Compound2632

Yes, definitely on the scrounge for a group discount...

Surely that's Bradshaw she's consulting, looking to make her escape from his attentions?

The Wikipedia article on Egg's The Travelling Companions notes: "The painting influenced an engraved illustration by John Tenniel in Through the Looking Glass, in which Alice wears a similar costume and hat in a railway carriage, sitting opposite Benjamin Disraeli, wearing a paper hat, and a goat." Well placed comma, that.

Well, it would constitute false advertising on several counts.

Oh dear I think the Midland will have been struggling to compete in several respects...

Green? Blue? Well-varnished crimson lake would be eye-catching...

"Made in Russia" - there's clearly some high-quality finescale modelling going on through the Siberian winters...

Following all this careful discussion of appropriate goods vehicles for a West Midlands-based layout set in the pre-pooling era, I have to confess that I’ve been working on something that I cannot possibly justify: … a London Road Models (ex D&S) kit for a Lancashire & Yorkshire 10 ton brake van – the type known as a ‘tin tab’ owing to its sheet metal bodywork allegedly in the style of a prefabricated chapel. (Although these buildings are usually associated with nonconformist denominations, I note that the vast majority of the examples in England listed by Wikipedia are Anglican; though this may simply reflect a higher survival rate, given the collapse of nonconformity in its industrial heartlands.) I’ve always liked these brake vans since first coming across them in an article by Martin Waters in one of my inherited backnumbers of the Model Railway News c. 1968. This is not my only out-of-area brake van – I have a North Eastern birdcage brake from the Slater’s kit and a part-built North British van, a plastic kit of forgotten provenance. I found the latter in my big rummage a few days ago, but not (yet) the parts to complete it. As with the Midland 6-wheel brake van I started earlier, this has got as far as I can go with 145°C solder and my unregulated 25W iron, i.e. all the brass. The basic shell is ingeniously designed to lock together using the four footboards using tabs and slots – rather like one of those 3D jigsaws. I added the doors and end window frames while the side/end pieces were still flat, as they looked to be quite fiddly to get in just the right position, but the vertical riveted joining plates went on later, along with the solebar overlays. For all these, I first tinned the rear surface of the of the detail part, then sweated it into place – applying the soldering iron to the detail part, with plenty of flux, until the tinned solder melts. There’s a critical momentwhen the detail part is free to float on the molten solder; I use odd little bits of wood or the point of the craft knife to hold the piece in place as I remove the iron. I’m using an old blade – it rapidly gets very corroded by the flux! This model has my fiddliest bit of soldering to date – tiny overlays for the swing links that connect the springs to the solebar. These are about 2 mm long! I tinned both the back of the links while on the fret and the face of their supports on the solebar. Holding the link in place with the point of the knife, I brought the iron in from behind – i.e. the back of the solebar. This worked and I’ve surprised myself with everything ending up in about the right place. So tomorrow should be a whitemetal day, using the temperature-controlled iron. Elsewhere in my miniature Newton Heath, there’s been further progress on the D15 and D3 wagons. The D15 has been loaded with a sculpted block of wood. The idea was to represent a load of crates and other miscellaneous goods, though having re-read the article about the Crew tranship shed (see posts earlier today) I now think this is too much humped up in the middle: Then, on with the sheet prepared earlier. Photos of D15 wagons show three securing rings on the bottom end plank, so I’ve glued the ‘ropes’ to these locations and also to the supposed positions of cleats under the siderail: The D15 dropside and D3 van are now pretty much complete. The illiterate symbols, tare weights and numberplates are from POWSides – these are the rub-down variety. I find these tricky to work with – the tare weights have come out a bit wonky and the numberplates started disintegrating as I rubbed them down. I did follow the advice to use a piece of low-tack clear tape to hold the transfer in position – this worked well for the illiterate symbols but wasn’t so helpful in the more confined space of the solebar. The van has its number on high on the end. As far as I can discover from my limited L&Y sources, open wagons didn’t have the number on the end. According to the kit instructions (which are the original D&S instructions), in ‘unpainted wood’ days, vans were varnished when new, so the D3 has a slightly less faded finish. Actually that’s pot luck, as I tried to follow the same paining recipe as for the D15! One change I did try was to paint the ironwork black after the coat of Humbrol No. 71. The subsequent washes of No. 100 and Precision teak toned down the black and also helped neaten the edges. The roof is a dirty grey, with the tarpaulin painted matt black let down with thinned grey. Humbrol spray can gloss varnish was used before putting the transfers on, then matt to finish. On closer reading of Noel Coates’ book, I learned that the hatch cover wasn’t simply a tarpaulin but was made up of wooden battens held together by the tarpaulin. The LNWR hatch covers seem to have been solid timber – heavier to handle, I should imagine, but more expensive.

I couldn't find it just now so I may be misremembering but I thought that somewhere in my small pile of Inherited Model Railway News from c. 1968-71, was an article by Martin Waters in which he discussed the proportions of different types of wagons from the Big Four. I recall the comment that the GW had more fitted wagons than the other three and that in photos of LMS express goods trains, the fitted heads are predominantly made up of GW vehicles.

