Dungrange

On 15/01/2024 at 22:48, Modelrailwayquest said:

Have you looked at the DOGA website, their members are all over the UK and they list their personal layouts ready to attend shows

Thanks for the suggestion.  There is also a layout database on here https://www.rmweb.co.uk/exhibition-layouts/ but unfortunately not all of the layouts state where the builder is located and there doesn't appear to be any way to search the listed layouts by region - just scale.  Whilst some people may be willing to travel all over the country, that doesn't mean that we can afford their expenses. ☹️

5 hours ago, John B said:

Let me know if you'd like further details and I'll get our exhibition coordinator to get in touch. 

Thanks - I've just sent you a PM.

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that some mergers like the L&YR merging with the LNWR were straight commercial decisions by the boards of both companies plus I believe the NER and GNR were seriously looking merging even moves started to group the railways in the first place.

I don't know about the NER and GNR, but the GNR, GER and GCR had proposed to merge back around 1909 (but were blocked by Government at the time) and the NER and H&B had merged before grouping on commercial terms in the same way as the LNWR & L&YR did.

On 17/01/2024 at 08:00, Jeremy Cumberland said:

It depends what alternative history played out between 1912 and 1921. Schedule 1 of the Act, which lists all the grouped companies, divides them into "Constituent Companies" and "Subsidiary Companies". There are only 27 "Constituent Companies", and three of these represent the SECR as I mentioned above. The division isn't quite as I might expect - the Maryport and Carlisle (which I think was still fully independent in 1921) is listed as a "Subsidiary Company" - but on the whole the "Subsidiary Companies" are ones that had a separate legal existence but which were in fact operated by another company. As far as I can tell, "Subsidiary Companies" were all grouped with their operating company.

I've never really understood the distinction between "Constituent" and "Subsidiary" Companies, beyond the fact that the Constituent Companies seemed to be represented on the Board of the new Grouped Company, whereas there was no board representation for the Subsidiary Companies.  How it was decided which companies were significant enough to get Board representation, I don't know.

On 17/01/2024 at 07:12, rodent279 said:

So were any companies split or partitioned under the RA1921? Was it simply an exercise in reduce the number of controlling interests, rather than an attempt at reshaping the geography?

Geography didn't matter.  The issue was that there were many companies that prior to WW1 were not exactly flush with cash.  The war effort had taken its toll on all companies and there was a real risk that a number of companies would go bankrupt once they left Government control in 1921.  During the war companies had continued to receive payments from the Government based on their pre-war income and it wasn't clear what would happen moving back to a competitive market.  The Railways Act 1921 was therefore a mechanism to force many struggling companies that were at risk of bankruptcy into the arms of their more profitable neighbours before they failed.  Full nationalisation was considered as was different groupings of five, six and even seven companies.  I can't remember what these all were but one or more of the suggestions had a separate Scottish company.  Ultimately, the merger into four was considered the optimum way to create four profitable private companies and the Railway Act 1921 was to take forward that proposal.

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

Why then did the 1921 Railways act group the LTSR into the LMSR, and not in the LNER?

Because in 1921, the LT&SR no longer existed - it was simply an integral part of the Midland Railway and had been since before WW1.  MR went to the LMS. No further thought required.

The question you really want to ask is why was the Great Eastern Railway not interested in purchasing the LT&SR and Midland Railway was?  The Midland Railway probably had more money to offer the LT&SR shareholders and acquiring the LT&SR gave the Midland Railway access to places that they didn't have access to prior to 1912 such as Southend-on-Sea.  The GER was less flush with cash and acquiring the LT&SR would have brought them less benefits - they already had a route between London and Southend-on-Sea.  What are the other major population centres that the LT&SR served?  Basildon is a major town now, but in 1931 it had a population of just 1,159 and didn't get it's station until 1974.  Dagenham Dock didn't open until 1908 (not that long before the Midland offered to purchase the LT&SR) and Dagenham Heathway didn't open until 1932 under the LMS.  In 1911 Dagenham was a relatively small town with a population of 7,930.  Access to the Port at Tilbury was possibly the most valuable asset, but presumably the GER simply didn't have enough money to offer the LT&SR shareholders.

