More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

What link is that - to the Midland train?  I cannot find one.

 

Apologies. Looking back I see I failed to put the link in, though if one looks for the Midland Railway Study Centre website and enters 64446 in the catalogue search by item number you'll get there. I'm deliberately directing you to the catalogue rather than the image itself, confident that you will enjoy being distracted by the many other delights therein.

[Rail-Online]

The wagon lift photo with Capstain 3 is definately LNWR - there is a small LNWR asset number plate just above it, these are usually referred to as 'crane plates'  but seemed to have been used on a number of items

Cheers Tony

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Rail-Online said:

a small LNWR asset number plate

 

Aha, that's the plate I was unsure said LNWR or L&YR - thanks for the confirmation.

[Compound2632]

Here's a random thing:

 

There was a discussion some time ago, here or elsewhere, about the colour of the interior of brake vans - I think the starting point may have been NBR goods brakes but Midland goods brakes were mentioned. The conclusion seemed to be in favour of a pale green; this seems also to have been the favoured colour for passenger brake compartments too. As a bit of evidence in favour of this being the colour for the interior of such vehicles generally, whilst trawling for something else I came across Midland C&W Drg. 3253, 18 Oct 1909, "Portable Set of Sorting Boxes for PO Tenders" [MRSC 88-D1409]. I've not seen this drawing but the full description in the catalogue runs "Portable Set of Sorting Boxes – 2 Required – To be Made of Deal and Painted Light Green Throughout to Match Interior of Post Office Tenders".

Edited March 5, 2022 by Compound2632
sp.

[Compound2632]

A while a go I built a couple of Drake & Mount, Bracknell, wagons, based on film of an up mineral train at Bushey in 1897:

 

 

They're still waiting for brakes.

 

Lightmoor Press' March email advertised some copies of Keith Turton's Third Collection that had come to hand, so I snapped one up; it arrived today. This includes a splendid panorama of Coppice Colliery, Cannock Chase, teeming with wagons. There are a good number of LNWR wagons, including a string of D64 loco coal wagons, a good number of D53 8 ton coal wagons, and two or three D54 10 ton coal wagons. The latter were conversions of the 4-plank D53 wagons, adding an extra plank. The first ten conversions were in late 1902 but it was not until 1905 that large-scale conversion began [C. Northedge (ed.), LNWR Wagons Vol. 3 (Wild Swan Publications, 2018)]. None of the LNWR wagons has the company initials, suggesting a date not much later than 1908; there are also a good number of dumb buffer PO wagons. This all points to a date in the second half of the first decade of the 20th century. I wonder if the freshly-painted wagon No. 1 of Wm.J. Bendall, Cheltenham, helps here? A small portion of this panorama, illustrating Bendall's wagon, is reproduced in Ian Pope's Private Owner Wagons of Gloucestershire (Lightmoor Press, 2006). This wagon was, Pope says, built by the Midland RC&W Co. in 1892 but was probably the wagon that was under a 7-year repair contract with the Gloucester RC&W Co. from March 1896, renewed in 1903. Assuming the usual repainting at the mid-point of the contract, this wagon would be freshly painted in late 1906 / early 1907. There aren't any really good indicators as to the season of the photo - it's a colliery not a pastoral scene! But there is some woodland on the horizon which looks to be more in leaf than not, so I think this is probably not a winter scene. Therefore I'll suggest the date is sometime in 1907.

 

Anyway, the point of all this is that there is a Drake & Mount wagon in the front row. It looks to be a 5-plank, 8 ton wagon, with sprung buffers. It has the refinement of a lip bolted to the curb rail below the door, to fill the gap when the door is dropped down onto a loading bank (or illegally propped up on a piece of timber) - not a feature often seen at this date; altogether it's an advance on the wagons Drake & Mount were running ten years earlier. The number appears to be in the same position as on the earlier wagons; it's not legible but appears to be two digits: No. XX. The diagonal white-bordered panel with the firm's name is a darker colour than the body, as in my model of No.2.

 

There are of course any number of Coppice Collieries wagons, no two quite the same in construction or livery, though all appear to be 5-plank, i.e. 8 ton wagons. The unifying livery feature is the lettering COPPICE COLLIERIES on the diagonal but there seem to be at least the following variations:

• white unshaded on a black band, with a dark grey or red body colour;
• white shaded black, possibly on a band that is a lighter colour than the presumed grey body;
• possibly red lettering, shaded black, on a very light band, with presumed grey body.

