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

[Penlan]

Re. the Old Radnor accident, The steel chassis wagons were obtained in 1910. They are nothing to do with the accident.
The accident has two photo's in the book, there is at least one more somewhere as I recall Mike Morton-Lloyd showing me it long ago.  The accident happened on Jan. 20th, but no year is stated on the postcard photo's, however in the second picture all the wagons visible are dumb buffered.
I seem to recall some 40+ years ago reading an accident report of this, and would have passed the info onto Mike M-L, most of his archive is now with the Welsh Railways Research Circle.
For those with the book, the various wagons in front of one of the Lime Kilns, top of page 56, the wagon in front of the LH kiln is lettered 'Llewellyn   Eardisley'.  The only evidence I've seen of this owner.  
I have one or two models of Old Radnor wagons etc., Hand lettered long ago when I could see a bit better.

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Penlan

[Penlan]

.... also in the book is a photo with this wagon load of barrels, I'm sure we've seen this way of loading a wagon before, but I can't find the relevant topic,  Sorry Compound2632, not a D299 though.

[Compound2632]

31 minutes ago, Penlan said:

.... also in the book is a photo with this wagon load of barrels, I'm sure we've seen this way of loading a wagon before, but I can't find the relevant topic,  

 

 

Barrels is barrels but these appear not to be loaded according to The Rules, which state: "Returned empty casks must not be loaded end to end, either on their bilges or upright one tier upon another, as such loading may lead to the end of one cask knocking in the end of another". Bilge to bilge and/or bilge to chimb was the order of the day. Having looked at the diagrams, I infer that the bilge is the rounded middle of the barrel and the chimb the flat end. A bit of googling refines the definition of chimb: "the projecting rim at the end of a cask". 

 

This was all discussed on a pre-grouping wagon loading thread. That discussion led to me reading Freeman Wills Crofts, The Cask (1921), a detective novel in which the tracing of the movements of the eponymous container to and fro between Paris and London is key to soving the crime. It was Crofts first novel, which shows: the first and second parts are rather stronger than the third. Crofts' first career had been on the civil engineering staff of the BNCR / MR NCC / LMS NCC - he was involved in the design of the Greenisland viaducts. He moved on to a prolific career writing detective fiction. In his 1946 introduction to The Cask, he notes that in his naivety he wrote 120,000 words; he subsequently discovered that the same royalties could be obtained for 80,000 words. "Bitterly have I regretted those 40,000 wasted words!"

Edited March 4, 2020 by Compound2632

[Mikkel]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

This was all discussed on a pre-grouping wagon loading thread

 

Here, perhaps: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/147072-pre-grouping-wagon-loading/&do=findComment&comment=3667359

 

 

[Guy Rixon]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Barrels is barrels but these appear not to be loaded according to The Rules, which state: "Returned empty casks must not be loaded end to end, either on their bilges or upright one tier upon another, as such loading may lead to the end of one cask knocking in the end of another". Bilge to bilge and/or bilge to chimb was the order of the day. Having looked at the diagrams, I infer that the bilge is the rounded middle of the barrel and the chimb the flat end. A bit of googling refines the definition of chimb: "the projecting rim at the end of a cask". 

The point of the rule is that the circular end of a cask, inside the chimb, is only held by friction against the staves. If the cask is empty and the end is struck it can easily be driven in, at which point the cask collapses.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Guy Rixon

[jwealleans]

One of those looks to have a stave missing.  Going for disposal, maybe?

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

One of those looks to have a stave missing.  Going for disposal, maybe?

 

Either that or there's a body in it - see The Cask.

[57xx]

On 27/02/2020 at 14:37, Compound2632 said:

Well, I suppose it would add £26 to the coat of one's fleet of minks - depends how many you intend to build.

 

Last time I checked, a couple meant 2. So, no thanks to a £26 premium just for 2 kits.

 

On 27/02/2020 at 14:37, Compound2632 said:

I had a quick look at the rules - there doesn't seem to be anything about taking an oath to forswear the narrower gauges.

 

Not sure where gauge was mentioned? Apologies to all those other posters who got angst ridden over gauges, as you pointed out yourselves, it in your mind.

 

cheerio.

[Craigw]

8 hours ago, 57xx said:

 

Last time I checked, a couple meant 2. So, no thanks to a £26 premium just for 2 kits.