14 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

What is perhaps harder to understand is why M&GN didn't get grouped into either LMS or LNER.

Because the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway was jointly owned by the Midland Railway (LMS) and Great Northern Railway (LNER), so it became a joint LNER/LMS line.  No different from the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (LMS/SR) or Cheshire Lines Committee (LMS/LNER), where the parent companies were placed in different groups.

21 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

A van, a five plank or 7 plank open and a 10 ton brake van would be an excellent result.

I think you need to change that 'or' to an 'and'.😁 

I agree that would be an excellent result, but I'd hold out more hope of both a 5 and 7 plank open than I would for either a covered goods wagon or a 10 ton goods brake.  Since Oxford Rail chose the GER Diagram 72 covered goods wagon, that really only leaves Rapido with two options: a Diagram 15 or a Diagram 47.  I'd happily buy either or both.  However I don't think the Diagram 15 survived long enough to be of interest to the BR market and I suspect that the Diagram 47 would be perceived as too similar to the Oxford Rail model (even if the Rapido product would be better). I think the only thing in favour of Rapido tackling a Diagram 47 covered goods wagon, is that it has the same chassis as one of the cattle wagons (can't remember which diagram off hand).  That sort of fits with Rapido's strategy to date.

As for the goods brake, the 10 ton Diagram 1 vehicles were the most numerous type, but I suspect that the 20 ton Diagram 56 Goods brake would be more commercially viable, as these were produced until 1924 and therefore there were still quite a few of these around in BR days (which still seems to be a key market).  I don't think the same can be said for the 10 ton variants which I think became extant around nationalisation.  However, I'll happily buy several of whatever Rapido surprise us with.  My fingers are always crossed for a GER announcement.

A factory reset should return the address to Address 3.

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

11111 is stated to have had ordinary double brake blocks and one side lever.

... and this website https://southern-railway.com/2023/08/02/Bachmann-announce-lswr-sr-diagram-1410-1406-and-1408-covered-vans-and-swr-sr-56ft-non-corridor-cross-country-four-coach-sets-as-part-of-their-efe-rail-range/ says that the tooling suite "allows for four body types across the three diagrams, four brake types (single double block, Morton Clutch, Freighter and Lift Link), two steel chassis types (D1410/06 and D1408), two axle box types (Panter and Warner) and three buffer types (tapered, ribbed and fabricated)".

It therefore sounds a though EFE Rail have tooled the correct brakes for the 'as built' condition of this wagon, but haven't fitted them to the model of 11111.  That could be an error, or it could be that the original brakes were replaced in late LSWR days, which would make the model correct, but only for the end of the pre-grouping period.

As a Midland modeller, I don't expect you to know, but did the LSWR use the same Diagram number (1410) for both the steel and timber framed examples?  The website linked to above, indicates that for the later build variants, there seemed to be different diagram numbers for timber and steel framed examples (1407 / 1406 and 1409 / 1408).

I understand that George Herriot's was a venue for a few past exhibitions, but they were more than 20-25 years ago (possibly longer).  George Watson's is a new venue for us and we're not aware of a model railway exhibition having been held there before.

I'll start an Exhibition thread once all the details have been confirmed and our advertising is in place, but I'm aware that there may be some privately owned layouts out there that we're not aware of, that are looking for their first outing.  I've seen previous threads where posters have been seeking advice on getting their first exhibition invite, so thought I'd start this thread inviting prospective exhibitors to get in touch with us.

On 08/12/2023 at 15:07, Wickham Green too said:

My van has finally emerged from the paintshop after its rebuild and defurbishment ...

 

I like the improvements that you've made to the vents.  I assume that you've just removed the model vents, filed away the uprights, so that these slope at the top, thinned down the top of the vent moulding and then refitted it.  Looks like I need a prototype photograph to copy as this looks better than the of the box model, although I don't know much about the prototype.  I only bought one because it was made.

