Caledonian

Sad but true although it depends how pedantic you want to be. The Burnley Gas Works one [if still in stock] is about the right colour and has the correct window configuration to represent No.3, but you'll need to scrub off the markings, take off the handbrake blister at the back and paint the buffer beams black. then you need to add the motion covers and ideally cut the access hatch in the cab rear Needs a bit of work but its do-able and if you can't find some of the Hornby wagons then I have seen photies of regular 12T coal wagons

Pretty well what you suggest. It was a local modification, and there's also an additional handrail fixed to the side of the bunker. The same modification was carried out to the Eastfield-allocated J50s

Having a bit of time on my hands on account of current events, I finally got around to ordering some WD transfers from Railtec and actually getting around to applying them on the two selected locos. This of course meant making decisions... The WD [small but not smallest size] on the tank side, leading edge in line with the front of the belpaire. Looking good so far, but what about the numbers? With nothing beyond the unsatisfactory clues discussed above and a seeming lack of uniformity from loco to loco, I reckoned it was a matter of placing them where it looked right, but at the same time it also occurred to me when looking at that GWR drawing again that the insignia and numbers on the Dean Goods corresponded to the positioning of the GWR numbers. So off we went, the loco numbers went on the bunker side in LMS fashion and it looks just right - until of course somebody comes up with a photie of the original

Missed this topic earlier and a little surprised that no one has mentioned the surprisingly complex Aberdeen Harbour Railway and its offshoots. The docks layout is like a trident. The original big railway [the imaginatively named Aberdeen Railway - later incorporated in the Caledonian] had a terminus by the shaft end. Then there was the Great North of Scotland. Instead of going for an end-on connection with the Caley, it started off from a completely different site at Waterloo Quay, which was the left hand prong of the trident. As time passed commonsense saw an end-on connection and a joint station, but Waterloo survived as a goods line. Then the Harbour Board got involved and laid a street-running railway/tramway running round the docks and connecting the joint station goods yard [Guild Street] with Waterloo goods. Initially the wagons were hauled around the harbour by horses, but inevitably a couple of [0-4-2T] locomotives were introduced by the GNoS and lasted well into BR days. So far so good. Then the Corporation got involved and had a collection of 0-4-0ST tanks hauling coal from the docks to the Gasworks, first across the harbour lines and some street-running through residential streets to the works. They also accessed the Waterloo Goods and Sandilands [later SAI] fertiliser works, although so far as I know this involved taking tank wagons into Waterloo Goods, which were then tripped across to Sandilands and back by the GNoSR/LNER/BR again involving street-running. As if that wasn't enough the local of the harbour Electricity works got into the act. The power-station was situated to the south and coal was tripped to it through the streets by a couple of English Electric steeple cab battery electric locos. All gone now, except as a plan to model it.

Something which intrigues me is the distribution of coal around the country after the creation of the NCB. I can remember my mother haggling with the coalman in the 1960s [in Aberdeen] anent the coal she wanted from the back of his lorry. There were always at least two differently priced varieties on offer and for some reason I particularly remember that Shilbottle coal from Northumberland was considered very superior. This obviously implies that aside from dedicated streams of industrial supplies, British Railways were moving some very specific domestic coal varieties all over the country.

The wagon-sheet was absolutely essential. It was loaded loose [for anybody who hasn't seen the stuff, its like wire] and even when it was covered and tied down in this way the wagon the load would shed grass all along the way.

While I've nothing to add on the variety of goods its worth emphasising that esparto grass was [is?] very bulky - it wasn't compressed and didn't make for a neat load

47745 is recorded in Frank Jones' book [the only Jinty recorded as a "sale"], but there's no photie

It's an odd little detail. Looking at it I'd be inclined to question whether the plough would interfere with coupling up and indeed whether the coupling itself would be long enough to work when the plough was fitted BUT I have before me a photie of 65345 shunting at Seafield pit in March 1967 with a plough fitted and the coupling artlessly draped over it exactly as in David's splendid model

I have a recollection of a photie showing a fireman or a cleaner wearing goggles while digging the char out of a smokebox, although that's not the same as wearing them while driving.

