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


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A lovely set. Have you noticed the trolley with the sheets  in the larger picture?

 

Udklip.JPG.0132a0bec95dc08ced7da8d6ffda1d08.JPG

 

Of course with your history you'll also have to do the C.G. Ayres container elsewhere in that photo!

 

Edited by Mikkel
To be precise
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The photo is teeming with detail! Some interesting PO wagons, including a number of dumb-buffer wagons from Wyken Colliery on the LNWR Coventry - Nuneaton line, and this pair - ancient and modern - from W. Farndon, Colliery Agent, Rugby:

 

1610395805_VasternRoadc1905CropFarndonwagons.jpg.299ba3810c1618bf7c8456ca644770c7.jpg

 

No. 6, dumb buffers, small lettering, dark bodywork - black or could be red; 10 (?), sprung buffers, larger lettering white shaded black on probably grey woodwork. I think - judging by the position of the spring shoes relative to the end of the solebar, that this wagon is 15 ft over headstocks, whereas No. 6 looks shorter.

Edited by Compound2632
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On the subject of PO wagons, I'm mulling over an easy win using the Gloucester underframe parts left over from the Drake & Mount wagons to upgrade a couple of Hornby 6-plank wagons. The bodies are dimensionally good for RCH 1887 standard wagons and the liveries are very nicely printed. I have been caught out before on applicability of liveries, though. I have a couple of these:

 

750092841_HornbyButeMerthyr.jpg.53bba80bad9b606088a3d332ecba5cff.jpg

 

Unfortunately, tracking the prototype photo of Bute Merthyr No. 325 in the HMRS collection, I find that although dimensions and date* are good, it is, as I suspected, an end-door wagon - I might be able to modify the body to represent that. Further, it has no side doors. Again, the door hinges could probably be removed without too much violence to the lettering. However, these two features indicate that this is a shipping wagon - colliery to port (Cardiff). No doubt the Bute collieries did supply their best smokeless steam coal to customers in the West Midlands, but not in this wagon - or at least, if that did happen by accident, there would be a good quantity of choice Brummie or Black Country phraseology deployed.

 

Lokking again at the Hornby body, there's nothing to keep the doors shut.

 

*It has the earlier Gloucester type 4 axleboxes with rounded bottom, so the Hornby wagon is correct in that repect!

Edited by Compound2632
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Bute wagons are dealt with in Turton Vol 2 page 31. By 1907 their new wagon livery was simply BUTE across the side.  They ordered lots from the Glooucester C&W company so it is likely they had some with side and end doors but there is no record of side door only wagons, especially as so much of the output was shipped at Cardiff Docks.

 

The Hornby wagon has end stantions that are too far apart.  If you can accept this some liveries are accurate enough to make conversion to finescale worthwhite. The brake lever is horrible and crudely moulded as are the brakes but with care these can all be replaced.

 

Tony

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6 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

Bute wagons are dealt with in Turton Vol 2 page 31. By 1907 their new wagon livery was simply BUTE across the side. 

 

One like that in Montague - probably the same photo as it's June 1907. HMRS also has a wagon of 1881 with side and end doors and dumb buffers at the non-door end - quite common for South Wales shipping wagons, I suppose they were ideally all sent down to the docks with end doors all facing seawards. Or, perhaps, there was some feature of the way the dock tipplers worked that made it advantageous to have spring buffers at the tipping end? This older wagon is in very similar livery to that depicted by Hornby, except that the red B and M are larger and not on the white diamonds. Quite a few South Wales collieries seem to have gone in for this sort of bold logo, presumably aiding rapid identification from a distance - what is sometimes but generally erroneously described as an "illiterate mark".

 

7 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

The Hornby wagon has end stantions that are too far apart.

 

They are, aren't they? With the conversions I've done, I've not worried about this but in principle one could cut them away and replace with 0.060" square plastic section plus bolthead detail. Another snag with the body is that the curb rail is stepped, with the bottom half recessed by about 0.010". I have tried filling that in with microstrip but then in addition to having to match the body colour, one usually has to repair some of the lettering - tare and load.

 

7 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

The brake lever is horrible and crudely moulded as are the brakes but with care these can all be replaced.

