WFPettigrew

That does seem to get to make a lot of sense and gets to the heart of it. Thanks.

Apologies for my ignorance here, but how exactly did it work in choosing a route for a wagon to go foreign in pre-grouping days? The GW goods agent at - say - Swindon gets a load delivered to go to the other end of the country - say Skipton. There are numerous options for sending it north. Up to Glos and onto the Midland, to go the long way round via Leeds. Or either to Hereford onto the N&W, or via Didcot to Birmingham / Wolverhampton and either way so onto the LNW, then LYR and finally the Midland. Or even more esoteric options like Banbury and GC to go north. Etc. Were there company "loyalties" at play here (which you hinted at with LNW vs the CLC), was it purely charged on mileage? Could companies offer a discounted rate (so even though it may have been more to go Midland via Leeds in this example, the MR could discount to at least match or maybe better the rate of the LNW, for example) to win the traffic? And if so, how did the goods agent on the GW know which way to send, and therefore how much to charge? Sorry to ask a dumb question, that probably has been answered in this thread at least once already... Neil

Stephen Having had a look on my big computer monitor this morning, I cannot really say whether or not those were FR bolster wagons, as there is no identification and nothing that leaps out as FR. Yes the FR did have dumb buffered versions built in the 19th century, and as @SteamAle has already pointed out, dumb buffered chauldron wagons survived in West Cumberland up to and beyond the 1914 deadline for their supposed removal from the main line on both the Maryport and Carlisle but also on the Cleator and Workington (more of which in a moment) - so it is possible that any FR dumb buffered wagons still in existence would have migrated up there. However, there is lots of photographic evidence of FR wagons with self-contained sprung buffers on previously dumb buffered wagons, so my hunch is that generally in the 20th century the FR would have sprung their dumb buffered stock. I am not sure this would count as an internal user working, as I doubt the wagon works would had the capability to roll those tubes. However, the line passing the works was the Derwent branch of the Cleator and Workington from High Harrington which led to the Derwent Iron and Steel Works. It seems to me that it is as likely that these wagons are either from the iron and steel works, just like the WISC labelled wagons in the foreground, or are Cleator and Workington stock. Sorry, this only really confuses things perhaps?! All the best Neil

Is this the same Wilkinson that was a wagon hire firm? The rather lovely dumb buffer open in the third picture looks like it has the same oval owners plate on it as the mystery hopper wagon in the photo of B31 iron ore pit at Lindal which was discussed on these pages a while ago, and which the CRA's Ron Allison identified as a Wilkinson's hire wagon.

Sorry, not knowing anything about NB wagons, but was the Dia 1 only a mineral wagon? D299s were after all used for everything from foodstuffs to the dirtiest coals....?

Dare I suggest that it could be almost anything that needed to be kept dry? So yes agricultural produce (not just potatoes but maybe open crates of raspberries or even sacks of oats once their widespread growth diminished across England?) but also any processed food or manufactured goods where a crate wouldn't be enough to ensure they arrived in top condition?

Hi Stephen How about Garswood Coal and Iron Company? It's clearly an 8 letter title and probably a C or a G followed by an A at the start. This would be the right part of the world for a south Lancs coalfield wagon to be lurking. See https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british-isles/lancashire-coalfield/wigan-coalfield/park-colliery/ I don't have the various books but the Lightmoor Index also points to AT2 AW97 KM85 KT8/81.. I have less certainty about this - but... the end of the sheet is marked "? B C" and that made me wonder about North British - which did have that four leaved clover type illiterate symbol. Is that what we're seeing here? Hope this helps. Neil

Hi Jonathan Aside from the evidence of a photo, yes there was a (brief) crossover period where both diamonds and letters appeared. The book "LNWR Liveries" (Atlantic/HMRS) states that the diamonds dated back to a design on the Grand Junction Railway and were used (on their own) by the LNWR into the 20th century. In March 1908 it was minuted that new wagons and those going through the works would be lettered LNWR seemingly in a move to catch up with the numerous other companies by then putting initials on wagons. Is unclear when this actually started to be enacted in the paint shops, but I would guess fairly quickly. The diamonds were initially retained alongside the lettering - but by November 1911 they were no longer being applied, and from then on wagons were lettered only. So - this is at least three and a half years when both diamonds and letters were applied, and assuming a six or seven year wagon shopping/repainting schedule, you might imagine that (at least?) half of all LNWR wagons had both by November 1911. I would also guess that most or all of this number retained this livery by the start of the Great War - and given the traffic demands of the conflict, many of this number would have not been repainted until after the war. So there is going to be a period from 1909 for up to a decade when you'd get even odds on seeing a LNWR wagon with both diamonds and letters. All the best Neil

Anyone fancy a Caley pug pretending to be a Furness loco 🙄?! Etc etc

Thank you Stephen for this and the comments about the washer plates on the end sheets.

Thank you for sharing this Stephen, for those of us not in the Midland Railway Society. I find this most reassuring - I had started to get a suspicion from your previous writings about their demise that by my 1913-14 era that they would have been in significant or even terminal decline, but clearly not. That said I appreciate that the 65-70,000 that were still extant at the start of the Great War were going to be the newer ones, so more likely to have oil axleboxes, and less likely to have those extra washer plates on the end panels? But I can get on and build the several Slaters kits sat in the cupboard with no concerns that they might be too early for me. Yay! All the best Neil

Very pre-grouping....

