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A typical S&DJR train, c. 1902?


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Austin p.18 fourth wagon back is a Writhlinton colliery wagon, probably a 4 plank going by the top plank lettering (5 planks in this livery have an unlettered top plank) as seen in Richard Kelham's PO Wagons of Somerset.

Edited by 03060
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... as also seen p. 45 lower? - a rather earlier photo, going by the dumb-buffered Brays Down Colliery wagons and 0-4-2ST No. 25A, but after April 1896 as the engine's saddle tank extends to the front of the smokebox [Garner, p. 38, better version of this photo; Bradley & Milton, p. 140]. I'm afraid I dont have Kelham's Somerset volume as the county is a bit far out of my main field of interest.

 

Looking through Garner, another instance of the brake/third/first (or composite)/third/brake formation [p. 54, NRM LGRP 2115] - headed by No. 14 for a change, again at Milldown and dated 1898 - clearly another by our friend the author of the OP photo. The leading brake is one of the Highbridge 4-whhelers, with the ducket end trailing. There's a feature I'd not spotted before on the non-ducket end. This is divided into five equal-width vertical panels in the usual Clayton style; near the top of the outermost panel (on both sides, I think) is what appears to be a round window about 12" diameter. The trailing brake is a low-arc roof 6-wheeler; the thirds have the higher arc roof with rainstrip. Garner says the middle carriage is a first; the four ventilators are evenly spaced and the panels between the compartments look to be of the same width. Garner lists only a small number of 6-wheel 4-compartment firsts, Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7; of No. 2 he knows nothing, Nos. 4 and 7 he tentatively suggests were 31 ft long but states they were built at Highbridge in 1886/7 and were downgraded to third class in 1905 or 1928; No. 5 he thinks might be 30 ft and had flat ends (i.e. not curved in below the waist, like the sides, in the standard Clayton style - many older Highbridge 4 and 6-wheelers had flat ends) - of this carriage he has a photo [p. 17]. This shows that the panels between the compartments were divided in two by vertical beading. If these Highbridge-built firsts conformed to Clayton's standard dimension of 7'3" between partitions, then allowing for partition and end thicknesses, they would come out at 30 ft. From 1882, the Midland built a number of 4-compartment f6-wheel firsts for use in close-couple suburban sets; these carriages, D262, were 30 ft long. They had single panels between the compartments and of course the higher arc roof [Lacy & Dow, pp. 264-5]. The wheelbase was 1 ft shorter than the usual 21 ft of standard 31 ft 6-wheelers. Very early on, in 1875, Clayton had had built some 29 ft firsts, with only 7 ft between partitions, and the lower arc roof. These were built as 4-wheelers but later converted to 6 wheels. However I doubt these formed a model for carriages built at Highbridge over a decade later. I would expect these, Nos. 4 and 7, to have turned-under ends like othe carriages built at Higbridge in the mid-late 80s; certainly 6-wheel brake No. 4 does [Austin, p. 56]; Garner says these brakes were built in 1887 and were 30 ft long, so they seem to share overall dimensions with these two firsts. 

 

The middle carriage we see in these five-carriage sets could alternatively have been a 4-compartment composite rather than a first - Garner lists three 6-wheelers, Nos. 25, 29 and 30. The latter two he lists as built at Highbridge in 1889 and 28'5" long, surviving long enough to be given a Southern diagram, D368; No. 25 gave its number to a bogie composite of 1912; Garner surmises that it was similar to Nos. 29 and 30. The length doesn't quite match up with standard compartment widths of 7'3" for firsts and 6'0" for thirds - which, with partitions, would give on 27'6" - so I wonder if these were built as first/second composites, with 6'6" seconds? Garner has a photo of No. 25 [p. 17]; this does have turn-under ends as one would expect if was contemporary with Nos. 29 and 30. Running a ruler over it, the first class compartments do seem to be 7'3" wide (if so, the photo is reproduced at bang on 4 mm/ft) but the thirds scale out at 6'3" and the overall length at 28 ft! So it's all as clear as mud.

 

What is apparent, though, is that there are not many candidates for the middle carriages of these five-carriage sets, suggesting that although they are often seen, they weren't in fact all that numerous. Perhaps some timetable expert can work out how many sets of carriages would be needed to work the main line stopping services c. 1895 - 1902?

 

Also, an addedum to my comment on the train at Burnham on Sea in 1895 [Austin, p. 9]. The 2-compartment brake third in that photo could be No.33, as it matches the photo of No. 33 in C. Maggs, Highbridge in its Heyday, plate 59 - however, that photo is likely to be the source of the information in Garner; there could well be other 4-wheel brake thirds in his list that were similar. This goes to show that one has to be careful with confirmatory sources - they often already depend on each other.