On 14/11/2023 at 14:30, Compound2632 said:

The model has Morton brake levers, with the brake blocks on one side of the wagon only, that being the side with the reversing cam. This arrangement appears on No. 1408 (Southern Wagons Vol. 3 plate 48), a timber-framed wagon built in 1911. However, the list on p. 37 ascribes double block and lever one side to this wagon, and also to two other examples of steel-underframed D1410s. (One of which is given a build date of 1895, which is anomalous as on p. 30 the steel framed version is listed as having been built from 1899.) Two other examples, Nos. 12312 and 12367, both built 1900, are listed as having Panter's cross-lever brake.

On 16/11/2023 at 17:45, semley1912 said:

The Morton brake gear of the EFE van is associated with later vans built with Timber underframes. I suspect the brake gear error is due to the manufacturer relying on preserved wagons for their research. Preserved wagons with steel underframes wagons were originally built with Panter's brake gear which the Southern Railway later replaced with the Morton Brake.

Can I clarify, are you saying that in LSWR days none of the Diagram 1410 covered goods wagons had Morton brake gear, or just that it's not correct for a model with the number 11111?  When the the programme of replacing Panter's brake gear with Morton Brake occurred - was this definitely post-grouping?  It just it seems strange that EFE Rail chose 11111 as a running number unless there is a photograph of this particular wagon in one of the Southern books.

The Edinburgh and Lothian Miniature Railway club (ELMRC) will be hosting a new exhibition at George Watson's College on 1st/2nd June 2024.  Many of our fellow Scottish clubs have exhibition layouts that we're aware of and some will be making an appearance, but are there any private individuals in the wider Edinburgh area with a layout that they'd like to exhibit?

If so, can you either message me on here or e-mail secretary@elmrc.org.uk.

We won't be replacing Warley, but we think Edinburgh needs a Model Railway Exhibition.

15 minutes ago, Going2theDogs said:

And introducing so many versions all at one time is this necessary?

Does it encourage us to spend more money?  I'd say the answer is yes.  I've several Bachmann wagons where I've bought one each year over several years as they've released a new livery variant, but this means that my spending is 'slow burn'.  Conversely, because many of the newer entrants are offering several models in the same or complementary livery with different numbers, I buy more (because there is no need to hope that someone offers a renumbering pack).  I've just bought 24 ostensibly similar wagons from Revolution Trains simply because I can buy a whole trainload with unique number at once.  That therefore means that from the manufacturers point of view, they get a larger share of my money quicker and therefore that reduces the time taken to recover the tooling costs.  Yes, there is additional cost in approving additional artwork and changing the tampo printing, but I suspect that the benefits to manufacturers outweigh the drawbacks or they wouldn't follow this approach.

On 12/01/2024 at 21:45, Ian Morgan said:

This year, the Basingstoke and Alton clubs are trying out a collaboration. Basingstoke club members will be assisting at the Alton show in February, and members from Alton will help out at the Basingstoke show in March. We hope this will work well.

Quite a few of the model railway clubs in Scotland work on a similar basis with a series of reciprocal agreements to attend each other's shows without money changing hands.  My own club, Edinburgh and Lothians MRC are about to launch a new Edinburgh show this year (the club hasn't held it's own show for several decades), which will be held on 1st / 2nd June 2024.  We're on the lookout for layouts at the moment, but a number of layouts attending will be provided by other clubs where we're committing to attend their shows.  That means that we don't have the problem of trying to man more than one of our own layouts at our own show.  As you highlight, there will be a lot of other roles to be filled by the membership.

2 hours ago, Robin Brasher said:

I have found it very difficult to organise a small exhibition. It cost £30 to hire a small hall and £30 to insure it with Magnet. This was over 20 years ago and it would cost £70 now.

Oh how I wish we could run an exhibition with that sort of budget.  The deposit alone for the hall we've hired is several times that.  We did consider starting with a scout hall type venue (which would be closer to that cost), but quickly realised that we'd only fit a couple of our layouts in and I think it would be difficult to promote a 3-4 layout show.  I am aware that our new venture will be a challenge.

