richard i

Hi Richard

 

With my limited experience of making things in plastic card they can some times bow. It may be the day after you build it, or a week or a month or many many years down the line. And when it does you would have forgotten about calling me "a cheeky begger".

Like an elephant I won't forget and you will have my humble apologies when it does. I only forget things like my wife's birthday and my children in supermarkets. If it does bow I could put a strengthener in disguised as a man holding the sides apart.

Hi Richard

 

The b'day wagon looks good.

 

As for the box on bogies, how about running it loaded. Then there is no need to worry about what the floor looks like and it will stop the sides from bowing.

I had thought about loading it up, but I have more loaded coals than unloaded. The other issue which would sway it towards being loaded is that I have not modeled the insides of the doors so it would be that which would push me towards loading it up.

By the way, You cheeky beggar, The sides are not bowed, that is the camera doing a fish bowl on the wagon. And we'll you would know this to be the case.

Richard

Advice, for the metal sided 30ton coal wagon, internally did it have a wooden floor or all metal construction?

It looks very grey at the moment it feels it needs colour, if it is all metal then some judicious weathering may be needed.

Ideas?

Richard

Here are the two most recent projects on my workbench, both with an Edwardian theme:

 

gwr4wheel6.jpg

 

gwr4wheel7.jpg

 

The 4-wheel brake third is the Ratio kit mounted on an etched chassis from Mainly Trains, which includes compensation. It's probably not needed on my 00 layout (especially as I tend to use Bachmann wheels) but quite fun to say I've finally built a vehicle with compensation. I can't take any credit for the Mallard clerestory, which was bought as seen, but I do take a lot of pleasure from owning a superbly made and painted kit such as this, and it's an incentive to try to approach the same standards in my own efforts. To that end, I've acquired the equivalent kit for the brake clerestory, and I look forward to trying to do it justice.

 

I've also made a start on this Dragon Models kit for a Rhymney Railways 6 ton brake van (apologies for the fuzzy photo), only two of which prototypes were made, eventually passing into GWR ownership:

 

rhymney2.jpg

 

This has posed some interesting challenges, but I hope it's also also pushed my skills a bit and I think it will come out well enough when finished. I doubt I'll ever build a smaller vehicle in 4mm - it really is tiny!

 

Alastair (Barry Ten)

Try building a gunpowder van, certainly the GCR one makes a standard 5 plank wagon look like a bohemeth.

Richard

http://www.hmrs.org.uk/stewards/index.php

allows you to select LNER and you can then send an email to the GCR steward.

E mail sent, we await a reply to see if that avenue can take us any further in the debate.

Richard

Does this get us any further on the secr road vans in GCR service?

Very kindly had a reply

Strangely had to do it as a photo as rmweb would not let me paste in from an email.

Does anyone have the book, can we go anywhere from here?

Richard

More progress on the free style lettering.

The letters have been cleaned up, the pencil marks rubbed out and a little embellishment to the three feathers in the middle. Not sure how much the would have got in real life but I can not find a photo of a Cambrian wagon in Cambrian livery on the net which is not a model.

I don't think I will give up the day job just yet but it has certainly given me food for thought on how to get the one off companies' liveries in my collection .

Richard

Had a go at at hand painting the lettering on the Cambrian wagon.

Tried to use a bowpen for the first time.

First side

Then second side

 

I think it improved, but clearly a lot more practice is needed to make a really presentable job, I most likely will cover most of this with a tarpaulin to hide the worst of these sins.

Advice on improved ways of doing this?

Richard

The wagon progress is slow.

Up to transfers, one lomac in GCR ex LDEC stock as they were close enough for the 3foot rule the other will be in GER lettering.

The Cambrian wagon needs lettering and covering in a tarp.

Hand painting has been suggested as is it worth getting transfers for one wagon?

The road van, might just stay in WD livery to avoid offending the purists. But that will wait until I have those transfers from wd models.

