Nick Holliday

Zinc sheeting would be a cheaper and lighter alternative.

There were plenty of tram networks in the south which ventured outside the built up areas. The most rural of all probably was the Portsmouth and Horndean Tramway (or Light Railway). Google came up with some useful pictures.

I agree the Harworth picture, apparently actually Bentley Colliery is later, and that Bentley only opened in 1908 and Harworth perhaps seven or more years later. However, BW&C stands for Barber and Walker and Co. and they dated back to the 1880s and owned collieries on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire borders, such as Brinsley, High Park, Moorgreen, Selston and Watnall. Turton's Fifth Collection, page 176, shows that they owned a number of older style wagons, and often omitted the colliery name. These would have easy access to the MR.Even more enlightening is a picture in his Thirteenth Collection, page 150. This is a magnificent panorama of Buxton yard in pre-grouping days, but sadly undated. The caption notes a number of Private Trader wagons, such as BLF (Buxton Lime Firms), Barber & Walker, Beattie of Manchester, Brentnall and Cleland, Lea and Co, London, Pollards of Burnley and a mystery D&F, possibly Day and Ferguson of Buxton. Elsewhere in this volume is the story of S Taylor, Frith, originally a quarry owner at Peak Forest.

Just a long shot, but, as a Southerner, my thoughts had jumped to Brentnall and Cleland, whose wagons were lettered B&C, albeit, latterly, in red, with the full name in white above. A Google search to check details came up with a view from Lightmoor Press archive, showing their wagons at Harworth Colliery in north Nottinghamshire. Prominent in this view were a large number of Harworth Colliery owned wagons, but they were all lettered B W & Co, with the ampersand smaller than the main capitals, and the name of the colliery written on the top plank. This latter livery seems to fit quite well with what can be made out in the photos. The capital B and C are reasonably clear, the W would have been on the door, not a number as some have suggested, and there is a faint indication of some lettering on the top plank, at least on the nearest wagon. The colliery' location is not too unreasonable either.

Fair comment; as I typed Oxford I was thinking most of their output is based on 1923 standards, but there are a few older designs in the other ranges that might suit. However, since, as I recall, all of the Slaters range is based on 1907 standards or later, and most, if not all, of the Cambrian range is likewise, also applicable to Parkside, both old and current ranges, you are a bit on a hiding to nothing with regard to finished wagons. The only suitable wagon kits I can think of are the various whitemetal ones from 5&9 Models and the S&C wagons from Roxey, all of which are dumb-buffered! As regards Lecorbusier's comments, I will agree that many of the examples in the books are post grouping, but there are plenty of early examples, particularly in Montague's book on the Gloucester company, although whether they are pertinent to the Monsal Dale area is debatable. Although modellers tend to think of only a handful of wagon builders, there were probably over a hundred scattered around the UK, as Chris Sambrook's massive tome from Lightmoor on the subject indicates. Len Tavender's book on coal trade wagons has his drawings of a wide variety of styles of older wagons which might be inspirational.

There is a third type of coal trader, the larger merchants or factors, such a Stephenson Clarke, who could cover large areas of the country, and often representing a group of collieries.There is a superb resource on the Lightmoor Press website, a complete index of published private traders wagons. Using this you can search for entries against the various stations along the line, which would give a good idea of local merchants. Finding suitable factors is a bit harder, but perhaps someone can point towards suitable candidates for your area. To a certain extent, selecting collieries that might have supplied directly is up to you, as often special types of coal meant that a distant supplier migh be preferred, such as anthracite from South Wales that almost always was delivered in colliery owned wagons (One of Turton's books is dedicated to this trade), or occasionally an unmissable bargain might be offered when a mine is trying to clear stocks. What you probably will have to do is look through appropriate photo albums to spot potential examples, with the Lightmoor index helping to identify the names. As far as models are concerned, at least in 4mm, don't ignore the RTR examples. The latest Bachmann, Hornby and Oxford offerings are often every bit as good as, or even better than, a kit built wagon. The only problem is that some of the older offerings are less accurate, but often they still look reasonable on a layout.

