Limestone traffic, early LMS - what wagons?

[Mark Forrest]

For my current layout project, I’m looking for some info on limestone traffic in the early years of grouping.  On the layout I’ve taken inspiration from Caldon Low quarry, this was owned by the North Staffordshire Railway, with ownership passing to the LMS at grouping.  At some point (before 1935, but not sure when) the LMS leased the quarry to J. Hadfield & Sons.  In 1935, it merged with several others to form Derbyshire Stone Ltd, eventually being bought by Tarmac in 1968.

 

My question is around what wagons would have been used in the period 1925-30?  I know that pre-grouping the NSR used 2 and 3 plank opens and had some nice 3 plank hoppers specifically for stone traffic (built in 1905).  As far as I can tell these were predominantly railway owned wagons rather than private owners - but would that still have been the case once the quarry was no longer being worked by the railway?

 

Assuming that some railway owned vehicles were used, am I correct in thinking there was less of a distinction between merchandise and mineral open wagons at this time; I understand (for example) that the Midland’s D299 was intended for either type of traffic and was fitted with bottom doors.

[Mark Forrest]

After much Googling, I’ve come up with a couple of photos of the Hopton Wood quarry (which was one of the other firms merged to form Derbyshire Stone).  This one is said to be in the 1920s 

This one is undated, possibly a few years later?

 

Both photos from:

http://www.hoptonwoodstone.co.uk/gallery_1.htm

 

Interesting that all the wagons shown are railway owned, they did have some private owner wagons, there is a photo of one on the HMRS website, although that may be from an earlier period.

[Compound2632]

Those photos confirm that ordinary open wagons were used. In the first photo, there are four Midland D299 wagons and a Midland D305 3-plank dropside wagon (all of 8 ton capacity), and a LNWR 10 ton open wagon, D84 I think, as well as a PO wagon.

 

In the second photo, which is most likely later 20s / early 30s, another LNWR D84 in LMS livery and one of the various diagrams of Great Western 5-plank open. From the Great War onwards, ordinary open wagons were pooled, so there's no particular significance in seeing one company's wagon rather than another.

 

Of all those wagons, only the Midland D299 has bottom doors; the others were built as general merchandise wagons but sometimes pressed into mineral traffic.

 

If this is the HMRS photo you mention, it is a product of the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company (note the pentangles on the axleboxes and the distinctive builders plate). It is probably to the RCH 1907 specification; in any case it was built before late 1911, when the Board of Trade regulation requiring new construction to have a brake that could be applied from either side of the wagon came into force. It looks to have a raised end; I suspect that the PO wagon in your first photo is one of these.

 

One point to bear in mind is that given the relative density of limestone and coal, a full load of limestone would only take up around two-thirds of the volume of a wagon designed to carry coal. The Birmingham RC&W Co. wagon is a 5 plank wagon (despite the caption) of 10 ton capacity, so has probably been designed specifically for limestone traffic. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Compound2632

[Mark Forrest]

Thanks Stephen, I appreciate you taking the time to give such a detailed reply, you’ve confirmed my thoughts on the identity of some of those wagons.

 

Yes, that was the PO wagon that I was referring to.

 

From a modelling perspective, it looks like I’m fairly fortunate that kits are available for all the wagons in the photos above.  Slater’s for the D299 and D305, probably Parkside for the GWR O? and I see that Bill Bedford has the LNWR D84, excellent news.

 

It leaves a slight dilemma over the PO wagons, it’d be nice to include one or two, but (despite being happy enough to make up a fictitious line and quarry) I feel less inclined towards making up a fictional PO wagon livery.  I suppose one possibility is that the quarry was operated by a firm who had a number of quarries and I could use wagons in a real livery.

[Compound2632]

You could ask POWSIdes if they would do the Hopton-Wood livery for you. They already have a Wirksworth limestone wagon in their range - George Lovegrove & Co., Longcliffe; sized for an RCH 1923 5-plank wagon, so presumably the prototype was built post-1923.

[Mark Forrest]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

You could ask POWSIdes if they would do the Hopton-Wood livery for you. They already have a Wirksworth limestone wagon in their range - George Lovegrove & Co., Longcliffe; sized for an RCH 1923 5-plank wagon, so presumably the prototype was built post-1923.

