BR 16t Minerals, By Accurascale

[Fat Controller]

30 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Looks like a standard RIV/UIC design non-ventilated van.

I hadn't realised there were non-ventilated vans; all the ones  I'd seen  had either sliding or hinged covers

[Hal Nail]

On 04/09/2023 at 18:31, MoonM said:

maybe there is a business development opportunity for accurascale here?

I was starting to think I should buy some, weather and flog them on ebay. Messing about with 7mm ones has proved fairly lucrative!

[Dunsignalling]

On 04/09/2023 at 18:35, MoonM said:

Thank you. Some reading to do on my part. 

Possibly flogging a dead horse a bit but wondering if accurascale would also be willing to publish indicative rake ideas? Maybe a good way to show how (say) a banana van product could be incorporated into a rake and maybe help them cross sell product? 

Six or seven Diagram 108 for any one of all other 16T diagrams combined!

 

Banana vans generally ran in block trains between the port of landing and large banana warehouses. The ones I remember usually comprised a minimum of 18- 20 vans, sometimes quite a lot more.

 

However, in some cases a few would continue in a fully or partially fitted mixed goods beyond the main destination to a sub-depot. e.g. Fyffes depot at Exeter was served by block trains, usually from Southampton Docks, with two or three vans continuing on to (I think) Barnstaple or Bideford.

 

Those would be marshalled right behind the tender because banana vans required steam heating, and a passenger or mixed traffic locomotive would therefore be used.

 

Under certain circumstances they might be attached to a passenger train so long as the service was not booked to exceed 60mph at any point in its journey (later reduced to 45mph though I don't recall exactly when). 

 

John

Edited September 6, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[MJI]

Typical sets

 

Not seen a MCO outside of a scrap siding.

 

VB in TOPS era

 

Seen the following.

 

Short mixed rake of MCV MXV with MDV

Longer mixed rakes of above

Lone ones in sidings.

Longish rakes of all VB MCV MXV

 

Does anyone make a decent RTR MDV?

 

OK my similar rake is a mix of Chivers MDV and Airfix MCV MXV.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

I hadn't realised there were non-ventilated vans; all the ones  I'd seen  had either sliding or hinged covers

The non-ventilated ones seem to have been rarer in Britain - probably because they were what was needed for the bulk of the train ferry traffic which seems to have been mainly fruite and veg at various times of the year?  Non-ventilated ones did turn but again I suppose the sort of traffic they were used for was less common.  I certainly can't see any vents in the usual place on that one although otherwise it looks to me like a standard RIV/UIC design.

[The Stationmaster]

A couple of my photos of the yard I was managing , ahem, 50 years ago (feels like only a few weeks back).  Radyr, at the foot of the Cardiff Valleys.  So this is 1973 and by then things had begun to change in all sorts of ways but the colour view - albeit lacking in sharp detail - shows the considerable variation in colour/weathering of Mins.  

 

The b&W photo show just part of the variety of mineral wagons in the Down Yard  with on the nearest siding 3 x 21 ton fiitted wagons (21 ton flats in the local language), then five Mins, i.e. 16 tonners, followed by several 24 ton flats ('bombers' in local talk) then some more Mins.  Next road over has some 21 ton flats and some Mins then a train of 21 ton hoppers.  In that yard 'flat' meant a mineral/coal wagon with a flat floor in order to distinguish them from hoopers although 'bombers' were separately identified.  This was quite important because even by the early 1970s some collieries could only load 16 or 21 ton flats as everything else was too high to go under the loading screens.

 

By 1973 rust on wagon bodies was more in evidence than it had been a decade previously but note there no obvious signs of body damage or bowed sides etc.  as ever you need a phrase book as you moved around even within on BR region.  Thus what I knew from working in a yard in the WR's London Division some years previously as 'pools' became Mins when i moved here.  S A couple of job moves later I was back in England in the West Country and  although we saw very few by then.  I again had to get used to 'pools' instead of 'Mins'.  But around then that word was beginning to mean something totally different in connection with wagon fleet control on TOPS - time to rewrite the phrase book yet again.

 

 

 

 

 

[MJI]

4 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

A couple of my photos of the yard I was managing , ahem, 50 years ago (feels like only a few weeks back).  Radyr, at the foot of the Cardiff Valleys.  So this is 1973 and by then things had begun to change in all sorts of ways but the colour view - albeit lacking in sharp detail - shows the considerable variation in colour/weathering of Mins.  

 

The b&W photo show just part of the variety of mineral wagons in the Down Yard  with on the nearest siding 3 x 21 ton fiitted wagons (21 ton flats in the local language), then five Mins, i.e. 16 tonners, followed by several 24 ton flats ('bombers' in local talk) then some more Mins.  Next road over has some 21 ton flats and some Mins then a train of 21 ton hoppers.  In that yard 'flat' meant a mineral/coal wagon with a flat floor in order to distinguish them from hoopers although 'bombers' were separately identified.  This was quite important because even by the early 1970s some collieries could only load 16 or 21 ton flats as everything else was too high to go under the loading screens.

 

By 1973 rust on wagon bodies was more in evidence than it had been a decade previously but note there no obvious signs of body damage or bowed sides etc.  as ever you need a phrase book as you moved around even within on BR region.  Thus what I knew from working in a yard in the WR's London Division some years previously as 'pools' became Mins when i moved here.  S A couple of job moves later I was back in England in the West Country and  although we saw very few by then.  I again had to get used to 'pools' instead of 'Mins'.  But around then that word was beginning to mean something totally different in connection with wagon fleet control on TOPS - time to rewrite the phrase book yet again.

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom one, is that fitted head on mixed rake as it appears to be a mix of 21T VB and 16T OB?

[hmrspaul]

 

1 hour ago, MJI said:

 

 

Does anyone make a decent RTR MDV?

 

 

Err.. Accurascale   😇

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/1768c56-new-accurascale-announcement-new-and-improved-21-ton-mdomdv-and-mdw-wagons/#comment-5269194

Edited September 6, 2023 by hmrspaul

[hmrspaul]

57 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The non-ventilated ones seem to have been rarer in Britain - probably because they were what was needed for the bulk of the train ferry traffic which seems to have been mainly fruite and veg at various times of the year?  Non-ventilated ones did turn but again I suppose the sort of traffic they were used for was less common.  I certainly can't see any vents in the usual place on that one although otherwise it looks to me like a standard RIV/UIC design.

It is unusual. Not simply in lacking ventilators but having a plug door - could be refrigerated, although I believe they are usually white. 

 

Paul 

 

[The Stationmaster]

33 minutes ago, MJI said:

Bottom one, is that fitted head on mixed rake as it appears to be a mix of 21T VB and 16T OB?

Possibly as it does have a brakevan on the back although having the bombers in there seems a bit odd as they usually only wen to a limited number of destinations.  So it might just as likely be a train that had worked in from a colliery and hadn'r been shunted and that was how the wagons happened to have come together. They didn't bother with that fitted nonsense on the Valleys as it wasn't reckoned to be the best braking system on the steepest gradients and far more importantly than that it meant lots of extra work which took up time.

[Hal Nail]

1 hour ago, MJI said:

Bottom one, is that fitted head on mixed rake as it appears to be a mix of 21T VB and 16T OB?

I was going to ask the same thing purely based on the "colour" of the 5 nearer 21T compared to the more obviously grey ones to the left.

Is there a way of telling they are fitted from the visible fittings - eg are clasp brake always fitted?

[Porcy Mane]

Top banana pic of a 1/108. Could almost have been custom made for A'scale.

 

 

[MoonM]

6 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

A starting point might be: BR built a quarter million of these. So that's a dozen for every steam loco, or a score or more for every BR green or blue D+E specimen. Once you are up to speed on that, we can deal with the more subtle detail...

Not sure I understand this response to my statement. Why would showing rakes with 16t mineral wagons and other vehicle combined not help accurascale cross sell other more niche good vehicles? Like you said 250k of these vehicles so showing how these combine with (say) a banana van may lead me into wanting to purchasing a banana van because I know how I could combine it in a rake of 16t wagons and other product. I think you may have misinterpreted my comment as suggesting accurascale may need help selling 16t wagons 

[MJI]

1 hour ago, Hal Nail said:

I was going to ask the same thing purely based on the "colour" of the 5 nearer 21T compared to the more obviously grey ones to the left.