 

The simplest thing is to ditch the underframe and replace with Cambrian, Slaters, or scratch-built. I'm of the view that Cambrian is good enough, anything else is too good for the body! Only on a wagon with particularly fine printed details on the solebar have I tried to save this, cutting away for etched axleguards etc., but the plastic from which the underframe is moulded is rather unpleasant to work with.

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7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Or, perhaps, there was some feature of the way the dock tipplers worked that made it advantageous to have spring buffers at the tipping end?

 

Answering my own question: J. Miles, K. Thomas and T. Watkins, The Swansea Vale Railway (Lightmoor Press, 2017) p. 27, states "sprung buffers at the opening end - believed to be so that the shock on the coal tips at the docks was reduced". So, to protect the equipment rather than the wagon.

 

Looking through the PO wagon photos in this volume, they universally have side and doors but there's no sign of the catch release for bottom doors. Most of those illustrations are from the Gloucester RC&W collection held by the HMRS - bias due to selective survival of archival material. Leafing again through Montague's Gloucester book, the examples of end-door only wagons, like the prototype of the Bute Merthyr wagon, are from collieries in the eastern valleys. This suggests to me that the bulk of eastern valleys coal was going straight to the docks, whereas there was a greater likelyhood of western valleys coal being worked overland - such as via the Midland route. Another factor here is that the eastern part of the South Wales coalfield was chiefly producing steam coal, in demand for coal-fired steamships and so shipped around the world to supply bunkers at ports on the routes to India, the Far East and Australia. Anthracite from the western side of the coalfield was in demand for more local purposes such as brewing, biscuit making, as well as heating churches and glasshouses (according to Messrs Cann & Glass).

Edited by Compound2632
Sp. doors not dorros - the latter are type of Mexican foodstuff, possibly.
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15 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 I suppose they were ideally all sent down to the docks with end doors all facing seawards.

 

Nor necessarily.  I cannot speak for other ports but the tips at Barry had turntables so any wagons that arrived facing the wrong way could be rotated ready for tipping.

 

Chris

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There was a discussion quite recently somewhere on RMweb about end doors facing the sea and it was quickly established that, although logic says that ought to be the case, photographic evidence showed the reality was that the way the doors faced was completely random.

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19 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

If wagons with sprung buffers are marshalled randomly, there's only a 25% of any adjacent pair being dumb buffer to dumb buffer.

 Only during the comparatively brief transition period when wagons had dumb buffers only at one end.

 

Edited to add that photographic evidence would suggest that wagons with dumb buffers at just one end were never common so the chances of them forming a rake would have been very slim. (Possibly a batch being delivered from the manufacturer?)

Edited by mike morley
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1 minute ago, mike morley said:

 Only during the comparatively brief transition period when wagons had dumb buffers only at one end.

 

In the specific case of South Wales colliery to port traffic, it is such a brief period? Certainly, from 1887, any new wagons would have sprung buffers at both ends. It is the case that the HMRS Gloucester photos do have a mix of single-ended and fully dumb-buffered eastern valleys wagons from the earlier 1880s. 

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41 minutes ago, mike morley said:

Some of those Gloucester photos can raise as many questions as they answer.  There is, for instance, one dated 1910 of a Cannop Colliery wagon built to RCH 1887, not 1907 spec.

 

Remember that many of Gloucester's wagons were hired out rather than sold. (As was the general practice in the industry.) I don't know if this is the photo you have in mind, dated 1911, but this Cannop wagon has three Gloucester plates: builder, owner, and "for repairs advise", showing that it's been let on a hire and repair contract. The hire period might typically be seven years but wagons might be returned earlier if the customer's circumstances changed, so it would be perfectly possible for a second-hand wagon to be hired out, in which case the official photo would be to record the new livery. 

Edited by Compound2632
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Thanks to prompt order despatching by Dart castings, the Drake & Mount wagons now have running gear - just brake gear to go, which is why I'm showing the non-brake side!

 

683137940_DrakeMountwheeled.JPG.de47cf4e59df68ad7a1fbba4dd25f0f7.JPG

 

No. 6 looks a little saggy: to be investigated.

 

Note to self: tare weight transfers...

Edited by Compound2632
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Noting the use of grease axle boxes in early wagons, I found some interesting comments in an accident report from 1893.

