Sdjr 20t mail/brake vans

[Guest Jack Benson]

These vehicles supposedly lasted until the 50s, what was the last livery that they carried, was it BR or LMS? The only images we can find are 'builders' records and this over 70 year old image of 53804 at Shepton Mallet.  But what would have been the colour, possibly unfitted grey or crimson lake?

 

 

 

Thanks

 

BRG

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Guest
Wrong image

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Jack Benson said:

These vehicles supposedly lasted until the 50s, what was the last livery that they carried, was it BR or LMS?

 

 

In at least one case, M&GN red oxide. I had been puzzled by the appearance of what looked very like one of these vehicles in the background of some late 30s M&GN photos until I learned that one was transferred from the S&DJR in 1931, becoming M&GN ballast brake No. 13 [N.J.L. Digby, A Guide to the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway (Ian Allan, 1993)]. Although the S&DJR maintained its independent existence as a separately-run joint line only until 1930, the similar arrangement for the M&GN staggered on until 1936. 

[RailWest]

At the RH end, in the upper half of the upward sloping diagonal cross-bracing, there is an extra piece of black ironwork, almost in a boomerang shape. Is that perhaps a side-lamp bracket, otherwise what is it for?

[Compound2632]

20 hours ago, RailWest said:

At the RH end, in the upper half of the upward sloping diagonal cross-bracing, there is an extra piece of black ironwork, almost in a boomerang shape. Is that perhaps a side-lamp bracket, otherwise what is it for?

 

There's nowhere else to put a sidelamp - there isn't one built in to the top of the lookout, as one would expect (cf passenger brake vans). There's a photo of 10 ton brake van No. 34 with a similar-shaped bracket on its X-shaped framing. They're both slightly odd locations - one would expect such brackets to be on the end pillars. In the case of No. 6, one would have thought that the lookout would get in the way of visibility of the lamp.

 

EDIT: Jack changed the OP photo, rendering @RailWest's question and this reply unintelligible. Here on Steve Banks' website is the official as-built side-on photo of No. 6,  and also the photo of No. 34, showing the side lamp irons under discussion. Banks does state "At least one of the 6w 20T vans is known to have still been running in 1953".

Edited January 27, 2020 by Compound2632

[Guest Jack Benson]

Another ‘in service’ image* from a member of the FB group, this time working in tandem. I am concerned that the request has not resulted in a conclusive answer, such is the fragility of knowledge.

 

*13809 banking to Masbury 23-7-‘37” this 7F is at the rear of a long freight train.

 

 

Whilst the SDJR is almost overwhelmed with images and anecdotal accounts, actual facts seem to be in short supply, possibly because they have not been recorded.

 

Cheers

Edited January 28, 2020 by Jack Benson

[RailWest]

Given that the 'tandem' photo shows the rear end of a banked train, would the side lamps actually have been in place while the banker was attached? I'm not sure of the precise rules in such circumstances :-(

[Compound2632]

In this photo, there's something atop the lookouts that could be a side lamp. 

 

Steve Banks says "At least one of the 6w 20T vans is known to have still been running in 1953" but he doesn't give a specific source for this; he doesn mention one book not in my collection as having further information: M. King, Southern Wagons Pictorial (OPC, 2008).

 

The basic problem is that whilst there are good surviving records for S&DJR stock that passed to the SR, fully documented in Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1984), records relating to the stock that passed to the LMS appear to have fallen victim to one of Derby's 1960s bonfires.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Compound2632

[MarcD]

I'm just about to start the design work on the M&GN ballast brake and although they are the same size they are two completely different vans. We did the 20t van to a set of drawings provided by a member of the Sdjr society who also supplied me with the M&GM drawings.

Additionally he gave my copies of a number of photos of the Sdjr vans including 3 of a van in bath in the 1950's which show that in the pass it had been vaccum fitted. There were others that showed another one in Wells also in the 1950's

Marc

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Furness Wagon said:

I'm just about to start the design work on the M&GN ballast brake and although they are the same size they are two completely different vans. We did the 20t van to a set of drawings provided by a member of the Sdjr society who also supplied me with the M&GM drawings.

