Cwmtwrch

18 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

The insides of PO coal wagons (and railway owned examples, including the BR steel ones) were unpainted save for any metalwork on wood bodied wagons, which was generally given a 'black japanned' finish at construction. Open merchandise wagons were similarly unpainted when wooden bodied.

The unknown is the pre-BR steel bodied coal wagons - BR adopted a policy of using a self-weathering grade of steel (Corten) but how widespread that practice was for pre-BR wagons is unknown to me.

The body metalwork of wooden BR merchandise wagons was painted in whatever the relevant body colour was, grey or bauxite, confirmed by photographs. LNER 16T minerals and 21T hoppers seem to have been grey inside and out, also judging from photographs. The LMS carried out some experiments with batches of loco coal wagons with bodies in beryl steel, copper bearing steel [which might have been corten], and wrought iron, none of which were apparently pursued, although the wagons lasted well into BR days. Why paint the internal steelwork on wooden 13T but not on steel 16T?

So far as I know, corten steel was not normally used at any time for railway wagons in the UK. It was used, I think for passenger cars(?) in the USA and found to be ineffective. It depends on the formation of an oxide surface layer which adheres, preventing further rusting, which works quite well on the outside of buildings. However, this rust layer is not impact resistant, so it would be destroyed by 16 tons of coal being dropped into the wagon, and is rendered ineffective by paint. It is also more expensive than mild steel, and would have been available in very limited quantities, if at all, during and immediately after WW2, when steel was rationed, with railway use definitely not the highest priority. While it is only slightly more difficult to weld than mild steel, using modern techniques, these may not have been available earlier, as the wide-spread use of welding in the UK only developed during the 1940s.

As Becasse points out, photographs consistently show a very dark interior, which colour photos suggest was black originally. There is a black and white photograph of a brand new 16T mineral at the Battersea Wharf exhibition in 1952, built by BRCW, which has a matt interior finish, which could be dark grey, black, or dark brown. It has white wheel rims, which would have been for the exhibition, but there is no reason to suppose that the internal finish was anything but standard. Given the acid nature of wet coal, bituminised paint would seem to be strong possibility.

I have a copy of BR 87209 dated December 1958, which gives "Colours for Freight Rolling Stock". Briefly the colours given are:

Unfitted Opens, Merchandise, mineral and steel-carrying: Timber body - woodwork unpainted, steelwork grey, Steel body - grey, Timber underframe - woodwork unpainted, steelwork black, Steel underframe - black.

Fitted ditto: Timber and Steel bodies - bauxite red, underframes as above.

Photos from the 1950s and early 1960s show that some wooden minerals, and unfitted traffic opens, were painted despite the instructions, and that some wooden underframe fitted vehicles may have had the wood solebars painted.

Covered vans, incidentally, both fitted and unfitted, are shown as fully painted, no mention of unpainted areas at all.

Painting body steel work in open wagons appears, again from photographs, to have extended to all internal steelwork, down to the nuts and bolts. Presumably the different instructions reflected the relative importance of different wagons, and the need for staff to have the means to quickly and reliably  identify fitted and unfitted vehicles in all conditions of weather. Some wagons would have been repainted by private wagon repairers, who were stll active well into the 1960s, who may, or may not, have followed official instructions...

14 hours ago, cctransuk said:

F it's an authentic livery, it can only be a very early, pre-crimson / maroon one.

There is a B&W photograph of an earlier GW container, B1600W, in David Larkin's "Pre-Nationalisation Freight Wagons of BR", Bradford Barton, page 40. The photograph is dated 1960, and the container is condemned. There is the usual problem of interpretation; it doesn't seem to be maroon to me, and the lettering looks white rather than yellow [it seems to match the 'Cond'], but I acknowledge that this is subjective. There is another, dated to 1953, in "The 4mm Wagon", page 19, which also looks to be the same colour as the conflat it's on.

If you have a copy of "Steam Days" magazine for January 2005, on page 14 there is a colour photo* of a trainload of containers, dated 15/5/56, two of which are clearly very recently ex-works. They are definitely not maroon...

*Note that the caption has been swapped with that of the photo on page 17.

The grouped railways and BR left interior woodwork of open wagons unpainted, but internal steelwork was painted, from channels in place of the lower panks in the ends to nuts and bolts; photographs show that the steel body framing of open wagons was completed as far as possible and painted before any woodwork was added and steel bodies were painted before the wood floor was fitted. What happened to PO wagons would depend on the policies of the owners, which varied, but I would not be altogether surprised to find painted internal steelwork there as well.

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

Can't recall that one - 'boxed' lettering?

No; https://www.thelocoshedmcr.co.uk/product/airfix-gmr-conflat-br-b-container-54332-1/. It also came in GWR livery.

The store were on legs to keep rodents out as their contents were usually all too attractive to rats and mice...

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

I was around at the time, and all my memories of covered containers, on road or rail, are of crimson or maroon with straw yellow lettering, until the 'flying crate' on orange-brown came in.

