Chrisbr

Happy Birthday Mike (from a quinquagenarian) regards, Chris

Referencing the GW wagon stock books (registers) there were 3 wagons that carried the number "1" and all three are described as Open Goods. Assuming Graham's date estimate is correct, that would make it the third of the wagons, built in Nov 1911 to Lot 687 - Diag 03. So clearly not GW No1, yet it has had the GW added, so presumably no longer S&W.....

This taken from wagon at Didcot suggests so -

Mike, As ever, superb modelling and I for one am grateful you persevered... Chris

Mike, Get a tungsten carbide scriber (I have this one) and it's really easy to cut cover slips accurately with little waste Chris

Mike, As ever an excellent model of an interesting prototype Chris

Thanks for the link Mike, some interesting material there. I can find only one more photo (strange how hard it is to find decent detail shots of FPLs and lock bars...) of Dunkerton in the early 20s with a similar looking arrangement, only this time you can see standard cranks on either side as the photo was taken from the 4ft. It looks to me as if the FPL rod from the box is connected to the cross rod between the two cranks under the FPL cover. So not unique, but certainly not common by the time photographers were recording the scene later in the century...

Chris, It's the original station at Wilmcote, the points lead off the single main line to sidings for the station and local Lime/Cement works. There are two rods coming from the Signal box, one driving the switches and one the FPL, so don't think it's an economic FPL variant. I have since discovered the original negative is held by HMRS so will endeavour to obtain a copy, but that may take a while in the current circumstances. Tim - yes that is similar to various other sources I have seen, but doesn't seem to fit the early example above, as far as I can make out.... Chris

Chris, Thanks for responding and while I understand later practise was to connect the FPL lever to the far end of the lock bar and the plunger to the near end, as you say, providing confidence that the lock bar was functioning as designed, this early example does not seem to follow that practise. A wider snip shows no connection to the lock bar at the far end and having played with the contrast etc. of the original scan, I can see no evidence of a rocking shaft or other connection to the lock bar closer to the FPL itself. The only possibility is the dark shadow right at the end of the bar, but that seems too close to the end to me and more likely to be the edge of the sleeper exposed? Chris

I have the following snip from a picture of GWR point work and am trying to understand what cranks (not visible under the FPL cover of course) would have been used to convert the transverse movtion of the FPL drive rod (top left) into the fore and aft movement needed for the Facing Point lock plunger and also the Lock Bar (top right)... Did the GWR have such a thing as a "T" crank, or would it have been a standard crank in conjunction with a reversing crank? If the latter, how were both cranks attached to the Facing point lock plunger?

Yes, fist column is Cambrian number, middle column is build year, last column GWR number.

Sadly I have a copy of the 54xxx book, but not the 55xxx one!

Some shots from various wagons at Didcot - take your pick -

Excellent addition and as Kitpw noted - you have achieved a layout with no end... looking forward to seeing it in real life at some point!

Great idea and and hmrspaul says a humungous one, but that doesn;t mean it can't be done. In following up my interest in wagon number plates, I have made copies of 13 books already. Taking the pictures with a modern smartphone is relatively easy and provides good qualtiy photos - one photo per page of the register, so details of each wagon split across two photos. You still have the issue of the axlebox column on the left hand page often being hidden by the binding/fold of the page but that can be true even if sitting in front of the book. As I see it there are three big issues to overcome - 1 - Obtaining permission from NRM and Kew to publish the work - as has been mentioned above, all of mine were signed off as being for personal use only. I suspect permission would be available if approached correctly, not least to avoid us all thumbing through large, heavy, relatively old and fragile documents. 2 - Having somewhere to host the information. A few suggestions already and i can think of more (HMRS possibly being one) and the correct choice here would probably facitilate the permission needed above. I have no contacts with any of the potential groups and so can't speak to any that may interested or willing. 3 - Storing the information in a manner that allows you to find things - this is the elephant in the room as alluded to by Corneliuslundie - it's all very well having the data, but unless you are looking for a specific number, you have no way of finding the other information without transcribing it into some external data source, be that spreadsheet as suggested, or web based database as I have prototyped, which could allow various searches and also allows you to keep the original photos associated with the records so reference can be made back to the source material. I have calculated that for the limited info I have (less than 10% of the fleet) it would take me 7 years to transpose the info assuming I did 5 numbers a day (which can be up to 15 wagons) every day of the year, year in, year out..... Which is why I haven't started! All that said I believe it would be a great benefit to people interested in the history and the modelling of said wagons, so would be keen to see progress made and would help in anyway I could. Not to forget the coach and department stock books and the Lot registers......!!!!! Chris

According to RCTS 4 coupled tank engines - "Nos. 3600-20, except No.3614, were built with 6 1/2 in, diameter piston valves, which were placed between the cylinders." The rest were all built with slide valves and all those with piston valves had been recyindered by 1908,

@Compound2632 I only have a small selection of the wagon stock books and not the ones relating to these builds, so can't comment about the "Factory" marking on any of these wagons. Certainly there are comments made about the signage added to wagons later in life, typically "Not for common user" or "Return to ...." as well as some more interesting examples I've come across, but I have not noted "... Factory" so far. I may well do a trawl over the next few days to see what I find.

you mean one of these? close up of said iron mink @ didcot

Wagon register records "Length between centres of Journals" as 6' 4" and Journals as being 8 x 3 1/2. Beyond that I can't help....

Length is 16' 2" and Breadth is 7' 2". Wheels 3'6" dia and 9' 9" wheelbase with Double (lever) brakes. Orignal tare 4.7.0 and load 9 tons, at some point amended to tare 4.14.0 and load 8 tons.

Stephen, I'm not sure you're correct about the number of the HP wagon - it was only looking again just now that I noticed the number is on the end as well as the side of the wagon and I'm pretty convinced it's a 5 not 8. If that is indeed correct, the wagon in the photo is converted BG wagon (ex 1461) and is recorded as having a wooden body 1' 10" tall and an Iron underdrame. It was converted from BG in October 1874 and scrapped in 1909. Chris

Interested to find this as I too am planning to model the station, albeit in 7mm and not for some time due to other commitments... Looking forward to future updates

Adrian, Can't help with 3 planks, but according to the Stock books records I have seen, there were certainly some 4 planks still around in the second half of the 1940s Chris

...and a follow up to Lacathedrale's question if may - what do you use to apply the Limonene to the very small pieces so as not to leave solvent marks on the finished pieve? Chris

GWR 4 plank wagons built in Lot 254, all shipped out week of May 13 1899 - 2 @ 5.4.0, 1 @ 5.5.0, 2 @ 5.6.0 and 5 @ 5.7.0