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

[Compound2632]

For the Slaters D299, remember the slaters kits are smooth on the inside.  And for some reason the Midland really went to town on internal strapping for this diagram.  Check my workbench thread for my Gauge 3 scratchbuild of one if you need help deciphering the drawings.  

 

It's true the kit shows its age in several ways, lack of interior detail being one. At least there's less heartache when loading to the brim or covering with a sheet! Spitfire's Gauge 3 version is a work of miniature engineering. However, I don't think the amount of interior ironwork on these wagons is any more than on any other 4 to 8 plank open goods or mineral wagon. The main structural members, the side knees (and end knees for an end-door wagon), are on the inside. Most of what we see on the outside is there to stop the bolts heads or nuts digging into the timber, though the corner plates do give some structural strength.

[Spitfire2865]

It's true the kit shows its age in several ways, lack of interior detail being one. At least there's less heartache when loading to the brim or covering with a sheet! Spitfire's Gauge 3 version is a work of miniature engineering. However, I don't think the amount of interior ironwork on these wagons is any more than on any other 4 to 8 plank open goods or mineral wagon. The main structural members, the side knees (and end knees for an end-door wagon), are on the inside. Most of what we see on the outside is there to stop the bolts heads or nuts digging into the timber, though the corner plates do give some structural strength.

There is no shame in a tarpaulin.  

From what Ive examined from my scratchbuilding, the corner plates usually didnt have matching internal strapping for most companies, while the D299 had 5 separate plates inside to match the corner plate outside.  Rather excessive if you ask me.  

Carriage bolts alone seem to have been enough to stop internal gouging on most wagons. So you are correct for most wagons.  

[Compound2632]

Spitfire's Gauge 3 D299 build starts here. Impressive stuff in both large and small scales in that thread.

[Siberian Snooper]

For the Slaters D299, remember the slaters kits are smooth on the inside.  And for some reason the Midland really went to town on internal strapping for this diagram.  Check my workbench thread for my Gauge 3 scratchbuild of one if you need help deciphering the drawings.

 

Thanks very much for the info, I will bear it in mind mind once I make a start on the opens. I will hold fire until the book turns up next week.

[John_Miles]

There's a set of photographs in the latest issue of Bactrack which show a colliery at Swadlincote. The trackwork is interesting because of its appalling state but there is also a Mdland 3 plank wagon laden with coal. I've never made a study of wagon loads but this seems to be unusual to me. The author is Bon Essery to whom all interested in the Midland owe a huge debt.

[Compound2632]

There's a set of photographs in the latest issue of Bactrack which show a colliery at Swadlincote. The trackwork is interesting because of its appalling state but there is also a Mdland 3 plank wagon laden with coal. I've never made a study of wagon loads but this seems to be unusual to me. The author is Bon Essery to whom all interested in the Midland owe a huge debt.

 

Unusual but by no means unique. Photo is 1890s not c. 1920 as the caption claims.

[Penlan]

 ..... there is also a Mdland 3 plank wagon laden with coal.

The author is Bon Essery to whom all interested in the Midland owe a huge debt.

John, there are two Mid Rly., 3 plankers...

And Bon's brother, Bob has given us a great deal over the years too,  

for which, agreed, we owe him a great debt.

I was lucky to be one of the operators on Dewsbury at Exhibitions, always great fun, and interesting.#

Edited March 28, 2018 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

News from the paint shop. Painting wagons isn’t as simple as it was in my green and innocent youth. These days the process is:

1. Halfords primer (grey or red to suit);
2. Black ironwork (body ironwork for some wagons, otherwise just running gear, GW wagons excluded);
3. Body colour;
4. Touching up black (or black ironwork if step 2 omitted);
5. Humbrol gloss varnish as base for transfers;
6. Transfers;
7. Humbrol matt varnish to seal transfers;
8. Weathering wash.

Here are some results – all without wheels, as I’m waiting for an order from Alan Gibson to arrive. First up, the third of my red Great Western V6 covered goods wagons:

 

 

This is finished as No. 37856 of os Lot 488, built c. 1889. The first 1,803 Iron Minks built up to 1892 were rated to carry 8 tons. The next 2,117, built up to December 1897, were rated to carry 9 tons, despite still having grease axleboxes. The 9 tons rating also applied to the final 981 vehicles built with oil axleboxes, represented by my models of Nos. 69354 and 11070. I presume there must have been a change in the design of the grease axleboxes to give a larger bearing area, to carry the increased load. The tare weight of 5 tons 19 cwt 0 qtr seems to be typical of these early wagons; the 9 ton ones are just over 6 tons tare. Lettering uses the BGS rub-down transfers used for my earlier Great Western wagons. As with my model of 4-plank open No. 44510 of os Lot 442, I’ve gone for the earlier lettering style with G.W.R on the left. Weathering is done with a wash of dirty blacks in white spirit, cleaned off with a kitchen towel and fingers! I’ve still not tried the weathering powders. I hope that by luck rather than judgement, it gives the impression of a van that has seen a dozen years’ service in the sulphurous atmosphere of the less salubrious reaches of the Great Western.

