Gunpowder vans pre-WW1 - what colour my L&Y and MR ones?

[MR Chuffer]

I resurrected a 40 year old built whitemetal kit the other day, an LNWR gunpowder van based on the GWR Iron Mink of the time, as so many were (RCH "standard"). It was painted red which I presume the original kit instructions said. After a "Dettol" strip down and modification of the brake gear to Moreton, its turned up nice as an L&YR Dia.60 version.

 

Looking at the photo in Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Wagon Diagrams by Neil Coates, I went ahead and painted it L&Y darkish grey. And planning to scratch build a Dia.384 or 385 Midland version (their own design), they look to me to be MR light grey (p155/156 - Essery Vol. 1).

 

Then last night, just looking at a link I had saved a while ago off the IGG website, it states that for the L&Y version, "Gunpowder vans were buffer-beam red with white lettering and the cast notice plate required by the RCH rules on the door was also painted white..". Presumably this was the 1907 set, or a specific one drafted just for gunpowder vans?

 

As I said, we're talking pre-WW1/Pre-grouping here, any insights as to body colours?

 

[Compound2632]

The Midland ones were certainly in ordinary Midland goods wagon livery. In Vol. 2 of Lancashire & Yorkshire Wagons, p. 393, Coates states re. the official photo of a D60 van, taken in early 1905, that the livery " seems to be standard wagon grey with white initials and lettering (not a red body, as has been suggested elsewhere)." On the other hand, it seems reasonably certain that LNWR gunpowder vans were red, at least until 1912, when they began to be repainted grey, the colour being described as a "dull vermillion" [LNWR Wagons Vol. 2, p. 131] and that's how Bassett Lowke depicted them:

I think the comment about RCH regulations refers to the cast notice plate rather than to livery in general. As far as I can work out, the RCH must have issued new regulations on gunpowder vans in 1904, prompting a spate of new building to meet the specification, by the LNWR, MR, LYR, GNR, GER, and NER among others. Most companies used designs based on the GWR iron mink - surprisingly, given the LNWR's preference for home-grown solutions, its vans were the most iron mink-like while the Midland's were the most individual.

[MR Chuffer]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The Midland ones were certainly in ordinary Midland goods wagon livery.

Thanks so much for this, the grey paint job on my L&Y van is pretty good by my standards and I was hoping not to have to repaint. And the Midland ones look a relatively easy scratchbuild job given their flatish sides.

 

 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

And the Midland ones look a relatively easy scratchbuild job given their flatish sides.

 

The 19th century ones - D384 - could use the Slaters underframe but the 1904 batch - D385 - have the inconvenient 9'6" wheelbase. Though as they're 16'0" long, they could used the 10'0" wheelbase underframe of the D362/363 kit with 2 mm nibbled out of the middle.

[MR Chuffer]

I was thinking of one of the D384 batch for the reasons you state, as odd as they look with one door only - a shunter's nightmare!

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

I was thinking of one of the D384 batch for the reasons you state, as odd as they look with one door only - a shunter's nightmare!

 

The Midland Railway Study Centre has scanned copies of the relevant drawings:

• D384 Drg. 528 Item 88-D0195 (two drawings, A and B).
• D385 Drg. 2109 Item 88-D0532 and Drg. 2163 Item 88-D1966.

A polite request to Dave Harris and perhaps a small donation should do the trick.