Mainline 37 170 LMS 5 plan high goods - to be rechassied

[Covkid]

Hi all

Picked up a secondhand Mainline "HIGH" 5 plank open in BR livery.  The lettering looked really nice on it so I thought it worthy of a new Parkside chassis to replace the existing effort.  It is lettered as M360241 with the boxed signage of number and XP.

 

Am thinking of the "LMS" type underframe with the shock absorber type springing, but wonder how accurate I might be with this.  Can anyone please advise ?

 

Many thanks    

[Sitham Yard]

5 hours ago, Covkid said:

Hi all

Picked up a secondhand Mainline "HIGH" 5 plank open in BR livery.  The lettering looked really nice on it so I thought it worthy of a new Parkside chassis to replace the existing effort.  It is lettered as M360241 with the boxed signage of number and XP.

 

Am thinking of the "LMS" type underframe with the shock absorber type springing, but wonder how accurate I might be with this.  Can anyone please advise ?

 

Many thanks    

Be wary about any wagon in the M360xxx series as this series was used in the early days of BR to number assorted wagons that had been purchased from various sources. Wagon historians and enthusiasts have been confused because some received LMS lot numbers and were entered into the LMS diagram book.

 

This number was for a wagon built in wartime by the Southern Railway for the Ministry of Supply, very similar if not identical to wagons built by the SR for themselves. It had a fairly standard unfitted 10 feet wheelbase steel underframe with side door springs in the SR style. It was later fitted with vacuum brakes as part of the 1950's BR Modernisation Plan. However I cannot remember how good a match the body moulding is for that number.  My stock is not available to check as it is currently in storage but I think the moulding is of a BR or LMS wagon. Probably suit the underframe you mention but then the number would be incorrect. 

 

Details of this wagon from An Illustrated History of LMS Wagons by R.J. Essery and The Acquired Wagons of British Railways Volume 5 by David Larkin.   

Andrew 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Sitham Yard
clarification

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The body is too long for a shock absorbing type, which were shorter by a foot and a half than the standard 17'6" of this body.

 

This tooling originated with Airfix GMR, at a time when there simply had never been a good quality RTR model of a planked general merchandise open. The choice of subject to fill this gap was very intelligent; the wagon body was of a type that appears to have been built by and for all the companies from the late 1930s onwards. No idea what the actual prototype was, and if the underframe is worn out or damaged I have put these bodies on all sorts of 10' wb running gear, including LNER three V hanger type to represent their VB version.

Edited August 29, 2023 by 34theletterbetweenB&D
Ignore, thinking of the worng item

[Sitham Yard]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

The body is too long for a shock absorbing type, which were shorter by a foot and a half than the standard 17'6" of this body.

The OP refers to shock absorber type springing, not the wagon body. I take this to mean the type with J hangers with what appears to be a shock absorber (rubber springing?) on each end where the spring is attached.

Andrew    

[31A]

If it is the ex Airfix GMR type body moulding it can be used with the Parkside (from Peco) PA16 underframe kit to represent LMS Diagram 1892 vacuum braked with clasp brakes, or with the Parkside PA35 kit to represent LNER equivalent, Diagram 210.

 

I have done both, although I think I did the ex LNER one using whitemetal parts from ABS for the brake gear rather than the Parkside underframe kit.

 

 

 

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

This tooling originated with Airfix GMR

 

No, Mainline 37-170 is the Mainline tooling, which was mostly released in PO liveries and is possibly a generic five plank design.  Some online photos of the model show it had bottom doors which would be very unusual on a railway company merchandise wagon.

 

Given the info about the particular wagon number from @Sitham Yard above, Parkside PA36 might be a suitable underframe - 10ft vacuum braked with Moreton gear. I'm not sure, but I think the lettering style on this specific item is post about 1962

 

The Airfix model was indeed very good. 

[Mark Forrest]

@Jason T recently described replacing the chassis on RTR 5 plank highfit in this video:

I can't remember if the current Hornby model that he used originated from Airfix or Mainline mouldings, but the same principles would apply.

 

Paul Bartlett's website is of course a wonderful and valued resource when it comes to identifying detail differences.

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/lmsopen

 

 

 

[41516]

49 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

No, Mainline 37-170 is the Mainline tooling, which was mostly released in PO liveries and is possibly a generic five plank design.  Some online photos of the model show it had bottom doors which would be very unusual on a railway company merchandise wagon.

 

It also has the overdone woodgrain and the side doors are a little narrow.  Generic at best, rather than a good match for any particular prototype.

 

 

I've used one for practice creating an unpainted wood finish, with as much of the grain as realistically possible sanded down (not an option for the OP if they want to keep the lettering as-is).  On a reasonable 10ft WB chassis it would be largely acceptable to the majority who aren't wagon experts.

 

 

 

49 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

The Airfix model was indeed very good. 

 

I'm a fan. A little chunky detail-wise perhaps nowdays, but they do come out well with a little help.

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by 41516
spelling

[Flying Pig]

44 minutes ago, 41516 said:

It also has the overdone woodgrain and the side doors are a little narrow.  Generic at best, rather than a good match for any particular prototype.

 

I wonder if it was based on a mineral wagon, with the top planks removed and the fixed panels stretched for a 17' 6" underframe? I don't recall Mainline having a proper mineral (Airfix did, albeit similarly stretched) so maybe this was Mainline's open-of-all-trades in their initial range. That would explain the bottom doors.

 

[41516]

I think the stretched 5 plank mineral is the best theory, much like they stretched the 7 planks.

 

VS Airfix general merchanise body. Note the chunky curb rail on the Mainline body - must be designed as a wooden chassis wagon but plonked on the steel chassis. I hadn't noticed that before, I must say.

 

 

VS Slaters Gloucester mineral - matching door width.

 

 

Also rather slim against the AIrfix body, but matches the earlier mineral (edit - that all explains why it looks a bit funny on the steel chassis, should be a wooden one.)

 

 

 

Edit 2. Just for fun.

Comparison against Bachmann

 

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by 41516