point on the railway by a small plant made to designs by Pintsch, presumably patented. The incoming oil was distilled into a pure naphtha and compressed, then piped either into the carriages direct, or into railway tank wagons for distribution to outstations.

I think that you would expect the incoming oil to the plant would arrive in privately owned tank wagons belonging to an oil supply company, rather than railway owned tank wagons?

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Northroader said:

The oil gas for carriage lighting was supplied at a central point on the railway by a small plant made to designs by Pintsch, presumably patented. The incoming oil was distilled into a pure naphtha and compressed, then piped either into the carriages direct, or into railway tank wagons for distribution to outstations.

 

In the case of the Midland, there were plants at numerous locations, near major carriage sidings - Saltley had one, for instance. The Midland had a fleet of ten carriage gas wagons. I've no idea how long one fill of gas would last, though I have an instance of a branch set (Aldridge-Brownhills) being in service for a week before being swapped over for a fresh set (both sets based at Saltley when not on the branch) so presumably at least a week's supply, even in winter. 

 

Presumably arrangements were broadly similar on the LNWR.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Compound2632

[Penlan]

I shall be 'Off-Air' for a couple of days, no internet connection, after I've posted this.....
I will catch-up on Wednesday.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Penlan

[watfordtmc]

19 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... I I've no idea how long one fill of gas would last, though I have an instance of a branch set (Aldridge-Brownhills) being in service for a week before being swapped over for a fresh set (both sets based at Saltley when not on the branch) so presumably at least a week's supply, even in winter. 

According to Weddell, LSWR Carriages 4 (which despite the name deals with early wagons and departmental stock), the "... quantity for one carriage would last about 36 hours of lighting".  This was in 1899.  There's also a mention of a trial on the LNWR c1874, where a reservoir measuring 5'10" x 1'4.5" was said to be good for "... over 1000 miles on one charge".

 

References

1. LSWR Carriages Volume 4, Goods, Departmental Stock and Miscellany, Weddell G, Kestral Railway Books 2006.  Discussion on Travelling Gasholders pp 68-80.  (This volume deals with goods vehicles that did NOT survive to be taken over by the Southern Railway in 1923, as well as the Gasholders and Travelling Cranes.)  The text also refers to:
2. The South Western Gazette July 1899 (for the 1899 reference), and
3. The Engineer June 1874 (for the 1874 reference - apparently a description of 'Herr Pintsch's' system).

 

Regards

TMc

06/09/2021

 

 

[MR Chuffer]

Here's one for you all, D.299s, D607s, etc, when marked up as Loco Coal Only, how did they get to a location that, say, only took 3 wagons a week.? Did they travel in regular goods trains, or what?

 

And MR 3 plank dropside Eng. Dept-style wagons and D.306 Sleeper Wagons, did they have to travel by special train with a Ballast Brake or would they be seen in a regular service train? I haven't got a Ballast Brake....

 

Thx in advance.

[Compound2632]

On 06/09/2021 at 19:56, MR Chuffer said:

Here's one for you all, D.299s, D607s, etc, when marked up as Loco Coal Only, how did they get to a location that, say, only took 3 wagons a week.? Did they travel in regular goods trains, or what?

 

Good photographs of goods trains before the Great War (or at any time) are hard to come by - and if any more than the first half-dozen wagons are identifiable, it's next to a miracle. So this is just my surmise:

 

An 8 ton load of coal is two tenders full, or around four to five bunkers full, for tank engines. There really weren't that many Midland sheds that had very small allocations, compared with the great roundhouses. So I doubt that there were many places needing as little coal as you suggest. On the other hand, looking at shed plans [in C. Hawkins & G. Reeve, LMS Engine Sheds Vol. 2 (Wild Swan, 1981)] there are not many, even of the larger shed, where it is obvious where or how a full train-load of 40+ loco coal wagons could be received. So my suspicion is that rakes of loco coal wagons formed part-loads in ordinary mineral trains. 

 

Not all loco coal travelled from pit to shed in loco coal wagons; there's plenty of evidence for Midland wagons not lettered for loco coal being used, and also for the collieries' own wagons:

 

 

Derby, 25 November 1909. [DY 2115, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.]

 

Which begs the question: why have dedicated loco coal wagons at all? From my delvings into various sources of Midland Railway rolling stock statistics, I am beginning to form the tentative conclusion that wagons so marked were not included in the reported totals of goods wagons (to 1912) or were included under the heading of service vehicles (from 1913). (The Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act 1911 made changes in the format and content of statistical information presented by the railway companies both to their shareholders and to government.) There was probably some tax advantage in thus accounting for wagons not used for revenue earning traffic! Nevertheless loco coal wagons were numbered in the same series with revenue-earning wagons. I am also led to the conclusion that there were probably around 3,000+ loco coal wagons, from around 1890 onwards. That would be consistent with the figures for the LNWR, which was the only other company of comparable size. The LNWR did, I believe, operate some block trains of loco coal from South Wales to Crewe; Midland loco coal seems largely to have come from the Midlands - or at least, been sourced reasonably locally to the relevant shed. There were contracts for the supply of loco coal from particular collieries to individual sheds. (Which was probably a contributory factor to the Aisgill disaster in 1913.) I think a shed may have had its own allocation of loco coal wagons used in merry-go-round fashion with one or more collieries. That may explain why early photos of Westhouses & Blackwell shed (opened 1890) show wagons labelled LOCO COAL on their doors:

 

 

rather than the more usual single line LOCO COAL ONLY:

 

 

- a batch of D299s had been transferred to Stores Dept use for allocation to the new shed and were perhaps lettered up locally, without touching the existing M R lettering. Plausible?

 

On 06/09/2021 at 19:56, MR Chuffer said:

And MR 3 plank dropside Eng. Dept-style wagons and D.306 Sleeper Wagons, did they have to travel by special train with a Ballast Brake or would they be seen in a regular service train? I haven't got a Ballast Brake....

 

Much the same comments apply, in terms of how they were accounted for. I don't think I've seen photos of individual ED branded 3-plank wagons in trains - they're usually seen in longish rakes, but that's often because they're there for a specific job. Undoubtedly for actual ballasting work, they would be seen in full trains with ballast brakes but for conveying ballast or other PW materials from quarry or Derby stores to destination, I think they may well have travelled (in rakes) in ordinary mineral or goods trains. There's some evidence of this from wagon labels in the Study Centre collection.

 

There's certainly evidence for sleeper wagons in ordinary goods trains; there's a photo of two in a train in Midland Wagons, I'm sure, but I can't find it just now!

 

So, in short, I don't think you need worry about having either loco coal or ballast wagons in an ordinary mineral or goods train but not just singly. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted