Castle Aching

[Annie]

Thank you for that very detailed  and informative explanation Stephen.

 

On my part it was really just a bit of a fun exercise to take a photo of a grotty RTR wagon and use it as a template to make a digital texture.

 

It's not finished yet, but it's getting there.  The finished article will have a bump map/normal map layer so it will look a little better.

 

Once it's done I can even remove all the lettering and image of the crab and use it as the basis of a new van for the Hopewood & Windweather Tramway.

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Annie
more to say

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Martin S-C said:

How did the well-known legal issue between the GWR and Spillers flour with their PO painted iron mink flour vans fit into this?

Be aware however that a number of breweries had their own vans, notably in Kent, probably because the traffic was not seasonal. Or were these railway company owned vehicles bearing the customer's livery as referenced above?

There's always an exception one has to be (annoyingly) aware of.

 

I mentioned the Kentish brewery vans. I understand these were privately-owned, not owned by or hired from the railway. As the area is somewhat outside my interests (although I note it does cover the South Eastern's Reading line), I've not looked at John Arkell, Private Owner Wagons of the South East (Lighmoor Press, date?) which might shed some light on the question.

 

For the GWR vs. Spillers case, see this thread - which is generally pertinent to the question at hand.

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

There were a number of cement vans bearing PO liveries as well.
 

 

Also salt. So I suppose potentially any bulk commodity that might render the wagon unfit for other traffic. 

 

But not fish.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Compound2632

[Martin S-C]

Thanks for those replies Stephen, it helps clear up several questions I had.

[Andy Hayter]

 

And to add another section of PO wagons - adapted opens for carrying carboys of chemicals and tank wagons again for chemicals/tars/bitumen. 

[Dana Ashdown]

On 06/03/2019 at 14:35, Edwardian said:

I took Stephen's tip of using a ruler, but, while I note a slight improvement at normal viewing distances, close up it's no better!

James,

 

For GWR livery, I had better luck painting the "mahogany" around the windows first, then the mouldings in black, then the brown, and only finally the cream panels using a small brush. I still have to do the odd touch up, but its much easier in the end. This approach follows Mikkel's (thank you Mikkel!), except I do the mouldings black.

 

I tried painting the black mouldings last, but had to do a lot more touching up. With a small brush, you can move the paint to the edge of the panels, and if a bit gets on the black, just scrape it off with a piece of plastic or wood. A black pen does make the odd correction easier though.

 

Dana

[corneliuslundie]

Also the railway company owned sausage vans of course.

Jonathan

[Shadow]

According to Hornby, there's also these two! 

 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

Also the railway company owned sausage vans of course.

Jonathan

Is that the sausages, or the vans, which were company owned? 

[Nearholmer]

Imaginary PO vans have a long history. I think (but am open to correction) that the first was by Carette for Bassett-Lowke, c1909, the excellent True Form Boot Company van (‘for express boot traffic only’), which advertised the firm run by the two Sears brothers, who were contemporaries and friends of W J B-L. That range also included faux-livery open wagons for BL and for Hull of Birmingham.

 

Mind you, the early ones were highly plausible, so that they don’t “leap out at you” as fictitious, which can’t be said for those shown above!

Edited March 9, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Annie]

Got my 'Ah go on' one done.  Took me as long to do this as it would one of my serious models.  I gave it a Midland Railway registration plate to make it all their fault and while after all the lengthy and fiddly work with completing the textures I could feel justified in running a block train of these out of Cromer I'll be good and I won't.

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Annie
more to say

[Compound2632]

34 minutes ago, Annie said:

I gave it a Midland Railway registration plate to make it all their fault 

 

 

Nice touch... What does the other plate say? Is it builders or owners? PO wagons usually had builder's, owner's, registration and sometimes for repairs advise plates. The builder and owner could be the same, if the wagon was on hire from the builder, but I think there would still be separate plates. 

[Annie]

I have a modest collection of nice images of wagon plates Stephen and this time around I used a Gloster Wagon Co. plate for the builder's plate.  The plates are barely readable at the resolution I used on the underframe, but they did start out as images of genuine plates.  I don't think I've got many repairs advice plate images, - I'd have to check and see.  If I know what a plate is like I do sometimes draw them up from scratch.  I think having proper plates on a wagon model gives it a finishing touch and despite the extra work it's something I like to do.

[Martin S-C]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... sometimes for repairs advise plates.

This needs to be "For repairs advise Crabb Bros., Sideways Sidings, Cromer."

[phil_sutters]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Imaginary PO vans have a long history. I think (but am open to correction) that the first was by Carette for Bassett-Lowke, c1909, the excellent True Form Boot Company van (‘for express boot traffic only’), which advertised the firm run by the two Sears brothers, who were contemporaries and friends of W J B-L. That range also included faux-livery open wagons for BL and for Hull of Birmingham.

