4mm Cupboard Door wagons for Scottish PO's

[Penlan]

I must have seen a reference somewhere in this Topic Area - Railways of Scotland - but I don't seem to be able to track it down.
I see David Geen does, or did, both 4mm MR and NER wagons with cupboard doors, but I've drawn a blank elsewhere.   The nearest I can see to give a 'Scottish' feel for a wagon is the NBR's Jubilee style one*.
Any guidance would be welcome.

 

* I'm not slavishly following a specific wagon for a specific Private Owner, I just want to have something a little different.
I have put together a Thos.Muir Son & Patton Ltd. liveried Jubilee wagon, but would prefer 'Cupboard Doors' for anymore I do.

[Spitfire2865]

I found this rather nice looking LMS wagon a while back, but could never ID the diagram, so I have never tried to build it. Something along the lines of this may look good as a PO wagon.

[Caley Jim]

I found this rather nice looking LMS wagon a while back, but could never ID the diagram, so I have never tried to build it. Something along the lines of this may look good as a PO wagon.

This is certainly a CR 8T mineral wagon, either a Dia 22 in spring buffered form (the originals were dumb buffered) or a Dia 46.  There were dimensional differences between them, mainly 9" longer wheelbase and 1'7" longer over headstocks for the Dia 46.  A slight puzzle is the vertical planking of the door.  The doors were double skinned and CR built wagons always had the horizontal planks to the outside, Private builders (e.g. Hurst Nelson & R. Y. Pickering) built many hundreds for colliery and coal companies to the same overall design, but theyoften put the vertical planks to the outside.  In 1897 the CR took over 400 such wagons which had been built by H/N for Dunn Bros, but they had 5 planks instead of 4.  The Caledonian Railway Association (link in my signature) have recently produced a kit for a Dia 46 wagon.

[petethemole]

Hornby produced a Scottish style cupboard door wagon with a working end-tipping door. Unfortunately it's on the anachronistic NER clasp brake underframe and the body is a bit crude. They only appear to have done one Scottish owner https://hattonsimages.blob.core.windows.net/products/R003Fife-LN_3189507_Qty1_1.jpg. I transplanted two onto kit wooden underframes which improved them a bit but kept the English owners' livery.

[Penlan]

........ In 1897 the CR took over 400 such wagons which had been built by H/N for Dunn Bros, .....

Dunn ?   Now there's a co-incidence.

 

My interest is the LNWR's Central Wales Line (pre. 1922), and PO's along the line other than Collieries are like hens teeth.

A couple of months ago I was allowed to see a poor scan of a photo that is due to appear in a publication sometime, and one of the wagons is for 'Dunn' of Llandilo.  Now after much searching of records etc. we have tracked Dunn down as a Colliery Agent in business around 1926 - 27.  As there's no proper collieries in the area of Llandilo, there's a mystery.... Unresolved.

 

I agree - as my old boss would say "what's that got to do with the price of cheese in Hull - seemingly irrelavent, but the 'Dunn' wagon is only the third PO I've found in 40+ years for a Central Wales Line station (other than collieries), so suddenly seeing the name 'Dunn' referred to in Caley Jim's posting sends the hairs on the back of the neck, well they are stirred, though not shaken..... 

 

The MR dia 204 was a 7 plank Loco Coal wagon with the doors having horizontal planks too.

The NER dia Q1 Loco Coal had 5 planks, again horizontal door planks.  

 

But, from the OP, is there a Scottish 'Cupboard Door' PO available.

[Caley Jim]

 

Dunn ?   Now there's a co-incidence.

...........................................................

 

But, from the OP, is there a Scottish 'Cupboard Door' PO available.

 

In 1873 Dunn Brothers had collieries in the Mount Vernon and Bothwell areas of the Lanarkshire coalfield, Burnt Broom (http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/Indexes/ListMines1873-3.html)  and Newlands No 3 (http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/Indexes/ListMines1873-4.html) collieries respectively.

 

Oxford models have announced a range of Scottish PO wagons (http://www.oxfordrail.com/76/OR76MW4.htm), but they are based on the NBR equivalent to the CR Dia 46, which had drop doors, but the same outside framed end doors.  By a bit of judicious trimming, you could remove the door hinges, scribe the vertical division between the doors and add new door hinges.  That might damage the livery details, though.  I did this with the 2MM Scale Association kit for the RCH 1887 mineral wagon.

 

Jim

[Spitfire2865]

This is certainly a CR 8T mineral wagon, either a Dia 22 in spring buffered form (the originals were dumb buffered) or a Dia 46.  There were dimensional differences between them, mainly 9" longer wheelbase and 1'7" longer over headstocks for the Dia 46.  A slight puzzle is the vertical planking of the door.  The doors were double skinned and CR built wagons always had the horizontal planks to the outside, Private builders (e.g. Hurst Nelson & R. Y. Pickering) built many hundreds for colliery and coal companies to the same overall design, but theyoften put the vertical planks to the outside.  In 1897 the CR took over 400 such wagons which had been built by H/N for Dunn Bros, but they had 5 planks instead of 4.  The Caledonian Railway Association (link in my signature) have recently produced a kit for a Dia 46 wagon.

The LMS has a history of reversing door planking, such as on the LNWR D88 vans.

Though now thats funny, I opened a thread about a year ago for the matter of IDing this wagon and AFAIK it was never IDed. Now I post it at random and instantly answered.

[Penlan]

Oxford models have announced a range of Scottish PO wagons (http://www.oxfordrail.com/76/OR76MW4.htm), but they are based on the NBR equivalent to the CR Dia 46, which had drop doors, but the same outside framed end doors.  By a bit of judicious trimming, you could remove the door hinges, scribe the vertical division between the doors and add new door hinges.  

