Modbury

[Llangerisech]

Funny, my Dean Goods was also hors de cambat with a detached loco to tender cable. Maybe Dean Goods engines sense being that near the Channel and throw a sickie so they don't get sent overseas again!

[Ian Smith]

Very little modelling has taken place over the last few months, but over the last couple of days (having seen Richard Brummit's post on his latest "Beetle" (diagram W4))  :

I finally decided to do some work on the one that he so kindly gifted to me at the Portsmouth exhibition.  On getting it home, I had already removed the 3-link coupling hooks that he had fitted so that I could replace them with DG couplings.  In that guise it has happily traversed Modbury over the last couple of months or so.  Below is a photo that I took at Portsmouth :

 

The model as provided by Richard

 

One of the things that I felt Richard's model lacked was any form of rain strips or cross strips on the roof.  Having searched my library for photographs of the diagram W4, I really only found one dated in the late 1920's that showed the roof properly, and that had full length curved rain strips, however the diagram in Atkin's showed cross strips above where the side uprights were (similar to the contemporary W1, W5 and W3 cattle wagons).  I therefore decided to put narrow strips of masking tape across the roof to represent these and then repainted the roof in a mucky grey colour.

 

Unfortunately, as Richard had absolutely no idea what shade of "Red" that I dreamt up for my GWR Red wagons, the shade that he had chosen (whilst perfectly plausible and probably a better choice than my own) was somewhat at odds with my own rendition!  With that in mind, I elected to mix up a little of my own colour and applied a wash of it to try to bring the red shade closer to the other red wagons on Modbury.  Doing this also had the advantage of toning down the bright white of the transfers too.

 

Finally, I attempted to weather the lower portions of the sides and ends (and underframe) with further washes of Precision Paints Frame Dirt and Humbrol 110.  The following photos show the wagon at home on Modbury

Vacuum cylinder side

 

Non-vacuum cylinder side

 

Finally a comparison with one of my dirtiest red wagons.

 

Overall, I am really pleased with this addition to my goods fleet, and it makes an interesting addition to my cattle train - Thank you once again Richard!!

 

The only thing that I am really unsure about is whether these "Beetle" cattle wagons would have received the lime wash disinfectant treatment that normal cattle wagons received until the 1920's.  My assumption is that they would, but trying to find photographic evidence is proving tricky - therefore I will leave as is for now. 

 

Thanks for looking

Ian

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, Ian Smith said:

The only thing that I am really unsure about is whether these "Beetle" cattle wagons would have received the lime wash disinfectant treatment that normal cattle wagons received until the 1920's.  My assumption is that they would, but trying to find photographic evidence is proving tricky - therefore I will leave as is for now. 

 

The very question I found myself asking myself half-way through reading your post. I suppose limewash would only leak out through any apertures in the lower sides - possibly around the doorframe. But if I understand the design, those square things just above the siderail are sliding hatches, with some apertures behind?

 

A little variation in the shade of red is, I'm sure, no bad thing and if it's a incentive to creating that not-straight-out-of-the-paintshop look so much the better!

Edited March 1 by Compound2632

[Ian Smith]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The very question I found myself asking myself half-way through reading your post. I suppose limewash would only leak out through any apertures in the lower sides - possibly around the doorframe. But if I understand the design, those square things just above the siderail are sliding hatches, with some apertures behind?

 

A little variation in the shade of red is, I'm sure, no bad thing and if it's a incentive to creating that not-straight-out-of-the-paintshop look so much the better!

Stephen,

Yes, there are sliding covers within the framing on the lower body sides.  If I do add limewash, I will have dribbles from the slats in the upper body and around the doors and also the sliding covers in the lower body.  I have always assumed that the whole of the inside would be treated not just the lower half.  Also, my assumption is that it would have been “splashed around” with something like a broom - indeed I have modelled a wheelbarrow of limewash with a broom leaning against it on my cattle dock!

 

Because I mix my red shade, there is always a small variation within my wagon stock, which is further varied by weathering.  The image containing the 4 plank wagon shows it to be fairly brown in digital format (it doesn’t look quite so brown in the flesh).

Ian

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Ian Smith said:

Yes, there are sliding covers within the framing on the lower body sides.  If I do add limewash, I will have dribbles from the slats in the upper body and around the doors and also the sliding covers in the lower body.  I have always assumed that the whole of the inside would be treated not just the lower half.  Also, my assumption is that it would have been “splashed around” with something like a broom - indeed I have modelled a wheelbarrow of limewash with a broom leaning against it on my cattle dock!