 

Interesting. The rather small photo in Digby's Guide, p. 152, shows a vehicle that is very similar to the S&DJR brakes but has a number of differences that I had presumed were modifications, viz:

• rectangular widows inserted in the top section of the X-framing
• double doors replaced by a single door 
• no X-bracing at the guard's door end
• different panelling of guard's door.

But now that you've called my assumption (also Digby's) into doubt, I can see that

• the X-bracing looks wider
• the "ex-double door" looks narrower
• the panel at the guard's door end looks narrower
• the framing of the lookout is pore prominent.

So, given that the S&DJR van is clearly a Highbridge-designed vehicle (it has some Midland features but departs too far from Midland standard practice to be a Derby product), how come the M&GN had something superficially similar?

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Compound2632

[Guest Jack Benson]

18 minutes ago, Furness Wagon said:

I'm just about to start the design work on the M&GN ballast brake and although they are the same size they are two completely different vans. We did the 20t van to a set of drawings provided by a member of the Sdjr society who also supplied me with the M&GM drawings.

Additionally he gave my copies of a number of photos of the Sdjr vans including 3 of a van in bath in the 1950's which show that in the pass it had been vaccum fitted. There were others that showed another one in Wells also in the 1950's

Marc

 

Marc,

 

Please share the images, either in public or private.

 

Apart from the Steve Banks website, the only other information is contained in the SRDT's Pines Express #281

 

Btw, if they were vacuum-fitted presumably BR non-fitted grey would have been inappropriate? However Mike King refers to at least one example being painted dark grey but this was pre-1930 not in the early 50s.

 

Cheers

Edited January 27, 2020 by Jack Benson

[MarcD]

Hi Jack

As I said I don't the copy-write on the the drawings and the photos but if you PM me I ca sort out something.

Marc  

[Guest Jack Benson]

Hi,

 

The group has created an entry in our blog

 

If we find more information, we will post the results.

 

Thanks to Marc and Roger for their kind help

 

Cheers

[03060]

Hello Jack,

 

Have just looked at the blog, which is great thankyou, but I think that the Bill Bedford kit BW1400 and the drawing is actually of the shorter Mail Van No.42 (and possibly No.41*)

 

*see Garner's record p.42/3 for photo comparison and p.42 notes.

 

The hatched diagonals on the drawing are for internal bracing. I ordered two of these vans in 3mm scale in the hope that they were of 20T Goods Brake vans but realised that they were not on receipt ....that's not to say that I was disappointed with what I received, they are definately on my 'to build soon' list as No's 41 & 42.

 

I've resigned myself to scratchbuilding the 20t Goods Brake Vans. (Jerry Clifford did some very nice 2mm multi media kits a while ago.)

 

Regards,

Ian.

[Guest Jack Benson]

1 hour ago, 03060 said:

Hello Jack,

 

Have just looked at the blog, which is great thankyou, but I think that the Bill Bedford kit BW1400 and the drawing is actually of the shorter Mail Van No.42 (and possibly No.41*)

 

*see Garner's record p.42/3 for photo comparison and p.42 notes.

 

The hatched diagonals on the drawing are for internal bracing. I ordered two of these vans in 3mm scale in the hope that they were of 20T Goods Brake vans but realised that they were not on receipt ....that's not to say that I was disappointed with what I received, they are definately on my 'to build soon' list as No's 41 & 42.

 

I've resigned myself to scratchbuilding the 20t Goods Brake Vans. (Jerry Clifford did some very nice 2mm multi media kits a while ago.)

 

Regards,

Ian.

Hi Ian,

 

Bill Bedford’s kit was included to complete the range of S&DJR mail vans, because as someone would surely mention its existence. 
 

