Compound2632

Good old Streamline is supposed to be fit for outdoor use... Sounds like a good excuse for a test-track though.

Oh, I don't know about that. Ever hopeful on the Slater's front at least!

Great Western numerology. Photo at Bishopsgate c. 1924 yields another number, 35415, for the pre-iron mink outside framed covered goods wagons of os Lots 225, 239, 339, 358 (and possibly others). This doesn't fit with either the 22xxx or 37xxx blocks tentatively identified (on the basis of two numbers each). In fact this number comes between some 3-plank opens - os Lot 289 - and some AA3 brake vans, os Lot 432.

I've answered my own question by looking back at my notes on my workbench thread. The wagon on the left of this photo has a LNWR sheet with clearly quite a wide stripe for the X - I'd estimate about 9". On the other hand, the lettering seems to be L.N.W. rather than LNWR. The photo is at Birmingham Central Goods Station in the 1890s.

This number is hard to get at for early engines - the purely mechanical dimensions - cylinders, boiler, wheel diameters and wheelbase are often known but dimensions that relate more to appearance aren't recorded. The clearest example I've found quickly is from Harry Jack's Locomotives of the LNWR Southern Division (RCTS, 2001): McConnell's Small Bloomers of 1854 (actually quite large engines for their day) were just over 22ft over bufferbeams, with its 6-wheel tender being 18'5" over bufferbeams - so altogether over buffers, about 45ft. A 4-wheel tender might lose you 3ft?

Here’s the second of my D299s with a scratchbuilt body now hidden under a sheet: For this one, my reference has been the Gurnos photo that was being discussed a few posts back. The centre of the sheet is about 1 mm below the level of the sides, giving the “hollow” look. The sheets in this photo are even more neatly “hung” than in the Aldridge photo. The corners are tucked in and, I think, roped up tight to the sheet rings on the headstocks. Then the ends are neatly folded in – again pulled in by tie ropes through the headstock rings. Quite as pretty as a parcel! The side ties also line up with the three solebar sheet rings. The only obscure point is what the centre tie rope at the end is lashed too – it ought not be the drawbar hook! I’ve done a batch weathering job on my Great Western red wagons – one or two of the opens will be sheeted but I think I’ll go for more humped loads as I don’t want to hide all the hard work I put into lettering and numbering! (Spitfire, your PM was timely.)

Indeed - the ability to achieve such fine control would get the best out of a three-cylinder compound - only a handful of Leeds Holbeck and Carlisle Durranhill drivers ever got to discover what such a locomotive was really capable of, for just a few years at the beginning of the last century.

... as running between May 1920 and Feb 1921, according to the issue and return for inspection dates on the Roger Smith sheets. For my c. 1903 wagons, I've been using sheets from The Model Wagon Sheet Company which, conveniently, omit the date markings. The layout of the lettering is a bit different but the most noticeable difference is that the red X has much wider lines - it looks to be based on Fig 51 in LNWR Liveries, which in turn is based on a Bassett-Lowke model! Are you aware of any other evidence in favour of either pattern at any date? Is the Roger Smith sheet is based on a photograph?