 

Yes, I agree with all this. But it's where the apertures are. If you will pardon a photo of a Midland vehicle, as that's what I have to hand, see how the limewash has run over the top of the planks bu not over the top rail, although there is some sign of it on the top of that rail. It's to me curious that on the one hand, there's hardly any limewash run through the apertures in the end but on the other hand, the outside of the drop flap door is completely voated, though this is a surface that the passengers wouldn't come int contact with. it looks to me that the end wall has been limewashed right to the top - compare what one can see of the inside of the brand new wagon on the left, evidently on its first trip.

 

Apologies for teaching you to suck eggs!

 

It's interesting, also, that this Midland wagon has transverse roof strips, like your GW vehicle. The Derby C&W drawings don't show this but they do reveal that the roof ribs in line with the door pillars were iron rather than timber, so I wonder if this strip covers countersunk heads of bolts fixing the roof battens to the rib - although there would also be canvas over the battens. On the other hand, the wagon on the right seems to have a strip mid-way between the end and the door, so perhaps it's just to do with nailing the canvas down and lining up with the door pillars is just a matter of aesthetics rather than mechanics.

 

 

 

[DY 9165]

Edited March 1 by Compound2632

[magmouse]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

It's to me curious that on the one hand, there's hardly any limewash run through the apertures in the end but on the other hand, the outside of the drop flap door is completely voated,

I think the reason we don’t see lime wash coming through the end slats is that the movable partition would be against that end when the wagon is in Large configuration. And if in Medium or Small, then presumably the unused part of the wagon would not be treated. We need a picture of the other end to corroborate.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

lining up with the door pillars is just a matter of aesthetics rather than mechanics.

 

It would make it easy to position the strips if they line up with the door pillars - it could be done by eye, without needing to measure.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, magmouse said:

I think the reason we don’t see lime wash coming through the end slats is that the movable partition would be against that end when the wagon is in Large configuration. And if in Medium or Small, then presumably the unused part of the wagon would not be treated. We need a picture of the other end to corroborate.

 

Good spot! The wagon on the right also has its partition end facing. 

[richbrummitt]

16 hours ago, Ian Smith said:

Overall, I am really pleased with this addition to my goods fleet, and it makes an interesting addition to my cattle train

It looks great now. A bit of wear and tear and final detail makes a big difference and it’s truly yours!
 

As occupants were charged premium fares they got to travel in passenger trains. At least some of them for some of their lives were lettered to only travel in passenger trains. A much more interesting addition is to have a red vehicle in a passenger train!

 

Re. Disinfecting: We could use the instructions from early rule books and their GAs. However I will send you some images of W4s from around the (previous) turn of century. 

[magmouse]

30 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

However I will send you some images of W4s from around the (previous) turn of century.

 

Rich - if you are able to share, I would appreciate it. I am planning a W4 in 7mm scale in due course.

 

Thanks -

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

On 01/03/2024 at 15:11, richbrummitt said:

As occupants were charged premium fares they got to travel in passenger trains. At least some of them for some of their lives were lettered to only travel in passenger trains. A much more interesting addition is to have a red vehicle in a passenger train!

 

There's a question I had rumbling around. When prize cattle vans were introduced in 1888, by agreement of the RCH General Managers' Committee in response to industry lobbying, as we would now call it, most companies built them as passenger-rated vehicles on a par with horseboxes, turned out in full fig of crimson or purple lake. Great Western Beetles were, as I understand it, after some date 'brown vehicles' - i.e. on that same footing. When was the change from treating them as goods vehicles to treating them as passenger vehicles, paint-wise at least?

 

And here's my killer supplementary question: did the same apply to Siphons? Red before brown? 

[Miss Prism]

http://www.gwr.org.uk/liverieswagonsiphon.html#:~:text=Up to 1912,vehicles during WWI.

 

Is that ok?

 

Edited March 2 by Miss Prism

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

http://www.gwr.org.uk/liverieswagonsiphon.html#:~:text=Up to 1912,vehicles during WWI.

 

Is that ok?

 

 

"Up to 1912" meaning, from the dawn of recorded Great Western history?

 

But doesn't this imply that Beetles would also have always been brown?

Edited March 2 by Compound2632

[Miss Prism]

It does imply that cattle vans classed as passenger vehicles were brown. What I don't know is which cattle van diagrams were classed as passenger vehicles (and when that happened).

 

Edited March 2 by Miss Prism

[richbrummitt]

Beetles were reclassified 1926 according to Atkins et al. I found this out after I painted my W7s Brown and lettered them 😭

 

Ian subscribes to the red livery for goods wagons so… 

[Miss Prism]

4 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

Beetles were reclassified 1926 according to Atkins et al. I found this out after I painted my W7s Brown and lettered them 😭

 

Ian subscribes to the red livery for goods wagons so… 

 

Ah yes, I've got that. But I thought the enquiry was about pre-1898, or maybe I was confused.

