jjnewitt

50 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Nothing wrong with a bit of pedantry, Ian, I'm not immune myself!  According to Wikipedia, the B4 was introduced in 1963, which ties in with their appearance on the Class 123 Inter City dmus introduced that year.  Wiki states that the bogies were not applied to mk1s at Swindon, but were to the early mk2s produced there.  Having just had my memory proven inaccurate, I am questioning my 'KIng and B4 Bristolian' WSM photo'; I don't have a copy and it is something I saw in a magazine back in the 70s or 80s.  But I don't  think B4s existed in 1958-60.  There is vague reference to a B3 which may have been a drawing but never built.  What is certain is that a) the 4-car Inter City trains were introduced in 1963, and because one of their centres of operation was Cardiff I was familiar with them at that time, 11 years old, and rode in one to visit rellys in Tamworth in September of that year, and b) they had B4 bogies, the first I'd seen, including the power bogies.  

I'm not convinced by the Wiki on this at all. Sorry to quote Parkin again but he states that the first prototypes of what became the B4 appeared in 1956. There were a further 4 prototypes built and then a short production run which were fitted under the Red Dragon and Bristolian trainsets. When it was found that the bogies could do what was asked of them (ride acceptably for 150,000 miles) it was announced that they were to be fitted under new build coaches which was in 1963. That ties in with the introduction date on Wiki at least. I haven't seen anything to question what Parkin has written. 

Clearly B4 bogies were fitted to Mk1s prior to the intoduction of the Mk2s as there are dated photos showing them, including the one of the Red Dragon I linked earlier. These were rettrofits not new builds though.

On another issue of pedantry there was no such thing as a B1 or BR1 bogie. There was simply the BR Coach Bogie which came in various guises, single bolster, double bolster, heavy duty, etc. There was a BR1 (light) and a BR 2 (heavy) axlebox but that wasn't related to the bogie deisgn. Then there was the Commonwealths and then the B4 bogies. 

Justin

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I believe so, yes.  The initial WR chocolate and cream liveried named train stock was AFAIK Hawksworths for those trains that had not yet been allocated mk1 sets, including the 1956-58 'Red Dragon'.  This train certainly ran with a refurbished Collet restaurant car in choc/cream until 1958 and possibly a bit later; there are photos of it with mk1s and the Collett restaurant car.

 

To the best of my knowledge the only mk1s in choc/cream with B4 bogies were the 1962 'Bristolian' set.

How did this thread end up on Mk1s with B4 bogies?

Parkin in his tome on Mk1s states that both the Birstolian and Red Dragon trainsets gained B4 bogies as part of that particular bogies development. There are certainly some under the Mk1s in this John Wiltshire image of the Red Dragon.

Parkin doesn't give any dates for the fitting of them but a quick glace through some John Hodge images would sugest late 61 or early 62. Before then the Red Dragon Mk1s seemed to have been fitted with BR Coach Bogies and was uniform choolate and cream. I'd suggest the John Wilshire image linked is likely to be 62 rather than 61 going by the maroon Mk1s in the formation. 

I was under the impression that the GWR and BR(W) that followed (unlike other mebers of the big four/regions) did their untmost to avoid a uniform train until the Mk1s appeared with anything and everything going in the formation!

Justin

49 minutes ago, Adam said:

I might well do another of these conversions - I don't really have enough opens - but I'm not sure I'd go with the brass body. It's all very neat and hugely enjoyable, a but I reckon I could manage it from plastic quite happily. It might take a bit longer, I suppose, but I could leave the soldering iron unplugged.

Of course if everybody did that sort of thing then you might find there's no suppliers left out there or a lot less product to choose from...

The wagon looks very nice Adam. 