Edited by Compound2632
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8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

... as also seen p. 45 lower? 

 

Yes, this is the cover photo of Kelham's volume, nicely enlarged. It shows two of the lettering formats, the difference being Huish or Foxcote being applied on the second plank down on the left. Kilmersdon colliery's wagons were similarly lettered except for a large K replaced the W on the door.

 

I'm finding the PO wagon subject rather absorbing at the moment having built some 5 plank kits recently thinking that they would be fairly common representatives on the line for quarries and collieries ....only to find that the quarries mainly used 4 planks ....and the collieries 4 and 6 planks !  I've spent rather a lot of time recently trying to find correct liveries for the type of wagons that I've built that did or could have travelled along the the S&DJR, Garners book helps point me in the right direction though as a starting point.

 

Regards,

Ian.

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@03060, I know you are working in 3 mm scale but it's opportune to point out here that in 4 mm scale, Cambrian do a kit for a Wheeler & Gregory-built 4-plank wagon, that I've been using as the basis of other 4-plank wagons.

 

Also, S&DJR goods stock won't by-and-large be of interest to you since it was with a few exceptions divided between the Midland and LSWR in 1914, and anyway you're well into the wagon pooling period, so anything goes - including, it would seem, a lot of ex-LNWR 10 ton open wagons - D84 - carrying sawn timber at Highbridge Wharf in 1924 [Austin, p. 15]. PO wagons of course weren't pooled until the second war, so do provide local colour. A fellow club member is an S&DJR enthusiast; he's on a quest for information about wagons of a particular Radstock colliery that are apparently known to have existed but for which no photograph has been found. I'm afraid that although he was telling me about this on Tuesday, I can't remember the name of the colliery!

 

Anyway, S&DJR goods wagons. My interest was piqued by the photo of a derailment to a passenger train at Burnham on Easter Monday 1914 [Atthill, plate 31]. There's an arc roof 6-wheel brake and one other carriage, I think a 5-compartment third, visible, so I was wondering if this was a late instance of the five-coach set, although Atthill describes it as "a crowded excursion train". I hot-footed it off to the Railways Archive accident archive, in hope of finding the BoT report (these often give the type and running number of damaged vehicles). Unfortunately there's no entry for this accident but my attention was drawn to the report on the accident at Templecombe on 10 July 1894. A goods train running down from Templecombe Upper station ran through signals and was in sidelong collision with an excursion returning from Bournemouth. The latter, heading back to Worcester, was composed of Midland stock - including a large number of saloons whose numbers coincide with those given by Lacy & Dow for D465 32ft 6-wheel party (picnic) saloons, but since Lacy & Dow state that their numbers come from accident reports, we're into circularity of sources again! Also in the train was ex-Pullman car No. 10, recently demoted to picnic saloon use. It was later to recover some dignity attached to a M&GN 4-4-0T as part of the Midland's first experiment in motor trains. Maj. Yorke's report also lists the damaged goods wagons, providing a snapshot of the makeup of a S&DJR goods train of the time. He appears to list vehicles in numerical order, rather than their position in the train:

  • S&DJR 10 ton goods van No. 19 - I'm fairly sure Maj. Yorke means by this description a goods brake van, since he refers to the brake vans in the excursion train as "passenger vans". This was the fourth vehicle in the goods train, which was still being made up, as driver West describes in the report. Garner lists No. 19 as a 4-wheel 10 ton vehicle of the type built between 1879 and 1888; he gives a photo of No. 20 of this type [Garner, p. 43]. It was replaced by a 20 ton 6-wheel brake van in 1913; there are photographs and drawings of both types in G. Bixley et al.Southern Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1984).
  • S&DJR high goods wagons Nos. 198, 842, and 955 - the description indicates that these are examples of the Highbridge clone of the Midland D299 8 ton, 5-plank wagon; although Garner does not list these numbers, they sit blocks of numbers occupied by wagons of the same type. These wagons accounted for about half the S&DJR wagon stock, so its hardly surprising to find three of them here.
  • S&DJR box wagon No. 742 - this number sits in a series of Highbridge-built road vans of c. 1893/4; Garner listss 741, 750, and 755/6 as known examples, though some numbers in this series (740/6/751/3) are listed as vans built in the 20th century and later assigned to SR Dia 1404 - the 1893/4 road vans became Dia 1403. These might be renwals of earlier vans. Reference to Southern Wagons Vol. 1 reveals that the Dia 1404 vehicles are the ones of pure Midland design, batches of which were built at Derby in 1896 and S.J. Claye in 1899, along with later Highbridge-built examples. They are almost identical to some tariff vans the Midland built for its own use in 1898. The vans that became Southern Dia 1403 have distinctively un-Midland X-shaped bracing to the body and are smaller than the Dia 1404 vehicles - 6" shorter at 16'0" over headstocks, and only 10'3" high  compared to 10'11½”. Southern Wagons has a photo of No. 741 looking traffic-worn; Midland Style shows a smart-looking ex-works No. 750, with ironwork picked out in black and white lettering shaded black. Maj. Yorke's report gives a hint as to how these road vans were used: in his evidence, driver West said "I then waited some time* for the road van work to be finished, that is the mixed goods being transferred and reloaded." *20 minutes, according to fireman Lewis.
  • F. Bird & Co. No. 7098
  • Frances Countess Waldegrave No. 552
  • Somerset Trading Co. No. 2
  • Wheeler & Gregory No. 1123
  • Yeovil Gas Co. Nos. 3 and 7

