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

[Brassey]

On 09/01/2022 at 09:24, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

Stephen,

 

the buffers should have been in the kit. John includes AGW sprung buffers in his kit although supply has been somewhat erratic of late. For LNWR locos these is a choice of Webb, Whale or Bowen Cooke, according to which loco you are modelling. Contact John at LRM so he can send which type you want.

 

Using  P4 wheels I have found that it is best to leave out the etched axle guard supports to provide enough clearance. I solder the cleaned up spring/axlebox to the rear of the spring mounting points on the solebar. The photo below of the 2000g tender I built to go behind the Jubilee will give some idea

 

 

As for LNWR loco books I had forgotten that I have Peter Davis's excellent F. W. Webb's Three-Cylinder Compounds. I think I have managed to acquire most of the LNWR locomotive publications although one or two of the Locomotive Illustrated may have escaped me.

 

Jol

Sorry that I've come late to this part of the discussion.  The challenge I have with these tenders is that they have an overall floor.  This means that once built there is no access to the space within.  If you are building this for for the Precedent then I think that might have some workings in the tender.  Eitherway, if you want to put a DCC decoder or even sound in the tender you need a solution.

 

My method I have is to mount the decoder etc. on the chassis and cut a hole in the floor big enough to get the thing in when you screw the chassis on.  This is a darn sight easier to do before it's built!  And a lot harder once the axleboxes are on as per the pic above.  How do I know?

 

I have acquired a Coal Tank sound decoder that is destined for my Coal Engine on the basis they sounded the same and am in the process of doing this.

 

On the subject of books, not sure if this ones been mentioned earlier but Bill Finch's "Building a London & North Western Railway Jumbo" has a huge amount of the small detail and not just for the Precedent (AKA Large Jumbo).  This was published by the Society and not sure if it's still available or in print though.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Brassey said:

Sorry that I've come late to this part of the discussion.  The challenge I have with these tenders is that they have an overall floor.  This means that once built there is no access to the space within.  If you are building this for for the Precedent then I think that might have some workings in the tender.  Eitherway, if you want to put a DCC decoder or even sound in the tender you need a solution.

 

Thanks. Yes, I was a bit dismayed to be building an enclosed space - one could make a much neater job of the tank top / coal space wall joint if one could get the soldering iron in at the joint from below, and the tank filler too. I did put a bit of extra weight in before soldering the tank top on, despite what Jol said about finding these tenders sufficiently heavy - a bit of adhesive lead strip. Weighing the tender so far - all the brasswork except brakes - together with the bag of whitemetal components, It's currently at 56 g without wheels.

 

This tender is for the Coal Engine kit, then there's a 2,000 gal one to do for the A compound - so it's something of a practice run. If I screw it up completely, I can always get another! I'm not into DCC and sound.

 

2 hours ago, Brassey said:

On the subject of books, not sure if this ones been mentioned earlier but Bill Finch's "Building a London & North Western Railway Jumbo" has a huge amount of the small detail and not just for the Precedent (AKA Large Jumbo).  This was published by the Society and not sure if it's still available or in print though.

 

Still in print, I see: LNWRS Publications.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Re. D299s with vertical end strapping, whilst looking in Midland Record No. 2 for something unrelated, I spotted another example of one with the strapping at one end only. There's a double-page spread of Masborough [DY 11744, taken on 20 December 1920 according to the Derby Registers - atmospheric is the word, much longer and they'd have had the fogmen out]. There's a D299 end-on to the camera: the nearer outer end does not have the strapping but it can be seen on the inside of the far end. Presumably this is also the result of a repair requiring replacement of the end planks. The axleboxes appear to be the Ellis 10A type but I don't think that by 1920 that's too much of a guide to date of construction. 

[Brassey]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Thanks. Yes, I was a bit dismayed to be building an enclosed space - one could make a much neater job of the tank top / coal space wall joint if one could get the soldering iron in at the joint from below, and the tank filler too. I did put a bit of extra weight in before soldering the tank top on, despite what Jol said about finding these tenders sufficiently heavy - a bit of adhesive lead strip. Weighing the tender so far - all the brasswork except brakes - together with the bag of whitemetal components, It's currently at 56 g without wheels.

 

This tender is for the Coal Engine kit, then there's a 2,000 gal one to do for the A compound - so it's something of a practice run. If I screw it up completely, I can always get another! I'm not into DCC and sound.

 

 

Still in print, I see: LNWRS Publications.

Do you intend to have a thread for these builds?

