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Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...


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5 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

........Also interesting in your photos of Midland cattle wagons - no sign of the limewash on the ends, despite the slatted planking at the bottom. Is the wash applied only on the inside (presumably with a brush) and then seeps through the slatted sides/gaps between the planks?

That was indeed the case, Linny.  Hence the reason that it only appears through the slatted areas and then dribbles down.  Cattle pens were similarly treated, which reminds me that i must splash some white around the ones on Kirkallanmuir!

 

Edit  to add (having now looked at the photo) that it looks to me that the partition is at the end nearest the camera and so would be preventing the lime wash getting on that end.

 

Jim

Edited by Caley Jim
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Oh, cattle pens! I'll need to figure out where (if anywhere) they will feature on Linton. Hmmm. I may need to re-draft the goods yard. It's been a while since I properly looked at that. 

Since moving into the new flat, it's become apparent that the fiddle yard will need to be on the opposite end to that originally planned, and due to the asymmetric layout of the platforms and station throat pointwork, simply mirroring it won't do. But! If I were to put the goods shed at the station throat end of the yard, such that access would require a reversal, I might be able to squeeze a cattle dock in... Hmmmmmm. Time to dust off the copy of Anyrail, and the book of aerial views of station in the clubroom, methinks.

Edit to add: That's a good point about the partition - another thing to keep an eye on when weathering! If it's only applied on the insides, one wonders how it got so high up the outside of the end side-framing. And is that dark patch on the bottom framing at the near end cow "exhaust"?

Edited by Skinnylinny
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Somewhere in the dark recesses of this forum there's a pregrouping picture of a mobile ramp for use with cattle wagons where there was no dock.   Something tells me it may be Midland, perhaps Stephen can comment.   It's some time since I saw the image, but I know it was discussed at length.

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You could simply have movable sections - known as hurdles - stored out of the way at the back of a loading bank, implying that they are moved into place when required.

Loading banks were quite common.

 

The location of cattle docks, and pens for storing cattle, seems somewhat variable. I have seen some docks close to storage/herding pens, but this seems rare. Cattle will generally be a market-day traffic, so for small places not even once a week, and the cattle will be driven from the market to the dock at the station. This may or may not have been some distance. In a large county town with regular markets, say twice a week, then there would be some dedicated sidings, possibly close to the market. In a smaller town, then something maybe more flexible or at least simpler at the local station rather than near the market. Could be at the end of a bay platform, somewhere along a platform road (yes, really!), in the middle of the goods yard, or even right up at the station throat. For a village, well the cattle are probably being loaded to go off to market or abbatoir, or unloaded after the market. (Some areas produced calves for fattening up elsewhere, some took them for fattening up, etc.) 

 

The thing to do is to look at photos of the general practice of the companies which inspire you. You may find lots of exceptions and few rules, but the key to success when freelancing is to find an example that is not too rare an arrangement. I always think that if you need to fall back on a the "prototype for everything" excuse, then that's OK but if there is only a single instance, you really need to consider modelling that instance rather than combining lots of improbable one-offs.

 

Spend some time perusing maps.nls.co.uk... ;)

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Derby cattle docks, on the same occasion as the cattle wagon photos (certainly looks like the wrong end of November):

 

1018078895_DY9162DerbyCattleDocks.jpg.3a7fb753a3e250b0c157c1a8195d9b2c.jpg

 

NRM DY 9162, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

I'm undecided whether the limewash has been carried right up the insides of these wagons or whether it's unpainted wood we're seeing.

 

Note that some of the pens have low-height palings - no doubt these were used for the smaller animals, right down to piglet size.

 

 

Edited by Compound2632
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1 hour ago, jwealleans said:

Somewhere in the dark recesses of this forum there's a pregrouping picture of a mobile ramp for use with cattle wagons where there was no dock.   Something tells me it may be Midland, perhaps Stephen can comment.   It's some time since I saw the image, but I know it was discussed at length.

 

Sorry, I'm afraid that rings no bells. But something like a ship's gangway, I suppose?

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28 minutes ago, Regularity said:

You could simply have movable sections - known as hurdles - stored out of the way at the back of a loading bank, implying that they are moved into place when required.

Loading banks were quite common.

 

The location of cattle docks, and pens for storing cattle, seems somewhat variable. I have seen some docks close to storage/herding pens, but this seems rare. Cattle will generally be a market-day traffic, so for small places not even once a week, and the cattle will be driven from the market to the dock at the station. This may or may not have been some distance. In a large county town with regular markets, say twice a week, then there would be some dedicated sidings, possibly close to the market. In a smaller town, then something maybe more flexible or at least simpler at the local station rather than near the market. Could be at the end of a bay platform, somewhere along a platform road (yes, really!), in the middle of the goods yard, or even right up at the station throat. For a village, well the cattle are probably being loaded to go off to market or abbatoir, or unloaded after the market. (Some areas produced calves for fattening up elsewhere, some took them for fattening up, etc.) 