Maj. Yorke ends with some very scathing remarks about the failure of the wealthy Midland and LSWR companies to do anything to improve the layout at Templecombe, ideally by constructing a loop from the Blandford direction to make Templecombe Upper a through station for S&DJR trains - never done, of course.

Edited by Compound2632
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>>>>...ideally by constructing a loop from the Blandford direction to make Templecomb Upper a through station for S&DJR trains - never done, of course......

 

Although plans were drawn up in later years for at least one of a number of options.

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1 hour ago, RailWest said:

>>>>...ideally by constructing a loop from the Blandford direction to make Templecomb Upper a through station for S&DJR trains - never done, of course......

 

Although plans were drawn up in later years for at least one of a number of options.

Interesting! What period was that and could you offer a reference so I can follow it up please.

 

Regards

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13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

@03060,

  • S&DJR box wagon No. 742 - this number sits in a series of Highbridge-built road vans of c. 1893/4; Garner listss 741, 750, and 755/6 as known examples, though some numbers in this series (740/6/751/3) are listed as vans built in the 20th century and later assigned to SR Dia 1404 - the 1893/4 road vans became Dia 1403. These might be renwals of earlier vans. Reference to Southern Wagons Vol. 1 reveals that the Dia 1404 vehicles are the ones of pure Midland design, batches of which were built at Derby in 1896 and S.J. Claye in 1899, along with later Highbridge-built examples. They are almost identical to some tariff vans the Midland built for its own use in 1898. The vans that became Southern Dia 1403 have distinctively un-Midland X-shaped bracing to the body and are smaller than the Dia 1404 vehicles - 6" shorter at 16'0" over headstocks, and only 10'3" high  compared to 10'11½”. Southern Wagons has a photo of No. 741 looking traffic-worn; Midland Style shows a smart-looking ex-works No. 750, with ironwork picked out in black and white lettering shaded black. Maj. Yorke's report gives a hint as to how these road vans were used: in his evidence, driver West said "I then waited some time* for the road van work to be finished, that is the mixed goods being transferred and reloaded." *20 minutes, according to fireman Lewis.
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Maj. Yorke ends with some very scathing remarks about the failure of the wealthy Midland and LSWR companies to do anything to improve the layout at Templecombe, ideally by constructing a loop from the Blandford direction to make Templecombe Upper a through station for S&DJR trains - never done, of course.

 

Road vans were used for the bits and pieces - consignments so small and scattered that they couldn't be consolidated to make up a complete wagon to a single station . Thus all the assorted bits and pieces would be bunged in a single van - the road van - which would act as an omnibus service to various stations along the way and would be taken out/put in at each station along the route.

 

Templecombe being an important junction, my guess is that it is being used as the hub/a hub for this road van. That is , consignments will come into Templecombe goods shed  en bloc off the LSWR , bound for stations along the S&D , and the minor bits and pieces destined for minor stations all get loaded at Templecombe into the road van  on this train. They'll come out bit by bit at each station down the line, where the road van will be opened (in the platform? the goods shed?) 

 

Similarly the road van will gather up the odds and sods consignments consigned to LSWR destinations along the way at various stations on the S&D , and empty the lot out at Templecombe for the goods shed  to sort and dispatch in wagons Templecombe is sending out to various LSW stations

 

That, I suggest is what Driver West describes as  "the road van work to be finished, that is the mixed goods being transferred and reloaded."

