Towards pre-Grouping carriages in 4mm – the D508 appreciation thread

[MrWolf]

Thanks for the link, I'll be following that one now too.

[billbedford]

Feeling more than a bit invisible after reading the first page of this topic I decided I should post this* list:

 

Mousa Models Etch List Coaches Pre-Grouping LMS.pdf

 

However, there ain't no Sanity Clause. 

 

I'm about to have a period of rest an recuperation with may last a couple of months. During this time I hope to clarify what I want to do in the coming year. I still have many ideas, but ideas without potential customers don't butter no parsnips.

 

Before anyone starts writing up their own shopping list, let's be quite clear that I'm not interested in producing any particular model. What interests me is much more about how to produce any model with maximum efficiency and minimum effort. 

 

* Lists for the other major companies are available here . 

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, billbedford said:

Feeling more than a bit invisible after reading the first page of this topic

 

Thank you for posting; I note many of the vehicles mentioned appear there. As well as the 40 ft carriages, sides for the 48 ft Clerestory carriages in original condition, without the door toplights replaced by ventilators, would be very interesting as replacements for the Ratio sides.

 

Apologies for the previous omission, largely down to ignorance. Best wishes for the period of rest and recuperation, and when you are done remind me that I am interested in items on this list!

[billbedford]

On 02/01/2023 at 15:05, Compound2632 said:

.....sides for the 48 ft Clerestory carriages in original condition, without the door toplights replaced by ventilators, would be very interesting as replacements for the Ratio sides.

Mmm interesting. 

The Ratio kits are, what? 50 years old? and in all that time nobody has thought of brass overlays to extend the range. I wonder why. Maybe it is something to do with there being a perceived difference between modellers who prefer to work with brass and those who  are willing to cut and shut plastic?

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, billbedford said:

Mmm interesting. 

The Ratio kits are, what? 50 years old? and in all that time nobody has thought of brass overlays to extend the range. I wonder why. Maybe it is something to do with there being a perceived difference between modellers who prefer to work with brass and those who  are willing to cut and shut plastic?

 

Not quite true, as Branchlines do a series of brass body kits that use the Ratio underframe and roof, but these are all for different diagrams to the ones made by Ratio.

 

But haven't you done sides for the lavatory third?

[Mikkel]

Assuming that this thread serves the same purpose for carriages as the D299 thread does for wagons:

 

Eyes will roll at my ignorance, but I came across this photo on the Getty site and was puzzled by what company this carriage belonged to?  The caption only says "Old railway carriage. C1850". 

 

 

Source: Getty Images, embedding allowed.

 

[phil_sutters]

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Assuming that this thread serves the same purpose for carriages as the D299 thread does for wagons:

 

Eyes will roll at my ignorance, but I came across this photo on the Getty site and was puzzled by what company this carriage belonged to?  The caption only says "Old railway carriage. C1850". 

 

 

Source: Getty Images, embedding allowed.

 

The crest looks like an early GWR one and the ciphers also have the appearance of their Victorian version.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Assuming that this thread serves the same purpose for carriages as the D299 thread does for wagons:

 

Yes, of course, but regrettably with less modelling so far.

 

The carriage is the saloon built for Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV, by the London and Birmingham Railway in 1842, and hence the subject of an official LNWR postcard:

 

 

It is now in the National Collection, the Science Museum Group website has the following write-up:

 

Railway carriage, London & Birmingham Railway, Queen Adelaide's saloon, No 2, built in 1842. The under frame was built at Euston Works, the body was built by a coach builder in Gough Street, London.

 

In 1840, Queen Adelaide became the first member of the British Royal Family to travel by train when she took a train from Nottingham to Leeds. Queen Victoria became the first British monarch to travel by train in 1842.

 

In this same year, a carriage was built exclusively for the use of Queen Adelaide, who was the widow of William IV and therefore the aunt of Queen Victoria.

 

This is the oldest surviving royal carriage, and is described as a ‘bed-carriage’ and was built by the London & Birmingham Railway, based on a type initially built from 1837 for ordinary first-class passengers. By using poles, webbing, and stiff cushions, a bed could be made up at night. This particular carriage was designed with purpose-built arrangements for Queen Adelaide.

