WFPettigrew

GNR to Keighley (to maximise their share of the traffic) then onto the Midland?

Thanks Marc. I had gone through the Lightmoor Index with various combinations of Wood as well as other possible four letter words, like Moor, without success. Didn't think to try HMRS!

Thank you, that one - and the identical top left by the brake vans - had been puzzling me! Can I throw a question out to the collective minds, on some other private owner wagons in this photo please? First of all, this PO wagon: Something Wood Colliery perhaps? Or something completely different? The others around it are two Robet Balfour (Barrow coal merchant), South Kirkby colliery and Featherstone (coal supplier to Barrow shipyard). And secondly, does anyone have any idea about these please? I think all three are the same owner, but does anyone recognise this mark? All the best Neil

The very same.

And frequently did not fill the whole wagon. Just look for example at the FR wagaon fairly central and foreground in the photo of Barrow yard I posted on this thread on the previous page (353). All the best Neil

At least the tumblehome seems to be as close to straight as makes not much difference in 4mm? So you are only really needing to introduce the curve that takes the the bottom of the tumblehome round to the solebar ie the turnunder? Just thinking that the bottom should be "easier"* to roll into a curve than the top which is largely fresh air. * Relatively. Possibly with the complexity of the sort of relativity that Einstein was into.

Thanks Paul for the positive identification and the help with dating. Do you know what the normal cycle of repainting was for NER wagons please?

History rewritten. Essery and co all got it wrong. It was the wagons that were painted Crimson Lake... Doh...

And well into Furness territory too: Embedded image of Sankey Collection image 3932 showing the FR's Barrow yard, taken from one of the big cranes at the Barrow shipyard - quite an achievement for Mr Sankey to climb up the lengthy, exposed ladders with his camera to take this! The Pope and Pearson is near the back, in front of the lime wagon that is in front of freshly repainted FR saloon carriage as we view it. Other PO wagons visible include Soutk Kirkby and several Featherstones (the latter were the coal supplier to the Barrow shipyard so are seen in numbers in photos), and two from Robert Balfour (Barrow coal merchant). Of FR interest are the three open roof cattle wagons of Diagram 48 upper left, dating back to 1880 or earlier, and the ventilated meat van directly above the NB wagon on the dockside. This is an image I have discussed offline with Stephen previously, before the Sankey collection went live. Aside from the oddity of the NB + MR + LNWRx 2 etc in the foreground, all loaded with possibly the same thing (dredged sand perhaps? Or something else?) the mix of wagons here is very much FR dominated, with the smattering of foreign wagons you'd expect in the main marshalling yard that was the reception point for incoming goods for all of Barrow's industries and the domestic market. There are also no MR wagons with their numbers on the side below the M. So probably this is pre-pooling, and possibly therefore pre-war. But if anyone has any further observations regarding dating? All the best Neil

