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

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

Are you able to share these Stephen as this could be helpful?

 

I'm afraid I did not take a photograph. For RAIL 1080/386 i have simply been abstracting meeting titles, dates, and subjects, with occasional note on items of interest. On a future visit to TNA a plan to move on to do the same for RAIL 1080/387, which covers 1902-1909. These volumes are Railway Clearing House Minutes and Reports of the Committee of Locomotive Engineers and Carriage and Wagon Superintendents.

[Andy Vincent]

3 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

My effort at redrawing a Cambrian official (for the forthcoming Cambrian drawings book):

 

 

No bevel gears, fortunately.

Jonathan

This drawing also demonstrates the mixture of nuts in use. Square nuts with washers and hex nuts without seem to be used deliberately but without any obvious explanation of which type is used when. The Gloucester wagons exhibit something of the same trait although hex nuts seem to more often occur on selected underframe components with square on the body.

 

The only explanation I have seen for the change from square to hex was that square nuts had a larger area so were more secure when hand tightened. Hex bolts became more common with the advent of power tools where the nut could be tightened with more force and so provided similar security with less area. A similar argument is that square nuts are held by a spanner much better than hex.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Andy Vincent
Removed spurious cut/paste bit about cup head bolts!

[magmouse]

48 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

How does he do that when the veranda is at the trailing end?

 

Lean out? It's still a better view than when inside. This all begs the question - how does the guard know when to apply/remove the brake? From a position of almost complete ignorance, I would hazard:

1. route knowledge - e.g. gradients that require a brake application
2. observation of the train's behaviour
3. signals from the engine crew

All of which could be done more easily from the verandah. Oh, and where they called verandahs, or this that a railway modellers' term?

 

53 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

My understanding is that they used the term "station truck", this being a (covered) goods wagon included in the daily stopping goods train, used for all the "small" traffic. 

 

Yes - station trucks and pick-up trucks, described in detail by Tony Atkins in "GWR Goods Services", volume 2A. Generally, these were ordinary covered goods wagons - Minks.

 

56 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Of these, 50 were given through vacuum pipes and screw couplings, so the could be worked in slow passenger trains.

 

The GWR built a few iron minks as fitted, for the same purpose, though this seems not to have caught on. The are described by Lewis et al in "All About GWR Iron Minks", and I am wrestling with a model version, the build process of which seems to be a living demonstration of Zeno's paradox. Every time I think I have finished something, I realise there is some other task required I was previously unaware of...

 

 

Nick.

[kitpw]

@Compound2632's photo of the Headstone Viaduct (built 1863) in Monsal Dale reminded me of what art historian Ruskin famously said about it: “there was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time, divine as the Vale of Tempe. The valley is gone, and the gods with it, and now every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton”.  The viaduct seems to have temporary centering in the end arch and some pins adjacent to the crown.  Now part of a "trail", it is not the gods that have gone but the goods.

 

 

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, kitpw said:

The viaduct seems to have temporary centering in the end arch and some pins adjacent to the crown.  

 

There was some previous discussion upthread, I think, where this maintenance work helped date the photograph.

 

For your amusement, a piece of late-Victorian photoshoppery:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of MRSC 67816, catalogued as: COPY POSTCARD / PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE JOHN ALSOP COLLECTION
MR07 - 130 - 4-2-2 - Monsal Dale, Derbys. - Monsal Dale [fake] - Photochrom 38788.]

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

This all begs the question - how does the guard know when to apply/remove the brake? From a position of almost complete ignorance, I would hazard:

1. route knowledge - e.g. gradients that require a brake application
2. observation of the train's behaviour
3. signals from the engine crew

 

That is my understanding. But remember on many lines this was all being done by a guard in a fully-enclosed van, with just end windows - Kirtley's vans on the Midland and the L&Y Tin Tab brakes are classic examples. Also, brake vans were not turned* so half the time the veranda(h) was at the trailing end, on the Midland until R.W. Reid hit on the idea of putting a veranda(h) at both ends.

 

*Notwithstanding the vociferous opinion of some GW enthusiasts.

 

On the other hand, Kirtley's design of fully-enclosed goods break evidently dates from after 1866, on the evidence of Traffic Committee minute 13800 of 3 April 1866:

 

Goods Guards Breaks.

                              It having been pointed out that the present mode of constructing the Goods Guards Breaks renders it necessary for the Guards to be much exposed to the Weather;

                              Resolved that the Locomotive Committee be requested to carry an awning over the exposed parts of the Breaks as the latter come into the Shops for repairs.

 

Midland Wagons Vol. 2, Fig, 178 and Plate 353, illustrate a break van built for the Spalding & Bourne Railway* (a Midland protectorate) "of a type similar to that built for the Midland Railway Company by the Metropolitan Carriage and Wagon Company in 1865." (Metropolitan's tender for twenty goods breaks was accepted on 31 October 1865, beating off cometition from Brown Marshalls, Lancaster, and Bray Waddington, according to Locomotive Committee minute 5071.) This is of the Noah's Ark type, with an open veranda(h) at each end and a cabin 7 ft long in the middle, with only a window in the door ate each end for light.

 

I don't believe there is any evidence for what form the "awning" took. Locomotive Committee minute 5256 of 15 May 1866 records the resolution that "Six Goods Guards Breaks be partially covered in as a protection from the weather, for the guards." At the end of 1865, the Midland had 225 goods break vans.

 

*In his Saltney book, Tony Wood tentatively misidentifies this as a Shrewsbury & Birmingham Railway brake, on the basis of an old Model Railway News sketch, though he notes that it is there captioned as a Metropolitan van of 1865 for the Midland.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Compound2632
typo.

