Rufford Red Lion Square

[James Harrison]

Ah!  Windows update and suddenly 'normal service has been resumed'.  Excellent.

 

Erm, maybe not quite normal service.  My circumstances are changing- for the better, for a change- initially there's going to be less modelling time as I'll be working slightly longer hours and commuting longer.  But then the cause of this first change is also going to be responsible- hopefully this Autumn- for another big change which will let serious work commence. 

 

Forward!

[Shadow]

May be a bit late, but I've used a product to do roads/surfaces that is really good. It's a textured sand paste. Think polyfilla with grit! By DecoArt Media from Hobby craft.

 

Photo below shows a sample i've just out down, so still a bit wet!.

 

 

 

Edit to add :-

Also got a slightly course version. Two part concrete textured paint.

 

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by Shadow

[James Harrison]

Now, a sand or gravel version of that would be ideal!

[James Harrison]

Friday's work: I started using up my stock of cardboard tubes.  Gently teasing the tubes apart to get some decent-sized sheets of thin card, to cure their wanting to roll back up I then saturated it, laid it on the cutting side and then washed it over with dilute PVA glue.  Two days later it is (nearly) dry and has basically acted to give a lot more rigidity and form to the cutting. 

 

Because it was almost sopping wet meant that I couldn't work on CfP yesterday so I built a pair of Slaters/ POWsides private owner wagons instead.  My kit stash remains the same size it was- these kits only arrived yesterday morning....

 

Today's plan is to paint their insides, and look at making a start on the other cutting side. 

[James Harrison]

What have we here?

 

 

The two LNWR opens and the Met and Midland vans that formed the Christmas Week Project, all finished.  The Midland transfers arrived today.  Also, the pair of PO wagons I built over the weekend. 

 

Right, back to working on the cutting tomorrow. 

[Compound2632]

I do like to see a good bit of wagon modelling. I hope you will forgive me for offering a couple of comments on livery:

 

The Midland D644 van, the usual practice would be for the M R to be more widely spaced - almost up against the framing of the sliding door - with the number central and above, as in Cambrian's catalogue image. But you might have a photo illustrating this variation.

 

The Ratio 4-plank wagon can represent either the 6 ton rated D4 or the 10 ton rated D9 (the same wagon with larger axle journal bearing area). However, I think that only the 10 ton wagons had the V-hanger brakes; the earlier 6 ton wagons seem universally to have had the single-brake shoe Scotch brake. On the other hand, there were D9s with the Scotch brake - even along with oil axleboxes.

 

Ref. Essery, Midland Wagons Vol. 1, LNWR Society, LNWR Wagons Vol. 1.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Compound2632

[James Harrison]

Of course.  How else are we to improve unless someone who knows advises? 

 

I'm sure I saw a photo with the M R closely spaced, can I find it now?  Can I heck as like!  I am looking at buying some more Midland wagons as time and money allow as my suspicion is that, particularly around the Nottingham/ Chesterfield/ Sheffield/ Lincoln area it's most likely the majority of 'foreign' wagons on the GC would be Midlanders.  Around Lincoln I would expect to also see a fair number of GN and GE wagons too.  Most of my library deals only with the GC, the one and only wagon-centric book I have deals with GC/ GN/ GE wagons.  I'll probably buy one on Midland wagons if the number of them I decide I need warrants it. 

 

How and why a pair of LNWR opens would make it across the Peak District to this corner of Nottinghamshire is beyond me- and so, for that matter, is how a Metropolitan van could/ would make it that far down the London branch.  Rule 1 I think. 

 

Incidentally, roughly what sort of ratio would be expected for home: 'foreign' wagons?  My (admittedly very vague) idea at the moment is to aim for roughly a third of the railway-owned wagons to be non-GC in origin in a rough mix of LNWR/ Midland/ Met/ GN/ GE of varying quantities and types. 

