jjnewitt

Congratulations to Dave and everyone involved in the project the finished article looks great. It'll look even better when those little coil springs work properly and it's sat in front of a rake of milk tanks.  The green looks a bit odd in some of those photos, almost grey, but then photos do funny things sometimes. There seems to be a lot more depth to it than the paintwork on the class 22 though which can only be a good thing. Can't wait for mine to arrive, nameplates and CAD program all ready!

Hi Darren,

That particular wagon looks more like a transformer wagon to me rather than something specifically built to carry the barrels of guns for warships. I haven't seen one quite that big before and am unsure of it's origin but there's some pictures of a couple of BR built (LMS design) examples here:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brtransformer

The GWR had a variety of wagons built for the purpose of carring gunsets code named Pollen. These later found use transporting girders after modification. The LMS I think had something similar. Photos here:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrgirdwagpollen

Justin 

Hi Martyn,

I'd missed that thread on the Slater's milk tanks. I don't browse that particular part of RMweb very often. There's a couple of interesting links in there as well.

Having looked at the Slater's kit I can see no reason why the same thing as I'm doing for the David Geen kit couldn't be done for them. Essentially the 3000 gallon tank range is the same, GWR O.38 and LMS 1994.  As you say the chassis/ running gear is very similar for most of them. Taking the GWR range of milk tanks the underframe was the same for all the 20'6" vehicles with the only change being the switch from Dean Churchward to Morton brakes. My intention for the 4mm stuff is to do a detailing etch for the lever brakes/lifting links and then most of the diagrams from O.51 to O.65 can also be built. The arrangement of tank fittings, walkways and platforms were all different of course but there are drawings that show these (The GWR weight diagrams for all the milk tanks are avaliable from the OPC microfilm collection at the NRM, all the details are shown on them). If the GWR twin tank wagon has the correct 21'6" chassis then the other types could be constructed from that. It would be fairly easy to modify the LMS kit to a 2173 by changing the underframe slightly. The underframes for these looked like this:

Once I start getting the bits back I'll start a thread detailing some of the 4mm conversions which might give you a few ideas.

Justin

Hi Steve,

I found your rail served dairies in Suffolk thread and so that Halesworth was a United Dairies facility. This gives you lots of scope for different diagrams. I’ll post a complete list on here as a reference when it’s done but to give you some idea the following were associated with United Dairies:

GWR: O.38, O.39, O.44, O.45, O.47, O.51, O.57, O.60

LMS: 1993, 1994, 2173

SR: 3155, 3157, 3159

LNER: 184, 333

During 1959 United Dairies merged with Cow & Gate and also Aplin & Barrett to form Unigate so from this point the following (other) types

could also be seen:

GWR: O.55, O.56, O.58, O.63

These are all 3000 gallon types. United Dairies also had a few 2000 gallon types and Ro-Rail types could also be a possibility until about 1961 when they were discontinued.

As for Scaling up the etches it would depend on how easy it would be and also how useful it would be. The chassis are designed around the David Geen kit and despite the contents only really replace a dozen parts from it. The rest has to come from somewhere.

Detailing parts may be more useful but it depends on how much work is required to make them useable. There may be issues around sizes of holes and also fold lines. The SR/GWR platforms use a lot of 0.31mm wire which when scaled up equates to 0.54mm. Things like this may be an issue? Has anyone got any experience of doing this kind of thing?

I’ve got to get all the bits done in 4mm first though before I think about it!

Justin

Edit: link added.

That Crocodile L was a fearsome beast and there was someone making it on here at on point but it all went quiet.

 

 

I hope you can make it on the 28th.

 

Perhaps he fell asleep tackling all those rivets and hasn't woken up yet!!!

I shall do my best to make it that day, it sounds great. I'm between jobs at the moment and haven't got a clue where I'm going to be in July, work usually takes up weekends as well, but I'll drop you a line a bit closer to the time when I know where I am at. Hopefully they'll still be space, it sounds like it's going to be popular though. It should be! 

Going back to the SR milk tank do you know why it was painted in Express Dairies livery? I've come across pictures of some of the other wagons from that batch, 4404-9 diagram 3159, in their four wheel days and they were in use with United Dairies. A seperate reference that has come to light also states this.