I'm trying to think where else I've seen photos of Coppice Collieries wagons - they're not listed in the Lightmoor Index so seem otherwise to have escaped the attention of the canonical authors. 

 

There are some names in view that one can find in the index: Cope & Baker of Hereford (their No. 4 is the subject of a Gloucester photo of Nov. 1905; this is No.7 - similar livery but with J. A. BAKER on the top plank above the door), Frank Knight of Birmingham, John Toomer & Sons of Swindon, D.M Davies of Theale, Evan Davies (what has the Rhondda to do with Cannock?); but also some which are, I think, new to science: F.W. Davies of Stechford intrigues me. [EDIT: Now that I've read Turton's caption properly, I can see he's right that the place name is Steventon.] There's also john Stallard (or Stalland?), Coal Merchant, whose location is illegible on his trendy light-coloured plank, and James Adams, Coal Merchant, wagon No. 20 but location not quite legible - both dumb-buffered 8 ton wagons - and Thomas Evans, Colliery Agent & Coal Broker, Cannock Collieries. At the more corporate end of the business, there are a couple of Salt Union Ltd wagons, both branded for Cheshire rather than Droitwich. 

 

Not a Midland wagon in sight - access to the colliery was via a twig off a branch off the LNWR South Staffordshire line. There is, however, a solitary Great Western 3-plank wagon, in post-1904 livery. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Compound2632
Correction re. identification of location of F.W. Davies wagon.

[Compound2632]

I've just been catching up with @wombatofludham's The Wednedsford Cronicles blog:

The West Midlands in the 1970s may struggle to compete with, say, the West Country in the 1900s, as an idyllic setting for a model railway but in terms of evoking period and place I think this is a superb essay in historical railway modelling. For me, a child then and there*, it certainly evokes memories - I still hesitate to say nostalgia! I really think this blog deserves to be more widely followed.

 

*Well, I'll admit, Sutton Coldfield.

[WFPettigrew]

I wonder if I might pick the collective brains and wisdom on here please?  (I know you've "done" PO wagons in the past... but do please boot me out into the Pre-Grouping forum if needed.)

 

This wagon was photographed in c 1906 at B30 pit, the biggest iron ore mine on Lindal Moor, served by a mineral line linked to the Furness Railway.  The B referred to the Duke of Buccleugh who owned the Royalty for mining in that area.

 

The wagon has both side doors and hoppering (which suggests but doesn't guarantee a bottom door - however there are visible what could be one of the "monkey tails" used to open such a door, just below the solebar).   Of interest is that the end stanchions have been extended downwards to provide hanging buffers for chauldron wagons, which were in use in the West Cumberland area until 1914, and rather than just using the end stanchion, this has been widened from the headstock down with a second piece of wood, which has been given a distinctive curved top.

 

The wagon does not carry any discernable markings other than the tare weight.  However it does have an oval plaque on the upper left bodyside, and just beyond the plaque there is something roughly square which is either white, or is shiny and so is reflecting the sunlight (which is hitting the near wagon side roughly squarely on, as seen by the shadow of the worker which means this was a mid-late afternoon shot).  

 

Does anyone know whose wagon this might be?

 

It's unlikely to be a Furness Railway one - they were painted with "F R" on the sides, although this could be allowed to wear to the point that all that was left was a dark trace of the lettering (as seen in the background), and they didn't as far as we know have wagons with curved ends, as seen here.   

 

One option is a private owner, but typically they would have been proclaiming their ownership in very large letters, so perhaps this is a wagon owned by a hire company?   The Furness Railway did hire in wagons due to the explosion of ore traffic to local ironworks during the Great War, but we are uncertain about whether it happened in the first six or seven years of the 20th century.  

 

In case anyone is worried about copyright, this is a scan of a promotional leaflet for the mine produced in 1907; the scan is part of the collection of Ron Allison of the Cumbrian Railways Association who has given full permission for this to be used here.  

 

So, if anyone recognises that oval plate, or has any other ideas, I'd love to hear from you. 

