Gunpowder Vans - 00 Gauge - Back with a bang!

[rapidoandy]

Rapido Trains is to finally fulfil its promise to produce a gunpowder van in ‘OO’ to 21st Century standards. This project was originally unveiled in 2017 and a 3D test print was produced… but then the project spluttered to a halt.

 

 

Now we’re bringing it to a successful conclusion.

 

The movement of gunpowder by rail to military establishments, mines and quarries was once commonplace and the railway companies built special vehicles to safely carry this commodity. The Railway Clearing House produced a standardised design circa 1930 and it was adopted by the GWR, LNER, LMS and Royal Ordnance Factories with minor detail differences.

 

Gunpowder vans featured all metal low-height bodies. Internally they were wood lined and a cast plate on the external doors instructed staff that no unauthorised persons may open the doors. Over-boots - made without nails - were also provided to ensure that no sparks were created.

 

BR built a slightly modified version of the RCH design under Diagram 1/260. During peacetime up to five vehicles could marshalled in trains whilst during wartime this restriction was removed and entire trains of GPVs could be seen.

 

 

 

Our new model will depict the RCH design, GWR Diagram Z4 and BR Dia. 1/260, with key variations including different ‘W’ irons, doors, buffers and brake gear.

 

What liveries are we making?

902001: Dia. 1/260, No. B887021, BR bauxite

902002: Dia. 1/260, No. M701508, BR bauxite

902003: Dia. 1/260, No. B887001, BR grey

902004: Dia. Z4, No. 105777, GWR livery

902005: Dia. Z4, No. 105708, GWR livery

902006: RCH pattern, No. 701016, LMS livery

902007: RCH pattern, No. 299031, LMS livery

902008: RCH pattern, No. N260936, LNER livery

902009: RCH pattern, No. 147511, LNER livery

902010: RCH pattern, No. 11, Royal Ordnance Factory livery

 

Price? £32.95

 

What stage is it at? 3D test print

 

When’s it due? Delivery is expected in late 2021.

 

[Garethp8873]

Great news! Sign me up!

[jjnewitt]

Thought these might make a reappearance. They should be out around the same time as my kit for the LMS/BR version. Might be make an interesting comparison. 

 

Justin

[micklner]

LNER version would be Grey , it appears to be a unfitted wagon in above  photos. Red Oxide is for fitted vehicles.

[rapidoandy]

14 minutes ago, micklner said:

LNER version would be Grey , it appears to be a unfitted wagon in above  photos. Red Oxide is for fitted vehicles.

 

We have noticed that one - typically only after pressing submit on a post. We are correcting the mock ups and will have a the full version to show on the website in the not to distant future.

 

Andy

[Aire Head]

17 minutes ago, rapidoandy said:

 

We have noticed that one - typically only after pressing submit on a post. We are correcting the mock ups and will have a the full version to show on the website in the not to distant future.

 

Andy

 

You have probably already noticed but you have Vac pipes on your BR grey one aswell 

[The Stationmaster]

Does anybody know to what extent, if any, GPVs were used on military traffic?  I suspect their use on that was probably unlikely as military explosives, various, were definitely conveyed in ordibnnary vans and opens in the 1960s and probably much earlier - for example sheeted opens  were normally used for bombs in WWII.

 

Did GPVs run to/from ordnance factories with explosive components for munitions although again this seems to have been done using ordinary vans in later years.  As far as I've ever come across they were only used for commercial explosives although my knowledge on that is limited to one location in the 1950s/60s.  In the 1970s on the area where I worked we had signoficant levels of commercial explosives passing solely in GPVs and of miliotary explosives (ammunition and grenades etc) passing solely in standard vans. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by The Stationmaster

[rapidoandy]

21 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

 

You have probably already noticed but you have Vac pipes on your BR grey one aswell 

 

We spotted that too!

 

How do these look:

 

Andy

[Edge]

Got to have one of these to sit about in a siding doing nothing

[micklner]

Very good match for the LNER 1944 version (actually built by the LMS for the LNER ) as shown a photograph in the book Tatlow LNER wagons  Vol 4b . Correct number also shown for the pre war large NE version, there is no photo for that version ,shown above. It matches a Diagram drawing and number listing in Tatlow volume. Fitted with Instanter couplings.

 

These are very rare vehicles, less than 50 were ever made for the LNER , between1922 to 1944.

 

No BR numbers ,or withdrawal dates are listed in the book.

Edited December 1, 2020 by micklner

[Rivercider]

I was going reply to the effect that in my early BR career in the late 1970s I only remember gunpowder vans (TOPS code CXV) in commercial traffic. However I can confirm they also ran into ROF (Royal Ordnance Factory) locations.