 

Significantly, Hornby Dublo's rendition of a BR covered container was crimson / maroon - as was the Merit version

I had one of those HD ones, paper round a wood block if I remember correctly, but in the 1960s. I can offer you the Airfix GWR BK in bauxite, albeit with a wrong number...

11 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

True - but it should be added that alternative securing arrangements were devised for the 'Speedfreight' service.

And the modified BD containers were light grey with a yellow horizontal band and black lettering...

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I'll need to be painting some of my BD containers in crimson as well, then (order for straw transfers coming your way soon, Chris).  I have three from Bachmann in maroon, which Paul says did not appear until 1959,

I don't think he is saying that, just that the instructions issued in 1959 state maroon; it doesn't mean that there weren't earlier instructions to the same effect. I have a BR booklet dated 12/1958 showing the colour as crimson, but BR were prone to doing this when they meant crimson lake, i.e. maroon [which is what photographs show].

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The issue also affects some XP vans including the 4-vent MEAT available as a plastic kit from Dapol Kitmaster and as an RTR from Hornby.  The old Airfix intructions for this kit specified painting it in 1956 maroon, and the transfers with the kit were straw yellow colour, but I have not built one of these since god was in short trousers.  The Hornby is in Bauxite with white lettering.

So far as I know, the BR fresh meat van, although goods rated, was painted originally in unlined coach livery, as were others of its type. When it was built in 1952 this would have been crimson rather than maroon, with yellow lettering. The increasing use of containers made them redundant as meat vans, so they were reclassified as ordinary Vanfits at some point in the late 1950s/early 1960s [sorry, I can't be more specific than that], after which they were painted bauxite. Whether any got an intermediate repaint into maroon after March 1956 I don't know.

3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

IF there was a period of bauxite livery prior to crimson - which I don't recall having heard of before - then the kit transfers MIGHT be appropriate.

There was, used until the mid-1950s as I commented before, so visible until the later 1950s. See https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/8078166153/in/photostream/; the source details are at the bottom of the page. For the container liveries click the right arrow and look in the bottom RH corner of the left hand page. Brian Haresnape provides the same info on page 34 of "Railway Liveries: BR Steam 1948-1968", as revised by Colin Boocock. The same book , page 48, gives the change to maroon "as around the same time" in the chapter about the 1956 revisions.

The original BR VB wagon and covered container colour was described as orange brown; the later colour was described by 12/1958 as bauxite red. Whether this represents an actual change of colour is debatable. Colour photos also suggest that there may have been some slight variations in contemporary colour [different works having different suppliers, perhaps?] and that 'bauxite red' may have become more orange in the 1960s [or perhaps those are just variations in colour film rendition]. Given that most paints, and colour films, of that era were quite unstable over time, and bauxite in particular degraded fairly rapidly, it probably not worth worrying too much about exact shades, especially bearing weathering in mind.

Initially general use covered containers painted by BR were orange brown with unboxed white lettering. This changed to maroon [officially crimson, but actually crimson lake, i.e. maroon] with unboxed yellow lettering circa 1955/6. In the early 1960s it changed back to bauxite, but with boxed white lettering and the black and white "flying crate" logo. As usual, repainting the complete stock would take several years.

I have now got a high-res scan, and the wagon is 1/241 B880309, built Faverdale 1951/2. The visible body is all narrow plank, except for the RH door and adjacent area, so I think that this is a repair to a van built with narrow planks. No date or location is given, but the 1/246 is B882536, which is from the final Lot [3290] of 400 completed by Wolverton*  in 1960, which appears to have been in  use for a while, so early 1960s seems reasonable...

* According to Rowland, Darlington, i.e. Faverdale, according to Larkin. It has the top central corrugation in the end, so I think that Rowland is probably right.

6 hours ago, DCB said:

"Some folks have charm but Walt Disney"   say it in a Scottish accent.

An Ulster one works well, too...

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

In theory one could calculate where the CofG is from such figures together with the position of those axles, but in practice it will move backwards or forwards slightly according to how full or empty the tender is. 

Yes, but my point was that the loading on the front of the loco is higher than the loading on the rear of the loco [that cast iron cylinder block], which is higher than the loading on the tender, all of which means that the CoG is nearer the front than the back, so putting the tender on the extenders moves the CoG nearer the pivot; the other way moves it away from the pivot.

40 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Saw it done on one occasion and the extensaion pieces were place at the tender end (but that might have been a consequence of the way the engine was lying when it went onto the turntable)

I have only seen one photo of a loco being turned with extenders involved [5325 at Minehead] and that was also under the tender. I think it's because of the axle loadings involved and where the centre of gravity of the lcoco + tender is; for a Manor the bogie carries 18T 10cwt, and the driving axles 17T 5cwt, 17T 1cwt and 16T 2cwt front to back, with the tender axles carrying 13T 10cwt, 13T 4cwt and 13T 6cwt front to back. Even on a bigger turntable the loco will probably be unbalanced, depending on where it is stopped. With the front end on extenders that CoG will be futher from the pivot than with the tender on them. There may also be issues with lifting wheels off the rails as the loco wb is longer.

