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Gunpowder Vans - 00 Gauge - Back with a bang!


rapidoandy
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14 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I mean this Parkside kit for an unfitted van, the one wot i just maid; they may well have been ‘improved’ by BR to be vacuum fitted under the auspices of the Ideal Wagon committee, especially as the vans were of relatively recent build, well built and in good condition, and there was clearly work for them in connection with quarrying and mining blasting powder traffic.  All the GPVs I saw in the 70s were ex GW, ex LMS, or BR Standard, and all were fitted and in bauxite livery.  They may have been the only fitted bauxite vans not to carry the ‘XP’ branding. 

Fitted vans had to have a minimum of a 10' wheelbase in order to be XP rated, and all the Gunpowder vans I've ever seen were only 9'.

 

John

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24 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Fitted vans had to have a minimum of a 10' wheelbase in order to be XP rated, and all the Gunpowder vans I've ever seen were only 9'.

 

John

There was a small batch, with 8-shoe vac brakes and 10' wb, built to Diagram 1/261 in the late 1950s; these weren't 'XP' rated, either.

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53 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Fitted vans had to have a minimum of a 10' wheelbase in order to be XP rated, and all the Gunpowder vans I've ever seen were only 9'.

 

There's always one!

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrgunpowdercxv/h133c35de#h133c35de

 

After it went into preservation.  Note Mr Johnster, no roof overhang.

 

30940288895_291de65c16_b.jpgGWR Gunpowder Van 105777. by Peter Bayliss, on Flickr

 

Hmmmm. Isn't Rapido doing 105780 in this livery?

 

 

There is at least one more 9 footer with XP branding among Mr Bartlett GPV pics.

 

The last 25 Diag. 261 GPV's built by BR had 10ft Wheelbase. Never seen a phot of one of those with XP branding  (yet).

Edited by Porcy Mane
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19 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

There was a small batch, with 8-shoe vac brakes and 10' wb, built to Diagram 1/261 in the late 1950s; these weren't 'XP' rated, either.

That could well be because they didn't have the correct type of buffers (even if they had the right kind of coupling).  To be rated 'XP' a vehicle had to have screw couplings and long buffers.

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On 06/04/2021 at 12:12, The Stationmaster said:

That could well be because they didn't have the correct type of buffers (even if they had the right kind of coupling).  To be rated 'XP' a vehicle had to have screw couplings and long buffers.

 

On 05/04/2021 at 17:04, Porcy Mane said:

The last 25 Diag. 261 GPV's built by BR had 10ft Wheelbase. Never seen a phot of one of those with XP branding  (yet).

 

Photographs I've had sight of had these 10' 0" wb vans ex works fitted with 20" Dowty Hydraulic buffers which seem to have been replaced by 20" Oleo pneumatic quite quickly. 

Mr Larkin has a pic of the B887135, first built of the 10 footers in  BR Standard Freight Wagons  (1975) still with 20" Dowtys.  Non of the pics show XP markings but then there's B887140 photographed in August 1961. Clearly maked XP in the approved style.

 

https://8dassociation.org/birkenhead-joint-railway/birkenhead-joint-in-pictures/

 

2nd pic down shows a less than two year old B887140.

 

I blame the man that instructed the signwriter!

Edited by Porcy Mane
The update link to replacement website.
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2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

That could well be because they didn't have the correct type of buffers (even if they had the right kind of coupling).  To be rated 'XP' a vehicle had to have screw couplings and long buffers.

Okay but what about all the BR standard vans that had 1'6'' spindle buffers and instanter three link couplings, they were all XP rated. Only late batches had various longer buffers and screw couplings.

 

Cheers

Dave

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19 hours ago, davefrk said:

Okay but what about all the BR standard vans that had 1'6'' spindle buffers and instanter three link couplings, they were all XP rated. Only late batches had various longer buffers and screw couplings.

