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

[Compound2632]

11 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

I think it shows that accountants have not changed in around 150 years.  

 

No concept of experimental uncertainty!

 

10 hours ago, Regularity said:

Nepotism.

Another “virtue” of the Victorian era…

 

A tight-knit community of railway engineers; knowing each other gave confidence in each one knowing the job. In their shoes, how would you select your premium apprentices?

 

As the 19th century progressed, it ceased to be possible to keep it all in the family. You started to get university graduates or, worse, the chairman's son (Cecil Paget) foisted on you...

[Crimson Rambler]

It wasn't just wagons that could be lost - E L Ahrons described how one of the revenue-consuming devices was lost for a while:-

 

Crimson Rambler

[Compound2632]

boots or other "perishables" - classic Ahrons.

[WFPettigrew]

And who else in railway literature would write "The Northampton locomotive people had a good deal of frail human nature embodied in their make-up"...?!

Edited April 28, 2022 by WFPettigrew
Typo

[Regularity]

5 hours ago, WFPettigrew said:

And who else in railway literature would write "The Northampton locomotive people had a good deal of frail human nature embodied in their make-up"...?!

It’s certainly a novel way to describe the “lugubrious bloody-mindedness” that characterised the town and people of my birth, and which I have inherited - whether by nature or nurture, I know not and care even less!

[phil_sutters]

47 minutes ago, Regularity said:

It’s certainly a novel way to describe the “lugubrious bloody-mindedness” that characterised the town and people of my birth, and which I have inherited - whether by nature or nurture, I know not and care even less!

I was born in Northampton and one of my five or six times great uncles was Dick Turpin, who also had a rather poor attitude to the transport of the day. Mind you he was from Essex. So that line of thought falls apart a bit.

[Compound2632]

One more from RAIL 491/251:

 

C&W Committee Minute 842 of 30 April 1878

 

Construction of Goods Wagons

                             

Read letter from Mr Williams dated April 26th 1878 enclosing copies of Railway Clearing House Goods Managers Conference Minute 1601 of 7th February to the effect that the interior of goods wagons be so constructed that there shall be no projections such as nuts or bolt heads &c from the sides or floor likely to cause damage to goods.

[Mikkel]

32 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

there shall be no projections such as nuts or bolt heads &c from the sides or floor likely to cause damage to goods.

 

Goods. Never mind the men.

[Nick Holliday]

Regarding missing wagons, although slightly off-topic, I came across an interesting story in a strange book entitled "My Fifty-One Years at Euston", an auto-hagiography of R Carrington Willis, in which, in his story of rising from a humble clerk checking used tickets in the audit office, to becoming Registrar of the LNWR and the nascent LMSR, he comes across as having the wisdom of King Solomon, the empathy of Mother Teresa and the powers of Superman to put right evils, so the following may be slightly apocryphal:-

A large iron works in the North owed the LNWR a lot of money, and it was rumoured that it was about to fail. As clerk in charge of Bad Debts, RCW was instructed to sort the matter out. There was a trainload of iron in the railway's "possession" which they could seize in compensation,  but the necessary agreement had gone missing. The company solicitor advised that they could not seize the iron without this document, and would suffer a great loss as a result. RCW then suggested "That is so, unless you lose the iron." He then went on, "If it is lost, a claim will be made and under the bankruptcy practice I am bound to set off claims in contra." Apparently the hint was taken, and a whole train of wagons mysteriously disappeared, and many months afterwards was found some hundreds of miles away.  A colleague later remembered talk about a missing train, which may have confirmed the veracity of this tale.

It all sounds a little improbable to me, and slightly fraudulent, but they were different days I suppose. I wonder if a descendant of RCW gave Jimmy Carr tax advice too!

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

Regarding missing wagons,

 

A monthly standing item in the MR C&W Committee Minutes is a return of private owner  wagons standing in the Company's sidings for over 14 days, typically a hundred or so. There's also an occasional thread of minutes about the wagons of some particular owner, which I'm afraid I haven't transcribed or read in detail, so I'm not certain of the circumstances. It's unclear what the cause of standing wagons is, possibly lack of instructions from the owners.  

 

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Goods. Never mind the men.

 

The Minutes record accidents to the men, both fatal or injurious. Again, I've not transcribed or read these in detail but it would appear that as far as the Company was concerned, accidents were invariably the mens' fault, either through unsafe working practices (contrary to the rules) or plain inattention. In many cases, a gratuity was paid to the widow, or to the man if his injury was permanent and prevented him from working. In one case of loss of a leg, the gratuity was £5. (About £640 in today's money.)

 

A tour of inspection by the senior pay clerk is recorded. He ascertained that all those men on the C&W Dept payroll at stations and yards were at work, except six who were off sick, and he confirmed that those six were not being paid.

[Penlan]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

...... The Minutes record accidents to the men, both fatal or injurious. ........ it would appear that as far as the Company was concerned, accidents were invariably the mens' fault, either through unsafe working practices (contrary to the rules) or plain inattention.

