jwealleans

Railways built containers in the 1830s. You can keep going back and back. The Big 4 started to really investigate and stimulate the traffic from around 1928 (I am heavily biased towards the LNER in my knowledge of this history). As it grew the RCH became more involved and standards started to evolve, but the 1930s were a period of experimentation and development before it all came under the BR umbrella. Someone has referenced Carlislecitadel above: these are 3D prints I have recently finished which he was kind enough to supply: These are on Diagram 76 conflats of my own construction. I have previously made masters for the D108 conflat, converted from cattle wagons, which were resin cast for me by Graeme King: The container is from UNIT models, reliveried. It is too large. Prior to those, for the Grantham layout, I made masters for the Diagram 15 meat container and matching diagram 60 conflat which were also resin cast by Graeme. All these castings are still available from him along with an early LNER A type container from a master by Caroline Middleditch of this parish. For LNER containers and conflats, Tatlow Volume 4B referenced above has most of what you'd need. There's an excellent article on the development of both traffic and containers by Tony Miller in an LNER Society publication if you want more background, but for strictly technical details Tatlow is your best source.

Weren't these known at one time as 'immigrant stock' and used to ferry migrants to the US from Hull to Liverpool? I have a feeling that traffic largely predated the LNER. I do have a picture of 6 or 7 of these with the matching brake at the head (and presumably tail, it's not visible) heading south from York behind a C7 as a special/excursion.

Yes, I noticed we'd been kept well apart.

Preparing this year's display for Warley over the weekend. This year's theme is scratchbuilding, both the classic approach of cutting up plastic sheets and also using 3D print technology to produce what you want. I hope to be doing a bit of both. I'm on stand D35 this year. For regular visitors, we have been moved to the diagonally opposite corner of the hall, so ahead and slightly to the left as you come through the doors, then right down to the far end. Closer to the food, further from the gents. Swings and roundabouts...... My good friend and colleague Mr King can be found to my left on stand D33, while Mr. Nicholas is to our rear on stand D29. I see that in a change of subject, he's 'planing' layouts this year, so expect to see him behind a large pile of shavings and bring any awkward bits of wood with you for refinishing. More details here.

... and then he wonders why I empty the yard.

I had a day out yesterday, invited to a special running session of Graham Nicholas' Hills of the North layout which some people will have already seen on here. Although still in the very early stages of building, there's a lot of scope to run trains round and up to 7 operators can be working, though not (yet) all at once. The occasion was a visitor from Australia, John Nuttall, St Enodoc of this parish. John was a member of Leeds club for some years and some of them came up to join in. From left: our host Graham Nicholas (LNER4479), Tom Dewdney ('Scenery Tom' in the panoply of Grantham Toms and LMS29 in these parts), Steve Pearce (31A), Mike Edge, Andy Morris (Innocentman), John Nuttall (St Enodoc), Barry Oliver and Yours Truly. Being centred on Carlisle there'san LMS bent to the whole layout, but there will be an LNER element to it when complete. I make sure there's an LNER element whenever I am invited to operate and yesterday took the opportunity to try some of the new stock which was denied a run at Newcastle, some I'm still working on and also some from my display for Warley which I'm getting ready. Here it is in Dentonholme Goods yard which is where I found myself. 3482 would have been hauing the Iron Ore empties to High Dyke had things gone as planned. Here it has one of the D76 conflats and pressed steel containers you've seen over the last few weeks. Behind that is a steel underframed fruit van. After I refinished one of these a few weeks ago, there was a debate over whether someone had crosskitted it or it was a Parkside release. I can now confirm that it was PC11, LNER Fruit Van (Plank Sides 1935) and it does have the incorrect wooden buffer beam combined with the steel sides. Behind that, the Oxford Rail Banana van made into a fitted ventilated version and relegated from the Grantham Scotch Goods box to make room for the new steel containers. My theme for Warley this year is 3D printing and scratchbuilding. In among the vehicles I plan to display is this Southern Bogie Bolster (I forget the diagram) which was a commission a good few years ago. As is my usual practice I started two of them and on this occasion completed both. The best one went to the client and I kept and finished this one for myself. It's not had a lot of running and so this was a good occasion to try it. It was a bit light and even now the glue is drying on some lead flashing under the floor. This is one of the first wagons I scratchbuilt, an ex-ROD 20 ton van sold after the War to the Societe Belgo-Anglaise des Ferry-Boats. These were far more common a sight than you might think between 1924 and around 1950. Parkside bogie Sulphate wagon (PC20). Nice colour. I like it like this. The Quad and 'Cornish Bob' we have just been looking at. Hurst Nelson 'Gondola' wagon for the North British. This is converted from a Parkside Quad. I've since reinstated the missing bolster pin. The GW Coral glass wagon is a 3D print from 247 Developments. The original pattern grain hopper is a resin cast by Graeme King of this parish with a scratchbuilt underframe. The train can be seen in motion here. It didn't complete the intended drive past as some off scene disaster required the operator's attention and he stopped it, so we had to do a walk by as far as we could. Mike Edge brought his own Fell locomotive which went round the layout nicely and looked right at home on Shap Bank. One of the features of this layout is the gradients and multiple levels it will work on - at one point there will be 4 levels crossing each other. Trains therefore vanish and reappear even now and we had to be careful about section occupancy. At one point, as we'd lost track of it, I went looking for 3622, the NuCast J6 I had also recently refinished and found it on the approach to Bog Junction and under the end of Shap Bank. Unusual company for a J6 but you can see some of the multilayered nature of the layout as it starts to take shape. It was a very convivial day out in good company and I thank our host for his hospitality and for the invitation.