 

Next up, that hard-to-justify LNW D62 ballast wagon:

 

 

This is supposed to represent a wagon assigned to the Birmingham and Walsall Division  of the civil engineer’s department. The lettering style is conjectural, based on the description in LNWR Liveries and the discussion on David’s workbench – many thanks to Sandy (Penlan) for his contributions there, especially his marvellous if frustratingly faded photograph! The lettering is from the HMRS LNWR pressfix sheet; this has the 18” PWD lettering but not B, so that’s made from a pair of Ps. The numberplate is from the Ratio transfer sheet. LNWR Liveries explains that these wagons carried a divisional numberplate on one end only – with a separate number to the solebar plate number. I’ve made my own:

 

 

Inspired by Paul Gallon’s NER numberplates, I’ve been making quite a few bespoke plates. I use Coreldraw to draw plates up at a scale of 1 mm/inch. Lettering starts out as Arial Bold or Arial Black Bold at 6pt or 8pt but once the basic lettering and spacing is worked out, I use the “Convert object to curves” tool; I can then tweak the proportions of the letters to my satisfaction. Once I’ve created a batch of plates, I reduce them to 4 mm/ft and print onto glossy photographic paper using the highest resolution my HP Deskjet 3055A printer gives – 600 DPI . The plates can be scored round with a sharp blade and just the top, hard glossy part of the paper peeled off. I leave a bit too much border then cut in close to get a cleaner edge, before gluing to the model. (I first did this for load plates on one of my Iron Minks but it took Paul’s post to spur me on to trying this for numberplates.)

 

The painting process has got so involved it’s worth doing eight or nine wagons at once, so I’ve done a few more D299 wagons while I’m about it, including another three from my Mousa batch. The method I’ve settled on for these is to paint the body first, before adding the W-iron etch. This is because the fold-up W-iron etch gets in the way of fitting the sprung buffer heads and those need to be done after painting…

 

 

For this wagon, I opened a tin of Precision P360 MR Freight Wagon Light Grey that I’ve had for a while. I very stirred thoroughly, as one should, and brush painted the wagon. I can only describe the colour as green. Grey green, sea green, maybe but definitely green. I was horrified. Mikkel, Stubby and Guy Rixon have lately been discussing the merits of wet-on-wet painting for weathering; I can only say I hit on the technique in a state of panic! I cracked open my tin of Precision P38 LMS freight wagon grey – a lovely light grey with not a hint of blue; exactly the colour that an ex-works Midland or early LMS wagon should be, to my mind. (There should be no difference in the two colours.) With a moderate amount of thinners, I blended this in with the green until I felt I had a more acceptable shade. I have occasionally seen greenish Midland wagons on exhibition layouts so clearly others have been taken in by this Precision colour but can anyone explain what on earth Precision were thinking of?

 

Transfers are Slater’s and HMRS pressfix but the numberplate is home-printed as described above. I’ve made up a batch of D299 numberplates using the numbers listed in Midland Wagons Vol. 1. For this wagon I’ve picked 35899. I don’t think I’ve seen the photo from which this number was taken but I’m willing to bet that for such a comparatively low number, it’ll have been an 1880s-built wagon with 8A axleboxes per the Mousa kit. The tare weight of 4 tons 19 cwt 0 qtr is typical of wagons with 8A axleboxes; ones with the Ellis 10A axleboxes but still only single side brakes seem to have started life at a bit over 5 tons but crept down in weight with age. As with all the wagons in this post, it’s had the weathering wash and rub-down, during which I broke the end off the brake lever. The 3D printed resin part is quite brittle and also sticks out a bit too far from the side of the wagon; I’m thinking how to replace it: possibly a piece of chemically-blackened brass strip?