6 hours ago, Alex TM said:

Hi,

 

I had thought of that at first but since my interest is in the pre-groouping era I thought I may find a more focussed level of knowledge and response here.

 

Thanks,

 

Alex.

 There is a special section for pre-grouping questions (prototype and modelling). 

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Would I be correct in thinking this coach in GER crimson was only produced as part of the train pack and not available separately?

Apart from the 'as preserved' version, which was available separately, yes the pre-grouping GER versions were only available in the train packs. 

On 31/10/2020 at 22:09, Compound2632 said:

Item Number: 14263

Category: Goods Department Document

A complete bundle of 56 goods invoices covering the inwards traffic at Edwalton for the month of November 1912. It is possible to glean from this archive a very good picture of the type of goods traffic dealt with at a typical country wayside station before the first world war.

 

 

Item Number: 14264

Category: Goods Department Document

A complete bundle of 67 goods invoices covering both inwards and outwards traffic at Edwalton for the month of February 1921. It is possible to glean from this archive a very good picture of the type of goods traffic dealt with at a typical country wayside station towards the end of the pre-grouping era.

You highlighted these during one of the lockdown periods.  Did you ever visit the Midland Railway Study Centre to look at these items?  Obviously these are pre- and post-pooling but they may be a useful comparison of change over a nine year period.

2 minutes ago, Bittern said:

I think that’s partly explained by people being willing to imagine that each train is every identical train, so you only need as many of each type (class, operator, etc. combination) as you want on-scene at once. After all, without checking the fiddle yard, how long would it take you to notice if someone did have a complete set of the different 387s used on a particular line on a day?  

Whilst that makes some sense in the context of a small station, I was primarily thinking of the models of largish stations with maybe 6 platforms, yet there often just seems to be one DMU that circulates in just one direction (with no return working).  It's not that the fiddle yard isn't full - it's just that there are more rail tours and freight trains than what I'd call 'bread and butter' unit services.  In many ways I suppose it's no different to the market for named locomotives and celebrity liveries being favoured over owning multiple plain old BR blue or EWS liveried locomotives. 

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

You've got to be paranoid when looking at revenue/ton (and, for that matter, revenue/passenger-journey). Several companies changed their definition in 1902/3 for their reports to the BoT of tonnage, but not of revenue. So the revenue/ton dramatically changes. The GCR changed in 1901/2, and the LYR, GWR, and LNWR (only the last shown) didn't over the short period I've so far looked at.  Revenue/passenger-journey risks being dominated by the growth and collapse of (especially London) commuter services. You can see a blip in LNWR's overall numbers per passenger when it absorbed the Hampstead Junction Railway, but not in its overall revenue.

 

 

In the case of the Midland, Great Northern and Great Eastern, that change that you refer to seems to have resulted in drop in Merchandise and an increase in Mineral traffic of a similar order of magnitude, which would imply that one or more commodities that were once categorised as Merchandise were subsequently considered to be Mineral traffic.  Given that all the companies were making this change at the same time, I'd have assumed that this an instruction passed down from above by the Board of Trade.  I don't suppose you now what that traffic was?  It was obviously something that the Midland conveyed lots of, the GNR and GER less so and wasn't a significant flow in some parts of the country.

11 minutes ago, DenysW said:

I also add an early LYR account that gives some average numbers.

 

Thanks - that's really interesting to see.  In 1852, Merchandise was being moved an average of 32 miles and Minerals just 14 1/2 miles.  That really highlights how 'local' traffic movement was at that time.  However, even just comparing 1851 to 1852, there has been an increase in the average trip length.  It would be interesting to see how this changed over a longer time period.  Even if the average trip length increased by just 1/4 mile each year (as above), that would be equivalent to 2.5 miles per decade and therefore about 15 extra miles by the start of the Great War.  Of course it's not robust to draw long term conclusions from just two data points.

20 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The GER was a mineral railway in quite a big way, thanks to the connection with the LNWR and Midland at Peterborough and later, the GN&GE Joint Line.