 

When I bought the Larkin book BR Standard Freight Wagons I sometimes did TOPS enquiries on wagons pictured in the book, and one or two enquiries still survive.

From page 44 of the book, here on 1 May 1980 is B887135 at Puriton ROF (81919) having come from ICI Chemicals at Bogside (Ayrshire) Snodgrass  (08302).

I can probably decipher much of the other information if anyone is interested! 

 

 

I do remember CXVs more often passingly singly to locations like Truro, I think with commercial explosives.

 

cheers

[Darryl Tooley]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Does anybody know to what extent, if any, GPVs were used on military traffic?

I don't,  I'm afraid, but the following quotations may be of interest.

 

'In peacetime no more than five CONES were allowed in a train, marshalled at the rear; during both wars these regulations were relaxed, and up to sixty gunpowder vans could make up a train on government explosives traffic'

(A History of GWR Goods Wagons Volume 2, Atkins, Beard, Hyde & Tourret, 1976)

 

'The Cheshire Lines possessed only three such vehicles....... In 1915 they were branded on the lower left of the wagon sides Return to Sefton immediately: it is believed that this was in connection with a Ministry of Munitions filling factory just north of Aintree Station'

(R W Miller, Cheshire Lines Wagons, part 12, LNER Society Journal 70)

 

In case it's not obvious, explosives and their casings were not normally manufactured at the same site, for reasons that should be clear with a moment's thought.  A filling factory is where the two were put together.

 

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

for example sheeted opens  were normally used for bombs in WWII.

See, for example, Major Wilson's report into the Soham disaster, or It can now be revealed (British Railways Press Office, 1945).

 

D

[Aire Head]

4 hours ago, rapidoandy said:

 

We spotted that too!

 

How do these look:

 

Andy

 

You had me at Gunpowder

[truffy]

Which, if any, of these might've run on the SR in 1938? Particularly around the London-Brighton corridor?

[Aire Head]

35 minutes ago, truffy said:

Which, if any, of these might've run on the SR in 1938? Particularly around the London-Brighton corridor?

 

Any of the ones in a big four livery. I would assume these are not common user so it would be dependent on wherever the gunpowder came from.

 

I can't imagine a big use for gunpowder between London and Brighton however.

 

[hmrspaul]

5 hours ago, micklner said:

Very good match for the LNER 1944 version (actually built by the LMS for the LNER ) as shown a photograph in the book Tatlow LNER wagons  Vol 4b . Correct number also shown for the pre war large NE version, there is no photo for that version ,shown above. It matches a Diagram drawing and number listing in Tatlow volume. Fitted with Instanter couplings.

 

These are very rare vehicles, less than 50 were ever made for the LNER , between1922 to 1944.

 

No BR numbers ,or withdrawal dates are listed in the book.

BR numbers simply have E or M added to the original number. 

 

Although many unfitted ones of all railways including BR were condemned in the 1960s there were examples of all the E, M, W and B equipped with vacuum brake from 1958 and these lasted into 1983 https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brgunpowder

 

The BR illustration looks very dark. 

 

Paul

[dibber25]

I have a feeling that, during the Barmouth bridge repairs when locos were prohibited, gunpowder vans were worked to Penrhyndeudraeth  by a Class 128 parcels car. That would be a train worth modelling! (CJL)

[GreenGiraffe22]

I'll probably get one or two for my 1943ish layout =)

[ovbulleid]

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

 

Any of the ones in a big four livery. I would assume these are not common user so it would be dependent on wherever the gunpowder came from.

 

I can't imagine a big use for gunpowder between London and Brighton however.

 

Quarrying or heading for any of the RN Armaments Depots on the south coast perhaps? Question them is whether they were allowed on the West London Line or required to take a wider route around London.

[Covkid]

17 minutes ago, dibber25 said:

I have a feeling that, during the Barmouth bridge repairs when locos were prohibited, gunpowder vans were worked to Penrhyndeudraeth  by a Class 128 parcels car. That would be a train worth modelling! (CJL)

 

You are nearly correct Chris. 

I was at Machynlleth July 1978- June 1980 and the daily goods had already been rationalised. It went to Aberystywyth MThFO and was booked to Pwllheli on Tuesday, and either / or on Wednesday. Tuesday therefore was the day the empties wrent up and the loads came out of Cookes at Penrhyndeudraeth. 

