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

[wagonman]

Absolutely!

 

But tell me, do you think the line of wagons immediately in front of the photographer are lower - only 3 or even 2 planks? They clearly have side doors rather than drop sides - note the slightly raised or possibly misaligned outwards capping strip. Not Midland, anyway.

 

Yes you are right, they are lower, and as you say clearly have side doors rather than dropsides (so not D305). I would hazard a guess they are not MR. Certainly there is one in the middle distance which has its number on the end. The siding to right also has wagons that are clearly not MR design though they may have become MR property during the PO wagon buying spree.

 

 

Richard

[wagonman]

In Midland Wagons, Vol. 1,  by Essery, plate 41A shows a similar wagon with the same line of bolts, however, it doesn't give the Dia No., as it's illustrating one of brake variants - Roberts, fitted in 1903.

There's another wagon with bolts, in the photograph of Toton in 1910, page 83 in the above book, centre of bottom photo.

 

Variant? I don't know. 

There doesn't appear to be a bona-fide Dia., with these bolts, but then I'm a Crewe rather than Derby man.

 

 

I really don't think just adding an extra bit of strapping would be enough for the Drawing office to issue a new diagram, any more than changing the axleboxes or the brakes was. But then I'm a Swindon man...

[Compound2632]

And the first wagon in the line left of centre?  Unusual to see a line of nuts / bolts between the stanchions...  is this a variant on D299?

 

Is the end wagon on the road three to the right the same?

 

In Midland Wagons, Vol. 1,  by Essery, plate 41A shows a similar wagon with the same line of bolts, however, it doesn't give the Dia No., as it's illustrating one of brake variants - Roberts, fitted in 1903.

There's another wagon with bolts, in the photograph of Toton in 1910, page 83 in the above book, centre of bottom photo.

 

Variant? I don't know. 

There doesn't appear to be a bona-fide Dia., with these bolts, but then I'm a Crewe rather than Derby man.

 

 

Good to see you're all improving your D299 recognition and detail skills! As wagonman says, the extra end strapping seems to be a common detail variant on these wagons and I think several lots must have been built like this rather than it being a later addition - it's present on a couple of wagons in a photo taken at Wellingborough c. 1894 (Midland Wagons Vol. 1 plate 49). Looking at the photos of wagons with experimental brakes (op. cit. plates 41A & 42), No. 74418 has the extra ironwork and its number is suggestive of an early 1890s build date, whereas No. 138978, almost certainly from a turn-of-the-century lot, does not. Wagon No. 79456, photographed and probably built in 1894 doesn't, either (plate 92). So I'd say wagons in lots ordered around c. 1890 - 1893 - that's about a third of the total built. I'll have to add this to every third one I build...

[Compound2632]

The siding to right also has wagons that are clearly not MR design though they may have become MR property during the PO wagon buying spree.

 

I would think that all the bought-up PO wagons would have been scrapped well before the 1905 date of this photo - given that production of the replacement D299 wagons wound up at the end of the century. I expect they're newer PO wagons - though still of a nineteenth-century design with raised ends.

[Spitfire2865]

Regarding the unknown wagons, The L&Y had some 2,3, and 4 planked wagons with center drop doors, all to the same diagram even! 

[wagonman]

I would think that all the bought-up PO wagons would have been scrapped well before the 1905 date of this photo - given that production of the replacement D299 wagons wound up at the end of the century. I expect they're newer PO wagons - though still of a nineteenth-century design with raised ends.

 

 

On closer inspection it seems to have spring buffers so definitely not one that the MR bought up!

[Compound2632]

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Mikkel]

Result!

[Compound2632]

Despite the discovery of the Carr’s Metal Black, this is a lack of progress report...

 

What with teaching, family commitments, and a steadily worsening cold, I’ve only a few odds and ends to report to keep this thread ticking over. On the L&Y brake van, I’ve snipped the end handrails, gluing the loose ends to the end pillars. A more thorough-going approach would have been to drill holes in the end-pillars and bend up new handrails but this looks neat enough – I think the handrail wire is over-scale anyway. I’ve also added a representation of the fixed side-lamps on the van in my reference photo:

 

 

The base is a rectangle of 10 thou Plastikard, with bolt head embossed in each corner, glued in place with the Rocket cyano. The body is fashioned from 60 thou-square strip, with a 0.8 mm diameter hole drilled where the lamp lenses will go. A small square of 10 thou represents the sloping roof; a 0.8 mm diameter hole was drilled down through this into the body of the lamp and a bit of 0.8 mm wire (left over from the break cross-shaft) glued in and cut and filed flat on top as the chimney. I’m not going to post a closer close-up! However, I do now feel confident I could make 4 mm scale bird-boxes.

 

I haven’t quite worked out how to do the lenses – they do seem to be bulbous in the prototype photo. I’m assuming the lamps would show white facing forward and red rearwards but I suspect the lenses are clear glass and the red filter can be inserted either side of the lamp on the inside, so there would be no very visible difference in daylight, when the lamps probably wouldn’t be lit anyway.

