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

[Compound2632]

@Dave Hunt has just posted elsewhere a piece of sad, but alas not unexpected, news:

 

 

 

I hope that the well-worn condition of my copy of the two volumes of Midland Wagons, purchased forty years ago, can stand as a small tribute to Bob Essery's influence on my railway interests and modelling:

 

 

 

Referenced in the opening post of this thread, of course. If we see further, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Compound2632

[Rowsley17D]

Sad news indeed. We MR/LMS modellers owe him a great debt of gratitude for the knowledge and information he was able to pass on. 

[Western Star]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I hope that the well-worn condition of my copy of the two volumes of Midland Wagons, purchased forty years ago, can stand as a small tribute to Bob Essery's influence on my railway interests and modelling:

Stephen,

My two volumes were bought at about the same time and are in a similar condition...  as are those of my Son which were bought about fifteen years back when the title was re-printed.  Truly a tribute.

 

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

If we see further, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Absolutely.

 

regards, Graham

Edited November 25, 2021 by Western Star

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Western Star said:

My two volumes were bought at about the same time and are in a similar condition...  as are those of my Son which were bought about fifteen years back when the title was re-printed.  Truly a tribute.

 

Graham, thanks. Incidentally, I wasn't aware there had been a reprint.

[kitpw]

Further about bricks and carriage by rail....
I did find an old fletton brick: it's stamped FLETTON LIMITED (now dried and with mortar splodges removed), it weighs in at 4.29lbs. (as at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flettons_(5476790384).jpg). I broke it out of a buried manhole in a line of disused drainage dating back to about 1900 so may well be Victorian. A Staffordshire blue which was buried nearby in footings of a demolished garage (bomb damage 1940) weighs 8lbs 1/2oz (size 230x112x64), near double the fletton.

 

https://www.brocross.com/Bricks/Penmorfa/Pages/england14a.htm has information about English brick makers including the London & North Western Railway (one of their own manufacture is illustrated - stamped L&NWRCo).

 

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/listed/enginehouse.htm
Hydraulic Engine House, Corn Hill, Wolverhampton also has information about LNWR brick manufacture including a note on loading railway wagons: the men were on a piecework rate of 5.5pence per 1000 (probably 5 1/2d, not pence). The weight of 1000 bricks is stated to be 3 tons.

 

This thesis (NINETEENTH CENTURY BRICKMAKING INNOVATIONS IN BRITAIN: BUILDING AND
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE: KATHLEEN ANN WATT) is a long read:
https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4248/1/DX094368.pdf from which I quote...

"Dobson calculated the weight of bricks to be three and a half tons per thousand and reported that railway charges in 1850 were "2d. per ton per mile if under forty miles and 1 3/4d. per mile if more than 40 miles", an expense that "more than doubled the value of a common brick compared with the price at the yard" (Dobson Part 1 1850, p.114). Alan Cox also stated that in Bedfordshire the carriage of bricks only five miles from the kiln added 14s. onto a price of 34s. per thousand bricks, an increase of over forty percent"...

 

Kit PW

 

 

[Compound2632]

22 hours ago, kitpw said:

Further about bricks and carriage by rail....
I did find an old fletton brick: it's stamped FLETTON LIMITED (now dried and with mortar splodges removed), it weighs in at 4.29lbs. (as at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flettons_(5476790384).jpg). I broke it out of a buried manhole in a line of disused drainage dating back to about 1900 so may well be Victorian. A Staffordshire blue which was buried nearby in footings of a demolished garage (bomb damage 1940) weighs 8lbs 1/2oz (size 230x112x64), near double the fletton.

 

The Fletton Wikimedia link doesn't work. I had a figure of 83 lb/ft3 for the "bulk density" of Flettons which worked out at 5.8 lb per prick, on some assumptions about the dimensions - so your brick is a good deal less dense. Assuming the same dimensions as your Staffordshire Blue, i.e. volume 0.0582 cu ft, density is 74 lb/ft3. So 20 tons occupies 608 cu ft, as against the 441 cu ft volume of the LNWR D10 wagons. Compare my previous calculation:

 

 

Anyway, I was tickled by the idea of Sir John Aspinall's first steps up the ladder being due to his success in brick-making!

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

Interesting to see Lineker, Newark.

