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2mm Association 1923 Open Wagons - two types?


justin1985
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Amongst the boxes of inherited bits and pieces I've got a stock of several completed, and many part completed, 2-330 9ft wheelbase chassis, all built with wooden underframes. I happened across these again recently and thought about what I might be able to use them for.

 

The obvious thing seems to be 1923 open wagons (the earlier RCH ones seem to need chassis reduced in length, etc.). But looking at the shop listing, there are two types. The pictures are confusing me a bit though.

 

2-551 Wagon Body: Plastic: RCH 1923 Mineral - this one seems to have side and end doors. No buffer beam as part of the moulding.

s2-551.jpg

 

2-553 Wagon Body: Plastic: RCH 1923 8 Plank Open - this one seems to have sturdier end stanchions on the fixed end, and side, end AND floor doors. This is what I would have expected of the mineral? Bufferbeam is integral to the moulding.

s2-553.jpg 

 

Am I getting confused and the labels / pictures are correct? Or are the descriptions and/or pictures mixed up?

 

Justin

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Justin,

 

2-551 is a very old production going back at least thirty years. It is from the same era as 2-511 which is the (not NGS) LMS van. It is rather basic, befitting the era in which it was produced. It has no inside detail and the lack of bottom doors is unsurprising.

I have no experience of 2-553 but it appears to be as the description, being the eight-plank version of the RCH 1923 standard. It is also, I would guess, a Cambrian moulding which, with one exception, I avoid like the plague!

Both will work with the Association's 9' underframe although 2-551 will need a buffer beam but some Evergreen strip would probably be your friend.

The Association has needed a decent 1923 RCH mineral for years but it seems unlikely to appear any time soon as we seem to have given up on plastic moulding and I'm not sure that etching is a good solution for wooden-bodied open wagons. 3D printing without those terrible ridges may be a solution.,

Those of us who model the largely 16T steel mineral era are hugely spoiled by the Stephen Harris kit but were I to need any wooden body coal wagons I would be more inclined towards the NGS Parkside productions for seven and eight plank wagons.

 

Edit to add that the 1923 spec allowed for the end stanchions to be either metal T section, as 2-551, or wood, as 2-553.

 

David

Edited by DavidLong
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As 2-330 is out of stock and due to be replaced at some future point, you've the opposite problem to some of us! 

 

As David says both mouldings are intended to be 1923 RCH minerals.  In practice 2-551 represents a tiny subset of 7 plank minerals due to the shape of the strapping on the wagon sides. The terminology escapes me at the moment, but the style of strapping with a curved transition from diagonal to vertical as represented on the 8 plank was also far more typical on 7 planks.  Similarly two piece strapping (without the curved bit) was also very common, but the two pieces of strapping coming together at a point seems from what I've seen to be rare (I haven't investigated the combination of this strapping and steel end stanchions). As a rule of thumb, steel end stanchions were more common on railway company than PO wagons. I've no experience of the NGS mineral, but assume it will need reducing in width as it is designed for a Peco chassis?

 

If some of your underframes can still be built as 17' 6" chassis then do consider some 5- or 6-plank opens. Massively under-represented on most model railways, but extremely common in reality. No layout for the appropriate period should be without an LMS d.1666 open.

 

Simon

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Anyone with a thirst for more information on RCH wagons ought to have a look at the following;

 

http://www.cs.rhul.ac.uk/~adrian/steam/RCHWagons/index.html

 

I've only recently discovered it (courtesy of the Scalefour Society Forum) but it appears to be a goldmine of useful information, albeit with significantly more detail available than is probably necessary in 2mm finescale!

 

There is one quote that is particularly worth highlighting;

 

"There is no single RCH standard, and wagons manufactured by different companies in any case show quite a bit of variation, especially above the chassis. The main focus of the standards is on buffing, coupling and lubrication."

 

So I think it's the usual case of work from photos of your prototype.

 

Andy

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Many thanks David - super helpful reply - and always interesting to hear the back-story!

 

24 minutes ago, DavidLong said:

2-551 is a very old production going back at least thirty years. It is from the same era as 2-511 which is the (not NGS) LMS van. It is rather basic, befitting the era in which it was produced. It has no inside detail and the lack of bottom doors is unsurprising.

 

I have five chassis that Bill had built up complete with the three layer etched sandwich buffer beams that jut up above the sole bar level, so these sound like a good fit, but perhaps best to model with a load, then, to hide the lack of detail. 

