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

[billbedford]

47 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I avoid the faff of having to make another curved brake lever:

 

Not difficult, you just need a pair of these: https://www.cousinsuk.com/product/half-round-flat-nose-pliers

[drduncan]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Aprops this discussion of parts by post, my Dart Castings MJT order arrived yesterday - prompt service as usual from them - so the GW 3-plank is up on both its wheels:

 

 

It looks as if it's riding high but in fact only by a whisker. The MJT axleguard units have their lugs up - held in place by cyanoing the lugs to the underside of the floor. 

 

The best reference I've got for an iron-framed 3-plank is this flat-ended example:

 

 

Embedded link to photo in @Mikkel's post here:

According to my notes from Atkins et al., No. 34920 is from os Lot 289, the second lot with flat ends, so I'm hoping that its condition is otherwise representative of the last lots with round ends. What I'm ignorant of is when iron frames were adopted, in other words what range of lots I'm looking at for a number.

 

Anyway, in conversation with @Western Star at Basingstoke yesterday, I learned that (unsurprisingly) Atkins et al. is unreliable on these 3-plank wagons.

 

Apart from brakes, brake vee-hanger, and lever, I've realised I also need to bodge up some wooden spring stops - as for my Salthey wagons - and modify the spring shoes to represent the solid type.

 

At least by doing one of these iron framed wagons rather than one of the earlier wood-framed ones, I avoid the faff of having to make another curved brake lever:

 

 

[Crop from Warwickshire Railways lnwra3633, LNWR Windsor Street Goods Station, 1903.]

For mine, what I’ve been doing if a fancy solid spring shoes is smear a little filler across to give it a flat surface. 
 

I’ve been toying with doing springs with solid shoes but there is very little information as to when they stopped being used.

D

[DayReturn]

19 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

AFAIAA

no LYR wagons rtr and kits as rare as rocking horse poo if you exclude brake vans

You can probably say that this is the exception that proves the rule, but I think you will find that the Tri-ang/Rovex/Trackmaster R11 box van, in a wide choice of colours,  is a surprisingly faithful representation of a LYR Diagram 20 Meat Van.  Dimensionally it matches the David Geen equivalent very closely indeed.  And there must be thoooousands of them, mostly in landfill sites.

 

[Aire Head]

On 09/03/2024 at 21:55, Compound2632 said:

In a jaundiced mood, I might say that our hobby is largely no longer 'railway modelling' but has become 'scenic modelling' - this is something I find with the commercial magazines too

 

Railway modelling requires knowledge beyond "I like trains" whereas scenic modelling doesn't and is therefore easier. I suspect this was always the case for most modellers, however with the advent of social media everyone can much more easily share their stuff and it's largely taboo to provide any sort of feedback which isn't entirely positive hence what I term "the rise of mediocrity". 

 

Anyway on a more positive note I have done some pregrouping modelling myself....

 

Well sort of the wagon is pregrouping but it's condition definitely isn't!

 

A much abused NER C10 very much at the rear end of its service life.

 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

A much abused NER C10 very much at the rear end of its service life.

 

End-straps! That had me reaching for Tatlow Vol. 2. There's an official of C10 No. B102, brand new in 1909, sporting this feature, and also of No. 79003 with post-36 small lettering. (This latter still has its NER numberplate.) But R406, in its Charles Roberts official, is innocent of such adornment. 

 

As far as I can see (but good end views are hard to come by) no other NER wagons had this single end-strap but the standard 4-plank opens, diagram C2, and their close relatives the Q1 loco coal wagons had a pairs of end-straps between the end pillars.

 

29 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

I suspect this was always the case for most modellers, however with the advent of social media everyone can much more easily share their stuff and it's largely taboo to provide any sort of feedback which isn't entirely positive hence what I term "the rise of mediocrity". 

 

All four photos of C10s in Tatlow (there's also a broadside view of No. 127891 with first LNER lettering) show Morton brake levers with brake blocks on the direct side only. Yours, however, has the brake blocks on the cam side and with the push-rods arranged such that depressing the lever will move the blocks further away from the wheels.

[Aire Head]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

End-straps! That had me reaching for Tatlow Vol. 2. There's an official of C10 No. B102, brand new in 1909, sporting this feature, and also of No. 79003 with post-36 small lettering. (This latter still has its NER numberplate.) But R406, in its Charles Roberts official, is innocent of such adornment. 

 

As far as I can see (but good end views are hard to come by) no other NER wagons had this single end-strap but the standard 4-plank opens, diagram C2, and their close relatives the Q1 loco coal wagons had a pairs of end-straps between the end pillars.