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Brassey said:

Do you intend to have a thread for these builds?

 

Possibly. I started threads on backdating an Oxford Dean Goods and on carriages, which have languished from inaction, so I think I want to make a bit more progress before further exposing my inability to finish things.

[Brassey]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Possibly. I started threads on backdating an Oxford Dean Goods and on carriages, which have languished from inaction, so I think I want to make a bit more progress before further exposing my inability to finish things.

I know nothing of the BIWO A Class but I have a C on my workbench. I’ve built a LRM Coal Engine and 3 Coal Tank chassis. Post if you need any pointers. 

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Brassey said:

I know nothing of the BIWO A Class but I have a C on my workbench. I’ve built a LRM Coal Engine and 3 Coal Tank chassis. Post if you need any pointers. 

 

I believe the LRM C is by a different designer to the BIWO A - @Jol Wilkinson can no doubt confirm - but the 2,000 gal tender is the standard LRM item.

 

As you know, I follow your loco workbench thread. (For anyone who hasn't been there, it's linked in his footer.)

Edited January 14, 2022 by Compound2632

[Jol Wilkinson]

Stephen,

 

you are correct that the A and C Class 0-8-0 kits have different designers. The C was designed by John Redrup of LRM (before he persuaded to do some LNWR kit designs for him), the A by Nick Easton as part of his own BIWO (Because I Want One) range, although the tender and some fittings are from LRM.

 

Nick originally sold the BIWO kits direct (to cover his own development costs) but later offered them to LRM. They were always sold as BIWO branded kits to differentiate from LRM "stock" items. The body etches are now produced by Nick Easton when there is sufficient interest/orders through LRM for a batch.

 

Jol

[Rail-Online]

I found the attached in a 1949 railway mag. The caption said it was LMS but it is clearly Midland and is a weighing machine van and the caption said it was down in his local goods yard last week - he did not say where!  I have seen the Pooley vans converted from LNWR 6 wheelers but this is a new design to me and is not in Essery Vol 2

 

Does anyone have any more details?

 

Tony

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Rail-Online said:

I found the attached in a 1949 railway mag. The caption said it was LMS but it is clearly Midland and is a weighing machine van and the caption said it was down in his local goods yard last week - he did not say where!  I have seen the Pooley vans converted from LNWR 6 wheelers but this is a new design to me and is not in Essery Vol 2

 

Does anyone have any more details?

 

Tony

 

It is, as it says on the tin, Midland Railway Weighing Machine Adjusting Van No. 7231. These are in Midland Wagons Vol. 1! Here's an official of its sibling, No. 7479:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of Midland Railway Study Centre Item 64100, also reproduced as Midland Wagons Plate 238.]

 

Both photos show the side with a single door; on the other side, there was a double door [Midland Wagons Plate 239]. The diagram [Midland Wagons Fig. 169], D834, lists just No. 7479 but six weighing machine vans of this design (Drg. 3882) where built 1913-15, along with three vans of the same external appearance as Signal Dept. Repairing Vans in 1915. They superseded an earlier design that was much the same but with with outside framing, built 1887-1912 (Drg. 701, D731). The Midland Railway Study Centre has copies of both drawings [Items 88-D1692 and 88-D0765]. 

 

I've added 7231 to my little list of positively identified Midland wagons, so, many thanks!

Edited January 19, 2022 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

More readers' submissions. A couple of photos from the W.T. Glover & Co. Ltd archive held by the Science Museum have been brought to my attention. This firm was a wire and cable-maker, with works at Old Trafford. (I tried embedding these but it appears the links have timed out, so please follow the links to the SSPL site for these photos.)

 

SSPL ref. 10701238; the caption gives a date of c. 1911 which if correct is interesting, since there's quite a mix of wagons, though all from companies local to Manchester. From left to right:

• Cheshire Lines 3-plank dropside, CLC Diagram 2-5, very similar to MS&L/GC Diagram 6;
• Midland 5-plank end-door 8 ton coal wagon, D351;
• Probably L&Y D16 open; there were CLC/GC opens of similar appearance but the LH brake lever is a tell-tale;
• L&Y D15 3-plank dropside - LH lever again and I think the initials L Y are faintly visible;
• LNW D2 2-plank open - note the quarter-circle cut-aways of the headstock ends and the Scotch brake;
• Possibly a Great Western 2-plank open, with centre door;
• Midland 3-plank dropside, D305;
• Probably another LNW D2.