 

That nearest axlebox looks wonky but that’s because it’s the compensation rocking unit, not yet  fixed in place. Going back to the Martin Waters Model Railway News article, I’ve finally noticed that the LRM / D&S box art uses one of the drawings from that article.

 

In another odd moment, I fixed the roof on my third Iron Mink and gave it a first coat of Halfords red primer. This is another rebuild of one of my earliest teen kit-builds. It was originally brush painted with a Humbrol dark grey. My Precision Superstrip was getting rather tired by the time I stripped this one so despite brushing away with an old electric toothbrush, there was still some remnant of grey paint in the corners. With just this first coat of red, I’m quite pleased with the weathered look and am tempted to go no further before lettering. The photo doesn’t really show this very well, with shadows competing with the effect, but at least does show the grease axleboxes carved from the Ratio moulded oil boxes, with squares of 10 thou Plastikard for the lids, as for the four-plank opens:

 

 

The buffers are MJT, the plastic ones having disintegrated during the paint stripping. I think the break gear is Ratio, with microstrip safety loops replacing the solid moulding.

 

I’ve also done a bit more on some LNWR wagons that have been hanging around for a while. Last July I started work on making a dumb-buffered LNWR D13 twin timber truck pair out of the Ratio P/W kit, to go with my D12 single timber truck. This got put to one side, partly because I couldn’t – and still haven’t – worked out a satisfactory way of making the stations for the bolsters, after seeing Mike’s 7 mm scale version. Recently, I’ve finished the curved sliders for the bolster, made the brake gear – adapted from the parts in the kit, one shoe per side per wagon, arranged with the gear on the nearside on the left-hand wagon of the pair (on the sprung-buffered version, the brake was on the right-hand wagon), and made the grease axleboxes. As with the D12, these use the kit moulding for the oil boxes, with the lower lip carved off and the bottom rounded, built up with a piece of 20 thou Plastikard and a 10 thou lid. The characteristic roundel casting proclaiming Viaduct Works as the makers is embossed by pressing the blunt end of a 2 mm drill bit into the plastic, softened with Mek-Pak. Some come out better than others:

 

 

The next job is to make the permanent coupling between the two wagons. I hope to adapt the Ratio parts, though the curved bumper part is a bit under-sized. Guy Rixon has done this, so I’m re-reading his posts.

 

At the same time as I started the D13 pair, I tried converting the Ratio D62 ballast wagon to a D2 2-plank open. The latter were 15’6” long whereas the ballast wagons were 16’0” long, so the sides were shortened, as well as the hinges being scraped off and 10 thou Plastikard corner plates added. Even longer ago – autumn 2016 I think – I had started on converting one of the D48 (?) bolster wagons from the Ratio P/W kit to a D1 1-plank open by increasing the height of the sides and adding end pillars. I’ve brought both of these closer to completion:

 

 

The D62 to D2 conversion falls down on the unequal width of the planks: on a D2 these are both 11” high. The plan is that both these wagons will be sheeted, hiding the above-solebar bodgery. Below the solebar, the D2 has grease axleboxes made in the same way as for the D13 wagons. The D1 has Coast Line Models’ 3D printed ones, a batch of which I bought at the time, before I hit on my low-cost bodging solution. I don’t seem to have enough of the Ratio turned buffer heads to go around – either one of my second-hand kits came without them or, more likely, I’ve misplaced the packet. The turning includes the collar of the buffer housing, so in order to use regulat turned buffers, I’ve used spare collars from Cambrian underframe kits – left-overs from my Huntley & Palmer wagons and Hornby conversions.

 

Even finishing this lot off doesn’t bring closure on my LNWR wagon fleet. I’ve got a complete set of parts for a D62 ballast wagon, along with a number of half-completed wagons with P4 wheelsets – these include a couple of D62s, so I may end up having to find an excuse for LNWR PW wagons running on Midland metals, and also a couple of D48 to D1 conversions like the one above. Weighting, weathering and sheeting of the whole fleet is also on the agenda.

 

I have used the Carr’s chemical black on the batch of Slaters 3-links I’d made up. I’ve realised nearly all twenty pairs will be used up on wagons I’ve built since last summer… and I’m out of wheels too.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Penlan]

Hooray, were back.
Last weekend, in Swansea, a couple of the lads where asking ".... what's happened to the D299 thread....".

[Penlan]

...... I haven’t quite worked out how to do the lenses – they do seem to be bulbous in the prototype photo. I’m assuming the lamps would show white facing forward and red rearwards but I suspect the lenses are clear glass and the red filter can be inserted either side of the lamp on the inside, so there would be no very visible difference in daylight, when the lamps probably wouldn’t be lit anyway.

The LNWR Loco headlamps were plain glass, convex, but not a lense.  so the burning wick inside the headlamp was all that was seen, not focused through a lense.  

So I think it is possible those on the L&Y van may also have been plain. 

Give it a few minutes and I'm sure somebody from the L&Y soc., will deny this.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Penlan

[Jol Wilkinson]

London Road Models will be introducing LNWR D12 kit. The stanchions are etched nickel silver to recreate the correct profile, including the hole for a chain shackle.