11 hours ago, sandsmodels said:

the britsh did have some m3 h/tracks and were used in the sicily landings & early italian front.

They also had M5/M9, some of which were still being used by the engineers in the late 1950s for front line vehicle repair duties.

2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Some of these wagons became LNER 'Boplate B', but I'm not sure whether they were from the 39201-39450 or 65001-65140 group. 

The Boplate B was rated at 30T, and Tatlow gives the total bought by the NER/LNER as 247, so they are from the 39201-450 batch. Curiously, the few 1950s photos I have show 32T on the wagons, even though it's still 30T in the 12/1958 listing,

17 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Just to throw another grenade or two into the subject,

...

I think the right hand one in this Colour Rail picture is a 1/241 with LNER Clasp Brakes and narrow planking. No XP branding but Yellow Spot.

Thanks for this, it's a photo I wasn't aware of, and, yes, it does appear to be a 1/241 with yellow spot ☹️. I'm trying to get a scan of it from ColourRail, but their website is being very uncooperative. I hate having to register on a site to buy anything. Hopefully I will eventually succeed and will be able to comment further idc.

Try and find out how they got your bank details; are they are they on your phone? [I'm not suggesting this is your fault, but if it happened without your agreement it could happen again, so you may need to take action asap on this]. You may need to get your phone checked for viruses.

Check who your account shows as recipient of the money. If they are legitimate they may be willing to provide a refund.

Anti-virus software is usually on subscription. Does the account show it as a Direct Debit or Standing Order or anything which might repeat? You may need to take action on this, again asap.

AS Jason says, you should discuss with your bank, and I would add your phone company as well, to see if they can help establish what happened. You may be right that nothing can be done, but there may be solutions if the process used can be identified.

8 hours ago, DCB said:

400 yards between stop signals seems typical 

This is the minimum distance required to a semaphore signal's clearing point. Signalling rules required the signalman not to accept a train, even with the home signal at danger, unless there was no obstruction within, and no conflicting moves set up which might intrude within, the clearing point, and then not to permit any such obstruction until the train has arrived and stopped. Multiple homes under his control could allow a signalman to accept a train up to the last one whose clearing point was clear, allowing for possible obstructions or other moves beyond the next signal.

Distants on the same post as a home were always slotted to keep them 'on' when the home was 'on' and diagrams seemed to ignore this as there was no other permitted option. The symbol for the one under 15 is of a distant for the next box slotted by the box beyond that as an outer distant I think, but I don't know about GC practice, Just curiosity; it's of no significance in this context.

13 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

If all of Lot 2346 to diagram 1/242 were narrow planked that would mean that the Parkside body only fits the 50 built in Lot 2598 built in 1954.

I think that all 1/241 were probably narrow planked; they were built in 1951 and were photographically rather elusive, so I can't be sure. They also had LNER 8-shoe VB. The first lot of 1/242 is a bit of a mystery to me. The top two photographs in https://erickemp.smugmug.com/BR-8Ton-and-12T-Banana-Vans show vans from the first lot, one all narrow plank, one a mixture. Given the late date of the photos, my guess is that the mixed one is the result of repairs, rather than the way it was built, but I don't know, hence my uncertainty about the one in the Geest photo. The likely date makes me think 1/242, though. I agree with your comment about the Ratio kit.

13 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

It may be that Faverdale just used what was to hand as all of the diagrams in the BR book of the time show the wider planks.

I think that this is likely, and is why I think that 1/241 were probably all narrow plank. There was a shortage of decent timber during WW2, so they may still have been using up old stockpiled material.

13 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

... steel 10ft underframe so would be candidales for keeping when the conversions were done.

Those converted were SR 1478 and 1479, LNER 140, and BR 1/242. All had 10ft wb steel underframe and were XP rated. So far as I know all surviving vehicles of these designs were converted, but no 9ft wb were, so this was definitely a factor.

14 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

I think BR made one lot of insulated containers that weren't branded as Insulmeat, so could be those?

No idea, I'm afraid. Just to add to the complexity I have seen a 1960s photo of a B or BD container with a banana importers label on it, but I'm not sure where now.

On 28/01/2024 at 23:15, NORTHDUK said:

They might form loads for 6-wheeled lorries.

Sorry, I missed this bit earlier. The maximum load for a 16ft container was 4 tons, and its Tare [empty weight] was less than 2 tons, so under 6 tons fully laden. They commonly travelled on single axle 16ft to 20ft semi-trailers, although suitable four-wheel flatbeds were also used. Tractor units could be four-wheeled or the 6T capacity versions of the Scammell Mechanical Horse or Scarab.

39 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

The fourth one is probably BR still with the steam heat.

It is; the narrow planks suggest it's a 1/241 or a first lot 1/242.

41 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

First one in the right hand line looks like a Southern D.1478 with the steam heat removed.

The short hinges make me think it's a converted ex-LNER D140.

47 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

The final van at the top edge is a late BR one.

Another 1/246.

49 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

The FM containers must have been drafted in because of a shortage of insulated vans.

More likely, I believe, to be for traffic to the Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, or Channel Islands.