Is there a way of telling they are fitted from the visible fittings - eg are clasp brake always fitted?

16t are grey, not clasp, no tie bar.

 

21t are brown and clasp, ob would be morton style

[cctransuk]

50 minutes ago, MJI said:

16t are grey, not clasp, no tie bar.

 

21t are brown and clasp, ob would be morton style

 

Really? - and I am assuming that your comments relate to the photo in question - not a generality.

 

Clasp brakes do not require tiebars - there are no forces pushing the axles apart.

 

'Push-rod' brakes have tiebars to resist the action of the brakes pushing the axles apart.

 

In the early period of BR, handbrake-only revenue wagons were grey, vacuum braked or piped wagons were 'red oxide'.

 

CJI.

Edited September 6, 2023 by cctransuk

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, MoonM said:

Not sure I understand this response to my statement. Why would showing rakes with 16t mineral wagons and other vehicle combined not help accurascale cross sell other more niche good vehicles? Like you said 250k of these vehicles so showing how these combine with (say) a banana van may lead me into wanting to purchasing a banana van because I know how I could combine it in a rake of 16t wagons and other product. I think you may have misinterpreted my comment as suggesting accurascale may need help selling 16t wagons 

In steam days you can pretty much run any four wheeled wagons in fairly random combinations in partially fitted trains. Ordinary vanfits would be quite usual in such formations, a group often comprising a "fitted head" behind the tender on longer runs.

 

However, appearances of two or three banana vans in one, as described in my earlier post, wouldn't have been a common occurrence, simply because the block trains they came West on seldom ran more than once a week on any given route.

 

One reason for Accurascale picking the SR Banana vans is that they were mainly "herd animals", and we who "need" them will need a lot of them!

 

Any need to cross-sell them with more numerous wagons like the 16-tonners may therefore be moot.

 

John

Edited September 6, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[MoonM]

19 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

In steam days you can pretty much run any four wheeled wagons in fairly random combinations in partially fitted trains. Ordinary vanfits would be quite usual in such formations, a group often comprising a "fitted head" behind the tender on longer runs.

 

However, appearances of two or three banana vans in one, as described in my earlier post, wouldn't have been a common occurrence, simply because the block trains they came West on seldom ran more than once a week on any given route.

 

One reason for Accurascale picking the SR Banana vans is that they were mainly "herd animals", and we who "need" them will need a lot of them!

 

John

Got it, thank you for all the help. 

I'm guilty here of wanting a bit of everything! Ordered 6x 16t 3-packs which will create a reasonable rake by itself for the space I have. And I can get variety by weathering all a little differently from each other. But then I look at all the other 50s/60s br wagon and want all of them because they look so good. Realistically I'm not going to be able to get a large rake of everything in period so trying to find excuses to build a relatively believable mixed rake of pretty much everything! So bananas probe cannot sneak I'm but should be able to create a mix of 16t, 21t,hop24s and whatever accurascale comes up with next... 

[Dunsignalling]

11 minutes ago, MoonM said:

Got it, thank you for all the help. 

I'm guilty here of wanting a bit of everything! Ordered 6x 16t 3-packs which will create a reasonable rake by itself for the space I have. And I can get variety by weathering all a little differently from each other. But then I look at all the other 50s/60s br wagon and want all of them because they look so good. Realistically I'm not going to be able to get a large rake of everything in period so trying to find excuses to build a relatively believable mixed rake of pretty much everything! So bananas probe cannot sneak I'm but should be able to create a mix of 16t, 21t,hop24s and whatever accurascale comes up with next... 

One or two of Rapido's GWR V14 / V16 vans, especially fitted ones, should fit in, too.

 

I've ordered three, one unfitted and two fitted, including the one with the Blue Circle label suggesting a load of bagged cement. On a small layout, that will be more credible than my string of Presflos....

Edited September 6, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[SteamingWales]

This sort of formation seems a pretty good represenatation of what I'm after with my packs!