 

It is finished in a far more elaborate manner than ordinary first-class vehicles, the bodywork being by Hooper, later known for their connections with Daimler and Rolls-Royce. The carriage retained some visual similarities with traditional horse-drawn carriages, with gold-plated handles and hand painted armorial bearings on the exterior panels.

 

So, it's a good starting-point for a carriage thread, and an appropriate post for Coronation Day!

 

[Mikkel]

Thank you Stephen, a very informative answer as always.

 

2 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

The crest looks like an early GWR one and the ciphers also have the appearance of their Victorian version.

 

Yes, that is what first caught my eye and confused me. 

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Yes, that is what first caught my eye and confused me. 

 

On close inspection, the arms are the London & Birmingham Railway (i wonder if those were authorised) being the arms of the Corporations of the City of London and of Birmingham impaled:

 

 

 

[]By RuthAS - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6894251; this version from the gates of Euston station, hence, I suppose, the keyhole.]

 

These might at a glance be mistaken for those of the Great Western, impaling London and Bristol.

 

I expect the signwriters had baulked at the arms of Queen Adelaide

 

 

[Sodacan, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.]

 

The monogram is, however, hers:

 

 

[Glasshouse, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.]

Edited May 6, 2023 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

By the way, the arms of Birmingham there are as first adopted in 1838 - and hence, as they appear in the arms of the Birmingham & Derby Junction Railway and those of the Midland up to 1905. In 1889, Birmingham gained city status and the arms were re-granted with the addition of an ermine fess carrying a mural crown - the conventional symbol of a city authority. This is the form in which they appear in the revised Midland coat of arms of 1905:

 

 

[Rcsprinter123, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]

 

The current city arms were adopted in 1977; the ermine fess was changed to an ermine cross and the mural crown replaced by a bishop's mitre, representing, by way of John Harman or Vesey, Bishop of Exeter, the town of Sutton Coldfield that had been absorbed into the city in 1974.

[jwealleans]

This photograph prompted a great deal of discussion on Friday night.   Taken in the old station at York, in the early 1930s from the condition of the loco, what prompted discussion was the carriage.  Initial thought was North Eastern, but no prototype diagram came to mind or to hand.   It looks to have a blanked out end window, an opening as if for a BS gangway but no visible bellows (so is there just an open door, a hole, or something else?)  The leading bogie has what we thought was a step but which looks wide enough to carry a collector shoe, so we thought maybe a Tyneside Electric vehicle but again found nothing similar.   Engineering stock was considered, but the loco is carrying EP lamps and we've assumed is coupled to the carriage, so less likely.  No visible passenger accommodation and an unusual layout of twin roof vents.   No firm conclusion was reached, so I said I'd throw it out to this forum.   It may not even be LNER group, of course, though the roof profile is reminiscent of the GE and the visible panelling not dissimilar.

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by jwealleans

[MrWolf]

Looking at the front end of the coach and your mention of the GER, is making me wonder if it's some kind of slip coach?

[billbedford]

Isn't that coach one of the WW1 ambulance coaches converted to full brakes post-war?

[jwealleans]

Just now, billbedford said:

Isn't that coach one of the WW1 ambulance coaches converted to full brakes post-war?

 

That was a theory i floated, Bill, but none of us had any Diagram books to be able to refer to.

[31A]

2 hours ago, jwealleans said:

This photograph prompted a great deal of discussion on Friday night.   Taken in the old station at York, in the early 1930s from the condition of the loco, what prompted discussion was the carriage.  Initial thought was North Eastern, but no prototype diagram came to mind or to hand.   It looks to have a blanked out end window, an opening as if for a BS gangway but no visible bellows (so is there just an open door, a hole, or something else?)  The leading bogie has what we thought was a step but which looks wide enough to carry a collector shoe, so we thought maybe a Tyneside Electric vehicle but again found nothing similar.   Engineering stock was considered, but the loco is carrying EP lamps and we've assumed is coupled to the carriage, so less likely.  No visible passenger accommodation and an unusual layout of twin roof vents.   No firm conclusion was reached, so I said I'd throw it out to this forum.   It may not even be LNER group, of course, though the roof profile is reminiscent of the GE and the visible panelling not dissimilar.

 

 

Try ex North Eastern Railway BG Dia Y224 (ex Ambulance Train cars) - see Longworth p339 and David Larkin BR Parcels and Passenger Rated Stock Vol 1 p29.

