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LMS brake plough livery


Caledonian
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I'm backdating a Shark to its pre-war LMS configuration and have a 1932 photie [https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/London,_Midland_and_Scottish_Railway] with some very useful detail.

 

Essentially it has LMS writ large on the side with the number in a Midland Railway style cartouche above the ducket.

 

On the left hand end verandah is a large E for Engineers and on the right a slightly smaller W for western district.

 

So far so good. Mine is destined to be a Scottish District one, so will it be lettered as S for Scottish or Sc. I'm assuming the first as there was no Southern District to complicate things, but it would be nice to know for certain

 

Then there's a rather more fundamental issue. Prior to 1936-7 LMS goods stock was grey and Brian Haresnape's book on LMS liveries states that "the plough brake vehicles used in engineers trains appear to have followed much the same style as revenue earning vehicles except for the insignia carried."

 

However the 1932 photie appears to show the vehicle as quite dark in colour - not improbably the red oxide used for ballast and sleeper wagons?

 

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There's a far better copy of that photo in "Official Drawings of LMS Wagons ; No.2 : R.J.Essery / Wild Swan, 1997 - together with comprehensive drawings ..... apparently they were 'Oysters' rather than 'Sharks' in BR days !

Essery & K.R.Morgan comment in "The LMS Wagon" ( David & Charles, 1977 ) that "... there is some evidence to suggest that the original grey was darker than used on normal freight stock." - though, of course, said evidence may be no more than that one photie !!?!

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Essery's "LMS Wagons vol 1" has a photo of a1939 built LMS Oyster allocated to "Scotland / South West", the allocation is written as S above a horizontal white line with SW below. The letters are roughly half the height of the W in the other photo.

 

Essery states of the 9 1932 vans - "it would seem they were painted red oxide rather than freight stock grey". 

 

The LMS Oyster has a longer cabin (8'6") than the BR Shark with correspondingly shorter verandas. 

Edited by Wheatley
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11 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

There's a far better copy of that photo in "Official Drawings of LMS Wagons ; No.2 : R.J.Essery / Wild Swan, 1997 - together with comprehensive drawings ..... apparently they were 'Oysters' rather than 'Sharks' in BR days !

Essery & K.R.Morgan comment in "The LMS Wagon" ( David & Charles, 1977 ) that "... there is some evidence to suggest that the original grey was darker than used on normal freight stock." - though, of course, said evidence may be no more than that one photie !!?!

 

The code name 'Oyster' or 'Shark' was dependent on the GLW of the Vehicle. 'Sharks' were 20T and 'Oysters' were 16T. There were also some 12T ploughs coded 'Cockle'. See BR Wagon Diagrams 595-598.

 

Edit to add: The basic concept of the Oyster/Shark design was, of course, of Caledonian Railway origin.

Edited by Poor Old Bruce
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Yes, I backdated the Cambrian Shark kit into an approximation of the LMS van some years back, and opted for red oxide rather than grey based on the same references to the Essery books (although mine still has BR-style veranda doors, rather than safety rails to stop my PW gang from falling out, because I rashly worked from notes I'd taken from a library copy of the book, rather than directly from the book! One day I'll revisit it and do a better job)

 

Incidentally, the photo of the 1939-built van Wheatley mentions above also features the small 1936-style LMS lettering and wagon number style and curiously was a one-off which was 6" wider across the lookouts

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5 hours ago, Poor Old Bruce said:

......  The basic concept of the Oyster/Shark design was, of course, of Caledonian Railway origin.

I guess that was a two-plough van too ? ........ the GWR had single-plough vans from 1893 and their chief rivals - the LSWR - had a some pretty close copies from Hurst Nelson five years later ...... then the GSWR copied the design again : the survivor dates from 1906. ( Were there other copies ? )

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Afraid not, the works are being limited to a visit to the paint-shop. Looking at the photie of the original, the existing form is close enough. I'm sure that there are differences beyond the paintwork but I'm aware of my limitations and conscious that the value of any minor alterations will be offset by the more obvious evidence of my bodging :butcher:

Edited by Caledonian
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 14/07/2020 at 07:32, ianwales said:

Hi

 

Any chance of a photo and information on what you have done to backdate the shark please?

 

Here we go. Looking at it closely again it turned out to be not such a bodge as I feared.

 

There are two important differences.

 

First it lacks that wedge for lack of a better word on the front of the plough blades

 

It also lacks the footboards - both are just push fits. 

