More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Compound2632]

Not quite, because the front face of the Slater's moulded W-iron is in front of the rear face of the Slaters' solebar. (If you see what I mean!)

 

I take your point though that all plastic solebars are too thick, and what I do with is to file a recess, the recess (typically 1mm) being filed after snipping off all the plastic W-iron bits. I usually leave the plastic spring in place, still attached to its solebar, in the filing process. This leaves the spring a trifle thinner than it should be, but allows a bit of space between its rear and the front of the W-iron, which is what I like. (And is essential if using rocking irons, which need a bit of room to swing.)

 

I understand what you mean - the Ratio LNWR wagon kits are like that but I've squinted very closely at the Slater's solebars and if there's any overlap it's no more than 0.1 mm. I think it's a bit of a generalisation to say all plastic kits have too-thick solebars but I agree your method for fitting etched axleguards is at least wise and probably often necessary.

[Guy Rixon]

If you fit axleguards with working springs from the Bill Bedford range, they're a bit wider than prototype. (This is for the ones sold separately, not the parts from Bill's kits.) The solebars need quite deep recesses to avoid their outer faces being too far apart.

 

I suspect that there are a lot of model wagons where the visible faces of the solebars are too far apart. I know that a lot of mine are like that, although I'm trying to avoid it in new builds.

[Compound2632]

I suspect that there are a lot of model wagons where the visible faces of the solebars are too far apart.

 

I suspected this to be true of the Slater's 4 mm Midland wagon kits but it's not as bad as I thought: 28.0 mm over the outside faces of the solebars, should be 6'10" = 27.3 mm. So a scale inch each side.

[asmay2002]

A post pooling interest of mine has been certain parts of the GW WoE mainline in the 1930s.  One approach is to reproduce wagons in the proportions to which they were contributed to the pool, where the largest contingent would be the LNER's. 

Er,  In 1923 the LMS owened 303797 revenue earning wagons, the LNER 284488, the GWR 87432 and the SR 36121.  In 1946 the LMS had 291448, the LNER 244954, GWR 87944 and SR 35321.  The LNER never had the largest contigent.  

[Compound2632]

On 20/07/2017 at 21:01, asmay2002 said:

Er,  In 1923 the LMS owened 303797 revenue earning wagons, the LNER 284488, the GWR 87432 and the SR 36121.  In 1946 the LMS had 291448, the LNER 244954, GWR 87944 and SR 35321.  The LNER never had the largest contigent.  

 

That's a 1923 grand total of around 710,000 railway company-owned wagons. Extrapolating back to c. 1903 by the ratio of Midland wagons in 1903 to Midland wagons in 1923 (about 0.94) gives a rough total of 670,000 for the earlier year. Every eleventh railway-owned wagon was a Midland D299 5-plank open. As Wagonman has pointed out, many were in use for mineral traffic, but even so there were enough around for them to get everywhere, even in pre-pooling days.

 

Following on from the D299 kit, I’ve moved on to another Slater’s Midland kit, this time for the D342 coke wagon. This was a rather less numerous wagon, with 2,326 in service by 1900 and a further 150 built as late as 1911-12. The design dates to 1888 but was a development of a less high-sided design built ten years earlier – 4’6” deep rather than 6’0” deep. Quite why this outside-wood-framed design, constructed like a covered van, was favoured over the more familiar solution of extended planked sides doesn’t seem to be known. Although they were not so common I suspect that they usually worked in block trains taking coke from gasworks to major industrial consumers, so if one has one, one should have half-a-dozen or more. I’m fairly sure I’ve seen a photo of Saltley gas works with a string of them in view.