[jwealleans]

Cheers. Steve.   I don't have the Longworth book and the two in Larkin don't match this one exactly, but the similarity is very striking.  Are the diagrams available anywhere?

[billbedford]

NERA publishes copies of NER Passenger Train Vehicles diagrams in 5 volumes. 

As I remember, not all the variations of these vans were recorded in the diagrams. 

[Compound2632]

I don't have much on North Eastern carriages but from North Eastern Record Vol. 2 I gather that this style of square-cornered panel beading was in vogue around 1905 but had morphed into a round-cornered version within a year or two. With toplights and no eves panels, it looks very much like a copy of the style Thomas Clayton had introduced with the Midland's clerestory carriages from 1896 onwards (and hence is rather at home in this thread). What makes the NER's adoption of it curious is that within three years of moving from the North Eastern to the Midland, David Bain had abandoned the square-cornered style in favour of a round-cornered style based on that he had been using on the North Eastern, a change made for sound engineering reasons.

 

Were any of the NER's ambulance trains converted from stock of c. 1905?

 

The carriage in the photo appears to have had its gangway removed.

 

 

[jwealleans]

I haven't found any documentary proof, but it seems fairly certain that this is at least a variant of the Ambulance Car conversions.   Steve has kindly sent me the drawing from Longworth and I've had sight of another picture in addition to Larkin.   The Larkin photos show the double row of vents which is a fairly strong clue.   What has happened to the gangway we'll probably never know.  I'm inclined to suspect it has just been removed and it's a quirk of the photo which makes it look like a hole.    Frustratingly all the other pictures are of the other side, but the panelling and window style are very consistent.

 

[Compound2632]

As this topic has been taken out and given an airing, I'll post here rather than in the D299 topic.

 

I'm rather partial to lists and have been making some of carriage stock, based on a doucument entitled "Valuation of Midland Railway Carriage Stock, as at December 1905" [MRSC 77-11822, a copy of part of TNA RAIL 491/875]. This document was prepared as part of a the company's evidence in a rates dispute, I gather. It has already been of great value in my wagon research, notably for the light it casts on the duplicate stock. It gives even greater detail of the company's carriage stock, from which one can attempt a calculation of which carriages from the 1870s and 80s were still in use. For instance, I was able to show that all but one of the forty-four 54 ft clerestory 12-wheel composites of 1875 were still in stock on the duplicate list, since the 12-wheel composites on the ordinary list could all be accounted for. 

 

The Valuation's carriage truck list is contains totals of twenty-five 25 ft, forty-five 20 ft, and seventy 18 ft covered carriage trucks. The latter had me puzzled until I realised they were in fact covered fish trucks, fish trucks along with fruit & milk and being numbered in the carriage truck series. (The fruit & milk vans are itemised separately in the Valuation.) Looking in Lacy & Dow, Midland Railway Carriages, and the Lot List, one finds twenty-six 25 ft CCTs built to Drg. 623:

 

Lot 121, Sep 1884, qty 4, Nos. 22, 23, 44, 101 - all renewals, from their numbers

Lot 148, Mar 1886, qty 2, Nos. 74, 96 - renewals

Lot 277, May 1891, qty 4, Nos. 206, 215, 222 - renewals; No. 491, addition to stock

Lot 351, Mar 1895, qty 2, Nos. 544, 545 - additions to stock

Lot 373, Feb 1896, qty 4, Nos. 213, 216, 218 - renewals; No. 546, addition to stock

Lot 516, Jul 1901, qty 10, Nos. 1, 3, 5, 104, 214, 217, 219 - renewals.

 

These were all diagram D403, except for the ten of Lot 516, built with 5" lower sides to clear the Metropolitan Railway Widened Lines loading gauge, D407.

 

 

No. 74 of Lot 148 [Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 64163]. Note that it appears to be in "works grey".

 

The missing one of these 26 may have been among the 103 vehicles in the carriage truck duplicate stock, which is not itemised by type.

 

Turning to the 20 ft CCTs, there are forty-six built to Drg. 502:

 

Lot 59, Mar 1881, qty 2, Nos. 90, 97 - renewals

Lot 187, Aug 1887, qty 14, Nos. 4, 18, and twelve others, and qty 10 to Met gauge, Nos. 21, 56, and eight others, all renewals

Lot 228, Apr 1889, qty 20 to Met gauge, Nos. 370-389, additions to stock

 

These were diagram D402, or D 406 for the Met gauge ones. Again, it seems one was in the duplicate stock by Dec 1905.

