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Shipping of the Minerva 0 gauge RTR GWR OPEN A 5-plank open wagon starts next week. Sadly, they will not arrive in time for Christmas and Chris B and Chris K apologise most profusely for the five-week delay in delivery. The model represents Diagram 11 with Dean-Churchward Mark 3 brake gear. It will be available in four liveries: 1903 GW 25", 1923 GW 16", 1936 GW6” and British Railways unfitted grey. Three different numbers for each livery will be offered and parts for fitting an optional sheet rail are included. The photos show decorated samples, which will be on display on the Minerva stand at the Reading trade show on Saturday 7th December 2019.

 

Minerva will be announcing another new model at Reading for delivery in Spring 2020.

 

Regards,

 

Chris Basten and Chris Klein

OPEN_A_Deco_Sample_GW25_tight_crop.jpg

OPEN A Line-up.jpg

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33 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

That isn't an O11, and Minerva knows it's not an O11.
 

 

It appears to be a curious hybrid of O4 ironwork and body mounting with O11 body height, plank spacing and underframe. Interesting.

 

Craig W

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1 hour ago, Western Star said:

Please tell us what details - present or absent - make this model something other than a diagram O11.

 

The iron work on the O3 and O4 5 plank open wagons was a flat section - as on this model. From O9 onwards this was changed to L section and this continued down and curved around under the door to a mounting on the underframe. If you look at a photo of an O11 or O15 it is very distinctive.  It also has a side diagonal with curved feet whereas O11 and O15 have straight feet diagonals  that are at a different angle. The body is probably closest to an O3, the first of the higher sided 5 plan wagons which have a wider top plank.  Whether these were ever fitted with DC3 brakes is another matter as they were built with DC1 or DC2

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

Edited by Craigw
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Minerva has changed its mind a number of times in the development of this product, and each time it has dug a deeper, or at least different, hole for itself. The key to understanding the current offering is the new chassis. Initially, Minerva harboured a desire to capitalise on the V6 Iron Mink chassis tooling, and hence the initial attempt at the product as an O4. But they also wanted to do an O11. The initial CAD was an overwide O4 on a DCIII chassis, and missing its sheet supporter. (The model sheet supporter provision is accepted to be better as a bagged 'add-on' rather than a delicate 'as-supplied RTR'.) Despite Minerva's assertions at the time, O4s were not fitted with DCIII.

 

With Minerva recognising the DC1-based O4 was something of a blind alley and an anachronism, very few of which survived into late GWR days, let alone early BR times, and that a DCIII-based O4 was a fiction, the recent u-turn has been the new DCIII chassis. This has changed the goal posts, and will facilitate other GWR bodies to be carried in future products.

 

The aspiration to do an O11 is an admirable one, because there were over ten thousand of them built, dwarfing the O3 and O4 totals. Unfortunately, what you have here is not an O11. What Minerva has done is take the old O4 body CAD, and merely deepen the top plank. What Minerva has failed to do is change the O4/O3 curved-feet side diagonals to straight O11 ones, and change the 04/03 flat side straps to O11 tapered T-section side straps with turnunders to the solebar.

 

This is a good O3 body on what appears at first sight to be a good DCIII chassis. The combination is nonetheless a fiction.

 

Edited by Miss Prism
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For me, the buffers fall somewhere between the self-contained type per the casing, and the shank and heads, which are nearer the normal type proportions.

 

The potential spins offs from the underframe are promising tho. Ideally a china clay O13 before I finally get round to making some!

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10 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

 

The potential spins offs from the underframe are promising tho. Ideally a china clay O13 before I finally get round to making some!

 

The O13 wagons were fitted with DC2, so no O13 from this underframe!

 

Regards,

 

Craig w

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Looks like accuracy doesn't matter as it's only a wagon. Shame really as it could have been a really good wagon.

I can't understand with all the research and money that's gone into it why it's gone this way, bit of a pigs ear.

Back to kits and scratch building.

Simon

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3 December 2019 at 21:52, 57xx said:

Those buffers look awful. Looks like the errors from the Mink axleboxes have been carried over too.

Sometimes compromise is necessary just to make something capable of being mass produced at a practicable cost. The GWR self-contained buffer is a case in point. It ends up being a case of do want a wagon for £40-odd or £140-odd.

 

Jim

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6 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Sometimes compromise is necessary just to make something capable of being mass produced at a practicable cost. The GWR self-contained buffer is a case in point. It ends up being a case of do want a wagon for £40-odd or £140-odd.

 

Jim

 

Sometimes things are cocked up too.

 

Craig W

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18 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Sometimes compromise is necessary just to make something capable of being mass produced at a practicable cost

True - overscale splashers are a good example - but I'm not sure why it would apply to these buffers particularly unless, perhaps, the housings would have to be too thin.

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4 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

True - overscale splashers are a good example - but I'm not sure why it would apply to these buffers particularly unless, perhaps, the housings would have to be too thin.

The fundamental problem is the number and position of the strengthening webs at the base of the buffer guides, coupled with the rim at the outer end. There are six webs, two in the horizontal plane and four at a roughly 45 degree angle. The horizontally positioned webs are simply, as they work with a mould that can be split into top and bottom halves. The angled webs cannot be dealt with if the mould parts are arranged to split in either the horizontal or vertical planes. They could be moulded if the mould is arranged to split at the buffer beam face and pull away from the buffers, except that the rim of buffer guide prevents that. The alternative is to do as Peco did and split the buffer guide into two parts, doable but the cost goes up. That's a commercial decision for Minerva. The trade off is greater fidelity to prototype, but at detail level, greater cost and potentially reduced sales. Bottom line is that what is a relatively marginal improvement in accuracy may not be cost effective.

 

Jim

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  • 8 months later...
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On 01/12/2019 at 08:39, Miss Prism said:

This is a good O3 body on what appears at first sight to be a good DCIII chassis. The combination is nonetheless a fiction.

 

 

Informative post, thank you @Miss Prism.

 

So taking your conclusion, and noting that the body is good for an O3, what would you need to do to the chassis to make it more visually representative?

 

As an aside, how late did the O3s survive post nationalisation and did the DC brake gear get amended to a more conventional lever type?

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5 minutes ago, gwrrob said:

You're obviously asking for a friend then chum.:dance_mini:

 

Nope, just interested that's all.

 

The thread was sort of left hanging and I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering what could be done to improve the model.

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58 minutes ago, 2ManySpams said:

So taking your conclusion, and noting that the body is good for an O3, what would you need to do to the chassis to make it more visually representative?

 

As an aside, how late did the O3s survive post nationalisation and did the DC brake gear get amended to a more conventional lever type?

 

To make the body into a proper O3, it needs a sheet supporter.

 

Most O3s had a DCI chassis (some had DCII). To convert the Minerva DCIII chassis would therefore involve new brake gear. I'm not aware of any separately available DCI gear in 7mm. (Minerva's buffers would also need replacing.) Those O3s with DCI that did receive updated brake gear (probably in the late '20s) would have received  'DCI modified for 3-shoe'. It is extremely unlikely any would have received double-sided lever brakes (the orientation of the push rods on one side isn't suitable).

 

Most O3s would not have survived much beyond WWII - it just would not have been worth it to upgrade, and I doubt any survived nationalisation (maybe a few).

 

Arguably, it would be easier to keep the chassis as supplied and to mate it with a home-printed O11 body.

 

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