 

This is the bottommost, least profitable level of shipments generated by the railways "common carrier" status. The LSWR strikingly built brake vans that were intended to double as road vans - this suggests just how small the volumes involved were - and I suspect that LSW brake road vans were mainly intended for use on West Country branches (ie everything west of Exeter and a good few lines to the east) 

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1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Interesting! What period was that and could you offer a reference so I can follow it up please.

 

Regards

To be honest, I only had a very brief acquaintance with it :-(

 

Years ago now there was an exhibition mounted in the old goods shed at Templecombe to mark some railway-related event - probably the 125th anniversary of the S&YR opening. The plan to which I refer was one of the exhibits. I don't recall the date of it, tho' I suspect probably later SRly period. It was labelled 'Option D' (or similar), implying that other options existed, but there was nothing on show about those. 

 

Sadly i have no idea of the source of that plan or where it is now, but you might want to Google the 'Friends of Templecombe Station' as a starting point.

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This road van traffic seems to be best documented for the S&DJR, at least as far as my Midland-oriented reading goes. On the Midland, the term was tariff traffic - 250 tariff vans similar to the later S&DJR vans were built in 1898 as I mentioned. The detail difference was a pair of windows between the end pillars, just below the eaves. The Midland also had 60 tariff brake vans, built in 1891/2; rather different in appearance to the standard brake van design with end verandah. I've started on a model of one:

 

1996875301_MidlandD382ATariffBrakeVanWIP2.JPG.e3ea78f2129625331c49a332121c9ea8.JPG

 

... using parts from Slater's two brake van kits. It's stalled while I puzzle out how to do lamp irons and handrails.

 

Maybe the move from tariff brakes to tariff vans represents a change of mind about how to handle this traffic on the Midland, or perhaps simply an increase in it.

 

The road vans represent a large proportion of the S&DJR goods stock - around 7% - although that does rest on the assumption that all the covered goods wagons are "road vans" - the extant photos of the smaller Highbridge vans and the ex-works photo of one of the Derby-built vans are all marked as such, but Garner's Registers list all the Derby ones as "Covered Goods (Road Van)" but the S.J. Claye and later Highbridge vehicles simply as "Covered Goods". I gather that there were several timetabled workings of S&DJR road vans far afield on the LSWR (I haven't read the article that I gather was published on this) but not, as far as I'm aware, north of Bath onto the Midland.

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10 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Interesting! What period was that and could you offer a reference so I can follow it up please.

 

Regards

In Newsletter No. 8 of the Shillingstone Station Project (Easter 2005) there was a four page article “The Station That Never Was” by Mike Lucas with drawings and information from Templecombe Railway Museum.  Believed to have been dated just before WW1, the plans show a new 4 platform station east of the S&D line using the original spur line pointing towards Salisbury and a new loop back onto the S&D for trains to and from Bournemouth.  There had been 1905 plans for a loop west of the upper station connecting back near Henstridge.  I must not reproduce the article for copyright reasons so suggest contacting the Shillingstone project if this could be of interest.

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Other than at terminal points, "road" vans were normally loaded and unloaded at the station platform while an shunting required was taking place. Many stations possessed a lock-up shed (occasionally incorporated into the station building) to facilitate timely loading/unloading and the safe storage of delivered or to-be-collected items.

Road vans carried items rated at goods tariffs, more urgent items travelled in the vans of passenger trains and were passenger tariff rated - handling at stations was similar though.

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Thanks to Ian @03060 for suggesting I post again a link to this postcard view of Corsham, which has some S&DJR interest in the form of wagons from Kilmersdon and Camerton Collieries (as identified by Ian) along with a couple of the unbiquitous Midland D299 5-plank wagons. When this postcard was discussed in my wagon-building topic, @wagonmanestimated the date at c. 1905-6, certainly no earlier than late 1901, on the basis of the wagons present.

 

One question that I don't think was discussed than was: why is the nearest Camerton wagon sheeted?

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On ‎30‎/‎08‎/‎2019 at 12:21, Compound2632 said:

This road van traffic seems to be best documented for the S&DJR, at least as far as my Midland-oriented reading goes. On the Midland, the term was tariff traffic - 250 tariff vans similar to the later S&DJR vans were built in 1898 as I mentioned. The detail difference was a pair of windows between the end pillars, just below the eaves. The Midland also had 60 tariff brake vans, built in 1891/2; rather different in appearance to the standard brake van design with end verandah. I've started on a model of one:

 

1996875301_MidlandD382ATariffBrakeVanWIP2.JPG.e3ea78f2129625331c49a332121c9ea8.JPG

 

... using parts from Slater's two brake van kits. It's stalled while I puzzle out how to do lamp irons and handrails.

