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

[Compound2632]

Between about 1860 and 1900, a typical open wagon cost around £40 exclusive of wheels, axles, and springs, or £60 all in.

[MrWolf]

That's where my thoughts came from, having had to make myself familiar with Victorian joinery, not for wagon building, but 1st and 2nd fix for period buildings in order to repair or replicate it. 

Pretty much anyone who was building anything from wood kept a supply either seasoning or normalising in the area it was to be worked for a few days before work started, so I don't doubt that wagon builders would have ample supplies. 

I was simply putting forward my theory that the builders were unlikely to have used boards as wide as 14", although I quite happily stand to be corrected.

 

 

Edited January 12 by MrWolf
Grammar pedantry

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

That's where my thoughts came from, having had to make myself familiar with Victorian joinery, not for wagon building, but 1st and 2nd fix for period buildings in order to repair or replicate it. 

Pretty much anyone who was building anything from wood kept a supply either seasoning or normalising in the area it was to be worked for a few days before work started, so I don't doubt that wagon builders would have ample supplies. 

I was simply putting forward my theory that the builders were unlikely to have used boards as wide as 14", although I quite happily stand to be corrected.

 

No, the insight of a craftsman is as valuable as any other source of information - not intending to correct you but suggesting that between domestic architecture and wagon building, one was dealing with wood on a different scale.

[MrWolf]

42 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

No, the insight of a craftsman is as valuable as any other source of information - not intending to correct you but suggesting that between domestic architecture and wagon building, one was dealing with wood on a different scale.

 

Wasn't intended to appear as a defensive retort, I didn't want to ramble on too much in my initial post. I was simply trying to draw parallels.

I've had the privilege of being able to explore a disused brewery today, parts of which date between about 1590 (That bit was originally a school.) and about 1910. The part that really interested me is almost completely surrounded by other buildings and dates from the late 1700s / early 1800s.

It has three floors supported on massive timbers resting on corbels as well as being socketed into the stone walls. 

I've yet to measure them up, but those sawn beams look to be around 20' long. Between them are dozens of cross beams, all of which are hand split from green oak. 

It's rather like being in the bowels of HMS Victory.

The floorboards are sawn, but only about 6" wide, when I would have expected 9" for the period. Probably down to cost, I don't think that they're replacements, as some of it has simply been overboarded. We're going to lift a couple and see if there's evidence of any previous nail holes.

 

Yes, I know how to have fun! 🤣

[Schooner]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

We're going to lift a couple and see if there's evidence of any previous nail holes.

 

Sounds ace, do share!

 

@drduncan, also coming at it from the 'period-correct related trades' angle, using oak, Number 1 larch and pine to keep 10(00) ton of water out rather than 10 ton of coal in, but gut response is 2x14" possible; 3 x 9"-10" (on phone, can't be doing with fractions!) possibly more likely.

 

 

Edited January 13 by Schooner
Too much wood. Shh.

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Wasn't intended to appear as a defensive retort, I didn't want to ramble on too much in my initial post. I was simply trying to draw parallels.

I've had the privilege of being able to explore a disused brewery today, parts of which date between about 1590 (That bit was originally a school.) and about 1910. The part that really interested me is almost completely surrounded by other buildings and dates from the late 1700s / early 1800s.

It has three floors supported on massive timbers resting on corbels as well as being socketed into the stone walls. 

I've yet to measure them up, but those sawn beams look to be around 20' long. Between them are dozens of cross beams, all of which are hand split from green oak. 

It's rather like being in the bowels of HMS Victory.

The floorboards are sawn, but only about 6" wide, when I would have expected 9" for the period. Probably down to cost, I don't think that they're replacements, as some of it has simply been overboarded. We're going to lift a couple and see if there's evidence of any previous nail holes.

 

Yes, I know how to have fun! 🤣

 

Ah, that sounds like the sort of building my late father would have enjoyed examining.

[MrWolf]

I'll be taking some photos on Monday, I will post one up if it's not too OT, just out of interest. Pity that the brewery wasn't rail connected! 