 

 

Not sure where gauge was mentioned? Apologies to all those other posters who got angst ridden over gauges, as you pointed out yourselves, it in your mind.

 

cheerio.

 

Jeremy  (the stores ) has an Ebay account where he sells photos and also the occasional iron Mink and some other etchings. If you look on there you may be able to find some listed.

 

If you knew what stores the S4 society have, how good the forum is and how good the S4 news is you would hardly consider the 26 GBP a premium.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[Regularity]

10 hours ago, Craigw said:

would hardly consider the 26 GBP a premium

It's also quite a lot less than RMWeb "Gold" Membership.

[Compound2632]

We're evidently overdue for a spot of proper modelling.

 

A long time ago in a thread far far away, someone - possibly @Guy Rixon - drew attention to the change in design of the bottom of the sliding door of Midland covered goods wagons. Various preserved vehicles, and the Slaters moldings, have the doors running on rollers:

 

 

[Crop from my own photo of a D357 vehicle, bearing the number 32389, at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, Quainton Road - a good place to study the evolution of the Midland covered goods wagon. But where did they get the idea that the Midland painted solebars, headstocks, and buffer guides black?]

 

This type of silding door support appears in the majority of photos in Midland Wagons, the majority of which show vehicles in LMS or BR days. The official photos of the 14'11" wagons built up to 1892, the first lot of 16'6" wagons built in 1893, and the D378 fruit vans built in 1896, had a sliding support rather than a roller:

 

 

[Crop from Drg. 1032 downloaded from the website of the Midland Railway Study Centre.]

 

Drg. 1032 covered the 2,384 16'6" covered goods wagons built to five lots between 1894 and 1902, the majority to D362 but including fifty fitted vehicles to D360 with 3'7" wheels and "passenger" running gear. The first 500 of the 2,450 vehicles ordered to Lot 543 in 1902 were built to this drawing with the balance being built to a new drawing, Drg. 1642 - this was for vehicles of 10 tons capacity; 1,500 vehicles to, D363 and 450 with louvres and torpedo vents to D364. It's not absolutely clear what changes this drawing introduced apart from the increase in journal bearing area from 8" x 3½" to 9" x 3¾" - which I believe may also mark the change from grease to oil axleboxes. It may also cover the change from slides to rollers for the doors. At the very least rollers were in use by 1903, as in a c. 1905 photo [Midland Wagons Plate 200], a D361 fruit van of Lot 563 has them. 

 

The first 276 wagons of D362 were built to an earlier drawing, Drg. 981; the changes between this and Drg. 1032 were to do with the drawgear. The official photo of wagon No. 114351 from the first batch, Lot 311 of 1893, has sliders of the type shown in Drg. 1032 [Midland Wagons Plate 184]. 

 

From the batch of covered goods wagons I started building about 18 moths ago (!), I had numbered the 16'6" wagon that I had fitted with MJT Ellis 10A axleboxes, 114352 - from my numerological researches, I had concluded that this first batch of 50 wagons were probably numbered 114321-114370; the next number to the known example seeming the safest bet! So this wagon ought to have the sliders. With a fresh sharp blade, I've carved away the rollers and shortened the rail, adding pieces of microstrip to represent the slides:

 

 

Touching up will happen next time I have the Precision LMS freight stock grey out. The D357 wagon No. 30658 shows the rollers (though the molding on the 16'6" wagon is finer) - so this must be a wagon from the 2,496 built to Lot 562 in 1903, not one of the 1892 vehicles of Lot 309. One of those was numbered 114193 [Midland Wagons Plate 179]; my numerology suggests the 170 wagons built with 6'10½" inside height of Lot 309, of four different experimental diagrams, could have been numbered 114151-114320. (The wagons of this lot built to 6'4½" inside height, D356, included one numbered 9012 [Midland Wagons Plate 178] so I infer these 50 wagons were renewals and took the numbers of withdrawn wagons. The remaining Lot 309 wagons, along with the Lot 311 16'6" wagons, being somewhat experimental, might be counted as additions to capital stock.) 

 

My numerology runs as follows: 

Lot 296, 14 Mar 1892, qty 3, D310 18 ton trolleys, known to be Nos. 114118-114120.

Lot 305, 30 Sep 1892, qty 30, D370 refrigerator meat van, known numbers 114128 and 114148, infer Nos. 114121-114150.

Lot 309, 1 Dec 1892, qty 220, D356 (qty 30), D357/D358/D359 (164), and D376 (6), known number 114193, infer Nos. 114151-114320.