 

Maybe the move from tariff brakes to tariff vans represents a change of mind about how to handle this traffic on the Midland, or perhaps simply an increase in it.

 

The road vans represent a large proportion of the S&DJR goods stock - around 7% - although that does rest on the assumption that all the covered goods wagons are "road vans" - the extant photos of the smaller Highbridge vans and the ex-works photo of one of the Derby-built vans are all marked as such, but Garner's Registers list all the Derby ones as "Covered Goods (Road Van)" but the S.J. Claye and later Highbridge vehicles simply as "Covered Goods". I gather that there were several timetabled workings of S&DJR road vans far afield on the LSWR (I haven't read the article that I gather was published on this) but not, as far as I'm aware, north of Bath onto the Midland.

 

We all know that in the pre-grouping era the bulk of wagons were opens - vans were comparatively rare. This raises the question - once specialist vans for perishables and the like are stripped out , were most late Victorian /Edwardian general goods vans actually meant for use on road van work?? Clearly tarpaulins would have been a real nuiscense on a vehicle that was being opened and reworked at every station...

 

The fact that the MR had special van types for this work, different from the familiar vans covered by Slaters kits, suggests not. But on the S&DJR where goods flows were presumably much smaller, road van work might have accounted for a substantial proportion of the van fleet.

 

I'm guessing Exeter, Salisbury and Southampton would be destinations for S&DJR road vans running on the LSWR. Beyond S&D metals , they would simply be a normal full van load running direct to a big LSW goods hub. 

 

The implication is that there was enough volume of shipments running north from Bath to Bristol and Birmingham for wagons to specific stations on the MR to be readily available, this providing a home for all the shipments out of the S&D road van. Another take on this is that the MR might have had plenty of empty wagons going back from Bath - the more lightly trafficked LSW at Templecombe and Bournemouth didn't

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@Ravenser, I suspect that's pretty much it. On a small line like the S&DJR (or even the LSWR), wagonload traffic was in opens, sheeted where appropriate, and part-load / small / high value traffic by road van. On the big companies such as the Midland, there was enough of that sort of traffic - and large enough distances - to make up full covered goods wagon loads. Birmingham Central Goods Station, c. 1890s. These loads may have been broken down at large centres - Derby St Marys tranship shed etc. - for final distribution by road van. 

 

The article that I've not read on S&DJR road vans apparently includes Nine Elms among their regular circuits. 

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was more goods consigned onto the S&DJR from the Midland than vice-versa, with a corresponding northbound flow of Midland empties. I understand this was the case for all the northern lines into London, for instance.

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On 28/08/2019 at 22:36, Compound2632 said:

Austin p. 9 upper, Burnham on Sea 1895. ... The third vehicle on view is a 4-wheel van of some sort, with two pairs of doors with droplights. It has non-standard (by Clayton/Highbridge standards) panelling - lower height to eves overall, narrow eves panels but deeper waist panels. The latter suggests LSWR to me. I don't have Weddell's LSWR Carriages volumes...

 

 

Thanks to @uax6, I now have copies of some of G.R. Weddell's LSWR carriage drawings from the Model Railway Constructor. The van in the photo under discussion bears a very strong likeness to Weddell's drawing no. 345 of a 22 ft luggage van of 1883. 

 

The Highbridge-built 46 ft bogie carriages appear on this year's Wishlist Poll, under Coaches: LMS & Constituents. Worth a vote?

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On 19/10/2019 at 15:02, Compound2632 said:

Thanks to @uax6, I now have copies of some of G.R. Weddell's LSWR carriage drawings from the Model Railway Constructor. The van in the photo under discussion bears a very strong likeness to Weddell's drawing no. 345 of a 22 ft luggage van of 1883. 

 

I've had second thoughts about this, having been asked a question about the Roxey kit for a S&DJR 24 ft milk van. According to Russ Garner's Registers and the info on Roxey's website, these were converted c. 1901 from passenger brake vans. The information about these is rather confusing: Garner records six built in 1888, numbered (at some time) 1A - 6A, and six built in 1892/3, numbered (at some time) 1 - 6. I suspect that the van in the Burnham on Sea 1895 photo could well be one of these in its original form. The conversion would seem to have involved replacing pairs of blank upper panels, each approx 2 ft wide, with a louvred panel approx 2 ft wide flanked by blank panels approx 1 ft wide. Presumably the guard's brake standard would have been removed and as milk vans it seems they were dual braked. 