Hi Justin,

 

No problem for posting - I figured it would be one of the first places you would look! Thanks for pointing out the diagram discrepancy - I must admit that I had missed it too. I guess familiarity breeds contempt sort of... I will pass the information on to the Society Webmaster and he will sort it for us.

 

I have done a version of No. 101 and a very interesting vehicle it makes too. Ironically, the 6 wheel milk tank at Didcot is a rare SR version and not a GWR one - the water tank fills the GWR gap nicely. It is actually owned by the 813 Fund but has found a home out the back of the C&W works at 81E.

 

So you want to measure the Pollens? What are you up to on the 28th July?

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67020-rmweb-members-tour-of-didcot/&do=findComment&comment=915713

 

All the best,

 

Castle

That looks like a very interesting day! I like the idea of seeing bits of Didcot that you don't usually get to see. I shall have to see what I'm up to. I have a liking for interesting and unusual wagons and the Pollens would make a great model, as would the wonderful 24 wheeled Crocodile L but the Pollens still exist and don't have quite so many rivets! Do you know if there's any plans to refurbish 101 and also the milk tank trailer? 101 always looks a little bit sad when I see it hidden away behind the carriage sheds. I was a little bit suprised to find an SR milk tank at Didcot when I first saw it but it's great that it's there. There are quite a few GWR/WR examples preserved but only a couple of SR ones. It's just a shame an LNER example wasn't preserved as well

Hi Derek,

A lot of milk tanks seem to have found alternative empolyment. Not looking bad for a vehicle that was 47 years old! I can't imagine there were many DC braked wagons knocking around the network by the mid eighties! Nice view of the platforms. I've just finished CAD drawings for these. We shall see how easy they are to put together, there isn't much to them. 

Hi Castle,

Thanks for posting those.I'm very familiar with those two vehicles and that SR milk tank inparticular having spent a cold day in December measuring it up. I think the livery on it is accurate. The Ro-Rail tanks are great but they're a little bit before my period of interest. The captioning for is incorrect though. It certainly isn't an O.58. These were twin tank wagons on the long (21'6" over headstocks) GWR chassis. There's a picture of one here. Paul Bartlett also has a picture of W3030 on his website and list it as an O.49 which is more like it. These were significantly longer than the rest of the milk carrying fleet having underframes nearly 28 feet long. There were other, earlier shorter Ro-Rail tanks based upon standard 6 wheel chassis. Presumably the increase in length corrsponded with an increase in the size of the road trailers.

There's also this a Didcot which is of interest:

http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/wagons/101/101.html

It was built as a drinking water tank but is pretty much the same as a milk tank and the chassis is exactly the same type (20'6" GWR lever braked). Drinking Water tanks were interesting. They were used at outlying stations where there was no reliable drinking water access. As far as I'm aware they had to be returned to Swindon to be replenshed. There were examples at Morton on Lugg and Titley Juction in Herefordshire. So if you see a photo of a single milk tank standing in a siding at a station somewhere it might not be a milk tank! 

I must get back to Didcot at some time and measure up those wonderful Pollen Es that are there.

Hi Ian,

As far as I'm aware there are no kits for the Ro-Rail tank chassis. David Geen did talk about doing a 4mm kit presumably for the early 20'6" Dean Churchward braked examples (O.37) as thes would have used many parts from his GWR milk tank kit but nothing has been forthcomming so far. I think he was a bit disappointed in sales of the LMS kits he did and hasn't done any since. I think a lot of people think of milk tanks as being region specific vehicles (GWR, LMS etc) but certainly post nationalsiation they worked effectively as private owner wagons for whichever dairy owned the tank and got all over the place. The other companies also had their own variations on the Ro-Rail theme.

That's quite ok Martyn.

Yes all three of those lots were to diagram O.42 and all were Express Dairies. No other Dairies had milk tanks to that diagram. The diagram O.42s were the only

Dean-Churchward braked vehicles that were built specifically for Express Dairies though they did inherit some O.35s, O.38s and and O.43s from Independant Milk Supplies and West Park Dairy Co. The O.38s were very similar to the O.42s except for a different arrangement of fittings on top of the tank. 