 

There had been ten 18 ft CCTs built to Drg. 142 by the Oldbury Railway Carriage Co. in 1876, Nos. 213-222 (additions to stock) but these must all have been renewed by Dec 1905 - Nos.  220 and 221 are the only ones not accounted for in list so may have been in the duplicate stock.

 

An 1889 list gives thirty-eight CCTs to Met gauge, Nos. 21, 33, 56, 77, 100, 102, 105, 123-5, 213/4, 216-221, 370-389. [Unfortunately I am unable to say where this came from - probably a Superintendent of the Line circular in the MRSC collection. Very bad.] This includes all of the Oldbury numbers except 215 and 222; perhaps these two had already been withdrawn though their replacements in Lot 277 were not to be built for a couple more years. This also implies that the first ten numbers listed are all the Met gauge vehicles of Lot 187.

 

Lacy & Dow record that the very first CCT built after Thomas Clayton became C&W Superintendent was a 25 ft vehicle of Kirtley design, No. 206, built for the use of McNaught & Smith, Worcester, in 1874, and renewed by No. 206 of Lot 277, a service life of 17 years. (The Oldbury CCTs, renewed by Lots 277, 373, and 516, had service lives of 15 up to 25 years.) The renewed No. 206 was also for the use of McNaught & Smith. I've looked up this firm on Grace's Guide. The firm was established in 1790 as Newton & Kinder, carriage builders of Worcester. (I wonder if Kinder was a relative of T.W. Kinder, who with R.W. Johnson founded a rolling stock building company that from 1845 to 1856 used the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway works at Bromsgrove, before moving to Oldbury, where the firm was re-established as the Railway Carriage Co., later usually just referred to as the Oldbury Co.). J.A. McNaught (1828-1915) became a partner in 1856, with Smith joining on Kinder's retirement. McNaught seems to have had an interest in motor cars at an early date, being, in 1897, a member of the General Council of the Self-Propelled Traffic Association, along with one George Stephenson of Newcastle-upon-Tyne - a great-nephew of the Father of Railways and a member of the well-known locomotive-building firm established by his first cousin once removed.

 

Lacy & Dow also record that the two additions to stock of Lot 351 were for the use of the Gloucester RC&W Co., that firm building the bodies - presumably to the standard Midland design. They also record two more 25 ft CCTs built in 1908, for the use of the Wolseley Tool & Motor Co, Birmingham. (The firm that had been established as a manufacturer of mechanical sheep-shearing equipment but had lately started to dabble in motor cars; Herbert Austin had started with Wolseley on the sheep-shearing machines but left in 1905 to establish his own motor firm, in an old print works at Longbridge on the outskirts of Birmingham, hand for the Midland line.) These CCTs, Nos. 16 and 27, were also additions to stock. By this date the practice of additions to stock taking new numbers at the end of the list had ceased; vacant low numbers were taken. (The same change of practice can be seen around this time in the goods wagon list, where special wagons as additions to stock, previously taking numbers in the 117xxx range, start being given 3-digit numbers.)

 

From my notes from the Traffic and C&W Committee minutes, I can add some more examples of CCTs for the use of (and lettered for) carriage building firms:

 

One of the two 20 ft CCTs of Lot 59 was for Mr Forder of Wolverhampton, coachbuilder and Hansom cab maker [Grace's Guide]. This one interests me, as it would have worked over the Midland's Walsall Branch - the Sutton Park line.

 

John Marston & Co., Birmingham, had one of Lot 121 of 1884 and one of Lot 373 of 1896; the latter was an addition to stock, i.e. No. 546. According to Grace's Guide, this firm was based a the Borough Carriage Works, Bradford Street, in Deritend - not far from the Midland's Camp Hill goods station. In the 20th century, the firm moved into building motor car bodies but that ceased to be a viable business by the early 1930s, by when most motor manufacturers were turning out complete cars.