 

The thing to do is to look at photos of the general practice of the companies which inspire you. You may find lots of exceptions and few rules, but the key to success when freelancing is to find an example that is not too rare an arrangement. I always think that if you need to fall back on a the "prototype for everything" excuse, then that's OK but if there is only a single instance, you really need to consider modelling that instance rather than combining lots of improbable one-offs.

 

Spend some time perusing maps.nls.co.uk... ;)

 

Cattle docks were often separate from the main goods sidings. I like this for a layout as it makes for more challenging shunting.

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Sorry, I'm afraid that rings no bells. But something like a ship's gangway, I suppose?

There is a French narrow-gauge thread on here with a recently posted photo of one of these loading ramps.

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7 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Even though I was aware of the different sizes of cattle wagon, having the info out there for those who didn't know is always useful! While some railways (certainly the GWR post-grouping) painted letters at the different divider positions to indicate "S M L" for small, medium and large, I note that these cattle wagons have cast plates with the words "Medium" and "Small" in full on the framing - another little detail for me to add. A good note about the solebars being clean though - I presume the limewash is applied from platform/cattle dock level?

That's a very good point about etched axleguards. I might have to see about producing solebar-only variants.

Re: Piglets, with the film being a very cold night, there was a line along the lines of "If we put 'em in a cattle wagon, they'd freeze to death!"

 

Pigs generally, not just piglets, do not cope well with draughts. So carrying them in a slatted wagon would always be questionable unless you put in a very deep bed of straw for them to lie in.

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1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

Edit to add: That's a good point about the partition - another thing to keep an eye on when weathering! If it's only applied on the insides, one wonders how it got so high up the outside of the end side-framing. And is that dark patch on the bottom framing at the near end cow "exhaust"?

If you look at the far end of the wagon you can see that the lime wash has been taken right up to the top of the end, as it would have been on the sides, hence the spillage onto the top side rail.  i don't imagine for one minute that the person doing the application was all that particular.

 

On old 25"~1mile OS maps the thing to look for is a shape like a rectangle with two adjacent corners chamfered, often a line of three or even four of these.  It took me a wee while to realise what these were!  See them here on this map of Lanark which appears to show 4½.  The pens were often tapered toward the gates opening to the track, hence the shape drawn.

image.png.fccfa9a7aee086236b2625c0e2c4858d.png

 

Jim

 

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9 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Cattle docks were often separate from the main goods sidings. I like this for a layout as it makes for more challenging shunting.

Precisely what a real railway wishes to avoid: we obviously have differing objectives in our search for authenticity.

 

The following examples show just how varied things could be:

 

Blakesley had the cattle dock in a position that was handy for reducing the amount of shunting, but meant driving the cattle through the goods yard. The drawing isn't 100% clear, but there was a single pen on the ramp, and no access to the running line.

1670935181?profile=original

 

Blisworth, N&BJR. The field behind was sometimes used as temporary pasture for cattle if wagons weren't available:

blisworth2.jpg

 

Lydham Heath, Bishop's Castle Railway: right at the end of the engine release (and yes, this does have an impact on the shunting!):

Lydham%20Heath%20station%20-%20Copy%20(1

 

At Bishop's Castle itself, on the loading bank:

bishops%20castle%20station%20-%20Copy.jp

 

Northampton had LNWR cattle dock on the Old Towcester Road, and also for the MR in their goods yard. The cattle market was above the top RH corner of the map.

1901map.gif

 

Plenty of options, but only at Blisworth can I confirm the use of a field for penning the cattle. (No idea what happened at Bishop's Castle, but the others are without such facility.)

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3 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Precisely what a real railway wishes to avoid: we obviously have differing objectives in our search for authenticity.

 

The following examples show just how varied things could be:

 

Blakesley had the cattle dock in a position that was handy for reducing the amount of shunting, but meant driving the cattle through the goods yard. The drawing isn't 100% clear, but there was a single pen on the ramp, and no access to the running line.

1670935181?profile=original

 

Blisworth, N&BJR. The field behind was sometimes used as temporary pasture for cattle if wagons weren't available:

blisworth2.jpg

 

Lydham Heath, Bishop's Castle Railway: right at the end of the engine release (and yes, this does have an impact on the shunting!):

Lydham%20Heath%20station%20-%20Copy%20(1

 

At Bishop's Castle itself, on the loading bank:

bishops%20castle%20station%20-%20Copy.jp

 

Northampton had LNWR cattle dock on the Old Towcester Road, and also for the MR in their goods yard. The cattle market was above the top RH corner of the map.

1901map.gif

 

Plenty of options, but only at Blisworth can I confirm the use of a field for penning the cattle. (No idea what happened at Bishop's Castle, but the others are without such facility.)

 

I totally take your point. But as some places did have cattle docks in seemingly odd places, I like to take advantage to make operation of the layout more interesting. Private sidings likewise.

Presumably, cattle sidings in sub-optimal positions for the railway was to make it easier to drive the cattle to/from the cattle market.

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3 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Presumably, cattle sidings in sub-optimal positions for the railway was to make it easier to drive the cattle to/from the cattle market.

That is my understanding, but also sometimes placed to reduce the amount of shunting of loaded wagons.

But as with you, that's presumption - cattle by train is long gone in the UK.

