Some GC wagons I am working on...

[Poggy1165]

A sudden burst of energy and enthusiasm has set me to work on some of the models I have lying about in various stages of completion.

 

This ex-LDEC van was made up many years ago from a Meteor GER kit, with some mild modification. It has a resin body. Unfortunately, the paint job I did on it was shocking, even  by my standards, but as there was no rich supply of alternative transfers an upgrade was difficult and the van was kept in the background.

 

Now it has been repainted. Suitable transfers are now freely available from Old Time Workshop, and the improvement in appearance is massive. I have also put on a new numberplate provided by Intentio. The "to carry" plate was made for me by Guilplates a few years back - it is probably a tad overscale, but it still looks OK.

 

The paint is called Plastikote and I got it from an art shop in a spray can. Interestingly, it looks lighter in natural light, and in this photo, than it does in the house. 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Poggy1165
spelling error

[Poggy1165]

This bolster wagon is one of the very first I successfully soldered together from a brass kit by R&E, circa 1992. It was beginning to show its age so it went into shops for renovation.

 

1. A brake lever guide had to be replaced, as it had fallen off.

2. The original staunchions, which were white metal and more the size of lamp posts, were mercilessly hacked off and replaced by much superior equivalents kindly donated by Airnimal of this parish. This was a massive improvement in itself.

3. Fixing attachments were added to the bolsters. These are crude but 100% better than what was there before - nothing!

4. Bits of flaking paint received touch-ups. 

5. OTW transfers for tonnage and tare replaced my previous hand lettering. (My hand lettering back in 1992 was better than it is now, but it was still inferior to the transfers.)

6. Intentio number plate added.

 

It still isn't exactly York Museum standard, but the overall improvement is significant and it is now fit to be seen again.

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Poggy1165

[Poggy1165]

Same wagon seen from above. I have tried to give the impression of a "deck" that has seen a fair bit of use. But maybe it should be a tad darker?

[Tom Burnham]

7 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

This ex-LDEC van was made up many years ago from a Meteor GER kit, with some mild modification.

Do you know whether they were bought secondhand from the GER or built new to a GER design?  Either would have been quite likely, given that the GER backed the LD&EC financially, and its general manager, Harry Willmott, had been London Area Goods Manager of the GER for some years.

 

Tom

[Edwardian]

I, too, am interested in the prototype for that covered wagon.

 

Excellent work and good to see, and, no, I wouldn't make the bolster's floor any darker; distressed unvarnished wood is captured well by your light and subtle tones.

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Do you know whether they were bought secondhand from the GER or built new to a GER design?  Either would have been quite likely, given that the GER backed the LD&EC financially, and its general manager, Harry Willmott, had been London Area Goods Manager of the GER for some years.

 

Tom

The LDEC shared a lot of things with the GER, including their standard wagon designs with the steel under frames. This has been discussed at least once before.

I imagine Liverpool Street were mightily peed off when the GCR stole away their protogé.

[Poggy1165]

The LDEC wagons were new, but built to GER designs. By private companies.  At least, many were. I cannot swear it is literally true of every single diagram, one would have to have an intimate knowledge of GER wagon stock to be sure.  You just have to be careful as to which diagram was copied - for example I once bought a GER bolster kit thinking it was the same, but when I checked I found it was quite significantly different. One problem is that very few photos exist of LDEC wagons in any condition, and in GC condition they are "hard to find". The GC livery I have put on the van is therefore a "best guess". It possible that the "GC" might have been on the lower panels. Only ever seen one photo of these vans and the van in question was in LDEC livery. 

 

The LDEC (like the GCR) had a number of mineral wagons on hire in its livery. Strictly PO wagons. One of these is illustrated in the Ince wagon book published by the HMRS.

 

The LDEC did have some second-hand 4 wheel coaches of GER origin. These were used on miners' trains - I believe they survived into GCR days but exactly when they were withdrawn I do not know. 

 

 

[Compound2632]

23 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Do you know whether they were bought secondhand from the GER or built new to a GER design?  Either would have been quite likely, given that the GER backed the LD&EC financially, and its general manager, Harry Willmott, had been London Area Goods Manager of the GER for some years.

 

I hadn't been aware of that aspect of the LD&EC's history. Now you've got me looking in P. Tatlow, LNER Wagons Vol. 1 (Wild Swan, 2005). That volume is complicated enough to decode from the PoV of an interest in CLC wagons, which are to diagrams listed in both the GN and GC sections; now I'm looking for ex-LD&EC diagrams in the GC diagram list and trying to cross-reference them to GE diagrams!