 

As mentioned, the kit has the same problem that, if built according to the instructions, the solebars project below the headstocks. The solution isn’t so simple as for the D299 kit as the height of the floor is fixed in relation to the body by a groove in the end and a lip in the side:

 

 

There are several ways round this. The height of the solebar could be reduced; as I said with the D299 build, I doubt this could be done uniformly enough. Alternatively, a new floor could be made to fit inside the body above the groove and lip; the problem here would be keeping everything in the right relative position. What I’ve preferred to try is to keep the existing floor at its designed height, so that it still engages with the groove in the body end moulding, but to cut it back along the sides to the line of the end of the transverse rib, removing 2.5 mm from each sides:

 

 

The solebar now glues onto the side of the floor. (Using ‘glue’ as shorthand for ‘weld in place with Mek-Pak solvent’) Trimming the inner angled arm of each axleguard back to the line of the bottom of the solebar fixes its position such that the bottom of the solebar and the bottom of the ribs are in the same plane; this puts the solebar at the right height relative to the headstocks and body. The resulting ‘floor’ is narrower than the original floor moulding, so I’ve added a piece of 10 thou microstrip to build up the width. (In theory this should be 20 thou, 0.5 mm, but in practice I find I always need to skim down the width and length of the floor anyway – it’s slightly too large.) Here’s the first end and side in place, with the floor engaging with the slot in the end:

 

 

At this point only the end has been fixed in place; the side is free to flap around to allow for alignment with the other end. I found it convenient to glue each pair of ends and sides together so that they can be used in a dry run to check the floor is the right size – the inside face of the headstocks should but up to the ends of the longitudinal ribs.

 

The brakes are the only other component that needs modification. Because the floor has been lowered relative to the solebars, the base of the brake gear moulding is now too deep. About 0.5 mm needs to be cut off to set the brakes at their correct height:

 

 

As usual, I’ve replaced the solid push-rod safety loop with microstrip. Here’s the completed wagon, ready for the paint shop:

 

 

These wagons were built with brakes on one side only. I don’t seem to have a photo showing the non-brake side but I’m pretty confident that the longitudinal handrail would only be found on the brake side – as with the L&Y D3 van, I believe the handrail has to do with unsafe practices involving standing on the brake lever, either for more force to put the brakes on or to hitch a lift when shunting – or perhaps both: to apply the brake to a moving wagon.

 

This method of cutting the floor to fit between the solebars could equally well be applied to the D299 and D305 open wagon kits, giving them the correct internal depth. My method for building these compromises on the depth – which only matters for an unloaded, unsheeted wagon – and avoids having to modify any of the components. Even so, the method used on this coke wagon only involves three extra cuts to the plastic.

 

I’m afraid I hop around from project to project, often moving on to a new one before finishing the previous one. Sometimes this is due to hitting a problem that needs a pause for thought; sometimes it’s just that the new project looks more interesting. So, triggered by the arrival of a couple of ex-Slater’s Gloucester 6-plank wagon kits from POWSides and then finally more Huntley & Palmers transfers, I’m back on my biscuit wagon project. This one is straightforward, being a standard Gloucester C&W Co. 10 ton wagon from the batch of five, presumed to be Nos. 21 – 25, dating from 1908 – so a little after my period, really. This is my attempt to pre-empt the forthcoming Hornby model. Just to be different, mine will be No. 24:

 

 

It’s a hybrid – Slater’s sides and ends on a Cambrian Gloucester underframe. The Slater’s axleboxes represent the earlier round-bottomed variety in vogue in the 1890s whereas these wagons had the later square-bottomed axlexboxes that Cambrian do. The brake lever is Cambrian but the brake gear is Slater’s – rather finer than the Cambrian version – with the microstrip safety loops. By this date Gloucester were building wagons with independent both-sides brakes. The Slater’s kit gives you ribbed buffer housings; these wagons had the smooth variety so the ribs were carefully carved off. Still missing is the metal plate on the drop door to protect the woodwork where it hits the end of the brake shaft – on the Midland wagons this is an easy-to-cut square of plasticard; here it needs to be circular. I’m trying to work out how to make that neatly. 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[wagonman]

I doubt Gloucester or anyone else built wagons with brakes both sides before they were legally obliged to; that was 1912. Retrofitting was a protracted affair, some wagons going to that great marshalling yard in the sky in the 1930s without being blessed with a second set of brakes.

