RCH Minerals, private owner coal wagons

[Mol_PMB]

There has been a long-running and lively topic in this section of the forum about steel 16t mineral wagons:

 

It seems to me that there would also be scope for similar discussions about their predecessors, the wooden mineral wagons built to RCH standards and mostly operated by private owners.

I searched but could not find a general thread on this topic, so I thought I would start this one.

I've initially put it in the same section of the forum as the 16t minerals thread; I hope this is OK but please move it if not.

 

Let's start with some useful references. In recent years there have been many books published on the subject and there's an extremely useful combined index of those here:

https://lightmoor.co.uk/BDLpdf_files/Private_Owner_Wagons_Index.pdf

 

In WW2 the wagons were pooled and later nationalised, most being given numbers with a P prefix. David Larkin's recent book 'The Acquired Wagons of British Railways' volume 3 covers these in some detail, but is not included in the combined index above.

 

All the books listed above are copiously illustrated in black and white, but colour photos of these wagons are scarcer. I am hoping that this thread will be a place where we can collate links to colour photos of RCH /  PO mineral wagons.

 

I'll start us off with three super examples from Flickr, all towards the end of the lives of these wagons in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The first from Ernie:

And two from Peter Brabham, including a coke wagon variant:

 

 

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

A resource I have found useful is aerial photos on Britainfromabove. If you log in to the site you can zoom right in to the photos.

Most images aren't good enough to see fine details, but it's often possible to identify the owners of the wagons.

This can be helpful in identifying which private owner wagons might suit the location of your layout.

Here's a nice example in Trafford Park, Manchester, dated 1934:

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPR000185

Lower centre of the image is a rake of tank wagons, with two 'SWANWICK' mineral wagons on the end.

Below those on the other side of the road there are two 'MANCHESTER COLLERIES' and a 'CARLTON'.

Bottom left of the photo there are more 'MANCHESTER COLLERIES'.

Looking to the top right of the photo, in the background on the other bank of the canal, we can make out a 'JE' (James Edge, a Manchester coal merchant) and two 'MANTON'.

 

Another very useful reference for these is the HMRS photograph collection, mostly newly-built wagons pictured in black and white and there's a huge variety of photos which can be searched by private owner:

https://hmrs.org.uk/photographs.html?subject=12235

So for example if you wanted a better view of a 'CARLTON' wagon like the one in the aerial photo, you can find one on the HMRS archive:

https://hmrs.org.uk/aar203-carlton-colls-assoc-cudworth-12t-8-plank-s-e-5621-empty-to-grimethorpe-or-frickley-collieries-lms.html

 

You won't find 'MANTON' in the HMRS collection, but look it up in the book index https://lightmoor.co.uk/BDLpdf_files/Private_Owner_Wagons_Index.pdf

and it will reference Keith Turton's 'Third Collection'. In fact it's on the front cover of the book, as well as an article inside.

[Gordon A]

More please.

[Mol_PMB]

After pooling in 1939, the private owner wagon liveries gradually faded out, and parts of the lettering were lost when planks were replaced.

Of course pooling also meant that wagons could turn up anywhere, well away from the routes they had worked when dedicated to a particular colliery or merchant.

Looking at post-war photos it's harder to make out the former names but even on the aerial photos this can be possible.

This example from 1946, again local to me in Trafford Park, includes a 'SHEEPBRIDGE' near the canal bank in the lower centre of the image and an 'AAC ANTHRACITE' towards the left hand side:

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW002521

 

 

[MarkSG]

This is, I think, an area somewhat neglected by the manufacturers. Most models of open wagons are either vague approximations of RCH designs in colourful private owner liveries suitable for era 3 layouts, or company/BR designs. Quite apart from the fact that most models of RCH designs are a bit long in the tooth now and not up to the standard of recent releases, there are very few, if any, models of RCH designs in early BR service - despite the fact that, for the first decade of BR's life, they would have comprised a significant proportion of mineral wagon stock (as illustrated by the photos above). It would be nice to see some RCH designs to contemporary standards. 

[jwealleans]

Dave Ford's dad's photo thread is a good source for these, they're all over it in the background.  I'll try to pick a few out and link to them.