 

For example, GC diagram 130, LNE-C 18, is a 10-ton 15 ft steel-framed 5-plank open; is this identical to GE diagram 17? That was a numerous design with 12,050 built in 1886 and 1893-1903 (noting the the LD&EC opened in 1895) according to Tatlow p. 189. For covered goods wagons, there's GC diagrams 144 and 145, 9/10 ton steel underframe outside frame vans, respectively 16'2" and 18'8¾" long - the former sounds like the GE diagram 15 van per @Poggy1165's model; could the longer length be a GE 19'0" design  measured in a peculiar way?

[Poggy1165]

GCR diagram 145 was actually a converted cattle wagon (GCR diagram 146) designed to carry 9 tons. I am about 99% certain that the conversions were done in LDEC days, and it comprised altering the doors and boarding up the open upper parts of the side. What I do not know is what GER diagram, if any, the diag 146 cattle wagons were based on. Presumably the LDEC found it had more cattle wagons than traffic required. There were 20 conversions, assuming none had been withdrawn by 1914.

 

I have only ever seen two photos. One of a cattle wagon in GCR condition is in a private collection (not mine) and the photo showed that it was fitted with the typical GCR ownership and number plates as per the "native" cattle wagons. The van conversion appears in the background of a photo of a LDEC loco (not sure where this was published off hand, but it is published) but too small to make out any great detail.

 

NRM York does have drawings of both, but they ain't cheap!

[Edwardian]

18 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

GCR diagram 145 was actually a converted cattle wagon (GCR diagram 146) designed to carry 9 tons. I am about 99% certain that the conversions were done in LDEC days, and it comprised altering the doors and boarding up the open upper parts of the side. What I do not know is what GER diagram, if any, the diag 146 cattle wagons were based on. Presumably the LDEC found it had more cattle wagons than traffic required. There were 20 conversions, assuming none had been withdrawn by 1914.

 

I have only ever seen two photos. One of a cattle wagon in GCR condition is in a private collection (not mine) and the photo showed that it was fitted with the typical GCR ownership and number plates as per the "native" cattle wagons. The van conversion appears in the background of a photo of a LDEC loco (not sure where this was published off hand, but it is published) but too small to make out any great detail.

 

NRM York does have drawings of both, but they ain't cheap!

 

I suspect we are in pre-diagram number days for the GER, but what struck me was the uncanny resemblance to this GE covered wagon, which, in turn, was uncannily similar to the GWR's first generation of covered wagons (1870s - pre-diagram days for the GW, too), which came before the move to iron minks.  Common to both the GE and CC is a steel underframe resembling that used on the later batches of their 1870s wooden minks by the GW. Holden is the obvious suspect for the GW-GE similarity.

 

 

I note the same styling, u/f type and number of planks on the GE and GC [edit: correction] vehicles, so I'd be interested in learning the dimensions of the latter if you know them.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by Edwardian
Correction

[Compound2632]

We had expert opinion on this earlier this year:

... although as far as I can see the diagonal framing does have the same orientation on both GE and GE vehicles. The GW vehicles were built at a time when the standard length was 15'6". @Annie posted a drawing of the GW version recently:

Holden left Swindon for Stratford in 1885, which as far as I can work out is the year a change was made from bulb iron to channel section iron frames for these vans - whether there is any connection, I do not know. Holden's position is described as chief assistant to Dean, was he principally responsible for the C&W side?

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Holden's position is described as chief assistant to Dean, was he principally responsible for the C&W side?

Yes.

He was a C&W man through and through, and his chief draughtsman, Fred V. Russell (who later went on to mastermind the “Jazz services”) was very clear about who designed, for example, the 1500/G69/B12 4-6-0s.

(Like Surtees on the SECR with Wainwright.)

[wagonman]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... although as far as I can see the diagonal framing does have the same orientation on both GE and GE vehicles. The GW vehicles were built at a time when the standard length was 15'6". @Annie posted a drawing of the GW version recently:

 

 

I seem to remember that some of the early GW vans to this design did have the diagonal framing reversed, but of course I can't lay my hands on either chapter or verse. They did have wooden under frames so early examples.

[Poggy1165]

According to the GC diagram book, the LDEC van of the type in question was 16' 1" over headstocks. 

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Poggy1165 said:

According to the GC diagram book, the LDEC van of the type in question was 16' 1" over headstocks. 

 

In Tatlow, LNER Wagons Vol. 1, Appendix 2, GCR wagon diagrams, the length for diagram 144 is given as 16'2", - that's where I got the length I quoted from - this dimension is repeated on p. 133, with the additional nugget that the steel underframes were made by Leeds Forge and the bodies by Metropolitan RC&W Co., in 1896. The extra inch could be a typo or error crept into Tatlow's notes (heaven forfend!) or it could be down to a fifferent way of measuring the length - they could well have been 1" longer over the body than over the headstocks. Indeed, looking at p. 204, for the GE version, the 16'1" is quoted as being over headstocks but looking at the drawing and photo, the body could well overhang 1/2". 