There's a fascinating collection of buidings in the area, all derelict and we've helped make sure that they are going to be included in the redevelopment, rather than demolished.

 

[Compound2632]

@MrWolf, Feel free to post here - you have my attention! Is this in Kendal, if that's not asking you to disclose too much?

Edited January 13 by Compound2632

[MrWolf]

Thank you, I didn't want to bung up your thread with non wagon topics, it's bad enough that I keep mentioning the GWR (Hail Satan) .

 

The brewery is built over a natural spring on Brewery Street, Lancaster. Behind a pub called The Golden Lion, which is where the condemned were taken for drinks and a last meal before being marched up Moor Lane to the gallows atop Quarry Hill, now Williamson Park. At the other end is the Grand Theatre, apparently the oldest continuously operating theatre in the country. 

[magmouse]

23 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

At the other end is the Grand Theatre, apparently the oldest continuously operating theatre in the country. 

 

Since we are doing asides... I think to folks at the Theatre Royal, Bristol (1766) would claim they had the oldest theatre in continuous use, beating the young upstarts in Lancaster by 16 years.

 

Looking forward to more brewery photos when you have them - 

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

Not a wagon in sight but this intriguing photo was posted in the Facebook group "Everything North Eastern Railway" by Mick Nicholson:

 

 

[Embedded link]

 

Poppleton Junction, York; date not given. Note the right-hand arm of the three doll signal on the left.

[WFPettigrew]

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Note the right-hand arm of the three doll signal on the left.

A stray upper quadrant arm.. 

 

Also note that the two signals facing us on the gantry appear to have a darker band than the rest of the arm...?

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, WFPettigrew said:

A stray upper quadrant arm.. 

 

I hadn't spotted that, but yes.

 

1 minute ago, WFPettigrew said:

Also note that the two signals facing us on the gantry appear to have a darker band than the rest of the arm...?

 

Exactly. I can see no difference between the arms we see from the front and from the back - also the other two arms of the three-doll signals; also another photo in the same post clearly showing the front faces of signal arms pale with a dark stripe.

[Compound2632]

The chapter on signalling in North Eastern Record Vol. 1 (HMRS, 1988), written by Neil Mackay, makes no mention at all of the colour of NER signal arms.

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I'll be taking some photos on Monday, I will post one up if it's not too OT, just out of interest. Pity that the brewery wasn't rail connected! 

There's a fascinating collection of buidings in the area, all derelict and we've helped make sure that they are going to be included in the redevelopment, rather than demolished.

 

Which company ran the brewery please as one of the Lancaster brewers had a storage and distribution warehouse at Green Ayre in the former National school for boys. Many Midland wagons would have been loaded there as the company supplied the navvy camps on the S and C.  There back to Midland wagons. 

 

Jamie

[billbedford]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Poppleton Junction, York; date not given. Note the right-hand arm of the three doll signal on the left.

 

I've looked through my copy of 'A Pictorial Record OF LNER Constituent Signalling' and found a photo of a NER signal with a red face and a black band. I feel that signal colours were changed or standardised before the grouping. 

[MrWolf]

6 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Which company ran the brewery please as one of the Lancaster brewers had a storage and distribution warehouse at Green Ayre in the former National school for boys. Many Midland wagons would have been loaded there as the company supplied the navvy camps on the S and C.  There back to Midland wagons. 

 

Jamie

 

This would be a good place to start your search:

 

http://breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mitchells_of_Lancaster

 

Initially Mitchell's brewery, and note that they actually moved closer to Green Ayre at Central Brewery for a while, (Which could explain the proximity to the railway.) although they did keep the Old Brewery site at Brewery Lane. 

[jamie92208]

Thanks.  It was Yates' that had their store at Green Ayre, 

 

Jamie

[hmrspaul]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

 

I've looked through my copy of 'A Pictorial Record OF LNER Constituent Signalling' and found a photo of a NER signal with a red face and a black band. I feel that signal colours were changed or standardised before the grouping. 