Thank you for all of these responses. Its certainly more complicated - and a lot more interesting than it first appeared

Hopefully a short and sweet one. What was the programmed shopping frequency for shunting and other small locos? We're told that certain livery changes were introduced at such and such a date, but cautioned that individual locos would not have received the new version "until their next shopping", which is fair enough, but how long might that be in practice. We're all familiar of course with the old liveries surviving in certain cases until years after British Railways was officially created, although I suspect that may have been exacerbated by post-war conditions. What about pre-war. I'm specifically thinking of the red lining on LNER goods locos. Officially this was discontinued in 1928, but how long after that date would it be reasonable to see red lining on J72s and J50s?

very tasty

Mind you, it hasn't stopped me buying 2313 [the LNER Newcastle pilot] as well, and for the record both of them run fine out of the box with no problems.

Absolutely. I was reckoning on retiring my Mainline one once I acquiring the new Bachmann version, but while there's more finesse to the new one and I love it to bits, the Mainline one still stands comparison and is more than good enough to shunt the Ministry of Munitions site.

Thanks lads, now where's that tin of bauxite paint...

What I hope will be a quick and dirty one... When were the yellow panels first painted on through-piped BR brake vans. Would they have been seen on steam-hauled trains or are they a diesel thing?

Its not just the paint job. As I pointed out there are significant differences between the Hornby version and those under discussion. Converting one, or even ignoring those differences you can live with is one thing, and as I've cheerfully admitted, a road I'm happy to follow myself, but that is not the same as expecting Hornby to place a fictitious livery on a loco.

Yes but... There were actually a total 7 Pecketts inherited by the GWR from the SWT and another 4 from Powlesand & Mason, although I don't think that the latter were W4s. Nor were all of the SWT ones for that matter, but those which were had higher running plates than the Hornby version [flush with the top of the buffer-beam] and "fully-round" cabs rather than the open back with two-part screen produced by Hornby. Depending upon philosophy this may not be a deal breaker. Despite suffering both those differences and an eccentric dome I've found that the MSC one from the first batch scrubbs up very nicely as the one inherited by the G&SWR. I know its not quite right, but I can live with that because it looks the part and it does for me. The same could be done to turn a green Peckett into a GWR one with the right paint, transfers and an elastic conscience but Hornby won't do it because their version of the W4 never ran in GWR livery.

And very nice too. Do tell how it was done

Thanks Tony. This is reproduced in Bill Aves' book and I agree that something very similar was probably applied to the Jinties, ie; WD with broad arrow in the middle of the tank and the loco number applied just forward of the cab door. The only reservation I'd have is whether it was all scaled down a bit

I'm not convinced by the plate theory partly because I'd expect more of a scar and also because 7607, shown working for the French at Savenay [page 37] doesn't have one. On the subject of plates , I'm assuming that the smokebox number plates will have been removed, just as those on the cab sidesheets on the Deans were, and again reverting to the Deans although there's some uncertainty as to where the numbers and broad arrows on the sides went, I think we can cheerfully assume a number painted on the front buffer beam and on the bunker rear

Good question but its all we've got apart from another even fainter clue in 7611 as returned from France. None of the "ex SNCF" locos display any WD markings but if you look very closely at the two photies on p39 there appears to be a rectangular sanded patch in the right place, suggesting that a number was erased

And here we have No.8 [well no its not, but if you click on the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll find it]

Its a good question and thus far I've only scraped up a couple of clues. If you've read Bill Aves' earlier book on the ROD in WWI you'll know that an unlined all black livery was employed, including black rather than red buffer beams. The photies in his WD book [including that newly outshopped Dean Goods] appear to show the same. They certainly didn't appear in khaki or any variant of it. The difficulty lies with numbers and symbols. There's a very helpful diagram with dimensions for the Dean, again in his book, but I've not come across either photies or diagrams for the shunters, but... After the book was published a photie of No.8 turned up. This one had been captured by the Germans and when it turned up in a Berlin yard after the war it had a wide and varied collection of Wehrmacht scripts and symbols plastered all over it, but in the midst of it all is the number 8 positioned on the tank under the forward side-sheet of the cab. This one is about two thirds of the way up from the running plate. There is another, this time within a circle immediately in front of the cab but much lower down. Both are about half the size of the cab numbers used by British Railways, but one of them must be the original WD number. You pays your money and you takes your pick, but as I recall the much longer numbers which later appeared on the cab side-sheets of the Austerity tanks were quite low down. In addition there will have been the obligatory WD separated by a broad arrow on the centre of the tank. Unless of course somebody turns up a photie showing something completely different...