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

[Compound2632]

On 04/03/2024 at 19:45, Andy Vincent said:

As an aside, at least for HMRS members, the internal LMS document that seems to have been the source for these drawings has surfaced from Bob's material. Whilst the drawings are still line drawings, the original drawings are much larger and the document also includes other related material of interest from the constituent companies. It is currently being scanned.

 

As far as I can see, the drawings in Midland Wagons figs 23 and 24 are identical to those in Drg. 4385 of January 1916:

 

 

[Compressed Scan of MRSC 88-D1384, Drg. 4385.]

[Compound2632]

My solution to the conundrum of slates in Cambrian 2-plank dropside wagons is to model a Cambrian 2-plank fixed-side wagon, taking this photo as reference:

 

 

[Embedded link to photo in Jonathan's post here:

Aberdovey - early-mid 1890s?]

 

Any suggestions, though, for a source of early-style self-contained buffers?

[corneliuslundie]

Alan Rhodes says that the photo is pre 1877 as the whole photo includes the ship Susanna.

Re slates in wagons, I have just bought a little book on the Moelferna Quarry and the Deeside Tramway by Paul Lawton and Hywel Edwards. This linked with the GWR at Glyndyfrdwy on the Ruabon-Dolgelley line. The biggest quarry in those parts.

Two statements of possible relevance, though they may only apply to the narrow gauge. 

First, bracken was harvested and used as packing to protect the slates.

Secondly, a round mallet was used to drive the last few slates down into the container to pack them as tightly as possible to minimise damage. The reference to containers is because the tramway used flat wagons with containers to transport the slates, The containers had rings so they could be moved by crane.

Lots of lovely photos in the book but none showing how slates were stacked in standard gauge wagons (surprise?)

But it is also a reminder that slate quarries produced slab as well, even large enough for billiard tables.

Jonathan

ISBN  978 1 78280 373 7 

Edited March 7 by corneliuslundie
typo

[WFPettigrew]

21 hours ago, mikeallerton said:

the new range of 3D printed RY Pickering wagons from scottishwagonworks.com?

 

Thanks Mike - that will be useful I think - and, as Stephen says, not just for Scottish wagons.  

 

The Barrow coal factor TF Butler bought some wagons from Pickerings in 1897, including its No. 158, a 7-plank 10-ton open wagon, one end door and two cupboard-type side doors, tare 6-16-0.  It was inscribed “Empty to Barrow Docks, Repairs Lindal Ore Depot, Furness Railway”.  See HMRS RYP 166.  I am not sure that the forthcoming 7 plank kit will be quite the right size for this one, but we shall see. 

 

And one that @jamie92208 mentioned on here before because it was photographed outside Beadman's in Keighley - the Swarthmoor and Ulverston Coop had some cupboard door wagons.

 

All the best

 

Neil 

Edited March 7 by WFPettigrew
Spelling

[MarcD]

TF Butler wagons had extended end supports to allow them to run with chaldron wagons. So would require a massive redesign.

Marc

[Andy Vincent]

Maybe the period is a little late for @Compound2632  but overall good news for many of us coming next month

https://www.crecy.co.uk/the-acquired-wagons-of-british-railways-volume-6

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, Andy Vincent said:

Maybe the period is a little late for @Compound2632  but overall good news for many of us coming next month

https://www.crecy.co.uk/the-acquired-wagons-of-british-railways-volume-6

 

I bought Vol. 5 but it was a bit of a disappointment as it only had one photo of a D663A, despite my having seen plenty elsewhere in photos from the first decade of BR.

Edited March 7 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

32 minutes ago, MarcD said:

TF Butler wagons had extended end supports to allow them to run with chaldron wagons. So would require a massive redesign.

 

Or a bit of bodgery? I'm curious, though, as to how chaldron buffers were combined with the end door.

[Mol_PMB]

26 minutes ago, Andy Vincent said:

Maybe the period is a little late for @Compound2632  but overall good news for many of us coming next month

https://www.crecy.co.uk/the-acquired-wagons-of-british-railways-volume-6

Excellent, another one to add to the series. I'm quite interested in several of those wagon types.

I'm also looking forward to a hopper wagons volume which will hopefully follow in due course.

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

Alan Rhodes says that the photo is pre 1877 as the whole photo includes the ship Susanna.

 

I read the wagon number as 1107. Is that compatible with the size of the Cambrian's wagon fleet in the mid-70s? (Has anyone from the WRRC been through the Cambrian's half-yearly reports and accounts at Kew?)

 

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

But it is also a reminder that slate quarries produced slab as well, even large enough for billiard tables.

 

Ah. Sounds like a load for a 2-plank dropside wagon! I wonder if there were any billiard table manufacturers in the West Midlands c. 1902?

 

A quick bit of googling reveals snooker and pool table slates for sale second-hand, with dimensions a little over 6' x 2' 6" for snooker and 6' x 3' for pool but I can't find billiard table slate sizes. 2' 6" seems a bit restrictive - one would have to go for that newfangled tiny O Gauge stuff rather than a decent size like Gauge 1 or 2.

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

I'm also looking forward to a hopper wagons volume which will hopefully follow in due course.

 

Are you hopping in anticipation or just living in hop(e)?

