GWR_Modeller

57xx, sorry I dont understand what your reply means?

Thanks that is illuminating. So red or black, any ideas?

Ok thanks. I reread a couple of things. GWR Rule 99 ie gates normally left closed across the public road was to apparently to comply with the BoT and it was from 1933 (not mid 20s as i wrote above) that exemptions on application were allowed due to a new Road and Rail Traffic Act. So it is more correct (and also of course convenient) in my period at least to model the gates across the road. I had been planning to automate the level crossing to move the gates when the train passed and they would have been inaccurately open most of the time to road traffic. On a busy road the signalman would have had to work hard and open and close the gates more often for road traffic than trains. Would a railway compnay have changed its rules prior to the new law to reflect the practicality of a situation or would they have applied the law strictly? I am certain that in either operating situation a train would not be permitted to enter the section until the gates were closed to road traffic.

Hi, I was wondering what colour were the lamps on GWR crossing gates during this period? At the Didcot reconstruction they use black lamps (obvioulsy with red glass) but I have seen many models and photos with red. Sometimes the date of the representation is unclear. During my reading I dont recollect the lamp colour being mentioned. But as usual I did found out some interesting details. The red disc was introduced pre Great War ca 1905. Also until the mid 1920s gates were normally closed against road traffic until a vehicle arrived and only then they were opened. After that time crossings could be exempted from that rule and were left open to road traffic until a train needed to pass and some crossings where operated both ways at different times and days. It was interesting to find out one face of gas lamps adjacent to the pedestrian gates, ie the one facing towards the road, was often red as well. One of the things I still have read more about was the signalling at crossings because one sentence suggested each crossing had its own stop signals and a lodge w gate keeper. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Thankyou for the assistance. More sheets it is. I will reserve the crates for the goods yard and shed. Paul

Yes I think I have seen a similar image for an overhanging timber load and the ropes go down and across to the opposite buffer, but for a crate or containers inside the wagon any ropes or chains would have to go over the sides unless there are rings inside?

Hi. I am currently spending a bit time doing some modelling and one of the things I want to complete(!) is adding loads to some OPENs. Some I have done easily by placing a tarpaulin over a sheet supporter or a few pieces of plasticard. Then I have modelled some uncovered with miscellaneous crates, casks, drums etc. Some have heavier loads such as timber overhanging. I also want to add some large crates or containers to a few. OPEN Cs seem to have tie down rings on the sides at the top of the stanchions but I can not see anything similar on 16' or 17'6''. There seem to be 2 small rings on each headstock and sole bar, eight in total, probably for tieing down sheets. So the question is: - How were larger loads tied down or secured in OPEN wagons? Regards, Paul

Good thought, pretty much b*****s my suggestion doesn't it.

Hi, A previous thread on this subject mentioned that black paint might be bituminous to help protect the iron from the effect of corrosion from the coal. If that is the case might wooden loco coal wagons be grey while the iron wagons were black?

Hi LMS, what is bagging? PAUL

Thanks Miss Prism, good link that explains things. So when the van is seperated, even by accident, the vacuum on the other side of the cylinder remains and the brake is on because the pipe side has normal air pressure. So to shunt the van the cord marked by the star on the underframe has to be pulled to release the vacuum and the brake (I had wondered what that was for). Then the manual brake has to be applied to hold the van in place later on. So if shunting, say, parcels vans would it take long to reestablish the vacuum afterwards. Or would it be quicker for the pilot to attach the vacuum pipe before shunting? More thoughts - did coaching stock have manual brakes? Fitted goods, Fruits, horseboxes etc had visible manual brake handles but I do not recollect seeing them on coaches? Could all locomotives generate a vacuum for brakes?

