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

[Compound2632]

I feel a 'Swords at Dawn'  moment coming on ...   

 

The really discerning wetfish would have taken the Midland route.

[Jol Wilkinson]

Another splendid picture. I'm sceptical that ice would be packed around the boxes up against the sides of the wagon. Refrigerator vans* at this period had separate lined compartments filled with ice via roof hatches - I've not seen anything like that on any fish van. Moreover, the earlier design of Midland fish truck had slatted sides all the way down, hardly calculated to retain ice. Likewise these LNWR open fish trucks - I assume they were empty at the time of the accident! Sheeting I believe for the simple reason that in the photo of the D427 fish and poultry truck in Midland Carriages Vol. 2, securing rings for the sheet ties can be seen - although I'm not quite sure how that would be compatible with the continuous communication cord, eyelets for which are along the top of the wagon side.

 

 

The slatted wagon shown in the 

 

 

The slatted wagons shown Penmaenmawr Disaster photo looks very much like the NER one I am building from the 51L kit.

​I haven't found any photos for a LNWR open fish wagon, but a 21ft Open Fish Wagon is listed in the LNWR Society's drawings list for NPCS stock. they also show a 4 wheel vans and the WCJS 6 wheel van (Blacksmith did an etched kit for this).

There were also vac. fitted refrigerator van which could also have been used for fish traffic.

​I can't find a reference to a rail accident in Penmaenmawr in 1889 as on the photo, only for the Irish Mail in 1950, does anyone have a reference?

[Compound2632]

The slatted wagon shown in the 

 

The slatted wagons shown Penmaenmawr Disaster photo looks very much like the NER one I am building from the 51L kit.

​I haven't found any photos for a LNWR open fish wagon, but a 21ft Open Fish Wagon is listed in the LNWR Society's drawings list for NPCS stock. they also show a 4 wheel vans and the WCJS 6 wheel van (Blacksmith did an etched kit for this).

There were also vac. fitted refrigerator van which could also have been used for fish traffic.

​I can't find a reference to a rail accident in Penmaenmawr in 1889 as on the photo, only for the Irish Mail in 1950, does anyone have a reference?

 

Sandy should be able to tell us more.

[billbedford]

Vide

the D428 fish tank truck. This has a separately-numbered fish box, also in fully lined out passenger livery, which has lifting rings and held four fish tanks.These were built in 1886 but, Lacy & Dow say, "as refrigerating facilities became more widespread the need to transport live fish declined" and all had gone by 1904.

 

 

 That is not how I read that passage. It is a bit confusing, but it seems to say that the first 15 were withdrawn in 1904, and more later but in 1906 15 more were built as repacements. Three lasted until 1922.

 

Does this imply refrigerator vans running in fish trains in the Edwardian era?

 

No. It means that ice plants at the fishing port became more common from the 1880s onwards so that more fish could be packed in ice. There was also a move in the fishing fleets that saw the replacement of longlining, which produced live fish, with trawling, that didn't.

 

 

The first wagon here is a MR D428 the second is the MS&L equivalent. the photo was taken about 1910 in Grimsby

[Worsdell forever]

The slatted wagons shown Penmaenmawr Disaster photo looks very much like the NER one I am building from the 51L kit.

​I haven't found any photos for a LNWR open fish wagon, but a 21ft Open Fish Wagon is listed in the LNWR Society's drawings list for NPCS stock. they also show a 4 wheel vans and the WCJS 6 wheel van (Blacksmith did an etched kit for this).

There were also vac. fitted refrigerator van which could also have been used for fish traffic.

​I can't find a reference to a rail accident in Penmaenmawr in 1889 as on the photo, only for the Irish Mail in 1950, does anyone have a reference?

 

Looks to me like there's 2 NER C1 fish trucks there, can't find a photo online but here's the 51L model, think I've got a couple of these to build somewhere.

[Compound2632]

That is not how I read that passage. It is a bit confusing, but it seems to say that the first 15 were withdrawn in 1904, and more later but in 1906 15 more were built as repacements. Three lasted until 1922.

 

No. It means that ice plants at the fishing port became more common from the 1880s onwards so that more fish could be packed in ice. There was also a move in the fishing fleets that saw the replacement of longlining, which produced live fish, with trawling, that didn't.