I don't think I can produce a good clear photo illustrating a one-plank wagon loaded like this but there are some distant views in goods trains where what looks like a one-plank wagon is loaded almost to the gauge - looming over a D32 or D33 covered goods wagon. The drawing I was referring to is, I think, based on photographs. I think their use for such loads would have been in decline by the Edwardian era. But, at one time these were the standard merchandise wagon - on the LNWR, the one-plank open dates from Grand Junction days and the D1 specification from at least 1859. The D2 two-plank wagons were introduced in 1870 but the D4 3'0"-deep four-plank wagon didn't become standard until 1894. From 1909 there was a programme of replacing D1 wagons by four-plank wagons - by then, the 10 ton capacity D9 version. [LNWR Wagons Vol. 1; it's a defect of this work compared to, say, Essery's Midland Wagons, that it is rather vague on quantities and build dates - maybe the Earlestown Lot or Order Book has not survived?] So at one time one-plank wagons must have been the only option for such loads. After all, it's not so far from modern practice*. There is a similar pattern on the (standard gauge) Great Western: one-plank wagons from time immemorial up to 1871; two-plank wagons built 1871-1878; three-plank wagons 1879-1887; four-plank wagons 1887-1902; five-plank wagons from 1901. (Were not the two and three plank wagons the same depth - 22"?); other railways in the North-Western's orbit followed a similar pattern: the L&Y and North Staffs for example. On the other hand, the Midland never had many such low-sided wagons. The evidence seems to be that at least by the late 1850s the 1'9"-deep three-plank dropside wagon - ancestor of D305 - was the standard merchandise wagon; in 1894 there were over 15,000 such wagons from before 1877 in service. The 2'10"-deep 5-plank D299 wagon originated in 1879 (although the first batch weren't included on the diagram); before that there seem to have been outside-framed merchandise wagons of similar dimensions [Midland Wagons Vol. 1, incl. Fig. 6 from S.W. Johnson's Presidential Address to the I Mech E.]. Then there are the southern lines, which seem to have favoured the high-sided tilt wagon - which also seems to have been more-or-less standard on the broad gauge Great Western, as far as my limited knowledge goes. *Many years ago - before the M40 was opened to Birmingham - I was travelling in a friend's car north from Oxford up the old A34. Somewhere around Shipston we got stuck behind a lorry and trailer loaded high with hay or straw bales. The trailer load wasn't very well secured and every now and then a bale would creep to the nearside and roll off into the hedge. Getting towards Stratford - maybe Newbold or Alderminster - a bale was within inches of taking out a man up a ladder. There was nothing we could do except keep a safe distance back - certainly no hope of overtaking. No mobile phone to contact the police in those days.

"Camels and zebras conveyed in horse boxes are charged at the horse rate, according to the number of stalls occupied." "Large wild animals, such as bears ... when loaded in cages or boxes: one or two animals 9d per mile per truck." My emphasis - regulations not being followed this illustration. But note that the livestock vehicles are marshalled at the front of the train and so I suspect are fitted even if the rest of the train isn't. These scales of charges notwithstanding, I suspect this qualifies as a theatrical special at negotiated rates.

Irish saying: "dogs look up to you, cats look down on you, but pigs is equal".

More experiments with wagon sheets: another LNWR wagon, the D1 made from one of the D42 rail wagons in a Ratio p/w set, this time with a bulky load needing two sheets: The wagon was weighted to 50 g with lead flashing sheet inside the wagon and underneath. The load is actually a ‘bale’ of bubble wrap, chosen to give a suitably amorphous lumpy look. Possibly hay? Or more likely bales of some material? The example I was following (alas not directly a prototype photo) was cotton bales but that’s an unlikely traffic for the West Midlands. Unfortunately the load has shifted during the sheeting process: … giving a rather unbalanced look. I should have used a roll of bubble wrap that was a bit longer than the wagon, as it gets compressed. On these LNWR wagons, the sheet ties would be secured to cleats on the underside of the curb rale; it’s a bit tricky to represent this – I did better on the D2 but this time there’s a bit too much use of the axleguards. This time there are ropes running over the sheets; I have to confess that I have not included the white thread in every strand that would indicate they are LNWR ropes, nor the ferrules. Now I have to remember to marshal this wagon such that the overlap is in the trailing direction “so as to prevent sparks, wind, or rain getting underneath the sheet” [R. Essery, Sheets, Ropes & Sacks, Midland Record No.3, pp. 41-58]. One mistake I made (of several) was to glue the tie in the centre of each end down first. My idea was thus to hold the load in place but this prevented the corners of the sheets from being tucked in under a folded-down flap as seems to have been common practice. As Spitfire and Mikkel have said, one is up against the constraints imposed by the non-scalability of the behaviour of materials. Tortilla wraps for dinner had seemed like a good idea when we were shopping...

Midland Railway Timetable, July, August, and September 1903: "Lambs, Puppies, and Sucking Pigs, when conveyed in hampers or cases, are charged at the ordinary parcels rates, but in no case will the charge for puppies in hampers exceed the charge for dogs." and at the other extreme, "Elephants, carried in covered carriage trucks: 1s. per mile per truck whether the truck is specially strengthened or not." Most livestock by passenger train was charged at a scale based on the horse rate, the assumption being that they are travelling in horse boxes. Smaller animals could travel in the guard's van, so long as they were in a suitable crate, in which case the parcel rate applied, as in the example above. "All animals must travel in the Proper Container" - Dai Station. Dogs are the exception, having their own rate and also being permitted to travel chained up rather than crated in the guard's van. No mention of cats - but then no cat is property.

