Pragmatic Pre-Grouping - Mikkel's Workbench

[MikeOxon]

With a bit of help from Photoshop, I've swung down the two bridge units to confirm that they fit the space between the platform on the left and the section to the RHS.

 

[ChrisN]

With a bit of help from Photoshop, I've swung down the two bridge units to confirm that they fit the space between the platform on the left and the section to the RHS.

 

LNWRCreweGoods1908.jpg

 

When you look at it it appears to be further back than you suggest but when you take a straight edge from the platform it meets the bottom of the platform at an angle so you are quite right.  Also it is then obvious that the surface is the same.  (My wife is not convinced though.)

 

By 'atmosphere' do people mean 'organised chaos'?

[MikeOxon]

When you look at it it appears to be further back than you suggest but when you take a straight edge from the platform it meets the bottom of the platform at an angle so you are quite right.  Also it is then obvious that the surface is the same.  (My wife is not convinced though.)

 

By 'atmosphere' do people mean 'organised chaos'?

It was that illusion that made me try the Photoshop experiment

 

I suspect the 'atmosphere' includes the smells from the straw, the various barrels, the horses, etc..... all quite 'thick' I suspect.  But it is also the heaps of now-unfamiliar objects that were commonplace to the people working there but 'transport' us to a different world.

 

As L P Hartley wrote in 'The Go Between' - "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

[Mikkel]

By 'atmosphere' do people mean 'organised chaos'?

 

Yes, nothing like a sterile environment to take the life out of things!   (except maybe for operating theaters!).

 

I keep having to remind myself that the organising principle on the decks of a goods shed is where things are headed - which leads to these jumbled up piles of individual items. For a modeller it's so tempting to build up neat piles of identical crates etc - and that's fine for some parts of a goods depot - but the active working spaces alongside the tracks seem to have been dominated by these heaps of organised chaos.

[sparks]

I'm glad it was of interest - I went back to the article and they are definitely bridges as shown on the plan below. I'm not sure what an 'Unentered Berth' is though!

 

 

I've also attached the whole article as it gives a good explanation of how the tranship shed operated and also some exterior shots.

 

The Railway Engineer 1908 04 - Crewe - London and North Western Railway.pdf

[Nick Holliday]

I'm glad it was of interest - I went back to the article and they are definitely bridges as shown on the plan below. I'm not sure what an 'Unentered Berth' is though!

 

lnwr crewe tranship shed 1908c - rwyeng190804 002.jpg

I've also attached the whole article as it gives a good explanation of how the tranship shed operated and also some exterior shots.

 The Railway Engineer 1908 04 - Crewe - London and North Western Railway.pdf

Fascinating article, many thanks for uploading it. It sparked a bit of recognition and I looked in Edward Talbot's The LNWR Recalled from OPC. In the section on Goods Traffic there are two pieces, one by Fred West, Goods Agent at Crewe, written in 1907, describes vividly the organised chaos and emphasising the vast amount of paperwork involved, the second dating from 1924 being slightly more technical and sedate, but both complement the Engineer article.

Regarding the Unentered Berths, I suspect that this relates to items where the invoice hasn't been fully completed. An army of clerks in the office would go through all the invoices as they were received, and would label each with the relevant bay or berth within the shed, so that the unloading team would be told to go to, say, 92 on 3, the number being "plainly indicated by the rows of great iron figures suspended in numerical order above the decks from one end of the shed to the other." I would imagine that, given the enormous throughput of invoices the odd one would slip through the net unmarked, or perhaps the destination was ambiguous, so these would be taken to the Unentered Berth to be dealt with separately, away from the hustle and bustle of the loading decks. There was also a workshop where inadequate packaging could be repaired, to prevent any damage on the next stage of the journey.

The later article refers to the "trucking bridges" which connect the decks to each other when down. "The communication bridges between the decks call for special notice because of their ease of manipulation. There are two sets of them across the shed and instead of having wide bridges which will accommodate both the coming and going traffic, narrow bridges are provided in pairs operated on the balance principle, and each bascule can be operated by one man. The weight carrying capacity of each bridge is 18 cwt."

[Mikkel]

A belated thanks sparks and Nick for these very interesting and useful posts!

 

I've been wanting to model a loading/unloading cameo in my goods depot, and had sorted out the various staff titles involved (checkers, caller-offs etc), but not how it was all done in practice. The article describes this very nicely and the discussion of salary bonuses provides additional info on the work involved.

 

I'm a bit confused about the "Caller-off" job title, which is also  referred to as a Caller-out and a Caller-on in the article. For the GWR I have so far only come across the "Caller-out" designation.

 

Seven men to unload a wagon,with 4 different job titles. A reminder of the great variety of job titles on the pregrouping railways - and perhaps especially in the goods department. See eg the Flickr pages of the GWR Casualties project: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gwr_casualties/albums/72157623520135696

[DonB]

These latest entries show RMweb at its best!

Collective thoughts, knowledge and research freely shared. Thank you all !

Impressive lot of bed-time reading there, hopefully more to come?

[Mikkel]

Various small projects on the go at the moment, with rather slow progress.
 
These figures from Andrew Stadden will go in a cameo outside the goods depot. They are a delight to work on. The horse is Dart Castings.
 

 
 
I've selected the group below to represent a shunter and three slipper boys (who assisted the shunters, as I understand it):
 

 
 
The three gents below will play the roles of another shunter (middle), flanked by two gents from  GWR Police Department staff: An inspector on the left and a constable on the right. The latter is a guard that I'm modifying, he still needs a bit of work.
 

[ChrisN]

Various small projects on the go at the moment, with rather slow progress.