[kitpw]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

For your amusement, a piece of late-Victorian photoshoppery

....thankyou. Wonderful! I shall treasure it.  😄

 

 

 

 

[WFPettigrew]

3 hours ago, magmouse said:

• route knowledge - e.g. gradients that require a brake application
• observation of the train's behaviour
• signals from the engine crew

Yes all of the above, and observing the signals (the things on posts not the whistles or gestures from the footplate as above!). 

 

 

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, WFPettigrew said:

Yes all of the above, and observing the signals (the things on posts not the whistles or gestures from the footplate as above!). 

 

The accident reports are often our best source of information on how the job was done. Here's an extract from Goods Guard Arthur Quimby's evidence to Maj. Pringle at his enquiry into the accident at Peckwash on 8 December 1900:

 

[Asterix2012]

On 01/05/2023 at 21:11, Chas Levin said:

Ohhhhh - wait a minute: do you mean takc-soldering the pieces side by side, to form a sort of very wide strip? for some reason, I pictured you soldering the strips on top of each other and then trying to bend the stack.

 

I may have been being very slow here... sorry! 🙄

That’s exactly what I was thinking Chas

 

The side by side version 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Asterix2012

[billbedford]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

How does he do that when the veranda is at the trailing end?

 

 

Especially as the windows at the other end always seemed filthy. 

[Chas Levin]

12 hours ago, Asterix2012 said:

That’s exactly what I was thinking Chas

 

The side by side version 

Thanks for clarifying: I can't think how I misunderstood, but now I realise what you mean, it seems like a very good solution to any sort of mass-production of rails, supports etc. I'm looking forward to trying this out!

[Pete Haitch]

 

This link https://pocketmags.com/model-rail-magazine/december-2018# is to a magazine article giving a little history of Great Western road vans and instruction for 'creating' one.

Under fair use provision I've included the first page of the article, as this allows an assessment of its relevance without giving away any of the main content.  My copy cost me £3.99 as a digital download from Pocketmags.

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Pete Haitch said:

Under fair use provision I've included the first page of the article, as this allows an assessment of its relevance without giving away any of the main content.  

 

I see one is mentioned as allocated to the Kington Branch, which is right up @MrWolf's street; indeed I believe he is on the case, or at least, has the intention.

[Pete Haitch]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I see one is mentioned as allocated to the Kington Branch, which is right up @MrWolf's street; indeed I believe he is on the case, or at least, has the intention.

Guilty - I provided him with the link to this article.

[MrWolf]

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I see one is mentioned as allocated to the Kington Branch, which is right up @MrWolf's street; indeed I believe he is on the case, or at least, has the intention.

 

Somewhere between the two!

As I have outsourced the task of dismantling and boxing up no less than five Oxford Rail GWR Toads of various diagrams to the Memsahib, (She likes dismantling things and is less apt to use force before tenacity than I.) I will be reminded of their current condition until I have a mad fit of batch reconstruction to deal with the factory faults and converting one example into a road van.

Now that the Pooley CC2 is complete, I have a window to finish the A30 autotrailer and the 517 before starting on them. 

This plan is likely to be interrupted by the already advanced progress that @chuffinghell and I are making on the Signal Department CC7.

But it will be happening soon!

 

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by MrWolf
Miscellaneous idiocy.

[corneliuslundie]

That's interesting. I didn't realise that the GWR had later road vans. Here is the one I built based on a John Lewis article in BRJ and a photo of one at Abermule:

 

Jonathan 

[Dave John]

From that model rail article, " largely confined to the south and west of England" 

 

So I won't mention the Caledonian D104 road vans built 1912 for the Callander and Oban section. 

 

Ref : Caledonian Railway Wagons, Mike Williams,  p 251

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Dave John said:

From that model rail article, " largely confined to the south and west of England" 

 

I think the author meant, GWR ones on the GWR. One has to exercise tolerance and patience with the devotees of Swindon.

[MrWolf]

3 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

That's interesting. I didn't realise that the GWR had later road vans. Here is the one I built based on a John Lewis article in BRJ and a photo of one at Abermule:

 

Jonathan 

 

I remember that too. The donor vehicle is now very hard to find and even harder to pay for though. I have one which has tried my patience somewhat, having been supplied new and sealed with two lefthand sides!

It's not like I can give D&S a quick call for a replacement part! 😄

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I remember that too. The donor vehicle is now very hard to find and even harder to pay for though. I have one which has tried my patience somewhat, having been supplied new and sealed with two lefthand sides!

It's not like I can give D&S a quick call for a replacement part! 😄

 

Someone, somewhere, is being equally tried by a kit with two righthand sides...

 

Danny Pinnock is still active, I understand, and might know who or even have had that kit returned to him.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Compound2632

[corneliuslundie]

I have one of Dan Pinnock's but that one was scratch built.

Jonathan

[MrWolf]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Someone, somewhere, is being equally tried by a kit with two righthand sides...

 

Danny Pinnock is still active, I understand, and might know who or even have had that kit returned to him.

 

I had a mad fit of modification and turned the side around. It was a case of trying to do something with it or pay something like £50-80 for another. So as I paid £10 for it out of a junk box at an exhibition, I figured that I had nothing to lose.

[Pete Haitch]

On 04/05/2023 at 19:14, corneliuslundie said:

That's interesting. I didn't realise that the GWR had later road vans. Here is the one I built based on a John Lewis article in BRJ and a photo of one at Abermule:

 

Jonathan 

 

Can you recall which issue of BRJ it was in please? One of the original kits (built) sold yesterday for £45.00. A bargain compared to what some have gone for recently, but more than I was prepared to pay.

[Compound2632]

37 minutes ago, Pete Haitch said:

Can you recall which issue of BRJ it was in please? 

 

This index: https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/brji/index.php?s=John Lewis&t=authors

gives No. 17 (1987).