RCH 1907 Private Owner Wagons - with added 2024 range.

[wagonman]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But remember that this is not a GW-built wagon, or one built to GW order, but a wagon on hire to the GW from Ince. In the 19th century it was not unusual for the railway companies to hire mineral wagons from the trade - the Midland was doing so into the mid-1880s - these GW and GC hires were late examples of the practice. The GW had very few mineral wagons of its own, excepting loco coal wagons, as a matter of policy; in the GC case, I imagine as a matter of necessity - lack of capital to build its own. There have been some articles on GW hired wagons in Pannier, but I don't have them. I think @wagonman can give chapter and verse.

 

My records are far from complete...

 

 

Richard

[wagonman]

On 19/03/2023 at 12:45, Dungrange said:

 

It is possibly unrealistic to expect Rapido to produce versions with both 5 and 9 leaf springs and if 5 leaf springs were more common in their later life, I can see why they made that choice.

 

 

The artwork does say that it is 'pre-production and subject to change', so this is perhaps something that @rapidoandy or @RapidoLinny have already picked up on and it may be correct in the final production models.

 

 

This is perhaps why Rapido haven't given details of when the livery was current.  We know that there was a wagon that carried this livery (from that photograph), but we don't know with certainty when it carried that livery and possibly Rapido don't either.  It's maybe as well to give us no information, than incorrect information.

 

 

I suppose that this also highlights the problem that manufacturer's face when modelling the distant past.  Were all of Annesley's wagon fleet built by Eastwood & Co of Chesterfield?  It appears that it they had a fairly large fleet, so it's conceivable that some were built by other builders and it is therefore possible that some may have been built by Charles Roberts.  If that were the case, then it is possible that the general livery is correct, but the number is not correct for a Charles Roberts wagon.  That could be solved by renumbering, but to what?  I'm guessing that there is little details on the Annesley wagon fleet beyond a couple of photographs.

 

I suspect most/many of the Annesley wagons would have been registered by the Midland in which case the answer is lying in wait for anyone who cares to spend a few days at Kew.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, wagonman said:

I suspect most/many of the Annesley wagons would have been registered by the Midland in which case the answer is lying in wait for anyone who cares to spend a few days at Kew.

 

I've had one look at the Midland PO wagon registers. There I was tracking down a particular registration number for someone who had a registration plate.

 

For those unfamiliar with this, the Midland is one of the few pre-grouping companies for which complete PO wagon registration records survive, in eleven massive ledgers each containing 8,000 entries, covering the period 1887 - 1927 (the LMS kept going with the Midland registration series for several years). That's a total of getting on for 88,000 PO wagons registered over 40 years; the majority of these were wagons that did run over the Midland system, though not exclusively so. A good number of the major builders' works were connected to the Midland - S.J. Claye, Turner, Eastwood, Harrison & Camm, etc., as well as several of the Birmingham firms (but not the Birmingham RC&W Co, whose works weren't in Brum but over the border in Smethwick, Staffs) so they registered wagons with the Midland that were destined for use elsewhere.

 

So unless one has a good idea of when Annesley's wagons were built, it's a needle in a haystack job...

 

There has been some progress on systematic transcription. I have from Ian Pope of Lightmoor Press an Excel transcript of the first three volumes, which cover the period I'm interested in. 

 

As it happens, that does include ten registrations to Annesley Colliery, Nos. 2943-2952 in December 1890, 8 ton wagons built by Eastwood. They had internal dimensions 14' 6" long by 7' 0" wide by 3' 4" deep (assuming 3" sheeting, 15' 0" over headstocks and 7' 6" wide over sheeting) with side, end, and bottom doors.

[wagonman]

It's probably worth pointing out that the 1907 RCH specs weren't exactly new – more a consolidation of existing best practice so there would have been quite a few wagons built to near enough the 1907 standard from the early 1900s.

 

Apropos Renwick, Wilton & Co 521, it is a Gloucester built wagon, according to their records one of two 12-tonners supplied in January 1909 and paid for in cash. This is a puzzle because there is what looks suspiciously like a Gloucester owners' plate on the solebar!

Edited March 21, 2023 by wagonman
spilling

[wagonman]

Another observation: the S Skinner, Melksham, wagon dates from 1932 when it was acquired secondhand from Gloucester. In its previous life it was probably used in south Wales as it has the two commode handles on the end door, a feature of wagons in that area. The official photo lacks an information board, but in my book I came to the conclusion the livery was an inversion of that used by James Skinner and depicted on the model. My reasoning was that in 1932 a lot of photographers were still using orthochromatic plates which would record red as a dark tone and green as a light one – the photo shows the middle two planks noticeably paler than the top and bottom ones, ergo the livery was red with a green band. I doubt there's anybody around who can remember the original, and unless there's some definitive notice buried deep in the Gloucester records, who cares?

 

Richard

Edited March 22, 2023 by wagonman

[Compound2632]

24 minutes ago, wagonman said:

My reasoning was that in 1932 a lot of photographers were still using orthochromatic plates which would record red as a dark tone and green as a light one – the photo shows the middle two planks noticeably paler than the top and bottom ones, ergo the livery was red with a green band.