 

The first wagon here is a MR D428 the second is the MS&L equivalent. the photo was taken about 1910 in Grimsby

 

Sorry, quite right. Sloppy reading on my part. Brilliant photo. I can believe that fish were packed in ice in the wooden boxes we've been looking at but would need to see compelling evidence that the boxes were then packed in ice in the fish trucks, without any other material between the ice and the sides and floor of the wagon.

 

Looks to me like there's 2 NER C1 fish trucks there, can't find a photo online but here's the 51L model, think I've got a couple of these to build somewhere.

 

I simply assumed they were LNWR vehicles from the location on the Holyhead main line. I couldn't see what NER fish trucks would be doing there but was perhaps failing to take into account the enormous consumption of fish and chips by holidaymakers from Lancashire. EDIT: except the date is 13 January. Now, that one plank wagon behind the lady with the umbrella: the sheeted load has shifted to the left, apparently taking the floorboards with it. Evidence that they weren't fixed down?

Edited April 23, 2018 by Compound2632

[Brassey]

 

​I can't find a reference to a rail accident in Penmaenmawr in 1889 as on the photo, only for the Irish Mail in 1950, does anyone have a reference?

Jol,

 

It happened; Penmaenmawr photo - the camera never lies. No date but must be the same.  In the initial image the tide is out hence people on beach:

 

 

[Compound2632]

Well now, isn't the roof of that D32* covered goods wagon interesting? Steel panels with beading strip?

 

*In the other photo, I think you can see that it's no-door-side uppermost.

[Jol Wilkinson]

I looked at several sites of railway accident records but nothing came up for Penmaenmawr during that period.

 

The loco must be a Webb SDX, straight running plate with crankpin splashers and ordinary wheel spokes (not H section).

Edited April 23, 2018 by Jol Wilkinson

[Penlan]

Very poor copy of one of the Fish Trucks at Penmaenmawr.
The photo I have is an original print from the accident.

 

 

[Buhar]

I looked at several sites of railway accident records but nothing came up for Penmaenmawr during that period.

 

The loco must be a Webb SDX, straight running plate with crankpin splashers and ordinary wheel spokes (not H section).

 

On Railways Archive there is mention of an accident on 12/1/1899 at Penmaenbach Tunnel due to flooding and a defective bridge with two fatalities (presumably the loco crew).  That's just north of Penmaenmawr but explains why that location didn't come up in a search.  It seems there was no formal report on the incident.

[billbedford]

Sorry, quite right. Sloppy reading on my part. Brilliant photo. I can believe that fish were packed in ice in the wooden boxes we've been looking at but would need to see compelling evidence that the boxes were then packed in ice in the fish trucks, without any other material between the ice and the sides and floor of the wagon.

 

 Dead fish were carried in the demountable boxes packed in ice, though whether they were also in small boxes as well is uncertain.

 

I simply assumed they were LNWR vehicles from the location on the Holyhead main line. I couldn't see what NER fish trucks would be doing there but was perhaps failing to take into account the enormous consumption of fish and chips by holidaymakers from Lancashire. EDIT: except the date is 13 January. Now, that one plank wagon behind the lady with the umbrella: the sheeted load has shifted to the left, apparently taking the floorboards with it. Evidence that they weren't fixed down?

 

Fish trucks were hired out to agents, so they could turn up just about anywhere in the country wherever there were heavy landings.

[John_Miles]

If you can smell the fish, then the fish are off, no good for market

As you know John, I live very near Newlyn (2 miles),

and it's very rare to have the smell of fish in the air - just about every journey I make,

is through Newlyn, 4 times a day sometimes.    

 

So when I go into my local Morrisons which has a fish counter by the entrance, all the fish are off?

[Brassey]

I looked at several sites of railway accident records but nothing came up for Penmaenmawr during that period.

 

The loco must be a Webb SDX, straight running plate with crankpin splashers and ordinary wheel spokes (not H section).

 

Jol, the original reference gave the number as 1418 which according Baxter was indeed S DX and is listed as: Accident Penmaenmawr 12/1/99.  Survived till 4/1924 so must have been repaired.  Peter

[Penlan]

So when I go into my local Morrisons which has a fish counter by the entrance, all the fish are off?

Yes, you've been through Newlyn I recall, all fresh fish and no smell.