Lot 311, 1 Feb 1893, qty 50, D362 covered goods wagons 16'6" long, known number 114351, infer Nos. 114321-114370.

 

All rather speculative!

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Compound2632]

I've been trying a little experiment. I drew up a PO wagon side (in Word):

 

 

The typefaces are Arial Black and Embassy BT. The latter isn't too bad for script but the Arial is a quick dodge for signwritten block lettering - it has the fault that horizontals are narrower than verticals. Also, the G has an anachronistic horizontal bar (@Annie) that I tried to hide with a black ellipse but this being Word, something moved. I had some fun with the letter spacing using the "Expand" function in the advanced fonts menu. If I was doing this seriously I would be using CorelDraw, where I can manipulate the letter shapes. The white bars are the positions for cornerplates, side knee washer plates, and door hinge straps; the external lines mark the positions of planks and the door (the wagon is 15'0" (60 mm) long with 4'6" (18 mm) door and 4'0" (16 mm) deep, i.e. 17.5 mm height of side including the curb rail; the black area extends about 1 mm above and below. 

 

I tried printing with my HP Deskjet 3055A, on paper at standard resolution (300 dpi), on photographic paper at best resolution (600 dpi), and on primed 10 thou Plastikard, again at 600 dpi - disappointment there:

 

 

The photographic paper shows some promise, withstanding close inspection:

 

 

(Some camera shake in there but bear in mid that that script text is just 16 mm wide.) Word has been up to its usual tricks - Achingham moved a bit to the right. Questions are: how well will the photographic paper take an attempt to scribe planking grooves; and how compatible is the photographic paper with other materials and adhesives?

 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Annie]

Use Paint.NET for making wagon sides.  It's free and it's way more powerful than Word could ever be.  I often start off a lettering task using Arial or Arial Black, but by the time I've reshaped the letters and redrawn over them their own mother couldn't recognise them.  Using the Arial 'G' on a pre-grouping wagon is a crime against god, church and man in my opinion, - but you knew that already.

When I was making litho coach and wagon sides for coarse scale 'O' Gauge I sometimes used photographic paper and I don't remember having any problems with it or having to do anything out of the ordinary with what glues I used.

[MikeOxon]

I find it is essential to varnish photo paper before doing anything else to the surface.  Once that has hardened you should find it compatible with the methods you propose.  I like bookbinders' adhesive, which is a tough type of PVA, for assembling printed sides.

 

Can you print to PDF first (several free programs available), which prevents Word's habit of moving things when you use an inkjet printer.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, MikeOxon said:

Can you print to PDF first (several free programs available), which prevents Word's habit of moving things when you use an inkjet printer.

 

Thanks for the tip on varnishing.

 

To do this properly, I will use CorelDraw. I will print from that directly (as I have done for wagon numberplates). With the numberplates, I've peeled the hard shiny layer off the backing paper - to give near-scale thickness. I have to consider whether this would be a good idea for a wagon side and, indeed, what the base material should be - possibly a thin wood sheet? For the ironwork, I've thought of etched brass - which could be chemically blackened and/or painted before glueing in place, but I have yet to come across a suitable etch. 

[Annie]

Yes I forgot about varnishing.  I used to use a spray on varnish for preserving artwork.  I can't remember what brand I used now, but I used to buy it from a shop here in town that sold art supplies.  It was more expensive than ordinary hardware store rattle can varnish, but it was far better in terms of quality and it didn't mess up colours.

[Trains&armour]

Might I suggest building the wagon first and then apply the lettering by using printed decals? The overall result will probably look better.
One drawback, printing white is not possible on most commercially available home printers, but there are several printing services available who can print white decals on decal paper. I've done so on several occasions, the first of which is documented on RMweb: (See part one and three)

But beware, it's a fictional livery and definitely not pre grouping. But for a first attempt I think the final result looks quite acceptable. 

[Compound2632]

One could print a transfer for the whole side, body colour and shading, and apply it to a white-painted wagon. That would, I think, present its own challenges. But it's not so far off what I was doing when hand-lettering wagons:

 

 

This has the advantage that one can use an existing kit, which is fine if one wants a Gloucester or Chas Roberts wagon, or one similar enough. If one is scratch-building the wagon, or at least its sides, then one has more freedom of approach. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Annie]

I don't use white for lettering, when I'm making textures for digital goods wagons  - I always use a light shade of grey.  Pure white doesn't exist in the real world and always looks wrong on digital models.  I don't know if that will help though when it comes to printing out wagon sides.