Justin

4 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

To help Sir Topham, the loco is a Ffestiniog Railway 'Small England' class; there are 2, Prince and Princess, both still extant.  00 gauge is not the scale but the distance between the rails, 16mmm, same as H0, but using a scale of 4mm/foot (1:76 scale ratio) not 3.5mm/foot (1:87 scale ratio).  Since the Ffestiniog is a '2 foot' narrow gauge railway, actually 1'11 and 5/8th inches, a Small England running on 16mm gauge track would be to a lot more than 1:76 scale.  It would be something like 8mm/foot and 1:38 scale.  If you wanted to run a 1:76 scale Small England it would need to be on 9.58mm track; most people use 9mm gauge track available commercially for N gauge.  

Of course none of this stopped John Ahern building something very similar in OO for the Madder Valley. :-)

Just to be pedantic. 1' 11 5/8" scales out at 7.875mm in 4mm scale. 

21 minutes ago, Porcy Mane said:

I'll get in touch tomorrow re sorting out payment.  My shower has just exploded so I'm up to my elbows in burnt plastic and wiring at the moment.

No rush. Not open till Tuesday. 

That doesn't sound good. Hope you weren't in it at the time!

Justin

1 minute ago, Porcy Mane said:

Oh Bugga!

It was B96A's. Should have put my goggles on.

I've got a reasonable number of screw coupling etches (definately more than 5). I'll put them aside for you Mr P. 

Justin

7 hours ago, Porcy Mane said:

That'll be five B95A's please.

I've got more Instater Links than you can shake a shunter's pole at, less of other things though. 

5 hours ago, heavymetalwagons said:

Glad to hear you're back

And well i take it? 

We're ok thanks. Have sucessfully steered clear of the nastys so far. Hopefully that will remain the case!

Justin

A quick google search brings up a previous topic on RMweb on this subject:

The portion for Pwllheli was BSK, SK, FK with an additional SK on Saturdays.

An RU was included in the train all the way to Aberystwyth (but not Pwllheli) until the early sixties. 

Not sure about being out of gauge but the main reason for not seeing Castles and Kings on the Cambrian was that they were far too heavy for the line. A Manor was as big as it got.

Justin

United Dairies had plenty of Ro-Rail trailers including the SR ones. See:

Great Western Wagons Appendix by J H Russell page 87

BR Parcels and Passenger Rated Stock Volume 2 page 67

Justin

Post deleted

On 16/04/2020 at 03:41, DavidCBroad said:

As for the std 4 75000 no one wanted them, the GWR had Manors for wales, 75000s were supposedly built for the central wales line but it was upgraded for 8Fs and Jubilees before they were built,

Jubilees were very late in the day on the Central Wales. They didn't arrive until the ended up at Shrewsbury in the 1960s, displaced from elsewhere. It was all 8Fs, Black and Std 5s, G2s and class 4 tanks before then. The line would have been upgraded for the significant freight traffic that travelled over it rather than passenger work.  

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

78xxx were allocated for the Mid Wales Brecon-Moat Lane line and at least one was overhauled at Caerphilly and painted in fully lined out green livery.

I'm not sure this is true. I've never seen a Std 2 2-6-0 on the Mid Wales (Moat lane to Three Cocks) while it was open. The standard 2s were heavier than their Ivatt sisters and according to their Wiki entries had a higher route availabilty (3 as opposed to 2). I think they were too heavy for the line. It was wall to wall Ivatts after the Dean Goods and Cambrian 0-6-0s went. I wonder if this was the reason why BR built Ivatts at Swindon for the area rather than the Std 2 which was on the drawing board at the time. Indeed the two types were being sent to the WR at the same time in 1952/3. 

The only standard 2 to operate regularly in that area was 78004 which was at Hereford for a long time. It's job was the daily Hereford to Three Cocks freight. I haven't seen any evidence of it getting past Three Cocks but it's possible, at least in the Brecon direction. 

The only instance I've seen of a Std 2 2-6-0 on the Mid Wales was 78004 (again but this time allocated to Llanelly) which was used to take up the line in 1964, 18 months after it had closed.