 

The curious thing is the LSWR-style panelling - which, together with the low arc roof, is consistent with LSWR carriages of the 1888-1893 period. By this date and since at least the early 1880s, if not from 1874, Highbridge was building carriages with standard Midland panelling dimensions, although very few of these carriages were exact copies of Midland types. So it seems strange that Highbridge should have departed from this style for passenger brake vans - though I've not seen any suggestion that these vehicles were built at Nine Elms. 

 

I'm not entirely sure I believe there were two lots of six of these vans! I wonder if there was one order, which got postponed and re-ordered, for six vans numbered 1 - 6, and that these were moved to the duplicate list at some point before conversion to milk vans. The picture is further clouded by 30 ft 6-wheel passenger brake vans Nos. 1 - 6, built in 1887. apart from No. 2, built 1892. The S&DJR had separate number lists for passenger brake vans and for NCPS, resulting in far too many vehicles recorded as numbered 1 - 6! 

 

Garner has a photo of No. 1A, DY 8473, as a milk van - this matches the Roxey kit - although that could well be because the Roxey kit is based on this photo.

Edited by Compound2632
US English spellchecker let through the US spelling of louvred!
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I asked a question about S&D milk vans, which was forwarded to Stephen.  The Southwark Bridge team operate a rolling 24 hour timetable based on the documents pertaining to Waterloo in 1912.  It's not the full timetable, because SB only has six platforms whilst Waterloo had 18, We get to operate a two hour chunk on six Saturdays a year; so far we have concentrated on the day time timetable because we have a lot of passenger coaches but a limited number of vans, especially "foreign" vans.  But at some point we will operate the overnight timetable.

 

The LSWR combined some incoming milk trains to send out a cavalcade of milk empties at about 3am.  As well as native vehicles, there were M&SWJn vans detached at Andover and S&D vans detached at Templecombe.  There were several S&D vans, it's strange that the Carriage Workings required one to be Westinghouse fitted when the actuality was they were all so fitted.  Next time I'm at SB, I'll note down all the destinations and post them on this thread.  Thanks, Stephen.

Bill

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1 minute ago, bbishop said:

I asked a question about S&D milk vans, which was forwarded to Stephen.  The Southwark Bridge team operate a rolling 24 hour timetable based on the documents pertaining to Waterloo in 1912.  It's not the full timetable, because SB only has six platforms whilst Waterloo had 18, We get to operate a two hour chunk on six Saturdays a year; so far we have concentrated on the day time timetable because we have a lot of passenger coaches but a limited number of vans, especially "foreign" vans.  But at some point we will operate the overnight timetable.

 

The LSWR combined some incoming milk trains to send out a cavalcade of milk empties at about 3am.  As well as native vehicles, there were M&SWJn vans detached at Andover and S&D vans detached at Templecombe.  There were several S&D vans, it's strange that the Carriage Workings required one to be Westinghouse fitted when the actuality was they were all so fitted.  Next time I'm at SB, I'll note down all the destinations and post them on this thread.  Thanks, Stephen.

All I have to do is build the S&D vans - one 24' and one 25'.

Bill

 

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Resurrecting this thread as a repository for random pre-1914 S&DJR observations, in looking at something else I've enlarged my knowledge of S&DJR wagon history. It's well-known that a large proportion of the S&DJR's wagon stock consisted of high-sided wagons of the standard Midland type, D299 in that company's diagram book. Those that passed to the LSWR in 1914 and survived to the grouping became Southern diagram 1304. Some typical examples can be seen here

 

Quite a number of these were built at Highbridge, including ones that play riffs on the theme such as high curved ands and sheet supports. Some, however, were built by the trade.

 

One such firm was Harrison & Camm of Rotherham. Their advertising features a very familiar-looking sort of wagon:

 

Im1900Brad-Camm.jpg

 

On close inspection, that numberplate reads: S&DJR 457; the wagon has the chunky wooden doorstop characteristic of the Highbridge version of the standard Midland high sided goods wagon but retains the short Midland lever. 

 

Russ Garner's Register gives Nos. 457-476 inclusive as built 1883 (these being ones that passed to the LSWR). So we can infer that this batch of twenty wagons* were built by Harrison & Camm, to the Midland design. This fits with a general pattern of procurement from outside builders rather than from the workshops of one of the parent companies, probably for legal reasons. S.J. Claye built a batch of Road Vans in 1899 (following on, in fact, from a batch built at Derby in 1896); Oldbury and Cravens built passenger carriages c. 1891.

