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16t minerals


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  • RMweb Gold
On 20/11/2021 at 12:58, Metr0Land said:

… cut ….

 

 

 

Peterborough

Peterborough

 

… cut. ….

 

 

 

Can someone add a note please as to what the weird looking vehicle(s) is/are on the tail end of the Peterborough shot?

 

Edited by john new
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  • RMweb Gold
On 23/04/2020 at 21:33, TheSignalEngineer said:

Sometimes you just cant be bothered to weather one. This is an extract from a DJ Norton photo at Camp Hill Coal Yard in 1955, pristine finish.

1-108.JPG.3b38507f692dbae485ea5864fcea914a.JPG

 

 

Just look at the state of that old 7-plank creeping into the picture next to it.

Apologies for regurgitating an old post but this is the sort of thing from a 1955 picture is what I try to do.

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2 hours ago, john new said:

Can someone add a note please as to what the weird looking vehicle(s) is/are on the tail end of the Peterborough shot?

 

Just before the end I think it is a loaded FLATROL MJJ - the nuclear flask wagons of the 60s, but no idea what is following it. 

 

As to other comments about 'weathering' of 1950s wagons. I agree far too many are modelled battered and rusty whereas these newly constructed wagons were appearing by the tens of thousands. It is the wooden minerals and other wooden framed opens which looked an utter mess as repainting them wasn't, officially, permitted until the late 1950s. 

 

Paul

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2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Very nice, and following up the photographer there are more mineral wagons from a similar period. https://thetransportlibrary.co.uk/index.php?route=product/search&search=J+S+Cockshott&category_id=473&page=2

 

It is this early period which I believe misleads many to believe BR grey is very dark - these MoT etc minerals were in the almost standard wagon colour of bauxite at that time, and those dark (in B/w photos) remain well into the mid 1950s. However, I do accept that a photo such as B57752  https://thetransportlibrary.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=119038&search=J+S+Cockshott&category_id=473&page=2 makes it difficult to know what the colour was. Battleship grey is a possibility as well as bauxite (and I'm being careful not to call this BR freight stock red). 

 

Paul

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3 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

It is this early period which I believe misleads many to believe BR grey is very dark - these MoT etc minerals were in the almost standard wagon colour of bauxite at that time, and those dark (in B/w photos) remain well into the mid 1950s.

Paul

Indeed, a very good point. This photo is I think late 1950s and shows a nice variety of mineral wagons at Irwell Park wharf on the MSC. It looks like 'Crete' has brought in a cargo of coal which is being discharged into the wagons:

903365165_B186910B234136.jpg.01c58ab7826aa362433afe95b3f9e9ac.jpg

The fifth wagon behind the loco is definitely an early one (no drop flap above the pressed door) and is darker than the other steel wagons so is probably still in bauxite.

Further back down the train there's another darker one without a drop flap, but also a couple of wagons without drop flaps that are in fresh pale grey.

The second wagon behind the loco it's a bit harder to tell, but the black panels for the lettering might suggest grey livery.

There are still a few wooden wagons in the rakes (one lettered 'DENABY') and there's a slope-sided steel one in the background too.

 

Another view of the same location and my gut feel is that this is a few years later, and probably a cargo of sulphur looking at the pale colour:

mixed_minerals.jpg.31455f2c19e39e405387d565fc49c589.jpg

 

Note the rake of loaded wagons on the right which are mostly wooden ones, though the nearest one is another early steel one in dark, probably bauxite, livery.

I have a feeling that wooden wagons were preferred for some minerals such as sulphur?

 

At risk of going slightly off-topic, the following two photos (also in Manchester Docks) show wooden mineral wagons which have received a coat of grey paint over their previous livery.

They are both quite an unusual type with no end doors, but small cupboard doors above the side door, and the cupboard doors have horizontal hinges similar to the SR diagram 1381:

(If you click on the images to go the original on flickr you can zoom right in)

Tom Abbott and Dovedale Caslon

 

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2 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Are those wagons ,aft of 'CASLOW', ex-LNER Loco Coal wagons?

I think the cupboard doors are just for the upper few planks, with a drop door below., like this one:

30004.jpg

The LNER may have had similar vehicles, I know some of the LNER ones had full-height cupboard doors.

 

The two grey wooden wagons of this type are the same ones in both the colour photos, which were taken on the same occasion from different angles.

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6 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

I think the cupboard doors are just for the upper few planks, with a drop door below., like this one:

30004.jpg

The LNER may have had similar vehicles, I know some of the LNER ones had full-height cupboard doors.

 

The two grey wooden wagons of this type are the same ones in both the colour photos, which were taken on the same occasion from different angles.

The GWR had an 8-plank Merchandise open of similar conception to the SR ones.

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  • RMweb Gold

Cwmdimbath is set nominally in a period of 1948-58, and minerals are dominant on a South Wales branch with a colliery.  One can stress too much IMHO about the exact correct ratio of steels to woodens and the condition of the steels.  I have about 50% of each, having deliberately gone for as much variety of detail as possible and varying the liveries, so some have end doors and some don't.  My idea is that there are two basic conditions for XPO 7-plankers for this period, some in pristine or lightly weathered BR grey and some in heavily weathered PO livery, subdivied into with or without BR 'P' prefix numbers painted on.  A couple are so heavily weathered that it is difficult to make out what the livery, or number, was, a condition borne out by period photographs and my own memories of dumped withdrawn stock in siding awaiting disposal.

