GWR 4-plank opens - dates for axle boxes, sheet rails and cast number plates, and other questions

[magmouse]

I am currently finishing off a PECO GWR 4-plank open. This is a very nice kit, to which I have added a sheet rail - see the photo below.

 

When I came to apply the lettering for my chosen pre-1904 red livery, I started looking at photos of these 4-plank wagons, and realised that I couldn't find a picture of a 4-plank open with oil axle boxes, small lettering "G.W.R" and a sheet rail. All the photos I could find (32 wagons) showed either later liveries with large "GW" lettering, or wagons with oil boxes and cast number and "GWR" plates, or grease boxes and small "G.W.R" lettering on the bottom plank.

 

This got me thinking (rather too late for my model) about the chronology of these wagons. Digging through my notes and this forum, I think I know the following:

1. No photos I have found show oil boxes and RH “G.W.R” lettering - if in pre 1904 livery, oil boxes and cast plates always go together.
2. Sheet rails only appear in photos of wagons with either cast plates or post-1904 livery.
3. According to @Miss Prism , “My understanding concerning cast number plates is that they were applied to some wagons (in the era 1894-1904), and I think it is a mistake to assume anything built within that era was considered eligible for plates. Wagons with plates were I think a small minority. (Otherwise the photographic evidence would be contrary to what we actually have.)” - from the following post: This statement seems to be somewhat contradicted by (1.) above, though. 

 

The chronology seems to be:

1. 4-plank wagons are built from 1886, later referred to as diagram O5. Large numbers are built, starting with grease and later oil boxes.
2. Oil boxes come in as early as 1890, though possibly not for all new wagons.
3. Cast plates start from 1894 for some wagons.
4. Diagram O5 wagons appear from 1902, according to Atkins, et al - this diagram possibly only applies to wagons with DC brakes? Lot 374, 200 built. The O5 diagram seems to then be applied retrospectively to older 4-plank wagons.
5. Sheet rails get introduced in 1902 according to Atkins et al, p.151 of 2nd edition.
6. Diagram O4 wagons (5-plank) are built from 1902, with cast plates, oil boxes and sheet bars (at least some - see http://www.gwr.org.uk/liverieswagplate.html). Lot 365 and higher. 2706 built. Lot 410 and higher have DC brakes, according to this post:GWR Wagons Appendix, p14, shows wagon 12325 (of lot L410, according to this post: ) with a very new looking sheet dated November 1900, so presumably taken soon after that (possibly early 1901).

 

This leaves me with the following questions:

1. For wagons built with sheet bars and cast plates, where did the end plates go? Most 4-plank wagons had the sheet bar pivot on the bottom plank - there is one photo with it on the second plank (GW Wagons Appendix fig 3). there isn’t really room for a longer number (5 digit) in the LH panel - when painted here, the numbers are really squashed up.
2. Were any 4-plank wagons originally built with sheet bars?
3. Did construction of 4 and 5 plank designs overlap? This seems very likely.
4. Is there any direct evidence for new wagons with painted “G.W.R” in the 1900-1904 period, or were all new wagons at this time fitted with plates?

 

As always, any answers or contributary evidence would be gratefully received.

 

And the wagon in question:

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by magmouse
Edited to replace lost photo - this is a later picture of the wagon, as I couldn't find the photo originally posted.

[Compound2632]

50 minutes ago, magmouse said:

1. For wagons built with sheet bars and cast plates, where did the end plates go?

 

I ran a topic on that:

 

 

For convenience I'll also post here my list of lots and numbers extracted from A. G. Atkins, W. Beard and R. Tourret, G W R Goods Wagons (Tourret Publishing, Abingdon, 1998):

 

Atkins et al wagon numbers up to c1905.pdf

 

As I've noted elsewhere, a frustrating feature of Atkins et al. is their reluctance to give dates for lots. Information on dates to traffic, brakes, possibly sheet bars, but not plates or livery (I believe) is in the GWR Wagon Registers at TNA and NRM. There are people - @Chrisbr - on here who have / are studying these closely to address the very questions you are asking. 

[Mikkel]

8 hours ago, magmouse said:

Is there any direct evidence for new wagons with painted “G.W.R” in the 1900-1904 period, or were all new wagons at this time fitted with plates?

 

I don't remember seeing direct evidence yet.

 

From a broader perspective it is perhaps worth saying that small painted GWR was still commonly seen on wagons until at least 1905 and should in my view feature on layouts set at that time. See for example previously discussed overview photos of the busy Reading yards, known to have been taken no earlier than 1905. These show many wagons - arguably a majority - with small painted GWR.  Most are 4-plankers. But of course, if we assume that the oft-quoted 7 year turnaround between painting is more or less correct, they may have been painted prior to 1900. 