 

All the best

 

Neil 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by WFPettigrew
Reinstating photo, spelling

[wagonman]

I cannot give any info on this wagon – it's way out of my territory – but the Wigan Coal & Iron Co wagons used to sport a large oval plate a bit like that.

 

Richard

[WFPettigrew]

Thanks Richard.

 

That's a new one on me - I only remember seeing Wigan Coal and Iron Co wagons with a livery that included a five pointed star at either end of the side panels - for example as per the 4mm model by Oxford Rail.  

 

I have checked in the Watts book on the Ince Waggonworks, which has two pages on the Wigan Coal and Iron Co.  Again, two variants of the star livery is all that's shown. But at the end of the article there is reference to some of the wagons, in the 1920s at least, being from the North Central Wagon Finance.    I cannot find anything online about this latter company in terms of whether they leased out wagons (nothing on the Lightmoor index either) and whether if so they had oval plates on them?

 

One interesting possible link or red herring - one of the other iron ore mines in Lindal (Bercune No. 2) was operated by the Wigan Coal and Iron Co from 1878 to 1902 before being taken over by Harrison Ainslie and Co, who were the operator of B30 pit where this picture was taken.  The two Bercune pits and B30 were over a mile apart and in different Royalties, so this may just be a coincidence.  

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[Penlan]

Annoyingly, I've seen these oval plates on a some wagons, in the past, and I cannot find the photo's to check them out.   I shall keep searching.   
The tare weight looks to be newly painted on and the far spring seems to partly outside the solebar.
The operative seems to be confident nobody's going to open the bottom door(s). 
 

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, WFPettigrew said:

I wonder if I might pick the collective brains and wisdom on here please?  (I know you've "done" PO wagons in the past... but do please boot me out into the Pre-Grouping forum if needed.)

 

This sort of thing is very welcome here.

 

It's clearly rather an old, short wagon. The buffer guides look rather fat, suggesting these are self-contained buffers (with a coil spring), which in turn suggests it may be a conversion from dumb buffers? 

 

There seems to be some evidence that cast ownership plates on the body side were at one time a "thing" although maybe chiefly in the Wigan area! But 19th century PO wagon liveries were on the whole rather more restrained than they later became, with lettering maybe only one or at most two planks high - there are plenty of exceptions, of course.

 

You're obviously already in contact with (a member of?) the Cumbrian Railways Association. There was an article about hopper wagons arising out of a photo of Lindall Bank. I'm not a member but I was shown the photo via a PM - it's Cumbrian Railways Vol. 13 No. 11 August 2021 and having dug it out I see its by Ron Allison, so we may be going in circles...

[Compound2632]

I spent a jolly day at Kew going through RAIL 491/172 M.R. Locomotive Committee Minute Book No. 6 - covering the period 1867-1870. Thomas Clayton's appointment as Carriage & Wagon Superintendent in 1873 coincided with the setting up of a Carriage & Wagon Committee; prior to this, wagon affairs were covered by the Locomotive Committee. I was trawling for wagon information of course - Kirtley provided the committee with monthly returns of wagons renewed in the company's workshops, plus the committee was responsible for receiving tenders for additional stock requested by the Traffic Committee, prior to formal approval by the Chairman's Committee. Substantial orders were being placed with the wagon firms - the list of firms tendering to build 2,000 low side wagons is pretty much a guide to the industry at the time! 

 

This prompts the reflection that Thomas Clayton can't have been a very popular person with the wagon building firms. In the 1870s he oversaw the building of the carriage & wagon works at Swindon and then at Derby; by taking wagon production in-house he was party to depriving the trade of the custom of two of the largest railways in the country. Then in the 1880s he was Chair of the RCH Wagon Superintendents Committee, responsible for imposing on the wagon builders the system of standards, inspection, and registration, which must have put up their costs.