 

24 minutes ago, DavidLong said:

I have no experience of 2-553 but it appears to be as the description, being the eight-plank version of the RCH 1923 standard. It is also, I would guess, a Cambrian moulding which, with one exception, I avoid like the plague!

Both will work with the Association's 9' underframe although 2-551 will need a buffer beam but some Evergreen strip would probably be your friend.

 

I've also inherited a whole box of maybe a dozen 2-330 chassis built up without buffer beams, so a bigger order of these ones might in order. 

 

24 minutes ago, DavidLong said:

The Association has needed a decent 1923 RCH mineral for years but it seems unlikely to appear any time soon as we seem to have given up on plastic moulding and I'm not sure that etching is a good solution for wooden-bodied open wagons. 3D printing without those terrible ridges may be a solution.,

 

From my experiments printing GER wagons, I'd say we're there in terms of printing small detailed (even flat sided) models without ridges - using resin based printers. I might venture that Shapeways perhaps seems to have invested too heavily in the previous generation technology to really catch up?  The big gotcha with resin prints seems to be the tendency for thin flat walls to bow, unless heavily braced, which is particularly difficult for an open wagon (less always modelled loaded?). 

 

37 minutes ago, DavidLong said:

Those of us who model the largely 16T steel mineral era are hugely spoiled by the Stephen Harris kit but were I to need any wooden body coal wagons I would be more inclined towards the NGS Parkside productions for seven and eight plank wagons.

 

Edit to add that the 1923 spec allowed for the end stanchions to be either metal T section, as 2-551, or wood, as 2-553.

 

Interesting suggestion - although wouldn't these be a bit over-scale relative to the 2-330 chassis? I'd be interested to see exactly how they fit with 2mm chassis. The images on their shop page seem to make the "RCH/LMS 12t" (8 plank?) wagon look quite good, but the "7 plank" looks like the off the shelf PECO one piece moulding, but supplied with those crude Robbie's Rolling Stock decals. 

 

If there's anything that's missing at the moment, I'd really say its decals! The Modelmaster range that has (still) disappeared beneath the waves of the NGS used to have some useful PO Wagon livery packs, although a relatively limited range. POWSides and Dragon Models used to do some rub-down PO wagon sides in 2mm, which I've got some of in the gloat box, but as far as I'm aware both ranges were withdrawn - and they're difficult to use. The Robbie's Rolling Stock range, which worryingly seem to have been embraced by the NGS, are really crude from what I've seen - body wagon colour printed onto thick clear decal film, with the white text showing through - which really doesn't cut it to my eye. Perhaps more fundamental is the anachronistic use of modern fonts, rather than drawing from original photographs, or custom fonts (as Geoff Jones developed in the past). 

 

I guess the Mathieson range largely satisfied the market for accurate N/2mm PO wagons for a while (I also have quite a large stash!), but its now quite a long time since they were available - a great shame!

 

J

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25 minutes ago, justin1985 said:

I've also inherited a whole box of maybe a dozen 2-330 chassis built up without buffer beams, so a bigger order of these ones might in order. 

 

 

Actually, no, I was mistaken! The box of part-finished chassis are all 2-332 - 10ft wheelbase wooden 17'6" over headstocks with 4 brake shoes only (i.e. unfitted). 

 

Any suggestions what these would be useful for?

 

The part finished wagons that were in the box of bits with the layout were all 2-536 GER Cattle Wagons, with their own chassis, and the various scratch built fish and refrigerated wagons I mentioned on this thread. These all seem to need variations on fitted chassis, so the 2-332s don't seem helpful here. 

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Hi Justin,

 

The LMS built 5 plank opens to the same basic body style as the d1666 I referred to, but with 10ft wooden underframes. These were built with both 2 shoe Morton brake gear and the double independent type. I know because I started scrabbling round for something appropriate when I realised I'd used the wrong chassis for mine! I don't know off the top of my head whether the LNER 6 planks ever had 10ft wooden underframes or whether the switch to steel occurred at the same time as the increased wheelbase.

 

On checking the LNER did build 10ft wooden underframe 6 plank opens. So 2-513 and 2-535 are options if you modify the brakes where needed.

 

Simon

Edited by 65179
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6 hours ago, 2mm Andy said:

Anyone with a thirst for more information on RCH wagons ought to have a look at the following;

 

http://www.cs.rhul.ac.uk/~adrian/steam/RCHWagons/index.html

 

I've only recently discovered it (courtesy of the Scalefour Society Forum) but it appears to be a goldmine of useful information, albeit with significantly more detail available than is probably necessary in 2mm finescale!

