Jump to content
 

New GWR iron mink


ikcdab
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • RMweb Premium
1 minute ago, Steamport Southport said:

Try and get a copy of this. Don't pay daft Amazon prices though. Should be less than a tenner, you just need to be patient as they come up all the time. No idea where my copy is though.

 

https://hmrs.org.uk/all-about-gwr-iron-minks-150222.html

 

 

You are quite right, I should, and ought to have done so long since.

 

What does it have to say on my question?

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

There was a discussion within the last few hours on the Rapido SECR wagons thread about the difficulty of finding pre-Grouping wagon prototypes that lasted in quantity until the 1950s - a period modelled by many, and therefore seen as essential for a viable model. The conclusion drawn was that manufacturers were forced by this criterion to select prototypes that are "late pre-Grouping" - post Great War for the Rapido SECR wagons; the Rails SECR van goes back to 1909.

 

Rails are offering the Iron Mink in three liveries: with the 16" G W initials introduced in 1920 (which they describe as "late condition"); with the RCH 1936 standard small lettering; and in BR grey with black number panel. 

 

There were 4,901 Iron Minks built (including a handful of non-standard vehicles) between 1886 and 1901. The normal life in service of a 19th century goods wagon would be about a third of a century; one would on that basis expect Iron Minks to be more-or-less extinct before the 1936 livery was adopted. 

 

I have questioned the BR livery before in the thread on the Minerva 7 mm version, without getting a straight answer. I'll ask straight out here: can anyone actually say how many Iron Minks were still in ordinary revenue service in, say, 1939 and 1952? I'm willing to bet a Rails Mink to a Ratio one that the answer is, very few.

I can't give the exact numbers (I wonder if the original HMRS booklet quotes any 0 can't lay hands on my copy at the moment) but in BR days there were very few in traffic use and I doubt they lasted beyond the mid '50s (if that late) although i have seen a secondary source stating 1956.

 

However they were around in goods yards being used for storage of paperwork much later and still carrying traffic numbers  - I saw them at various places in the late 1960s including at least one painted in faded departmental black livery.  But any around that late probably had turned a wheel for quite a long tme.

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
5 hours ago, GreenGiraffe22 said:

Yep these prices seem to be the new normal now, is what it is.

 

I'd feel more inclined to do kits if they were a bit more like airfix kits, with clear building and painting instructions and transfers included.

 

A couple of wagon kits I've tried have had dreadful instructions and not gone together particularly well and just not been remotely enjoyable for me. 

Nearly every wagon kit I've ever built has had more than adequate instructions, though I'd concede that livery/marking details often don't cover all the possible eras.

 

Unless there are optional body parts, I never pull them out of the bag until I need to work out which brake-gear bits to discard.....

 

I've little resistance to paying this sort of money for a r-t-r wagon (and I have the pre-orders with Rapido to prove it) but (to me) this one doesn't appear to compare favourably with injection moulded models at a similar price point. As somebody else mentioned, the Iron Mink really ought to justify being more than a 3D printed Limited Edition.

 

I'd really like to see Dapol get stuck into some new steam-era wagons, though. Their tar tanks and Grampuses, though fairly basic, show what they can do, and they've done several excellent modern types. However, I get the impression that adding to their O gauge wagon range has priority these days. If they could come up with OO Conflats comparable to the recent 7mm ones, I'd want ten or a dozen.

 

John

 

 

Edited by Dunsignalling
  • Agree 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
8 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I can't give the exact numbers (I wonder if the original HMRS booklet quotes any 0 can't lay hands on my copy at the moment) but in BR days there were very few in traffic use and I doubt they lasted beyond the mid '50s (if that late) although i have seen a secondary source stating 1956.

 

However they were around in goods yards being used for storage of paperwork much later and still carrying traffic numbers  - I saw them at various places in the late 1960s including at least one painted in faded departmental black livery.  But any around that late probably had turned a wheel for quite a long tme.

I've seen pictures of Iron Minks cut in half and turned into stop blocks and bike sheds, but making those would be more appropriate to the kit!

 

John

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Dear Rails, I understand that you’ve got to recoup your costs and make a profit and I would like several of these but it’s too rich for me. I’m sad to say I’m out.

I wonder if there was a volume/price point where you could have been even more successful. There’s surely a lot of demand.

 

Edit: Sorry Andy, the disappointment was too much to handle.

 

Edited by Harlequin
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 minute ago, Harlequin said:

Dear Rails, I understand that you’ve got to recoup your costs and make a profit and I would like several of these but it’s too rich for me. I’m sad to say I’m out.

I wonder if there was a volume/price point where you could have been even more successful. There’s surely a lot of demand.