 

Anyway, I felt sorry for Mr Harland, whom I assume was a junior in Kirtley's office. in the spring of 1869 the Committee got exercised about the number of missing wagons - out of a total of 16,538 wagons 88 had not been seen within the previous two years. This was at a period when the number of repairs was running at around 22,000 per year; i.e. on average, a given wagon was seen in one of the company's wagon repair shops once every nine months. Kirtley explained that of these, 36 were wagons that had been built in 1866 so might reasonably be expected not to have needed repair within their first couple of years in service. At the next meeting he'd whittled the missing list down to twenty wagons. (Giving their numbers - at which of course my ears pricked up!) Two cattle wagons, two covered goods wagons, eleven low side goods wagons, four timber trucks, and a ballast wagon. Then Harland was given the unenviable task of reporting to the committee on the tracking down of these vehicles - eight in April, three in May, four in June, and, in obedience to the law of diminishing returns, one in July and none in August. at that point the Committee lost interest - or rather, turned its attention to missing carriages, of which there were a handful. So the fate of low side wagons Nos. 2233 and 6224 and of timber truck No. 8613 was perhaps never known.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Compound2632

[WFPettigrew]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

This sort of thing is very welcome here.

 

It's clearly rather an old, short wagon. The buffer guides look rather fat, suggesting these are self-contained buffers (with a coil spring), which in turn suggests it may be a conversion from dumb buffers? 

 

There seems to be some evidence that cast ownership plates on the body side were at one time a "thing" although maybe chiefly in the Wigan area! But 19th century PO wagon liveries were on the whole rather more restrained than they later became, with lettering maybe only one or at most two planks high - there are plenty of exceptions, of course.

 

You're obviously already in contact with (a member of?) the Cumbrian Railways Association. There was an article about hopper wagons arising out of a photo of Lindall Bank. I'm not a member but I was shown the photo via a PM - it's Cumbrian Railways Vol. 13 No. 11 August 2021 and having dug it out I see its by Ron Allison, so we may be going in circles...

 

Thanks Stephen.  Yes it's at best an RCH 1887 wagon, none of this 20th century oversized stuff here!   I'd spotted the likely self-contained buffers - and that prompts a question.  When such buffers were fitted on a dumb buffer conversion, were they simply fitted to the base of the dumb buffers after the latter were cut off, or was a conventional full width headstock fitted?

 

And yes I am a CRA member - and yes the Lindal ore depot photos and article were a treasure trove.  I presume you spotted what I am fairly sure are the numerous D299s in the background?  

I have been helping/hindering Ron a bit with some of his research towards his hoped-for book on FR wagons.  This photo is a fairly well-known one, and we have been trying to tie down the provenance of that wagon - hence the posting here. 

 

I have now gone through the entire Ince book, and there's not a single photo of a wagon with an oval plate in there, and given its location in Wigan, often supplying local collieries etc., I don't feel that has taken me any further forward!

 

Hoping Penlan will remember where he saw them.....?!

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[airnimal]

I have made a S7 model of a Wigan coal and iron Co wagon with a cast plate. This plate looks bigger than the one in the photograph taken at the Lindale Moor mine. The model was made from a drawing in a book of drawings in Coal Trade Wagons by Len Tavender and a photograph from the Gloucester wagon collection. I have made several other wagons from the Wigan area with cast plates

[WFPettigrew]

2 minutes ago, airnimal said:

I have made a S7 model of a Wigan coal and iron Co wagon with a cast plate. This plate looks bigger than the one in the photograph taken at the Lindale Moor mine. The model was made from a drawing in a book of drawings in Coal Trade Wagons by Len Tavender and a photograph from the Gloucester wagon collection. I have made several other wagons from the Wigan area with cast plates.

 

Aha, thank you for proving the WC&ICo did use cast plates!   Though I agree that your rendition (which I know from your thread will be meticulously researched and accurately modelled) looks bigger than the mystery wagon (as well as it being on the left hand not right hand end).

 

All the best

 

Neil 

 

 

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

I'd spotted the likely self-contained buffers - and that prompts a question.  When such buffers were fitted on a dumb buffer conversion, were they simply fitted to the base of the dumb buffers after the latter were cut off, or was a conventional full width headstock fitted?

 

I think usually a full-width headstock was fitted, so the solebars would have been cut back not just to the length of the wagon body but 22" - 24" shorter. I think in general a full-width headstock was needed as the self-contained buffers had a rectangular base in "landscape" orientation in order to have somewhere for the securing bolts to go.

 

It would involve rather drastic reconstruction of the frames to install the usual transverse buffing spring.