[Compound2632]

Of course.  How else are we to improve unless someone who knows advises? 

 

I'm sure I saw a photo with the M R closely spaced, can I find it now?  Can I heck as like!  I am looking at buying some more Midland wagons as time and money allow as my suspicion is that, particularly around the Nottingham/ Chesterfield/ Sheffield/ Lincoln area it's most likely the majority of 'foreign' wagons on the GC would be Midlanders.  Around Lincoln I would expect to also see a fair number of GN and GE wagons too.  Most of my library deals only with the GC, the one and only wagon-centric book I have deals with GC/ GN/ GE wagons.  I'll probably buy one on Midland wagons if the number of them I decide I need warrants it. 

 

How and why a pair of LNWR opens would make it across the Peak District to this corner of Nottinghamshire is beyond me- and so, for that matter, is how a Metropolitan van could/ would make it that far down the London branch.  Rule 1 I think. 

 

Incidentally, roughly what sort of ratio would be expected for home: 'foreign' wagons?  My (admittedly very vague) idea at the moment is to aim for roughly a third of the railway-owned wagons to be non-GC in origin in a rough mix of LNWR/ Midland/ Met/ GN/ GE of varying quantities and types. 

 

What date are you modelling?

[James Harrison]

Between 1919 and 1922.

[richard i]

Between 1919 and 1922.

Early evening! Then you will want lights in your buildings as it gets dark in winter at that time.

[Compound2632]

Between 1919 and 1922.

 

Then anything goes, at least as far as basic open and covered goods wagons are concerned. Pooling started during the Great War, with the categories of stock included being steadily expanded. By the immediate pre-Grouping years, only specialised vehicles would be excluded. Compare this photo of the Midland's Birmingham Central Goods station, 1890s, with this photo, c. 1922; or this, the LNWR's Curzon Street station c. 1912. In the Curzon Street photo, we perhaps see the start of change with a good number of Midland wagons present - various traffic agreements between the two companies from 1908 onwards coming into play - but LNWR wagons still predominate. Another good place to look is in the BOT accident reports on Railways Archive - accidents involving goods trains often list at least the damaged wagons, giving a glimpse into the composition of typical goods trains.

 

Anything goes with moderation and balance of course - wagons of the companies with the largest fleets - Midland, LNWR, Great Western, North Eastern... will predominate. However, when the Midland's official photographer was out and about at Derby in early 1922 taking photos for a "how to load your wagon" series, his example of a low-sided was particularly obscure.

[James Harrison]

Suddenly I see I'm going to need a bigger goods yard...

[Caley Jim]

 Compare this photo of the Midland's Birmingham Central Goods station, 1890s, with this photo, c. 1922; .......

Notable in that latter photo are a couple of far travelled vans in the background.  The NB one is clear, but the partially obscured one to the left of the MR van would seem to be a CR Dia3 6T van with the later (post 1897) style of body with horizontal planking.

 

Jim

[James Harrison]

Notable in that latter photo are a couple of far travelled vans in the background.  The NB one is clear, but the partially obscured one to the left of the MR van would seem to be a CR Dia3 6T van with the later (post 1897) style of body with horizontal planking.

 

Jim

 

That one's rather useful as I bought one of Oxford Rail's NBR 4-plank wagons a year or so back and was wondering just how far south Scottish wagons made it...

 

There's a new addition to the wagon kit pile today, a Parkside Wagons GWR Python CCT of 1914. 

 

Most of my wagons I fit with 3-link couplings, the idea being that I'm splitting my stock down to run in specific classes of train on specific duties and one way of doing that is to to use different couplings.  So; unfitted goods stock = 3-link couplings and of course most of my stock is going to be unfitted.  A plan for the future is to build a rake or two of vacuum-fitted or vacuum-piped stock fitted with kadees for running at a higher speed.  It's part of my idea of running things like a real railway and a part of that is a believable speed.  You're not going to run loose-coupled stock at more than a crawl, unless you want a mess to clean up. 