 

Variety isn’t exactly the point of D299 – over 60,000 identical wagons. Nevertheless I thought I’d ring the changes with a couple of loco coal wagons, inspired by Plate 95 in Midland Wagons Vol. 1:

 

 

For these, I tried the wet weathering approach again. This time I started with the LMS grey and mixed in a bit of Humbrol 33 black to represent the action of atmospheric sulphur compounds on the white lead based paint. Lettering is from the grandly named HMRS pressfix sheet LMS English pre-Grouping goods vehicle insignia (except LNWR) of which I bought four when it became available again last November. The left hand wagon uses the 12” M and R from that sheet but I’m not happy with the proportions, particularly the R. The right hand wagon uses the letters from the Slater’s sheet; these seem to me much closer to prototype photos. I’m a bit surprised as I had thought that both sets of transfers were derived from the same P.C. Chatham artwork. It’s only these 12” letters I have a problem with; the HMRS 18” letters are fine and are the ones I used on No. 35899. As I don’t know any numbers for D299 wagons branded for loco coal, I’ve just used numberplates from the Slater’s sheet. That’s the source of the tare weight numbers too, though there aren’t enough 4s to go round – one wagon ha to make do with rotated 7s! The brake handles suffered during weathering, too.

 

Whilst playing variations on D299, how about sticking on a long brake handle (adapted from a Ratio LNWR kit) and a stout wooden door stop (0.060” square plastikard rod carved to shape):

 

 

and calling it a Somerset & Dorset wagon:

 

 

 

Russ Garner’s The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock Registers 1886 – 1930 (The Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust, 2000) is my main source of information on this subject, along with Phil Sutters’ gallery of Derby official photos, but my inspiration is this photo of the Midland’s Avonside Wharf in Bristol – the location that is also the inspiration for Tricky’s 7mm scale cameo. In amongst all the regular Midland D299s is a solitary example of the S&DJR version.

 

Only a few of the S&DJR’s wagons were actually built by Derby – a batch of tariff or road vans in 1896 and eighty D301 6-plank loco coal wagons in 1902 – but much of Highbridge’s output was of Midland designs, albeit with some local interpretation, especially in the matter of brake levers. Getting on for half the S&DJR’s 1200 wagons were 5-plank opens of essentially D299 design, though there were some variations such as round ends and, interestingly, sheet bars. Mine is based on No. 522, in the background of this photo (of the solitary D334-like rail wagon). Dating from the late 1890s (according to Garner’s list) and with Ellis 10A axleboxes, this suits the Slater’s kit. The S&DJR livery gives quite a different look to the wagon, even though the body colour is the same LMS grey, this time used unadulterated. Although the body ironwork is black, the S&DJR didn’t paint all the solebar ironwork black, only the horizontal braces to the headstocks, or the buffer guides, which makes life easier! Transfers are from the HMRS sheet but the numberplates are another home-printed job. The printer resolution wasn’t up to the fine lettering, though it’s there in the artwork:

 

 

The weathering highlights how much more prominent the planking grooves are on the Slater’s injection moulded kit than the Mousa 3D resin print. Roll on the Gibson whhels, after which brakes can be fitted. (In the photo above, the unpainted wagon sports a set of P4 wheels.)

 

This thread has now had more views than the Midland built D299 wagons! I'm flattered - thank you all for your interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Spitfire2865]

Well your thread is quite a bit easier to read than it is to build a wagon!  And praise is certainly deserved.  Your thread has not only demonstrated proper modelling but been the host to much discussion and spreading of historical information.

Wagons look great, though Im surprised how little plank groove there is on the Mousa bodies.  It looks almost raised.

[Worsdell forever]

Glad your number plates worked out, looks superb.

[Mikkel]

What a treat! You have a way of giving each wagon its own personality. No doubt the careful research  -and great building - plays a role in that. 

 

Nice to see an Iron Mink with left hand GWR. The MR loco coal wagons are my favourites of this batch though, just the right mix of visual appeal and industrial functonality.

 

Glad you solved the seasick green crisis 

[Compound2632]

I didn’t show the L&Y D21 brake van in my previous post because although it’s been through the paintshop, black-on-black weathering didn’t seem very promising. Instead I gave it a very dilute – too dilute – wash with very dark grey. I’m not terribly convinced by the outcome:

 

 

The company symbol, lettering and tare weight numbers are from the HMRS pre-Grouping pressfix sheet – much easier to get small items in the right place than with the POWSides rub-down transfers I used on my D3 covered goods wagon and D15 dropside wagon; I may be re-visiting those. The number plate is another home-printed job. An irritating thing about brake van models is that the body has to be fully painted – especially if using spray paint and varnish – before the windows can be glazed, and hence before the roof can be put on.

