GER 10T Goods Van announced!

[The Johnster]

Very probably, as well as having exciting new careers in the store bin/hut, works trolley, and decaying wreck business in the interim.  Some may well have been accidentally damaged or destroyed in private sidings whose owners preferred not to draw attention to the situation if the railway wasn't chasing, and had closed or changed owners by the time the railway did follow up, and some must have disappeared under waste/slag tips or been lost at sea/tipped into docks or  harbours, unlamenented, unmourned, and unaccounted for.  Then there was war damage, particularly from enemy bombing in WW2; wagons could be destroyed beyond identification along with the tallyman's office where the records were, and were simply lost, as were most probably some that were not destroyed.  There were other things to worry about.

 

BR's tally of the XPO 7 plank minerals that it came into posession of on it's formation was never more than an approximate estimate; they never knew how many wagons they had, or even how many they were supposed to have had, just that it was 'somewhere around half a million;.

[Michael Hodgson]

45 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

And why the Southern barred LBSC wagons, which didn't incorporate RCH parts, off their territory. This was eventually made fool-proof by transferring all remaining ones to the Isle of Wight and the Engineer's Dept.

 

Non-RCH wagons would become a darned nuisance if anything broke far from home, necessitating replacement components being forwarded to wherever they became stuck.

 

John

 

Not really a big problem other than for the owners of the undelivered load (which would presumably be transhipped), and for the wagon owners running short of rolling stock.

 

Just a minor inconvenience having some strange wagon festering in a siding and extra paperwork for whoever had to order the bits.

[Wickham Green too]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

.......  I wonder if your 'mystery' Southern grey vehicles are in fact GW or LMS vans built at Ashford to the Southern standard design during WW2. .........  TTBOMK, though I cannot state that it is a certainty, these vans were sent to their new owners unpainted, and numbered and painted in the appropriate livery on arrival. ......

I can blow your 'mystery' theory out of the water, unfortunately, as many, if not all, grey Southern wagons were of pre-grouping design ( I have a 'Brighton' open in tarred stone traffic on my layout :the prototype was photographed in grey in 1938 - so this was not a wartime phenomenon. ).

If you look carefully at a photo of a new Ashford-built van in GW livery you'll see that everything below the solebar is black in Southern style - Swindon would have painted EVERYTHING grey had they received these wagons unpainted. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by Wickham Green too
1938

[Nick C]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It would have required clerical records, as this was before computer databases.  Somebody in an office somewhere would need to keep ledgers recording all the wagons they were responsible for, updating the book whenever new wagons were ordered, old ones were scrapped/sold etc, and there was probably one card per wagon on which you wrote one line of details whenever there was a repair etc. 

Plus those wagons that got 'rebuilt' by fitting the wheels and numberplate to a new chassis and body...

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Nick C said:

Plus those wagons that got 'rebuilt' by fitting the wheels and numberplate to a new chassis and body...

Like the broom that's had three new heads and two new handles but it's still the same old broom.

[MarkSG]

9 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Like the broom that's had three new heads and two new handles but it's still the same old broom.

 

There's a lot of locomotives and rolling stock on various heritage railways that falls into that category...

[bécasse]

18 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Wagon and van full overhauls (which were the only times they were repainted), as opposed to running repairs, were carried out at the owning company's workshops and at specified time intervals, the vehicle being removed from traffic as soon as convenient when it's overhaul was due.  Running repairs took place as, when, and where necessary, but did not feature repaints.

 

I wonder if your 'mystery' Southern grey vehicles are in fact GW or LMS vans built at Ashford to the Southern standard design during WW2.  This was done under the direction of the wartime Ministry of Supply, who were responsible for the macro-management of the nation's strategically important raw materials, which included wood.  At the outbreak of war, Ashford had a large stock of planks pre-cut for their '2+2' designs, which included the 12ton vans and which were of limited use for other purposes, so it was decreed that this stock should be used up before the other railways were given permission to build 12ton vans of their own designs.  All the other railways had some of these vans and the GW and LMS ones were in those companies' grey liveries.  TTBOMK, though I cannot state that it is a certainty, these vans were sent to their new owners unpainted, and numbered and painted in the appropriate livery on arrival.