Richard

The idea of another cheap wagon has got me tempted now! Here's a drawing I've found. Are there any photos in GER livery online?

http://www.2mm.org.uk/products/instruction_sheets/pdf2-591.pdf

In the tatlow book, but it is so dirty you can barely make out the company insignia.

Richard

That is good to know.  Thank you. I have a photo (Tatlow book!) and a drawing with dimensions for the Mac K.  It had struck me that the Dapol Lowmac was perhaps close enough to form the basis of a conversion, but I had not acquired the kit and checked against the drawing.

 

And that's where you tell us it is way off in every dimension.

I've been a little tardy regarding the updates and I am on to the tender now. The chassis was assembled using the Hobby Holiday jig, it just made it easy to assemble the inner chassis up square.P1030679.JPGWe always worry about flared tenders. Geoff Holt always preferred forming them cold, but it was like trying to bend a spring. The instructions suggest annealing, and I'm always cautious about that as I worry about distortion. Dikitriki would be horrified by my avant garde way of annealing just the top edge. Anyway it seemed to work. But how to bend it? After considering various options, it was by using my home made bending bars, one edge of which is rounded off. Because the sides and back are one piece, the whole etch has to go in the bars at once. So the top edge went in, only about 1-2 mm was actually gripped and basically the side was pushed over against the edge of the bench. It seemed to work... The cylinder unit sports my homemade covers, the valve covers are tucked away behind the valences, which is just as well as they could be a bit tidier - but I am still developing my turning skills..P1030687.JPGThat is a wine glass nearby, sometimes in the evening, I just spend half an hour cleaning up or cutting out the next days parts...I've found that generally late in the evening is not a time to put things together...

Well not after a glass or two of wine anyway.

Richard

So not much has happened since I last posted I did however find time over the weekend to build a mock-up station building and also discover that once my slight extension to the front of the platform and the rather large gap at the back had been taken into account I had a scale 6' of platform in front of the water pipes allowing for an extension of the building across the front of it.

 

This has allowed me to put in the building as James suggested and keep the stores on the end. Although I will now be looking for something else to break up the view of the back scene further along the platform.

 

So without further ado I present the proposed station building for Oak Hill:

 

 

 

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Gary

You could finish the run from the station building to the end of the layout with a fence.

Thanks. That is interesting, because I was planning to buy the Dapol kit to see if I could bash it into a GE Mac K.   Clearly great minds think alike .... 

The old Hornby one is very close to the GCR ones so i have one to have a go at to back date it.

Progress of course posted on here.

Richard

 

edited for awful spelling, it is not even late over here.

You are, I think, correct to say that vehicles would be used throughout the year, and for economic reasons.

 

A farm might well have a cart (this is a cart as it has 2 wheels) and a waggon (4-wheels).  I am not aware that, in the case of these traditional vehicles, there were specific versions used exclusively for harvest loads.  Rather, I suspect, the carts and waggons might be adapted during harvest times to take higher loads by affixing harvest frames or ladders to each end.   Waggons, which have a greater capacity than carts, rise at the ends any-way, and I have seen pictures of them with harvest loads both with and without ladders.

 

Later, from about the turn of the Century, you might have had a harvest "trolley", essentially a 4-wheel flat-bed with ladders at each end, as an alternative to a waggon. Traditional waggons in their essential form date from the mid-eighteenth century, but would have been a relatively expensive bit of kit to have built new by 1900

In East Anglia and the East Midlands there was even a vehicle known as the hermaphrodite, a two-wheeled cart that could be converted to a four wheel waggon at harvest time. Their rationale was that smaller farms could not afford to have such vehicles standing idle for most of the year. Carts were much more suitable for the heavy loads of autumn and spring, when the ground is soft.  At harvest time, a front axle section is added together harvest frames/ladders.

 

This is a cart.  With the ladders it is a hay or harvest cart, so, while I think you are likely to be correct in assuming that it would be used for other loads at other times, I suspect it would have run without ladders in such cases.  If the layout is set in August, it is likely to be carting wheat sheaves in the form modelled.