 

 

All four photos of C10s in Tatlow (there's also a broadside view of No. 127891 with first LNER lettering) show Morton brake levers with brake blocks on the direct side only. Yours, however, has the brake blocks on the cam side and with the push-rods arranged such that depressing the lever will move the blocks further away from the wheels.

Oops that's something I need to get rectified then 🙃

 

The fact I missed the brakes would be taken off by application of the lever has really annoyed me! I shall return with it rectified shortly after I have suitably punished myself!

[corneliuslundie]

You are not the first person to make that mistake.

A question, about an era which I know little about. You say that the wagon is in service use. Did BR renumber wagons into a new number sequence when they went into service use, as the GWR did?

Jonathan 

[Aire Head]

15 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Did BR renumber wagons into a new number sequence when they went into service use, as the GWR did?

 

BR took the number of the wagon as Nationalisation and added a prefix dependent upon where the wagon originated.

 

E for exLNER

W for exGW

S for exSR

M for exLMS stock and some Ministry of Supply Wagons.

 

A P prefix was used for exPrivate Owner stock that was pooled during the war. A number was allocated to them when they went into repair. Repair locations had a series of numbers assigned to that location and the next one off the list was chosen.

 

Ex private owner stock not pooled during the war but subsequently taken into BR ownership was renumbered into the M36xxxx sequence of numbers.

 

A D prefix was added to stock taken into departmental use so DMxxxxxx would indicate an exLMS owned vehicle in departmental use.

 

The number on the C10 was taken from a photo of one which was used as the basis for this model the number being assigned to it prior to BR ownership.

 

Hope that answer your question?

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Aire Head said:

Hope that answer your question?

 

As I read it, Jonathan had interpreted 

 

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

its service life

 

as meaning departmental service life, whereas I believe you simply meant its time in revenue traffic.

 

But on the numbering of these wagons, many were given 3-digit numbers with a letter prefix, as in B102 and R406 illustrated in Tatlow. There must have been an experimental psychologist on the NER's C&W staff, someone who was aware that while the brain's working memory can hold five digits, six is a bit of a stretch. So to ease the task of number-takers etc., these letter prefixes were introduced, with A = 110, B = 111, etc. - reaching Y = 128 by 1921; I haven't found any Zs in Tatlow! Several other letters were omitted - I, O, Q certainly; I've not worked out which others, NER wagons weren't renumbered after the grouping; like Midland wagons on the LMS, theirs was the largest fleet in the group. But in LNER days the numbers were written in full, so B102 became 111102 and R406, 122406. An oddity was that each series was numbered not 000 - 999 but 001 - 1000, so Nos. 124001- 125000 became T001 - T1000 rather than the more logical T001 - U000. It seems to me that the 6-digit numbers were the wagons "real" numbers all along.

[jamie92208]

Having seen the mention of a new volume in the series about the acquired wagons of BR. Can anyone point me to whichever volume would cover the quarry owned wagons on the S and C please. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

The fact I missed the brakes would be taken off by application of the lever has really annoyed me! I shall return with it rectified shortly after I have suitably punished myself!

 

Tatlow reproduces a GA drawing of these wagons which is ripe for misinterpretation since it is half elevation and half longitudinal section. The shows the Morton clutch side but the section shows a back view of the brake gear on the far side; this is carried through to the elevation side of the drawing but if one looks very carefully one can see that the brake block is drawn in dashed lines where it is behind the wheel on the near side.

[Mol_PMB]

9 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Having seen the mention of a new volume in the series about the acquired wagons of BR. Can anyone point me to whichever volume would cover the quarry owned wagons on the S and C please. 

 

Jamie

That's a difficult question that requires more information to answer. The volumes and the chapters within them are divided by wagon type rather than geographical origin or previous owner.

• What types of wagons are you interested in?
• What were the names of the quarries or their owners?

It's also worth noting that the listings of ex-PO wagons are fairly detailed and include far more data than has been previously published, but not all the records survive and they are necessarily incomplete. 

 

[41516]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

Did BR renumber wagons into a new number sequence when they went into service use, as the GWR did?

 

49 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

E for exLNER

 

Thanks to Aquired Wagons Vol 5, I'M looking forward to finishing a LNER Diagram 3 6-plank as E6.

 

Will save me time doing the decals!

[jamie92208]

6 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

That's a difficult question that requires more information to answer. The volumes and the chapters within them are divided by wagon type rather than geographical origin or previous owner.

• What types of wagons are you interested in?
• What were the names of the quarries or their owners?

It's also worth noting that the listings of ex-PO wagons are fairly detailed and include far more data than has been previously published, but not all the records survive and they are necessarily incomplete. 