Edited February 3, 2022 by jwealleans

[petethemole]

I started this thread a while back but it sort of faded away.

Some of the links in it no longer work.

Edited February 3, 2022 by petethemole
re: links

[Mike_Walker]

Great idea!  How's this from Peter Gray at Bodmin General?

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Mike_Walker

[Ian Smeeton]

 

This is a small extract from a Britain from above image of Paisley Canal0

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/SAW046354  for the full image.

 

The top siding shows a number of PO Minerals, some recently repaired at the buffer stop end, and one with a plank missing 4th from the left.

 

Prepare to lose hours if not days in Britain from above.

 

Well worth signing up to the site.

 

Free, no spam emails etc, but you can zoom right in.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Ben Alder]

This is going to be a go to thread! Far more interesting than steel bodied ones...

 

[john new]

7 hours ago, petethemole said:

I started this thread a while back but it sort of faded away.

Some of the links in it no longer work.

As the OP of that thread do you feel it is worth asking the mods to merge the two under this banner heading, or have too many of the old thread's links now died to make it sensible?

[The Johnster]

8 hours ago, MarkSG said:

This is, I think, an area somewhat neglected by the manufacturers. Most models of open wagons are either vague approximations of RCH designs in colourful private owner liveries suitable for era 3 layouts, or company/BR designs. Quite apart from the fact that most models of RCH designs are a bit long in the tooth now and not up to the standard of recent releases, there are very few, if any, models of RCH designs in early BR service - despite the fact that, for the first decade of BR's life, they would have comprised a significant proportion of mineral wagon stock (as illustrated by the photos above). It would be nice to see some RCH designs to contemporary standards. 

 

What he said, in spades!  Most of us rely on RTR and Kit producers to 'get it right' and of all subjects RCH XPOs are simultaneously the most 1) needful of a vast amount of intricate specialist knowledge which not all of us have the time or inclination to acquire to get them right, and 2) prone to misrepresentation by RTR producers in the form of generic toolings and spurious or incorrect liveries.  Even before the liveries are brought into the equation, details varied considerably and our RTR companies, while getting better over time, do not have a good track record in this matter.  We assume, or at least I do in my paucity of knowledge on this subject, that they have at least got the numbers matched to the liveries, but my period, 1948-58, is fraught with potential pitfalls. 

 

To take the example of an XPO running in this period in it's original livery, how long was it before it would be more likely to see a BR 'P' prefix number painted over the much; 1950?, 1955?, would I be safe in assuming that most of them were renumbered by 1960? (not expecting any objective reply to this question, but asking nonetheless to illustrate a matter that bothers me a little).  This was work carried out under the umbrella of the Ideal Wagons Committee, which introduced a (very sensible for the times) policy of reviewing the fleet, which had been seriously neglected for years and used to death during WW2, struggling with the intitial premise that nobody actually knew how many XPOs there were in existence in 1948; it was thought to be around half a million! 

 

The policy was to review, scrap those too far gone, and patch those that still had some life in them.  An austerity economy was still in force, and repaints were prohibited; body repairs were with unpainted planks which showed in use as wood in varying states of ageing, and the preponderance of BR grey liveried XPOs favoured by Oxford and Bachmann seems unlikely in the earlier BR period.  Bachmann, to their credit, do  offer some XPOs in faded PO liveries with BR 'P' numbers painted over.  These bore no relation to the original PO fleet numbers, some of which may have still been visible under the muck.

 

I have several 7-plank XPOs which I have simply weathered to the extreme, as I have no idea what the BR 'P' numbers would have been, but am taking a bit of a punt on them as, if you take the mid point of my time period being 1953, such wagons may well have been largely renumbered into the BR sequence by then and examples rare.  OTOH, if I assume the date to be 1949, the perecentage of wagons in this state would have been higher, but I have no idea to what sort of extent.