 

Incidentally, the latest photo I have so far seen of a wagon with cast number plates is 1913. It appears in a photo of the new South Lambeth goods depot, shortly after it was opened in 1913.

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Mikkel
Belt and braces

[magmouse]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I ran a topic on that:

Sorry, I wasn’t clear - I asked the question about number plate location on the wagon end specifically in relation to 4-plank opens with sheet rails. 5-plank wagons and sheet rails are fine, there is a picture that shows the plate moves down to the bottom plank. But with the 4-plank wagons, there really isn’t room for the plate - the sheet rail pivot is either on the bottom plank, or one up, and in the later case the blocks that hold the semicircular rail still overlap the bottom plank slightly.

 

I suspect the answer is that this combination (cast plates, sheet rail) didn’t occur with 4-plank wagons, as sheet rails were only retro-fitted to the 4-plankers, not fitted as new. Retro-fitting the sheet rail was probably combined with a repaint and (where necessary) upgrading to oil axle boxes.

 

If I’m right about this, then my model is an impossible combination - red livery and sheet rail on a 4-plank wagon. It’s just possible that some 4-plank wagons were upgraded with sheet rails before the 1904 livery change and so have come out like mine, if it was an older 4-plank that didn’t have cast plates, and had the axle boxes upgraded at the same time as the sheet rail was fitted. I think that is going to have to be my story, anyway…

 

thanks as always for your input on this.

 

Nick.

[magmouse]

46 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

From a broader perspective it is perhaps worth saying that small painted GWR was still commonly seen on wagons until at least 1905 and should in my view feature on layouts set at that time.

Yes, I think that’s an important point and one I have been trying to verify by looking at photos - in the years shortly before and after the 1904 livery change, there are older wagons without plates, newer ones with, and after 1904 a mix of with and without that have received the new livery.

 

That is what makes these years so interesting, but sometimes so frustrating, to model!

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

The conclusion I came to - admittedly it's something of a gut feeling but I think supported by, or at least not contradicted by, the evidence, is that cast plates were fitted to new-built 4-plank wagons from the 73xxx series onwards, and other new built contemporary wagons, up to the change to large GW in 1904 and possibly for a little time after, but cast plates were not retro-fitted to older wagons. Therefore, I think any older wagon repainted during this period would receive the painted lettering and numbering. 

 

17 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Sorry, I wasn’t clear - I asked the question about number plate location on the wagon end specifically in relation to 4-plank opens with sheet rails.

 

Fair enough. It bore on the question, or at least might assist readers trying to work their way round all the topics on this subject.

 

20 minutes ago, magmouse said:

If I’m right about this, then my model is an impossible combination - red livery and sheet rail on a 4-plank wagon. It’s just possible that some 4-plank wagons were upgraded with sheet rails before the 1904 livery change and so have come out like mine, if it was an older 4-plank that didn’t have cast plates, and had the axle boxes upgraded at the same time as the sheet rail was fitted. I think that is going to have to be my story, anyway…

 

I think that's reasonable - in the absence of positive information to the contrary.

[Miss Prism]

10 hours ago, magmouse said:

1. For wagons built with sheet bars and cast plates, where did the end plates go? Most 4-plank wagons had the sheet bar pivot on the bottom plank - there is one photo with it on the second plank (GW Wagons Appendix fig 3). there isn’t really room for a longer number (5 digit) in the LH panel - when painted here, the numbers are really squashed up.
2. Were any 4-plank wagons originally built with sheet bars?
3. Did construction of 4 and 5 plank designs overlap? This seems very likely.

 

1:  I can't recall seeing any wagons built with sheet supporters and cast plates.

2:  Yes, apparently there was one (undiagrammed 66160) built as early as 1897, but the photo of it (fig 359 of the bible) is clearly a lot later, with painted numbers (the end number being on the left-hand side on the bottom plank) and large G W, so I suspect the sheet supporter was not actually fitted until c 1902, which is the generally accepted date for the appearance of the supporters (at some point in the O4 lots).  (Many 4-plankers were retrofitted with supporters at a later stage of course.)

3:  Yes. 5-plank O4s were 1901-4, 4-planks O5s were 1902. 

 

[magmouse]

Thanks @Compound2632 and @Miss Prism, in particular Miss Prism for confirming the overlapping build periods for O5 4-plank wagons and O4 5-plank wagons.

 

It would be interesting to know more about the programme to fit wagons with sheet rails - both to new stock and to existing. The photo which appears in part here http://www.gwr.org.uk/liverieswagplate.html and in full in GWR Wagons Appendix shows a 5-plank O4 with a sheet rail and sheet. The sheet date is 11/00 (November 1900) and the sheet looks very new, so unless it had been in store for a while unused, the photo date is likely 1901 at the latest. The wagon (which also looks very new) is therefore one of the first of the diagram O4s. This also therefore places sheet rail fitting on new wagons as early as 1901.

