BR Banana Vans in 4mm

[Chuffed 1]

My bad, thanks for that explanation.  Explains this perfectly.  Cheers!

[Gridiron]

I can remember the banana ships calling Garston up to the early 1960's and the railway lines in the port being full of "box" vans to cater for the trade. Although not part of the then Port of Liverpool the port still suffered industrial unrest or the ships were delayed. My father, who used to visit the ships whilst in port, would often come home with a huge bunches of bananas that were about to ripen that were given to him by the captain or chief officer as they were to be written off before they reached a wholesale outlet. I remember him telling me there were occasions when the ships were delayed or could not discharge their cargo, what remained on board was dumped over the side by the crew in Liverpool Bay on the return voyage to the Caribbean. I'm fairly certain the ships were operated for Geest before they moved the operation to Barry were they also offered a passenger service for up to about twelve passengers looking for a different type of cruise as well as carrying finished goods back the Caribbean islands. I remember reading the cruises were often booked two years in advance in the 1970's and 1980's. 

[Cwmtwrch]

Stalbridge Dock, Garston was used by Fyffes from 1912 to 1965. So far as I know, Geest did use the Port of Liverpool, from 1954 to 1969; I think, but have not been able to confirm, that this was at Hornby Dock, Bootle. They used Barry from 1959 to 1982.

[Gridiron]

1 hour ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Stalbridge Dock, Garston was used by Fyffes from 1912 to 1965. So far as I know, Geest did use the Port of Liverpool, from 1954 to 1969; I think, but have not been able to confirm, that this was at Hornby Dock, Bootle. They used Barry from 1959 to 1982.

That does sound very familiar, the Geest website confirms the Port of Liverpool until 1969, and it would probably have been either Queens Dock in the South Docks system or as you state Hornby in the North dock system. Queens Dock was, until it closed used by Aznar Line for it's weekly service to/from the Canary Islands which then was relocated to Hornby Dock. There is a video of an Aznar Line vessel leaving Liverpool, and it's includes a shot of what looks like  Albert Dock as it was then. So much different today! 

 

[Southernman46]

On 18/02/2023 at 16:41, Chuffed 1 said:

Don’t be a knob, Jason.

plenty of people look at old threads all the time. Apparently they Google Rmweb and whatever subject they’re interested in!

 

Clicked straight on to it - who doesn't enjoy Banana vans ................... 👍

 

Don't forget old bananas make great banana bread 😋

[lochlongside]

The pending Accurascale model prompts me to update here (if going back to the steam age can be considered updating👴) . Memory means I have got to to add their banana vans to my Ratio and HD models. The Van Geest Bros lived in Spalding (their children were my contemporaries at the local School) and I noticed their branded banana vans were quite often loitering in the Spalding yard when trainspotting. Of course I took no photos and no notice of the detail - you rarely do at that age (another missed moment!!) - I do remember the vans were grubby brown and carried a Geest log - not Fyffes who were the big players at that time!  For Geest sites look on Geest website - they started importing flowers, fruit and Veg from Europe in the 40s , and then importing bananas from the Caribbean in the early 1950s with ripening centres at Heathfield, Airdrie, St Helens, Spalding, Stanstead, Burnham, Lingfield, Shenstone and Warminster from 1960/1 onwards - I reckon you could justify them en route from Liverpool to all these areas and on link routes in between. There's even a small sepia (makes you feel old just saying it!) photo of some 60s style vans being unloaded if you page thro their history. https://www.geestline.com/history/.

 

[Cwmtwrch]

Geest used Preston from 1953 to 1971, Liverpool [Hornby Dock] from 1954 to 1969 and Barry from 1959 to 1982. The vans would have been in normal BR Bauxite, with all its capacity for degradation, and were not branded as such. Geest, Fyffes, and Jamaica Producers all used stick-on traders' labels from 1953 [1954 for Geest], sometimes stuck over labels for one of the others. Banana vans were not allocated to particular importers; empties could be sent to any port, depending on where they had been emptied and the schedules of ship arrivals.

48 minutes ago, lochlongside said:

There's even a small sepia (makes you feel old just saying it!) photo of some 60s style vans being unloaded if you page thro their history.

If you mean the one between the years 1985 and 1986, it actually dates from circa 1960, and is a colour photo, probably from a elderly slide, as it has a bad red cast. You will get a larger version if you click on the small one. The layout of the lines and conveyors is what you would have found during unloading from a ship on a dockside. The two FM containers at the back are probably for loading for the Isle of Wight, or the Channel Islands, Orkney, Shetland, etc... There are a couple of Geest labels visible.