 

In addition to Lot 277 of 1891 including a renewal of McNaught & Smith's no. 206, it included as an addition to stock one for Mr. Mulliner, carriage builder, of Birmingham and Sheffield. This will have been No. 491. There are several firms of Mulliner associated with carriage building and the early motor trade listed in Grace's Guide but none seem to fit this description.   

 

Another of Lot 121 of 1884 was for Fuller & Co. of Bristol, while one of the two of Lot 148 of 1886 was for S. & A. Fuller of Bath. The latter firm has only a brief listing in Grace's Guide as coachbuilders and harness makers but a longer entry for Frederick Augustus Smith, the firm's General Manager from 1920, who had been in the Midland's locomotive Department. There appears to be no connection between S. & A. Fuller and Fuller & Co. of Bristol.

 

The CCT provided by the S&DJR for the use of S. & A. Fuller, S&DJR No. 11, is well-known:

 

 

[Embedded link to DY 9127 at the Derby Registers pages of the MRS website.]

 

The photo has the date August 1908; the lettering, with its reference to Motor Bodies "fitted to any type of chassis", fits this date - certainly not the same wording as would have appeared on the firm's Midland CCT of 1886. But was this S&DJR vehicle built as a replacement for the Midland one, or did the firm have two running concurrently? It is generally assumed that the base colour of No. 11 is S&DJR blue; equally, it is assumed that the Midland vehicles simply had company lettering applied over the standard red livery. The idea of matching S. & A. Fuller CCTs in red and blue rather appeals!

 

Little seems to be known of No. 11's history. It is recorded as 27 ft long - confirmed by there being two more vertical boards each side of the doorway than on a Midland 25 ft CCT. I wonder if it was built on the underframe of an old S&DJR four-wheel carriage?

 

Of these CCTs lettered for the use of particular firms, those recorded in the minutes, from 1891 onwards, were additions to stock. This leads me to speculate that there may have been others built as renewals that were also so branded - perhaps like No. 206, renewals of CCTs where there had been a long-standing arrangement, going back to Kirtley's time. This speculation is motivated by this photo, which has been discussed on here at one time, but frustratingly I can't find the discussion:

 

 

[Embedded link to Picture Nottingham.]

 

Captioned as c. 1910 - after the 1907 locomotive renumbering, at any rate.

 

What was first posted was a dubious colourisation, which I downloaded at the time:

 

 

[Provenance unknown.]

 

The CCT behind the engine is a full height (13' 3") one, by comparison with clerestory carriage on the right; to the left of the CCT is a horsebox, partly visible through the engine's cab.

 

I would like to be reminded what, if any, was the conclusion about the firm's name: 

S____EY'S & WO_______S  Ltd.

 

For completeness:

 

 

[Embedded link to Picture Nottingham.]

 

same little girls. Same engine run round to the other side of the platform?

[jwealleans]

One diagram (the 20', D402 if I remember correctly) was available in the Micromodels range and then from David Geen.  

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, jwealleans said:

One diagram (the 20', D402 if I remember correctly) was available in the Micromodels range and then from David Geen.  

 

Looks more like the Met gauge D406, going by the height between the top of the doors and the roof. But i do feel they ought not be too challenging as a scratchbuild.

[Steamport Southport]

On 06/05/2023 at 06:07, Mikkel said:

Assuming that this thread serves the same purpose for carriages as the D299 thread does for wagons:

 

Eyes will roll at my ignorance, but I came across this photo on the Getty site and was puzzled by what company this carriage belonged to?  The caption only says "Old railway carriage. C1850". 

 

 

Source: Getty Images, embedding allowed.

 

 

Soon to appear RTR!

 

https://uk.Hornby.com/products/lmr-coach-pack-wellington-globe-queen-adelaides-coach-era-1-r40357

 

Sorry, must have missed this post at the time.

 

 

Jason

[Buhar]

Taking advantage of this threads revival I have a question or two.  At the HR Society AGM a photo of a Midland & North Eastern Joint Stock postal van popped up (at Inverness IIRC) in the livery of that concern.  I thought the Joint stock was for working between Newcastle and Bristol.  If that is correct, what's it doing in Inverness?  Was the stock postal vehicles only or were there passenger carriages too?

 

On an LNER thread @jwealleans noted that all the photos of M&NEJS postal vehicles he'd seen were in Scotland, although in which period wasn't clear.  From the mileages involved, I would guess the Midland was the senior partner.

 

Alan