 

The report relates to the death of Thomas Hughes, aged 18 years, in the employ of the L. & N. W. Railway Co. at Craven Arms as a wheel-greaser,  In evidence, one of his former colleagues stated

"I knew the deceased; he was a fatter for the L.&N.W. Company,"

 

I've not seen the term 'fatter' before, although it sound very appropriate for someone who puts tallow into the boxes.  Is the term familiar to others?

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

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42 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

I've not seen the term 'fatter' before, although it sound very appropriate for someone who puts tallow into the boxes.  Is the term familiar to others?

 

Sounds like a nonce-word coined by someone who couldn't bring the correct job title to mind! I think it's in Montague's Gloucester book that the composition of the grease supplied with wagons for a Russian contract has to be changed as the peasants were eating it and being poisoned. (A forerunner of the tale about putting vodka in the car radiatior and drinking the antifreeze?) Closer to Craven Arms, I think it was @The Johnster who told us that the south Wales sheep had learned the trick of flicking open the lid of the box to get at the grease. 

Edited by Compound2632
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Mea culpa; specifically Cwmbargoed sheep and the result was that the axleboxes would be filled as close as possible to departure time.  Sometimes our ovine chums would still manage to drain enough from the axleboxes to bring the train to a seized up halt somewhere half way between Cwmbargoed and Ystrad Mynach.  They tipped the lids with their noses.

 

I am of the opinion that sheep are in fact a borg-like collective intelligence using apparent stupidity (on a hill walk in Mid Wales I once found one drowned in the only pool for miles in any direction and barely big enough for it to fit into) to lull us into not realising that they are plotting our overthrow and enslavement.  If anybody doubts this, just look into a sheep's eyes.   It's cold, dead, eyes... The Cwmbargoed sheep and those that learned to roll over cattle grids prove that they are in fact highly intelligent.  

 

Be afraid, be a very fraid!

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I think the general view around the area I live, Scottish Highlands, is that most sheep spend their time wandering around looking for as many different ways to die that they can find!

They seem to be very good at it!

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On 19/07/2020 at 10:28, Compound2632 said:

On the subject of PO wagons, I'm mulling over an easy win using the Gloucester underframe parts left over from the Drake & Mount wagons to upgrade a couple of Hornby 6-plank wagons. The bodies are dimensionally good for RCH 1887 standard wagons and the liveries are very nicely printed. I have been caught out before on applicability of liveries, though. I have a couple of these:

 

300777362_HornbyButeMerthyr.jpg.eeeb469549a198bee027d4e092326919.jpg

 

Unfortunately, tracking the prototype photo of Bute Merthyr No. 325 in the HMRS collection, I find that although dimensions and date* are good, it is, as I suspected, an end-door wagon - I might be able to modify the body to represent that. Further, it has no side doors. Again, the door hinges could probably be removed without too much violence to the lettering. However, these two features indicate that this is a shipping wagon - colliery to port (Cardiff). No doubt the Bute collieries did supply their best smokeless steam coal to customers in the West Midlands, but not in this wagon - or at least, if that did happen by accident, there would be a good quantity of choice Brummie or Black Country phraseology deployed.

 

Lokking again at the Hornby body, there's nothing to keep the doors shut.

 

*It has the earlier Gloucester type 4 axleboxes with rounded bottom, so the Hornby wagon is correct in that repect!

 

Some more research needed, but some collieries wagons didn't  have side doors, and on purpose. If there was a strike going on in the valley, then the first victim was the wagon. In this fashion, interference by the locals was minimised. 

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50 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Some more research needed, but some collieries wagons didn't  have side doors, and on purpose. If there was a strike going on in the valley, then the first victim was the wagon. In this fashion, interference by the locals was minimised. 

 

Yes, there are quite a few examples in Montague's Gloucester book and the HMRS photo collection. As discussed, if they were purely for pit-to-port traffic, side and bottom doors would be an unnecessary expense. I'm not entirely sure I credit the strike explanation - releasing the end door wasn't much harder than dropping the side doors and, I would have thought, even more disrutive.

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Not if you're trying to get the coal out, it isn't. An end door will deposit its load into the 4-foot. A side door will deposit its load into the cess. It's not about disrupting traffic. It's about starving people trying to keep warm in the winter.....