 

There is one quote that is particularly worth highlighting;

 

"There is no single RCH standard, and wagons manufactured by different companies in any case show quite a bit of variation, especially above the chassis. The main focus of the standards is on buffing, coupling and lubrication."

 

So I think it's the usual case of work from photos of your prototype.

 

Andy

 

Excellent resource, Andy. Thanks for posting.

 

Could I also give a mention to Chris Crofts' seminal articles in MRJs 12/13/14 from 1987. Entitled 'Scratchbuilding Model Wagons' the series is mainly concerned with post-1923 mineral wagons and has lots of prototype information as well as building 4mm scale models.

 

David

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I recently built one of the SNCF steel minerals.  The chassis for this allows other options to be built. I haven't looked in detail at whether it would work under the Association RCH body but it seems like it might.  Has anyone else? 

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A point to remember is that the RCH specifications were really about bringing together a set of standards which were 'best practice' at the time and, as Andy says, were mainly about underframes, buffing and running gear as these were the aspects which most related to reliability of wagons and were the things which determined whether any company would register the wagon for use on their (and therefore other) line.  Different wagon builders had their own style of body, sometimes determined by the customer.

 

Jim

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1 hour ago, D869 said:

I recently built one of the SNCF steel minerals.  The chassis for this allows other options to be built. I haven't looked in detail at whether it would work under the Association RCH body but it seems like it might.  Has anyone else? 

 

I haven't tried it, but the W irons and wooden solebar options, along with the ability to model double independent brakes suggest it could be used.  Unfortunately they are also TOS at the moment.

 

Simon

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The older 2-551 2mm RCH kit is capable of being made up into a decent looking model.  I scribe the missing interior detail using an Olfa P-Cutter and add a representation of internal ironwork with microstrip.  The assembled body does have a tendency to bow inwards but using a less aggressive solvent like Di-Limonene reduces this to almost nil.  The ones in these pictures are, I think, on the old Association "H-50" etched underframes, predating those designed by Bill Blackburn.  Buffer beams are plastic strip and I use turned brass buffers, finding these a lot less fragile than castings.

I have a feeling that the 2-551 RCH kit was sponsored by Mark Austin back in the early 1980s. It wasn't the first venture into plastic moulding. The Groves and Denys Brownlee made their own plastic moulded wagons but it was the first commercial volume moulding.

20191212_112932a.jpg.4f233bfda4aeb8668b84e2ca3a796d5b.jpg

20191212_113217a.jpg.41b4c77e17341f013b7fb010094daa1d.jpg

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Thanks for the suggestions! It sounds like the LMS and LNER 5 plank wagons are the main candidates for the 2-332 10ft wheelbase unfitted chassis then. I have built some of these wagons already, but they're really a bit late for my main pre-grouping / very early grouping interests - especially so many of them. Unless @CF MRC particularly thinks a good number of these would be welcome on Copenhagen Fields, I'd be happy to pass them on to someone who has a project they'd suit better?

 

Justin

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Hi Justin, I'd take a few - you can never have too many at a Colliery!

That  said, they would be fine for your period as PO wagons.  As Jim said, the RCH design reflected best practice so plenty to this design or very similar were in service before 1923.

Its also worth remembering this is 2mm, proportionally they are very accurate even if the detail isn't quite up to modern standards. For those without interior detail I model them loaded but then my cavalier approach to modelling is well known and often remarked upon:-)

 

Jerry

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On 12/12/2019 at 18:15, queensquare said:

Hi Justin, I'd take a few - you can never have too many at a Colliery!

That  said, they would be fine for your period as PO wagons.  As Jim said, the RCH design reflected best practice so plenty to this design or very similar were in service before 1923.

 

Sorry Jerry - it's the 10ft timber unfitted chassis that I'd be happy to let go of. Not the 9' ones that suit PO mineral wagons - I'll take the headstocks off, and use those with the Association 1907 moulding, I think.

 

I don't think any PO wagons ever used the 10ft timber underframe? They are very noticeably longer when you see them together.

 

On 12/12/2019 at 18:19, CF MRC said:

Certainly need some 5 plank company wagons on CF, Justin. 
Thanks

Tim

 

 

I have built two each of the LMS and LNER ones from bodies that Bill had already built up. I finished them as earlier versions with 9' wheelbase and large lettering. 

 

IMG_20191214_095523.jpg.bb19a9427186de30749ba135eb5c3660.jpg

 

Looking at Tatlow, at least for the LNER ones, the move to 10' wheelbase chassis was after the change to smaller lettering. That would make them definitely models for CF, rather than my own projects, if I did build up another of them.

 

J

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