Thanks for that; I'd searched for "Derbyshire" and "Limestone" on the POWsides website but hadn't seen the George Lovegrove transfers, it was name that had come up in some of the searches I'd done.

https://www.powsides.co.uk/product.php/george_lovegrove_wirksworth/?k=:::791154:0

 

One of the other quarries to merge at the formation of Derbyshire Stone Ltd was Constable Hart & Co, Matlock - it looks like POWsides do transfers for them too, again for a 1923 RCH 5 plank.

https://www.powsides.co.uk/product.php/constable_hart_matlock/?k=:::791876:0

[Stubby47]

If/when I get round to sending you the book I was bringing to Taunton, there is a whole chapter on Limestone traffic.

 

 

[Stubby47]

[Mark Forrest]

Thanks Stu, those are great.

 

Reading up on Constable Hart lead me to this website, with a fascinating picture of wagons being used to load crushed stone into Sentinel steam lorries:

https://www.andrewsgen.com/matlock/pix/matlock_station04_quarry.htm

 

The wagons themselves are interesting, I'm wondering if the extended height and the hand wheels beneath the solebars indicate that they are hopper wagons.  The caption suggests they were used to move stone between the crusher and loading, so I wonder if they are internal user wagons.

 

 

 

[Stubby47]

13 minutes ago, Mark Forrest said:

I'm wondering if the extended height and the hand wheels beneath the solebars indicate that they are hopper wagons.  The caption suggests they were used to move stone between the crusher and loading, so I wonder if they are internal user wagons.

 

I think you could be right - elsewhere in the book it mentions that limestone is heavier than, say coal, so a 5 plank wagon would be rated at 10T, but have a reduced capacity to keep the weight down.

 

If those wagons have an extended side, rather than a reduced (from the normal 7 planks), they would be too heavy for normal traffic use. However, their greater capacity might be enough to fill one of the Sentinel lorries in one go, saving on shunting over the drops.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Stubby47

[Compound2632]

The caption does describe them as hopper wagons with a handwheel to open the hopper doors. I can only see that on No. 502 but it may have been fitted on one side only.

 

I doubt that the rated load of the steam lorries was greater than 10 tons, equal to one wagon load. Wagons 502 and 522 are four-plank wagons with the sides built up higher, so probably of some antiquity.

[Mark Forrest]

2 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

 

If those wagons have an extended side, rather than a reduced (from the normal 7 planks), they would be too heavy for normal traffic use. However, their greater capacity might be enough to fill one of the Sentinel lorries in one go, saving on shunting over the drops.

I think the extended height is to make up for volume lost to the sloping floor.  On the NSR’s 3 plank limestone hoppers that I mentioned above, the floor sloped downwards from each end, I’m presuming these would be similar, perhaps with a steeper slope to the floor to ensure the load discharged as easily as possible.

[Mark Forrest]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

You could ask POWSIdes if they would do the Hopton-Wood livery for you. They already have a Wirksworth limestone wagon in their range - George Lovegrove & Co., Longcliffe; sized for an RCH 1923 5-plank wagon, so presumably the prototype was built post-1923.

I've found a photo of a George Lovegrove 5-plank here:

http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/X447.htm

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Mark Forrest said:

I've found a photo of a George Lovegrove 5-plank here:

http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/X447.htm

 

That is evidently the photo from which POWSides worked. RCH 1923 standard wagon with steel u/f - often used on stone wagons from at least the 1890s. Note the RCH standard oil axleboxes. Hall, Lewis & Co. is a builder I've not come across before.

[Tanllan]

The rather poorly reproduced photo below was taken at Kinnerley on the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Rly, on 6 October 1931, and comes from Roger Carpenter's book about the Criggion Branch. The 4 plank wagons were almost certainly going to the BQC quarry at Criggion. BQC also had a large fleet of 3 and 4 plank private owner wagons.

[Compound2632]

Some primitive Wirksworth PO stone wagons here - rather before your period.

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Tanllan said:

The rather poorly reproduced photo below was taken at Kinnerley on the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Rly, on 6 October 1931, and comes from Roger Carpenter's book about the Criggion Branch. The 4 plank wagons were almost certainly going to the BQC quarry at Criggion. BQC also had a large fleet of 3 and 4 plank private owner wagons.

 

A crop from this photo, showing the middle two wagons, appears in LNWR Wagons Vol. 1, p. 102, illustrating LNWR D84 opens in LMS days. It does look a though this diagram of open was a favourite for stone quarry traffic. In 4 mm scale, there was a whitemetal kit in David Geen's range, sadly not currently available. The wagon on the left looks to be another Midland D299 - getting near the end of its life.