 

*A specification was issued in October 1882 for fifty wagons, Midland Railway Study Centre item 13683. Perhaps the final order was split between two builders.

Edited by Compound2632
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On 27/12/2019 at 22:31, bbishop said:

All I have to do is build the S&D vans - one 24' and one 25'.

 

After 50+ years I still haven't got round to doing the 24ft one! This one has literally been sitting around gathering dust, waiting for me to get going again. It was built using a drawing I made, from an official photograph and the known length. When I eventually acquired a scale drawing, I found it was only about 2mm out in length and almost the the right height and width.

SDJR fruit & milk van 1902 modelled 1969.jpg

Edited by phil_sutters
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I have been going to The National Archives frequently over the post couple of years, extracting mostly wagon information from the minutes of the Midland Railway's various Committees of the Board. Today I indulged myself with a digression into S&DJR material:

  • RAIL 1110/418 Somerset Joint Committee Reports & Accounts 1875-1912
  • RAIL 626/3 Somerset Joint Committee minutes 1880-1885

"Somerset Joint Committee" was the working title for the committee of directors of the MR and LSWR that was effectively the S&DJR Board. The Reports and Accounts were produced half-yearly, showing the situation at 30 May and 31 October each year. The 30 April 1878 Report and Accounts set a format that was continued until 31 October 1912, after which the legal requirements changed as a consequence of the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act, 1911. This later period, up to 1946, is in RAIL 1110/419, which I have not looked at. This format included as Section 3 a Return of Working Stock, which gives the number of locomotives, tenders, coaching stock and wagon stock by type, ships, horses, and drays in the capital stock at each date. Since it also gives the numbers for six months previously, this means we have these numbers from 31 October 1877. 

 

This information is supplemented by the Committee minutes, which include the authorisation of and acceptance of tender for vehicles built as additions to stock, also authorisation for deviations from like-for-like renewal, as in February 1885, when the renewal of twelve old goods wagons as six goods break vans was approved. But of particular interest is a letter from S.W. Johnson, in his capacity as the Joint's Locomotive Superintendent (a position which included responsibility for the carriage and wagon stock), of 5 October 1885, in which he gives figure for the proportion of each type of carriage over 20 years old.

 

From my transcript of the Return of Working Stock, I have made a couple of charts. Firstly, for coaching stock:

 

SSJRWorkingStock-Coaching.jpg.ed60a74b78d1b42fe48123b541bda058.jpg

 

The number of vehicles providing first class accommodation remained constant at 38 from 1890, whilst the number of third class carriages remained constant at 89 from the abolition of second class in 1893. The types of vehicles changed and from April 1907, bogie carriages are enumerated separately. The Reports and Accounts also record the capital expenditure on rolling stock with from 1907 an entry for the capital outlay involved in replacing one or two ordinary carriages per half-year with the same number of bogie carriages. (Of course bogie carriages were being built from c. 1900 but they were not immediately accounted for separately.)

 

The big steps in the numbers of third class carriages are of course the addition of the 20 third class carriages from Oldbury in 1886 and the 20 thirds and 5 brake thirds from Cravens in 1891. It can also be seen that on the abolition of second class in 1893, the remaining four second class carriages were transferred to the third class list; first/second composites remained in the composite list as first/third composites.

 

If one looks very carefully at the carriage truck band, one can see the increase from 10 to 11 in 1909; this corresponds to the addition of the covered carriage truck No. 11 built for the use of S. & A. Fuller of Bath.

 

In his 1885 letter, Johnson reports that 7 out of 8 firsts, 11 of 14 seconds, 25 of the 33 thirds, 7 out of 27 composites, and 4 out of 16 passenger brake vans were over 20 years old - i.e. dating from 1865 or earlier. Renewal had been at the rate of three per half-year (5% per annum) with 52 new vehicles (out of a total of 120) built since the Joint Committee took over; this he wanted increased to 10 per half-year until the old stock was replaced, in about three years; this was approved by the Committee. (What these official figure hide is the duplicate stock - old vehicles retained in service rather than broken-up after renewal, such as the ancient carriages that survived in the Highbridge workmen's train, with A-suffixed numbers.)

 

Secondly, the chart for wagons:

 

SSJRWorkingStock-Wagons.jpg.d4f30f63b23f58e0af589123500bc171.jpg

 

Up to 1888, the numbers of open goods wagons and of mineral wagons were listed separately; from then on they were combined - recognising that the standard 8-ton 5-plank wagon was suitable for either goods or mineral traffic. 