 

I say of my goods stock is 3-link fitted, there is of course a piebald area of stock which is technically goods but would be seen in passenger trains or else running at passenger speeds- I'm thinking perishables traffic, fish, parcels, milk, fruit, horse boxes etc etc etc  and these I fit with kadees.  I see the Python van as being run as part of a parcels train so it will be fitted with kadees.  So it's going to be run with such vehicles as my horseboxes, bogie fish vans, that bogie parcels/ brake van I've yet to build, passenger full brakes etc etc etc.  

 

Before I get on to that though, I've dug out my final three Dapol cattle vans and my stock of 0.5mm plastic strip.  The second cutting side on CfP is currently soaking wet with dilute PVA glue- I started laying down the upper surfaces last night- so this weekend I think amongst going to see 'Stan & Ollie' and celebrating the resident Inspector Blake's birthday, I'll be getting on with completing my cattle train.  

[Caley Jim]

That one's rather useful as I bought one of Oxford Rail's NBR 4-plank wagons a year or so back and was wondering just how far south Scottish wagons made it...

I've seen a photo of the inside of Camden tranship shed with a CR open wagon in view.

 

Edit to add that the S&DJR appropriated a dropside one as a ballast wagon!

 

Jim

Edited January 12, 2019 by Caley Jim

[James Harrison]

 

Both cutting sides progressing satisfactorily, if on the slow side.  Still, given a choice between slow progress and no progress I'd take the former any day.  Part of the hold-up is that the wet work of forming the surfaces takes a few days to dry out.  To keep momentum up I'm taking advantage of the drying days to crack on with rolling stock- I've just started the last three cattle vans in my stash as a batch build.

[Annie]

It's all coming together very nicely James.

[James Harrison]

I'm just pleased it's looking anything like what I had in mind!

[James Harrison]

General update:

 

- CfP; both cutting sides are structurally about finished and ready for construction of their toe walls, modelling the soil and grass etc etc.  Coming further along CfP I've started building the landscaping around the platform ends.  The more work I do on it the more little jobs appear. 

 

- Cattle wagons; I started three and got all three to rolling chassis stage.  One of those I've now done all of the alterations on the bodywork and built it; painting of that one has now also started.  This still leaves the other two to build!

 

- Other news; I've ordered copies of the GC Mainline working timetable for Winter 1953 and the Lincoln district working timetable for Autumn 1953.  Rufford sort of sits between the two, with services to Sheffield and Nottingham (GCML) and Chesterfield and Lincoln (Lincoln district).  So I'll be able to work out some sort of prototypical timetable around these. 

[Poggy1165]

My advice on wagons for the GCR is that you need loads of PO coal wagons. Absolute stacks.

 

BTW, the GC had quite a lot of hired coal wagons. Confusingly, these were lettered GC in the usual way, and painted grey, but were PO wagons with PO Registration plates. They were numbered with 0 or H prefixes. Slater's 10 ton Roberts or Gloucester wagons are ideal to represent them.

 

If you ever decide to go pre-1917 you will need a much greater proportion of GC wagons. Usually only full loads ran through from other lines, smaller consignments were almost invariably transhipped (concentrating items for a given destination in as few wagons as possible, usually native ones.) The "foreign" wagons had to go back within three days (I think) to avoid demurrage charges. Most of this was swept away by the pooling arrangements. Indeed the tranships could arrive in any old wagon, as for the purposes of loading, a foreign wagon could be treated as a GC one.

 

I believe the accountancy was sorted by recording which wagons went where at junctions, and if an imbalance arose the "gaining" company had to send back a suitable number of empties. Not that this particularly matters for model railway purposes.

[James Harrison]

I can see I'll be building wagons for a good long time yet! 

