Compound2632

Dodo hunted to extinction... Really the way this thread is going Hornby can't win - but let's remember that whatever the supply limitations of far eastern manufacture, without it we would never have seen this model at all.

There were several accounts of building the LNWR D32 covered goods wagon when it first came out - forgive me for linking to my own. I'm doing a second one now along with a LNWR D1 open wagon - the fold-up sprung W-iron unit is very straightforward; now I'm using MJT bearings I've avoided the splaying axleguard saga. Painting resin didn't seem to be the problem I feared it might be. I've not tried one of the 3D-printed kits yet. Edit: I've added a post about what comes in the box from Mousa.

But these women weren't evenly distributed - e.g. webbcompound's comment about LNWR central stores. My guess would be that women as platform staff at a major station (is the photo at Marylebone?) would be a WW1 thing. Both the footplatemen look quite old - I guess the portly one is the driver and the tall thin and rather drawn looking fellow the fireman - too old to be conscripted.

Somebody's on to a good thing here - expect presents of small locomotives at appropriate intervals... I see you taped the track to the floor - did the circle of track show signs of wandering around the floor as the engines ran round?

I was thinking about this a bit more. I assume that under RCH rules goods charged at a mileage rate would be charged per the shortest route but I believe that because of the way revenue was split pro-rata there was an incentive for the consigning company to maximise the proportion of the journey over its own metals. That probably wouldn't affect the North Staffs much but perhaps influence the route over the company they handed over to. So although the shortest route might involve exchange from the LNW to the GW at Wolverhampton, the LNW might have taken the wagon on to, perhaps, Leamington. Alternatively, if the Midland's agents had been busy and offered a discounted rate, the wagon-load of pots might have been routed via Derby and then Midland all the way to Cheltenham. The M&SWJR was very much the Midland's protégé: would they take it on to Savernake rather than handing over to the GW at Swindon? Of course if it was the Midland's agent arranging this traffic it's possible it would be consigned from Burslem in a Midland wagon (D299?) rather than a NSR one! I've reminded myself of what little early history of the North & South Railway has been published - at what point was it absorbed by the GW? I have a strong suspicion that it may have started out as yet another Derby-sponsored tentacle in the direction of the south coast - the very name is suggestive - a bifurcation of the M&SWJR. From what I can tell from the sketch map the junction at Swindon is with the GW main line - perhaps there was some wheeler-dealing which resulted in the local directors selling out to the GW before the Act was obtained?

I had been thinking along the same lines too, or perhaps just dealing with the break gear (and couplings) if one wanted to keep the round-bottomed axleboxes (for other builders than Gloucester).. Of course there at a wide range of alternative whitemetal axleboxes available e.g. MJT. We really ought to have started a separate Huntley & Palmers wagon thread as picking the relevant posts out from all the discussion of the extinction of the dodo is getting to be next to impossible!

I've not got round to building a D351 as being such a rarity, only 9,000 built... (Also the 51L kit is whitemetal, but I'm starting to get there.) Also, as a mineral wagon (end door) it's very much less likely to have made its way to Farthing with a goods consignment. Very true - by 1920 you can have virtually any wagon you want, with any sheet you want (sheets also became pooled) but in the Edwardian period or earlier your goods yard will be dominated by wagons of the owning company. But strangers can be justified by particular consignments - for instance, it just so happens that the industrial scale of geranium propagation by Hampshire growers justified the economy of scale of a weekly delivery of plant pots direct from the manufacturers in Burslem... The point about the Midland D299 wagons is that the Midland was the premier freight carrier in the country with a distribution network extending to virtually every corner of the country - goods agents in most major towns, even those not on its system - and the D299 wagons so numerous that even pre-pooling they still got everywhere. Goods Agents: in 1903, there were Midland Goods Agents in Penzance, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Southampton - all ports of course. But the latter, Mr. T. Fieldsend, 9 Oriental Place, Southampton, was agent for 'Southampton and the District South of the Thames'. Whether he had time to canvas for business in Farthing is for others to determine!