 

Isn't Gary originally from that way, East Midlands?

 

 

 

Jason

[Compound2632]

20 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Interesting to see Lineker, Newark.

 

Isn't Gary originally from that way, East Midlands?

 

Leicester, I read - and from a long line of greengrocers. 

[kitpw]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

brick is a good deal less dense

 

On a slightly different tack, quoting from Molesworth's Pocket Book of Engineering Formulae for 1912 (now very tatty, but often referred to):

"330 stock bricks weigh 1 ton; 1000 stock bricks weigh 60 3/4 cwt; 1000 bricks closely stacked occupy about 55 cubic feet..."

which may help.....if only it was in metric!  Crude calculation... The LNWR D10 from your earlier post has a capacity of 441 cu ft:  it could therefore accomodate about 8000 bricks at 55 cu ft per 1000 which gives a load of 8 x 60.75 cwt or 24.3 tons, a bit more than the 20 ton rating (I think it was 20 tons?). 

 

Kit PW

 

 

[Dave John]

Slightly off tack, but pre grouping and brick related. 

 

When Henry Dubs founded Dubs and Co. at Polmadie it was found that the ground was clay rich. He set up a brickmaking kiln from which all the bricks to build the factory were made, some surplus being sold for general construction.

 

https://www.scottishbrickhistory.co.uk/tag/dubs/

 

I have spent a lot of my working life in obscure corners of historic buildings and I keep looking.  Alas, I have never found one. 

[kitpw]

9 hours ago, Dave John said:

I have spent a lot of my working life in obscure corners of historic buildings and I keep looking

The very interesting website on Scottish brick history covers a "theory" that Scottish brickmakers were exporting bricks for the construction of British owned South American railways - Argentina in particular - and shows examples which "prove" the theory - so ...perhaps you've been looking in the wrong place! 

 

Kit PW

A 1920s 7mm terminus layout: Swan Hill - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill/

[Compound2632]

Just now, kitpw said:

The very interesting website on Scottish brick history covers a "theory" that Scottish brickmakers were exporting bricks for the construction of British owned South American railways - Argentina in particular - and shows examples which "prove" the theory - so ...perhaps you've been looking in the wrong place! 

 

Kit PW

A 1920s 7mm terminus layout: Swan Hill - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill/

 

So perhaps they were being sent out as ballast in ships exporting Dubs' locomotives?

 

Brickmaking often went hand-in-hand with coal mining, especially in the West Midlands. I don't know the reason for this, whether it originated in the collieries' own need for bricks, or the abundance of suitable clay on land owned by the colliery proprietors, with a steady demand for the product from the expanding towns of the area, or even as a summer activity when the demand for coal was low.

[Regularity]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Brickmaking often went hand-in-hand with coal mining,

It’s to do with the geology. Carboniferous rock and clay are often found together.

[kitpw]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

So perhaps they were being sent out as ballast in ships exporting Dubs' locomotives

I wondered the same thing:  Neilsons certainly had a presence in South America but Dubs seemed to be more South Africa, Australia and NZ.  Ballast loads would make sense - bricks out, beef back. 

 

I don't know about the geology but brick clays seem to turn up pretty much everywhere and, as Dubs showed, engineers were not only inventive but also opportunistic - if you can build a railway locomotive, making a few bricks out of the ground next to the works wouldn't have taxed their ingenuity too much.  Perhaps the association between coal mining and brick making was availability of fuel for the kilns, as you say, diversification to even out seasonal demand fluctuation.

 

Kit PW

A 1920s 7mm terminus layout: Swan Hill - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill/

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, kitpw said:

Ballast loads would make sense - bricks out, beef back. 

 

Guano back too. Hopefully not with the beef.

[Penlan]

11 hours ago, kitpw said:

Molesworth's Pocket Book of Engineering Formulae for 1912 (now very tatty, but often referred to):

Somebody else has one 
My first couple of pages are missing, I have page 3 onwards, up to page 932, then 'T' onwards in the index is missing, so not sure of date, but it's the 28th Edition and I assume pre WW1. 

I've owned it since 1957.
A fantastic source of information.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Penlan

[Northroader]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

It’s to do with the geology. Carboniferous rock and clay are often found together.