[Fat Controller]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That is evidently the photo from which POWSides worked. RCH 1923 standard wagon with steel u/f - often used on stone wagons from at least the 1890s. Note the RCH standard oil axleboxes. Hall, Lewis & Co. is a builder I've not come across before.

Based in Cardiff (Maindy) and London. The London interests included the Park Royal coachworks. See here:-

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Hall,_Lewis_and_Co

[Mark Forrest]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A crop from this photo, showing the middle two wagons, appears in LNWR Wagons Vol. 1, p. 102, illustrating LNWR D84 opens in LMS days. It does look a though this diagram of open was a favourite for stone quarry traffic. In 4 mm scale, there was a whitemetal kit in David Geen's range, sadly not currently available. The wagon on the left looks to be another Midland D299 - getting near the end of its life.

 

It does look like I can focus on a mixture of LNWR D84 and MR D299 as the backbone of my stone wagon stock, which is good news.  Yes, it’s a shame that the David Geen kit isn’t currently available; there is the Mousa Models resin kit from Bill Bedford.  I wonder if it might be possible to lengthen a Ratio D4 to provide a reasonable D84, I’ll dig out the relevant books and kits later.

 

 

The Constable Hart Co photo has me wondering if I could include short (3 wagon length) drops on the layout.  There is a siding towards the front of the layout that is elevated above ground level on (what was planned to be) an embankment.  This would add to operational interest and bring with it a need to some interesting wagons.  Definitely food for thought.

[Poor Old Bruce]

15 hours ago, Mark Forrest said:

I've found a photo of a George Lovegrove 5-plank here:

http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/X447.htm

 

15 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That is evidently the photo from which POWSides worked. RCH 1923 standard wagon with steel u/f - often used on stone wagons from at least the 1890s. Note the RCH standard oil axleboxes. Hall, Lewis & Co. is a builder I've not come across before.

 

Bachmann used the same number on their wagon as well.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Mark Forrest said:

LNWR D84 [...] there is the Mousa Models resin kit from Bill Bedford.  

 

Apologies, I'd overlooked that/ I've built several of his resin LNWR wagons but not D84 as it's after my c. 1902 period.

 

1 hour ago, Mark Forrest said:

I wonder if it might be possible to lengthen a Ratio D4 to provide a reasonable D84

 

Probably more trouble than it's worth, given the Mousa kit.

[Mark Forrest]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Apologies, I'd overlooked that/ I've built several of his resin LNWR wagons but not D84 as it's after my c. 1902 period.

 

 

Probably more trouble than it's worth, given the Mousa kit.

I think it's a fairly recent addition to the range.

 

Must admit, I was a little underwhelmed by a couple of Mousa NSR opens that I bought, but you are probably right about it being an easier approach than hacking the Ratio kit.

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, Mark Forrest said:

Must admit, I was a little underwhelmed by a couple of Mousa NSR opens that I bought, 

 

I haven't tried those. The LNWR D32 van, which I think is a resin casting rather than print, is excellent; the quality of the latest printed resin wagons is as good (thinking of the Kirtley brake vans, the latest I've had). It seems to me he's been on a learning curve.

[Poor Old Bruce]

On 12/06/2020 at 18:56, Mark Forrest said:

I've found a photo of a George Lovegrove 5-plank here:

http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/X447.htm

 

21 hours ago, Poor Old Bruce said:

Bachmann used the same number on their wagon as well.

 

It took a while for the penny to drop but eventually realised that the wagon in the photo has a steel underframe while the Bachmann model, of which I have several, is, of course, wooden. Not going to lose any sleep over it though.

[Mark Forrest]

50 minutes ago, Poor Old Bruce said:

 

 

It took a while for the penny to drop but eventually realised that the wagon in the photo has a steel underframe while the Bachmann model, of which I have several, is, of course, wooden. Not going to lose any sleep over it though.

Unfortunately that seems to be a common feature on Bachmann PO wagons and is a trap I fell into when I began modelling this period.  Nicely applied liveries on well detailed wagons, but livery is not necessarily applied to the right sort of wagon.

 

It's understandable, given the detail differences between different wagons and the fact that the majority of people either won't notice or don't mind.

 

Both Parkside and Cambrian's RCH 5 plank are also wooden underframes, although Cambrian do a RCH steel underframe separately.  I've not looked at how the Bachmann 5 plank comes apart, but it might be possible to graft it onto a Cambrian steel underframe.