P7 Ballast hoppers

[Craigw]

I am currently building a Southwark Bridge Models P7 Ballast hopper. It still looks like a skateboard so photos are a little pointless but there are two issues I am stumbling a little over.

 

Firstly, does anyone have clear info on when exactly they were fitted with vacuum brakes? The standard works say fairly early on, but I cannot find any "early" photos of them so fitted. There seems to be a number of photos from the early 1900s where they are unfitted and another photo in "Steaming through the Cheddar Valley" in a similar state and still with lever brakes. fast forward to the 1930s and there are a few, all vacuum fitted and DC3 fitted. Does anyone know of any 1920s photographs?

 

The earlier wagons also had a shield over the springs and axleboxes, this too was gone by the 1930s. Any ideas on when they were removed?

 

Regards,

 

Craig w

[Craigw]

I seem to have struck a bit of a black hole with these requests so have decided that I will build it with DC3 and vacuum brakes and with out the shields over the springs. The latter is because after laminating the 5 layers of springs together and pinning with 0.3mm wire, I think they should be on show. The attached photo shows progress to date. A fiddly, time consuming but very enjoyable build.