 

The lettering follows my favourite reference photo, except the HMRS sheet doesn’t have the wording above the handrail G. BRAKE FIRE EXT^R, which also appears in a photo of the earlier birdcage version of these vans, in Noel Coates’ Lancashire & Yorkshire Wagons Vol.2. Does this mean the van has been fireproofed somehow? I’m not sure I’d want to be in one of these if it caught fire through having the brakes on too hard trying to control a runaway. I imagine most guards would feel happier with a verandah to escape onto…

 

Blackburn seems as good a home station as any – it could work through to Hellifield to meet the Midland – though a Yorkshire station might be more suitable for another of my fantasy layouts, Midland/L&Y/NER in the Methley area with H&B engines working through to Leeds.

 

Spitfire2865 has been troubling me with the observation that all photos of these vans are taken from the same side, with the lamp housing to the left of the door, and that the sides are not identical as I had assumed but mirror images. This matters to him because he’s modelling the interior – something I’m not planning on doing. Upstate New York is a roomy place and he’s working in a scale nearly four times mine! But, looking at the photos in Coates’ book, he’s right: the stove chimney is always at the right-hand end.

 

Meanwhile, I have allowed myself to be distracted once again. Easily done. Back in November, when I was putting together my Stroud PO wagons that I’d started over 20 years ago, I showed a pair of sides for an Ocean Coal Co. wagon and briefly discussed the rationale for these wagons appearing in the Birmingham area. My reference photo for the sides, Plate 434 in Keith Montague’s Gloucester book, shows No. 4817, built in July 1897. This has the square Gloucester 4S axleboxes rather than the round-bottomed 4N axleboxes of the Slater’s kit. In an idle moment I started carving the plastic axleboxes off the Slater’s moulding and replacing them with the MJT whitemetal casting for the 4S axleboxes:

 

 

In this case (unlike the D382A tariff brake van) the hole in the back of the casting is well-aligned with the bearing hole in the plastic moulding. I drilled out the hole in the casting to give a snug fit for a brass top-hat bearing. When glued, the bearing clamps the axlebox to the W-iron.

 

The body of the wagon went together very snugly, as these Slater’s PO kits do:

 

 

I then noticed that the photo showed door catches above the door, rather than to the side per the moulding. Having seen this, I had to do something about it, in microstrip:

 

 

I’d made a similar modification to the Hornby Cadbury wagon.

 

I get a second-hand railway book every year as a birthday present from an uncle and aunt – it really is very much appreciated! This year’s book was Colin Chapman’s The Nelson and Ynysybwl Branches of the Taff Vale Railway (The Oakwood Press, 1997). This has a Gloucester official photo of an earlier 6-plank Ocean wagon, No. 917, built in May 1893. If I’d seen this photo when I painted the sides I could have saved myself a lot of trouble as it’s a dead ringer for the Slater’s kit: 4N axleboxes, door catches at the sides… One oddity is that No. 4817 has its brake lever at the end door end, whereas No. 917 has it at the fixed end, i.e. on the other side of the wagon. (Both levers are at the right hand end as seen from the brake side of the wagon, of course.) I happened to have a Slater’s kit built that way, sitting in primer and black ironwork waiting for a suitable livery, so out came the white paint:

 

 

The Ynysybwl book set me hunting for other photos of Ocean wagons. I was rather taken with this 5-plank wagon No. 452, until I realised it’s got no side doors – so for pit-to-port shipping. There are some interesting 4-plank wagons – hiding behind the engine here; No. 1416 with high curved fixed end here; at Treharris Colliery here – No. 1987 on the right, and one with dumb buffers at the fixed end. I’m wondering if I can make one of these using one of the Cambrian Wheeler & Gregory 4-plank wagon kits as a starting point.

 

Some of the 6-plank wagons have a style of lettering where OCEAN is four rather than three planks high – I suspect this is a later livery style. POWSides do a version with even bigger letters, to fit an RCH 1923 wagon.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Spitfire2865]

If it helps you with the tintab, the fire equiptment appears to have been a bucket in a cabinet, I assume filled with some sort of chemical retardant for occasional hotboxes.

It also was dropped eventually, going by photos sometime around the livery change.

So could reasonably be claimed in your current livery that it was already removed.

[Mikkel]

Stephen, fancy an excuse for a 7mm D299 project? http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/132448-minerva-announce-manning-wardle-k-class-0-6-0st/?p=3118117

[Compound2632]

Stephen, fancy an excuse for a 7mm D299 project? http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/132448-minerva-announce-manning-wardle-k-class-0-6-0st/?p=3118117

 

Ah yes, but I know a man who needs a wharf full of 7mm ones...  The idea of a collection of "type" models in 7mm scale appeals, though.