As I recall Colin Ashby produced 4mm plastic kits, back in the day, for the MR Sleeper wagons, of both varieties, I think. His kits were always fairly elusive, and I have only got a couple in my kit pile, and, as I could not really justify MR engineering wagons on an LBSC layout, I let the chance to buy the sleeper wagons pass, much to my later regret. Does anyone know the full range he produced? I was surprised to see an archived entry in RMweb that showed a GCR open - one that I would have acquired with alacrity at the time, if I had known of its existence, and I suspect there are more gems there.

You might be interested to know that Gramodels make a range of 4mm LSWR wagon bodies in cast resin. These include one and three plank wagons, with both steel and wooden underframes. I have bought a few, and they are nice castings, but I haven't got round to completing the work, so I can't vouch for the ease of construction.

It's Falconbrass Works who do the etched LSWR gate stock. Currently they are only listing the etches on their own. For some reason they only appear in the SR list, not LSWR. I can't say how accurate they are - they date, AFAIK, from early Jidenco days, and I don't know if they represent the original condition, or later variations.

I have just discovered that there is a 3mm scale drawing of a converted TVR railmotor as a trailer in Jenkinson and Lane's book on British Railcars. It also has extensive coverage of the TVR vehicles, including details of conversions to mainline service.

I was going to suggest the John Lewis / Wild Swan books covering GWR railmotors etc., but the one covering steam railmotors, although covering the TVR ones in some detail, with drawings, does not mention the un-powered trailers. These are covered in the third in the series, Great Western Auto Trailers Part 2 - Post-grouping and Absorbed Trailers. However, although there is an ISBN quoted - 1 874103 25 9 - I cannot find any reference that suggests it has appeared yet. Edit Sorry, this crossed with Chris's entry, so please ignore!

There are at least two useful sources of drawings for locos of this early era - The Locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, by T R Pearce, published by the HMRS, and Bradley's LSWR Locomotives - Early Classes from Wild Swan. The former has GA drawings for a couple of Hawthorn locos of the same era, but, they are inside cylindered, and the drawings are not to a recognisable scale, and difficult to interpret. The Bradley book has a number of GA's, including some outside cylindered locos, and have been reproduced at 7mm to the foot. For example Clyde, a 2-4-0 class, has buffers at 6' 0" centres on a 7' 9" bufferbeam, with the cylinders being 7' 10" overall width, its cab being 7' 2" wide. The more familiar Beattie 2-4-0T well tank had a similar bufferbeam, but the width over cylinders was only 7' 6 1/2".

I quite liked the sinuous nature of the original plan. Could you have the sliding fiddle yard at a slight angle, rather than parallel to the back wall? That way you could keep the curve, rather than having to introduce that unnecessary s-bend. As another fan of Castle Rackrent, although I understand your need to access the yard, could you not move the loco shed etc. to the left slightly beyond the exit line? That way you could have a little more space for the yard, and it would help to break up the scenic break line, while still giving you some room to work the yard.

I don't know how accurate this is, or whether it meets your requirements but it's a starter https://cosmictigger.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/hamilton-potter.jpg

A possible solution to the actual arch problem may lie within the SE Finecast range of building sheets. These come with, if I recall correctly, a number of moulded arches, which may provide a suitable fit. It might be worth contacting them if you have some firm dimensions to offer, or getting to an exhibition they are attending so you can inspect their sheets for yourself. You may have to adjust your dimensions to get a best fit answer.