 

I am hoping that this new thread, which promises to be most interesting, will extend my knowledge of the subject and help make my stock of 7-plankers more representative of the 1948-58 reality on the ground.  Photos of the period show that many of them were in visually very poor condition and a heavy weathering wash will cover a multitude of sins; some were very difficult to identify and the weighbridge clerks presumably used the numbers on the work plates.  I can recall trains of them running through Cardiff General in the late 50s and very early 60s, completely beyond identification, livery and running numbers indistinguishable with one or two repainted grey ones and a few more steel 16tonners, the sides flapping alarmingly in the breeze where they'd bowed outwards if they were mts, or simply, and even more alarmingly, bowed out under the load as if they were about to burst if they were lds.  The tendency on RTR wagons is for them to bow inwards, which I never saw any real wagon do! 

 

The muck, as I remember it, was a very dark brown, presumably a mix of brake and coal dust, and I keep a wash of this in an old container (tropical fish food if you must know), acrylic matt dark brown and black, with dribbles of grey and other paints chucked in to give it 'character', to wash-weather XPO minerals, separate from my container of more browny-grey wash that I use as a base coat for my other weathering.

 

One of the tricks I consider vital for modelling a location and period is to do one's best to model the typical and everyday, and avoid the less likely 'one off' or occasional events; it is for this reason that Rule 1 must be used with great care.  So, I try as far as possible to stay with XPOs in faded PO liveries that are appropriate to large PO fleets; MOY, Ocean, and the like.  I prefer those in darker liveries because they are easier to weather effectively, and I use real coal as loads, so some of the weathering, especially on the interiors, is the real thing.

[Mol_PMB]

Great Stuff! Many thanks for all the great links, posts and contributions. Keep it coming!

Mol

[Mol_PMB]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

To take the example of an XPO running in this period in it's original livery, how long was it before it would be more likely to see a BR 'P' prefix number painted over the much; 1950?, 1955?, would I be safe in assuming that most of them were renumbered by 1960? (not expecting any objective reply to this question, but asking nonetheless to illustrate a matter that bothers me a little).  This was work carried out under the umbrella of the Ideal Wagons Committee, which introduced a (very sensible for the times) policy of reviewing the fleet, which had been seriously neglected for years and used to death during WW2, struggling with the intitial premise that nobody actually knew how many XPOs there were in existence in 1948; it was thought to be around half a million!

With this level of interest I would strongly recommend the purchase of a copy of 'The Acquired Wagons of British Railways', volume 3, by David Larkin, as it will answer many of your questions. There is also some relevant information in volume 1 of the same series, including details of the P series renumbering.

To summarise the main points, the scheme for renumbering the XPO wagons into the P series was not implemented until late 1949. It was abandoned (incomplete!) in 1957. P series number were allocated in blocks to wagon repair depots around the country (mostly private firms or major fleet maintenance depots) and they were instructed to renumber wagons which came in for repairs. So the renumbering was almost entirely random compared to the previous owners and numbers, and took a long time to be implemented.

There was a clear requirement to paint out the old running number when re-numbering, but other elements of the previous livery would remain. Generally, wooden XPO wagons were not repainted but steel-bodied ones were.

 

The numerous builds of steel 16t minerals in the 1940s and 1950s largely replaced pre-grouping wooden-bodied wagons of both PO and railway company origins. The major reduction of the post-grouping vehicles took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a consequence of a downturn in mineral traffic and perhaps better utilisation of the 16t wagons. By 1963 the vast majority of wooden-bodied minerals had been withdrawn.

 

[The Johnster]

Thanks for this, Mol; this means that my unrenumbered but filthy XPOs still in PO livery are fine for 1948 and most of 49, and not impossible for a good few years after that, even right up to '58 as you say that the renumbering scheme was abandoned without being completed in 1957, but there must have been a very low number of unrenumbered wagons by then and those that did slip through the net probably did not survive for very long. I now feel less inhibited about adding one or two more to the fleet!

 

I am already learning useful stuff from this thread!

[Mol_PMB]

Yes, that sounds about right.

I think the initial allocations of blocks of P numbers to wagon repairers covered up to around P260000. Not all of these numbers were used though, some firms never got to the end of their block of numbers. On the other hand, some firms used them all up and had further blocks of numbers allocated. So in general, P numbers above roughly P260000 represent later re-numberings. The highest P numbers were in the P390000s.

I've got a 1955 photo of a wagon numbered in the mid P380000s, where the P number looks reasonably freshly painted. 