One footnote to add to Stephen's researches for those who may not be aware to help those after a pre-grouping example - any wagon listed as single sided brake would have been introduced before 1911. All the best Neil

Yes that's right. I used to be a committee member of a charity, which also has trustees who were non-executives, but that all changed so now the committee members are trustees. We avoided having to change the constitution to suit by moving to become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation or CIO, which needed a whole new constitution of its own which was far longer than the old one!!

I am on the look out for a Hornby Peckett W4 body only if @Schooner or anyone else in the chassis bodging stakes has one going begging for a reasonable price please? The alternative will be to buy a whole one, and then flog the chassis to a 3D printed body owner looking for 00 wheels of course... All the best Neil

Thank you Stephen for such a clear demolition of the suggestion! And also to @MarcD and @Penlan for further input. Much appreciated. Oh and this did make me chuckle. Only in this thread would that make perfect sense... !

I would like to pose a question for the erudite masses here, following an email exchange with Ron Allison, the Furness Railway wagons guru at the Cumbrian Railways Assocation. Ron mentioned that it has appeared in print that the FR had more 2 plank wagons than any other pre group railway company. He finds this very hard indeed to believe. The total FR wagon fleet handed over to the LMS in 1923 was just over 7500 wagons, and that includes non-revenue vehicles like loco coal waogns, ballast wagons and brake vans. Ron also points out that the FR didn't classify wagons by their planks which makes it very hard to know accurate figures - the Diagram Book produced by the FR for the LMS just prior to the Grouping does feature numbers for the various types of wagon listed, but given that some of the other information in there is demonstrably wrong (e.g. gunpowder wagons which are claimed to be introduced in 1913 that other sources say only had a single wheel single sided brake - a new wagon in 1913 would have legally been required to have brakes on all four wheels), it's hard to know how much the totals quoted can be trusted. Would anyone be able to offer any insights that might prove or disprove the assertion? I know the Caley had 2 planks, as did the LNW, to name but two other, large pre-grouping companies and there must have been others? All the best Neil All the best

This is true Stephen for larger lines, and I suspect that by the turn of the century also true for the Furness, after Mr Pettigrew took over at Barrow works. However no FR tender invitations survive to my knowledge, so we cannot be sure what degree of information was provided, be that drawings, or written specifications, etc. But even if the Birmingham drawings are accurate tracings of FR originals, we also know that what was proposed in a drawing and what was actually built are not always the same thing.... So at best those drawings are a starting point in research, but I don't think they should be relied upon as an accurate depiction of the actual vehicle. All the best Neil

One probably common explanation is that the drawing was from a private C&W builder for a tendering process, and which wasn't successful, as someone else won the order. There is a list of Furness Railway drawings from the Birmingham C&W, and few if any were built as other contractors were used instead. All the best Neil

I hadn't taken that from what you wrote - more that in rural areas it was more unlikely. And as you say, the deliveries around a town/small village could have come direct from the farm. Which reminds me of the old gag - "eggs fresh from the milkman" - clearly a man of many talents..

There is more evidence of the "exporting" of milk from rural areas in a fascinating book I stumbed across in the reserve collection of my local (Cumbria) library service: "Westmorland Agriculture 1800-1900” by Frank W Garnett MRCVS (Titus Wilson Kendal 1912). (The particular book has stamps going back to the 1940s, and the sheet inside the front cover for date stamps goes back as far as 1966!!!) This very well researched book by a local vet noted that in a typical village in Westmorland, 59% of the farmland was given over to pasture, such was the dominance of livestock farming, with sheep outnumbering cattle by about 5 or 6 to 1. By 1900 the vastly dominant cattle breed in the county was the shorthorn, aka the dairy shorthorn (with otherwise only a few upland (belted) Galloways and one herd of pedigree Jerseys). So the shorthorns were certainly producing milk rather than just beef. The book states that by 1890 there was a healthy traffic of milk in churns being sent to markets in Manchester, Liverpool and even London by train. Interestingly, as the milk had to be cooled first to help it travel better/stay fresh longer, the book states that this was only done from farms which had access to running water. There was an attempt to open a butter factory in Barbon in 1886 (on the LNWR between Low Gill and Ingleton) but it closed within a year or two because of a fall in the price of butter and didn't reopen. The LNWR was said to be taking 185 tons of butter from stations in Westmorland in 1891 - which is 3.5 tons a week, so indicative of a cottage industry from some farmhouses. The only other observation I would make is that all of this predates pasteurisation which I would suggest would have been the big driver to have a dairy selling to every home in rural as well as urban areas. Before the Great War, and before the turn of the century, I think you are spot on James that milk from local farms that wasn't being sold off to the cities would be sold direct to customers - or taken in churns to the village stores and so sold to the local populace. All the best Neil

I think there are other factors at play here: wheel size, ability of the cylinders to fill with steam and empty effectively, ability of the boiler to deliver steam, etc.

Wasn't the logic regarding Singles simply that there were fewer bearing surfaces so less friction? And if designers were following this ethos then they would have done so knowing this? But I might have got that wrong? All the best Neil

I would do this Chas - the primer itself has acted as a bit of a filler/leveller, and I found earlier this week that using a filler (Perfect Plastic Putty from Deluxe was the one to hand, no connection etc) it filled a few small indentations beautifully, which took hardly any sanding today to achieve a surface I was after. It's also worth noting that as this stuff sticks nicely to rattle can primer, but doesn't stick to brass / NS in my experience, this is a way of filling brass without using yards of solder. All the best Neil