@gr.king There was at least one proper LNER train.

If anyone follows Tom Foster's OO9 work on FB, he makes very effective use of slate pieces for lineside fencing. I suspect a whole wagon full of it would be unfeasibly heavy in 4mm, though.

The next time I'm down at Ormesby Hall, I'll take you a picture of the slate load on the layout there. It was made by Ron Rising, who was a longtime modeller at Pendon. It's card of a suitable colour (I assume he coloured it), cut to shape and stuck in rows in a 2 or 3 plank open. It looks very effective although I've often wondered at the lack of dunnage or padding to avoid breakage.

With an unexpected couple of days off in the absence of Newcastle Show, I seem to have gone off at a bit of a tangent. It started with a request to show how I make my own transfers. Fine, I can do that... but do I have any I need to make? Not on Friday morning, no, but then after a bit of thought I had an idea. On the side of the bench, for no real reason, an Acro quad has been sitting for several weeks. For those who don't know, Acro made wagon kits in the 1950s and early 1960s. I'm not old enough to remember them and this kit may well be older than me. I was given a couple of Quads (the same vehicle Parkside now make) and a Crocodile a few years ago. I made all 3 up, but this Quad had never really been finished. It's a whitemetal body frame with a wooden deck and bolsters. I had to replace the missing bogies with Parkside ones (the originals were compensated and run beautifully) and I added a thin plastic overlay to the bolsters, painted to look like steel, then made and added pins from 0.7mm wire. There it had stopped. Separately, I'd happened across Cornwall Custom Designs on Ebay and bought one or two items including a 'Bob' or beam for a pumping engine. I'd idly thought it might make an interesting wagon load and here was an idea wagon for it. I reckon the beam weighs about 30 tons and the quad is able to carry 45, so easily the wagon for the job. I painted it what I hope looks a suitably industrial shade and added just a little decoration. Then it was ready to be sent back to whencever it had come. I did a little reading and found that at one time Armstrongs made beam engines, so here's one which has been back for repair. Firstly, the Quad had to be titvated a little. I had these bolster shackles from 51L in the drawer - they're a bit chunky but at least they're a consistent shape, which is more than I can manage with bits of wire. Some of these wagons also had lashing rings added, even whem they were still bogie bolsters. Others had the bolsters removed and they had extra rings fitted. These are made from thin brass wire (from picture hanging wire) wound round a very small screwdriver. They're then just stuck into holes in the side. You'll see that I've also added handbrake wheels. The loading gave me pause for thought - you'd expect it to be sheeted over which rather wastes the nice looking print. Then I thought that maybe they'd want to make a feature of it - beam engines must have been becoming uncommon even in the 1930s - and get a bit of advertising in. This is where the transfers (remember them?) came into it. So this is how it's been loaded, with the bearing surfaces protected and sacking wrapped round to prevent the chains damaging the paint. I've put gun blue onto the chains and lashings - they'll be painted metalcote black when that has dried. The black will also help disguise the fact that I've wrapped the copper wire w hich holds it all together round the bolster pins as well as the shackles. that has allowed me to tighten the wire all the more and keep the chains fairly taut. The sign is a mockup on paper. I will make up some waterslide versions and stick them to plastikard panels this week. In between waiting for that to dry, I put the chains onto the 247 Hydra. This is now finished, unless i think of anything else. I also had a Dave Geen LNWR D1 which I had been hoping to use for containers, but they were all too wide. So I stuck a couple of crates onto it.

