What is this wagon/

[Ben Alder]

I took pity on a collection of ebay half built wagons a while ago - mainly a collection of Ratio, Parkside and Coopercraft opens, which will be attended to sometime, but among them was a stranger to me. It is a six plank open with extra body strapping and the floor has Stelfox imprinted on it - polystyrene kit and crisply moulded. Can anyone shed some light on this as to its origins, prototype and possible numberings, longevity etc.

 

Thanks.

 

PS Apologies for the appalling quality of the pics. Too late at night to drag out a better camera...

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

Great Eastern Railway 10 Ton 7 Plank Open. Can't remember what diagram number though.

 

Stelfox dated from the late 1970s or early 1980s I seem to remember.

 

 

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/4mm-stelfox-lner-ger-10t-plank-open-313632577

 

 

 

Jason

[Wickham Green]

I took pity on a collection of ebay half built wagons a while ago - mainly a collection of Ratio, Parkside and Coopercraft opens, which will be attended to sometime, but among them was a stranger to me. It is a six plank open with extra body strapping and the floor has Stelfox imprinted on it - polystyrene kit and crisply moulded. Can anyone shed some light on this as to its origins, prototype and possible numberings, longevity etc.

 

Thanks.

 

PS Apologies for the appalling quality of the pics. Too late at night to drag out a better camera...

 

IMG_1318.JPG

 

IMG_1320.JPG

Full details available from Mr.Tatlow, of course : https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lner+wagons+tatlow&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB770GB770&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi47qSDxd_ZAhXPQ8AKHVpoB7sQsAQIaA&biw=1920&bih=949#imgrc=4hmR7qqLeaOh3M:

[Ben Alder]

Thanks, duly noted - I hadn't realised the output of PT's LNER wagon knowledge. I do have " A Pictorial Record" and it is illustrated therein. It will eventually find gainful employment somewhat far from home territory......

[kevinlms]

 It will eventually find gainful employment somewhat far from home territory......

Nothing wrong with that. A load could come from a LNER source to anywhere in the country. Then there is common user, where basically any railway company could reload a wagon and send it off. As long as the total number of wagons of a type on a given railway, remained the same, it didn't matter under RCH rules.

Unless it was marked for non common user, in which case it had to sent back to owning railway, as soon as practical.

[The Johnster]

As a 7 planker I would assume it's use to be mineral, meaning coal, rather than general merchandise, and I am not sure the same common user rules applied to mineral wagons.  In those days many were private owner and worked in circuits; it may be that the GER intended it for loco coal use or similar internal coal supply.

[Steamport Southport]

I believe they were mainly used for vegetables, the GE was quite a rural railway with vast traffic of things like potatoes and sugar beet. Low weight but very bulky.

 

I would have thought a mineral wagon would have bottom or end doors. This has neither.

 

https://www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php/rolling-stock/wagons/1903-1915

 

 

 

Jason

[Il Grifone]

The upper 'cupboard' doors suggest a 'goods' rather than a 'mineral' wagon. 

[The Johnster]

Perhaps not coal, then; I'd forgotten about the sugar beet traffic!  But many merchant's coal wagons did not have end or bottom doors.  The strapping is interesting and may hold a clue, but I don't know what it is...

[Compound2632]

The upper 'cupboard' doors suggest a 'goods' rather than a 'mineral' wagon. 

 

It ain't necessarily so. For example, the L&Y's D5 loco coal wagon was so arranged, along with a number of other higher-capacity coal wagons early in the 20th century - usually types built as experiments or for traffic such as loco coal where the company could adapt the loading/unloading arrangements, I suppose.

[Ian Kirk]

Hi,

 

Another blast from the past. One of mine produced for Mr Stelfox. Late 1970s probably. A GER 10T 7 plank open.  I cut the moulds, ran off (500 or 1000 can't remember) sets of bits. These presumably must have sold slowly as Mr Stelfox never came back and ordered any more. I wonder where the moulds are?

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

 

Tatlow  Pictorial Record of LNER wagons P 17

[Steamport Southport]

They do pop up on eBay occasionally. I'm pretty sure I bought one about four years ago.

 

 

Stelfox also had a few locomotive kits. A GER J17 which seems pretty common, GER N7 that I've seen one or two available and a GNR Stirling Single that is apparently like hens teeth and which goes for very silly money.

 

 

 

Jason

[Ben Alder]

Thanks for all the input - a foray into a unknown backwater for me. Is there any list of what Stelfox actually produced? It's a bit beyond my normal area of interest I'm afraid...