 

The significant step in 1883 corresponds to the addition of 50 cattle wagons, built by Stableford, and 50 open goods wagons, by Harrison & Camm (see their advert in an earlier post). Johnson's 1885 letter gives the number of wagons renewed since 1875 as 510, again 5% per annum. He goes on: "Owing to the age and condition of the wagons, many of which were secondhand when purchased by the original Somerset & Dorset Company, it will be advisable to renew the wagons at about 80 per annum until the remainder of the Stock is gone through."

 

Johnson finishes by noting that the Locomotive Renewal Account is in credit by £3,500; in other words the funds are available for the accelerated renewal of the carriages and wagons.

 

There's lots more to be teased out of this data, once I've gone through more of the Joint Committee minutes.

Edited by Compound2632
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Collating this data with Garner's Register, one can start to unpick things. For instance, in the year from November 1883 to October 1884, the number of firsts goes down by four, from 12 to 8, while the number of composites and seconds increase by two each from 25 to 27 and from 12 to 14 respectively, which I read as four firsts being renewed as two composites and two seconds. At this period, I think there were separate number lists for each type of carriage, so the composites would be Nos. 26 and 27, and the seconds, Nos. 13 and 14. Garner lists 26 and 27 as bogie composites built in 1909 and 1910; it would be perfectly logical for these to be renewals of carriages built in 1884 - 25 years old at renewal. Then again, in the year from November 1888 to October 1889, the number of seconds goes down by four, with the number of composites going up four - seconds renewed as composites, Nos. 28-31. Garner has 29 and 30 as 28' 5" 6-wheel composites built in 1889, surviving to become SR stock, and 28 and 31 as bogie composites built in 1913 and 1910 - renewal after 20+ years. I suspect that had the Great War not intervened, the programme of renewal of old carriages by bogie stock would have continued, with 29 and 30 as the next candidates.

 

One section of Garner's Register that has had me confused is his non-passenger coaching stock register and passenger luggage van register. The horse boxes and carriage trucks present no problem; each has its own number series. The section on milk vans is where the confusion begins, overflowing into the passenger luggage van register. An extract from my chart:

 

SSJRWorkingStock-PBVandMilkVans.jpg.d93129c5caa0a7abcefe000d4646abbd.jpg

 

The Reports and Accounts show capital expenditure on passenger brake vans and milk vans in the half-years ending 31 Oct 1892, 30 Apr 1893, and 31 Oct 1893. As the chart illustrates, the Returns of Working Stock reflect this, with the number of passenger brake vans increasing by six, which would be Nos. 17-22, which matches Garner's passenger brake van register. (Some of Garner's information comes from this source anyway, but at second-hand, I think, so agreement is unsurprising.) It appears that the milk vans were numbered in a new series, Nos. 1-6. This was added to in the half-year ending 30 Apr 1902  by the dozen milk vans built at Derby, lot 523, Nos. 7-18. Garner double-lists Nos. 1-6 as Nos. 1A-6A, putting the build dates as "1892/3 or 1901" for Nos. 1-6 and "1888 or 1901" for Nos. 1A-6A. It seems clear that the 1888 date is spurious, at least for milk vans as additions to stock. But the same set of vehicles reappears in the passenger luggage van register, where it is suggested that Nos 1-6 / 1A-6A were converted from passenger luggage vans and that 7-17 (18 is missing) "may have been milk vans from the outset". My conclusion is that this passenger luggage van register is a mistake - there never was such a class of vehicles but milk vans may often have doubled-up as vehicles for passengers' luggage; there may have been some alteration for this in 1901 - perhaps the Committee minutes will shed some light. Garner depends here on H.C. Casserley, Britain's Joint Lines (Ian Allan, 1968). My suspicion is that Casserley has simply muddied the waters by referring to milk vans as passenger luggage vans, because that's how he knew of them being used. The book is available very cheaply second-hand, so I've ordered a copy!

 

A possibility is the Nos 1A-6A were old passenger brake vans that were on the duplicate list. This sort of fits, because Garner lists 6-wheel passenger brake vans Nos. 1, 3-6 as built in 1887 and No. 2 in 1892.

 

Anyway, I should now complete my Roxey kit of a 24 ft milk van:

 

SDJRmilkvanWIP3.JPG.00b33774463403280e4a5d7106b91ff2.JPG

 

confident that it had always been a milk van since being built in 1892/3.

 

Ref. R. Garner, The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock Registers 1886 – 1930 (The Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust, 2000)

Edited by Compound2632
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