 

Mind you, the early ones were highly plausible, so that they don’t “leap out at you” as fictitious, which can’t be said for those shown above!

Burnham and District MRC had a lengthy series of often imaginary PO and company wagons they commissioned as fund-raisers for a variety of charities. They had a pale blue Cromer Crab and Fish van. Their range now no longer available, barring one or two remainders, can be seen on their site, with archived series on the right with rather low-key 'buttons'

[Martin S-C]

They show up on e-Bay with expensive frequency. I confess to having bought a few since my Ahern-verse allows them, though I baulk at the more bizarre liveries and try to avoid the more obviously out of period fonts and signage.

 

 

 

[Annie]

As you say Martin you'd have to pick and chose a bit with them to end up with something plausible.  My Hopewood & Windweather Tramway has a lot of imaginary PO wagons running on it, but I always do my best to make sure my imaginary wagons look plausible and use period fonts and lettering layouts.

[Compound2632]

21 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

I baulk at the more bizarre liveries and try to avoid the more obviously out of period fonts and signage.

 

[Coughs discretely] ... but not the more obviously out of period wagons. 

 

My little controlled rant didn't cover that aspect. The base model in these unfortunate cases we've been discussing bears some resemblance to the later designs of LMS 12 ton van.

[Annie]

I deleted all the modern LMS steel bits off my digital version because that was just a step too far for me Stephen.  I could have been more severe with it, but it was getting to the point where I'd redrawn half of it already and for a van that was a bit of fun anyway it was starting to turn into a bit too much of a serious exercise.

[Caley Jim]

I have a number of mineral wagons lettered for fictitious companies, mainly fellow members of the 2MM Scale Association.  In doing that I'm taking a leaf out of the late David Jenkinson's book! 

 

I've noticed when looking at photographs of PO wagons owned by small local merchants, who only had one wagon, that it is never numbered '1', but '3' or '5', always an odd number.  Presumably this was to suggest that they were actually a slightly larger concern who could afford to own more than one wagon!

 

Jim

[Martin S-C]

34 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

[Coughs discretely] ... but not the more obviously out of period wagons. 

 

My little controlled rant didn't cover that aspect. The base model in these unfortunate cases we've been discussing bears some resemblance to the later designs of LMS 12 ton van.

John Ahern had American 40 foot boxcars on his layout. I feel I am in good company with my rolling stock. My layout is for fun, not for rivet counting - though I am not for a moment suggesting you are one of the latter, merely that I don't take such issues into deep consideration. I do draw a line... it just is a bit further forwards towards terra fantastica than the line that others might draw, and I'm aware James is one of the more serious freelance modellers I've met. Vive la differance is my cry... well, that and rule 1 always applies...

[Martin S-C]

23 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

In doing that I'm taking a leaf out of the late David Jenkinson's book! 

 

And Mr Jenkinson took a leaf out of everyone else's book. David J was a curious mix of railway modeller. His research has benefitted us all and he was a superb scholar, but even on his so called "pure" 1927 LMS layouts he enjoyed his fictional bit of fun. I think this is important to be aware of.

[corneliuslundie]

Not just low numbers. Some small wagon owners numbered them for the years they were purchased. And some large ones did odd things like only having even numbers.

I have just come across a reference o a real oddball in the HMRS drawings list;

6 Wheel - 5 Compartment - Meat Van "Hamer's Welsh Mutton Traffic"

https://hmrs.org.uk/drawings/6-wheel-5-compartment-meat-van-hamer-s-welsh-mutton-traffic.html

Hamer is a name that crops up regularly in histories of railways in Mid Wales - and a Joy Hamer was recently Mayor of Newtown.

But I very much suspect that it was owned by the Cambrian Railways and merely branded for his traffic especially as the drawing appears probably to have come from Oswestry, and the Cambrian built one van fitting this description, No. 292 in the passenger vehicle list.

Jonathan

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

 

 

I've noticed when looking at photographs of PO wagons owned by small local merchants, who only had one wagon, that it is never numbered '1', but '3' or '5', always an odd number.  Presumably this was to suggest that they were actually a slightly larger concern who could afford to own more than one wagon!

 

Jim

 

And said philosophy exists today.  If you make an on line order and look at your order number.  Do you really think that this small emerging company has already taken 11200507 order before yours? Or maybe just 507.

[Martin S-C]

Small concerns often added 100 or 1000 or some other large number in front of their actual numbered wagons. And when wagons were scrapped or their lease terminated the next leased wagon(s) would be added to the numbers list in sequence, and didn't replace the "lost" numbers - so increasing the apparent numbers of wagons a company owned.

That being said, my rummages through PO wagon books have found several numbered "1" or in the single digits, suggesting that not every company behaved that way.

 

 

And to swing neatly back onto topic - this strikes me as a wagon that might have run on the WNR. Built 1902 apparently and available as an RTR item but with steel channel solebars, so some fettling necessary.