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12 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

Not if you're trying to get the coal out, it isn't. An end door will deposit its load into the 4-foot. A side door will deposit its load into the cess. It's not about disrupting traffic. It's about starving people trying to keep warm in the winter.....

 

My mind was running on sabotage. Now I get your point.

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I've bought several wagon-related books lately. One that's got me going is T. Wood, Saltney Carriage & Wagon Works (Great Western Stufy Group / Wider View, 2007), supplied by Lightmoor Press. It's got me looking more closely at some wagons that receive only passing attention in the Bible [A. G. Atkins et al., G W R Goods Wagons, various editions], especially standard gauge ones built at Saltney, Worcester, and, I believe, Paddington before all new construction was transferred to the Carriage & Wagon Works at Swindon in 1874. Wood has used the GWR Wagon Stock Book at the NRM (also referred to as the Register, I believe) not only to identify Saltney-built wagons that survived to at least 1875 but to interpolate backwards to a valuation list of Shrewsbury & Chester Railway stock of 1854 and hence to the year dot. I'm not for the moment looking quite that far back - Wood demonstrates that the typical life of a wagon built in the mid-19th century was around 40 years - but I have been looking at wagons built at Saltney during the period 1868-1874, after the "old series" Lot Book was started. He gives a blow-by-blow account of each Lot, including numbering (which can be cross-referenced to Arkins) and also key dimensions - length over headstocks, width. and depth. The book is not lavishly illustrated but there are several photos that enable one to work out the appearance of, in particular, 9 ton wagons 15'6" long by 7'6" wide, built from Lot 33 onwards - i.e. from 1871, so likely to survive to at least my c. 1902 date.

 

So, some deuterocanonical wagons:

 

There are several good photos of 2-plank wagons of 1'10" depth (two 11" planks), including a good side-on view of one from Lot 75, off which the dimensions of various details can be measured. These 9 ton 2-plank wagons were first built to Lot 40, completed in February 1872; Saltney built 1,258 in seven Lots up to November 1874. Here's my sketch - no dimensions shown but 9'0" wheelbase assumed - fits with photos:

 

1882665298_GWSaltneyLot402plankwagon.jpg.b674fb4eb818f867b35bd560124509c3.jpg

 

Light grey indicates timber; darker grey, iron. I have omitted the axleboxes and springs, as to model this wagon I would use cast whitemetal parts. The axleguard and brake V-hanger are drawn to the dimensions in the RCH 1887 specification, but appear close - in any case for a model I would be using etched components. 

 

I've drawn an RCH 1887 axle with 8" journals at 6'6" centres; on re-reading Wood I discovered this is wrong for these wagons as built. Wagons at this period rated 8 tons or 9 tons had axles with 7" journals on 6'5" centres; axles meeting the RCH 1887 specification were fitted to wagons later rebuilt to 10 ton capacity. Wagons not rebuilt were down-rated to 8 tons. As I'd be building a model with 00 wheelsets on 26 mm pin point axles that's a bit of a nicety!

 

On the basis of Wood's one good photo of a 15'6" x 7'6" 1-plank wagon (one 11" plank) shows that construction was very similar:

 

880672042_GWSaltneyLot331plankwagon.jpg.6756ee7a5d3b301707e801fa0dbfb9ee.jpg

 

These wagons were built to three Lots, 33, 49, and part of 53, totalling 362 wagons built between April 1871 and March 1872.

 

Finally and more speculatively, a 3'0" deep wagon - almost certainly for loco coal - of Lot 66, 200 wagons, completed in June 1872:

 

973859761_GWSaltneyLot664plankwagon.jpg.9073d9dd69d912d5d0fab37e1e21183e.jpg

 

Details follow the two photographs of a "Factory" wagon on p. 16 of a 1914 GWR safety booklet on the NRM website. I had been puzzled by this wagon:

However, the underframe details look to be the same as the 9 ton 2-plank and 1-plank wagons, so if this isn't from Saltney's Lot 66 it must be from a Lot of similar date from one of the other wagon works. This photo gives the best view of a wooden brake block. 

 

One detail I'm not confident of is whether the washer strap runs the full height of the end pillars - common practice of the period (and later) would see it only going about half-way up. 

 

Spending some time drawing these out helps me to become familiar with the way the wagon is constructed and makes sure I've looked at all the details, especially where bolt heads are on the solebar. 

 

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