Evening Martyn,

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but yes that one is also wrongly numbered. W2960 was a United Dairies diagram O.51 which had lever brakes and central platforms. There's a picture of W2960 on Paul Bartlett's website though not in use for carrying milk.

Milk Tanks tended to be built in very small numbers. 2 or 3 here, 5 or 6 there. The diagram O.36s consisted of one lot of just 3 vehicles.The LMS were not much different with a Diagram 1991 one that also consisted of 3 vehicles. The SR managed one diagram, 3158, with a grand total of 2 vehicles in it's ranks. I'm not entirely sure why there needed to be quite so many different variations and so diagrams. There are times when it's obvious such as when platforms are used or there are twin tanks but sometimes it's difficult at times to tell the difference. I haven't got a clue what the difference between the O.57s and O.60s was but it could have been as little as an inch difference in tank lengths. One size fits all did not apply to milk tanks!!

Hi jwealleans,

Thanks I'll have to keep an eye out for that book. I have a rather nice GA drawing from the NRM for a Diagram 333 type which is where I got the information for the underframe from but the rest is a mystery. It's good that some were built for United Dairies. I'll be able to include one in the formation for my model of the Whitland to Kensington.

Hi Rod,

Thanks for that. I'll have to look into those articles.

Hi Martyn,

The model you have posted the picture of is a GWR O.42. These were Express Dairies tanks and is the same diagram as my model above depicts. I need to change mine as Express Dairies didn't (as far as I'm aware) have any concerns in South Wales, which is my area of interest, and so is unsuitable. It will get rebuilt into a United Dairies GWR O.39 once I've got the etches for the platforms done.

Without wishing to be too much of a pedant the number on your model doesn't correspond with an O.42. W2009 was a United Dairies O.44 and is still in existance at Mangapps. There's a picture of it here. They began life as 4 wheel tanks to diagram O.23 but were rebuilt as 6 wheelers and became diagram O.44 in the process. They had different arrangements for the tank strapping brackets, tank fittings and also supports from the O.42s. The O.42s also originally had cooling covers but these were later removed.

Numbers for the O.42s were as follows:

Lot 1561 built 9/35 2561-2563

Lot 1607 built 8/37 2593-2594

Lot 1613 built 8/37 2595-2598

Add a W depending on timeframe of course.

Always nice to see pictures of milk tank models. 

Hi Nick,

Of course! All the etches will be avaliable once they're done and I'm happy with them. It might be a little while before everything's done though, there's a lot to get through!

Hi Chris,

That would be fantasic thanks. Any help would be much appreciated.

I am currently in the process of creating a number of etches to convert the David Geen 4mm kit to types not covered by the two currently avaliable. This is a lengthy process and has involved measuring up vehicles in the Winter cold  and trips to the NRM in search of drawings (it's a hard life I know  ). There will evenually be 6 chassis etches covering GWR 20'6 and 21'6 types, Post War LMS diagrams and the other LMS ones, SR and LNER. CAD drawings for the chassis are all but complete (you'd be suprised how many differences there are) and will be similar to this:

Then there will be detailing etches covering things like brake levers, walk ways, ladders and platforms etc all in order to produce a model of the Whitland to Kensington milk train in the mid sixties. Details of the models I've attacked so far and further details on the chassis can be found here. And just to wet you appetite:

As you can imagine with a type of vehicle that covered some 50 odd diagrams (including 2000 gallon types and Ro-Rail trailers) from 4 underframe 'suppliers' there are some grey areas that I hope someone out there will be able to help with.

LNER milk tanks:

I have details of the diagram numbers for these but no information on lot numbers, running numbers and almost as important which dairies had which lots. The other three companies allocated lots to a batch of vehicles for a specific diary so I assume that the LNER did the same? If anyone can help with this or point me in the right direction that would be great.

Also any photos of LNER types again would be great. I'm aware of the photos on Paul Bartlett's site. I seem to remember seeing a photo of one with platforms somewhere but I have no idea where it was.

SR milk tanks:

I have details of diagrams and running numbers and some for which diaries were associated with which type. Diagrams 3155 and 3157 where Unigate (eventually of course) and 3159 were Express Dairies, does anyone have any information on the others?

GWR milk tanks:

Does anyone know which Dairies were assocaited with diagrams O.61 and O.63?