 

Remember that it wasn't just RCH minerals that got P numbers, there were also steel minerals, hoppers and other pooled wagon types.

Larkin's 'Acquired Wagons' volume 1 contains details of the allocation of the P number blocks to the firms that did the renumbering. Volume 3 focuses on the RCH minerals and includes lists of P numbers linked where possible to their previous PO owner's number. A complete listing is impossible and the records to support that are no longer in existence, but it seems David Larkin did find a reasonably comprehensive list of those XPO wagons that survived into 1962.

 

I agree that the abandonment of the scheme in 1957 probably represents the fact that many of the XPO wagons were being withdrawn by then, so there wasn't much point painting new numbers on the handful of wagons that had slipped through the net in the previous 8 years.

[jwealleans]

The other feature which I have rarely seen modelled but falls squarely into that 1947-55 timeframe was the wartime practice (before it was decided that all the pooled wagons would be retained) of painting the owner's name into the lower left hand corner of the side (often on a black background) if damage or repair had made the markings on the body of the wagon illegible.   Here's an example from Mike Morant's excellent collection.

[Mol_PMB]

That's a very good point. Here's another example of an elderly wagon in 1946, with the name and numbers repainted in 'utility' style:

(from Alan Burkwood on Flickr)

 

At the end of these wagons' lives, many seem to have been branded for one last journey with a load of loco coal, before being broken up. 

It's possible that the number of photos of wagons in this condition over-states how many there were at any one time, as many seem to have been taken by loco spotters 'bunking' sheds. Nevertheless, some would have been seen running on that last trip with this branding. An example from John Turner on Flickr, both dated 1964:

Finally, a late survivor looking remarkably tidy, perhaps entirely re-planked on this side? Again linked to John Turner's Flickr:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hmrspaul]

The scrapping of these wagons also took account of the bearings. Grease boxes were quickly sorted out and eliminated - that photo of Hincliffes with wartime writing has grease boxes. 

 

The last two of these wagons remaining in BR use (plenty survived in internal use both private and a few BR) were this STANTON one which IIRC was at Stratford for some years https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/privateownerwagon/e2214613c (after going to the NRM) and also a repainted one https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/privateownerwagon/efead7e1 

 

The HMRS has quite a lot of photos of these wagons taken in the early 1950s. 

 

I have just a few https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/privateownerwagon

 

Paul

 

[Mol_PMB]

Another useful link for these wagons is here, a 48-page set of the detailed RCH drawings. Mostly 1923 but some later versions including WW2 changes to suit available materials and manufacturing techniques:

http://www.cs.rhul.ac.uk/~adrian/steam/RCHWagons/index.html

[Mol_PMB]

Another trawl of Flickr turned up this shot by Trainsandtravel dated 1964, a late date for a rake of laden RCH minerals:

 

 

And from Simon Barnes, a rake of three in 1965 one of which has been repainted grey:

 

 

[petethemole]

Of the wagons at Templecombe, three are 5-plank wagons with wide planking, only slightly lower than the adjacent 7-plank. 

[bécasse]

I began "spotting" in about 1955, mainly at Hither Green so I saw plenty of cross-London freight which was mainly coal SB and empties NB. At that time there were plenty of wagons with the tattered and faded remnants of PO liveries apparent but just about all of them had their BR P numbers. One oddity of the faded liveries is that sometimes the lettering stood out in the wagon's body colour rather than white or black, whereas the colour of the rest of the body was barely discernible. At the time we came to the conclusion that it was because the painted lettering had protected the body colour base paint and that became more and more obvious as the lettering weathered, while at the same time the bulk of the body painting was just weathering away. At the same time all steel mineral wagons had reasonably respectable (and occasionally pristine) paintwork with none of the significant rust marks that became almost the norm by the mid- to late-60s.

[petethemole]

On 03/02/2022 at 19:43, john new said:

As the OP of that thread do you feel it is worth asking the mods to merge the two under this banner heading, or have too many of the old thread's links now died to make it sensible?

As I've linked it in this thread, anyone reading this can go to it. Most of the links still work (I've just checked) with the exception of some flickr links in one post and the NRM photos.

[Ben Alder]

Here is a close up of a 6 planker, from a D Warren pic.