Well, there was quite a significant tonnage conveyed, but it didn't account for a significant proportion of the GER's Gross Receipts, which for 1913 were given as:

Passengers                                  - £2,805,502 17s 10d

Passenger rated Merchandise - £   433,532 14s   8d

Goods rated Merchandise        - £1,563,069   3s   0d

Livestock                                      - £     92,081   0s   0d

Coal etc                                        - £   772,266   6s   1d

Other Minerals                           - £   275,756 11s   2d

Total                                             - £5,942,208 13s   9d

That means that coal and other minerals accounted for just 17.6% of receipts, which is at the lower end of the sample of companies that @DenysW posted graphs for.

9 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

OK, pretty much as I suspected. Is that net or gross?

These figures were taken from Table XIV in the Statistical Returns, which doesn't specifically state whether they are net or gross figures, but the figures in the same table for total Receipts for the year match the figures in Table 10 of the Accounts, which are titled 'Receipts and Expenditure in Resect of Railway Working.'  The column in this table explicitly states Gross Receipts.   However, it is worth pointing out that in this table, whilst there is only one figure for each of 'Livestock', 'Coal, Coke and Patent Fuel' and 'Other Minerals' the figure for Merchandise is stated before and after Collection and Delivery Expenses and it's the after figure that falls into the Statistical Returns.  As such, I'd say that the Coal and Mineral figures are Gross, but the Merchandise figure is net of collection and delivery expenses.  The net figures after allowing for Maintenance, Locomotive running expenses etc would be much lower across the board.

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

What were the rates per ton (ton/mile), or whatever the measure was? I would have expected coal and it's derivatives to be a much lower rate, than say a load of say manufactured goods in a 5 plank wagon.

Looking at the GER accounts for 1913, the average receipt per ton was 5s 5.6d for General Merchandise, 3s 0.5d for Coal, Coke and Patent Fuel and 2s 3.2d for Other Minerals.  I would assume the rates for other companies would show a similar pattern.

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

I'm not so sure. The data below is still incomplete due to my laziness, but shows that minerals, general merchandise, and passenger (which includes mails, parcels, horses, dogs, & carriages) were all comparable*.

Was coal always included within 'Minerals' in that time period?  The GER accounts for year ending 1913 lists 'Coal, Coke and Patent Fuel' separately from 'Other Minerals'.  Since the GER wasn't a mineral railway I'm assuming that was a national reporting change circa 1911?

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

Where there's data for individual companies (mostly pre-1868 - when the contents of the accounts became more standardised) the 'average' passenger & goods journey is quite short. 

How is this information conveyed?  Is this just the division of the total train miles (in Abstract G) by the number of trains run (in Abstract H) as referenced above.  Was it common to include details of the total number of trains run in the earlier accounts (they don't seem to be in the post 1913 accounts that I have for the GER and it would be an interesting comparison to make).

19 hours ago, MR Chuffer said:

With all this bandying around of statistics, I was reminded of this piece on The LMS Society website Goods Vehicles and Freight Marshalling (a .PDF link). Some of the statistical modelling seems a bit simplistic to me compared to previous workings upthread.

10 hours ago, kevinlms said:

An excellent post. I have seen that information presented in a different way, by those same authors.

It confirms my view about proportions of wagons belonging to different railway companies.

That piece of analysis by the LMS Society may be simplistic, but it's probably perfectly adequate for the time period that the document discusses: 1939.  For anyone modelling from the 1930s onwards, the majority of wagons probably were foreign at all but the most rural backwaters - certainly by the late grouping period.  That's also therefore relevant to those who model the British Railway period.

However, the world changed a lot over the 40 years between 1899 and 1939, so what holds at one point in time isn't really a useful guide to a different point in time.

At the start of the 20th century, the country appears to have been very much a collection of local economies with little national distribution of general merchandise (although there clearly was some national distribution beginning to develop in the Victorian era). Each pre-grouping company was largely competing with its neighbours and they kept their stock to themselves.  As such, the number of foreign wagons may be relatively low in this period (as the Sheffield Park data shows), but would have varied a bit by location.