 

Free orthochromatic spectacles with every purchase...

[wagonman]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Free orthochromatic spectacles with every purchase...

 

Joking aside, they wouldn't actually work. Assuming they were intended to render a scene in orthochromatic monochrome, looking at the model you would see bands that were light-dark-light whereas the Gloucester photo is dark-light-dark. QED!

 

 

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, wagonman said:

Joking aside, they wouldn't actually work. Assuming they were intended to render a scene in orthochromatic monochrome, looking at the model you would see bands that were light-dark-light whereas the Gloucester photo is dark-light-dark. QED!

 

Yes, it's interesting looking at the two photos of Skinner père's two Gloucester wagons of 1915, described on the Gloucester info board as green with two red planks [R. Kelham, Private Owner Wagons of Wiltshire (Lightmoor Press, 2021) pp. 145-6]. It is pretty well impossible to say which two planks! But if pushed, I would I think say the bottom two.

[Dungrange]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Yes, it's interesting looking at the two photos of Skinner père's two Gloucester wagons of 1915, described on the Gloucester info board as green with two red planks [R. Kelham, Private Owner Wagons of Wiltshire (Lightmoor Press, 2021) pp. 145-6]. It is pretty well impossible to say which two planks! But if pushed, I would I think say the bottom two.

 

I'm not sure that I understand this discussion, but are the bottom two planks not the same colour as the top three planks?  If that is the case, then it has to be the light coloured planks, third and fourth from the bottom that must be red, which is what Rapido have modelled.  If it was anything else, then it couldn't really be described as a green livery.

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

I'm not sure that I understand this discussion, but are the bottom two planks not the same colour as the top three planks?  If that is the case, then it has to be the light coloured planks, third and fourth from the bottom that must be red, which is what Rapido have modelled.  If it was anything else, then it couldn't really be described as a green livery.

 

Having looked at the book, it's clear to me that what Richard says there agrees with how Rapido have depicted the livery - green with two red planks; indeed that must be Rapido's source of information. But what he says in his post above appears to be saying the opposite... I think what he means is that the orthochromatic film of 1915 cannot distinguish red and green well, whereas the panchromatic film of 1932 can.

 

It is, however, supposition that the colours are green and red, based solely on those being the colours used on Skinner's father's wagons 17 years earlier - as Richard note, the usual Gloucester info board is absent from this photo.

 

This wagon is an instance where the suggestion of putting different numbers on either side falls down, since there was only one of it, as far as is known. 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Compound2632

[57xx]

59 minutes ago, wagonman said:

 

Joking aside, they wouldn't actually work. Assuming they were intended to render a scene in orthochromatic monochrome, looking at the model you would see bands that were light-dark-light whereas the Gloucester photo is dark-light-dark. QED!

 

 

 

The official pic matches up nicely with putting the Rapido livery through a panchromatic filter.

 

The Ortho version looks like this, matching your theory on the colour reversal:

 

Without knowing the actual plate types though the verdict on colour scheme could be flipped either way, so as you say, who cares. 🙂

Edited March 22, 2023 by 57xx

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, 57xx said:

The Ortho version looks like this, matching your theory on the colour reversal:

 

Indeed, that's very much what the photos of the 1915 wagons look like, except that the distinction between the green and red planks is even less pronounced.

[57xx]

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Indeed, that's very much what the photos of the 1915 wagons look like, except that the distinction between the green and red planks is even less pronounced.

 

That could imply a darker green on the prototypes or my best guess at how old emulsions would render (based on limited and sometimes conflicting information that I found) could do with further tweaking. 

[wagonman]

A quick tutorial on the colour sensitivity of photographic emulsions:

 

The earliest emulsions were sensitive only to the blue end of the spectrum – which makes Clerk Maxwell's demonstration of colour photography in the 1860s nothing short of miraculous. By the end of the C19 they had managed to extend the sensitivity into the green part of the spectrum (around 500nm) which they called Orthochromatic. Such an emulsion would render red dark but green light as I suspect was the case with the Skinner fils wagon. Panchromatic films, sensitive to the full visible light spectrum, were introduced in about 1906 but had not completely displaced Ortho even in the 1950s. A panchromatic photo of that wagon would render the red and green in similar tones being equally sensitive to both colours.

 

Ortho continued in use for some commercial work as it could be developed under a red safelight, whereas Panchro demanded complete darkness – this could be useful in the days before accurate exposure meters!

 

Alles Klar?

Edited March 23, 2023 by wagonman

[wagonman]

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

This wagon is an instance where the suggestion of putting different numbers on either side falls down, since there was only one of it, as far as is known. 

 

According to the Gloucester records there was indeed just the one wagon bought in June 1932, described as secondhand 12-ton new specification (ie pre-1923) wagon on 7 years deferred payments.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, wagonman said:

Alles Klar?

 

It seems to me that you are saying the livery was red with a green stripe, contradicting what you wrote in PO Wagons of Wiltshire:

 

Quote

the livery is presumably green with plain white lettering and a horizontal red stripe on the third and fourth planks up all round - except for the vertical ironwork which is black - assuming it is the same as James' [Skinner the elder's] livery.