 

The question that is harder to answer is when sheet rails started to be retro-fitted, and how rapidly this was done. @Chrisbr offers some info on this: “Having done some research on 4 plank opens in the GWR wagon registers at York, from a sample of just over 500 built around the turn of the last century, just less than 10% never had sheet rails, a third had them fitted by the end of 1910 and nearly all the remainder were fitted by end of 1920. So yes, a common modification it would appear.” from:

 

this gives some sense of the rate of adoption, but not a definitive start date for retrofitting.

 

Nick.

 

 

 

[Chrisbr]

From my analysis (limited to 4 lots - 254, 296, 355 and 374 and some 570 wagons), the earliest recorded fitting of a sheet support was March 1901 to 73632 which had been built in February the previous year.  One more was fitted in August 1902 to 10973 which had only been built in June of that year, but the main programme seems to start from March 1904 to wagons that were generally four years old at the point of installation. Sadly the stock registers do not mention paint schemes, lettering styles or cast plates.....

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Chrisbr said:

From my analysis (limited to 4 lots - 254, 296, 355 and 374 and some 570 wagons), the earliest recorded fitting of a sheet support was March 1901 to 73632 which had been built in February the previous year.  One more was fitted in August 1902 to 10973 which had only been built in June of that year, but the main programme seems to start from March 1904 to wagons that were generally four years old at the point of installation. Sadly the stock registers do not mention paint schemes, lettering styles or cast plates.....

 

Since 73691, like 73632 from lot 296, had cast plates (Atkins et al. 3rd edition plate 350), one has to assume that 73691 had cast plates. I note also that 73632 had conventional, not DC, brake gear. 

 

Wagons that were four years old in March 1904 would, I believe, have been built with cast plates. But if the sheet support was installed when wagons came in for routine maintenance, presumably they would be repainted in the current livery - i.e. grey with large GW. (When, exactly, did that start?)

[Miss Prism]

2 hours ago, magmouse said:

The sheet date is 11/00 (November 1900) and the sheet looks very new, so unless it had been in store for a while unused, the photo date is likely 1901 at the latest. The wagon (which also looks very new) is therefore one of the first of the diagram O4s.

 

That wagon comes from lot 410 I think, which I can't find a date for, but lot 411 is a large bunch of V5s in February to April 1903, so I think that places lot 410 in 1902 rather than 1901.

 

[magmouse]

@Chrisbr - thanks for that, very helpful, although not quite the answer I was hoping for!

 

It makes sense that the programme of retro-fitting sheet supports would start with newer wagons - if you are going to the trouble and expense of doing it, you'd want the investment to pay off over as long a time period as possible, so you fit the supports to wagons with a long future life.

 

It still leaves the question open of how the sheet support mechanism was fitted to the ends of wagons with cast plates during the period when cast plates were still the norm? Options seem to be:

1. keep cast plates on the sides, but remove from the ends
2. keep plates on the sides, remove from the ends, and paint the end number instead
3. somehow squeeze the sheet support mechanism on the end with the plate still there - is this the reason a small number of 4-plank wagons have the mechanism on the second plank up, not the bottom one? It still seems to be very tight for space to me.
4. remove all plates, and paint the wagon in the current livery for wagons without plates (which might just be red livery for a small number of wagons fitted with sheet supports prior to the change to grey and 25" lettering - this is the only, slender, justification for my model, given it seems from @Chrisbr's info that older wagons without plates were not retrofitted, at least not in the early part of the programme...)

@Compound2632 - your question about when the grey livery started in 1904 is pertinent here!

 

Nick.

[magmouse]

5 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

That wagon comes from lot 410 I think, which I can't find a date for, but lot 411 is a large bunch of V5s in February to April 1903, so I think that places lot 410 in 1902 rather than 1901.

 

Interesting - perhaps the sheet in the photo was kept for demonstration purposes only, and so stayed clean and shiny?

 

Nick.

[Miss Prism]

Btw, most of those previously undiagrammed 4-plankers came under the later generic umbrella of O21.

 

[Mikkel]

11 hours ago, magmouse said:

Yes, I think that’s an important point and one I have been trying to verify by looking at photos - in the years shortly before and after the 1904 livery change, there are older wagons without plates, newer ones with, and after 1904 a mix of with and without that have received the new livery.

 

That is what makes these years so interesting, but sometimes so frustrating, to model!

 

Nick.