Wagon pooling, was an innovation of the Great War.  In essence it was a major step change from each company having their own stock, to the creation of a national fleet of wagons that all companies could use.  That therefore allowed wagons to wander from their home territory and be replaced by foreign wagons.  From this point in time, foreign wagons would begin to increase from what the data shows was an overwhelming majority of local company wagons at Sheffield Park in 1899 to what the LMS Society paper is highlighting as a plausible breakdown on a secondary mainline at the outbreak of WW2.  Between these dates was a period of change.

Whilst we don't know how quickly the company fleets mixed post-1917, the continued development of national distribution infrastructure during the inter-war period would have resulted in steadily increasing trip lengths as the rail network changed from primarily local towards predominantly national distribution.  This probably had the impact of mixing the pre-grouping fleets quicker as time went on.   I think the longest rail journey you could have made would be from Lybster (HR) to Penzance (GWR) - a distance of circa 800 miles.  If a typical journey in 1899 was just 33 miles, then it would have taken about 24 separate journeys for a wagon to have wandered that far (if a pooling agreement had been in place at that date).  If however by the outbreak of WW2, the average trip length had grown to say 100 miles, then a wagon could travel that far in as little as eight trips.  Consequently, the rate at which the fleets mixed would have increased over time as the economy transitioned from predominantly local to regional and then national distribution.

The final important point is Grouping itself.  It's easier to mix the stock owned by four large companies than it is to mix the stock of 20+ smaller companies.  To give an example, Upwell is approximately 500 miles from the territory of the Highland Railway but it is only 30 miles from the territory of the LMS (of which the Highland was a constituent).  By the 1930s, there was presumably a lot of LMS wagons on the Wisbech and Upwell tramway, but that doesn't mean that there were any Highland Railway vehicles.

On 10/01/2024 at 12:43, kevinlms said:

I guess it comes down to YOU might choose to have nearly all home wagons, I wouldn't, I would prefer to have maybe 45% home and the other 55% of other railway owned vehicles, be a selection.

But that's based on the fact that you presumably model different periods in history.  Since your user name contains the initials LMS, I presume your interests are in the post-Grouping period, for which that split would be appropriate.  However, since @Compound2632 is modelling 1902, that sort of split is likely to have been highly un-prototypical in the Edwardian period.

On 10/01/2024 at 11:55, kevinlms said:

Depends on what type of 'foreign wagons'? If it's hearse wagons, a rake of banana vans or special high capacity wagons, used for transporting heavy chunks of steel plate, on a light branch, then you do in fact have 'far too many foreign wagons'. But if standard single plank, low sided or 5 planked wagons, with a modest range of foreign owners, then you probably don't have a problem at all.

On 10/01/2024 at 12:03, Compound2632 said:

I'm not so sure. One can justify the occasional special wagon delivering some unusual load - perhaps not steel plate or bananas in bulk but maybe plate glass for that new-fangled department store in town or perhaps a steel girders for the local board's road improvement works, but the special wagon is most likely from a company serving the industrial area where the items are made rather than from the home company.

 

It's the ordinary opens from 'foreign' lines that are harder to justify pre-Great War, at least for a rural branch.

Both of these comments make sense, but they are very time period specific.  If modelling the Grouping period, then a mix of different company wagons is acceptable and these should outnumber specialist vehicles for the conveyance of say out of gauge loads.

However, if modelling the Edwardian period, then it's difficult to justify a foreign wagon from the opposite end of the country.  Therefore, if modelling Penzance in 1900 you'd probably see many more specialised wagons from the GWR than you would have seen a wagon from  Scotland.

I've never ordered anything from them but the navigation on the English language part of the website isn't working for me - even if I follow @Kylestrome's suggestion.  However, if navigating the German language part of the website, I don't seem to have any issues and once I've found a product, clicking the Union Jack does give me an English translation of the product.

I think it's just the difference in livery and whether or not the orange line follows the roof or not that makes it appear that way. In two photographs the orange line follows the roof, in the others it drops down to the top of the door.