 

You will find photos of 'Ashford' 2+2 vans in BR livery, both grey unfitted and bauxite fitted for vans that had been 'improved' by BR, with the correct, but apparently anomalous, W, M, or E prefix to the running numbers.  They certainly lasted into the 1970s.  I have never seen this stated, but wonder if the depletion of the precut timber at Ashford was the reason for the Southern building a plywood bodied version of these vans in the post war era. 

Since the issue was raised in the first place by some of the authors of the Oxford series of Southern Wagon books, I think that you can be assured that they were well aware of all the legitimate reasons why wagons that were apparently of Southern parentage could be painted grey rather than brown. The fact remains that there were sufficient reports from well-respected sources (who were mostly still alive at the time and could therefore be questioned on the subject) that odd wagons existed lettered in SR style but painted grey, to be certain that that was indeed the case. Enquiries among former employees of SR wagon works confirmed that these vehicles could not have originated from there, even in wartime (although given that the reports were often of wagons with full size insignia that would have been largely irrelevant).

 

That leaves the repair of wagons off the Southern system as the only possible source of the grey paint. Most off-system repairs would obviously have been to running gear which wouldn't normally give rise to any need for body repainting, but there must have been other occasions when bodywork got badly damaged, usually as a result of shunting mishaps, and, so long as the cost of repair didn't exceed the book valuation of the vehicle, would have required a significant repair - and repaint. It is madness to suggest that such wagons would have been worked all the back to the Southern for repairs, that was what the multitudinous wagon repairers round the country were for.

 

[Compound2632]

42 minutes ago, bécasse said:

It is madness to suggest that such wagons would have been worked all the back to the Southern for repairs, that was what the multitudinous wagon repairers round the country were for.

 

My understanding of the "multitudinous" wagon repairers is that they were there to support the private owner wagon fleet, having originated as the repair outstations of the various wagon building firms (with whom the private owners / hirers would have a repair contract), being amalgamated in 1918 to form Wagon Repairs Ltd. The larger railway companies had their own wagon repair outstations for maintenance of their own stock, mostly set up well before the Great War, at a time when only a small fraction of goods wagons ventured off the home system. So it's unclear to me how the railway companies' system adapted to pooling. The Great Western circulars "calling in" Midland wagons due for maintenance at Derby shows that the expectation was that wagons due for overhaul would be sent home but how repairs "in the field" were handled is a mystery to me.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Compound2632

[Wickham Green too]

2 hours ago, bécasse said:

....... That leaves the repair of wagons off the Southern system as the only possible source of the grey paint.  ...........

But why grey ? ..... I presume the wagon repair organisations were perfectly capable of touching-up or completely repainting Private Owners wagons in their multitudinous colours - or did they only have a palette of black, anonymous grey and London red to play with ?

[31A]

3 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

But why grey ? ..... I presume the wagon repair organisations were perfectly capable of touching-up or completely repainting Private Owners wagons in their multitudinous colours - or did they only have a palette of black, anonymous grey and London red to play with ?

 

Perhaps they had been repaired at a "foreign" railway company's wagon works, rather than at a private wagon works?  The other three of the Big Four companies all painted their wagons grey, at least some of the wagons some of the time, but may not have held stocks of SR freight stock brown paint?

 

[Compound2632]

These grey Southern wagons, what are the dates of the sightings?

[bécasse]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

These grey Southern wagons, what are the dates of the sightings?

Almost certainly pre-war, they wouldn't have excited comment if they had been seen during or after the war.

[Compound2632]

Just now, bécasse said:

Almost certainly pre-war, they wouldn't have excited comment if they had been seen during or after the war.

 

Not Lancing using up old paint stock?

[billbedford]

I don't see why there couldn't have been reciprocal repair arrangement for common user wagons. I'm thinking here about how often a wagon would have needed it's axleboxes re-greased/oiled and the brakes adjusted. 

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, 31A said:

.......... but may not have held stocks of SR freight stock brown paint? 

NOBODY held stocks of ANY sort of paint in the thirties ..... paint was mixed from ingredients and any paint shop foreman worth his salt should have been able to brew up a batch of - at least something like - Southern brown whenever necessary. Clearly it wasn't considered necessary for these wagons.

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

NOBODY held stocks of ANY sort of paint in the thirties ..... paint was mixed from ingredients and any paint shop foreman worth his salt should have been able to brew up a batch of - at least something like - Southern brown whenever necessary. Clearly it wasn't considered necessary for these wagons.