That came from an email on the Cumbrian Railways Association chatline from Guy Wilson, the Digitial Archivist, quoting past editions of the CRA Journal. Guy stated: "30 May 1896; FR to paint coaches ultramarine and white instead of brown and buff" He also quoted earlier sources: "6 March 1880: FR rebuilding 3rd class carriages by stripping down to frames and forming 4 compartments in place of 5; details given – painted brown externally relieved with vermillion and gold." "27 May 1882: New FR 3rd class carriages “upholstered in good brown paint” " Yes indeed there is such a photo. Alan Headech, who has done extensive research and written articles for the CRA Journal on FR carriages including the early stock, has described evidence of early Furness Railway carriage livery as "extremely sketchy". He said early panelled carriages were painted in a two colour scheme, ie, upper panels a light colour, "possibly cream" and the lower panels a dark colour, "possibly lake". He stated that panelled carriages were provided for 1st and 2nd classes, also composites. He said 3rd class and parliamentary carriages, mostly with outside framing, were "varnished" at that time. But, as stated above, by 1880 it would appear the thirds at least were being painted brown not teak. The Locomotive Magazine of September 1897 (when the stock was midway through being repainted into the new Aslett livery) described the FR carriage livery as: "The older carriages are painted chocolate, but a few are finished in varnished teak - these have a gold stripe round the panels, and the lettering is in gold, shaded with red brown. The new passenger stock has the lower panels painted dark blue, and the upper portion a very light blue, almost white, with dark blue framing and gold stripes around the windows, panels, &c. The letters and figuring are in gold with fine blue line around." It is unclear from this whether the lining referred to in the first sentence relates to the chocolate or teak carriages. I suspect it refers to the "chocolate" livery and could be both. The "red brown" shading sounds suspiciously like Indian Red...! The teak carriages could be the old former WCER carriages with outside framing that survived for many years in workmen's trains. And note there is no mention here of "brown and buff". One of the two 1896 sources must have got it wrong or at least not got it all right, and the 1880-1896 livery was either all over brown with lining for all carriages, or that first and second class carriages were brown and buff, and the thirds brown all over. Anyway, briefly back on thread. The Locomotive Magazine goes on to say: "Horseboxes and carriage trucks are painted dark blue with white lining." So Mike if you are going to go with ultramarine, it's white not gold lining. And if you are going pre 1896, then as the post 1896 livery for NPCS was a cheaper version (with white not gold lining) then you could probably make a case that previously a NPCS vehicle like a horsebox might more naturaly fall into the varnished teak livery than the chocolate? But, who will ever know the right answer?! Two final references to complete the story. Firstly, an article at the time of the 1896 new livery stated it would take around three years to repaint the stock, as FR carriages were repainted once "every three years". Secondly it is known that some FR carriages were all over ultramarine in the final days of the independent company and some authors have suggested this was a wartime economy measure. There is a source from June 1919 which states this new livery ("ultramarine blue with a lining of gold") had been applied to "8 coaches so far", because the white was getting dirty quickly due to iron ore dust. Now, with circa 300 carriages on the books in 1914 (ignoring the NPCS) that would suggest Barrow works had the capacity to repaint 100 cariages a year, or two per week - which does sound reasonable. Therefore I think the all over ultramarine livery was an introduction in 1919 rather than during the war. All the best Neil

😍 That said, the Ultramarine livery was only decided on in 1896, so is that a bit late for you? And sorry no I don't know what colour they were in their first 20 years of existence before the blue livery came in. Carriages were brown previously, or brown and buff (the difference not being defined, brown and buff may be an earlier livery) and the brown might or might not have been close to the loco "Indian Red". There is a suggestion of varnished teak, possibly pre c 1880, or possibly on only some carriages, for example inherited stock from the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont used in workmen's trains. If you did go with the brown, of whatever shade, the carriages at least were lined with vermillion and gold.

The GWR Saints were both 4-6-0s and 4-4-2s.. (And probably others?)

That or they were more advanced with AI in 1899 than we previously realised. "Alexa, please design me a steam locomotive. It must feature outside frames, a combustion chamber Belpaire firebox, lots of springs, and be both clearly Great Western in appearance and also looking like it was drawn by a four year old with an odd dominance of the vertical over the horizontal in their drawings"

Spatry looked great today - your M&C stock is just gorgeous (and as for the FR Pettigrew 0-6-0T... 😍) Sorry I cannot be with you again tomorrow. Neil

Oooh mixed gauge on the turnback and cassettes!?! 😈

Oops. Hangs head in shame. Yes, I should have known that...

And dark in the tunnel, so you only really see in black and white anyway....!