Less than two miles from where I lived, you could find worked out coal mines, tileworks, earthenware pipes, and refractory bricks (fireclay), but it was a posh area, just the GWR and the LNWR.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Northroader said:

Less than two miles from where I lived, you could find worked out coal mines, tileworks, earthenware pipes, and refractory bricks (fireclay), but it was a posh area, just the GWR and the LNWR.

 

If you want posh, you should look at some of the areas served by the Midland - the Otley & Ilkley area for example. 

[Northroader]

They had the NER to bring the tone up there.

[kitpw]

34 minutes ago, Penlan said:

the 28th Edition and I assume pre WW1

Yes, it's a useful little reference book - but tests the eyesight!  I only know the date because my grandfather wrote "1912" on the inside cover.  He added a  good many tables of threads, drill sizes and similar data which I still use now, rather more than 100 years later.  It's a connection to an engineering past - I've mentioned my grandfather on RMWeb before, I spent a good deal of time in his workshop when I should have doing other things like homework.  I also have a set of "Hardware tables" by "The Ironmonger" from 1908 and from the same source - another treasure trove of information if you happen to want to know, for instance, the available sizes of galvanised corrugated steel sheet in the Edwardian period.

 

Kit PW

A 1920s 7mm terminus layout: Swan Hill - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill

 

[Western Star]

22 minutes ago, kitpw said:

 I also have a set of "Hardware tables" by "The Ironmonger" from 1908 and from the same source - another treasure trove of information if you happen to want to know, for instance, the available sizes of galvanised corrugated steel sheet in the Edwardian period.

I do, yes please.

[Tricky]

Molesworth - anything to do with the goriller of 3B? 

[Compound2632]

Just now, Tricky said:

Molesworth

 

I feel he sits nearer Whitworth than Jobsworth.

[John-Miles]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

If you want posh, you should look at some of the areas served by the Midland - the Otley & Ilkley area for example. 

Don't forget Morecambe. My dad always maintained his family were posh because they went there for their holidays rather than Blackpool.

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, John-Miles said:

Don't forget Morecambe. My dad always maintained his family were posh because they went there for their holidays rather than Blackpool.

 

Posh enough not to endure the infamous L&Y horsehair-padded third class seating!

 

Now @John-Miles, you I'm sure are wondering why I'm not getting on with my four POWSides Swansea Vale coal wagons... I've not focused much on modelling over the last few weeks but with various family events out of the way by the weekend, I hope to get my act together. Those wagons make use of the Slater's kits that have not been generally available for some time, in 4 mm scale. However I was delighted to discover that some of them have recently been reintroduced:

• 4035 Gloucester 6 Plank (side door)
• 4036 Gloucester 6 Plank (side and end door)
• 4040 Charles Roberts 7 Plank (side door)
• 4041 Charles Roberts 7 Plank (side and end door)
• 4044 Gloucester 5 Plank (side door)
• 4055 Gloucester 5 Plank (China Clay, side and end door)
• 4060 RCH 1923 7 Plank (side door)
• 4061 RCH 1923 7 Plank (side and end door)

Direct from the horse's mouth here although I was alerted by seeing them on Eileen's Emporium website (where the description of 4040 has got muddled). All £9.50 excluding wheels &c. 

 

Missing from this release are the following:

• 4039 Charles Roberts rectangular tank wagon 
• 4057 Charles Roberts salt wagon
• 4058 Gloucester 7 Plank (side door)
• 4059 Gloucester 7 Plank (side/end door)

Hopefully they're not so far away! Kit 4059 is the one used for the Swansea Vale wagons.

 

The Gloucester wagons are especially welcome to the pre-grouping modeller as representing wagons to the 1887 RCH Specification, albeit with some distinctive Gloucesterisms; the Charles Roberts 7 Plank wagons are, I believe, typical 1907 RCH Specification wagons, so ought to be seen on any later period layout where wooden-bodied mineral wagons still abound. 

 

The Slater's range complements the kits available from Cambrian, who have a greater variety of 1907 RCH types and also the very useful 4-plank Wheeler & Gregory wagons.

 

No connection other than the intention of being a satisfied customer! The Gloucester 6-plank side door wagon is one I've been hankering after for a while, for several projects.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Compound2632
Slaters info added - crossing with John's reply.