 

I'm interested in the fleets owned by PW Spencers and Settle Limes in particular.  Settle Limes had I herited the fleets of Delaneys, Craven Lime Company and Ribblesdale Lime Co when they amalgamated in the 1930's though the actual ownershimay have remained with the original company.  There would also have been the, ocal coal Merchants such as Laycock of Skipton. F there was one volume that covered these areas it would be worth my while buying a copy.  I read through the descriptions of the volumes on the publishers website and PO wagons seemed to feature in several volumes. 

 

Thanks

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Having seen the mention of a new volume in the series about the acquired wagons of BR. Can anyone point me to whichever volume would cover the quarry owned wagons on the S and C please. 

 

Larkin's Vol. 3 covers "13T Wooden-Bodied Minerals All Types Including Coke Wagons". As it was published by OPC rather than Crecy, who publish the more recent volumes, there's no official publisher's blurb online. Descriptions differ as to whether it only covers wagons built to the RCH 1923 specification: "This volume focuses on the coal wagons built to the Railway Clearing House specification dating from 1923." [https://rail-books.co.uk/products/the-acquired-wagons-of-british-railways-volume-3-9781910809693] or "wagons built to Railway Clearing House (RCH) specifications which were originally rated at 12ton capacity" [https://www.keymodelworld.com/article/acquired-wagons-british-railways-vol-3] which would of course include the great many 12-ton wagons built before the introduction of the 1923 specification. My suspicion is that it does only address the 1923 specification wagons and that the author is postponing the enormous task of sorting through the pre-1923 wagons, which were rather more than half the total number of ex-PO mineral wagons. As I noted recently, in Vol. 5, covering open goods wagons, which I have, he gives pre-grouping wagons short shrift - solitary examples of ex-NER C10 and ex-Midland D663A opens* - except for ex-GWR wagons. As wagons of pre-grouping origin made up getting on for a third of the LMS wagon fleet at nationalisation, I fear he is in grave danger of misrepresenting his subject. A short note in the introduction to the effect that he has as yet omitted this large group of wagons would be sufficient.

 

In Vol. 5 he does have a short account of Delaney's wagons, with a photo of No. 247, built by Charles Roberts in 1928, and BR numbering for the survivors of this batch and some built by Thomas Hunter, also in 1928. I'll PM you.

 

*Also on p. 9 an ex-Midland D305, which he misidentifies as D818, and on p. 16, one of the two or three photos that are actually of D818 wagons.

[Mol_PMB]

1 minute ago, jamie92208 said:

I'm interested in the fleets owned by PW Spencers and Settle Limes in particular.  Settle Limes had I herited the fleets of Delaneys, Craven Lime Company and Ribblesdale Lime Co when they amalgamated in the 1930's though the actual ownershimay have remained with the original company.  There would also have been the, ocal coal Merchants such as Laycock of Skipton. F there was one volume that covered these areas it would be worth my while buying a copy.  I read through the descriptions of the volumes on the publishers website and PO wagons seemed to feature in several volumes. 

 

Thanks

 

Jamie

 

ex-PO coal wagons to the 1923 RCH specification are in Vol 3.

I believe the pre-1923 ex-PO coal wagons are in Vol 6, which I do not yet have.

Vol 6 apparently also includes some open wagons for other minerals "This volume concludes with coverage of a diverse group of open wagons for specialist loads such as bricks, glass, roadstone, sand, sleepers, soda ash and sulphates." but none of the volumes produced to date cover specialist wagons for lime. Would these have even been pooled? If not, then they wouldn't have been 'Acquired Wagons'...

 

[41516]

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

My suspicion is that it does only address the 1923 specification wagons

 Correct for Vol 3, RCH 1923 Specification wagons only.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, 41516 said:

 Correct for Vol 3, RCH 1923 Specification wagons only.

 

Does he say anything in the introduction about the rest of the fleet?

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

I believe the pre-1923 ex-PO coal wagons are in Vol 6, which I do not yet have.

Vol 6 apparently also includes some open wagons for other minerals "This volume concludes with coverage of a diverse group of open wagons for specialist loads such as bricks, glass, roadstone, sand, sleepers, soda ash and sulphates." but none of the volumes produced to date cover specialist wagons for lime. Would these have even been pooled? If not, then they wouldn't have been 'Acquired Wagons'...

 

 

Perhaps I am being too hard on him but he really does also need to intend to cover pre-grouping railway company wagons if his magnum opus is to give a true and balanced picture. Maybe this was all set out in a general introduction in Vol. 1, which I have not seen?

 

I think you're right: the ICI Buxton fleet of lime wagons remained privately owned, I believe, as, I think, did Pilkington's sand wagons; no doubt others.

Edited March 11 by Compound2632

[corneliuslundie]

Re renumbering by BR, I am aware that wagons from the Big Four received letter prefixes to their numbers which were otherwise unchanged at Nationalisation.

