Lynton & Barnstaple 4t Covered Goods Vans

[LNERJP]

Hi All

 

With the advent of Lionheart/Dapol upcoming L&B models, I've now started planning a 7mm scale L&B layout in the garage.

 

So to make a start I purchased a peco 4 wheel box van which appears to be not to far away from a L&B Covered Goods Van, this first model I've built straight from the box to see how well it goes together, which makes a rather nice model.

 

Now I would like to build further more accurate models using the peco kit as a base, and my question is regards to the van width, the peco kit scales out at around 5' 7", An Illustrated History of southern Wagons has the width at 5' 4" and The Lynton & Barnstaple Measured and Drawn has the width at 5' 0". Can anyone please inform me of the correct size?

 

Cheers

JP

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, LNERJP said:

I would like to build further more accurate models using the peco kit as a base, and my question is regards to the van width, the peco kit scales out at around 5' 7", An Illustrated History of southern Wagons has the width at 5' 4" and The Lynton & Barnstaple Measured and Drawn has the width at 5' 0". Can anyone please inform me of the correct size?

 

Are both drawings showing the same dimension? Overall width could be 4" greater than width over body sides.

 

I'm surprised there isn't a 7 mm kit for these?

[mcowgill]

I think they're different dimensions.

 

Measured & Drawn shows 5' 0" over body but note that the ends of that measurement as shown on the drawing are not the overall width, the dimension is shown over the corner posts.    R.E. Tustin's drawings of the van from the 1950s quote 4' 11.75" over body and 5' 4" over doors.

 

Martin

 

  

[LNERJP]

So the Peco wagon scales out at 5'8" over then body or 5'10.5" including the doors. If using the information available then the original is 5'0" over body or 5'4" including doors, that would then give an overall error of 6.5" or around 4mm. So I need to make a decision if that's acceptable or to scratch build new van ends. Considering there is already a compromise on the wheelbase at 16.5mm, I think I'm probably nit picking over what builds into a ok model.

 

JP

[Compound2632]

I wonder if there is an aesthetic consideration at work here. The L&B carriages are 6 ft wide over end pillars; a 5 ft wide van looks rather strange alongside one. So a bit of widening has been done to help the customer over this.

 

That vacuum pipe standard and hose looks more than a little strange.

[Nearholmer]

The supplier of these wagons, both the small van and the small

open, the name of which escapes me for a moment (was it GC&W), made them for several gauges and I think that the dimensions were slightly different according to gauge. Ones in the British Isles included: L&B (yeah, we know that) nominal 24”, Alford & Sutton Tramway 30”, and West Carberry Tramway (Schull & Skibereen) 36”, and others went to foreign parts, so Peco possibly made theirs proportional the the gauge, and to look about right with their vaguely Glyn Valleyish coaches.

I think the kit might have been designed by Roy Link; if it was you can be sure that there was a thoughtful logic behind it all.

 

PS: I no longer have the Schull & Skib book, but I built both the open and the van from scratch in 15mm/ft from the drawings in that, and I’m pretty sure they were 6ft wide over the body, which to me suggests that the design worked on the basis of “gauge plus three feet”. 18” from gauge face on either side does sound about right for wheel width, axle journal/box and only a small overhang of the body beyond the solebars. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

(was it GC&W)

 

(Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works Co.)

Edited March 23, 2023 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

Famous for their unicorn wagons too.

 

 

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Famous for their unicorn wagons too.

 

You'll be telling me next they made stock cars for export:

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Compound2632

[cp409067]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

..... Peco possibly made theirs proportional the the gauge, and to look about right with their vaguely Glyn Valleyish coaches.

.....

 

*

I appreciate that the discussion here (and especially the above comment) is about 7mm scale models.

 

That said, was it not the case that the prototype L&B 4 wheel wagons were distinctly on the small side?

 

Assuming the RTR models by Peco for "OO9" are (gauge aside) basically to scale, placing an L&B van alongside a GVT carriage shows the dramatic difference. The L&B van is noticeably narrower and of less height.

 

 

CP

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, cp409067 said:

That said, was it not the case that the prototype L&B 4 wheel wagons were distinctly on the small side?

Very.

 

There was a degree of conservatism about how big vehicles could be made on “2ft” gauge in the early years of public railways to that gauge, and the very restricted loading gauge of the Festiniog, which was the granddaddy of ‘em all, seems to have got into people’s heads more than it really needed to.

 

But, even in that context, buying tiddly little 4W wagons when decent-sized bogie wagons had long been proven in service seems a strange decision, especially for such a lavishly (over) engineered railway as the L&B. I’d love to know what their logic was.

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

But, even in that context, buying tiddly little 4W wagons when decent-sized bogie wagons had long been proven in service seems a strange decision, especially for such a lavishly (over) engineered railway as the L&B. I’d love to know what their logic was.

 

Especially give the almost main-line splendour of the passenger carriages. But as you implied, perhaps it was a design BWCW had off the shelf.

[Nearholmer]

The brake van that went with them was a decent-sized bogie vehicle, “road van’” style, and there were two bogie opens in the original stock, all built by BCW, so they must have had some definite reason for going small, not a simple lack of awareness of the alternatives. I wonder if these little trucks somehow matched anticipated consignment sizes, but I’m not convinced, and I no longer have any NG books, so can’t see whether the great authorities had anything to say about this.

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Michael Bishop]

The drawings by R E Tustin (published in Model Railway Constructor October 1952 issue) would have been based on the official dimensions,  of the body being 10 ft 5" and 5ft 4" over the doors,   and little else apart from photographs.   The Locomotive Magazine for January 1900 illustrating the freight rolling stock said they were 10ft 5" in length and 5ft wide.   The drawings in 'Measured and Drawn' went to original sources where possible and in this case were based on the remains of two adjacent doors and part of the roof and end a van in a back garden adjacent to Pilton Yard found in 2003.   It confirmed all the dimensions just stated,  the 5ft dimension referring to the width over the body without the doors.   The door grabs existed on the surviving pair of doors and projected 2 1/2 inches from the door,  making the van 5ft 9" extreme width.   The actual doors were 1 13/16" thick.