[Mol_PMB]

I don’t know for sure that there is one in the way, but I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t. 
I do have David Monk-Steel’s fairly recent book on the BR hopper wagons but he doesn’t cover the acquired wagons. 

[Andy Vincent]

33 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

I don’t know for sure that there is one in the way, but I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t. 

Crecy told me that there are ten volumes in total (all are written so just need production work) but they didn't elaborate on what volumes 7 to 10 will cover.

[WFPettigrew]

 

Yes they did have hanging buffers to work with chauldron wagons in West Cumberland, but this would not present a massive modelling challenge. 

 

 

This is the "small" thumbnail off the HMRS website of No 158.  For @Compound2632 you can see the hanging buffers worked with the end door no problem. 

 

Here is another one - No 129, which was also Scottish built (Hurst Nelson) but had a drop side door.  This is a crop from a photo in the Cumbrian Railways Association collection, shared here for research purposes because unlike the HMRS one, this is a bigger picture.

 

  

 

Hope this is helpful.

 

Best wishes

 

Neil 

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I read the wagon number as 1107. Is that compatible with the size of the Cambrian's wagon fleet in the mid-70s? (Has anyone from the WRRC been through the Cambrian's half-yearly reports and accounts at Kew?)

 

 

Ah. Sounds like a load for a 2-plank dropside wagon! I wonder if there were any billiard table manufacturers in the West Midlands c. 1902?

 

A quick bit of googling reveals snooker and pool table slates for sale second-hand, with dimensions a little over 6' x 2' 6" for snooker and 6' x 3' for pool but I can't find billiard table slate sizes. 2' 6" seems a bit restrictive - one would have to go for that newfangled tiny O Gauge stuff rather than a decent size like Gauge 1 or 2.

2'6" by 6' would be correct so that 5 slates make a 12 by 6 table. 

 

Jamie

Edited March 7 by jamie92208

[Compound2632]

49 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

2'6" by 6' would be correct so that 5 slates make a 12 by 6 table. 

 

So, for example, here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296194655577?.

 

Four slabs, 6' 2" by 2' 5" by 1¾". That's a total volume of 8.7 cu ft; at a density of 168 lb/cu ft, 1,460 lb or ⅔ ton. So, slate for 15 tables in an 10-ton wagon!

 

Practically, supposing stacks of four slabs width-ways in the wagon, probably no more than five or six?

 

Would the pockets be cut out at the quarry, or at the table-makers?

Edited March 7 by Compound2632

[jamie92208]

From watching one being assembled I think that the pockets are all part of the frame.  The slates are laid first then the frame and cushions assembled round the slates. 

 

The strange things we discuss on this thread.  The green baize is made in Pudsey. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

From watching one being assembled I think that the pockets are all part of the frame.  The slates are laid first then the frame and cushions assembled round the slates. 

 

One photo on Ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223852983137?

shows a quadrant cut out of one corner, which I supposed to be for a pocket.

[Penlan]

On 06/03/2024 at 13:57, mikeallerton said:

..... the new range of 3D printed RY Pickering wagons from scottishwagonworks.com? They're starting with 7mm ones but then introducing them at 4mm scale as well. 

The 4mm is a body only, but very nice and at £9.50 each, I think good value.
The 1:1 scale ones might even be delivering 'Scottish First' Potatoes to England, etc., :-) 

Edited March 7 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Penlan said:

The 4mm is a body only, but very nice and at £9.50 each, I think good value.
The 1:1 scale ones might even be delivering 'Scottish First' Potatoes to England, etc., :-) 

 

Railway company wagons for potatoes, surely?

[Penlan]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Railway company wagons for potatoes, surely?

Probably, but the Scots can be canny .......

[corneliuslundie]

I don't have a date for Cambrian 1107 but wagons numbered in the 1200s were being built in 1872.

As a rough guide to the growth of the wagon fleet the following are the highest numbers known to have been reached in selected years:

1867    1105

1870    1191

1881    1495

1882    1623

1886    1768

1891    1893

Jonathan

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

One photo on Ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223852983137?

shows a quadrant cut out of one corner, which I supposed to be for a pocket.

Thanks memory corrected.  From the finish I would assume that it hadbeen done at a mill.  Whether this was done at the quarry or a Midlands factory I don't know. 

 

Jamie

[richbrummitt]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I read the wagon number as 1107. Is that compatible with the size of the Cambrian's wagon fleet in the mid-70s? (Has anyone from the WRRC been through the Cambrian's half-yearly reports and accounts at Kew?)

 

 

Ah. Sounds like a load for a 2-plank dropside wagon! I wonder if there were any billiard table manufacturers in the West Midlands c. 1902?

 

A quick bit of googling reveals snooker and pool table slates for sale second-hand, with dimensions a little over 6' x 2' 6" for snooker and 6' x 3' for pool but I can't find billiard table slate sizes. 2' 6" seems a bit restrictive - one would have to go for that newfangled tiny O Gauge stuff rather than a decent size like Gauge 1 or 2.

If memory serves billiard tables have the same overall dimensions for the playing area as snooker. Snooker tables would be made up of 4 of those slabs and a pool table would be a single slab based on the dimensions you found. 
 

Edited March 7 by richbrummitt
Sentence structure

[Compound2632]

With the recent discussion of what's inside an axlebox, here's a timely photo. Stopped for brasses:

 

 

On order from Dart Castings / MJT.