[Compound2632]

Whenever I leave this thread unattended for a while it has a disquieting tendency to drift off in a North-Western direction – very fishy. Going with the flow, here’s my next attempt at a sheeted wagon:

 

 

This is the D2 I made by shortening and otherwise kitbashing one of the D62 ballast wagons from a Ratio p/w set; the sheet is again from Thomas Petith’s Model Wagon Sheet Company range. This is an attempt to model a sheet that has been secured along the sides using ties to the three eyelet tabs along the first seam on each side (sheets were made from five strips of material sown together lengthways). It seems that when sheets were secured this way, the sheet would be furled up – I haven’t found a very satisfactory photo to link to but the sketch of a Furness Railway wagon on the Goods & Not So Goods website shows what I’m aiming for. I’ve tried to do this by rolling the sheet up lengthways but not been very successful at recreating the way the bundled up sheet sags between the ties. In fact I’ve discovered after the event that my wagon looks a bit like the sheeted LNW D1 on the left of this enlargement from a photo taken at Birmingham Central Goods Station, probably in the 1890s. Modellers of sailing ships must have a technique for getting the furled look I was trying for. At least the sheet covers up my blunder of putting the number 42125 on the ends of the wagon after painstakingly making numberplates for 42152, though I do now wonder why I bothered putting the number on the ends anyway!

 

As an aside, I think Slater’s must have recently changed the metal used for the links of their three-link couplings as with my latest batch, the trick of blackening by heating the chain to red heat and quenching in oil no longer works; instead I’ve used Carr’s metal black for brass. Perhaps I should have tried blackening the buffers before fitting too!

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Spitfire2865]

Looks good.

I dont think theres any way to satisfyingly get the tarp to behave as the 12" to the foot ones do. Proper real fabric has an almost fluid like property due to the weight that we just cant replicate for smallscales.

Perhaps I would have better luck in G3, but as Im no seamstress, I havent the skill to do it. Would definitely need a sewing machine at the very least to get decent seams.

[Mikkel]

Nice one Stephen. Good to see the furled up style being modelled. When I looked at GWR photos of this, the sheets (to use GWR terminology) were often furled up "outwards", and the sheets would droop on each side of the tightly pulled ties.

 

I do agree it it hard to get the natural behaviour of sheets right though. It was one of the reasons I experimented with foil some time ago (something I still want to revisit).

[Compound2632]

More experiments with wagon sheets: another LNWR wagon, the D1 made from one of the D42 rail wagons in a Ratio p/w set, this time with a bulky load needing two sheets:

 

 

 

The wagon was weighted to 50 g with lead flashing sheet inside the wagon and underneath. The load is actually a ‘bale’ of bubble wrap, chosen to give a suitably amorphous lumpy look. Possibly hay? Or more likely bales of some material? The example I was following (alas not directly a prototype photo) was cotton bales but that’s an unlikely traffic for the West Midlands. Unfortunately the load has shifted during the sheeting process:

 

 

… giving a rather unbalanced look. I should have used a roll of bubble wrap that was a bit longer than the wagon, as it gets compressed. On these LNWR wagons, the sheet ties would be secured to cleats on the underside of the curb rale; it’s a bit tricky to represent this – I did better on the D2 but this time there’s a bit too much use of the axleguards. This time there are ropes running over the sheets; I have to confess that I have not included the white thread in every strand that would indicate they are LNWR ropes, nor the ferrules. Now I have to remember to marshal this wagon such that the overlap is in the trailing direction “so as to prevent sparks, wind, or rain getting underneath the sheet” [R. Essery, Sheets, Ropes & Sacks, Midland Record No.3, pp. 41-58].

 

One mistake I made (of several) was to glue the tie in the centre of each end down first. My idea was thus to hold the load in place but this prevented the corners of the sheets from being tucked in under a folded-down flap as seems to have been common practice. As Spitfire and Mikkel have said, one is up against the constraints imposed by the non-scalability of the behaviour of materials.

 

Tortilla wraps for dinner had seemed like a good idea when we were shopping...

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Spitfire2865]

If you had managed the coloured threads and ferrules, Id certainly be impressed.

 

Would a D1 actually be used for such a bulky load?

[billbedford]

Yes, you've been through Newlyn I recall, all fresh fish and no smell.