Is that what you meant to say? Do you mean independent brakes? Any wagon built after 1911 had to have brakes on both sides but they could be independent - i.e. the brake lever on one side acted only on the brakes on that side. From the grouping, wagons with cross-shafts and the Morton arrangement to reverse the action of the brake lever on one side became more common, but not for mineral wagons where dropping the load through the bottom doors would soon knock the cross-shaft out of shape. The L&Y wagons I've built from David Geen kits have the unusual Horwich arrangement of a cross-shaft and levers on both sides but at the same end of the wagon - an arrangement the BoT came to frown upon. They wanted the brake to be applied from the right-hand end of the wagon and only to act on one side - they didn't like the idea that the brake could be released from the other side of the wagon to that from which it had been applied. (The Great Western's Dean-Churchward brake in its first version also fell foul of this.) At some later date the MoT must have changed the regulations, witness the Morton brake. Addendum: Bah! I thought I'd successfully dragged myself away from this to get on with sheeting some wagons but lo! on the page opposite my reference photo of sheeted Midland D299 and D351 wagons at Gurnos [in Miles, Thomas and Watkins, The Swansea Vale Railway (Lightmoor Press, 2017)] is a Gloucester official photo of Thomas T. Pascoe No. 319 of Oct 1891, like your model in all things but number and position of the tare weight (6-3-2 above Load 10 Tons on the bottom RH plank) - and angled safety loops per. Rixon.

Yes, but... [in reply to Northroader] There's the tale (possibly told on here somewhere) of the WW2 Ministry of Supply Transport (?) trying to reduce coal wagon mileage by directing gas works to source their coal locally; the gas works managers replied "if you give us this coal we cannot make gas". I'm beginning to pick up the idea that East Midland / South Yorkshire coal was good for gas-making. It's worth googling "rmweb coal gas" - this throws up some interesting threads more efficiently than using the RMWeb site search.

I'd noticed the variation in safety loop orientation but not understood the reason - thanks Guy! The Gloucester V-hangers are quite distinctive and unusual in being V-shaped all the way. Gloucester "G" plates: Wagons could have up to three of these: builders, worn by all wagons actually built by the Gloucester C&W Co (alternatively suppliers - I presume for second-hand wagons passing through their hands); owners, worn by Gloucester-owned wagons supplied on hire terms - very common; and for repairs advise (on the bodyside at the LH end on this wagon), worn by wagons either on hire or sold outright but where there was a repair contract with the Gloucester company. The Stockingford wagon linked there is an example of a Gloucester-built wagon bought outright by the owner (oval owner plate - also a standard design) but maintained under contract. The builder and owner plates seem always to be on the solebar, though exact position varies; the repairs plate can be on the solebar or quite often on the body side. POWSides provide all three plates, though the writing isn't legible! The c. 1892 wagons have bigger bulders plates than later standard - from at least 1897. All PO wagons had to be inspected by a representative of the railway company with which they were to be registered before the circle-and-cross-bar registration and load plate could be fitted. Quite a few photos in the Gloucester book show wagons without these, because the official photo was taken before the inspector called. Slaters quite properly mould a representation of this on the solebar of their Gloucester wagons.

It's a MINE-field...

Both the United and United National wagons were built with brakes on one side only, as one would expect for 1892. Take note: the brakes are on the side which has the end-door at the LH end, i.e. the brake handle is at the fixed end. Pascoe likewise - this seems to be a general though not universal rule, at least for Gloucester wagons*. I can see that it might make operational sense. According to A.J. Watts, Ince book, the BoT regulation requiring both side brakes was in 1911. New construction had to conform within six months but for retro-fitting, larger fleet operators - private as well as railway companies - were given very long compliance timescales, with extensions up to 1938. For CA, assume single-sided unless there's evidence to the contrary. EDIT: *The Midland's sole end-door wagon design of the single-sided brake era, the D351 end-door variant of D299, of which 9,000 were built in the 1890s, had the brake lever at the end-door end.