 

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

But I thought the enquiry was about pre-1898, or maybe I was confused.

 

Well, lest's say pre-1904, but back to and beyond 1898 - to 1888 at least.

[Miss Prism]

A prototype passenger cattle wagon was produced in 1888. It had large wheels and clasp brakes. The bible says it "was one of the first goods wagons to be given passenger vehicle equipment yet remain in goods livery". The colour of that livery is not mentioned, and is indeterminate from its picture. It and the subsequent W4 vehicles (of 1898, but there is some uncertainty as to when the build commenced) were numbered in the goods series, and thus no different in principle to other goods stock fitted with large wheels and vacuum brakes, like some of the Iron Minks. The bible states they were (in 1898) in grey. When those cattle trucks were re-numbered into the passenger stock lists, long after red had been discontinued, they were repainted brown. Similarly, the W7s of 1909 onward were grey with goods numbers and became brown with passenger numbers in c 1927.

 

So the bible concludes the early passenger-rated cattle wagons were in grey, but it would say that wouldn't it, because the bible believes grey was introduced in 1898.

 

[Compound2632]

40 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

So the bible concludes the early passenger-rated cattle wagons were in grey, but it would say that wouldn't it, because the bible believes grey was introduced in 1898.

 

Well, at any rate, not brown!

 

There is a fine line between passenger-rated goods wagons and non-passenger coaching stock; that these vans were given cattle wagon series (W prefix) diagrams shows which side the GW came down on but it does seem to have been unusual in treating prize cattle vans as goods stock rather than coaching stock.

[drduncan]

On 02/03/2024 at 21:47, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, at any rate, not brown!

 

There is a fine line between passenger-rated goods wagons and non-passenger coaching stock; that these vans were given cattle wagon series (W prefix) diagrams shows which side the GW came down on but it does seem to have been unusual in treating prize cattle vans as goods stock rather than coaching stock.

All passenger rated fish wagons were wagons ie red or grey to your personal taste not brown until 1916…is that also unusual? (I cherish my ignorance of non GWR matters….) 

D

[Caley Jim]

Can't talk about other companies, but CR fish wagons, some of which were basically 8T dropsides on passenger rated underframes, were painted in NPCS livery of dark purple brown with yellow lettering.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, drduncan said:

All passenger rated fish wagons were wagons ie red or grey to your personal taste not brown until 1916…is that also unusual? (I cherish my ignorance of non GWR matters….) 

 

Yes, I would say so. LNWR fish trucks were passenger stock. With the exception of some fish tank trucks and open fish and poultry trucks (charming vehicles both), fish on the Midland had covered accommodation. All these vehicles were NCPS with (by 1892) vacuum brakes (some dual-fitted) and painted crimson lake.

 

Query: why was brown adopted for GW NCPS at a time when the standard carriage livery was lake?

Edited March 4 by Compound2632

[drduncan]

28 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Query: why was brown adopted for GW NCPS at a time when the standard carriage livery was lake?

Well, siphons we’re always brown, so habit may be in play. It may be that CCTs and horse boxes  built 1912-22 might have been turned out in lake but….

Coach liveries were expected to last 10-12 years so anything painted before 1912 would be in brown, possibly to almost the end of the lake period!

 

Then you have WW1 and cost savings so the move of fish wagons to the carriage resister in 1916 may have resulted in brown being used (when they were due for repainting), even if CCTs built 1912-14 were in lake.  
 

It (like red wagon liveries) is one of the things that make the ‘oh so samey’ GWR rather interesting.

Incidentally, I did my 1914 4wheel CCT in lake. I like it but I do think it looks odd!

D
 

Edited March 4 by drduncan

[Miss Prism]

37 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Query: why was brown adopted for GW NCPS at a time when the standard carriage livery was lake?

 

Brown was standard for NPCCS up to 1912.

 

After 1912, I have a 'posh' theory, i.e. the posh people went in crimson lake carriages, and their horses and carriages travelled in the same trains and were also crimson lake. Posh people didn't carry around with them fish, milk or cattle etc, so those remained in brown.

 

However implausible the theory might be, it does sort of fit the facts.

 

 

[Mikkel]

So all Thirds in brown too? 🙂

[Donw]

you also get changes the other way the Hydra was originally in Brown Livery  probably to carry their coaches. However they lacked automatic brakes and were down graded to freight stock and painted in grey. It would be great if someone could tell me which parts were painted brown just the sides of the platform? or did the sides with the axleboxes all come in brown?

 

Don