Hi All, Regarding gwr vans with vacuum brakes in the 1930s. I understand that the vacuum is generated at the engine and is connected to the vacuum cylnders of fitted wagons by a pipe and the presence of the vacuum pulled off the van brakes. The driver applied the brakes by allowing air to enter the system, this removed the vacuum and the piston in the cylinder applied the brakes. In a simple way is this accurate? Was there some spring in the cylinder which pushed the brakes on? So if a fitted wagon was in a siding not connected would the vacuum brake be on? How was a wagon shunted if the brake was on? Was there a lever or handle to disable the vacuum brake? And presumably hand brakes were independant, albeit using the same brake blocks, and they stayed on even when the vacuum pipe was connected? Regards, Paul

Ok. It was just my assumption the vans in the image were insulated because of what looked like thick doors and the vertical placking with no outside framing. The insulation and heating of banana vans was not to keep them cool but to prevent frost damage and to aid ripening en route. I suppose once ripened near major disribution centres they would have been moved locally and in the summer in ordinary vans without harm.

Hi, Banana boats were fast ocean going cargo liners varying in size but 350 to 450ft long and 5000 to 6500GRT would be typical. United Fruits dominated the trade to the UK. I read somewhere how many Fruit Bs would be filled by a ship but I cant remember where, iirc it was in the mid hundreds. A quick and dirty estimate using 1 grt equals 100 cu ft and volume of 800 cu ft per van gives six to eight hundred. In the 30s the derricks of the ship would be used to load and unload cargo nets onto the wharf but banana might be bruised if handled like that. There is a short news video of the first postwar bananas arriving in the uk - 'yes we have some bananas'. Banana boats might be refrigerated esp into 50s but the vans were heated hence steam banana vans in video and the insulated vans in your image. I dont know anything about NE vans. I dont think the fruit was in general warehoused in the dock but was loaded directly to vans and heated enroute so it was ripe at destination. The fruit offered to the mayor would be green if it was straight out of a cargo hold. Paul

I was thinking about the coal supply being delivered into a pile or ground level bunker and there shovelled down a chute to boiler level. Walking through some older areas of cities there is sometimes a metal hatch in the wall or pavement presumably for coal delivery, in a factory situation would the delivery wagon be on a ramp or might the ground levels be arranged to facilitate this, like a coaling stage but smaller.

Hi. Would the boiler fire box be below ground level?

Hi. There are far more knowledgeable people than me on this forum. My main interest is pre-war GWR so my observations relate to that period and company. Taking that into account I am fairly certain that parcels were seperate to goods traffic across all companies. Parcels were run in passenger class trains not goods trains. Some very large stations had seperate platforms for parcels traffic. Often large stations had bays where parcels vans could be loaded or unloaded. There are often pics of parcels vans eg siphons or full brakes in bays at stations. On platform photos there is invariably a set of scales on the station platform. I dont know for certain but I presume they were for parcels rather than weight conscious passengers. I saw photos of the inside of goods sheds with all sorts of cases, baskets crates etc beings handled and it took me a while to realise these were not parcels but were goods traffic, I think they were refered to as 'smalls'. All passenger stations had a parcels office where parcels were handed over or collected. I am fairly certain large stations had a delivery service. I also recently obsrved that the luggage office was very often adjacent to the parcels office. This makes sense when considering passenger luggage in advance, ie not travelling with the passenger, would have been handled on passenger trains. Some of the recent series of books on goods traffic describe the various goods traffics but I have not seen one doing a description of parcels traffic and operations. I still dont understand station trucks described in those books yet. I dont think they were parcels but they do seem to have stopped and unloaded on platforms despite being goods traffic. I have also noted in various books the charge rates for goods. On one website they were rates for parcels which were substantially higher. I hope this helps.

More widespread use of electric lights and availability of the power supplies necessary to the boxes?