 

Its surprising just what a difference this makes to the appearance

 

Its not finished yet. Instead of the footboards the LMS version has a single step dangling below each door - looks a bit like a soup ladle. I haven't figured out a solution yet but its probably going to involve doing something imaginative with staples. I also need some transfers. I was going to repaint it in bauxite but then I came across a photie of a Falcon Brassworks kit of this very shark assembled and painted by one Larry Goddard. His was in grey so who am I to argue

 

 

LMS Shark conversion.jpg

Edited by Caledonian
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4 hours ago, Caledonian said:

 

. I was going to repaint it in bauxite but then I came across a photie of a Falcon Brassworks kit of this very shark assembled and painted by one Larry Goddard. His was in grey so who am I to argue

 

 

Even the very best of models is second best to a photo of the real thing.

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11 hours ago, Trog said:

 

Even the very best of models is second best to a photo of the real thing.

 

Very true, but as ever modelling is about balancing absolute fidelity with practicality. What's not too clear in the photie is a dirty great tension lock which doesn't appear on the real thing :rolleyes:

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  • RMweb Gold

I know little of the LMS ploughs but I believe the ‘Oyster’ had slightly shorter verandas and slightly wider doors but only by a few inches (a plank I think) ... it shows in the plank spacing but it does make the opening on the veranda side look a little more square. 
 

Griff

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22 minutes ago, griffgriff said:

I know little of the LMS ploughs but I believe the ‘Oyster’ had slightly shorter verandas and slightly wider doors but only by a few inches (a plank I think) ... it shows in the plank spacing but it does make the opening on the veranda side look a little more square. 
 

Griff

 

I'm a bit unsure about the "lineage".

 

The LMS Oyster is exactly as you say, but my understanding is that the Shark was also introduced by the LMS as an improved version rather than by BR

 

Having carried out the quick and dirty modifications as described above I wonder whether Hornby night have had the same in mind, ie; the possibility of releasing an LMS Shark, just as they only need to change the buffers on the Trout tooling.

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  • RMweb Gold
5 minutes ago, Caledonian said:

 

I'm a bit unsure about the "lineage".

 

The LMS Oyster is exactly as you say, but my understanding is that the Shark was also introduced by the LMS as an improved version rather than by BR

 

Having carried out the quick and dirty modifications as described above I wonder whether Hornby night have had the same in mind, ie; the possibility of releasing an LMS Shark, just as they only need to change the buffers on the Trout tooling.

In many ways it was a shame that Hornby didn’t produce an Oyster.

 

Griff

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Changing the subject, something that puzzles me is the LNER ploughs.

 

The Shark appears straightforward. The ballast is dropped and the plough blade spreads it as it goes forward, However on the LNER version the plough blades are located in the middle of the vehicle, which means that the wheels hit the ballast before the blades do ?

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2 minutes ago, Caledonian said:

Changing the subject, something that puzzles me is the LNER ploughs.

 

The Shark appears straightforward. The ballast is dropped and the plough blade spreads it as it goes forward, However on the LNER version the plough blades are located in the middle of the vehicle, which means that the wheels hit the ballast before the blades do ?

The SR ploughs had the same feature. So did the Irish ones. 
 

Griff

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1 hour ago, Caledonian said:

Changing the subject, something that puzzles me is the LNER ploughs.

 

The Shark appears straightforward. The ballast is dropped and the plough blade spreads it as it goes forward, However on the LNER version the plough blades are located in the middle of the vehicle, which means that the wheels hit the ballast before the blades do ?

 

The ballast would be dropped into the four foot from hoppers, so the amount of ballast dropped is restricted to what the last hopper can run over anyway and having one more wheelset before the plough is of little importance. If the plough is under the wagon you might also be able to apply more of the brakes weight onto the plough which might help stop it lifting the brake off the rails.

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Your model is closer to the one only diag 2025 748700 because of the wide ducket; this was allocated to Scotland. The nine earlier wagons  197263 - 71 of diag 1805 had a narrower ducket. What all of them have is only a bar across the door. This really distinguishes these Oysters - which could be 16 or 20T from the BR Shark (apart from the difference in the length of the enclosed body)  and looks like it would be easy to alter on the model. 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/oyster

Only the first 4 SHARK - a BR design - were doorless https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/sharkzuv/e2ddf1fc4  Presumably doors were introduced as a safety feature for the men operating the plough wheel, but unnecessary for Goods guards. 

 

I think the difference between an Oyster and Shark is that the Shark is vacuum braked whereas Oyster are either lacking power brake (unfitted) or only through piped - effectively unfitted. BR does seem to have decided that ballast hoppers and the accompanying brakes should be vacuum braked rather earlier than they made the same decision for revenue wagons. 

 

Paul

Edited by hmrspaul
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