Gibbo675 Posted January 15, 2021 Author Share Posted January 15, 2021 Hi Folks, Here are the horse boxes, I have got plenty enough as the L&MR only had two between 1830 and 1833. The photographs shew only to well where I've missed with the paint brush. Gibbo. 9 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Darius43 Posted January 16, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 16, 2021 Looking good but... Wot, no horses? Cheers Darius 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 16, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 16, 2021 3 hours ago, Darius43 said: Looking good but... Wot, no horses? Cheers Darius Belgian horse boxes? Mike. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Darius43 Posted January 16, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said: Belgian horse boxes? Mike. Excuse me waiter but this steak is a little tough... Edited January 16, 2021 by Darius43 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 16, 2021 Author Share Posted January 16, 2021 Hi Folks, Here is my latest carriage, it is even more horsey looking than the horse boxes. The type is known as a four inside coupe and has been built from examining various pictures of similar in various books and from online illustrations. I have copied the side profile of the Hornby first class coach and added the coupe and boot in proportion to the central closed part. The body is only 21m across rather than the 26mm of the Hornby first class coach. The underframe is made from .080" plasticard and has .030" W irons fitted to the inner edges that form the wheel bearings, fortunately the coach runs quite freely. From what I can make out, a carriage of this type, The Fly, that was one of three that were converted to mail coaches in 1831, the other two were the Wellington and the Lord Derby. Foot board and steps are yet to be made and fitted. Gibbo. 10 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveyDee68 Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 5 hours ago, Gibbo675 said: That is a truly odd looking vehicle! Would this be for, say, a person of title to travel in, with his/her servants close to hand but separate, and somewhere for luggage to also be carried close by? Is this based upon a horse drawn coach of the period? The early stuff is intriguing but seems only one step away from the Oysterperch & Far Wittering type creations! HOURS OF BEMUSEMENT! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 7 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said: That is a truly odd looking vehicle! Would this be for, say, a person of title to travel in, with his/her servants close to hand but separate, and somewhere for luggage to also be carried close by? Is this based upon a horse drawn coach of the period? The early stuff is intriguing but seems only one step away from the Oysterperch & Far Wittering type creations! HOURS OF BEMUSEMENT! Hi Steve If you take into mind that the early railways were not actually intended to carry passengers but mainly coal, at first any passengers would ride in the wagons and it was only later that actual carriages appeared. The carriage I have made is one of these first types of railway carriage which is nothing more than a large stage coach body mounted on a modified wagon framing which is why it has the internal bearing journals which were common in especially in coal wagons. At the time of opening the L&MR had mostly open passenger carriages which were intended for the second class, these were basically open goods wagons with doors, and later seats. The yellow first class carriages that are generally associated with the L&MR were developed from joining three coach bodies together on one wagon frame rather than one body with three compartments. In a book that I have read it says that carriages were built by the L&MR and also outside contractors, some providing the whole and some providing just the body, there was a general specification however in detail they were built, "according to the taste of the builders". There does seem to be a lot of what may be termed make it up as you go along associated with the early years of railways, and as the L&MR was the first railway that intended to operate passenger trains rather than passengers riding in wagons or coupling a carriage on the end of a train I can see how such contraptions were built. The carriage is certainly a first class type and may have been ordered as extra capacity at short notice and would have been the height of luxury as a road going carriage, there may have been a premium over standard first class to ride in it as with the mail coaches. As an aside, the operation of goods traffic generally conformed to practices derived from those of the canal companies and the passenger traffic was organised in the way of the stage coach companies. This is no doubt the origin of the use of words such as livery for colour shemes and booking for how tckets were purchased. Gibbo. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 18, 2021 Author Share Posted January 18, 2021 Hi Folks, The four inside first class carriage is now finished except for a coat of Klear which will be done soon enough and also lots of work done last evening and today on the central access second class carriages. Coupe end. Guard's seat end. The second class carriages which were known as Blue Boxes have been built from measuring the Akerman print along with a bit of guestimation. The height and lengths are easy enough to work out by measuring the two types of second class carriage in the print and working out ratios which I then factored into the measurements of the Hornby type carriage. They are 2mm less in height and 2mm greater in length, the width is a slight more tricky and I worked that out by arranging my kitchen chairs and measuring them they worked out at 28mm wide compared to the 24mm of the Hornby second class carriages. This worked out well as the distance between the inner faces of the W irons needs to be 23mm and with a doubling strip the width over the frames is 27mm leaving .5mm each side over hang of the bodies over the frames. The frames look to be solid wood rather than iron double bar frames as the other carriages are which makes building them easier. I have reduced the wheel base to 30mm which works out at 7'6" rather than the 8'6" of the Hornby coaches. The carriage bodies do not appear to have any paneling, framing or planking in any pictures that I have seen of the type and I am undecided as to leave them plain or to effect some sort of relief. Ply wood was invented in 1797 but was not in industrial production until circa 1865 and its use would be unlikely. The carriages shewn in the Akerman print do not have buffers but then neither have any of the other carriages but they will as soon as the headstocks are fitted. Blue box bodies shewing the bench seats. Frames shewing before and after trimming back the axle boxes and spring details. The axle boxes are from .040" and the springs from .030" plasticard. Assembly of the frames and bodies shewing the brass wheel bearings. Four blue boxes with the Deltic and a class 142 as shade comparators for the blue of the second class carriages. Juxtaposition of the two types of second class carriage. Gibbo. 