 

That, at any rate, is the conclusion I am presently driven to by my fairly limited knowledge of the subject.  Further and better information is always welcome!

 

It might have to go into a barn on the next board which has yet to be built.

Are those "lowmacs", GE Mac K's?  if so, are they etched kits by D&S or some other manufacturer?

Lowmac is from Dapol it is the simple plastic kit just with new wheels.

Great layout and very interesting thread, one question though would cars of this quality have been carried open on lowmacs where they would get covered in smuts and soot. Around this period the railway company's would have had a good selection of covered carriage trucks (CCT) for this type of traffic and the lowmacs used for things like agricultural equipment etc. CCT's would have been loaded the same way from an end ramp as they were equipped with opening end doors. Sorry just my thoughts. Steve

Thankfully have several agricultural loads that need moving too, so I can change the load.

Farm wagon weathered and placed in the field. Yet to be glued down as always wait to see if it is the best place for it.

 

It is empty, can't decide what it would have left in it whilst it sat in a field. 1900 farming not a strong point of mine. Who would guess I wrote my dissertation on farming in Essex in 1805, but then I never had to set foot on a farm to write that. Academics versus practical and all that.

Any ideas appreciated.

Richard

I think it was a bit of both, some where I recall that they were too high? For the filling points but it does seem strange having just built immingham docks to then build something that could not use it.

 

Whilst I wait for the paint to dry.

A little wagon for a corner of the layout. Trying out wood building. Just going to give it some washes to dirty it up.

Richard

The CR also had some similar 30T coal wagons, but with the outer sets of doors slightly nearer the ends than these.  Unfortunately they were too far ahead of their time as there was not the infrastructure at docks, steelworks, etc. for efficiently unloading them.  Most ended up as loco coal wagons and some had the doors removed and were used as general merchandise wagons.

 

Jim

Something similar here, it all boiled down to most collieries not wanting to convert their loading areas to accept the new wagons.....from what I understand.

Complete, almost....

It is just resting on the bogies . It is not perfect, but for just a side conversion it came together reasonably quickly. There is something to be said for that when I need 100 plus wagons and 30plus coaches and all need building by me.

Richard

The sides of the coal wagon are not bowed in real life it must be the camera playing tricks again

And the trouble with traveling around is only certain things can get done.

Have built a couple of GER lomacs for some suitable cars. These have joined the painting queue.

 

Then a Cambrian wagon which had to stop as I need to solder up the bar over the top and was away from the soldering iron.

 

And lastly an idea to convert a park side lner sulphate wagon into a GCR coal wagon.

You can see the original side, the attempt to convert a side before accepting I could not reconcile the number of ribs on the side. So thirdly the scratch built sides. On the positive it has used the ends, floor, under gubins and bogies of the kit and the sides took just over a night to make.

I still have to bend round the angle fitted to the side below the sole bar.

I some how feel I should finish these before starting something else.

Richard

Which book?

Shirebrooks web page. As a historian I should really check their research, but in this instance I took it in good faith that the statement was accurate. For one, the companies which had them were listed rather than a general statement of how some pregrouping companies used them. Why would a company be listed if they did not use them as it would be easier to not list companies than falsely include them. In support was also a discussion on one of the threads on here discussing if they were repainted or kept in wd livery.

Be it true or not, it has gained enough traction with people and it is very hard to prove a negative, I.e. That they definitively were not used. Perhaps still in wd ownership and had running rights or loaned to the GCR but never taken into capital stock.

 

I am open to any proof one way or the other. I will be repainting the signal slightly as more infomation has come to light. So any advice happily received.

Richard

I don't think the GCR had any of these vans. Certainly they are not in the 1923 diagram book. However both the MET and the GER did have some.

The book of words say they did have them. So I was going off that. If it is not right then maya culpa. Elsewhere it has been discussed they were on loan so not taken in to stock book. Would that fit?