For straw-packed carboys modelled in 4mm, see Paul Gallon's marvellous Rosedale East. That Hinckleton wagon must have one of the longest and most florid copperplate "Empty to" instructions around - a very well-connected colliery, I make it Midd' & L & Y D V & H & B Rys, which being translated is: Midland, Lancashire & Yorkshire, Dearne Valley, and Hull and Barnsley Railways. Here's the relevant RCH map. The Midland is in fact the Swinton & Knottingley Midland and North Eastern Joint Line; the H&B is that company's Wath Branch (1902); the DVR was worked by the L&Y from its opening. Good news for CA is that the western part of the DVR was open by 1904 - see the 25" map. I read that Hinckleton Main Colliery was the first to exploit the Barnsley seam, starting production in 1894. Guy's told us that the wagon dates from 1908 though, which is disappointing. From the number, they must have had plenty of wagons already! I wonder, did wagons painted before 1905 include the full ... & H & B & W R J R & D Co... There is a Thomas T. Pascoe wagon in the Keith Montague Gloucester book, 6-plank end door but painted "lead color" [sic] i.e. grey with black ironwork, No. 8 of Dec. 1889. That one is Empty to Ammanford Colliery, G.W.R., but nevertheless registered by the Midland. For those who care about such things, this has the rectangular Gloucester 4S axleboxes (MJT whitemetal castings available from Dart), rather than the round-bottomed 4N type Slater's provide. The United and United National wagons are based directly on photos in the Montague book but the real United No. 1409 of March 1892 was to an unusual 16' (internal) length. The United National photo is of No. 1301 (on bottom left plank) of June 1892 [Edit: apologies, repeating Guy here.]. Both these do have the round-bottomed 4N axleboxes. The various Gloucester builder / owner / for repairs advise plates can be got as rub-down transfers from POWSides. You might want to lose the funtionless V-iron on the nearside of the Manvers Main wagon. What other rabbits do you have in your appropriately-shaped hat?

Or even three-plank dropside wagons.

More than one United - the ones Slater's did say SWANSEA VALLEY on the bottom plank. My understanding is, the former. I think the products would be distributed as merchandise.

But do Slaters manufacture the 7mm Coopercraft kits?

As mentioned, I think your Swansea Vale anthracite wagons are good for CA - as Thomas T. Pascoe says, "malting, hop drying and horticultural coals" - anthracite was preferred for any industrial process where you didn't want to end up killing your customers by arsenic poisoning. However, unless there are a variety of such industries in West Norfolk, I doubt you'd see such a variety of collieries / factors? (Hoping someone proves me wrong.) I think United is a post-Great War amalgamation (United Anthracite Collieries). Are those South Yorkshire / Nottinghamshire wagons all RCH 1923? There's a Great Western 4-plank open in there too, with cast number and GWR plates; as the cognoscenti know, this should be in red lead for CA's date. There are many more Lincolnshire & Yorkshire Tar Distillers wagons around than the company ever had in practice but I think that must be down to paucity of information on other firms. Also available in red lead. CA has a gas works?

My inference from comments made - and it's purely an inference - is that it's not a stash but they are distributing for Slaters. Please correct me if I am under a misapprehension. On the other hand, I thought the original arrangement between Coopercraft and Slaters was intended to be reciprocal - Slaters would distribute Coopercraft's 7mm scale wagons. These they advertise and hence, I assume, they are able to fulfill orders.

Whenever I leave this thread unattended for a while it has a disquieting tendency to drift off in a North-Western direction – very fishy. Going with the flow, here’s my next attempt at a sheeted wagon: This is the D2 I made by shortening and otherwise kitbashing one of the D62 ballast wagons from a Ratio p/w set; the sheet is again from Thomas Petith’s Model Wagon Sheet Company range. This is an attempt to model a sheet that has been secured along the sides using ties to the three eyelet tabs along the first seam on each side (sheets were made from five strips of material sown together lengthways). It seems that when sheets were secured this way, the sheet would be furled up – I haven’t found a very satisfactory photo to link to but the sketch of a Furness Railway wagon on the Goods & Not So Goods website shows what I’m aiming for. I’ve tried to do this by rolling the sheet up lengthways but not been very successful at recreating the way the bundled up sheet sags between the ties. In fact I’ve discovered after the event that my wagon looks a bit like the sheeted LNW D1 on the left of this enlargement from a photo taken at Birmingham Central Goods Station, probably in the 1890s. Modellers of sailing ships must have a technique for getting the furled look I was trying for. At least the sheet covers up my blunder of putting the number 42125 on the ends of the wagon after painstakingly making numberplates for 42152, though I do now wonder why I bothered putting the number on the ends anyway! As an aside, I think Slater’s must have recently changed the metal used for the links of their three-link couplings as with my latest batch, the trick of blackening by heating the chain to red heat and quenching in oil no longer works; instead I’ve used Carr’s metal black for brass. Perhaps I should have tried blackening the buffers before fitting too!