8 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 Hi Folks, Last evening I fitted diagonal bars to the W irons, so that these carriages actually have W shaped W irons unlike the rectangular ones of all the others so far. Today I have been fitting the cuffs to the buffer stocks which is a rather tedious carry on. The cuffs are from .020" square rod that are tightly wound around a piece of .125" round and then cut so that I get curved pieces of the correct length. I then further crease them with a pair of tweezers to tighten the radius and also cut about .5mm from the length as the process stretches them slightly. I then apply glue around the end of the stock and fit the cuff using tweezers, a scalpel blade pinching and prodding the pieces into place. out of sixteen I only scrapped one which was more by luck than good management. The buffer heads are Hornby push in buffer heads which have had the lumpy moulded cuff removed with a scalpel and the shank filed round, this was done holding them in a pin vise. Right hand buffers fitted, left hand one cuff fitted one manipulated ready to fit and twelve more to go at. Spring anchor brackets and steps have also been fitted under the access way, looking at them they will be snapped off in no time knowing my luck. The only thing left to do other than paint is to fit some horn ties to the bottoms of the W Irons, these will be strips of .020" square rod. Steps and W iron bracing bars. These carriages do look as though they are five plank wagons with a bit missing in the middle. Gibbo. 5 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Darius43 Posted January 20, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 20, 2021 Hi Gibbo, Working on those buffers must have prompted a “why am I doing this?” moment, however the results justify the effort. Cheers Darius Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfaZagato Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Would it not have been easier to cut discs of the correct diameter, then drill out buffer holes? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 5 hours ago, AlfaZagato said: Would it not have been easier to cut discs of the correct diameter, then drill out buffer holes? Hi Alfa. Having cut out circular discs with holes drilled into them for the mail coach ad the horse box fitting slightly altered Hornby buffer head is loads easier ! The shanks were made in the same way which is quite tricky. Gibbo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 12 hours ago, Darius43 said: Hi Gibbo, Working on those buffers must have prompted a “why am I doing this?” moment, however the results justify the effort. Cheers Darius Hi Darius, Not at all, it is all a matter of perception of reality. I was actually listening to the below linked while working away at the job: Today's modelling listening is Thomas Sheridan's Velocity of Now part one here: Gibbo. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 Hi Folks, I have today been building up a pair of the early first class closed carriages. From what I have been able to work out the first three compartment carriages were built from the joining of three large road coach bodies on either an iron bar frame or wooden frame with internal axle bearings. I have built carriages with iron bar frames from 1mm square micro rod set out on a flat surface, the axles run on the underside of the frames and are retained by forks made from .020" plasticard glued to the inner faces of the frame set. Buffer beams have been made from .060" plasticard and will be fitted with the self contained semi dumb buffers as on the four inside coupe carriage. The wheel sets are Hornby 12.6mm with the pin point ends filed off flush with the face of the wheel rims The bodies have been made to the same dimensions as the four inside coupe except that they are 5mm wider at 25mm. Some drawings seem to shew the bodies set within the wheels, this would make the coach bodies approximately 5'3" maximum which would fit four per compartment comfortably but not six, however other drawings shew the undersides of the body just clear of the tops of the wheels and so I went with that. This means I can make the coach body to a scale 6'3" which would be a reasonable width and of a suitable for seating six per compartment. The head stocks do seem to be a little heavy and I might reduce them slihtly, perhaps even drilling and filing square holes in the end as with the horse boxes. The two frame sets one with the retaining forks and a set of wheels in place. A comparison between an internal and external framed carriage. 6 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusDriverMan Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Very much enjoying this digression from blue diesels - and looking forward to your forthcoming what-if Liverpool & Manchester Railway driving van trailer model 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 21, 2021 Author Share Posted January 21, 2021 Hi Folks, New headstocks fabricated as I decided that the solid ones just didn't look right: Gibbo. 8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 Hi Folks, Today I have painted the window surrounds and later fitted the windows, fitted and painted the seats, made and fitted the roofs, steps, lamp housings and luggage rails, made and fitted the buffers and painted the frames and wheels. Gibbo. 10 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 Hi Folks, Work on the early closed carriages has been to fit an overhang to the roof, I had originally filed it flush as with the four inside coach but it didn't look right, not that anyone really knows anyway. Some .030" strip was glued on around the edge of the roof which was later scraped back and filed to shape. Door handles have been fitted and the doors have been grooved out with a razor saw. Another project has been started is the Chinese-Liverpool Coach which is a strange looking pagoda shaped coach body with a central door. I have decided that as it has a central door I shall build a similar underframe style as the second class blue boxes. It would seem that the seating would be longitudinal as with the blue boxes, whether there were compartment dividers along the centre is not known to me but I shall I shall have a think about it and work out some dimensions. As with most things there is a degree of vague uncertainty about the exact detail. Three of the four types of first class carriages so far built. The working "picture" of the Chinese-Liverpool coach. Gibbo. 