I have looked various places including rmweb regarding milk transport and there is a question I have not been able to answer. Cow and Gate were important manufactureres of dairy products but I have never seen a picture of a Cow and Gate tanker or a livery description. Has anybody seen one or knows how they moved their products esp in the late 1930s? Paul

Perhaps they always used the same thing but it wasn't obvious in b/w photos? I presume older greases and oils were not synthetic and probably were both darker to begin with and got darker with drying out/ageing/sunlight. Is that a reasonable hypothesis? Is there also an element of rust causing discolouration? Paul

Hi. Still sketching a track plan. But imagine mainlines left to right with down line upper most, and an up main and up platform line. Branch bay top left, down bay right top and up bay bottom right. So branch trains as suggested earlier by TheJohnster enter bay directly, down trains reverse into down bay and up trains drive into up bay from up platform line. Terminating trains as follows: -the branch trains being auto gear fitted panniers/1400 and trailer; - The down train a pannier in a two trailrrs sandwich; -uptrains various if I can fit in an engine release and siding. Okay i know it is twee but I like auto train images and regretably the period is too late for a steam railmotor. I like Compound2632 and TheQ's description of operations, very useful. It clarified for me how things worked. Platforms seemed to be labelled with destinations (not necessarily on track plans but in station signage). It now makes sense that lower priority trains arrive and unload then move to wait in branches and bays for connecting mainline thro trains before departing. So platform names indicate departure destinations for platforms not arrivals, I feel a little stupid not realising that. Track plans make more sense. That means less unpleasant shunting operations for passengers and it makes sense for bays to be trailing. Thanks.

I admit that it was the facing point issue I was concerned about. I have looked through some station track plans and it appears there is a more flexible approach to these as time progresses. The qty I have looked at is small so that might not be statistically significant. I wondered whether the technology of facing point locks, track circuits or something them safer over time or whether it was the increasing traffic made them a necessity. The rebuilds at bigger stations seem to include more options for trains to call at different platforms and so there were more facing points. Is that a valid conclusion? The provisional decision I have made is to have an up bay with an engine release and siding which faces the up platform line, there is an up thro' line as well, so that seems a reasonable thing to do. Then branch trains which join the main line a few miles north (off scene) can run in and terminate in the bay. It does mean an engine has to shunt a parcels van onto/off the rear of a parcels train. At the other end of the station on the down side the branch train can the run into the branch bay but not mainline trains. That makes it awkward for down trains to use the bay. So I might put another on the down side at the same end as the up bay. I will have to do some work on any rail to see if it fits as the mileage yard is at that end as well. Thanks for your comments, information and advice.

Hi, I have been planning a gwr layout with a mainline through station set in 1930s/40s. I want to have bay platforms for branch, auto trains and parcels vans and similar. Is it typical (or acceptable) for trains to run straight into the bays from the mainlines or should the trains reverse into the bays? What are the operational issues? Regards, Paul

I bought a roll of 100 leds designed for garden use, the decorative type joined by varnished copper wires 10cm apart, for about a fiver on amazon a few years ago. I model in n so any visible light source is too big and I hide them out of line of sight in the ceilings or roof apex. I think the warm white looks good for a '30s feel. The supplied solar power pack had two aa size rechargeable cells so I run them at 3V. If I use 5v they get brighter and seem less yellow although I know the wavelength does not really change. I also had several sets actually in the garden and I have never had any fail due to insulation only due to rust in the solar panel thingy which isnt water proof enough. Fortunately I had a spare! The thin wires are easy to hide. PAUL

Hi. Yes, dependant on your definition of north light. I took this to mean 15' ish roof bays running at right angles to the tracks but not necessarily north facing glass eg Westbury which had glazing facing east. My main reference is E Lyons Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 and A Vaughn Great Western Architecture. Leafing through the former and only looking at four or more road sheds I get Southall, Salisbury, Westbury, Weymouth, Newton Abbot, Exeter and more. My understanding is most of these were 'Dean' sheds built 1890 ish. Later sheds, which I think of as the architype of Great Western sheds, were the 'Churchward' style with doors in gable ends, pairs of road per bay etc. Some older sheds were re roofed and Lyons notes some north lights which were replaced by slate pitched rooves, presumably the glazing no longer necessary with better lighting. Paul