A good reference for milk tank diagrams collated from various scources can be found here. It isn't exhaustive but it's a start.

Many thanks,

Justin

Think this wagon ended up carrying spent nuclear rods between HM dockyards and Windscale (or whatever it was called that week). Can feel a scratchbuild coming on - hmm, now where to get 6-wheel bogies ???

The GWR had some very similar wagons, 63 ton 24 wheel Crocodile Ls, which I've had similar thoughts about. Then I look at the number of rivets and turn the page!

The wagon in post 7 (also seen in post 36) is surely a BR-buit diag. 2/470 TRANSFORMER MC. Paul Bartlett had loads of photos of one of these beasts on his old website.

It does say TRANSFORMER MC on the photo in post 36 and does look as if it could well say that in the picture in post 7. It is very, very similar to the LMS wagon that I mentioned in a previous post, but then given the M in the code you'd expect it to be based on an LMS design.

What a lovely set of photos!

The wagons in post 4 look to be GWR Pollens, possibly pollen Bs. You can just about make out the Dean/Churchward brake levers on the second wagon back.

The wagon in post 7 looks to be an (ex)LMS type somewhere on the (G)WR. There's a photo of a very similar 24 wheel LMS trolley in one of J.H.Russel's wagon books. The bogies are identical with those distinctive square dampers on the springs. The cradle was slightly different at the ends. A transformer would be about right. It looks as if the wagon has TRANSFORMER K or something very similar written on it.

What a sight some of these trains must have been.

The guard's duckets are about 1mm too high (or maybe low can't quite remember) and there's the issue mentioned with the roof but it's still a good starting point. They make up into a nice model with a bit of work. I've got one to go under a Bradwell chassis sometime, when I get around to brakevans.

Maybe but far more noteworthy. I wonder if it did get further than Crewe.

The sight of D800s at Crewe was an everyday occurance between mid '62 and mid '64. They were the mainstay of the North & West express services between Bristol/Plymouth/Penzance and Crewe/Manchester/Liverpool at this time. The service would have changed engines at Crewe and the Warship wouldn't have got any further.

I might be the only one to disagree here

You're not alone Jon. I have to agree that the way Heljan have done the gloss finish is very good indeed. I brought one of their Gloss maroon Westerns before the Dapol model was announced and I think it's the most realistic finish I've come across on an RTR model. It looks like the real thing does ex-works. It is a bit orange peely but if it could be done a bit better it would be indeed look fantasic.

T-cut is great but you have to be careful using it on thin RTR finishes. It does work wonders in bringing the paint to life but it also goes though it if you aren't paying close attention. I gave a Heljan Hymek the T-cut treatment and it came up really well but you had to give it a real polish to get a lovely finish on the paint and I did manage to go through to the plastic around the raised detail area in a number of places which was annoying. Not quite as annoying as the varnish I had to put over the now very soft paint but that's another story.

Hi guys,

 

i'll go with the consensus of opinion here, but i have tracked down the roof grey to this

 

http://www.e-paint.c...cQuery=BS 9-097

 

But it looks a shade darker than the pictures i can see although that might be film emulsion and light on the roof making it look like loco roof grey to my old eyes.

 

so if you are all agreed then the Green ones and the Early Maroon ones will get this 'admiralty grey'

Perhaps you speak to Precision Paints about this? They supply a paint specifically for the Western roof and they're colour matches are usualy pretty good. They might be able to point you in the right direction.

As for finish, i really hate gloss on a model so am loathed to do so, as our new 'blue, green and maroon, have a sheen to them like the Bachmann loco's.

Do Bachmann locos have a sheen to them? I can't say I've noticed. Mind you their paint doesn't tend to stay on my models for long. A vote for gloss here. Please, please, please, please no flat dull paint finishes on locos that are supposed to be ex works it looks completely wrong and you've spent so much time getting this right!

It would be nice if Dapol were to also produce these in 00 gauge. As it stands, no-one makes an accurate RTR milk tanker. The ex-GWR ones by Dapol and Hornby both have a number of faults and ommisions.