According to the RCTS book on the class there were several Std 2 2-6-0s in lined green including 78005, 6, 8 & 9. 78005 was the only one painted at Caerphilly (twice, in 60 and again in 62). The book states 78004 was only unlined green which is incorrect as it got lined green in early 62. There are plenty of pictures around showing it in lined green.

Justin

6 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

Geoff Gamble's Volume 4 in his British Railway Wagons series has eight pictures of milk tanks in the 1960s, early as well as late, every one in shades of dirty grey.

They are black and white photos though... Unless you can see the lettering under all the crud you can't tell what livery, if any, they wear. Anything with a company plate was most probably unpainted but my point was that milk tanks were still being painted in private owner liveries post 1942. M.M.B. blue also still counts as a private owner livery. Those tanks were owned by the Milk Marketting Board.  

Those photos in the geoff Gamble book were taken by David Larkin and they along with others taken by him have appeared elsewhere, most recently in his 2nd volume on BR Parcels and Passenger Rated Stock. There are photos in there, mostly taken in the 70s but none dated earlier than 1963, and all black and white, that show milk tanks still in M.M.B blue, I.M.S red and Express Dairy blue though of course when they were actually painted in those liveries is anyones guess. 

I still have yet to be convinced about the 'pooling' of milk tanks into the 60s. I don't see the random pattern of milk tanks that you'd expect in such situations. You see a lot of tanks belonging to a certain dairy working to their creameries. As I said earlier there's a difference between organising the distrubution of milk by rail to having responsibility for the milk tank fleet. 

Incidently St. Ivel was a Unigate brand. 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

For details of what the MMB did and didn't do, contact Bruce Palmer 0208 686 3179 (his 'phone number is public domain as he runs a small company selling retro model railway components). Until he retired, he was in charge of logistics at the MMB, and used to organise what milk had to go where by rail.

Thanks Kevin. I'll gte in touch with him. I'll also have a look at that thesis. 

23 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

The Milk Marketing Board assumed control of all the rail tankers in 1942 and as and when they needed repainting, they were put into an overall silvery-grey livery with just an embossed plate in 4" lettering indicating the ownership. 

Hi Jim,

Do you have any references for that statement? I ask because I'm not convinced that it's true. As I understand it in 1942 the Milk Marketing Board assumed reponsibility for the distrubution of milk around the country to ensure it got to where it was needed as part of the war effort. That isn't the same as assuming control of the rail tank wagons. All the tanks, except for those built by the MOT, still belonged to the dairies with the underframes belonging to the railway companies. 

There were milk tanks built post 1942 that appeared in private owner liveries, some of those during the war. A quick look through either Great Western Wagons Appendix or Great Western Coaches Appendix Volume 2, both by J H Russell shows several milk tanks built between 1944 and 1948 in the company colours of C.W.S., Express Dairy, Applin & Barrett, Cow & Gate, M.M.B and I.M.S (company colour was red). The lettering was much simplified from pre war but none had grey/silver tanks; or more probably unpainted alumnium as that was what they were clad in. 

The owner ship plates were only fitted to Express Dairy and United Dairies tanks, by the dairies themselves. Those for ED had lettering around 4" high but those for United Dairies were smaller at around 2 1/2". Again they were aluminium. Neither seemed to appear until after the war. The later Unigate plates contiuned in the same vein as UD. I did a lot of research on those plates when I did my 4mm and 7mm etched ones.

Justin

Justin

The fist article was entitled West Highland in N and appeared in The January 1990 edition. The author/builder was a Chris Thorp. Not sure on the Oban article. May have been October 1991 going by the cover  but my copies are in store and I can’t find the contents for that month online. 
 

Justin

You need to look for XPS insulation board (extruded polystyrene). Make sure it's XPS and not EPS board (expanded polystyrene) though. There's plenty about in a multitude of thicknesses. They glue the suff between two sheets of OSB and build houses out of it now, without framing a lot of the time (SIPS panels).