 

For my part, I dare Rails to try this livery:

 

1597146440_GWV6IronMinkNo.69354.JPG.d3e0494d360e67c32feb78d9fc60ee7b.JPG

 

  • Like 5
  • Funny 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

The first design of gunpowder van was this one (a model as a photo of a real one didn't turn up in my search. The similarity to the iron goods van is obvious.

The square cornered type appeared around the beginning of WWII.

 

https://www.minervamodelrailways.co.uk/product/gw-gunpowder-van-25-lettering-c1903-1920s/

 

The vans would have first appeared in the red livery, but how long it lasted in still unknown AFAIK. I side with the theory of the introduction of the 25" G W lettering, but could well be wrong?

Edited by Il Grifone
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
10 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I saw them at various places in the late 1960s including at least one painted in faded departmental black livery.  But any around that late probably had turned a wheel for quite a long tme.

There was one at Banbury until at least 1978 or 79. The paintwork was largely mottled but it looked as if it ha been done in BR grey at some time.

Edited by TheSignalEngineer
  • Like 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Not being a GW modeller but interested in improving the authenticity of my goods stock, please could someone advise whether iron minks were common user or not?  I can't remember seeing photos of them on, say, the ECML - but then I wasn't looking for them!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

You are quite right, I should, and ought to have done so long since.

 

What does it have to say on my question?

 

I'll look when I find it.

 

Funnily enough I was actually using it and put it down somewhere after someone asked about brakes.

 

ISTR there was also an article in GWJ which was a lot more recent.

 

 

Jason

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

The question of cheap kit or more expensive RTR  is an interesting question, that is broader than just this mink, and largely applies across the wider modelling spectrum. I think is down to the type of modeller you are, If you enjoy building kits,  then the answer as to what you will purchase is obvious. But also something to consider is as the modelling demographic changes, more and more of us find ourselves 'Money rich but time poor' so If you just want to see your lovely new authentic wagon on your layout, or you would prefer to spend your limited modelling time doing scenery or whatever then the purchase choice is  more and more going to be the later option.

 

regards,

 

Neil

Edited by neilkirby
typo
  • Like 1
  • Agree 5
Link to post
Share on other sites

Not being a GWR modeller, but being aware of a number of kits previously available, ABS and Ratio in particular.

I have built a couple of the latter's pre-painted and lettered kits based on their Iron Mink.

 

DSCF0015a.jpg.41994fb65de4030e50141b805d998327.jpg

 

Was this design adopted as a standard (RCH) by other companies for carrying materials such as cement and gunpowder ?

 

I seem to recall ABS producing gunpowder van kits for the Great Northern Railway, London & North Western Railway, London and South Western Railway and North British Railway and can remember seeing a picture of a Barry Railway one, (was that on the K&ESR) ? There were also kits for APOC (Pre-war) and Blue Circle and Ferrocrete (Post-war). I assume that these were non-vented vans whereas the Iron Minks were vented. Obviously details like the brake gear and buffers would probably have differed, but were the basic van body dimensions the same ?

 

All the best

Ray

 

Edited by wainwright1
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
19 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

The Blue Circle / Ferrocrete versions would be interesting. At least two versions were in regular traffic use from Greaves Siding at Harbury at least as late as 1953

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrhj2260.htm.

 

It's not quite clear but the caption seems to imply the APCM / Blue Circle vans date from c. 1900, so they would be the same age as the youngest GWR V6s. There was quite a variety of V6 clones around - the Welsh railways had a number - but they mostly differed in dimensions, as may these.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 minute ago, wainwright1 said:

Was this design adopted as a standard (RCH) by other companies for carrying materials such as cement and gunpowder ?

 

I seem to recall ABS producing gunpowder van kits for the Great Northern Railway, London & North Western Railway, London and South Western Railway and North British Railway and can remember seeing a picture of a Barry Railway one, (was that on the K&ESR) ? There were also kits for APOC (Pre-war) and Blue Circle and Ferrocrete (Post-war). I assume that these were non-vented vans whereas the Iron Minks were vented. Obviously details like the brake gear and buffers would probably have differed, but were the basic van body dimensions the same ?

 

I haven't got to the bottom of this but it seems to me that there must have been an agreement on a new RCH specification for gunpowder vans around 1904, as there was a rash of gunpowder van building by the major companies around that time. That the Iron Mink design met the presumed new standard but was not mandated by it is shown by some but not all the principal companies adopted the GWR Iron Mink design, with variations such as there own design of running gear and brakes. An example of an exception is the Midland, which built new vehicles to its own design. 