[Nearholmer]

Wagons with cupboard doors at the top and drop doors below were generally intended to be used for either merchandise (open the cupboard doors to allow a man with a sack barrow in and out) or minerals/bulk commodities (leave cupboard doors closed). The cupboard doors often have extra strong fastenings to resist outward pressure from any bulk commodity.

 

The SR built some, and the concept of split doors (sometimes cupboard over cupboard) was used sur le continent.

[Dunsignalling]

Wagons with cupboard doors at the top and drop doors below were generally intended to be used for either merchandise (open the cupboard doors to allow a man with a sack barrow in and out) or minerals/bulk commodities (leave cupboard doors closed). The cupboard doors often have extra strong fastenings to resist outward pressure from any bulk commodity.

 

The SR built some, and the concept of split doors (sometimes cupboard over cupboard) was used sur le continent.

The SR wagons continued a practice already established on the LSWR and SECR.

 

The usual indication that a wagon was intended for merchandise traffic would be that filling it with a bulk commodity would greatly exceed its maximum tonnage. Such wagons were generally kept off coal traffic to keep them clean but some gravitated to it as they got older. I think the usual practice, if carrying coal etc, was not to load such wagons above the top of the drop-flap. 

 

Later still, in departmental use, carrying spent ballast, the top doors would often be removed, both for safety reasons and to prevent overloading.   

 

John

Edited March 16, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[kevinlms]

It ain't necessarily so. For example, the L&Y's D5 loco coal wagon was so arranged, along with a number of other higher-capacity coal wagons early in the 20th century - usually types built as experiments or for traffic such as loco coal where the company could adapt the loading/unloading arrangements, I suppose.

But loco coal wagons were almost always different to 'normal' coal wagons. The railways usually had better ways of dealing with the unloading of them, compared to local coal merchants. Primarily because they used it in larger quantities at a time. A typical Midland Railway loco coal wagon carried 12 Ton of coal and was barely sufficient for 2 tender loads, so a loco depot, would go through them in no time at all.

[Il Grifone]

Thanks for all the input - a foray into a unknown backwater for me. Is there any list of what Stelfox actually produced? It's a bit beyond my normal area of interest I'm afraid...

 

It would be interesting. They seem to have not sold through lack of publicity. The  first I heard of them was when I purchased one of these GER open wagon kits at a toy fair several years ago. Apart from this thread, I've not seen another before or since.

[31A]

Here's one I made earlier; quite a lot earlier in fact but I didn't note the date of construction, and certainly can't remember where I bought it!

 

Looking at it again, I think if I was to make another I'd try and make a better job of fitting the corners of the body.  I think they were a kind of 'half lap' joint rather than mitred in the way that Parkside kits tend to be.

 

 

 

[Ben Alder]

The corners are indeed like that  - there is a gap that showed up once I primed it  and will be filled once I start working on it. As for its lack of awareness, advertising was expensive before the advent of the internet and the minimal returns from such a production could easily be swallowed up, and then more, by a series of ads in the Railway Modeller, which was the main info exchange then. Must say, Ian , that it is a lovely crisp moulding and a shining example of your talents.

[Garethp8873]

Here's one I made earlier; quite a lot earlier in fact but I didn't note the date of construction, and certainly can't remember where I bought it!

 

Looking at it again, I think if I was to make another I'd try and make a better job of fitting the corners of the body.  I think they were a kind of 'half lap' joint rather than mitred in the way that Parkside kits tend to be.

 

P1020666.jpg

 

Ironically I managed to acquire one of the Stelfox GER 7 Plank Open Wagons a few months ago on ebay... it's currently away for refurbishment work.

 

Before however I go ahead and ask my friend to restore it, I need to find a pair of door balancers to go under the doors. Do you know where I could pick some up from?

 

Garethp8873.

[31A]

Ironically I managed to acquire one of the Stelfox GER 7 Plank Open Wagons a few months ago on ebay... it's currently away for refurbishment work.

 

Before however I go ahead and ask my friend to restore it, I need to find a pair of door balancers to go under the doors. Do you know where I could pick some up from?

 

Garethp8873.

 

 

As far as I recall that were part of the kit.  If not, I may have cut them out of Plastikard (I seem to remember doing that for some wagon models).  I'm afraid I'm not aware of any commercially available, although it might be worth perusing the Wizard Models website.