Justin 

The Monmouth branch was open on Wednesday when I went in for supplies. They don't have a post office in the shop. If you go to the W H Smith website you can search for your local branch and find out if it is still open. Does MRJ count as essential supplies? Probably :-)

Justin

If it's unfitted then it has 2 shoe brakes (on the Morton clutch side) and no tiebars. Generally for 9' and 10' wheelbase wagons it will only have 4 shoe Morton brakes if it's fitted and then it will also have a tiebar.

There are a couple of pictures of V33s in GWR Goods Wagons by Atkins, Beard, Tourret

Justin

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

There may well not have been, but it was a convenient way to describe those 3500g tenders that were "neither one thing nor the other" but came along between the other two.

 

The Intermediate tenders were effectively the Churchward design with a few tweaks, but the problem with using the term "Churchward Intermediate" is that it implies the existence of a later pattern of Churchward 3500g tender, when the one that succeeded it was the Collett design.

 

John

 

The problem with not using the Churchward preface is that it implies that there was something very different about these tenders from what came before which is misleading, because there wasn’t. 

With hindsight perhaps ‘intermediate’ was a really poor choice of term for these tenders and ‘high sided’ would have been a much better and more accurate phrase to use. However as we are stuck with a term that’s at best imperfect adding something that might not make complete logical sense seems to be splitting hairs somewhat.

If the accepted term for them is plain ‘intermediate’ then fine, that’s what convention has decided. I can’t imagine that everyone is suddenly going to start calling them Churchward 3500 gallon high sided tenders, though perhaps they should. Don’t be under any illusions though that they weren’t fundamentally a Churchward tender. There wasn’t really anything about them that was an ‘intermediate’ design stage between the standard Churchward and Collett 3500 gallon tenders. 

Justin

8 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Either way, I understood the term to denote an intermediate design stage between one and the other and it had nothing (AFAIK) to do with their height.

I'm not sure there was any intermediate design stage with these things. They were Churchward 3500 gallon tenders with higher plating on the sides and some reinforcement around the spring hangers on most, though not all, that's it. There was no tank flush with the bottom of the body or fenders that wrapped around the ends or anything else that characterised the later 'Collett' designs. If it was an intermediate deisgn stage I would expect some features that apeared later to have been incorporated and as far as I know they weren't. 

Justin

On 03/03/2020 at 15:48, Miss Prism said:

I called them 'Collett' because they were outshopped in 1925. Maybe best to just call them 'intermediate'.

Why? They were standard Churchward 3500 gallon tenders simply with the plating on the sides increased in height, mostly, though not all, built to lot A.112 (a couple, including no.2222, were rebuilt from standard tenders). Somewhere, though I can't immediately find it, I've seen a GA of a lot A.112 tender which just shows a standard 3500 gallon tender without any increase in height. The scalloped frames were different (on those built under lot A.112 only) though not of the Collett pattern.

I don't want to get too anal and bore everyone to pieces but, I'm sure you'll agree, terminology is important otherwise people just don't know what you're talking about...

The fact that they were called' intermediate' was of course a reference to their height which was of an 'intermediate' height between the 3500 gallon tenders and the 4000 gallon tenders. You could easily argue that the Collett 3500 gallon tenders could be refered to as 'intermediate' tenders as well because they were of a similar height to these Churchward ones. If you simply say 'intermediate' people might not know which ones you're talking about.

Also the fact that they were built in 1925 has nothing to do with anything. A design isn't attributed to a new CME if it hasn't fundamentally changed, whhhc is the case with these tenders.

End of bee in bonnet time.

Justin

5 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

Summary of tenders used with Manors:

- Collett 3500g 'intermediate' (7803, 7806, 7807, 7811, 7813, 7824 and 7828 using them at various times)

 

Collet 3500g intermediate? Should that not be Churchward 3500g intermediate? They were basically a high sided Churchward tender after all. 

Justin