 

In other news, today I've soldered up and chemically blackened the W-irons and bearing units for the three Mousa D299s. Chemically blackened? More like dark browned. Having looked up the datasheet, I think I probably immersed for too long and would have done better to dilute the solution.

[Jol Wilkinson]

For those interested, LRM have introduced a kit for the LNWR D12 Timber wagon (see Small Suppliers section).

 

The bolster can be made to pivot and the etched stanchions have holes for retaining chains, so it should be possible to put together a pair with suitable load.

[Compound2632]

For those interested, LRM have introduced a kit for the LNWR D12 Timber wagon (see Small Suppliers section).

 

The bolster can be made to pivot and the etched stanchions have holes for retaining chains, so it should be possible to put together a pair with suitable load.

 

Ah yes, and it's the dumb buffer version. Just remember you saw it kit-bashed here first! Having built my own, I'm afraid I'm going to feel entitled to be at bit nit-picking about the rather prominent raised hoop around the dumb buffers. I hummed and haughed about these hoops and decided not to add any microstrip, as in photos they appear flush with the solebar timber on all faces, so almost invisible at normal viewing distance. I settled for just chamfering the ends at 45 deg. See for example this G3 model.

 

Oh dear I expect I've just blown my chances of being looked upon favourably if I try to cadge the etch for the bolster stanchions... I really must sort my D13 dumb-buffered pair out. Apart from the bolsters, it's the fixed coupling that's holding me up. 

[Jol Wilkinson]

Stephen,

 

the stanchions are part of a small separate etch, with the brake lever and guard, plus the coupling hooks.

 

I am sure a bit of grovelling to John Redrup will get you some at a suitably inflated price.

 

Jol

[Compound2632]

Stephen,

 

the stanchions are part of a small separate etch, with the brake lever and guard, plus the coupling hooks.

 

I am sure a bit of grovelling to John Redrup will get you some at a suitably inflated price.

 

Jol

 

I shall have to come incognito to ExpoEM.

 

I'm sure that anyone sharing my concerns about the raised buffer hoops could easily file them down; it is clearly otherwise an excellent kit giving a superior result compared to my primitive Ratio-bashing.

[Jol Wilkinson]

If you want the stanchion etches, you will probably need to order them in advance. It is unlikely that John will have normally have them on the show stand as they aren't listed on the website or price list.

[Penlan]

......Just remember you saw it kit-bashed here first! Having built my own, .......

Isn't it always the way, build something obscure, and then, it's a begger.

.

And at an exhibition, when somebody asks,  "Did you find the kit easy to make up..."   

Edited April 10, 2018 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

I'm taking a selection of my Midland wagon models of various vintages to the Midland Railway Society AGM this Saturday:

 

 

I really do need to apply my recently-acquired confidence in weathering and also get round to more loads! The Engineering Department red is my youthful interpretation of the information in Midland Style - I like to think I have gained a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of red since I started this topic!

 

On the subject of books, I happened to spot that The Titfield Thunderbolt had stock of Vol. 2 of Stephen Summerson's magnum opus on Midland Railway Locomotives (Irwell Press, 2007). For some reason I didn't get this when it was published, though I have Vols. 1, 3 and 4. It came packaged with a couple of high qualitycards - of Lion herself, and also of Evercreech Junction, which feeds into my current distraction: S.W. Johnson's early goods and passenger tank engines:

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Hair_Dave]

Thanks for the recommendation, my copy of the Ince iron and waggon co arrived yesterday, an absolute mine of information for the relative novice such as myself. Now to get some more information about exactly which mines in Lancashire my relatives worked in, then get cracking on making some models. I am inspired by a dumb buffered Atherton wagon. My mum grew up there so its pretty much a given.

[John_Miles]

Sadly I'll miss the MRSoc AGM this weekend. I am on operating duty as part of the Cardiff 4mm Group. We have been invited to NEWGOG (Newport Gauge O Guild) with Ynysybwl - we are the non-7mm layout. I know it's Taff Vale rather than Midland but the Taff was a really interesting railway.

[Compound2632]

Sadly I'll miss the MRSoc AGM this weekend. I am on operating duty as part of the Cardiff 4mm Group. We have been invited to NEWGOG (Newport Gauge O Guild) with Ynysybwl - we are the non-7mm layout. I know it's Taff Vale rather than Midland but the Taff was a really interesting railway.

 

Not OT - see the latter half of my post above, re. Ocean Coal Co. wagons. I was indebted to my elder son, who has a side-line in linguistics, for an explanation of how to pronounce Ynysybwl.