SSPL ref. 10700810; the caption states c. 1905, which fits with the two L&Y D3 covered goods wagons, one of which is in the grey livery with large L Y initials introduced in 1903 whereas the other is in the old "livery" of unpainted wood with black ironwork. These two sow confusion; on another thread, I had said the evidence pointed towards the brakes always being on the side with the roof hatch, which it had, until now... The Midland wagon is a D299 of course, with Ellis 10A axleboxes. On a full-resolution version of the scan or a good print from the negative one might be able to read the number and make out whether it had the extra end straps. Whose PO wagon is that? John...

 

I went hunting for higher-resolution versions of these photos, thinking they might also turn up on a hunt of Getty Images or the Science Museum website, but without success so far. I did however turn up this from the Science Museum's W.T. Glover & Co. archive:

 

 

[Embedded link to Science Museum website, catalogue gives 1907-1917 date.]

 

This is clearly a Midland 3-plank dropside wagon of 1880s vintage (Drg. 213, note the 8A axleboxes) sold out of service - the numberplate, which would be on the solebar in the gap visible between the cable and the man pulling it, has been removed. The photo shows a couple of interesting features:

• the end knees, supporting the ends of the end planks and the latch for the drop-sides, clearly showing how they taper towards the top and are bent into an L-shape, the horizontal part being bolted to the solebars;
• the headstocks are angled to act as stops for the drop-sides but stop-blocks have been added, as for the later D305 wagons to Drg. 1143 etc., which had standard 7'6" headstocks - these blocks were presumably retro-fitted to older wagons to prevent damage to the side planks and are sketched in in pencil on the Midland Railway Study Centre's copy of Drg. 213 [Item 88-D0100].

The cable-pulling arrangements look rather hairy! The brake is on the wagon so I think the men hanging on to the buffer guides must be trying to stop it tipping over on to the man doing the pulling and the two unfortunates in the hole.

 

And also, for enthusiasts for Great Western special wagons, here's a superb photo of a Loriot C:

 

 

[Embedded link to the "Old Manchester" subforum of "Skyscraper City", where the date is given as c. 1910.]

 

Not having Atkins to hand, I can't give chapter and verse. The number suggests a c. 1880 date but I suspect this is a more modern renewal. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Compound2632
Embedded links to SSPL thumbnails replaced with links to SSPL site.

[Miss Prism]

It's a Loriot diagram G4, built 1880/1. Looks like number 31320. They became Loriot C after 1909.

 

[Penlan]

47 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The brake is on the wagon so I think the men hanging on to the buffer guides must be trying to stop it tipping over on to the man doing the pulling and the two unfortunates in the hole.

I'm not sure why you say the brake is on.. it's on the other side anyway, so what might be visible is the brake pad push rod, but all E.& O.E.
What I think the men at either end are trying to do is keep the cable as it comes off the drum vertically aligned with the hole in the ground.   But I may be wrong 

[Compound2632]

27 minutes ago, Penlan said:

I'm not sure why you say the brake is on.. it's on the other side anyway, so what might be visible is the brake pad push rod, but all E.& O.E.
What I think the men at either end are trying to do is keep the cable as it comes off the drum vertically aligned with the hole in the ground.   But I may be wrong 

 

I think what I see on the far side of the wagon is the brake push rod with, above that, the brake lever in a lowered position - the bend in the lever can be seen. But that might be wrong - there's apparently a gap in what I think is the brake lever, to the left of what I take to be the push rod safety loop. But if they're doing this job without the brake on, they're even more foolhardy than they appear to be!

 

I've edited the post, replacing embedded links to the SSPL thumbnails - which I believe had timed-out - with direct links to the SSPL webpages for these photos.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

50 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

It's a Loriot diagram G4, built 1880/1. Looks like number 31320. They became Loriot C after 1909.

 

Replacement oil axleboxes at some point, then.

[Miss Prism]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Replacement oil axleboxes at some point, then.

 

Yes.

 

The buffers, with those big base pads, are a bit weird.

 

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Miss Prism said:

The buffers, with those big base pads, are a bit weird.

 

It doesn't look to have been done to extend the distance of the buffer heads from the headstock, as was sometimes done. So I suspect it was found that the buffer shanks needed more support - achieved by lengthening the buffer guide - the buffing spring must be right behind the headstock. Even so there's some buffer droop.

[Miss Prism]

They look like standard 1'6" buffers with 4" blocks. I'm not sure how the 3-link couplings could continue to work.

 

I wonder if the wagon was ever returned to the GWR!