3 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 Hi Folks, Here is the Chinese Liverpool carriage I have fitted, springs and axle boxes, steps, windows, and the roof. The windows were first scribed and then the bars were coloured with black marker which was then rubbed clean and then polished on cardboard and then fitted. The window mullions were painted yellow cut to length and fixed to the glazing with PVA. The other two coaches are having their coats of yellow paint built up before masking up for black paint. In other news my Newman Miniatures rocket has been test run and hauled four Hornby carriages and my two horse boxes, it also runs at a similar speed to the Hornby Rocket which is good. Gibbo. 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 Hi Folks, Here is a trial run of building wagon frames from .060" Plastruct square strip. I have made a side and end templates so that I can accurately mark out new sides and ends which are 38mm and 23 mm respectively. I shall in time make a 50mm long version which will be the same length as the horse box. There is also a drilling jig so that I may accurately drill out holes for the axle boxes and also place the W irons when building up the frames. End and side fabrications top and the drilling and marking jigs and the W iron template. The lengths of the wagons will work out at 9'6" (38mm) and 12'6" (12'6") and have been derived from measuring various pictures and working out ratios of lengths of wagons against pictures of the blue second class carriages of which the Hornby ones are 62mm long, this scales at 15'6". The style of the frames is to be similar to that of the horse box which was taken from the swing bolster wagons I made from the spare Rocket tender frames. This means that the wagons will look like the ones in various paintings depicting them. The style of wagon to be built. It would seem that the goods wagons were smaller than the passenger carriages so that the amount carried upon them would not exceed the axle weight for the railway. Broken rails were quite common as the rails were made from wrought iron and not as strong or tough as the later steel rails. As a guide, the locomotives at the Rainhill trials had a maximum weight of 4 tons giving a 2 ton axle loading, should the wagons have the same maximum axle loading then they would not have to be very big to end up loaded to four tons gross. It is intended that there will be various designs of wagon one of which will be of a coal container wagon that scales to 9' long with an even more simple construction which will follow what I am building and some chaldron wagons should I be able to find a suitable picture of one on the L&MR. Gibbo. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesysmith Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 Wouldn't the wagons used on this early railway have just been what was already used on other horse drawn lines? I would think they would just have used the existing wagon design sized for their p-way. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 25, 2021 Author Share Posted January 25, 2021 1 hour ago, cheesysmith said: Wouldn't the wagons used on this early railway have just been what was already used on other horse drawn lines? I would think they would just have used the existing wagon design sized for their p-way. Hi Dave, From reading various books the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was a very well funded enterprise that did at first seem to have plenty of money to spend upon almost anything they pleased, wagons being one of those things. There also seems to be an aspect of proof of concept to the building of the entire railway and that whoever funded the scheme was more interested in what the concept of railways could provide rather than what it might cost, almost a scientific experiment in transport technology. Various types of wagons were built for specific purposes, there were double deck sheep wagons, cattle wagons, the flat wagons were for general merchandise, there were even wagons that carried coal container boxes. You are correct that wagons were lightly built compared to what developed into the later RCH standards however they were more solid and of larger construction than road wagons of the time. Most weighed between 1.5 and 2 tons and were not originally fitted with buffers. Buffers for wagons arrived in 1833 and were likely dumb buffers, sprung being a luxury afforded to horse boxes and passenger coaches. A lot of the coal wagons were chaldron type wagons owned by the collieries and were very often hauled by the colliery's own locomotives over the L&MR at first. A chaldron is a volume measure of a commodity, this dictated the size of the wagon and not its shape. Some of the L&MR's own coal wagons were 10' long and 3'9" wide with a 4'8" wheel base which is quite small. Gibbo. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo675 Posted January 25, 2021 Author Share Posted January 25, 2021 Hi Folks, Here are the short flat wagons, they are 9'6" long 6'6" wide and the wheel base. They were not fitted with buffers which saves a job. I shall paint them once I have built the long flat wagons to a similar pattern and be 12'6" long. Three short wheelbase flat wagons with a second class passenger carriage for reference. Gibbo. 4 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruston Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Gibbo675 said: Hi Folks, Here are the short flat wagons, they are 9'6" long 6'6" wide and the wheel base. They were not fitted with buffers which saves a job. I shall paint them once I have built the long flat wagons to a similar pattern and be 12'6" long. Three short wheelbase flat wagons with a second class passenger carriage for reference. Gibbo. If they didn't have buffers, were they coupled with a rigid bar or something of the sort? Edited January 25, 2021 by Ruston Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 25, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 25, 2021 4 hours ago, Gibbo675 said: Here are the short flat wagons, TOPS code SFW? Mike. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now