 

17 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

I have been helping/hindering Ron a bit with some of his research towards his hoped-for book on FR wagons. 

 

That will be a welcome publication. Many years ago I bought the softback volume on Furness rolling stock by F.W. Rush but I have learned to treat all his works with caution. (I have no doubt he meant well and was limited by the publishing constraints of his day.)

 

25 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

the Lindal ore depot photos and article were a treasure trove.  I presume you spotted what I am fairly sure are the numerous D299s in the background?  

 

Yes, the little blighters get everywhere. in this case, mixed in with Monckton Colliery wagons; also Old Silkstone in the foreground - which I'm pretty sure indicates that they're in coal traffic from the Yorkshire coalfield via Carnforth. 

 

22 minutes ago, airnimal said:

I have made a S7 model of a Wigan coal and iron Co wagon with a cast plate. This plate looks bigger than the one in the photograph taken at the Lindale Moor mine. The model was made from a drawing in a book of drawings in Coal Trade Wagons by Len Tavender and a photograph from the Gloucester wagon collection. I have made several other wagons from the Wigan area with cast plates

 

It was your wagons, Mike, I had in mind, and had been thumbing through Tavender's book before I was called away to dinner!

[WFPettigrew]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I think usually a full-width headstock was fitted, so the solebars would have been cut back not just to the length of the wagon body but 22" - 24" shorter. I think in general a full-width headstock was needed as the self-contained buffers had a rectangular base in "landscape" orientation in order to have somewhere for the securing bolts to go.

 

It would involve rather drastic reconstruction of the frames to install the usual transverse buffing spring.

 

Thanks.  I was aware of the need for the self-contained buffers because any surgery to the frames to fit in the buffing spring would severely weaken them, but wasn't sure if the dumb buffers were simply cut back to the existing partial width headstock or not. 

 

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

That will be a welcome publication. Many years ago I bought the softback volume on Furness rolling stock by F.W. Rush but I have learned to treat all his works with caution. (I have no doubt he meant well and was limited by the publishing constraints of his day.)

 

Bob Rush did have the disadvantage of researching before the age of the internet.  However he had the advantage that some who had remembered and worked on the FR (etc) were still alive.  The trouble with this is the accuracy of memories and this may explain some of the random "facts".  Plus his drawings are generally based on British Railways diagrams for ex Furness stock, which were likely based on the diagram sketches produced by the FR in its dying days so the LMS knew what they were getting (and some of these really were just sketches that a 7 year old could knock up).  Sadly the FR's drawing office records have not survived.  I will admit a good dollop of jealously when I look at what you have access to Stephen from the Midland...!!  And we know now to only take the FR diagram drawings as an indication - of course what we really need are good quality photos, and the Furness didn't have an in-house photography department like say the LNWR had.  Yes they did have a retained professional photography company in Sankeys, and the imminent release of the full Sankey collection onto the internet does hold out some hope that more can be learned from the back corners of some of these images.

 

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Yes, the little blighters get everywhere. in this case, mixed in with Monckton Colliery wagons; also Old Silkstone in the foreground - which I'm pretty sure indicates that they're in coal traffic from the Yorkshire coalfield via Carnforth. 

 

Ha, you see, reading all squillion pages of this thread has been good for my education, glad those are indeed D299s!  South Cumbria had a particular preference for South Yorkshire coal for domestic use as well as industrial, despite then being (mostly) in Lancashire and with the West Cumberland mines much closer still, so it's no surprise to see Yorkshire colliery wagons.

 

Without wanting to go down a rabbit hole discussing a photo that few others will have seen, what do you make of the furthest wagons, on the siding behind and beyond the D299s and the FR brakevan?

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[airnimal]

Looking through my letters and notes from Tony Watts who wrote the book on Ince Wagons was a photocopy of a photograph from Scot Lane Colliery with a similar plate to the one Lindal Moor. 

This is slightly smaller being only one plank wide but in the same position.  If I have breached copyright by putting it on here I will remove it. 

Interesting it do show that some wagons built in Wigan have the coach bolts on the outside with the hexagonal nuts on the inside, some with large washers. 

 

A couple more examples of wagons with cast plates. There are two more from the same colliery I have numbers for with plates including one with the plate on the door which would have made closing the door very difficult because of the extra weight.