Cheers

[MarcD]

This is my 7mm version. unfortunately it was produced before we used 3D printing for patterns  so it would take a lot of work to scale it down.

 

Marc

[Compound2632]

That's a lot of add-on brasswork! For the original S&DJR livery, I guess it would be a good plan to paint the resin body grey and chemically blacken or paint the brasswork before sticking it on. On the other hand, as I've just realised, the kit isn't suitable for original condition since it has a modified lookout with side lamp atop - as with the pair of vans in the "banking" photo.

[MarcD]

The kit does come with both sizes of lookouts. There is a benefit of gluing then painting as it seals the superglue and prevents degradation of the joints.

Marc 

[queensquare]

Here is my 2FS version of the 20T brake with cut down lookout but still awaiting a lamp

 

Jerry

 

[RailWest]

Excuse my ignorance, but was the lamp above the cut-down lookout simply kept there for storage, or was that its actual location when in running use? If the latter, then I wonder why Furness Wagon's nice model also has lamp brackets on the diagonal bracing at both ends, or are they just parts to cover every option?

[MarcD]

From what I've been told, the duckets were shortened to slow the SDJR vans to comply with LSWR regulations. If every lamp bracket had a light on they would look like they were dressing ship.

Marc

[Compound2632]

I would have assumed that the lamp on top of the lookout became the standard position - showing a white light forward and a red light rearward, until the rules changed and side lights on goods brakes were no longer required. (I've read a topic on that on here somewhere...) But LSWR goods brake vans don't seem to have been very particular in that respect and appear mostly to have hung the side lamps on brackets on the verandah corner pillars [G. Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1984)].

 

I think side lights must not have been required by the date of the OP photo of 53804, though they're still there in the 1937 photo. Squiniting at the OP photo, I think one can see that the angled lamp iron on the X-framing is still there.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Compound2632
Squinting not squnting

[Guest Jack Benson]

Apart from the drift away from the OP towards a personal fixation about lamps, the question of livery seems to have been brought to a standstill by an example of a 'brown' brake/mail van.

 

Which reference provides direction that the livery was any other colour except a variation on grey? Please share.

 

 

Thank you

[RailWest]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I would have assumed that the lamp on top of the lookout became the standard position - showing a white light forward and a red light rearward, until the rules changed and side lights on goods brakes were no longer required. (I've read a topic on that on here somewhere...) But LSWR goods brake vans don't seem to have been very particular in that respect and appear mostly to have hung the side lamps on brackets on the verandah corner pillars [G. Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 1 (OPC, 1984)].

 

 

I would have thought the 'top of the lookout' a rather impractical/illogical location. Unless you were directly behind the train, with any bend in the line than one or either of the side lights surely would be obscured from view by the bodywork, which would not be the case if located on the corner pillars?

[bécasse]

28 minutes ago, RailWest said:

I would have thought the 'top of the lookout' a rather impractical/illogical location. Unless you were directly behind the train, with any bend in the line than one or either of the side lights surely would be obscured from view by the bodywork, which would not be the case if located on the corner pillars?

The original position would obviously have been considered acceptable in the days when passenger trains carried side-lights too as these were also often mounted on top of the guard's lookouts. I rather presume that at some later date that position became unacceptable to the MoT, doubtless as a response to some incident. There were quite a few railways that used the top of lookout position for side-lights - there were some early LNER goods brakes that were so fitted, for example, so the practice obviously continued into the 1920s - but they all seem to have had "corner" lamp irons fitted eventually, sometimes coincident with the removal of the top-of-lookout lamp casings, sometimes with that lamp casing left in place (both situations could be found on those LNER vans even in BR days).

[Miss Prism]

Lamps on guards' duckets were not unknown in early GWR vehicles, but they seem to have been displaced (in favour of more conventional lamp bracket mounting) at an early stage:

https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/127/no-416-dean-4-wheel-brake-third

 

ISTR such lamps being referred to as 'ogee', but I can't find any rationale why.