Midland in Bristol

[MarshLane]

4 hours ago, Tricky said:

I’ve GOT to finish Monk’s Gate first...or start again with it, or at least maybe re-design it slightly...

 

 

[Tricky]

11 hours ago, MarshLane said:

 

 

Well, maybe not exactly start again. I'll keep the boards and track and most of the buildings. But it's always bothered me that I got too far with it looking like Birmingham when I really want it to look like London! Plus the backscene height is woefully inadequate.

I'll be resurrecting the 'London' thread accordingly...

[Tricky]

So the big question is:- will I be able to turn these round into three finished, painted and weathered wagons by a week Saturday!?! Eek. 

[wenlock]

45 minutes ago, Tricky said:

So the big question is:- will I be able to turn these round into three finished, painted and weathered wagons by a week Saturday!?! Eek. 

A man of your talents, yes no problem! Sleep is for wimps 

[Tricky]

8 hours ago, wenlock said:

A man of your talents, yes no problem! Sleep is for wimps 

Well it’s all your fault anyway....one of them is a GW 4 plank open in early red livery. Who do I know who has one of those I wonder...?! 

[Tricky]

Some considerable progress this afternoon. I’ve had a bash at the early GW single-sided lever brakes. Of course, not all the parts are included for this option in the box, although there are a whole host of other parts for every other conceivable variant of GW brakes under the sun. As I am a complete novice when it comes to all things GW, it really is a stab at it and doesn’t bear close scrutiny. I’ve cobbled these together as best I can. It took me a while to work out that the brake levers have several joggles in them and again, the inaccuracy will probably give some rivet counters apoplexy. But overall I’m happy (unless I’ve made any glaring errors...?!). And when it’s all dry I can move on to painting. I might just get them finished you know...

[Tricky]

Have I put the wrong axleboxes on? Should they be grease?!

[MarcD]

I bet there is a photo out there that proves your prototype. I have a photo of a GER 5 plank open that has one 3ft1 spoked wheel and a disc at the other end. the same wagon ad different AB at each end as well.

 

Marc  

[Tricky]

Also on the question of red livery, some photos show the numbers on the left and GWR on the right and some the other way round. Any ideas which is more appropriate for my date of 1907 or where the two styles concurrent? 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Tricky said:

Have I put the wrong axleboxes on? Should they be grease?!

 

The Great Western was an early adopter of oil axleboxes - according to the extracts I made from the book known to Great Western modellers as "The Bible", the V6 covered goods wagons (Iron Minks) were given oil boxes from new from December 1897. The 4-plank wagons with conventional single-side brakes were being built up to 1902, so I think if you choose a number from the range 71001 - 74725, you're probably OK. But a wagon numbered in this range should have the cast number and G.W.R plates:

 

 

... and one is getting into deeply debatable territory as to when the Great Western stopped painting wagons red.

 

For painted letters/numbers, number on the right was the earlier style, though it survived until at least 1902. I've built 4 mm models from the Coopercraft kit, in all three livery styles.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2019 by Compound2632

[Tricky]

Thanks Stephen. What little I have discovered recently looking in to early red livery is how little everyone else agrees about it! A right old mine field. 

Bearing in mind I don’t have any cast plates, which handed version of transfers would you go for and should I change the ‘boxes? 

[Compound2632]

If not plates, then grease. See my PMs.

[Mikkel]

GWR moved to right hand side 1894. Red livery ended 1904.  Cast plates from around 1897 on some new builds.

 

In photos, cast plates are almost always seen in combination with oil axle-boxes - which makes sense as the plates were fitted to new stock at a time when oil boxes also where. But cast plates where never fully applied and were phased out after a few years, so right hand painted GWR + oil axle boxes and red livery is not implausible in my view. 

[Mikkel]

PS: But if changing the axleboxes is no bother,  grease boxes would be more "typical", as Stephen says. Or that, at least, is what yard photos featuring 4-planks with right hand side GWR  in 1903 and 1905 seem to suggest.