Also that the ex PO wagon fleet was gradually renumbered in a series with the prefix P, various wagon repair companies being given batches of numbers (though I am not sure that anyone has managed to disentangle completely which batches went to which repairers).

What I was asking was about wagons which had been in revenue service but were then withdrawn and allocated for service use, often with a cross on the side or lettering restricting where they could go, such as not on the main line. Did they received new numbers then or merely a new prefix (ie not B, E, M, P, S or W which they previously carried)? Possibly ED or similar.

It is an academic question, as it is well outside my period of intertest, but I am currently analysing the fleet inherited by the GWR large numbers of which were withdrawn as "worn out" but then allocated to service or dock use and given completely new numbers.

Jonathan

[Mol_PMB]

25 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Perhaps I am being too hard on him but he really does also need to intend to cover pre-grouping railway company wagons if his magnum opus is to give a true and balanced picture. Maybe this was all set out in a general introduction in Vol. 1, which I have not seen?

 

I think you're right: the ICI Buxton fleet of lime wagons remained privately owned, I believe, as, I think, did Pilkington's sand wagons; no doubt others.

The books do include some pre-grouping wagons (for example, Caledonian vans were topical a few weeks ago).

I don't have the books in front of me right now, but I believe they are based on official wagon lists. However, it took the nascent BR several years to work out what they had and renumber it where appropriate, so the first "complete" lists date may not have been produced until many of the earlier wagons were withdrawn.

 

As you're well aware, the field of study about railway wagons in the UK is truly vast, and I don't think any one series can cover it to everyone's satisfaction. For me modelling the 1960s, Larkin's 'acquired wagons' books are very good. But for those primarily interested in pre-grouping then the 'Big Four' tomes are probably more appropriate.

 

 

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

3 hours ago, Aire Head said:

 

Railway modelling requires knowledge beyond "I like trains" whereas scenic modelling doesn't and is therefore easier. I suspect this was always the case for most modellers, however with the advent of social media everyone can much more easily share their stuff and it's largely taboo to provide any sort of feedback which isn't entirely positive hence what I term "the rise of mediocrity". 

 

 

 

But it can be just as easy to make fundamental mistakes in scenic modelling.  Perhaps these go unnoticed because while some of us a true experts in the railway, I suspect few of us would claim to be experts in the wider world.  This can result in an almost anything goes view of what happens beyond the railway fence.

 

Examples of the above would be:

vehicles out of period

too many vehicles in periods when motorised transport was much rarer

wrong sort of farm animals - no a cow is not just a cow for example and cows were bred and raised for particular regions.

out of period advertising

wrong sort of road signs or road markings

[41516]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Maybe this was all set out in a general introduction in Vol. 1, which I have not seen?

 

37 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

I don't have the books in front of me right now, but I believe they are based on official wagon lists.

 

There isn't a 'grand vision' set out in Vol1 -  These really are illustrated versions of the wagons lists at core, with photos predominately from the author and those others recording wagons in the 1960s and early 1970s (I'm also assuming a medium pool of sources where gaining publishing rights for photos would still make the book viable and not overly complicated). 

 

It's not overly suprising that anything withdrawn pre-1955 isn't as well documented in the books, as it would be a much more difficult task rather than work through the 'easier' big four fleets, especially as many of the lists concern what could be/was retrofitted with vacuum brakes as part of the Modernisation plan.  

[Aire Head]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

ocal coal Merchants such as Laycock of Skipton.

These would have been pooled in 1939 and promptly scattered to the 4 winds within very little time. 

[Mol_PMB]

5 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

These would have been pooled in 1939 and promptly scattered to the 4 winds within very little time. 

Agreed. And I guess that's where the 'Acquired Wagons' books won't be very helpful for specific geographical locations.

• If the wagons were pooled and later incorporated into the BR fleet, they were eligible to be listed in the 'Acquired Wagons' books but no longer had any link to their geographical origins.
• If the wagons weren't pooled because they were specialist in some way, they wouldn't be listed in the 'Acquired Wagons' books at all.

It's worth noting that David Larkin has also published 'Non-Pool Freight Stock 1948-1968' Volumes 1 & 2 which cover some of the specialist wagons that continued in use on BR but were not owned by them. Obviously this category of wagons eventually became dominant. This two volumes are primarily picture albums with extended captions. There is a large section on ICI amongst others.

 

One of the vehicles of interest to me that might be in this category is a PO medium-sided open wagon with only an end door, owned by the Ship Canal Sand Co. of Eccles. There's a photo of it in the 14th Turton PO wagon book, coupled in a train with a 16t mineral, on a line with overhead electrification. It doesn't have a P number. The photo is undated and the location isn't stated, but could be 1940s or later. I'm not sure whether something like this would have been pooled.