 

 

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, MoonM said:

Not sure I understand this response to my statement. Why would showing rakes with 16t mineral wagons and other vehicle combined not help accurascale cross sell other more niche good vehicles? Like you said 250k of these vehicles so showing how these combine with (say) a banana van may lead me into wanting to purchasing a banana van because I know how I could combine it in a rake of 16t wagons and other product. I think you may have misinterpreted my comment as suggesting accurascale may need help selling 16t wagons 

 

As I’ve said, rafts of unfitted 16ton minerals were pretty much ubiquitous for most of their existence on ‘mixed goods’ trains, that is local yard transfer and long-distance yard-to-yard traffic, class 7s or 8s with fitted heads and unfitted wagons at the rear.  From around 1960 (very roughly), unfitted general merchandise open and vans were rare, and practically extinct in revenue traffic a decade later.  The biggest group of unfitted wagons were minerals, and the biggest group of minerals were 16to all-steel, so such trains had them in the unfitted rear section, sometimes with a bogie bolster or some other unfitted survivor.  
 

As an example, for the 1970s but a long established working so valid for much earlier than that, 8M01, 01.55 Cardiff Long Dyke-Croes Newydd.  The fitted head would be a mix of vanfits, conflats, or opens which had been collected at Long Dyke from other yards in the area, NCL depots. factories with rail access, the docks, &c.  A feature of this train were the fitted GPVs destined for

Penrhyndaudraeth, and a piped-only ‘Octel’ stainless steel chemicals tank, a ferry vehicle, IIRC heading for Warrington; this wagon was a ‘stard for dragging brakes.  At least two vacuum-fitted vehicles or one bogie vehicle had to be marshalled behind this thing.  In short, the usual mix of stuff you’d find in a yard-to-yard general traffic goods service. 
 

Behind the fitted head would be the unfitted vehicles, nearly always loaded 16ton steel minerals though as I said sometimes a bogie bolster or two or such would tag along for the ride.  Class 8 trains were timed for 35mph because of their lack of braking power (brake force), but this one very rarely conveyed any wagons restricted to less than 45mph so it ran pretty much to time with plenty of leeway to make up any lost so long as you were generous with your braking distances, and a pleasant enough job with a good brake van on a warm summer night.  Could be a bit different in the depths of winter, though!  IIRC we were booked inside at Pontrilas to let a parcels from Bristol pass us. 
 

So, for modelling purposes there’s really no hard and fast rule for part-fitted goods trains and any prototype example might be significantly different the following day.  The yards simply coupled up whatever traffic had shown up for that destination; as we’ve seem, 8M01 conveyed traffic for the Cambrian and Warrington, as well as North Wales and the Holyhead line, and Birkenhead/nort Cheshire.  The fitted head could of course contain fitted 16ton steel minerals within it.  

 

[MJI]

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

 

Really? - and I am assuming that your comments relate to the photo in question - not a generality.

 

Clasp brakes do not require tiebars - there are no forces pushing the axles apart.

 

'Push-rod' brakes have tiebars to resist the action of the brakes pushing the axles apart.

 

In the early period of BR, handbrake-only revenue wagons were grey, vacuum braked or piped wagons were 'red oxide'.

 

CJI.

That is what i said

 

16t vb either tie bars or clasp

16t ob no tie bars no clasp

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

In steam days you can pretty much run any four wheeled wagons in fairly random combinations in partially fitted trains. Ordinary vanfits would be quite usual in such formations, a group often comprising a "fitted head" behind the tender on longer runs.

 

However, appearances of two or three banana vans in one, as described in my earlier post, wouldn't have been a common occurrence, simply because the block trains they came West on seldom ran more than once a week on any given route.

 

One reason for Accurascale picking the SR Banana vans is that they were mainly "herd animals", and we who "need" them will need a lot of them!

 

Any need to cross-sell them with more numerous wagons like the 16-tonners may therefore be moot.