 

The steels are similarly varietious, and include LMS and MoT bauxites, slope siders, a Parkside ex-SNCF cupboard door, pressed steel end doors, rivets, hopper v markings, and so on, but they are more lightly weathered and some are pristine.  Even in the 60s it was common to see a mineral rake of filthy wagons with one pristine standing out like a sore thumb.  There may not have been 50, but there were several shades of grey in the early days, as consistency of paint supplies was not assured at the end of the austerity economy in the early 50s, and different wagon builders may well have used different paint suppliers.  I can certainly remember a battleship grey which I assumed was war surplus in the late 50s/early 60s. 

 

Wagons in the coal trade got pretty dirty pretty quickly, as collieries, tipplers, and port coal hoists generate a good deal of dust into their immedieate environs, and wooden wagons seemed to pick this up more readily than steels, so a 7 planker and a steel that had both been painted the same colour at the same time appeared considerably different after a few weeks in service, with the wooden wagon looking much darker.  There was an instruction, dated June 1948 I believe, that wooden unfitted open wagons were not to be painted at all, and many newly built 5-plankers and others entered service in 'plain wood' livery, something I am surprised no RTR firm has yet picked up on in 4mm (Dapol have released some of these in 7mm).  They are very indicative of the period, but TTBOMK no 7-planker was released into service in such a livery, as none were being built new by that time.  But damaged or rotten planks were replaced, either with new unpainted wood or, sometimes, with good wood from a withdrawn wagon, which could be in just about any livery that wooden wagons or van were ever painted in in theory.

 

I have several Bachmann weathered 16tonners which are probably too rusty for the period, and which I will repaint when I eventually acquire my long awaited and much delayed round tuit from the tuit suppliers.  Many things will happen at that time...

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32 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

That one could be about twenty years old by then!

 

As could be the other two? Older if it's an Ex LMS Iron Ore??

 

Not that the painting schedules were ever adhered to but that would mean they're approaching their third full scrape and paint.

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3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

 

At risk of going slightly off-topic, the following two photos (also in Manchester Docks) show wooden mineral wagons which have received a coat of grey paint over their previous livery.

They are both quite an unusual type with no end doors, but small cupboard doors above the side door, and the cupboard doors have horizontal hinges similar to the SR diagram 1381:

 

 

 

Open wiagons with steel frames were permitted to be repainted from sometime in the early 1950s. It is the wooden framed opens which shouldn't have been repainted until late 1959, but there are plenty of photos that show this requirement wasn't being followed much to the annoyance of HQ. 

 

Paul

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25 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

Open wiagons with steel frames were permitted to be repainted from sometime in the early 1950s. It is the wooden framed opens which shouldn't have been repainted until late 1959, but there are plenty of photos that show this requirement wasn't being followed much to the annoyance of HQ. 

 

Paul

Ah, that's interesting. If they are that type of Southern wagon then those two would have steel frames.

But also interesting that in David Larkin's recent books on the acquired wagons of British Railways he says that the steel-framed mineral wagons were selected for early withdrawal by BR, probably because many frames had become corroded when left loaded with coal for long periods.

Perhaps the distinction is that steel-framed merchandise wagons were given a longer life while steel-framed minerals were withdrawn early? Though the distinction between a high-sided merchandise wagon and a mineral wagon is blurred.

 

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16 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Ah, that's interesting. If they are that type of Southern wagon then those two would have steel frames.

But also interesting that in David Larkin's recent books on the acquired wagons of British Railways he says that the steel-framed mineral wagons were selected for early withdrawal by BR, probably because many frames had become corroded when left loaded with coal for long periods.

Perhaps the distinction is that steel-framed merchandise wagons were given a longer life while steel-framed minerals were withdrawn early? Though the distinction between a high-sided merchandise wagon and a mineral wagon is blurred.

 

 

And I am deliberately saying 'open' because the BR painting instructions do not make any further distinction. The SR 8 plank wagons were a design for both minerals and merchandise. The SR diag 1381 & 1400 opens were listed for upgrade to vacuum brake in December 1958 and this was certainly done to some of them. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/sropenmerch/e2d7ff28c  https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/sropenmerch/e236bc508

 

Paul

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15 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

Not a 16t mineral, but does show how 'clean' newly built wagons could appear - and also fits with another topic about iron ore delivery in South Wales. 

 

More likely a recent repaint with the nearest wagon being five years old when the photograph was taken.  Shows up the variation in sign-writer's interpretation & application to perfection.

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1 hour ago, Metr0Land said:

Stourport Power station by Ralph Ward, on Flickr

 

Preston 1968 by Ralph Ward, on Flickr

 

Stevenage

The Hustle - 92187 by Barry Lewis, on Flickr

 

Stevenage

5604079164_7a585dcd3a_z.jpgNo Limits - 60800 by Barry Lewis, on Flickr

That properly repainted unfitted LMS van is very nice, soon for the chop or possibly vacuum braking. The solebar is a light colour as well, presumably also grey - as happened with some LMS vans but not an official BR feature. 

 

Paul

 

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18 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

That properly repainted unfitted LMS van is very nice, soon for the chop or possibly vacuum braking. The solebar is a light colour as well, presumably also grey - as happened with some LMS vans but not an official BR feature. 

 

Paul

 

I've seen another one of those recently, I'm hoping to buy this negative on ebay:

s-l1600.jpg

Note the WWI Warflat (or 'Parrot' as the WD and the MSC Railway called them) in the background - at least that's what I think it is.

I'd better respect the topic with this one too...

s-l1600.jpg

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