[wenlock]

Welcome to the “wonderful” world of modelling GWR wagons around the 1900s! :-) Some really informative posts from the more knowledgeable members of the forum.

 

I think we can fairly safely assume that there’s no one left alive who actually saw a GWR wagon running in the red livery to tell us how wrong we are:-)

 

For what it’s worth I’d change the axle boxes to the grease type, but wish an enterprising manufacturer would come up with some cast plates in 7mm!

 

6 days to go, you can do it Richard

 

B W

 

Dave

[Northroader]

Grease boxes were very 1890s, but lasted well into 1900s, when they were changed to oil boxes, the rating of the wagon or van increased from 8tons to 10tons. I’ve done one with cast plates, oil boxes, in red, and I’m quite happy with it. There’s a good chance it did look like that?

Edited May 18, 2019 by Northroader

[Tricky]

Thinking of one 4 plank in red, the other in grey. Just to check when I’ve seen it written as ‘all over grey’ is that literally all over including wheels and all underframe?

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Tricky said:

Thinking of one 4 plank in red, the other in grey. Just to check when I’ve seen it written as ‘all over grey’ is that literally all over including wheels and all underframe?

Yes. Quite a dark grey, too.

When I produced a red iron mink for myself, I did it in all over red oxide thinking that maybe this was standard GWR practice, but don’t tell anyone...

[Tricky]

I won’t tell....

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, Northroader said:

Grease boxes were very 1890s, but lasted well into 1900s, when they were changed to oil boxes, the rating of the wagon or van increased from 8tons to 10tons. I’ve done one with cast plates, oil boxes, in red, and I’m quite happy with it. There’s a good chance it did look like that?

 

Yes, if numbered above about 67323. 

[Northroader]

Is 632 above, er, ...oh. Still, I’m not changing a cast plate for anybody. It’s a funny thing, but Tourret and Co, or Slinn, go a bit coy on wagon colours, never mind the red vs. grey thing, just painting of running gear. It seems certain that solebars and headstocks matched the body colour, and weren’t black, but beyond that I’ve followed Nigel Digbys example and painted axleguards, wheels, brakework, buffers, etc., black on the red wagon. On grey wagons, grey or black? The grey is that dark that it would be hard to tell anyway, particularly if you’ve put some chalk weathering on top.

[Compound2632]

632xx is from Lot 93 which I think must be c. 1894. There were 24,208 of these 4-plank wagons with conventional brakes built 1887-1902, so they made up around 42% of the Great Western's wagon fleet around 1904/5 - very much the equivalent of the Midland's D299 5-plank wagon, though the latter was used for mineral as well as goods traffic. The next most common Great Western wagons around that date were the 3-plank opens of 1879-1887 - i.e. the preceding design of open goods wagon (6,960, 12%); then an almost dead heat between the even older 2 plank wagons and the V6 iron mink covered goods wagons (4,904 and 4,901 respectively, 8.5%). The O4 5-plank wagons of 1901-4  made up a further 5.7% of the fleet, with timber trucks at 5% and cattle wagons at 4.3%. With a further 3.1% for the ancient 1-plank opens still on the books, ordinary open goods wagons accounted for over 70% of the Great Western wagon stock.

[Tricky]

Cracking progress today on all 3. In fact the Midland covered even has transfers on! The GW opens are also coming along nicely. They’re largely complete and also have a coat of paint on them but no transfers yet. Photos to follow tomorrow probably, with a following wind. 

I may even finish them with time to spare...!!!

[drduncan]

On 14/03/2019 at 07:47, Tricky said:

I don’t think you could say three wagons constitutes a fleet exactly, but nevertheless begins to fill up the yard nicely. Just need to make some loads for them.

Looking forward to seeing this at Railex.

 

Beautiful modelling and very atmospheric.

 

Duncan

[Tricky]

Thanks, looking forward to it. Do come and say hello...