[Les Bird]

I've just read through this thread again and I noted that there's no mention of the Fyffes warehouse at Goodmayes on the GE. An opportunity for modellers of that area to include some banana vans.

[cypherman]

Hi, There are 3 ready made or kit banana vans I can find.

Graham Farish from the 1970s, Current Dapol and the Parkside kit. See pictures. Hope this helps.

[cctransuk]

1 minute ago, cypherman said:

Hi, There are 3 ready made or kit banana vans I can find.

Graham Farish from the 1970s, Current Dapol and the Parkside kit. See pictures. Hope this helps.

 

..... of which, only the final one is authentic and carries a prototypical livery - Peco Parkside.

 

The middle one is the Dapol / Wrenn / Hornby Dublo model - authentic, but fictional livery.

 

The Farish one is totally fictional.

 

More recently, Oxford have produced the GER banana wagon in prototypical liveries.

 

Peco may well have produced a fictional model in their Wonderful Wagons range.

 

ABS produced whitemetal kits for at least the SR and GWR wagons - probably others too.

 

I'm sure that there were several others, which do not immediately spring to mind.

 

CJI.

[kevinlms]

Apparently Peco did do a WW of a Banana Van.

 

https://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/shop/models/4mm-scale-items/4mm-scale-wagons/peco-oo-banana-van-b383-mjc/

[cctransuk]

28 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Apparently Peco did do a WW of a Banana Van.

 

https://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/shop/models/4mm-scale-items/4mm-scale-wagons/peco-oo-banana-van-b383-mjc/

 

Again, fictitious.

 

CJI.

[kevinlms]

8 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Again, fictitious.

 

CJI.

Of course, but they still made a kit.

[cctransuk]

11 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Of course, but they still made a kit.

 

Quite so - but I wouldn't want anyone to image that yellow PO banana vans ever existed in the UK.

 

CJI.

[MarkC]

On 11/06/2023 at 16:34, Gridiron said:

I can remember the banana ships calling Garston up to the early 1960's and the railway lines in the port being full of "box" vans to cater for the trade. Although not part of the then Port of Liverpool the port still suffered industrial unrest or the ships were delayed. My father, who used to visit the ships whilst in port, would often come home with a huge bunches of bananas that were about to ripen that were given to him by the captain or chief officer as they were to be written off before they reached a wholesale outlet. I remember him telling me there were occasions when the ships were delayed or could not discharge their cargo, what remained on board was dumped over the side by the crew in Liverpool Bay on the return voyage to the Caribbean. I'm fairly certain the ships were operated for Geest before they moved the operation to Barry were they also offered a passenger service for up to about twelve passengers looking for a different type of cruise as well as carrying finished goods back the Caribbean islands. I remember reading the cruises were often booked two years in advance in the 1970's and 1980's. 

A percentage of cargo was always expected to be lost because it ripened too early - up to 5%, if memory serves. Having done a couple of trips on banana boats in the mid 80s, both as "Genny 3rd" and "Frosty", I still remember watching a lot of bananas being dumped for that reason. The aim was to arrive at the discharge port with the cargo still 'green & firm' - and was quite hard work for the Engineers. Lots of hard running of the generators to keep the refrigeration plant going. For the first 3 days, all you seemed to do was pump the hold bilges out, as the bananas released a lot of water. You blew cool air into the holds at 11.1 Deg.C until the outlet air was at 12.2 Deg.C, then adjusted the inlet to 13.3 Deg.C for the rest of the voyage. Numbers I'll never forget...

 

Mark

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Quite so - but I wouldn't want anyone to image that yellow PO banana vans ever existed in the UK.

 

CJI.

I think people have a perception that banana vans, ought to be yellow of some shade, because that's the way the model trade have depicted them as, for generations!

[37079]

On 30/11/2023 at 10:38, cctransuk said:

 

..... of which, only the final one is authentic and carries a prototypical livery - Peco Parkside.

 

The middle one is the Dapol / Wrenn / Hornby Dublo model - authentic, but fictional livery.

 

The Farish one is totally fictional.

 

More recently, Oxford have produced the GER banana wagon in prototypical liveries.

 

Peco may well have produced a fictional model in their Wonderful Wagons range.

 

ABS produced whitemetal kits for at least the SR and GWR wagons - probably others too.