The HMRS book also mentions that the only way to distinguish distant signals was the V cut in the end of the arm. Also having the black band on the back came in later, with comments that this hadn't happened for some of the signals illustrated. 

 

Paul

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

Thanks.  It was Yates' that had their store at Green Ayre, 

 

Jamie

 

You can just about make out the Yates signwriting ( as well as Mitchell's) on the original loading doors at Brewery Street, as Yates used that building for some years too.

 

Now to find out where Mitchell's Central Brewery was!

 

 

 

Edited January 13 by MrWolf

[Compound2632]

31 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

The HMRS book also mentions that the only way to distinguish distant signals was the V cut in the end of the arm. Also having the black band on the back came in later, with comments that this hadn't happened for some of the signals illustrated. 

 

Yes, and up until sometime in the first decade of the 20th century the Midland (and some other lines - Brighton?) used a white roundel rather than band or stripe on both stop and distant arms, with a horizontal black stripe on the back of distant arms. So I suspect some agreement on standardisation on vertical stripes in the immediate pre-Great War period, though yellow (paint and glass) for distant arms didn't come in until the late 1920s. 

 

Adrian Marks has suggested that these are examples of the NER's 'both-ways' signals used to control shunting moves in and out of sidings. An example photographed in BR days was red with a white stripe on both sides, whereas the signals in the Facebook photo appear to be white with a black stripe. But I suppose that might have been done to indicate that they weren't stop signals for trains running through on the main line?

 

Or, as @billbedford suggested, it could be a red signal with a black band, where the red has faded. The signal that is off does appear to be controlling a running line, with the signal to the left of it controlling a facing crossover to the other pair of line.

 

Date of photo, and a matching signalling diagram for this location, would help!

Edited January 13 by Compound2632

[MrWolf]

32 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

The HMRS book also mentions that the only way to distinguish distant signals was the V cut in the end of the arm. Also having the black band on the back came in later, with comments that this hadn't happened for some of the signals illustrated. 

 

Paul

 

There's some interesting information on distant signals here:

 

https://www.railsigns.uk/sect2page4.html#:~:text=Around 1918%2C the Great Central,Yellow Arm ('on').

 

Rob.

[Jol Wilkinson]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes, and up until sometime in the first decade of the 20th century the Midland (and some other lines - Brighton?) used a white roundel rather than band or stripe on both stop and distant arms, with a horizontal black stripe on the back of distant arms. So I suspect some agreement on standardisation on vertical stripes in the immediate pre-Great War period, though yellow (paint and glass) for distant arms didn't come in until the late 1920s. 

 

Adrian Marks has suggested that these are examples of the NER's 'both-ways' signals used to control shunting moves in and out of sidings. An example photographed in BR days was red with a white stripe on both sides, whereas the signals in the Facebook photo appear to be white with a black stripe. But I suppose that might have been done to indicate that they weren't stop signals for trains running through on the main line?

 

Or, as @billbedford suggested, it could be a red signal with a black band, where the red has faded. The signal that is off does appear to be controlling a running line, with the signal to the left of it controlling a facing crossover to the other pair of line.

 

Date of photo, and a matching signalling diagram for this location, would help!

It also appears to lack a lamp and a spectacle plate, which the others have. 

[billbedford]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Date of photo, and a matching signalling diagram for this location, would help!

 

Yep

 

But is that a coloured light signal at the base of the one that is off?

[Nick Holliday]

On 13/01/2024 at 20:58, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes, and up until sometime in the first decade of the 20th century the Midland (and some other lines - Brighton?) used a white roundel rather than band or stripe on both stop and distant arms, with a horizontal black stripe on the back of distant arms. So I suspect some agreement on standardisation on vertical stripes in the immediate pre-Great War period, though yellow (paint and glass) for distant arms didn't come in until the late 1920s. 

Not the Brighton, but the neighbouring SECR used roundels, both front and rear of the arm.