 

The vans that Spillers had built for their flour traffic, leading to their celebrated dispute with the Great Western, were also of the Iron Mink design. The common feature of the three cargos, gunpowder, flour, and cement, is I suppose that being fine powders there is a risk of explosion; this might encourage the use of an iron-bodied vehicle.

 

What's not clear to me is, how were the non-Great Western examples designed? I doubt that Swindon was dishing out drawings to all comers. Were vans being waylaid and measured up, or were drawing offices just designing something similar from scratch?

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
3 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Not being a GW modeller but interested in improving the authenticity of my goods stock, please could someone advise whether iron minks were common user or not?  I can't remember seeing photos of them on, say, the ECML - but then I wasn't looking for them!

 

As far as I'm aware, as unfitted covered goods wagons they would have been pooled from [inset date here] during the Great War. 

 

But what date range of ECML photos are you looking at? Among my other reasons for doubting that many survived very late is that they were only of 9 or 10 tons capacity, so would be becoming obsolete as 12 ton vans were built in quantity by all the companies from the 20s onwards.

Link to post
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, neilkirby said:

 

The question of cheap kit or more expensive RTR  is an interesting question, that is broader than just this mink, and largely applies across the wider modelling spectrum. I think is down to the type of modeller you are, If you enjoy building kits,  then the answer as to what you will purchase is obvious. But also something to consider is as the modelling demographic changes, more and more of us find ourselves 'Money rich but time poor' so If you just want to see your lovely new authentic wagon on your layout, or you would prefer to spend your limited modelling time doing scenery or whatever then the purchase choice is  more and more going to be the later option.

 

regards,

 

Neil

 

I have a couple of Ratio models that I built nearly 30 years ago as well as one unbuilt kit, but that did not stop me from ordering one in 1937 livery and the another in post 1920 livery, whilst the Ratio model was a decent model for its era it has its faults and it's nice to upgrade to a new RTR model, yes they may cost a pretty penny but considering a number of factors such as short production run the price is something I can accept, as mentioned by others you only have to see how much Continental models cost, I love the RhB but the price of Bemo rolling stock scares me off.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Coincidence does seem to have a sense of humour.  I got a copy of Kevin Robertson’s The Railways of Winchester and there on page 36 was a photo of Bar End goods shed on the DN&S in BR days with three Iron Minks in front.  No date I’m afraid but based on other pics by the photographer I’m guessing around 1960

  • Like 2
  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Iltman said:

Coincidence does seem to have a sense of humour.  I got a copy of Kevin Robertson’s The Railways of Winchester and there on page 36 was a photo of Bar End goods shed on the DN&S in BR days with three Iron Minks in front.  No date I’m afraid but based on other pics by the photographer I’m guessing around 1960

 

I well remember those Iron Minks at  Winchester Bar End Yard and seem to recall that there were actually five of them.  They were not traffic vehicles but were used as stores.  The were painted in what I would describe as GWR Dark Stone but was probably just faded red oxide.  They had a large white cross painted at the left hand end side panel and were  marked 'For use at Winchester Only' and 'Not to run more than three miles on the main line' or something similar.  They remained at the yard after the line closed and were demolished on the spot when the demolition contractors arrived around 1965 or 66 if I remember correctly.

 

And for what it is worth I have ordered one of these new models.  As someone has said elsewhere its no good asking for the models we want to be produced if we don't then buy them when they do appear!  The supply will very rapidly dry up if they don't sell.

  • Agree 3
  • Informative/Useful 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Rapido do have the NE and LNE RCH pattern Gunpowder vans available to pre-order (inc from Rails and cheaper than these).

 

But they will have squared corners, quite different to the GWR Iron Mink and early Gunpowder. 

 

The Ratio kit may be 60 years old. but it was a very simple plastic kit to put together - probably my first such kit after making the Airfix wagons of similar vintage.

 

Someone made a model of this a few years ago - I forget who it was, and whether it was simply a Ratio kit in a new livery. 

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrvans/e1f56acc5

 

Paul

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

The Ratio kit can be very greatly improved by cutting about 1 mm off the top of the sides and ends, so that there is no space between the top of the door frame and the roof. It's a simple modification to make to a new kit; a bit trickier when renovating a well-stuck-together one one built as a teenager!

  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 3
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It's not quite clear but the caption seems to imply the APCM / Blue Circle vans date from c. 1900, so they would be the same age as the youngest GWR V6s. There was quite a variety of V6 clones around - the Welsh railways had a number - but they mostly differed in dimensions, as may these.

The other information on the site would infer that they were built between 1891 and 1906. There were just over 30 with the first 20 from Metropolitan and the rest from Birmingham.

This page shows one in Greaves livery which would have been applied pre-1927.

 https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrlave4062b.htm

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...