 

Perhaps there was a shortage of the brown ingredient?

[Compound2632]

59 minutes ago, billbedford said:

I don't see why there couldn't have been reciprocal repair arrangement for common user wagons. I'm thinking here about how often a wagon would have needed it's axleboxes re-greased/oiled and the brakes adjusted. 

 

Re-greasing or oiling was surely a routine operation by the local company's greasers or oilers, as part of the frequent inspection of goods trains during the course of their journeys. 

 

But I can just imagine a Midland wagon man looking at the wooden brake block on a LNWR D1 or D2 open, taking his cap off to scratch his head and asking himself "how am I supposed to adjust that?"

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Perhaps there was a shortage of the brown ingredient?

The brown' stuff's never in short supply !

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

The brown' stuff's never in short supply !

 

... and I thought it was lead-based paints one had to worry about.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Perhaps there was a shortage of the brown ingredient?

 

Wickham just beat me to it!

 

[Compound2632]

Just now, The Johnster said:

Wickham just beat me to it!

 

Great minds think alike, eh?

[The Johnster]

The greatest, Stephen, the greatest...

[Steamport Southport]

Paint shop foreman mixing paint?

 

Maybe in the 19th century. Certainly not by the 1930s. 

 

The railway companies bought it ready mixed from places like ICI in bulk.

 

When they were building ships such as HMS Ark Royal at Birkenhead they transported the paint by rail from Widnes/Runcorn. By the thousands of gallons. That's one ship. If there was any shortages the fact the military wanted it is the answer.

 

"Where's Harry with that paint? He's been mixing it for hours, we only need about 100,000 gallons of it...."

 

 

Why do you think the railway companies and later BR adopted bauxite and grey? It was what was readily available from the manufacturers.

 

You are talking about tens of thousands of wagons being painted every year. Not by a bloke in a shed, it was a massive industry employing thousands of people.

 

 

Jason

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

You are talking about tens of thousands of wagons being painted every year. Not by a bloke in a shed, it was a massive industry employing thousands of people.

 

Back-of-the-envelope calculations:

• Midland wagon stock c. 1910 around 120,000 vehicles
• Typical repainting cycle - every 7 years
• Wagon paint shop on a five-and-a-half day week.
• Gives 60 wagons painted every day

Modern domestic paint has a coverage of around 400 sq ft per gallon. Assume a significantly lower coverage for lead-based paint on a planed wood surface - say 200 sq ft per gallon to be optimistic.

• Surface area to be painted, for a typical wagon* - about 200 sq ft
• 1 gallon of paint per wagon
• 60 gallons per day
• About 1 million gallons per year

Essery, Midland Wagons and elsewhere, gives a formula for Midland wagon grey - whether this was being used to mix paint on site or supplied to contractors, I don't know, but the ingredients are nothing fancy, so it could well have been mixed at the wagon works - but in bulk, in a quality-controlled process, I should think. 

 

*About 15 ft long by 7 ft 6 in wide by 4 ft from bottom of solebar to top of side, plus a bit to allow for a proportion of taller and longer vehicles such as vans.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Compound2632

[hmrspaul]

6 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Paint shop foreman mixing paint?

 

Maybe in the 19th century. Certainly not by the 1930s. 

 

The railway companies bought it ready mixed from places like ICI in bulk.

 

When they were building ships such as HMS Ark Royal at Birkenhead they transported the paint by rail from Widnes/Runcorn. By the thousands of gallons. That's one ship. If there was any shortages the fact the military wanted it is the answer.

 

"Where's Harry with that paint? He's been mixing it for hours, we only need about 100,000 gallons of it...."

 

 

Why do you think the railway companies and later BR adopted bauxite and grey? It was what was readily available from the manufacturers.

 

You are talking about tens of thousands of wagons being painted every year. Not by a bloke in a shed, it was a massive industry employing thousands of people.

 

 

Jason

BR issued paint mixing instructions for wagons in 1959 - I have a copy. All done in lbs of this and that - and almost invariably a range of weight given for each ingredient. And even so, simply mixing the expensive white with black to get a grey happened - but it wasn't what BR had in mind for "Freight stock grey". 

There were hundreds and hundreds of places designated as wagon works which might have to do some painting, even if only patches - and there was a lot of patch painting on BR mineral wagons!

 

Paul