[Mikkel]

Interesting wagons, I do like the Huntley & Palmer project. Any thoughts on the sheeting for the H&P wagon, ie how it looked? The staged photo (that I know you are aware of) doesn't show the sheeting. 

[Edwardian]

Interesting wagons, I do like the Huntley & Palmer project. Any thoughts on the sheeting for the H&P wagon, ie how it looked? The staged photo (that I know you are aware of) doesn't show the sheeting. 

 

Fascinating photograph.

 

I note the use of someone else's PO wagon, W. H. Bowater Ltd, the 3 Midland opens, and the terminal, round-ended wagon; the positioning of the lettering of which has me stumped as to ownership?

 

And who's and what is that group of 3 7-planks?

 

With only 25 H&P branded wagons, clearly the company was using other stock, so it is presumably worth identifying the various other wagons in the photograph.

 

EDIT, the Bowater wagon appears to read "W H Bowater, Coal & Coke [?] Merchants [?], Birmingham" 

Edited July 21, 2017 by Edwardian

[jwealleans]

I think the 7 planks are Stephenson Clarke. The final wagon looks to me like another private owner, but whose it might be I can't begin to guess.

[Compound2632]

I doubt Gloucester or anyone else built wagons with brakes both sides before they were legally obliged to; that was 1912. Retrofitting was a protracted affair, some wagons going to that great marshalling yard in the sky in the 1930s without being blessed with a second set of brakes.

 

Yes, but the Gloucester official photo, dated October 1908, clearly shows both side brakes. 

 

Fascinating photograph.

 

I note the use of someone else's PO wagon, W. H. Bowater Ltd, the 3 Midland opens, and the terminal, round-ended wagon; the positioning of the lettering of which has me stumped as to ownership?

 

And who's and what is that group of 3 7-planks?

 

With only 25 H&P branded wagons, clearly the company was using other stock, so it is presumably worth identifying the various other wagons in the photograph.

 

EDIT, the Bowater wagon appears to read "W H Bowater, Coal & Coke [?] Merchants [?], Birmingham" 

 

I analysed this photo in a post in the Peckett thread (plus some following discussion with archival information from wagonman). The Huntley & Palmers wagons are all from their first two batches all from the Birmingham Wagon Co: dumb-buffered Nos. 1-5 of 1873 and iron-framed Nos. 6-10 of 1889. The Black, Hawthorn engines A and B date from 1875. The fifth and seventh wagons are Midland 3-plank dropside wagons, I think pre- or early D305 - the headstocks seem to be extended and angled at the ends to act as doorstops, cf Midland Wagons Vol. 1 Plate 68 - interesting to see these pressed into use for coal traffic. The eighth wagon is the mandatory D299! The sixth wagon is W H Bowater, Coal & Coke Merchant, Birmingham. According to the Lighmoor index, there is a photo of a W H Bowater wagon in one of Keith Turton's PO books. The ninth and tenth wagons are clearly Stephenson Clark and I suspect the eleventh is too. Bowater and Stephenson Clark were both coal merchants, acting as agents between colliery and customer, so it's not surprising to find their wagons supplementing Huntley & Palmers' own. The presence of the Midland wagons suggests that Huntley & Palmers were getting their coal from a colliery on the Midland Railway, so I can justify having their wagons in my West Midlands/north Birmingham context! I don't think there's any hope of identifying the last wagon. The brake is clearly an early Great Western vehicle, presumably AA3, the first of which date from 1889. The Huntley & Palmers Collection dates this photo to around 1920, which is clearly wrong - note the antique signals on the Great Western main line in the left background. (The photo is on the lines radiating into the Huntley & Palmers factory site just after the bridges under the Great Western and South Eastern lines - now a pedestrian walkway.) The date has to be after 1889; I would suggest not long after. 