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25 minutes ago, Northroader said:

One interesting placing can still be seen at Highley on the Severn Valley Railway. It’s fairly clear that the livestock and the wagons weren’t left standing about.95D58C3A-9A46-4C84-AB4B-815ACB6C43CC.jpeg.3afb508472807917b874877bb5dcff69.jpeg

 

Quite a lot of GW stations with that sort of set-up.

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On 17/09/2019 at 15:59, Skinnylinny said:

I considered that, but given how flimsy some of the bits are, I'd rather do it beforehand. I don't want to go near this with a paintbrush of anything! At least not until it is firmly glued to something more solid... Flimsy is not the word. Some of these bits can be bent by literally breathing on them funny... 

 

20190905_192216.jpg.89acd8cd309489cd024ae6ec89ad7090.jpg

Sorry if this is rather after the fact, but I recall reading in one of Jim Whittaker's 'Railway Modeller' articles on coach building (c.1971-72) that he used gum arabic rather than any sort of glue for affixing similarly fragile card panelling.

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Trevor Nunn successfully used pva thinned with water (sufficient to work with capillary action) circa 1980. He had a couple of pieces of wood sanded to the profile of the tumblehome, one positive and one negative, and clamped the sides between these (and under a book or two) whilst the water evaporated and the glue set, so as not to create any distortion.

The coaches are still in use. 

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Isn't it nice when things just... fit? The 3D printer finally got unpacked today. It fits snugly under the shelf, taking up minimal actual workbench space except when it has to be pulled out to remove prints (as the door opens upwards). It may end up being moved to somewhere less likely to be knocked if I'm modelling, but for now this will do very nicely.

 

20200122_214350.jpg.8f8b4a61a45579ca55dffe8c0fb0754c.jpg

 

I completely cleaned it out before moving, and have now re-tensioned the FEP film and levelled the print bed. I'm now running my first test print overnight, which should hopefully let me see if everything's up and running properly. It's also a slightly experimental print in and of itself, as I'm trying the cattle wagon without roof or floor, to see if this avoids the warping problem I was having with the Stroudley carriages.

Watch this space!

Edited by Skinnylinny
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Space successfully watched. There is still very slight evidence of warping of the bufferbeams and end stanchions where the body moves from bufferbeam-only to floor-level, but that was partly expected, and I have thoughts on how to deal with that. The body, however, is nice and square!

20200123_080900.jpg

 

Re: the gap between the planking and the outside framing at the floor, this has curved slightly upwards, making the gap a bit bigger than it should be. The drawing of the wagon suggests that there might be short bars or similar between the bottom framing and the bottom plank, although with no photos to verify I left this off. However, I think this would help avoid this curving, so I will add these in.

The extra time spent ensuring a perfect setup of the printer has really paid off. Now I really must finish the end details and the top tie-down rings, so I can print another!

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Would these issues be resolved if the sides and ends were printed as separate pieces in the more-or-less flat?

 

The surfaces look commendably smooth - is this down to improvements in the technology or clever choice of orientation of the print?

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I've considered printing the ends and sides in separate pieces, but:

  • I've never successfully managed a mitred corner on the printer - there's a minimum thickness beyond which the edges don't come out cleanly, if at all.
  • Laying the pieces flat, one either has to cover the entirety of one side with supports (and details don't come out well, if at all, on the bottom face) or print "flat on the bed", in which case one gets a bulge (known as the "elephant's foot" - not that Elephant's Foot) where the part meets the print bed. This is because in order to get the resin to stick to the print bed, you have to expose the bottom few layers for longer, leading to them effectively swelling.

The surface finish on resin prints (as compared to "traditional" filament prints is much smoother. The print was printed flat on the bed as the print is effectively made up of tiny cubic blocks ("voxels"). Because most of the edges on this print are either horizontal or vertical, it makes sense for the print to be printed flat relative to the bed.

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Interesting.

could you print them so that the mitre was more or less correct, but in need of filing back?

Or indeed, put the end posts on the end, but incorporate a small slot into which a tab on the side was inserted?

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14 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Interesting.

could you print them so that the mitre was more or less correct, but in need of filing back?

Or indeed, put the end posts on the end, but incorporate a small slot into which a tab on the side was inserted?

 

Simon's suggestions are the sort of thing I had in mind but @Skinnylinny, I think you've explained convincingly the drawbacks of printing in the flat; I now understand why the body is the appropriate part to be printing in one go. 

Edited by Compound2632
Typing going to pot - "thing" not "think".
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58 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Interesting.

could you print them so that the mitre was more or less correct, but in need of filing back?

Or indeed, put the end posts on the end, but incorporate a small slot into which a tab on the side was inserted?

I could probably print them with a to-be-adjusted mitre, but printing like this means I get a perfect join between the parts and I don't need to do any filing or filling, which is a bonus for me - I'm lazy!

I did consider printing the end posts as part of the end, but then I'd have a join to disguise in the strapping plates. Even more fiddly!

I must say, designing for laser-cutting is much quicker and easier, but the difference in detail possible with printing is vast. In amount of CAD time I have spent on this wagon so far I could have drawn three or four wagons for lasering!

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