 

These figures from Andrew Stadden will go in a cameo outside the goods depot. They are a delight to work on. The horse is Dart Castings.

 

 

 

I've selected the group below to represent a shunter and three slipper boys (who assisted the shunters, as I understand it):

 

 

 

The three gents below will play the roles of another shunter (middle), flanked by two gents from  GWR Police Department staff: An inspector on the left and a constable on the right. The latter is a guard that I'm modifying, he still needs a bit of work.

 

 

Mikkel,

These figures are fun to work with, I think I recognise my shunter in there somewhere.  I added a shunting pole made from brass wire.  It begs the question do I need a slipper lad, although your goods shed will be much bigger than mine.

 

The guard, or is it an inspector, you have modified.  Have you filed his bag and strap off?  I have not tried anything like that with Andy Stadden's figures as I assumed it would be too hard as it is pewter.

[Mikkel]

Mikkel,

These figures are fun to work with, I think I recognise my shunter in there somewhere.  I added a shunting pole made from brass wire.  It begs the question do I need a slipper lad, although your goods shed will be much bigger than mine.

 

The guard, or is it an inspector, you have modified.  Have you filed his bag and strap off?  I have not tried anything like that with Andy Stadden's figures as I assumed it would be too hard as it is pewter.

 

Hi Chris, yes, I cut off the bag and strap with a scalpel. The strap needs some more work as you can see. One area where I find the pewter harder to work with is repositioning arms - something I tend to a lot on whitemetal figures. So that needs more care on these. Overall though it's such a delight to work with figures that look right from the outset!

 

Not sure if smaller stations employed slipper boys, perhaps the lad porter helped instead in some locations?

[ChrisN]

Hi Chris, yes, I cut off the bag and strap with a scalpel. The strap needs some more work as you can see. One area where I find the pewter harder to work with is repositioning arms - something I tend to a lot on whitemetal figures. So that needs more care on these. Overall though it's such a delight to work with figures that look right from the outset!

 

Not sure if smaller stations employed slipper boys, perhaps the lad porter helped instead in some locations?

 

Mikkel,

Thank you.  I would think repositioning the arms would be quite difficult, perhaps cutting them off at the elbow or shoulder could do it.  I have purchased the HO sets 1 & 2 but not the working or station figures, perhaps I can find a lad in those.

[lightengine]

Mikkel, what primer do you use?

LE

[Mikkel]

Mikkel, what primer do you use?

LE

 

Hi LE, I use Plastikote light grey primer. They have had different variants, this is the twist-and-spray "new" version, ie here: http://www.kbt.co.uk/paint-sprays/plasti-kote-twist-spray-primer

 

I have only tried using it outside on warm days, heating the can a bit beforehand. Under those conditions it is very good, I think, with a nice fine mist and drying fairly quickly. But I'm not very experienced in spray paints (I try to minimize on toxics etc), so others may know better products.

 

Here is my 1854ST getting a dose of it some time ago. I miss summer already!

 

Edited September 15, 2015 by Mikkel

[Silver Sidelines]

Hello Mikkel

 

Great work as ever.

..I have only tried using it outside on warm days, heating the can a bit beforehand. Under those conditions it is very good, I think, with a nice fine mist and drying fairly quickly. But I'm not very experienced in spray paints (I try to minimize on toxics etc), so others may know better products.

.......miss summer already!

You might have inspired me to spray some paint.  It looks like it will have to be next year now!  There are a few swallows still perched up on the telephone wires but I think the the first batch have left for warmer parts already.

 

Ray

Edited September 16, 2015 by Silver Sidelines

[wagonman]

"Here is my 1854ST getting a dose of it some time ago. I miss summer already!"

 

 

The English summer. My favourite day of the year...

[lightengine]

"Here is my 1854ST getting a dose of it some time ago. I miss summer already!"

 

 

The English summer. My favourite day of the year...

Thats a bit harsh. Our summers arent that bad really. We have had 3 good days down here. 1 was an early summer in April.

[laurenceb]

"If spring comes can winter be far away"

[Siberian Snooper]

"If spring comes can winter be far away"

I hope not.

[lightengine]

Dart Castings skipper nearing completion.  It's my first attempt at painting figures.

Beard, moustache and cap badge have been added and next are gold buttons.

Edited October 16, 2015 by lightengine

[Mikkel]

Aha, the good captain makes a return. That cap badge must have been especially fiddly! Does he have a ship to command?

[lightengine]

Aha, the good captain makes a return. That cap badge must have been especially fiddly! Does he have a ship to command?

Sadly, due to the price of UK shipping he will be stood on a quay peering into the distance dreaming of days of yore. The P&O cap badge of 4 coloued triangles forming a square was a bridge too far so I settled for red only with a touch of gold.

[2ManySpams]

Sadly, due to the price of UK shipping he will be stood on a quay peering into the distance dreaming of days of yore. The P&O cap badge of 4 coloued triangles forming a square was a bridge too far so I settled for red only with a touch of gold.

Perhaps he just needs to be holding a pack of a certain brand of fishfingers?

 

Nice job on the painting.

[Mikkel]

I had better follow up on the status of my GWR 1854 ST. Just to recap, the body is a much modified and detailed Finecast kit on a Bachmann 8750 chassis.
 
The paintjob isn't my best effort and needs more work, but at least the shade of green is more or less what I wanted.

 

 

Next steps are lining and detailing. The latter includes adding this nice loco jack from the BGS range to the footplate.
 

 

[Silver Sidelines]

Looking good Mikkel.  How many brushes do you need to paint an engine (even a GWR engine)?

 

Ray

Edited September 6, 2016 by Silver Sidelines