 

I'm sure that there were several others, which do not immediately spring to mind.

 

CJI.

In 4mm Ratio (now Peco) do the first BR version (which is to an LMS design)**.

 

ABS did the first SR design, I'm not sure if they did the Maunsell roof profile version? ABS also did both short and long GWR versions.

 

247 developments (I think) used to do a body etch for one of the LNER banana vans, one day I will dig that out and have a play with it.

 

** there are a myriad of diagrams with fairly minor differences, from memory the ratio kit is not quite right for any but easy enough to correct.

 

Mike

[cctransuk]

52 minutes ago, 37079 said:

In 4mm Ratio (now Peco) do the first BR version (which is to an LMS design)**.

 

ABS did the first SR design, I'm not sure if they did the Maunsell roof profile version? ABS also did both short and long GWR versions.

 

247 developments (I think) used to do a body etch for one of the LNER banana vans, one day I will dig that out and have a play with it.

 

** there are a myriad of diagrams with fairly minor differences, from memory the ratio kit is not quite right for any but easy enough to correct.

 

Mike

 

So; more banana van kits than you can shake a stick at - but the one and only authentic RTR one was from Hornby Dublo, sixty years or so ago!

 

CJI.

[45125]

22 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

So; more banana van kits than you can shake a stick at - but the one and only authentic RTR one was from Hornby Dublo, sixty years or so ago!

 

CJI.

Even that had its issues.............

[KeithMacdonald]

On 01/12/2023 at 12:01, kevinlms said:

I think people have a perception that banana vans, ought to be yellow of some shade, because that's the way the model trade have depicted them as, for generations!

 

Could be various shades of green, yellow for a while, then brown to black.

[teeinox]

On 29/11/2023 at 22:23, Cwmtwrch said:

Geest used Preston from 1953 to 1971, Liverpool [Hornby Dock] from 1954 to 1969 and Barry from 1959 to 1982. The vans would have been in normal BR Bauxite, with all its capacity for degradation, and were not branded as such. Geest, Fyffes, and Jamaica Producers all used stick-on traders' labels from 1953 [1954 for Geest], sometimes stuck over labels for one of the others. Banana vans were not allocated to particular importers; empties could be sent to any port, depending on where they had been emptied and the schedules of ship arrivals.

If you mean the one between the years 1985 and 1986, it actually dates from circa 1960, and is a colour photo, probably from a elderly slide, as it has a bad red cast. You will get a larger version if you click on the small one. The layout of the lines and conveyors is what you would have found during unloading from a ship on a dockside. The two FM containers at the back are probably for loading for the Isle of Wight, or the Channel Islands, Orkney, Shetland, etc... There are a couple of Geest labels visible.

I thought it worth photoshopping the photo to see if the colour could be improved.  It could be: it makes a rather "Hornby Dublo" scene, especially those refrigerated containers in the top right hand corner.

 

[kevinlms]

4 hours ago, teeinox said:

I thought it worth photoshopping the photo to see if the colour could be improved.  It could be: it makes a rather "Hornby Dublo" scene, especially those refrigerated containers in the top right hand corner.

 

Fascinating shelters that the workers have presumably built themselves to protect them from the weather.

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Acurascale have recently released a series of banana vans.

https://www.accurascale.com/collections/sr-banana-van

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 02/12/2023 at 19:27, teeinox said:

It could be: it makes a rather "Hornby Dublo" scene, especially those refrigerated containers in the top right hand corner.

The van next to the containers is either LMS D2111, or BR 1/240, 1/241 or 1/242 with the steam pipe casing still in place on the end. 

 

On 01/12/2023 at 19:15, 37079 said:

In 4mm Ratio (now Peco) do the first BR version (which is to an LMS design).

....there are a myriad of diagrams with fairly minor differences, from memory the ratio kit is not quite right for any but easy enough to correct.

The Peco ex Ratio 4mm kit is quite good for the earlier lots of 1/242 on a 10ft underframe, as modified to remove the steam pipes and provide better insulation hence becoming a 'Yellow Spot' van. (Note to self:- don't forget to change the brake pipe)

1/240 and 1/241 retained the old 9ft underframe while  later 1/242 lots, 1/243 and 1/244 had modified strapping. 

Edited January 21 by TheSignalEngineer

[TheSignalEngineer]

This is one I prepared earlier. It is suitable for all bodies produced for LMS D2111 through to  BR 1/242