[WFPettigrew]

36 minutes ago, airnimal said:

Looking through my letters and notes from Tony Watts who wrote the book on Ince Wagons was a photocopy of a photograph from Scot Lane Colliery with a similar plate to the one Lindal Moor. 

This is slightly smaller being only one plank wide but in the same position.  If I have breached copyright by putting it on here I will remove it. 

Interesting it do show that some wagons built in Wigan have the coach bolts on the outside with the hexagonal nuts on the inside, some with large washers. 

 

Thank you again!  I agree this plate is too small (and the wagon doesn't and wouldn't have the hoppering as a coal wagon) but I do think this adds significant weight to the idea that the Lindal Moor wagon could have been owned by a Wigan company.

 

And yes - here is the exception to prove the rule that coal wagons were smooth on the insides to make it easier to unload them!

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, WFPettigrew said:

Ha, you see, reading all squillion pages of this thread has been good for my education, glad those are indeed D299s! 

 

Well, I don't absolutely guarantee that there isn't the odd D351 in the mix - the end-door version.

 

2 hours ago, WFPettigrew said:

Without wanting to go down a rabbit hole discussing a photo that few others will have seen, what do you make of the furthest wagons, on the siding behind and beyond the D299s and the FR brakevan?

 

They're low sided (in Midland speak, i.e 2- or 3-plank, around 1'9" sides) and with a pale load, the article suggest metalurgical coke as an alternative to the obvious guess of limestone. We're up against pixellation here, even on the enlargement - which I suspect is due to the resolution of the scanning; a good large print from the original negative would probably reveal more - photographic plates, and even good-quality film - have a resolution as good as the best CCDs and over a much greater area. I was shown a trick to get at the detail in a large print, essentially using a smartphone camera as a digital magnifying glass; not having a smartphone myself I've not had the opportunity to experiment with this. Anyway, the impression I get is that there is too much ironwork at 1/3 and 2/3 along the wagon for these to be dropside wagons; I think they have a central door. From Rush's book I see the Furness had such things; he gives a sketch of Diagram 4, of which there were only 100 built in 1899 according to his listing so perhaps Diagram 3, built 1884-90, which at 1,356 vehicles seems to be by some margin the commonest type of Furness wagon. I note the date of the photo is thought to be c. 1920, or at least, between 1903 and 1912.

 

1 hour ago, WFPettigrew said:

I agree this plate is too small (and the wagon doesn't and wouldn't have the hoppering as a coal wagon) but I do think this adds significant weight to the idea that the Lindal Moor wagon could have been owned by a Wigan company.

 

There were oval owner's plates, usually fixed to the solebar, which I think may have been an RCH standard design, usually used on wagons owned by the operator - the wagon hirers had their own designs such as Gloucester's elongated G or Birmingham's plate that with its scalloped edge looks like a squashed beer-bottle lid - as seen here. The oval owner's plate can be seen on this Stockingford Colliery wagon. 

[WFPettigrew]

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Well, I don't absolutely guarantee that there isn't the odd D351 in the mix - the end-door version.

 

Fair point!

 

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

They're low sided (in Midland speak, i.e 2- or 3-plank, around 1'9" sides) and with a pale load, the article suggest metalurgical coke as an alternative to the obvious guess of limestone. We're up against pixellation here, even on the enlargement - which I suspect is due to the resolution of the scanning; a good large print from the original negative would probably reveal more - photographic plates, and even good-quality film - have a resolution as good as the best CCDs and over a much greater area. I was shown a trick to get at the detail in a large print, essentially using a smartphone camera as a digital magnifying glass; not having a smartphone myself I've not had the opportunity to experiment with this. Anyway, the impression I get is that there is too much ironwork at 1/3 and 2/3 along the wagon for these to be dropside wagons; I think they have a central door. From Rush's book I see the Furness had such things; he gives a sketch of Diagram 4, of which there were only 100 built in 1899 according to his listing so perhaps Diagram 3, built 1884-90, which at 1,356 vehicles seems to be by some margin the commonest type of Furness wagon. I note the date of the photo is thought to be c. 1920, or at least, between 1903 and 1912.