I'm not sure even the most cataclysmic climate change predictions have gone that far.

Seems we'll have to wait for that occasion, John: we've heard today that the show has been cancelled due to the damage caused by Storm Ciaran a week ago.

Powsides are a very mixed blessing on the hobby in my opinion. I hate dry transfers with a passion, but, as you say, they offer over a thousand different options for a Private Owner wagon. You have to apply them very carefully. They're not terribly flexible and you'll probably have to paint in any cracks or flaws once they're on. I apply them in sections, taping them to the sides and going over them carefully with a cocktail stick to make them transfer to the wagon. They'll usually stick enthusiastically to anything they can except the wagon itself. Go slowly and don't try to do too many at once.

I think the LMS only built end door minerals as well (and to be picky, most if not all company built minerals had steel end stanchions, not timber). I don't think the Southern built any, but I shouldn't like to speculate on what they got up to at Swindon. I think you're looking at a PO here, to be honest. How do you get on with Powsides transfers? They'll give you the biggest choice, but they can be a bit of an ordeal.

To be fair, "Tattooed Convict, Australia" doesn't narrow it down too far. I expect they'll turn up.

I don't think it's really possible to make a J15 ugly, but whomever designed that cab had a damn good go.

Final jobs for Newcastle completed (until I remember something else). These need couplings, but are otherwise ready to go. While I had the weathering gear out I finished off some other wagons: Traction truck with load now secured - hopefully something like correctly. Ratio van for two quid and an Oxford open I picked up at Shildon for eight. You can find these very cheaply now they've been out a while and other than correcting the brakes they take very little work. I have also replaced the buffers on this one with the better LMS casting. Finally, although he won't be joining us at Newcastle, a nod to Mr King for another heroic contribution: sixty (count them) loco lamps. Even at the rate we lose them, this should see the layout out. A splash of silver paint, a .75mm hole and a spot of Tacky Wax and they're ready for use.

Take Back The Radio - Katy J Pearson

I think the new Tatlow volume states that they were coated with bitumen inside, presumably for exactly that reason.

I have a vague recollection there might be one on the Alan Gibson etches. I doubt I can find mine now, but someone might have them left over in a box - now it's too late for you to use them, of course. I put an etched weatherboard affair onto a Hornby J15 for one of my mates at Ely Club, but I couldn't tell you where he got it from.

When Convict Boy and I were having this discussion over Facebook yesterday, I did say that I was prepared to accept that the instructions were wrong (I've found and notified Parkside of errors in their livery advice myself in the past). It's really only to show that I didn't just make it up or have a brainfart, I did work from what was then probably the only source I had. This was one of the first half dozen wagon kits I built, probably over 20 years ago. If he was less of a cheapskate and had bought a new kit of his own, we'd have up to date instructions to refer to. Interestingly, I put a scan of the picture from Tatlow into one or two of these online colourising sites and they all came back with a reddish tinge. Now I don't for a minute think they're completely accurate, but I am prepared to believe they give a general idea and in this instance it's leaning towards a shade of brown (or red oxide which is probably what it should be). I also put a photo of this wagon up here and on the LNER forum a couple of years ago and no-one commented. Maybe now we can come to a definitive verdict. Since the wagon wasn't even in the picture he was posting about, here it is for those who'd like to join the debate:

I refer m'learned colleague to the document I supplied, to be admitted to evidence as' Exhibit A.'

"Knobs & Knockers" used to be quite common when I lived darn sarf. I did notice when I was in Cambridge in May that the one near the Grafton Centre was no more.

I'm surrounded by boxes of Grantham stock at the moment, going back over my notes from Harrogate and the running weekend and investigating faults. Just a couple of jobs from the bench last night: The RF in the Leeds Quint had lost a roof vent. I had scratchbuilt these, so I wasn't looking forward to trying to replace it, but in the end it was a fairly straightforward job. The roofs on these have never been finished as I didn't ever get hold of the artwork for the roof boards, but there is a chance that something may finally develop. I put the chains on the first steel container last night as well. I'm not happy with how well the tensioning is working, so 'll probably have another go. Slack chains can almost look worse than none at all.

Indeed they have: here are 4426 at Leeds show, on one of the heaviest teak expresses we run, the 13:40 down to Ripon and York - (Photo Graham Nicholas) .. and No. 1 on its way to Move 9 3/4. (Photo Tony Wright)