 

Yes, here are three different liveries neatly lined up in 1906: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrdt2830.htm

 

(caption is wrong, only one of the wagons has cast plates of course)

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Mikkel

[magmouse]

27 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Yes, here are three different liveries neatly lined up in 1906: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrdt2830.htm

 

(caption is wrong, only one of the wagons has cast plates of course)

 

Great picture. The full image, although offering lower resolution in the area of interest, is in some ways clearer as the contrast is a bit better: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrdt2823.htm

 

As well as the error re the cast plates, I think the middle wagon is a single-plank, not a 2-plank, which were generally the same height as later 3-planks, as far as I can tell? It has quite a deep curb rail, which may be the source of the confusion. Having said that, the number fits into a range for 2-plank wagons (os Lot 52, 100 wagons nos. 15844-15943 according to Atkins et al, via @Compound2632's list).

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

44 minutes ago, magmouse said:

I think the middle wagon is a single-plank, not a 2-plank, which were generally the same height as later 3-planks, as far as I can tell? It has quite a deep curb rail, which may be the source of the confusion. Having said that, the number fits into a range for 2-plank wagons (os Lot 52, 100 wagons nos. 15844-15943 according to Atkins et al, via @Compound2632's list).

 

My list was originally drawn up using Atkins et al. but I discovered some discrepancies when compared with T. Wood, Saltney Carriage and Wagon Works (GWSG / The Wider View, 2007) which gives full details of all Saltney-built lots with data taken from the GW wagon register. This gives old series lots 52 and 53, built at Saltney, as one-plank wagons. I haven't corrected my list but just noted these as 1 plank while leaving them in the 2 plank list - sorry! 

[drduncan]

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

 

Yes, here are three different liveries neatly lined up in 1906: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrdt2830.htm

 

(caption is wrong, only one of the wagons has cast plates of course)

 

The four plank with cast plates also has ok oil boxes (you can just see the distinctive turret peeking up into shot and 2 shoe brakes with a side lever not dc1. Apologies if this has already been noted.
Duncan

[magmouse]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

This gives old series lots 52 and 53, built at Saltney, as one-plank wagons. I haven't corrected my list but just noted these as 1 plank while leaving them in the 2 plank list - sorry! 

 

Ah, thanks - glad to find my plank counting skills are still functioning!

[magmouse]

1 hour ago, drduncan said:

The four plank with cast plates also has ok oil boxes (you can just see the distinctive turret peeking up into shot and 2 shoe brakes with a side lever not dc1.

 

Thanks - further corroboration that 4-plank wagons with cast plates always have oil boxes.

[Mikkel]

Yes, except at least one (71058 with experimental Thomas brake gear) as earlier mentioned. 

 

The question arises whether the cast plates=oil axle boxes principle also applies beyond 4-plank wagons? Not always.

 

Firstly, the oil axleboxes appeared on some wagons before the cast plates: https://basilicafields.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/gwr-goods-services-pt-1/.

 

Secondly, a couple of photos indicate that it was possible for a vehicle painted or newly built in 1903 to appear with the combination of painted small GWR and oil axleboxes. This december 1903 photos of the engineering van presumably shows it freshly painted:  https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/misc/misc_equip202.htm. In addition, the only known photo of the Q1 Provender wagons built 1903 with oil axleboxes seems to show painted small GWR (although the photo is very poor).

 

These are all rather special wagons though, would be interesting to see if the "small painted GWR" + oil axleboxes combo could be find on standard Opens (other than the 4-plankers).

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Mikkel
To clarify

[Compound2632]

49 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Yes, except at least one (71058 with experimental Thomas brake gear) as earlier mentioned. 

 

The question arises whether the cast plates=oil axle boxes principle also applies beyond 4-plank wagons? Not always.

 

Firstly, the oil axleboxes appeared on some wagons before the cast plates: https://basilicafields.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/gwr-goods-services-pt-1/.

 

Secondly, a couple of photos indicate that it was possible for a vehicle painted or newly built in 1903 to appear with the combination of painted small GWR and oil axleboxes. This december 1903 photos of the engineering van presumably shows it freshly painted:  https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/misc/misc_equip202.htm. In addition, the only known photo of the Q1 Provender wagons built 1903 with oil axleboxes seems to show painted small GWR (although the photo is very poor).

 

These are all rather special wagons though, would be interesting to see if the "small painted GWR" + oil axleboxes combo could be find on standard Opens (other than the 4-plankers).

 

 

I think one needs to be careful to distinguish between wagons built with oil axleboxes and those given them retrospectively.

[Mikkel]

Right, but my interest is what livery and axle box combos are possible for the modeller. I was interested to see whether we could apply the oil axle box= cast plates principle universally for pre-1904 wagons, and tried to show that we can not.

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Mikkel
Un-muddled

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Right, but my interest is what livery and axle box combos are possible for the modeller. I was interested to see whether we could apply the oil axle box= cast plates principle universally for pre-1904 wagons, and tried to show that we can not.

 

 

Agreed. What I would say though is that those are specials. Ordinary opens and vans built with grease axleboxes were gradually given oil axleboxes - but when did this start? Was there a significant proportion done before the 1904 livery change?

Edited February 22, 2022 by Compound2632