When I was working in China in the mid 1990's, there were almost daily mentions in the national English Language China Daily (I think that was what it was/is called) of workmen falling off scaffolding etc., say 20 storey's high and being killed or seriously injured, invariable it was the workmen's faults as they were not wearing safety helmets, etc., no compensation.  Some of the working practices were............

[wagonman]

On 28/04/2022 at 16:12, Compound2632 said:

boots or other "perishables" - classic Ahrons.

 

A forerunner of Sam Vimes perhaps?

Edited April 29, 2022 by wagonman

[jamie92208]

21 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

I was born in Northampton and one of my five or six times great uncles was Dick Turpin, who also had a rather poor attitude to the transport of the day. Mind you he was from Essex. So that line of thought falls apart a bit.

His trip to Yorkshire didn't end well though.

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

His trip to Yorkshire didn't end well though.

 

His trip to the gallows will have been in a wagon of some sort, which keeps us on topic!

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

His trip to the gallows will have been in a wagon of some sort, which keeps us on topic!

D289: the vehicle of the doomed!

[phil_sutters]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

His trip to the gallows will have been in a wagon of some sort, which keeps us on topic!

It worried me a bit initially when we had to wear masks when boarding public transport. But then a pensioner's pass doesn't look much like a flintlock pistol.

[wagonman]

16 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

It worried me a bit initially when we had to wear masks when boarding public transport. But then a pensioner's pass doesn't look much like a flintlock pistol.

 

Even more worrying when you enter a bank wearing headgear and a mask – almost as good as a balaclava. I'm assuming people still do enter banks, though it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually find one.

[Crimson Rambler]

Glancing through the April 2007 issue of British Railway Modelling I came across an interesting article by Eric Sawford on dock tank engines. He also illustrated it using his own photographs.

 

I hope he doesn't mind me but appearing below is an extract of his view of 0-4-2T No. 68191 at Aberdeen in August 1955. I was taken by the presence of what I assume is a D302 wagon and its, to me at least, low number - I'm sure @Compound2632 will be able to tell us more:-

 

Over its four decades or so of life its planks have shrunk a bit widthwise while the securing of its capping strip has been modified.

 

Crimson Rambler

 

 

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Crimson Rambler said:

I'm sure @Compound2632 will be able to tell us more:-

 

Go on then.

 

It's D302 or D663A - I'm not sure there's really any good way to tell them apart except that some or all D663A had steel end stanchions. According to the diagrams, D663A was 1" wider and longer and 3" deeper, though I'm told the latter difference is not borne out by the drawings and both were in fact 3' 3" deep; I've not looked into this myself. So this wagon could have been built at any time in the last decade of the Midland's existence, or even in the first year of the LMS.

 

The original No. 9217 will have been built early in the second half of 1859; wagon stock (excluding brakes) was reported at 9,124 on 30 June that year. It was very probably a low side wagon - an ancestor of D305 - on the simple grounds that this was by a large margin the commonest type of wagon in the Kirtley era - around 80% of wagon stock. One could speculate that it was renewed as another low side wagon to one of the lots built in the 1880s, which would in turn have been renewed as the wagon in the photo - giving around a 28 year lifetime, which would be consistent with other information on merchandise wagon lifetimes.

 

However, my spreadsheet of numbers includes No. 9216, a crane match wagon illustrated in Plate 405 of Midland Wagons Vol. 2. This photo is either DY6603 or DY6604 according to the register, also MRSC 64015. Essery says this match wagon could be part of lot 467; I assume this is on the basis of being able to read the builder's plate on the original print as 1899, that lot having been entered in July that year. (Some of these prints are enormous - roughly A3 size - I saw a couple in this "crane" series on my last visit to the Study Centre, though not this particular one.) My spreadsheet also has No. 9237, a steam-heat-fitted D360 van, which could be from lot 462, 543, or 563 (built 1899 - 1903). The original No. 9237 would also have been built before the end of 1859. This suggests that some wagons of 1859 vintage lasted for 40 years. They may well have spent their declining years in Engineer's Department service as ballast wagons, or even as the rather shady "Dirt Wagons" that appear in the background of some official wagon portraits from the 1890s.

[Crimson Rambler]

@Compound2632have we lost a couple of entries?

 

The Matlock wagons seem to have disappeared!

 

 

Crimson Rambler

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, Crimson Rambler said:

@Compound2632have we lost a couple of entries?

 

The Matlock wagons seem to have disappeared!

 

 

Crimson Rambler

 

That is weird. Are they still in your "My Attachments"? Anyway, would you mind re-posting?

[Mikkel]

Hiccup yesterday, see: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/171078-rmweb-change-of-hosting-missing-images-april-2022/?do=findComment&comment=4804797

 

 

[Crimson Rambler]

Herewith please find the two Matlock photos again. Unfortunately I have no copy of what I originally posted.

 

 

 

I was interested in @Compound2632date of the mid- to late-eighties for these two views because based on the track I had concluded a very similar timeframe only differing in that it might possibly at a pinch have extended until say 1890/1. Its rather reassuring that approaching the question from another direction your conclusion agrees. 