Further to the above, with more thought applied... Certainly with the larger slates, even with a 10 ton wagon, the density of slate (see upthread for discussion on this) is such that you could not cover the entire floor of the wagon with slates, as this would take the wagon over its maximum load. To give an example: in the FR Diagram 10 as in the model, internal dimensions 14'6 x 7', Kirkby large bests (average length of 30") would have a gap of about 4 feet in the middle of the wagon (thankfully very roughly what I have - I did this sum after creating the slates...!) while small bests would have a gap of 2 feet in the middle. The longer FR side door two plank, the Diagram 14 which features in the photo at Kirkby slate wharf, would have had only 9' of the almost 17' internal length taken up with slate with a big gap in the middle. The two other Victorian diagrams of 2 plank wagons on the Furness (a fixed side and a drop side) were roughly the same internal size as the D10 but were of 6 to 10 ton capacity, so some of these would have had larger gaps depending on their load capacity, etc. So - stacking the slate across the wagon was used in Kirkby because if you stacked from the ends, you would have to introduce packing in the middle to stop the slates on the ends of the stacks from falling over into the gap like toppling dominoes. I think the friction and weight from a well packed series of transverse stacks would be enough to hold the slates in place without the need for wooden or other packing under normal operation. It is impossible to see in the photos I am aware of if the FR wagons had any packing in place, but I suspect not. What the Welsh quarries did with Cambrian or LNWR wagons, though, I don't know. All the best Neil

Yes. There is a twice published photo of large bests being loaded at Kirkby slate wharf in circa 1910. I am uncertain as to copyright so best not reproduce that here. And I did share this photo on here in May 22, showing a FR D15 fixed side two plank wagon loaded with slate in the sidings at Grange-over-Sands. No reason to assume though that the actions of the Kirkby slate wharf stackers (employees of the quarry) would be the same as those at the Welsh quarries. The Welsh slates were uniform size and therefore would stack together better in any case, and the Kirkby slate being thicker were more robust. All the best Neil

Shame then to hide it permanently in a tunnel. Now, if you want an engine, to attach to a train, that is afraid of a few drops of rain...

The finest Welsh slate could be rived (split) to 1/6 inch - which is just 2 thou in 4mm scale! Photocopier paper is twice as thick as this. However not all Welsh slate was split down that finely, and the Cumbrian slate was 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick - the latter was coarser to look at, but it was stronger and less likely to break in transit or use. Because I am modelling the Furness in 4mm, I have the luxury of best slates from Kirkby in Furness scaling down as 5 - 7 thou rather than having to break out the Rizla paper or whatever! Windsor and Newton 110gsm cartridge paper is 6 thou so that is what I went with. I also have the luxury in that I don't have to replicate the uniform stacks of set sized slates as per the Welsh quarries, as the Kirkby slates were almost all sold as "randoms", of varying lengths and widths with certain parameters. That said, this does mean that were I to try using either a laser cutter (or a Silhouette or similar), creating the artwork would be far more of a faff. As it was I spent some therapeutic evenings cutting out hundreds of "large bests", complete with the cut-off shoulders as per Kirkby but not Welsh practice, to replicate the originals, which were 24” to 36” long randoms. They were then glued together (I found Pritt was easier to manage than pva type glues like the Rocket one for card) in stacks to fit a Furness Diagram 10 wagon, sprayed with Halfords grey primer then given various washes to try and replicate the "blue grey" colour of the Kirkby slate. Cruel enlargement shows the deficiencies of my weathering washes! Wagon is one of @MarcD's products with Masokits W irons and brakes (far side). Decals courtesy of a swap with @Compound2632 giving him more MR ones to play with in return for his unwanted FR ones! Usual no connection with suppliers blah happy customer blah.

Is there room for a hidden blind siding going straight on (i.e. under where your "twin track" text starts) so that a train that has to reverse can slide into there and get the clearance to then set back down to the cassettes? It looks like it should be possible to have a cutting side behind the "proper" AC Junc to hide such a turn-back?

Just superb!

That would put most people off. However, this is Citadel we are talking about here. I am now waiting for the post saying how he used kindergarten crayons or felt tip pens, and knocked out an impeccable rendition of the aforementioned red/gold lining and script in 35 minutes. (Both sides.)

Thank you Alan, I am not going mad then...! Thought I had posted it - but it wasn't coming up on any searches I did earlier. Bloomin' computers...!