Wagonologie

[Nick Mitchell]

12 minutes ago, 65179 said:

I think they'd all gone by your nominal time period, so you'll be modelling that little known instance of a D326, assumed long since withdrawn, being found in an oddly prominent siding at or near a former L&Y station, I presume?

I'm not sure that's completely right. According to Essery's Illustrated History of LMS Wagons Vol. 2, the LMS built some to the Midland diagram (with slightly different rivet patterns to the corner according to the one photo). They had a page in the LMS diagram book, and British Railways had a code for them. My interpretation of that is that some at least must have lasted until 1950?

 

As for is appearing in a siding near a former L&Y station - it'll look great being shunted there by my Princess...

[65179]

50 minutes ago, Nick Mitchell said:

I'm not sure that's completely right. According to Essery's Illustrated History of LMS Wagons Vol. 2, the LMS built some to the Midland diagram (with slightly different rivet patterns to the corner according to the one photo). They had a page in the LMS diagram book, and British Railways had a code for them. My interpretation of that is that some at least must have lasted until 1950?

 

As for is appearing in a siding near a former L&Y station - it'll look great being shunted there by my Princess...

 

Better get changing those rivets to do the LMS variant then!  Good to hear you have an excuse though - I don't have LMS Wagons Vol 2, only the Midland volume so I stand corrected.

 

Simon

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, 65179 said:

Did these types of wagons spend more time out of use than in traffic, and did they have 'return to' instructions?

The majority of the Caledonian's special wagons (well wagons, heavy weight wagons, etc.) were branded 'St Rollox when empty'.

 

Jim

[MarshLane]

Hi Nick,

Just to say thanks for posting your various bits and pieces on this thread, as one who is a member of the 2FS Society, but hasn't yet plucked up the courage to try soldering a brass wagon or loco (as much as I want to do) your work is inspirational.  I have watched your Jubilee videos about 10 times now, and read this thread end-to-end at least three!  I am determined this summer to have a go at something small.  If I can achieve a 10th of the quality of you've reach I would be delighted!  The essence of this is basically to say, thanks for the various pictures and the step-by-step, they really do help, and please carry on with it.

 

Rich

Edited June 21, 2023 by MarshLane

[Nick Mitchell]

I haven't posted much about anything here for ages - mostly because I haven't been doing much of anything.

However, after leaving it to languish for a year, I recently revisited the L&Y-built Rectank.

 

Having solved most of the problems with this model (at least in theory) I found myself contemplating the lovely Stephen Harris designed bogies:

 

 

The one problem I had left un-solved was how to fix them to the wagon with the brass drive bushes that they were designed for.

The hole in the bush is a nice fit over a 12BA bolt, so I needed to contrive a means of connecting one of these with the underframe.

 

With an appropriately sized drill bit twiddled by hand, and a lot of care, i opened out the hole in the wagon bolster to accommodate a 12BA nut:

 

 

The nut was screwed onto the end of a cocktail stick and soldered in place. The cocktail stick both prevented solder entering the threads, and acted as a handle to make sure the nut was at the correct height and also that the bolt would end up perpendicular to the chassis.

 

Because the brass bush is quite chunky, it allows a lot of vertical movement of the bogie. I added some bolsters from Nickel Silver rod for the top of the bogie to rest on, and set the ride height of the wagon appropriately.

With the bush screwed up tight, there is still just enough clearance for the bogie to rock fore and aft... almost as though it was designed to be the perfect size and not requiring further washers/packing.

 

 

On the track, I found that the wheel flanges were just rubbing against the chassis cross members nearest the bogies.

in the picture below, which shows one bogie bolted in place, you can see where I had to file notches in the cross member to guarantee free movement:

 

 

The wagon can be seen below finally sitting on its bogies. It rides very nicely.

 

 

Amazingly, considering the passage of time, the little collars I'd made to centre the buffers in their over-sized holes were still in the Pringles lid on my workbench where I'd left them, and I was able to fit the buffers and three remaining brackets for the screw jacks as I'd previously worked out.

 

 

But what about the screw jacks themselves? The etched fret contains very tiny hand-wheels, which looked as though they would be useable.

I found some 16BA bolts which, incredibly, were able to be screwed into the holes in the brackets! Perfect.

In my watchmaker's lathe, I turned down the bolt head in both diameter and thickness (removing the slot) to represent the feet, and at the other end formed a 0.3mm diameter spigot on which the etched handwheel could be fitted.

 

Here the handwheel is loosely placed to test the fit:

 

 

These are really small!

 

 

Obviously the screws had to be fitted before the handwheels could be soldered in place, which was a rather ticklish operation. I ended up managing to place the handwheels on their spigots with tweezers, then gently wedging them in place with bits of wooden coffee stirrers while I added solder from underneath and behind. They seem to have turned out okay:

 

 

The next parts I added were the tool boxes, which had rivets to punch out before folding up.

I had to guess as to the designers intention regarding how to fit these. In some photos, it looks like they are resting on a planked floor, but the kit has no provision for this. Either the top or bottom (depending which way up you put it) of the box has little protrusions - wings? After trying it every which way, the position that looked most plausible to me was to hang the toolbox by its wings from the cross-girders.

If need be, I can slide some plasticard "planks" into the small gap between the bottom of the box and the tie rods.

 

 

Thee are more screw jacks in the centre of the wagon. The kit provides brackets for these, which fold up and locate in half-etched grooves in the bottom of the girders. I used the left-over lengths of the 16BA bolts for the screws, and filed them flush with the bottom of the queen posts. This still leaves them nearer the rails than the feet of the buffer-beam screw jacks.

 

 

I'm undecided about soldering feet on these screws, which I would make from etched crankpin cap washers. Without shining a light under the wagon, they are almost impossible to see, and I'm worried about clearances.

 

 

I've been adding the securing rings (some in the "up" position ready to secure a load) with two still to go.

The photo below is where I'm up to.

I need to add some planking to the sloping ends, which I will do with plastic strips, and also do something about couplings. i think I'll get away with soldering bearing tubes for Electra couplings to the underside of the buffer beams.

 

Having fussed over the screw jacks, I have looked a pictures of wagons in railway company service decades after the war (as opposed to those which remained with the MoD), at least some of them seem to have had the jacks and associated brackets removed. Did this apply to all of them?

I'm wondering now how to finish the wagon in c.1950 condition. I've seen some photos of these wagons with chunky bolsters fitted, and I was thinking along those lines - painting it LMS grey, and having a load like old rails chained to it.

I'm not planning to remove any of the detail I have added (besides the time it took, they give the wagon most of its character) but would that leave me with an implausible model?