 

[Compound2632]

34 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

I wonder if the wagon was ever returned to the GWR!

 

Bound to have been, it's a special. The photo is said to be pre-Great War; even after, this would be a non-pool wagon. I would imagine the cable drum is being consigned to a Great Western destination, having been sent to Manchester specially. 

[65179]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Bound to have been, it's a special. The photo is said to be pre-Great War; even after, this would be a non-pool wagon. I would imagine the cable drum is being consigned to a Great Western destination, having been sent to Manchester specially. 

 

Which then begs the question  why is it chalked up to read "Ship Canal Glover's"? Glover's straddled the Bridgewater Canal and was tucked in between Trafford Park shed and Old Trafford (the Manchester United ground). It had direct access off the CLC so why the MSC reference?

 

See map in this thread:

 

 

Regards,

Simon

[Compound2632]

To avoid getting too bogged down with the tender, I've made a start on the Coal Engine itself:

 

 

Frames, footplate, and boiler are separate items, of course. There are a few points where the instructions and etches aren't quite in agreement* but with the aid of plenty of photos from all angles I think I'm getting there. The boiler took some thinking about and a few goes to get the smokebox plate vertical - i.e. top handrail hole aligned with the dome and safety valve holes. It's better-aligned than it looks in this photo - there's a reflection that is making the top of the smokebox inner wrapper merge with the background.

 

*Viz:

• The instructions state that the valences should project about 0.5 mm beyond the footplate at the front; it is implied that there are slots in the buffer beam to take these, but there aren't. So my plan is to fix the bufferbeam when I add the dummy front end of the frames, for which there are slots in the buffer beam.
• The instructions state that the firebox sides should be bent to follow the etched profile on the cab front. But the cab front doesn't have that. It's pretty obvious how they should go - still need a bit of tweaking; I have yet to offer up the cab side-sheets which curve round and so are profiled to match.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[sir douglas]

ive come across the Glover collection about 2 years ago, some very interesting photos, not just from Trafford but of their cable installations around the UK

 

An list of all the photos in the collection, click on the image titles in the grey boxes under the "Browse this archive" title

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/documents/aa110065452/business-records-of-w-t-glover-co-ltd

Edited January 19, 2022 by sir douglas

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, sir douglas said:

An list of all the photos in the collection, click on the image titles in the grey boxes under the "Browse this archive" title

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/documents/aa110065452/business-records-of-w-t-glover-co-ltd

 

I went there this morning but didn't manage to track down the two photos from SSPL. I was rather taken with "rat-eaten cable" and "unspecified objects"!

 

The Loriot C appears in Negs 823-825.

 

Got it. Neg 580 is the one we were looking at, the line of wagons loaded with cable drums:

 

 

Neg. 577 shows that the 2-planker with centre door I though might be GW turns out to be L&Y, the wagon to the right of that, only just in the picture, is clearly one of the more modern Midland D305 dropside wagons:

 

 

Neg. 578 shows that again, revealling that the D305 is one with oil axleboxes and door springs, and then a LNW D1 and the works rail mounted steam crane:

 

 

[All images Science Museum Group Collection, released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.]

Edited January 19, 2022 by Compound2632
Inserted images.

[Compound2632]

I'm a bit slow on the uptake but this morning I finally twigged that the SSPL images from the W.T. Glover collection include the negative number in the image information, so it is in fact straightforward to track them down on the Science Museum website.

 

Here's the view of the Receiving Yard, with the two L&Y D3 covered goods wagons, Neg 292:

 

 

It's one of a pair with Neg. 293

 

 

... in which the mystery PO is revealed as belonging to John Speakman & Sons - a firm briefly discussed some pages back in connection with S. Speakman & Sons. No. 358, along with Nos. 297 and 235 (all ?) and two more under the canopy on the right, one of which may be 376. (Thanks to my anonymous correspondent for pointing this one out too.)

 

Glover's yard, full of heaps of stuff. I dare say somebody knew where everything was. Where's Wally (aka spot the D299)! Neg. 292: 

 

 

[All images Science Museum Group Collection, released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.]

Edited October 5, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Here's the view of the Receiving Yard, with the two L&Y D3 covered goods wagons, Neg 292:

 

I've just noticed that the one on the right is an early one, with wide planks and low arc roof; the one on the left has the higher arc roof. I'd have to consult N. Coates, Lancashire & Yorkshire Wagons Vol. 2 (Wild Swan, 2006) with a damp towel on my forehead to work out what that means in terms of build dates.