 

John

 

Banana traffic was generally run in block trains of steam-heated banana vans from the ports to the big city heated ripening warehouses, in circuit working.  Their appearance singly in trains of wagon-load or ‘smalls’ traffic is not unknown but would be unusual, and not a typical subject to model.  The vans were, in some cases in South Wales, ballasted with sandbags and used as fitted heads on Iron Ore trains between Llantrisant and East Moors steelworks in Cardiff. 
 

The big banana ports were Southampton, London, Avonmouth, Liverpool, and, during the 60s and early 70s before the traffic went to Avonmouth, Barry.   I once worked a Barry Docks-Corby class 8 special iron ore train consisting of unfitted 35-ton hoppers with a fitted head of banana vans, with a Hymek, engine off Canton work to Gloucester for relief.  Halls were used in steam days. 
 

Perhaps vanfits or conflats would be a better example for cross selling. 

Edited September 6, 2023 by The Johnster

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

In steam days you can pretty much run any four wheeled wagons in fairly random combinations in partially fitted trains. Ordinary vanfits would be quite usual in such formations, a group often comprising a "fitted head" behind the tender on longer runs.

 

Of course if it didn't have a fitted head, it wouldn't be a partially fitted !

 

A pick-up goods (calling everywhere) would be a random collection of wagons on a fairly short trip.  Broadly speaking it would start its journey with a set of wagons, and by the time it arrived at its destination it would have changed to a completely different  set.  It would take the wagons it collected to a marshalling yard to be reformed into longer distance trains to other such yards.  The wagons on those would typically be formed into a partially fitted train, whose fitted head would allow it to travel faster than if the train were unsorted, which would be more important for covering longer distances.  At the next marshalling yard the wagons would be re-sorted either into further through trains, or into a pick-up goods for distribution locally.  The wagons in that for a particular station would typically be sorted so that all the wagons could be dropped off relatively easily.

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Of course if it didn't have a fitted head, it wouldn't be a partially fitted !

 

A pick-up goods (calling everywhere) would be a random collection of wagons on a fairly short trip.  Broadly speaking it would start its journey with a set of wagons, and by the time it arrived at its destination it would have changed to a completely different  set.  It would take the wagons it collected to a marshalling yard to be reformed into longer distance trains to other such yards.  The wagons on those would typically be formed into a partially fitted train, whose fitted head would allow it to travel faster than if the train were unsorted, which would be more important for covering longer distances.  At the next marshalling yard the wagons would be re-sorted either into further through trains, or into a pick-up goods for distribution locally.  The wagons in that for a particular station would typically be sorted so that all the wagons could be dropped off relatively easily.

My intention was to indicate that it would often be vans that formed the fitted head. 

 

Mind you, down our way, if there were any Presflos to be included, that's where they'd go; at 35tons loaded, and with eight brake shoes, each provided brake force equal to three vanfits. Particularly helpful if the train engine was a Light Pacific rather than a S15!

 

On a pick-up, everything got treated as unfitted and shunting convenience took priority, as it did even on more important goods trains on the Somerset & Dorset line, where they habitually relied on the renowned Ferodo brakes on the 7F 2-8-0s rather than waste time connecting and disconnecting hoses.  

 

John

Edited September 7, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Banana traffic was generally run in block trains of steam-heated banana vans from the ports to the big city heated ripening warehouses, in circuit working.  Their appearance singly in trains of wagon-load or ‘smalls’ traffic is not unknown but would be unusual, and not a typical subject to model.  The vans were, in some cases in South Wales, ballasted with sandbags and used as fitted heads on Iron Ore trains between Llantrisant and East Moors steelworks in Cardiff. 
 

The big banana ports were Southampton, London, Avonmouth, Liverpool, and, during the 60s and early 70s before the traffic went to Avonmouth, Barry.   I once worked a Barry Docks-Corby class 8 special iron ore train consisting of unfitted 35-ton hoppers with a fitted head of banana vans, with a Hymek, engine off Canton work to Gloucester for relief.  Halls were used in steam days. 
 

Perhaps vanfits or conflats would be a better example for cross selling. 

Which was the point I was trying to make.

 

FWIW, as Banana traffic declined on rail, a number of the vans were specifically reallocated to South Wales for the purpose you describe, with permanent concrete ballast added!