At least (so far) they haven't shown a Thos Muir of Dundee one, that would really plss me off, as I've spent a little time getting some decals together.  I think for the Cupboard doors the vertical strapping either side of the drop door will need removing too and replaced with more a little bit nearer the ends (a bigger gap for the cupboard doors), I don't have a drawing to hand at present, my books on early wagons are with a restorer who's rebuilding a 1/4 scale 1860's coal wagon. 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Penlan

[souwest]

Now that Oxford Rail are producing some cupboard door wagons it would be great if A Large Retailer was to commission some traders wagons in limited edition runs.  Can we have Salmon and Young from Greenock? 

[Caley Jim]

Hornby produced a Scottish style cupboard door wagon with a working end-tipping door. Unfortunately it's on the anachronistic NER clasp brake underframe and the body is a bit crude. They only appear to have done one Scottish owner https://hattonsimages.blob.core.windows.net/products/R003Fife-LN_3189507_Qty1_1.jpg. I transplanted two onto kit wooden underframes which improved them a bit but kept the English owners' livery.

The end door n this looks distinctly weird!  It's like a cross between the heavy outside framed type used by the CR and NBR, which was hinged by having two 'hoops' round a heavy top cross member, and the more common type and ends up looking like neither! 

 

Jim  

[Caley Jim]

Now that Oxford Rail are producing some cupboard door wagons it would be great if A Large Retailer was to commission some traders wagons in limited edition runs.  Can we have Salmon and Young from Greenock? 

The ones from Oxford Rail don't have cupboard doors, as I indicated by suggesting how they could be modified.

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

The following quote from the CRA forum may help to inform anyone contemplating converting Oxford Road wagons to cupboard doors as I suggested above :-

 

'There are several reasons why Oxford Rail wagons are more finescale friendly than even the best RTR models. So far they have been produced on self-coloured plastic which has certain benefits for the modeller in terms of ability to modify without having to paint match and painting is easier without further obscuring the moulded detail.'

 

Jim

[PeterR]

Now that Oxford Rail are producing some cupboard door wagons it would be great if A Large Retailer was to commission some traders wagons in limited edition runs.  Can we have Salmon and Young from Greenock? 

 

 

another large retailer?   What about Harburn Hobbies - I have sent the suggestion to them - to contact Oxford and I have no connection with either - its so 'unusual' for a retailer to pick a 'Scottish Railway' for moulded plastic and all the expense of the moulds etc that any further use would, I think, be welcome.

 

Hattons have them to 'pre order' at £9.50 = post.

 

 

They have the NB version and Wilsons, and Taylors of Dundee shown - 

 

Yours Peter

Edited March 3, 2016 by PeterR

[Ian Kirk]

Hi,

 

My friend Peter Westwater produced kits for Scottish PO wagons which I marketed in the 80s as "Westykits" there were if I recall three types and at least one had cupboard doors./  IIRC They were based on prototypes built by Hurst Nelson of Motherwell as at that time we had access to the Hurst Nelson Collection of archive photographs. The injection mould tools are I think with Colin AShby who produced them for a time. They occaisionally come up on a well known auction site.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[sulzer27jd]

Hi,

 

My friend Peter Westwater produced kits for Scottish PO wagons which I marketed in the 80s as "Westykits" there were if I recall three types and at least one had cupboard doors./  IIRC They were based on prototypes built by Hurst Nelson of Motherwell as at that time we had access to the Hurst Nelson Collection of archive photographs. The injection mould tools are I think with Colin AShby who produced them for a time. They occaisionally come up on a well known auction site.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

 

Much missed Ian. I remember them from that time and wish I had stashed a few away.

 

John

[Caley Jim]

Not 4mm, I'm afraid, but here are a couple of 2FS CR Dia 22 wagons built from trial etches from my own artwork.  They are now awaiting painting while I finish test building the rest of the kits on the sheet.   The far one is in the original dumb buffered form, while the nearer on has spindle buffers, which later batches had and which were fitted to others as dumb buffers were phased out.  Many similar wagons were built by outside builders (notably Hurst Nelson and Pickerings) for collieries and private traders.  Some CR wagons were 'thirled' to colliery companies and bore the latter's liveries.

 

 

Jim

[1ngram]

There is  3D printed cupboard door wagon body for sale on Shapeways just now.  Maker is someone amblejunction

Edited March 9, 2021 by 1ngram
Adding info

[Caley Jim]

On 09/03/2021 at 15:45, 1ngram said:

There is  3D printed cupboard door wagon body for sale on Shapeways just now.  Maker is someone amblejunction

I put 'amblejuction' into the search box on Shapeways Market Place, but only got a small water tank and a bolster wagon body listed

.

 

Jim

[Regularity]

It’s 3mm scale, Jim, and requires a space plus quote marks.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Regularity

[Caley Jim]

Thanks, @Regularity.  That's not a CR wagon, too many planks, doors aren't double-skinned (in the way I mentioned above) and it doesn't have an end door.

 

I do have a photo of a similar wagon owned by the 'United Co-operative Association Ld, Brechin' but it only has 5 planks.

A coke wagon of the Plean Colliery Bannockburn has 6 planks and fixed ends, but two of the planks go through above the door and it has two further planks, with spaces between them, above that, the ironwork and end stanchions being extended to support them.

 

Both of these are from the HMRS collection.

 

Jim

[Dave John]

Agreed Jim, the lack of an end door suggests a traders wagon to me.