 

Unfortunately, with the bridge being banned to locos the goods was curtailed to just Tywyn on the coast branch. AMO Shrewsbury had the problem of recovering all the wagons from beyond the Mawddach bridge. Because all the wagons were empty it was arranged for a class 128 DPU to haul the wagons back from the coast to Machynlleth yard in rakes of seven vacuum braked vehicles. Can't remember how many trips but I do vaguely recall seeing one train running into Machynlleth with CXVs in the consist.  If only I had a camera at the time !!!  I don't think the DPUs ever conveyed loaded revenue earning freight on the Cambrian Coast, and the fairly hasty arrangements made to load the Penrhyndeudraeth explosives at Maentwrog Road, beyond Blaenau Festiniog  must have been made pretty quickly.

 

AFAIK the only loaded wagons running up the coast were engineers wagons in connection with the repairs to the bridge or pairs of "Dogfish" hoppers for track ballasting.  IIRC there was a ballast dump at Harlech or Penrhyn where the hoppers were loaded.  I actually did my chargeman a favour by hooking the DPU to a vacuum braked bogie bolster loaded with a baulk of timber in the tank siding at Machynlleth around this period.

 

The DPU worked a parcels service (possibly 4J05) from Wrexham to Newtown, then normally returned ECS.  Arrangements were made for Salop crew to run the DPU empty from Newtown to Machynlleth where Mach crew would route conduct the Salop crew beyond Dovey Junction.

 

So technically, yes it would be correct to run your Heljan class 128 hauling gunpowder vans, vanfits and minfits !!!!

 

For gunpowder destinations, I recall Bogside, Blairhall, Callerton, Coxlodge, Truro certainly and Bridgwater I think. It was our job to wire the "Conex" details to Shrewsbury telegraph office when the Eastbound freight departed Machynleth.    

[Rivercider]

Here is a dodgy instamatic snap of some gunpowder vans possibly at Portmadoc Yard

 

 Seen from the Cambrian Coast excursion 7/8/77

 

cheers

Edited December 2, 2020 by Rivercider

[Fat Controller]

Some more destinations:- Frome, Redhill, Ashford (Kent), all with commercial explosives.

[BMacdermott]

Hello everyone

 

And to add to the above...Radstock as well as Midsomer Norton (both on the Somerset & Dorset Line).

 

Some of the contents of the vans were for a local area gunsmith.

 

Brian

Edited December 2, 2020 by BMacdermott
To add a word.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, BMacdermott said:

Hello everyone

 

And to add to the above...Radstock as well as Midsomer Norton (both on the Somerset & Dorset Line).

 

Some of the contents of the vans were for a local area gunsmith.

 

Brian

There were numerous commercial magazines in the Mendips as a consequence of the quarrying activity.  There were always more magazines than quarries because of the limit on the amount of explosive which could be held in one place so there were still a number of them by the time quarrying had been reduced to just Whatley and Merehead.   

 

Incidentally the WWI relaxation mentioned previously applied to wagons loaded with explosives - not just to GPVs.   The relaxation remained in place for bombs where the limit was a certain tonnage and barrier wagons were required between the opens loaded with bombs and that still applied in the 1960s.  For example when the French got rather fussy about US military presence in the second half of the '60s large quantities of bombs and ammunition were moved out of France and the HE and napalm bombs were shipped via Tilbury and the taken by rail to Welford Park - there was often a trainload waiting a path to Newbury sitting on the Up Line Through Line (which was bi-directional) at Reading every afternoon about 17.00 c.1967/68

[dibber25]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

There were numerous commercial magazines in the Mendips as a consequence of the quarrying activity.  There were always more magazines than quarries because of the limit on the amount of explosive which could be held in one place so there were still a number of them by the time quarrying had been reduced to just Whatley and Merehead.   

 

Incidentally the WWI relaxation mentioned previously applied to wagons loaded with explosives - not just to GPVs.   The relaxation remained in place for bombs where the limit was a certain tonnage and barrier wagons were required between the opens loaded with bombs and that still applied in the 1960s.  For example when the French got rather fussy about US military presence in the second half of the '60s large quantities of bombs and ammunition were moved out of France and the HE and napalm bombs were shipped via Tilbury and the taken by rail to Welford Park - there was often a trainload waiting a path to Newbury sitting on the Up Line Through Line (which was bi-directional) at Reading every afternoon about 17.00 c.1967/68

No doubt these were what was photographed behind a D63xx on the branch at Speen and Boxford by David Canning (?) who, I think, was a WR signalman. I still have the pictures. The train consists of groups of three shock opens separated by pairs of vans. I once - as a teenager - went walkabout round the yard at Welford Park and took a couple of photos, not knowing what it was. I wish I had investigated a lot further. I even bought some shock opens and a blue Class 22 with which to model the train but it has never got any further. None of which has any relevance to Rapido gunpowder vans, for which I apologise. (CJL)