 

Interesting wagons, I do like the Huntley & Palmer project. Any thoughts on the sheeting for the H&P wagon, ie how it looked? The staged photo (that I know you are aware of) doesn't show the sheeting. 

 

By sheeting do you mean tarpaulins? These wagons would have been used solely for bringing coal supplies to the factory. Other raw materials and finished products would have been carried in company-owned wagons, as seen in these two photos which I think you will recognise as ones I've linked to before - note the tempting array of SER wagons...

[billbedford]

H&P wagon No.24 assembled.JPG

 

It’s a hybrid – Slater’s sides and ends on a Cambrian Gloucester underframe. The Slater’s axleboxes represent the earlier round-bottomed variety in vogue in the 1890s whereas these wagons had the later square-bottomed axlexboxes that Cambrian do. The brake lever is Cambrian but the brake gear is Slater’s – rather finer than the Cambrian version – with the microstrip safety loops. By this date Gloucester were building wagons with independent both-sides brakes. The Slater’s kit gives you ribbed buffer housings; these wagons had the smooth variety so the ribs were carefully carved off. Still missing is the metal plate on the drop door to protect the woodwork where it hits the end of the brake shaft – on the Midland wagons this is an easy-to-cut square of plasticard; here it needs to be circular. I’m trying to work out how to make that neatly. 

 

 

The bolt heads on the side planking suggest that this is actually a hopper wagon.

[Compound2632]

The bolt heads on the side planking suggest that this is actually a hopper wagon.

 

I beg to differ. It's characteristic of Gloucester wagons that the diagonal strapping is on the inside, extending through to the outside of the solebar - the two diagonal bits of metalwork either side of the V-hanger. (On the Cambrian underframe, they're not a t quite the right angle for a 6 or 7 plank wagon, probably designed with a 5-plank wagon in mind.) The bolt heads you refer to secure the side sheeting to this diagonal strapping.

[Guy Rixon]

 

As mentioned, the kit has the same problem that, if built according to the instructions, the solebars project below the headstocks. The solution isn’t so simple as for the D299 kit as the height of the floor is fixed in relation to the body by a groove in the end and a lip in the side:

 

Midland D342 side and end.JPG

 

There are several ways round this. The height of the solebar could be reduced; as I said with the D299 build, I doubt this could be done uniformly enough. 

 

 

Reducing the solebar height is not so hard. I do it by laying a large file flat on the bench and moving the solebar against it. I check frequently against the headstocks to avoid taking too much off at one end. Where the curb rail hides the floor-solebar joint, that joint doesn't need to be visually perfect all along the length. It would be OK to have a slight gap in the middle.

[Compound2632]

Reducing the solebar height is not so hard. I do it by laying a large file flat on the bench and moving the solebar against it. I check frequently against the headstocks to avoid taking too much off at one end. Where the curb rail hides the floor-solebar joint, that joint doesn't need to be visually perfect all along the length. It would be OK to have a slight gap in the middle.

 

Chacun à son gout. If using your method for many Slater's wagons, I could imagine making some sort of jig.

[wagonman]

Yes, but the Gloucester official photo, dated October 1908, clearly shows both side brakes. 

 

 

 