[James Harrison]

Currently kitbashing a trio of Dapol cattle wagon kits into GCR types.  Situation at the moment is that one of them is a rolling chassis and a collection of bits, two of them have had their bodies altered and built and partly painted.  A few more days and I anticipate getting at least two of them fully built, painted and lettered...

[James Harrison]

My advice on wagons for the GCR is that you need loads of PO coal wagons. Absolute stacks.

 

BTW, the GC had quite a lot of hired coal wagons. Confusingly, these were lettered GC in the usual way, and painted grey, but were PO wagons with PO Registration plates. They were numbered with 0 or H prefixes. Slater's 10 ton Roberts or Gloucester wagons are ideal to represent them.

 

If you ever decide to go pre-1917 you will need a much greater proportion of GC wagons. Usually only full loads ran through from other lines, smaller consignments were almost invariably transhipped (concentrating items for a given destination in as few wagons as possible, usually native ones.) The "foreign" wagons had to go back within three days (I think) to avoid demurrage charges. Most of this was swept away by the pooling arrangements. Indeed the tranships could arrive in any old wagon, as for the purposes of loading, a foreign wagon could be treated as a GC one.

 

I believe the accountancy was sorted by recording which wagons went where at junctions, and if an imbalance arose the "gaining" company had to send back a suitable number of empties. Not that this particularly matters for model railway purposes.

 

Making a start on hired coal wagons... I've ordered five 10-ton Gloucester 7-plankers, by Cambrian.  It's struck me that I don't, yet, have any GCR coal wagons.... a pair of coke wagons from Hornby (yuck!), some Colin Ashby GCR 5-plankers (with loads of pit props), a 3-plank wagon from the GCRS.... I (think) that's my lot at the moment.  Aside from my Private Owners and LNWR ones of course....

 

I'd not noticed until now I have more GCR covered vans than opens!

 

Right, the cattle wagons.  One of them is still chassis only, two of them have their bodies built and, now, their bodies painted.  Roofs, chassis, brakes, buffers etc still to paint of course but once I've got these two finished I'll plug on with the third (which is actually the sixth I'll have built and completes that particular train).  Hey, that will be my first completed freight train! 

 

Yesterday my reprints of the working timetables arrived.  So I shall be able to start planning out a timetable of my own. 

[James Harrison]

 

My cattle train now stands at five wagons, plus a sixth building.  These start out as the Dapol BR standard cattle wagon kit, which is the right size for what I want but differs in the details. 

 

Whilst the kit is still on the sprue I cut the long tie bar between the axle boxes and remove that, and cut the 'prongs' off the bufferbeams.  That completes the alterations to the frames. 

 

The bodywork is a bit more involved; there is diagonal strapping to the ends that has to be removed first, and the fixing locations for the moveable partition have to be removed from the sides.  Then all of the iron strapping to the sides and the remaining strapping to the ends has to be bulked out with plastic strip to suggest that it's timber rather than angle iron.  Once this has been done the bodywork can be built and fitted, and once built the corner strapping also needs bulking out. 

 

The doors utilise the bottom two planks of the bottom door parts in the kit.  The upper doors are scratchbuilt in styrene sheet and strip.  I think the roof is the only major part of the kit that doesn't need alteration. 

 

Once built it is then a simple case of painting and weathering. 

[James Harrison]

As I have the day off work, I'll be spending the afternoon catching up on jobs.  I would like to continue the third cattle wagon, but I've not done any work on Cremorne for Pittance since last weekend and I think if I leave it much longer it will stall.  So the plan for the afternoon is- what?  More paperwork lattice and papier-mache?  I've still got about a quarter of the complete cutting to look at where that is concerned.  Once the cutting is completely formed the next thing I want to do is a final crust of brown plaster, before I start building the retaining walls and laying grass and whatnot.  Obviously plaster being a wet craft means that once done it will need to be left a while again to thoroughly dry out- and whilst it is doing so I can crack on with some more rolling stock.  I have several wagon kits that I'm just itching to look at.