[Compound2632]

London Road Models will be introducing LNWR D12 kit. The stanchions are etched nickel silver to recreate the correct profile, including the hole for a chain shackle.

 

I suppose there's no chance of the bolster with fittings as a separate item? After all, the LNWR seems to have counted them separately from the wagons.

[Jol Wilkinson]

I don't know, Stephen. I was just asked to produce the artwork for some of the etched parts of the kit, including the stanchions, from a works drawing.

 

Contact John at LRM to see if he is willing to sell the etch I designed. It included the brake lever and coupling hooks. I believe he is waiting for a new mould so he can cast the bolster and resin castings for the wagon body but don't know if the etches are available yet.

[Compound2632]

I don't know, Stephen. I was just asked to produce the artwork for some of the etched parts of the kit, including the stanchions, from a works drawing.

 

Contact John at LRM to see if he is willing to sell the etch I designed. It included the brake lever and coupling hooks. I believe he is waiting for a new mould so he can cast the bolster and resin castings for the wagon body but don't know if the etches are available yet.

 

Thanks Jol. As you can see, I've not yet added the brake levers either! Do you know if it will it be the dumb or sprung buffered version of the D12?

Edited February 23, 2018 by Compound2632

[Jol Wilkinson]

Stephen,

 

dumb buffered, from the sample I have seen. The "body" is a resin casting. I suppose they could be modified by removing the dumb buffers and adding sprung ones, but I don't know (without getting the books out) whether that would be accurate or easy to do.

 

John is interested in earlier LNWR (which is why he asked me to design the two Bloomer kits), so that's probably why he has done the dumb buffered version.

 

Jol

[Compound2632]

Slater's 3-link couplings fitted to sixteen wagons waiting for them since last autumn - seven Great Western and nine assorted private owners - and not a spring pinged into oblivion.

 

Weighting and weathering next...

[Mikkel]

Sixteen in one session? Impressive.

 

I had a ping incident today. Never found the part, but another one turned up while looking!

[Compound2632]

Sixteen in one session? Impressive.

 

I had a ping incident today. Never found the part, but another one turned up while looking!

 

One builds up a rhythm. No doubt the part that turned up was one you'd been looking for desperately, then found another solution, so is now of no use...

[Penlan]

...... I don’t seem to have enough of the Ratio turned buffer heads to go around – either one of my second-hand kits came without them or, more likely, I’ve misplaced the packet. 

They are available from a retailer..... BUT I don't know who?

I bought some packets at Warley NEC in November and I've thrown away the packaging..

Not a lot of help, but might jog somebody else's knowledge..

 

I thought they were a bit expensive, but saved some other fratting around.

Back, long ago, all these parts could be had from Ratio when they attended exhibitions.

I've run out of most parts now though.

[Brassey]

I've seen Ratio at the York Easter show but whether they have any spare parts there I would not know

[Guy Rixon]

Stephen,

 

dumb buffered, from the sample I have seen. The "body" is a resin casting. I suppose they could be modified by removing the dumb buffers and adding sprung ones, but I don't know (without getting the books out) whether that would be accurate or easy to do.

 

John is interested in earlier LNWR (which is why he asked me to design the two Bloomer kits), so that's probably why he has done the dumb buffered version.

 

Jol

 

 

From 1919-ish the dumb-buffered wagons were converted with RCH 1906-pattern self-contained buffers. These are the bottle-shaped ones and significantly different to both the later, RCH. self-contained buffers and the LNWR's earlier rubber-sprung buffers.

[Guy Rixon]

They are available from a retailer..... BUT I don't know who?

I bought some packets at Warley NEC in November and I've thrown away the packaging..

Not a lot of help, but might jog somebody else's knowledge..

 

I thought they were a bit expensive, but saved some other fratting around.

Back, long ago, all these parts could be had from Ratio when they attended exhibitions.

I've run out of most parts now though.

Possibly Markits. There is an entry in their catalogue for LNWR buffer heads, which sounds a bit over-specific unless they are the fittings for the Ratio kits.

[Compound2632]

I've started assembling the last LNWR wagon from my pile of Ratio parts - I'm doing it as a D62 ballast wagon, as Ratio intended. There was a very informative discussion about these on LNWR lives on's workbench thread just over a year ago - I'm linking to it here primarily so I can find it again easily! The historic photos posted there don't help much with brakes. Roll on LNWR Wagons Vol. 3; for now I'm looking at the info on brakes in Vol. 1; this suggests ballast and permanent way wagons were built with the primitive single wooden brake block. Does anyone know if they ever got iron brakes of any sort before c. 1903?

[Compound2632]

I can't let the 1,000th post pass by without an example of our eponymous wagon. So here's a work-in-progress towards one with the additional end ironwork that was being discussed just a few posts back:

 

 

Rather crude: a piece of microstrip with the bolt-heads embossed - and hardly visible in the photo. I may have to drill through and insert some plastic rod instead.

Edited March 1, 2018 by Compound2632