On the contrary, surely 'twas he who quoth 'Nevermore' and introduced the type with a verandah at each end?

Quite...

Maybe, but I think his case is well-made. I've not seen very much about the Midland's long-distance goods operations though they undoubtedly existed; this may just indicate that no MRS member has taken an interest in the topic. I suspect, though, that by the end of the 19th century the Midland was hampered in these sphere just as it was in express passenger services by the vast mineral traffic outstripping the capacity of the infrastructure. The North Eastern was, I think, rather a special case with the vast proportion of freight revenue coming from its pit-to-port operations, entirely within its own territory and operated in a uniquely efficient way: no POs, higher-capacity hopper wagons with dedicated infrastructure. However, as you say there would be 'export' traffic from its territory, plus of course goods coming in through the port of Hull - which I've used as my excuse for a NER van. Post-pooling, almost anything goes.

There ought to be a 'star' rating... I'm intrigued by theses early PO wagons - presumably the flag and star serve the same purpose as the so-called 'illiterate' marks on company owned stock - the LNWR's Egyptian diamonds etc.? Are the wagons to be lettered too?

Not directly pre-Raphaelite but a favourite of mine from Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery - a bastion of pre-Raphaelitism - and a genuine railway subject, is Egg's The Travelling Companions. My excuse is that Egg was an admirer though not imitator of Holman Hunt.

Further reading of the Talbot book (op. cit.). In his introduction to the Goods Traffic chapter, Talbot states that compared to other lines, a higher proportion of LNWR goods traffic was 'of a long-distance kind and so was conveyed by fast through services'. This, he says, was not only in comparison with regionally-based companies such as the North Eastern and Lancashire & Yorkshire, but also the Midland and Great Western (sic). He points out that although the Midland served many of the same major centres*, it linked far fewer of them directly with London. [*I'm struggling to think of a major town or city served by the LNWR that did not also have a Midland goods depot, whilst the Midland served a few places - Bristol in particular - that had no LNWR presence.] Talbot includes a couple of photos from the pre-pooling era showing such trains: There's a Bill Bailey compound 4-6-0 climbing Shap northbound with over 30 wagons, banked by a Tebay DX 0-6-0, c. 1905. The train is a random mix of sheeted opens and covered goods wagons - about half-and-half. Three of the first eight wagons are D32, all with the no-door side showing - i.e. the door is on the east side - does this reflect an operational requirement or is it just chance? The other van in the first eight vehicles is possibly a D46 refrigerator van, going by the style of the doors with the distinctive horizontal locking bar. The opens mostly look to be two-plank or higher, some with high loads and of course all sheeted. An earlier view, c. 1898, of a three-cylinder compound 0-8-0 arriving at Carlisle Upperby, shows a similar mix though the first few wagons are more varied. First behind the engine is a foreigner - and a Great Western one at that: an iron mink. (That's for Londontram who has mentioned wanting justification for a Great Western wagon on the Caledonian.) Next a centre-door open, with not very high sides (2'-ish rather than 3') and, possibly, iron-framed - another Great Western vehicle? It's sheeted, but the tarpaulin is hanging over the side in rather ragged bunches - this may indicate that it's secured by the inner tabs. Third, a LNWR cattle wagon, with snout of load sticking out (not a giraffe). Fourth, a road van carried on a low wagon, probably a D38 furniture van wagon. Then a mix of sheeted opens - some loaded high - and vans, at least 40 wagons. Another pre-pool photo appears in LNWR Wagons, Vol. 2, p. 118: A Special DZ on the up fast at Bushey Troughs, before 1903 as the engine carries a large white diamond on the smokebox lamp iron, the pre-RCH standard code for an express cattle or express goods train. Of the 30-odd wagons, it's again half-and-half vans and opens. As far as I can make out, the vans are all D32 or D33 rather than any specialised or foreign types. The opens are all low-sided - if LNWR, D1 and D2, but only towards the back of the train do there seem to be any loaded high. It's that up-and-down profile, a distinctive random mix of low-sided opens and hatch-roofed vans, that I want to try to capture in my LNWR goods train. One of those pot-bellied compound 0-8-0s at the front would be just the thing!

But they had side-doors too, in the usual way. You'd be s*****d though if you received a D32 wrong-way round and didn't have a wagon turntable...

Bear in mind that the roof hatch was only on one side of the van. On a D32 van, with a door on one side, it would be usual to consign a pair of animals - for instance a lion, which would be loaded first, followed by the giraffe. This led to obvious handling difficulties along with damage to goods in transit, if the lion was not well-secured. I suspect this is why one so rarely sees this traffic in photographs. However, in consideration of the welfare of travelling giraffes, the LNWR used some very tall signals with repeating arms at or near giraffe eye-level. Apart from Robert Stephenson's London and Birmingham, the majority of the WCML was engineered by Locke and so had no tunnels. Those giraffes who were frequent travellers became adept at ducking for bridges (cf the Triang model). Those that didn't...