I analysed this photo in a post in the Peckett thread (plus some following discussion with archival information from wagonman). The Huntley & Palmers wagons are all from their first two batches all from the Birmingham Wagon Co: dumb-buffered Nos. 1-5 of 1873 and iron-framed Nos. 6-10 of 1889. The Black, Hawthorn engines A and B date from 1875. The fifth and seventh wagons are Midland 3-plank dropside wagons, I think pre- or early D305 - the headstocks seem to be extended and angled at the ends to act as doorstops, cf Midland Wagons Vol. 1 Plate 68 - interesting to see these pressed into use for coal traffic. The eighth wagon is the mandatory D299! The sixth wagon is W H Bowater, Coal & Coke Merchant, Birmingham. According to the Lighmoor index, there is a photo of a W H Bowater wagon in one of Keith Turton's PO books. The ninth and tenth wagons are clearly Stephenson Clark and I suspect the eleventh is too. Bowater and Stephenson Clark were both coal merchants, acting as agents between colliery and customer, so it's not surprising to find their wagons supplementing Huntley & Palmers' own. The presence of the Midland wagons suggests that Huntley & Palmers were getting their coal from a colliery on the Midland Railway, so I can justify having their wagons in my West Midlands/north Birmingham context! I don't think there's any hope of identifying the last wagon. The brake is clearly an early Great Western vehicle, presumably AA3, the first of which date from 1889. The Huntley & Palmers Collection dates this photo to around 1920, which is clearly wrong - note the antique signals on the Great Western main line in the left background. (The photo is on the lines radiating into the Huntley & Palmers factory site just after the bridges under the Great Western and South Eastern lines - now a pedestrian walkway.) The date has to be after 1889; I would suggest not long after. 

 

 

 

By sheeting do you mean tarpaulins? These wagons would have been used solely for bringing coal supplies to the factory. Other raw materials and finished products would have been carried in company-owned wagons, as seen in these two photos which I think you will recognise as ones I've linked to before - note the tempting array of SER wagons...

 

 

 

I stand corrected! That must be one of the earliest examples of double sided brakes.

 

The 3 wagons with just the number visible are indeed Stephenson Clarke. They were a massive company of coal factors and shippers - Bowater were minnows by comparison. And yes it does suggest the coal came from a Cannock area colliery. Interesting to see the MR using D305 wagons for coal traffic as well as the usual D299.

 

The brake van is indeed AA3.

 

It must be some sort of interference, but there appear to be 2 H&P wagons with the number '1'... (third from right and last but one).

[Mikkel]

By sheeting do you mean tarpaulins? These wagons would have been used solely for bringing coal supplies to the factory. Other raw materials and finished products would have been carried in company-owned wagons, as seen in these two photos which I think you will recognise as ones I've linked to before - note the tempting array of SER wagons...

 

I see. I thought perhaps they were also used for carrying the biscuits themselves in crates such as those seen here, and so sheeting would have been important. But I suppose they would all have gone out in rail company wagons/vans.

 

(speaking of which, this is a long-term favourite from the H&P website, does it get much better, iron minks and all - the only thing missing is a D299!     ). 

[Compound2632]

It must be some sort of interference, but there appear to be 2 H&P wagons with the number '1'... (third from right and last but one).

 

A print from the original plate might be clearer. The only numbers one can be confident of are the first (iron frame, No. 10), third (dumb buffers, No. 1), and fourth (iron frame, No. 6). Assuming the photo pre-dates the second Birmingham C & W batch of iron-framed wagons Nos. 11-20 (1903), the second wagon, which is iron framed, is No. 7, 8, or 9 - a single digit anyway. The shunter has his pole in just the wrong place! The last two wagons are dumb-buffered, so could be Nos. 2, 3, 4 or 5. If I had to take a bet, I'd say the left-hand one was No. 3 and the right hand one, No. 4.

[Compound2632]

I see. I thought perhaps they were also used for carrying the biscuits themselves in crates such as those seen here, and so sheeting would have been important. But I suppose they would all have gone out in rail company wagons/vans.

 

(speaking of which, this is a long-term favourite from the H&P website, does it get much better, iron minks and all - the only thing missing is a D299!     ). 

 

Yes! The two wagons being shunted by the Black, Hawthorn engine seem to have sheeted loads of timber. Both are iron-framed - Great Western? But clearly iron frames were in vogue on the LSWR - wagon on right; rather distinctive axleboxes and evidently a sheet rail. When did the LSWR start using large initials on wagons? I know next to nothing about LSWR wagons except that they were painted purple-brown, if the random Precision paints tin in my paint box is to be believed.

 

Two SER round-end wagons, partially unsheeted, to the left of the engine and coal stack.

