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I'm prototypical in re-using wheelsets from old/scrapped wagons to go under new-builds and keep the costs lower...

Absolutely, I posted to expand the knowledge base available to anyone interested. Link or copy as you see fit.

The inside door measurement is 34.39mm, so ~1mm less on the inside than outside, it it helps the discussion.

I've got a Sparrowhawk that's appeared since christmas and seems intent on eating all of my poor Blackbirds.

I happen to have one in the swaps pile - Give me a little time and I'll measure everything else up. EDIT - here we go Peco (assembled) 1/ internal dimensions * length 108.17mm; * width 49.7mm; * height 16.25mm. 2/ external dimensions * length over sheeting 111.51mm; * width over sheeting 52.8mm; * height including curb rail 18.09mm 3/ door details * width on face 35.35mm; * hinge centres 29.47mm; * side knee centres 38.06mm; * hinge width 1.32mm. Side sheeting 1.5mm. End sheeting 1.54mm.

Front...of train in this case (travelling from Right of frame to left) - appears to have the door pillars down to solebar level which would make it D1944. Angle and position of the diagonal framing is also different to D1661 and appear to be angle rather than flat, ends looks flush....

From the 'Useful Screencaps from Youtube' folder. One solution for anyone who can't face up to making all of the bars needed on a cattle van.... (LMS D1944 front and D1661 rear by the looks)

@Adam built a model of a O30 with retro fitted vacuum brakes, although the photos have been lost here. I don't know if the GWRJ article mentioned contained photos or not. Typically, you tend find photos of the things you want after you've made some educated guesswork and finished the job only to find it's invariably wrong! Thinking N30 loco coal?

It doesn't take much to replace the hinges. These are both Airfix bodies, the one on the left is on a Parkside chassis. I think I prefer the squarer Airfix/Dapol axleboxes. (missing vac cylinders now I look - I must not have had spares when I did these, that can be corrected now) Mainline body reworked on the left as a 10ft example Mainline/Red Panda 10ft wb and Airfix (again) All still need couplings and weathering! For the 9ft retrofitted versions, note that the tiebars were L shaped with the out web of the L facing out and that they were all from lots 2917 to 2922 which have a distinctive reinforcing rib in the brake levers. A list of converted wagons is in "Wagons of the Final Years of British Railways" by David Larkin, pages 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33!

The description from the magazine is excellent: A large locomotive at St. Pancras suddenly took it into its head to plunge down a lift-way into an adjacent subterranean workshop. It was, in the strictest sense, a clean dive, and there the locomotive lay, literally wriggling on its buffer, until the breakdown gang, with the aid of their steam cranes, hauled it out hind-foremost. "But Driver always goes for a beer after work" said Thomas "Why can't I?"

Generally a good summary, if a little thin in places, but to be expected as it's not an academic paper! Many of those themes have been covered elsewhere in the thread - St Pancras, Ale Stores, Brewery Agencies etc And elswhere but with similar regular contributors, the changes in beer styles and move to bottled beers

BR were converting Tube wagons for palletised keg transport in the early '60s, so using open wagons never seems to have been an issue, right up until road overtook rail as the primary transporter of ale.

I've given myself a few minutes and gone and fetched one of my Ratio NB cask wagons from the box of "things I don't need but might like" Two wagons, both originally 10T rated, just to show the huge difference in volume of the empty cask wagons against a standard unit of measurement... Edit: The Ratio kit appears to be the hinged door Diagram 65B of which no photos appear in LNER Wagons Vol3, rather than sliding door 67B. "The carrying capacity of diagram 65B with 7 1/2 by 3 3/4 journals was later reduced from 8 to 3 tons" pg61. Definitely empties only!

LNER Wagons Vol3, Tatlow pg 63 "703544, an ex-NB cask wagon....rated at 12 tons capacity, thereby suggesting that these vehicles were capable of conveying a load of full barrels, as much as empty ones" . So very much puzzling why the majority appear to be marked for empty casks only. Preventing overloading? I don't know a great deal about the mixture of breweries, distilleries and glass works around Edinburgh that Tatlow suggests the wagons were primarily allocated for. Was it easier to have fewer but larger wagons bringing back empties where a high volume wagon was preferred to many smaller ones?

I think if I were 3D printing them, I'd be thinking of a 3D printed hoop painting aid/jig as well. Or waiting for self-coloured 3D printing to filter down to consumer level!

If I was being picky, I think there are some minor tweaks that could be made to be more typical of a Burton ale cask, especially when scaling up to 7mm. The quarter hoop (2nd down) should be a bit closer to the head hoop and the head hoop should be noticably wider than the quarter hoop (and sometimes the bilge hoops). I'm not sure how well the chime (bevelled section at the end of the staves) around the head comes accross, it might just be trouble seeing it in 4mm! The hoop overlaps and rivets might also be large enough in 7mm to be included. Head and bilge hoops only for smaller casks typically too - Kilderkin, firkin, pin. All pictures are mine from my last trip to the museum in October.

It's the loco boiler band or wagon planking dilemma again. To have them, but overscale, or not have them and it not looking 'right'? The smoothness between staves looks very nice - no huge trenches for once!

The council had bet everything on getting £20m from the Levelling Up funds (with ~£7m going to the refurbishment of Bass house and rehoming some of the museum items) and they failed in the bid. I suspect many of the items that were on show will never be seen again by the public in my lifetime. I would try and darken the hoops if you can - challenging! They do seem a little less shapely than my mind's image for the 'right' profile should be. It might be an optical illusion with hoops having to be much thicker than scale to stand out.

Yes, looks like Parkside PC19 - Is the wheelbase 10ft? (although the ones I have had have had a plain floor without the ribs on the bottom) PC19 was a rare 'miss' for Parkside, issued with a 16'6" chassis but a 10ft wb. All of the 16'6" minerals should have a 9ft wb, the only ones with 10ft were other 17'6" chassis (Palbrick, etc) recycled with new bodies to match.

Most still available through SE Finecast.

Patch painted/LMS marked D299 and lots of sheeted wagons at Didcot's provender yard on this week's Going Loco blog.

One more, while I've been looking for other things for @Compound2632 and found I'd taken this picture. Apologies for the not brilliant photo, but poor lighting and the glass made it difficult while I was recording things (not very well in this case) at the Bass Museum National Brewery Centre last year before it closed.

Only part of Bass - merely Shobnall Maltings, cask washing plant, new ales stores and the Shobnall exchange sidings...

If I were a betting man, I'd suspect that they won't have gone far, empties either about to go to or return from a cask washing plant as an internal movement by Bass. Although that's not the only photo of a line of NSR wagons loaded up in similar fashion I've seen. Why? Good question. I've seen just the one image out of many hundreds I've looked at of a 3 plank being used for casks in Burton during BR days and that was also an internal Bass movement of empties to a washer. You'll also be wanting to secure your cask within vans as well (This is right at the very end of brewery railways in Burton , note the post '64 boxed text on the BR ply van...) - almost the end of the age of the wooden cask too.

As discussed previously (I can't remember which thread!), the banks were not only storage for empty barrels in times of excess when brewing was done seasonally (the pyramids), but also part of the ales stores for the months of the year where full casks could be kept outside without the ale spoiling with excess heat. So some loading of full casks was also done from the ale banks at Wetmore (separate lines for incoming empties and outgoing traffic), but more elsewhere from smaller ales stores and banks, very much depending on brewery in Burton at least. Worthington's racking room ale bank barely changed until the system closed. Keep your stacks smaller!