 

Cheers

Dave

Very true but they didn't meet the original spec for 'XP'.   That spec stood in operating documents as part of the XP related Instructions until March 1971 when it was discontinued.  From that date the marking 'XP' also ceased to have any operational meaning as the reference from then on was solely to vehicle wheelbase and some particular types of vehicle.    The change might have been a little earlier as the Instruction was revised on the basis that freight vehicles were by then carrying data panels and that had of course commenced in 1968 but I can't get any nearer to an exact date for the change than the amendment to the General Appendix.

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On 05/04/2021 at 01:31, The Johnster said:

They may have been the only fitted bauxite vans not to carry the ‘XP’ branding. 


I may be misunderstanding here but the LMS built several fitted diagrams with 9’ wheelbases which would have received Bauxite but wouldn’t have gained XP markings either.

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46 minutes ago, Aire Head said:


I may be misunderstanding here but the LMS built several fitted diagrams with 9’ wheelbases which would have received Bauxite but woAuldn’t have gained XP markings either.

As did all the Big Four, IIRC.

 

John

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1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

XP meant they could be shoved on the back of a passenger train, and I thought explosives on passenger trains were a no-no, apart from small packages of things like detonators? 

Agreed.  Only very limited quantities of certain classes of explosives were permitted to be carried on passenger trains and that included limited quantities of 'railway fog signals' (to distinguish such thing from the detonators i used to set off explosives or artillery etc shells).   So a loaded GPV definitely would not be allowed if it was carrying the sort of things such a vehicle was normally used to transport. 

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36 minutes ago, ndg910 said:

Sorry to ask but were horseboxes and/or cattle wagons XP rated. I don’t know either way but have seen them tagged on GW railcars (often on the Lambourn branch) and branch trains. 

Horse-boxes were classed as Non-passenger-carrying coaching stock (NPCCS), so yes

Cattle wagons (with the exception of Special Cattle Vans and Calf Vans, which were NPCCS) were goods stock, and could run in passenger services, provided they had the appropriate fittings.

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1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

Cattle wagons (with the exception of Special Cattle Vans and Calf Vans, which were NPCCS) were goods stock

 

Touch and go. The Calf Vans with which I am familiar were goods stock but the Prize Cattle Vans with which they shared a common design of body were passenger rated. There was 20 years between them though, changing attitudes may have come into play. (1888 / 1908, Midland Rly.)

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9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Touch and go. The Calf Vans with which I am familiar were goods stock but the Prize Cattle Vans with which they shared a common design of body were passenger rated. There was 20 years between them though, changing attitudes may have come into play. (1888 / 1908, Midland Rly.)

The Calf Vans I was thinking of were the re-branded 'Beetle' Special Cattle Vans, some which lasted into the late 1960s.

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6 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

The Calf Vans I was thinking of were the re-branded 'Beetle' Special Cattle Vans, some which lasted into the late 1960s.

 

Ah well, that's the GW. Cattle treated like passengers, passengers treated...

Edited by Compound2632
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22 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah well, that's the GW. Cattle treated like passengers, passengers treated...

Jealousy will get you nowhere ;)

22 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

The Calf Vans I was thinking of were the re-branded 'Beetle' Special Cattle Vans, some which lasted into the late 1960s.

Quite a lot of them (maybe all those left in traffic?) congregated at Didcot in the first half of the 1960s (can't remember the exact year sorry) when the yard was rundown and being iused for storage of vehicles awaiting condemnation.  Alas I was too busy spending my meagre allowance of film on stored and condemned locos.

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11 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Looks like its come down £4.95 a wagon, thats a pretty good drop in price.


Thumbs up Rapido.

 

If they have come down, then totally agree. The Rapido site is still showing £32.95 though, hence the question.

 

image.png.d75c610b2ec367fc2a69280e99615cb9.png

Edited by 57xx
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1 hour ago, 57xx said:

Have they revised the price or is that a typo?

 

That's a retailer flyer at a guess - note the statement that images were provided by Rapido Trains UK.

 

So that would be the discounted price.

Edited by mdvle
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