Yes, I was wondering about this point. I have a gut feeling that many features of LNWR goods wagons and operation were archaic and the fruit of being first in the field: preference for low-sided wagons, single-sided vans, primitive brakes. I suspect that in the early days, most goods traffic may have been between the major centres - Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London - with distribution to wayside stations developing later. Thus the early practice could have been geared to loading and unloading in large warehouses. Towards the end of the 19th century higher-sided wagons gained ground - the D4 4-plank wagon was the next most numerous type of general merchandise wagon. The bottom-hinged side-door was convenient for barrowing goods on and off at a goods platform. As far as I can work out, most types of goods traffic would be dealt with under cover; only bulky goods not requiring protection from the elements would be dealt with outdoors: timber and of course minerals, along with the occasional specialised load such as farm machinery. The Midland started out (and remained) very much a mineral line - so high-sided coal wagons would have been dominant from the beginning (1840s rather than 1830s for the LNWR's antecedents) so, maybe, the Midland was coming at wagon design from literally the opposite direction! Later, the LNWR developed a very slick goods handling operation based on the tranship shed at Crewe, opened in 1901 and replacing the system of consigning small loads from point to point. There is a delightfully graphic account of this dating from 1907, written by the Crewe Goods Agent and reproduced in Talbot's The LNWR Recalled (OPC, 1987). The only goods explicitly mentioned as arriving in a covered van is a crated Shetland pony from Aberdeen, consigned to Swansea, along with a stray cat. It's certainly clear that open wagons were used for mixed small consignments, and well loaded too: 'He will single out all the heaviest packages ... for the ends, and so make a nest for the smaller articles in the centre. By loading the goods in this way the tendency of the load, if roughly shunted, will be to move towards the middle of the wagon...' 'The load is just completed ... nearly seven tons of miscellaneous articles, from an empty box to a wringing machine. We glance at that semi-circular loading gauge frame suspended at the end of the shed, and see that the load is just about up to the maximum height for travelling. Those two men on the top are unfolding the tarpaulin sheets to cover the goods, and these will be tied down when the wagon gets outside, by a gang of men who are there for the purpose.' The article brings to life just how labour-intensive the work was - and certainly not all done by crane: 'Look at this veteran building up his load! See him guiding that heavy case ...'; 'Notice with what ease this man places weighty articles in position. That sack of meal he is lifting across the truck weights over two hundredweight, and he neither pants nor puffs with the exertion. See him raise that barrel of beer on to its end! To him it is nothing but so much bonus in an easy lump.' One should bear in mind that this description may not be entirely typical of wagon loading, especially at smaller stations where the likelihood of being able to fully load a wagon was presumably much lower, and railways that had not adopted the LNWR's efficient systems. However, there is much food for thought for me, as I have a large number of LNWR open wagons in the queue for loading and sheeting. I will undoubtedly be making errors: 'Loading is really an art which requires years of training to cultivate, and no book or theorist can teach it.'

The Midland built over 14,000 D305 3-plank dropside wagons, well over a tenth of its wagon stock. If one considers that many of the D299 5-plank opens (which accounted for half the Midland's wagon fleet) would be being used for mineral traffic, it's clear that the dropside wagons would be very common in ordinary goods trains. The Midland had very few wagons with fixed low sides, like the LNWR's D1 1-plank and D2 2-plank wagons. In the last decade of the 19th century, the D1 wagons accounted for about a third of the LNWR's fleet - some 20,000 wagons - with a further 14,000 of the D2 wagons. The D3 dropside wagons seem to have been far fewer in number. That's two of the largest companies in the country, competing for traffic in many of the same areas, but with quite different approaches to how to convey it.

Well, of course there's Beata Beatrix - oops, sorry, this one. But really we need to see a bit more of this going on in Castle Aching.

The first one I took to be a photo of a production. Allport's abolition of second class was a bit of a misnomer. What the Midland did in 1872 was reduce first class fares to the second class rate, second class fares to the third class rate, and abolish third class by upholstering third class compartments to the former second class standard. I believe the reason this had to be called 'abolition of second class' was because Gladstone's 1844 Railway Act specifically referred to 'third class' in legislating for parliamentary trains. Somebody mentioned the Dark Side re. my interest in Dean Goods engines. Not so. This is the Dark Side... and this the portal from which there is no turning back.

Yes indeed: Sir James Allport liberating the third class passenger (1872).

Coming a bit late to the fairytale castles but just to remind Edwardian which way the Rainbow Bridge leads...

Ah, that makes more sense of the 2-2-2 being called 'Sir Watkin' - I'd thought it was just an eccentricity of Swindon naming. Nevertheless, according to the 1912 Supplement to the DNB, Sir Edward Watkin was a director of the Great Western for 'a short time' c. 1866.

It's encouraging to find they are as bad as us for going OT... But I do like their wonderful language: une antique voiture à portières latérales en guise de remorque.