 

 

Yes, but it's the effluent from the ice that smells not the fish themselves.

[Penlan]

Would a D1 actually be used for such a bulky load?

I wouldn't have thought so, and I'm sure all the wagons to the front of this train are 5 plank or more, but.....

From the LNWR Society's Facebook page, Ref. Lgrp 10805, especially the load at the right hand side.

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

Would a D1 actually be used for such a bulky load?

 

I don't think I can produce a good clear photo illustrating a one-plank wagon loaded like this but there are some distant views in goods trains where what looks like a one-plank wagon is loaded almost to the gauge - looming over a D32 or D33 covered goods wagon. The drawing I was referring to is, I think, based on photographs. I think their use for such loads would have been in decline by the Edwardian era. But, at one time these were the standard merchandise wagon - on the LNWR, the one-plank open dates from Grand Junction days and the D1 specification from at least 1859. The D2 two-plank wagons were introduced in 1870 but the D4 3'0"-deep four-plank wagon didn't become standard until 1894. From 1909 there was a programme of replacing D1 wagons by four-plank wagons - by then, the 10 ton capacity D9 version. [LNWR Wagons Vol. 1; it's a defect of this work compared to, say, Essery's Midland Wagons, that it is rather vague on quantities and build dates - maybe the Earlestown Lot or Order Book has not survived?] So at one time one-plank wagons must have been the only option for such loads. After all, it's not so far from modern practice*.

 

There is a similar pattern on the (standard gauge) Great Western: one-plank wagons from time immemorial up to 1871; two-plank wagons built 1871-1878; three-plank wagons 1879-1887; four-plank wagons 1887-1902; five-plank wagons from 1901. (Were not the two and three plank wagons the same depth - 22"?); other railways in the North-Western's orbit followed a similar pattern: the L&Y and North Staffs for example.

 

On the other hand, the Midland never had many such low-sided wagons. The evidence seems to be that at least by the late 1850s the 1'9"-deep three-plank dropside wagon - ancestor of D305 - was the standard merchandise wagon; in 1894 there were over 15,000 such wagons from before 1877 in service. The 2'10"-deep 5-plank D299 wagon originated in 1879 (although the first batch weren't included on the diagram); before that there seem to have been outside-framed merchandise wagons of similar dimensions [Midland Wagons Vol. 1, incl. Fig. 6 from S.W. Johnson's Presidential Address to the I Mech E.].

 

Then there are the southern lines, which seem to have favoured the high-sided tilt wagon - which also seems to have been more-or-less standard on the broad gauge Great Western, as far as my limited knowledge goes.

 

*Many years ago - before the M40 was opened to Birmingham - I was travelling in a friend's car north from Oxford up the old A34. Somewhere around Shipston we got stuck behind a lorry and trailer loaded high with hay or straw bales. The trailer load wasn't very well secured and every now and then a bale would creep to the nearside and roll off into the hedge. Getting towards Stratford - maybe Newbold or Alderminster - a bale was within inches of taking out a man up a ladder. There was nothing we could do except keep a safe distance back - certainly no hope of overtaking. No mobile phone to contact the police in those days.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Here’s the second of my D299s with a scratchbuilt body now hidden under a sheet:

 

 

For this one, my reference has been the Gurnos photo that was being discussed a few posts back. The centre of the sheet is about 1 mm below the level of the sides, giving the “hollow” look. The sheets in this photo are even more neatly “hung” than in the Aldridge photo. The corners are tucked in and, I think, roped up tight to the sheet rings on the headstocks. Then the ends are neatly folded in – again pulled in by tie ropes through the headstock rings. Quite as pretty as a parcel! The side ties also line up with the three solebar sheet rings. The only obscure point is what the centre tie rope at the end is lashed too – it ought not be the drawbar hook!

 

I’ve done a batch weathering job on my Great Western red wagons – one or two of the opens will be sheeted but I think I’ll go for more humped loads as I don’t want to hide all the hard work I put into lettering and numbering! (Spitfire, your PM was timely.)

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Coal Tank]

I wouldn't have thought so, and I'm sure all the wagons to the front of this train are 5 plank or more, but.....From the LNWR Society's Facebook page, Ref. Lgrp 10805, especially the load at the right hand side.

 

Goods Train ex - FB #2.jpg

great photo