[Poggy1165]

This is a diagram 5 three planker, one of the longer GC examples, 18' 5" over headstocks.

 

It is built from a GP kit, with nickel-silver chassis and a resin body. It has lain about substantially complete for (er) years, but my recent burst of energy following on from the receipt of proper transfers and numberplates persuaded me to complete it.

 

To my mind, the chassis is over-engineered for such a simple model, but I did manage to solder it together, which means that your cat probably could if it set its mind to the job. The most cursory glance will reveal that the brake gear is incomplete due to the components being put in that well-know location "somewhere safe". It will not be much of a job to finish it off when they turn up.

 

I decided to add the label clip to the side, and was quite pleased with myself until I checked the prototype photo and saw that it and the "10 Tons" should be on the bottom plank, not the middle. The moral there is never work from memory. It is unlikely that it will annoy me sufficiently to change it now. The photo is of a different wagon, so maybe details varied anyway! Who knows?

 

The body is secured to the chassis by four rather prominent bolts. Now I could countersink them, and maybe disguise them a bit that way, but I think on balance a fixed load is more likely. Pipes, perhaps? Something quite long, anyway.

[Poggy1165]

Next one up will  be a diagram 17 van from a Connoisseur Models kit. This I can only describe as a cursed kit. Not that I am having a go at Jim's kit, you understand. The proof in the pudding is that I had previously built one without the slightest trouble. Let me explain:

 

First, while I was building it we had one of our periodic major tidies. Guests were coming, or something. The castings got put "somewhere safe". Needless to say, when I returned to the job the castings could not be found. Never mind, I thought, they'll turn up.

 

Months later I still couldn't find them, so I had to write a grovelling letter to Jim asking to buy replacements. Never mind, I thought, the originals will turn up and they'll be useful for scratch-building. Of course, they are "somewhere safe" to this day.

 

So I got the thing substantially complete. I just needed to file/cut way part of the roof to make it fit. But the model, stood on the layout 54" above ground decided to fall off. One of the main soldered joints split open and in despair I just left it - until now.

 

For some reason, repairing that joint has been one of the hardest soldering jobs I have ever done. Perhaps I am out of practice. Anyway, at length it was fixed, and so were one or two minor repairs. I just need to replace a brake lever guide which has vanished into thin air somewhere along the line.

 

So all that remains is to cut away the necessary bits of roof, fit the buffers and paint and letter it, and it will be complete. As long as I don't drop it onto concrete, and always assuming the fairies don't steal it overnight.

 

Photo soon - I hope!

[Poggy1165]

I have got the diagram 17 van as far as primer, but I am not really satisfied with it. I think the fall twisted the model slightly and I don't have the skill to "untwist" it, despite sweating blood over it for some time yesterday.

 

I am minded to put it on the shelf for now and look at it again when I can be more objective. (This is the equivalent of writing a chapter then reading it again in six months, when you see it more like a critic and less like an author.)

 

If it runs well, despite all, I might just keep it, though it doesn't really meet my (modest but stubborn) standards. If not, I'll break it up, keep the useful parts for use in other models, and buy another kit. Which I will try not to drop the best part of five feet.

 

As an aside, it is interesting (to me) that there were three batches of this van. 1. The type with drop-link brake gear that the kit represents. 2. An AVB version for fast goods trains and 3. Another unfitted version, but with Morton brakes. I am really a bit puzzled as to why the didn't standardise the unfitted vans as either drop lever OR Morton, but the fact is they built quite large batches of both. What was achieved by this eludes me.

[Caley Jim]

5 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

I am really a bit puzzled as to why the didn't standardise the unfitted vans as either drop lever OR Morton, but the fact is they built quite large batches of both. What was achieved by this eludes me.

Could it have been something to do with which brake was approved by the BoT/RCH?

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

Were wagons with the two types of brake built concurrently or one type later than the other? I wonder if the drop-lever type had some feature which eventually fell foul of the BoT requirements, such as the lever being at the LH end on one side, or being able to release the brake from the other side to that from which it had been applied.

[Poggy1165]

The vans in question were built from 1912 onwards, and both versions had a RH brake lever on both sides, as required by the regulations for new construction from - I think - 1911.

[billbedford]

On 15/08/2020 at 14:54, Poggy1165 said:

I am really a bit puzzled as to why the didn't standardise the unfitted vans as either drop lever OR Morton, but the fact is they built quite large batches of both. What was achieved by this eludes me.

 

It's likely that the switch was made after the patents ran out on the Morton cams. 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

It's likely that the switch was made after the patents ran out on the Morton cams. 

 

Can't like Bill's posts at the mo, so am forced to quote him and say: Aha!