 

Stephen you mentioned the three-plank sides/two-plank end combination appearing in the first photo preceeded drawing No 213 and the introduction of more usual low-sided wagons - I look forward to all being revealed in the next issue of the MRS Journal.

 

May I ask how long did the earlier design last - i.e. would I be correct in assuming some would still be reasonably common in the late 1890s/1900? If so it would make them suitable for my train set. Assuming that is the case do you know please if is there a decent drawing of this pre-No 213 design - either scanned or waiting to be scanned in the Study Centre?

Many thanks.

 

 

Crimson Rambler

 

 

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Crimson Rambler said:

May I ask how long did the earlier design last - i.e. would I be correct in assuming some would still be reasonably common in the late 1890s/1900? If so it would make them suitable for my train set. Assuming that is the case do you know please if is there a decent drawing of this pre-No 213 design - either scanned or waiting to be scanned in the Study Centre?

 

Thanks for re-posting these photos. I think you've reasonably summarised what I said in my missing reply. The article will summarise the available information and drawings. My understanding is that all material from the Kirtley era was destroyed on Cecil Paget's instructions towards the end of the first decade of the 20th century. (I got that nugget from another article in the Journal but can't recall the reference without a major hunt...) However, from one surviving sketch and information in a statement by Clayton in the C&W Cttee minutes, the basic dimensions are known. Some details - running and brake gear - can be gleaned from Metropolitan Railway Carriage & Wagon Co. drawings in the HMRS collection; these are for cattle wagons and timber trucks built in the late 1860s/early 1870s and are, I am reasonably confident, tracings of Derby drawings. I'm starting to think of making a drawing that would be good enough for a 4 mm scale model, though the brake lever and curved what-do-you-call-it present a challenge. I know @airnimal has done this from scratch in 7 mm scale!

 

The last wagons of this type were ordered in December 1872 - 3,000, equally divided between Gloucester, Oldbury, and S.J. Claye; the last of these were delivered in mid-1874. The last definite sightings of the type in photographs known to me are from c. 1894, as ballast wagons and as the "Dirt Wagons" seen in the background of some official portraits of new wagons. However, one can track both the numbers built and the numbers remaining in stock from the Loco and C&W Cttee minutes and the Returns of Working Stock in the half-yearly Reports and Accounts. I think one can say that the total in stock on completion of those last large orders was 19,250; at 31 December 1894, 12,905, and at 31 December 1894, 12,430. That indicates that over 20 years, nearly 7,000 were broken up, the majority in the first decade. From Clayton's accession up to 1888, something over 8,000 wagons were built to a larger design (Drgs. 10 and 213, copies of which exist) - there is some uncertainty in these totals since one has to make a bit of a guess as to exactly when renewals started to be built to the new design but the error is in the region of 100 wagons only. I think these numbers tie up; I haven't quite finished crunching the numbers but 3,000 of the Clayton wagons were built as additions to stock, leaving around 5,000 as renewals, the balance being low-side wagons renewed as high-side. There's also the question of wagons transferred to the duplicate stock; for the 19th century this is a very murky area. The first light comes from a December 1905 Valuation of Stock (in connection with a rates appeal!) which reveals 8,014 ordinary goods wagons and 1,301 coal wagons &c. in the duplicate stock. The latter could well be the last surviving bought-up PO wagons whilst the former could possibly include some Kirtley-era low side wagons. I need to do a bit more work on trying to link the various sources of information.

 

It is interesting to note, though, the number of special wagons - meat vans, motor car vans, and the like - with 4-digit numbers, built in the period 1904-14, roughly. Like open No. 9217, are these first (highly unlikely) or second-time-round renewals? The original of any wagon numbered below 10000 will have been built before 1862; the original  of any wagon numbered below 4000 is truly aboriginal, having been built before mid-1847. All of those and most built before about 1858 will have been renewed before the end of Kirtley's time, since over 8,000 wagons were built as renewals between 1847 and 1873. So it comes back to the question of whether a wagon of the 1860s would survive to the 20th century before being renewed, or would have been renewed once along the way. I'm inclined to think in most cases the latter but I'm only 30% of the way through the evidence!

 

There is a question over the capacity. The Kirtley-era low side wagons as built were of 6 ton capacity whilst the Clayton period wagons were of 8 ton capacity (although the lot list sows confusion and doubt). Although there must have been those 12,000+ Kirtley wagons in 1894, only 276 low side wagons were then recorded as being of 6 ton capacity. This suggests that there had been a considerable programme of upgrading, with new axleboxes and journals. Unfortunately in most photos show wagons in Engineers Department use, with canvas (or leather?) flaps over the axleboxes. Your Matlock photo shows the original axleboxes, which is another factor that says "80s not 90s" to me.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Compound2632
Infelicities smoothed out.

[Crimson Rambler]

Many thanks indeed @Compound2632for this comprehensive reply.

 

Looks like I shall have to contact the HMRS for some more drawings!

 

 

Crimson Rambler