Since your link doesn't go to a particular type, I am not sure if this is the right one, but perhaps this will help. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaytilston/4263641324/in/pool-1074577@N22/

49395 has got it right. That book shows that Cowans and Sheldon supplied around 70% of the NER's turntables. The earliest ones were, indeed, mainly 42', but from around 1879 the normal size was 50'. Then, in 1900 and thereafter a few 55' ones were installed, mainly at Leeds Neville Hill shed, but from around 1905 the standard size was 60', which was the norm until after grouping. The book is not so illuminating regarding coaling, the coverage being far less comprehensive than other sections, such as water cranes and towers. There is a 1956 photo of Whitby, and a note that Bridlington did not have any coaling facilities, at least by 1929. There is, however, a useful suggestion that the North Eastern Railway Association can supply, at a modest price, facsimiles of LNER Loco Shed diagrams, which would appear to show the coaling arrangements.

It's interesting to hear about this sort of thing from first hand experience. What I would say is that having coal bins close to the tracks was not something that occurred at many locations, unlike the perception of railway modellers, judging by the pictures in the Google search mentioned by APOLLO. From photographic research of the real thing, not models, I believe that it was largely confined to the south-east, although there are isolated examples outside that area, and I would say Bedford was getting towards the outer limits. Another point is that, for genuine safety reasons, the propping of wagon doors was officially frowned upon, as there was considerable risk of severe damage to either the pens or the wagon if it was moved with the door down, perhaps by a rough shunt, or because someone forgot to close it before the wagon was moved. I have seen temporary arrangements using trestles or single poles, but they were only used when bagging the coal directly from the wagon, when the limited amount of coal that could be got from the wagon door opening was sufficient for a 1 cwt bag. A permanent set up would have required a Nelsonian "I see no ships" attitude from the stationmaster! I would like to know the technique used to unload by hand, as that is something I have not experienced, but I would have thought that the bulk of the load was shovelled over the top of the wagon, as trying to post all 16 tons of coal through a hole three feet square seems a rather tricky prospect.

In Great Britain standard sleepers were nominally 9' 0" long in pre-grouping days, shortened to 8' 6" subsequently. Hence the various calculations would result in slightly shorter sizes, if applicable.

I believe Eheim used to make a variety of cable cars, including industrial ones, but their successor, Brawa, only seem to produce cable car systems.

I think haystack fireboxes were the very high domed type, often four sided, as seen on the Furness Coppernob and GWR Firefly class, amongst others.

The compendia were entirely new material. http://www.modelrailwayjournal.com/compendium.php has listings of the content of each.

The whole story is explained in Mike King's Pull Push book, complete with drawings for most variations. As far as the Reading-Ash service, the bogie coach sets were transferred there in 1919, but LCDR R and R1 locos were used, as the P had proved under-powered to cope with four coaches, if running together.Mike King has the benefit of several years more research and info, and the dates he gives for the various SECR conversions are slightly different from Gould et al. 6 six wheel SER coaches were converted 1906/7, as trailers for the steam railmotors, with 3 more in 1909, probably for use with the P class. The 4 LCDR bogie coaches were converted in 1912, and could operate as pairs or singly. Over the next two years seven three coach sets of (mostly) LCDR six wheelers were formed for PP duties. Most of the earlier SER conversions had the PP equipment removed by 1917.

oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk I think. Nice photo of a D1 outside the shed.

As far as he LSWR is concerned, Gordon Weddell produced a comprehensive set of four volumes,form two pub Ushers, I think. Unfortunately they are out of print and usually command ridiculous prices, although sometimes they appear at more realistic figures. The SECR is less well served, there is an Oakwood Press book on the bogie coaches, and Lightmoor have produced a fully illustrated large size book with drawings. You shouldn't forget the third constituent, the LBSCR. Oakwood have a volume covering the bogie coaches, and Ian White, and others, have produced two recent volumes on the 4 & 6 wheel coaches, that are easily available, and he is working on another two to cover the bogie coaches. I don't know how easy it will be to source these in NZ, but there is plenty of information out there. Another possibility is Mike King himself. Apart from his books, he also produces sheets of drawings, which now cover almost every item of Southern coaching stock, if not wagons. These drawings often contain lots of useful information regarding numbering etc., and could be a very useful alternative if the books prove elusive.