 

It is evidently upon this authoritative statement that Rapido have based their livery.

 

With your book in hand, I would draw attention to the wagon for C.W, Butler of Swindon, a Gloucester product of 1936:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of HMRS photo ref ACH030.]

 

This is stated to be red on the info board; without that one might assume it to be grey. But the appearance is the same as that of the stripe on the Skinner wagon. So I think that this is evidence that by the 1930s Gloucester's photographer was using film or plates with a red-sensitive emulsion.

 

This can be contrasted with the technology of 1904:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of HMRS photo ref ACH117.]

 

Of course we don't know that the same shade of red was used in these two cases...

 

Just to add my own note of uncertainty, I'm not convinced that the ironwork on S. Skinner's wagon is black rather than body colour.

[wagonman]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It seems to me that you are saying the livery was red with a green stripe, contradicting what you wrote in PO Wagons of Wiltshire:

 

 

It is evidently upon this authoritative statement that Rapido have based their livery.

 

 

Ouch. I seem to have changed my mind for some reason as the original text on the page proofs was in agreement with the point I have been making here! I wonder why I changed my mind?

 

Your point about the body ironwork being the same colour as the main part of the body is a good one – the tone is essentially identical, and clearly lighter than the black axle boxes etc. Also the part where the diagonals cross the lighter stripe is clearly body colour too – though not the verticals.

 

I think I'll shut up now ...

[RapidoLinny]

The choice to paint the verticals black but the diagonals body colour on the Skinner wagon was made based on several facts:
 

1. Many Gloucester-built private owner wagons are recorded as having black vertical ironwork, while the diagonal washer plates were painted in body colour (for example the J. Jones wagon we are producing, of which there is a photograph of the prototype on our website. Possibly related to the Gloucester company's predilection for inside diagonal washer plates?
2. The red stripe passes over only the diagonal ironwork, but not the verticals, and it seems to me that it would be rather strange to paint the diagonals but not the verticals with a red stripe if both were green.
3. Assuming the corner plates to be black, they look to have a very similar brightness level to the woodwork of the adjacent sheet planks.  As such, the best method available to tell whether the individual pieces of ironwork are black or body colour would appear to be whether the aforementioned red stripe covers them. 

One of the great joys of trying to determine colours of liveries from black-and-white photographs! I suspect that until someone creates a working time machine, we may never know for certain. 

Thanks,

Linny

[Edwardian]

If only we could go back and ask someone who'd know

 

Mr Skinner

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Edwardian

[Skinnylinny]

Indeed, Mr Simon Skinner!

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Skinnylinny said:

Indeed, Mr Simon Skinner!

 

One of the best films ever made, IMHO! I digress.

 

Rapido is doing so much good stuff these days I can hardly keep up, but, my goodness, you keep it coming!

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, RapidoLinny said:

The choice to paint the verticals black but the diagonals body colour on the Skinner wagon was made based on several facts:

 

Sound reasoning but I remain resolutely of two minds on this point!

 

The whole discussion is highly educational.

[Edwardian]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

Sound reasoning but I remain resolutely of two minds on this point!

 

The whole discussion is highly educational.

 

Every day's a school day round here!

[wagonman]

2 hours ago, RapidoLinny said:

The choice to paint the verticals black but the diagonals body colour on the Skinner wagon was made based on several facts:
 

1. Many Gloucester-built private owner wagons are recorded as having black vertical ironwork, while the diagonal washer plates were painted in body colour (for example the J. Jones wagon we are producing, of which there is a photograph of the prototype on our website. Possibly related to the Gloucester company's predilection for inside diagonal washer plates?
2. The red stripe passes over only the diagonal ironwork, but not the verticals, and it seems to me that it would be rather strange to paint the diagonals but not the verticals with a red stripe if both were green.
3. Assuming the corner plates to be black, they look to have a very similar brightness level to the woodwork of the adjacent sheet planks.  As such, the best method available to tell whether the individual pieces of ironwork are black or body colour would appear to be whether the aforementioned red stripe covers them. 

One of the great joys of trying to determine colours of liveries from black-and-white photographs! I suspect that until someone creates a working time machine, we may never know for certain. 

Thanks,

Linny

 

 Your reasoning is sound, Linny. The wagon looks good and Stanley is not around to contradict you!

 

 

Richard

 

[Craigw]

10 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

Ouch. I seem to have changed my mind for some reason as the original text on the page proofs was in agreement with the point I have been making here! I wonder why I changed my mind?

 

Your point about the body ironwork being the same colour as the main part of the body is a good one – the tone is essentially identical, and clearly lighter than the black axle boxes etc. Also the part where the diagonals cross the lighter stripe is clearly body colour too – though not the verticals.

 

I think I'll shut up now ...

 

 

I always understood that red and black were not differentiated  on the older films (as you say) and I take that Skinner wagon as red with two green planks, not the other way around.  

 Ergo, I think Rapido need to reverse the colours!

 

Regards,

 

Craig W