[Compound2632]

40 minutes ago, Annie said:

I don't use white for lettering, when I'm making textures for digital goods wagons  - I always use a light shade of grey.  Pure white doesn't exist in the real world and always looks wrong on digital models.  I don't know if that will help though when it comes to printing out wagon sides.

 

I find the white I have - a Humbrol enamel - has rather poor coverage, so over a grey undercoat is off-white. Weathering also helps. But I can experiment for the printed sides.

[Buhar]

A white panted wagon is the basis on which Robert Burns of Robbie's Rolling Stock produce their stuff.  They do custom transfers and I believe can edit items from their range to fit proper wagons rather than the stretch limousines provided by Dapol which is the basis of their RTR range.

 

Alan

[Compound2632]

Stephenson Clarke wagons:

On browsing Brassmasters' website, I find they've (re)introduced the Tom Mallard resin Stephenson Clarke wagon body. I evidently missed them at Warley, a day or two after that post! I'll be saving up to buy a couple at ExpoEM, for Huntley & Palmers traffic...

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Compound2632

[richbrummitt]

9 hours ago, Buhar said:

A white panted wagon is the basis on which Robert Burns of Robbie's Rolling Stock produce their stuff.  They do custom transfers and I believe can edit items from their range to fit proper wagons rather than the stretch limousines provided by Dapol which is the basis of their RTR range.

 

Alan

 

It's a few years since I used them so things might have changed. I prepared sides to have customers wagons done and they were completely redone with regular fonts in Word and returned as a proof. In this event I went ahead because the livery was fictitious to celebrate my Dad's 60th but I would not trust the sides (fonts &c.) for a pre grouping wagon; best to see them first. 

[Compound2632]

On 11/03/2020 at 08:07, richbrummitt said:

 

It's a few years since I used them so things might have changed. I prepared sides to have customers wagons done and they were completely redone with regular fonts in Word and returned as a proof. In this event I went ahead because the livery was fictitious to celebrate my Dad's 60th but I would not trust the sides (fonts &c.) for a pre grouping wagon; best to see them first. 

 

I did have a browse through the Robbies Rolling Stock website and while there is there a wide range of interesting liveries, I have to say I was disappointed - ignoring the cases where the liveries are applied to wrongly-proportioned models, they exhibit several of the faults I would be anxious to avoid:

• lettering too skinny
• horizontals thinner than verticals
• shading simply the text offset, with no attempt at filling in the corner angles
• Es and Fs with the middle horizontal as long as top and bottom
• Ms and Ws wrongly proportioned - I didn't comment on this on my test print side but here are a typical signwritten M and W, compared with Arial Black:

  

 

[Signwritten examples from a 1925 Gloucester RC&WCo. photo on Warwickshire Railways.]

 

Note that both the signwritten letters are constructed in a square. The M has a isosceles triangle cut out of the top and extending nearly to the mid-point of the square; the right-angle triangle cut-outs along the bottom extend to less than half way up - likewise for the W. The width at the top corners of the M (bottom of the W) is just a little bit greater than the width of the vertical; where the diagonals meet at the bottom of the M (top of the W) they "nose" is narrower than the standard width. (There must be some technical vocabulary for all these features of letters.)

• Don't get me started on Ss, Cs, and Gs. 

All these issues are symptoms of Robbies Rolling Stock simply employing commercial computer typefaces. It wouldn't have been too painful, I'm sure, to have invested some time early on in some high-quality drawing software such as CorelDraw and building up a library of correctly-proportioned letters. But since their customers are happy with wrongly-proportioned wagons, I suppose there's no hope.

 

This raises a philosophical question: does a model railway manufacturer have a moral duty to inform and educate as well as entertain?

 

POWSides remains my first port of call.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[MikeOxon]

I find a flat-top '3' is a difficult computer font to find.  Some time ago, I did a trawl of the fonts on my own computer with this characteristic.  The list was as follows:

 

AIGDT
Charlemagne Std
GreekS
Gungsuh
Hobo Std
Miriam
Modern
Orator Std
Reem Kufi
RomanD
Rubik
Segoe Print
Simplex
Technic
Tekton Pro

 

I've no idea where many of these came from as I have a lot of software on my computer but it may be useful for someone.