It's a shame that there are no accuarate RTR milk tanks avaliable but there are perhaps reasons for this byond manufacturers simply getting things wrong. There are so many different variations to contend with particularly with regard to GWR and WR ones. The LMS and SR were more consistent but even still there were differences. Swindon issued 24 diagrams for 6 wheel milk tanks and they did this for a reason, they were all different! On top of this there were the Ro-Rail tank trailers and early 4 wheeled tanks that were converted to six wheel. There were two very different types of brakegear, twin tanks, twin compartment tanks, some that were a foot longer than others, different ladder arrangements, a myriad of tanks supports, platforms at the end, platforms in the middle, lots of different valve arrangements on top of the tank.... Which one do you go for? Most of the diagrams were dairy specific so it's not a case of pick one and you can paint it a load of different colours, well not if you want to be accurate. The LMS ones are the more obvious candidates which is perhaps why Dapol have gone for this. I have a long standing ambition to have a model of the Whitland to Kensington as running in the mid 60s and I think I could have legitimately have 20 milk tanks belonging to the various dairies serving South Wales and all of them could be different!

Whilst there are no accurate 4mm RTR models David Geen makes a quite lovely kit for the LMS Dia.1994 and GWR Dean-Churchward braked types. This is one of the GWR type I've finished to Dia. O.42 in P4 with some mods along the way:

There are some things that you might want to have a look at Dave:

• As Paul Bartlett has already said the underframe is an issue as it's so open but you already know about that and I saw that it was different on the original CADs you posted on another thread.
  
• Brake levers. I'm not sure the LMS ones used lifting links at all. They had simple levers on both sides acting off the same cross shaft which was closer to the outer axle.
  
• Tank supports: The larger of the two types looks to slope inwards too much. Most of the larger type that I've seen on LMS tanks have the sides more vertical and are more rectangular in overall shape. More like on my David Geen LMS kit which also illustrates the point made earlier by Paul Bartlett about the underframe and also shows the brake cross shaft:
  

• Spring hanger brackets: The LMS ones had longer brackets on the centre axle. See here for a good illustration. No idea why.
  

Hope that's of some help.

Thanks for that Mick! Would you happen to know what its return working was?

 

Andy

Given Trostre is near Llanelli I suspect that the working was going via Llanwern for some reason and the return working was effectively the same train.

Very nice indeed, one wonders what BR thought it was doing with these! The only photo I have of them is here http://bit.ly/MZPR2V B261650. Pete Fidczuk reports the number series as 261509-1714

 

Paul Bartlett

Thanks Paul. I wondered just how many out of that lot were built with vacuum brakes. I've only ever seen two photos of fitted 1/109s, the one on your site and there's one of B261662 in 'Wagons of the Middle British Railways Era' by David Larkin. My model is a composite of the two. B261662 had self contained buffers but you can't tell what type of end door it had and I liked the pressed steel door on B261650 so I combined the bits that I liked out of the two.

I wonder what BR was doing with a lot of the wagons it built in the fifties and early sixties! There seemed to be an awful lot of muddled thinking going on. Take the clasp braked 16T minerals. A couple of hundred riveted examples for no reason in particular and a couple of thousand 1/108s and 1/117s that were built without vacuum cylinders or pipes. Expensive brakegear for an unfitted mineral. I also can't figure out the 1/114 conversions that appear on your website. They were built unfitted with two shoe Morton brakes in 1951 yet someone saw fit (presumably in the late fifties) to go to the expense of converting them to clasp brakes and fitting vacuum cylinders and pipes when BR had the afformentioned 1/108s and 1/117s already with the clasp brakes. Was there something special about the 1/114s? Just seems a bit odd!

Thanks Michael. The body isn't totally square and I managed to file off some detail when I was shaping the corner plates whilst I wasn't concentrating but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It should look even better once it's been painted and weathered.

Here's something for the thread that's recently rolled off the workbench (not onto the floor though!). It needs painting but has since been primed. A 16T rarity, one of the few vacuum fitted rivetted examples built by Cambrian Wagon Works as part of lot 2806 in the late fifties.

The basis is the Parkside kit and is to P4 standards with Exactoscale wheels, Masokits sprung W-Irons and screw couplings, modified Masokits brakegear and levers, homemade 2'0 1/2" Self Contained buffers, ABS vacuum cylinders (I know they should be different sizes but I got lazy), vacuum pipes made from wound guitar wire and 0.035" plastic rod as well as other added details. Some more detail can be found here.