 

Ah, this is one of the cans of worms with Mr Rush! The diagram numbers he quotes, and indeed those of the British Railways list, bear little resemblance to the FR/LMS ones.  Now, as I mentioned earlier, these diagrams are all an artificial construct rather than something that the FR would have used in day to day parlance when ordering up wagons to a particular goods yard for example, but it does get confusing - so one system has to be chosen above the other.  Generally the FR/LMS diagram numbers are preferred by FR historians, being closer to the original. 

 

Yes the FR had a lot of 2 plank wagons - they were ideal for carrying both the slate that was one of the founding traffics on the railway that led to its creation in 1846 (along with iron ore), and they were also used for pig iron.  They were also ideal for stone.  Loaded with slate they would have been seen across the country: half the output of the Kirkby in Furness slate quarry went to Lancashire and Yorkshire, one quarter to Scotland, and the rest locally and further afield.   

 

Apart from the 10 FR Dia 7 (Rush 6) with a long (i.e. full length) side door that were picked up in 1906, the rest were all 19th century.  

 

Of these, FR Dia 10 (Rush 4 and numbering 100) and FR Dia 14 (Rush 2 and numbering 695) were unusual and possibly unique amongst pre-grouping railways in having central side doors.  I think you're right Stephen that the wagons depicted do have side doors so would be one of the above diagrams (but not that they would therefore be Rush D3 - see below).   It's very difficult to definitively tell Dia 10 and Dia 14 apart at distance: the Dia 10 was 15' over headstocks with 9' wheelbase, the Dia 14 was 17'5" long with a 9'6" wheelbase.  (I might lean towards those in that photo being D10s as they look fairly short but at that angle and distance who can really tell with certainty?)

Next up were the really plentiful type, the Dia 15 (Rush D3 numbering 1356 as you say) which were fast side wagons with no door, so not those in the Lindal photo.  And finally there were the Dia 16 (Rush D5 numbering 30) which had a full length side door. 

 

 

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

There were oval owner's plates, usually fixed to the solebar, which I think may have been an RCH standard design, usually used on wagons owned by the operator - the wagon hirers had their own designs such as Gloucester's elongated G or Birmingham's plate that with its scalloped edge looks like a squashed beer-bottle lid - as seen here. The oval owner's plate can be seen on this Stockingford Colliery wagon. 

 

Yes, going back to the Lindal B30 mystery wagon, something like the Birmingham RCW wagon is what I am thinking -  a wagon hirer that affixed such a plate to the wagon to mark its ownership.  As you say, so often things like running number plates, PO wagon registration plates, builders plates, etc. went on the solebar, but putting it on the side would perhaps have more clearly marked it as leased?  It's just finding out who went for oval plate only, left hand side, no signwriting - or whether actually this is all a blind alley and there is another explanation?!

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

On 10/03/2022 at 13:24, WFPettigrew said:

Of these, FR Dia 10 (Rush 4 and numbering 100) and FR Dia 14 (Rush 2 and numbering 695) were unusual and possibly unique amongst pre-grouping railways in having central side doors. 

 

They had company; whether good company is not for me to say:

 

 

On 10/03/2022 at 13:24, WFPettigrew said:

  It's just finding out who went for oval plate only, left hand side, no signwriting - or whether actually this is all a blind alley and there is another explanation?!

 

There are Private Owner wagons for which both photos and ordering &c information exist, ones glimpsed in photographs for which there is no other information, and ones for which there is pare evidence of their existence but no idea of what they looked like. Any success in marrying up the latter two categories has to be counted as a minor triumph!

Edited October 5, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

They had company; whether good company is not for me to say:

 

Now now, don't be like that Stephen.  Lovely model by the way.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Lovely model by the way.

 

I really ought to finish it and its Saltney siblings.

[billbedford]

On 09/03/2022 at 12:27, WFPettigrew said:

The wagon has both side doors and hoppering (which suggests but doesn't guarantee a bottom door - however there are visible what could be one of the "monkey tails" used to open such a door, just below the solebar).   

 

It looks like the normal unloading of these wagons was by bottom doors, since the FR wagon in the background has no side doors. 

 

Also I suspect the load is iron ore rather than coal. Ore is denser than coal so the hoppering would reduce the volume the wagon could carry while still being able to be loaded to its normal weight.