 

The double-gabled building with the curious vents and two sidings going into it is evidently the engine shed - the rear of the other Black, Hawthorn engine can be made out. This can be made out on the 1898 OS 25" map - I think the photographer was facing west from roughly where the letters W M are in the middle of the sidings. I think I read that later the engine shed was at the NE corner of the site - there's a likely-looking feature on the 1909 map.

 

Is that a cattle wagon on the right, next to the SER van?

 

Note the shunter's pole across the buffers of the engine.

 

Huntley & Palmers didn't just make biscuits - making biscuit tins was just as big a part of their business and a large fraction of the site was given over to this. See this plan - though dated 1903 it has revisions to 1911, however it might suggest that the engine shed had moved by 1903, giving a latest date for the photograph.

[Mikkel]

The two wagons being shunted by the Black, Hawthorn engine seem to have sheeted loads of timber. Both are iron-framed - Great Western?

The axleboxes on the nearest one certainly looks like GWR grease axleboxes. Not sure about the other one, could be GWR oil axleboxes I suppose.

 

When did the LSWR start using large initials on wagons?

According to An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons Vol 1, "large company initial appeared around 1891, and were almost universal around 1897." Which, incidentally, is an interesting quote in terms of how long it took before wagon livery changes were fully implemented during this era - although I suppose it may have varied from company to company.

[Guy Rixon]

If one zooms on the SER open next to the wood pile, it's somewhat interesting.  Its springs are mounted in shackles, not shoes, and it has a lamp iron for a tail lamp: these are fittings the SER used for its faster goods services. From the 1880s, all the SER opens were equipped for fast/through working. However, this one is presumably an early wagon because it has the early kind of buffer guide and single-shoe brake.

 

It's hard to imagine how a non-fitted goods could operate without a trailing brake-van, but it looks like the SER got away with it at some point.

[Compound2632]

I see. I thought perhaps they were also used for carrying the biscuits themselves in crates such as those seen here, and so sheeting would have been important. But I suppose they would all have gone out in rail company wagons/vans.

 

(speaking of which, this is a long-term favourite from the H&P website, does it get much better, iron minks and all - the only thing missing is a D299!     ). 

 

In your 'long-term favourite' photo, there's a 'building' behind the coal stack which, on closer inspection, appears to be a stack of crates with a large tarpaulin as roof!

Edited July 21, 2017 by Compound2632

[Mikkel]

Yes, they look like the crates in the other (first) link. You wouldn't think it was practical to stack them so high!

[Compound2632]

Yes, they look like the crates in the other (first) link. You wouldn't think it was practical to stack them so high!

 

I'm finding these 'houses' of crates all over the H&P site now - though admittedly some are the same ones from different angles - for example here - behind the coal stack (the same one as before) and beyond the wagons behind the engine (is that a LSWR van with XXX framing?); or even in this photo that we've stared at hard before - behind the horse-drawn wagon. This last one gives some clue as to how the tarpaulin is roped down.

[Miss Prism]

(is that a LSWR van with XXX framing?)

 

I reckon so, and there's one in the background of the second pic.

[Edwardian]

Some support for the idea that the biscuits went out in vans and an interesting working ....

 

I had cause today to refer to Bradley/RCTS vol. concerning the 395 Class and came across this snippet.  This was the LSWR's Dean Goods equivalent, one of those numerous 5', or so, inside frame, inside cylinder 0-6-0 classes turned out by many companies in the 1880s.

 

In 1900-02, No.101 invariably worked down to Reading daily with a goods from Nine Elms, where it shunted for some hours, and then received vans from the nearby biscuit factories delivered by a South Eastern & Chatham 0-6-0 tank.  Should the load from Nine Elms yard be too great, as it frequently was just prior to Bank Holidays, then a "Jubilee" usually arrived to give assistance. Old working timetables indicate that 35-40 vans were quite common ....

 

The SE&CR 0-6-0T would likely have been a R Class, perhaps 152 (transferred to Reading in 1898), or 125.