The Hornby 6-plank wagon (and the 4-plank) isn't such a very awful representation of an early 20th-century PO wagon - with quite a Gloucester-ish character, so long as one doesn't look at the brake gear. So thus far it's a more accurate model of a Huntley & Palmers wagon than the Bachmann version, even though the latter is a more accurate rendition of a 1923 RCH 7-plank wagon than the Hornby model is of a Gloucester 6-plank wagon. If you're still with me there, you'll be agreeing that it's a shame that the number (18) isn't in the range wagonman infers for the Gloucester batch but from the 1903 batch of Birmingham Wagon Co. 4-plank wagons with steel underframe - though maybe that's why the solebar is painted black. But maybe the picture on the Hornby website isn't of the production model... I think I'll still be looking for that elusive Slater's kit...

It was a Ratio 50' arc roof corridor carriage - perhaps a third to D268? Unfortunately the photo filename gives the game away - the underframe has been shortened to 42', so as the interior looks symmetrical, I think it's most likely going to be a third class picnic saloon to D77. I guess the layout of the windows means you can't make use of the Ratio sides unless you're indulging in some serious cut-and-shuttery... but the inside of the far side has a very Ratio-esque glazing rebate... have you simply scraped all the detail off the sides? How are you going to deal with the roof? The positions of the recesses for the lavatory and corridor lamps aren't aligned on the corridor coaches whereas the two recesses for the lavatory / washroom ends are the same distance from the end. I like the way you're building from the interior out - which comes naturally with the Ratio coaches. Edit to remark that I hadn't actually said that it's a LNWR vehicle...

Brilliant - I don't suppose the records give any basic dimensions? (I imagine they're chiefly financial records.) Palmer is the name remembered locally as George Palmer was the philanthropist of the firm.

Similar but different - the curvey bufferbeam and squarish cab leap out as different.

According to Midland Wagons, between 1882 and 1895, the Midland purchased 66,000 private owner wagons many of which were quickly withdrawn - 21,260 were in stock on 31 December 1894. The photos show decrepit 4-plank dumb-buffered vehicles with wooden brake blocks. The D299 wagons have bottom doors so were clearly intended for coal traffic as well as general merchandise and there are plenty of photos of them loaded with coal. However, their nominal replacements, LMS D1666 and D1667, of which 62,000 were built in an even shorter space of time - 1923-1930 - were definitely goods rather than mineral wagons. And of course the number of PO coal wagons running over the Midland soon bounced back - I think part of the idea was to encourage the private owners to replace their outmoded wagons with ones of more modern spec. (I believe I've seen this in print...) But of course this was a period of expansion for the railways, notwithstanding the depression of the late 1880s. Concurrently with the D299 build, the Midland built or bought 695 0-6-0 goods engines - one for every 86 D299 wagons. (Now there's a target...) To adapt 1 Sam 18:7: "Johnson has built his thousands and Clayton his ten thousands".

Bingo! 1875 - I knew I'd seen it somewhere but needed to be reminded of Black Hawthorn to do the search. The photo I was referring to is, I am confident, rather later - 1890s?

See PM for the relevant page from Midland Wagons - this lists 54 numbers (none meeting your criterion) - that's 0.087% of the total. Basically, if you pick any number at random between 1 and 124,000 you've a 50% chance of choosing a D299 number - unless you are unlucky enough to chose a number known to have belonged to a wagon of a different diagram. Numbers above 60,000 are even more likely to be correct - many of these wagons were built as additions to stock (or as replacements of bought up dumb-buffered PO wagons which would have been numbered as additions to stock). There's some correlation between number and date- e.g. No. 10,000 was a D351 (end door version of D299) wagon of 1890, and that was about the total wagon stock then. So a number close to a known D299 number is also very likely to be right if not known otherwise. I remember once when laid up with a bad cold trying to construct a rough list based on known numbers and the build sequence based on the Lot Book but I recovered rather quickly... I have criticised the shape of the Fox "M" preferring the HMRS version.

Thanks - now I know the technical term! Is that the one-volume or two volume edition to which you refer - so I can approach the right club member!

Thanks - what is your source? I only repeated what is in the caption to the photo in Keith Montague's Gloucester book. Going back to my post about the H&P wagons, from the linked photo one can infer that H&P had prior to that a batch of dumb-buffered wagons - 1880s vintage? - Nos. 1 - 4 or 5, then a batch of sprung buffered wagons with iron/steel underframes, Nos. 4/5 - at least 10 - 1890s? I do remember reading something about the builder and date of H&P locos A and B which would provide a tentative date for the photo.

Certainly it's the non-brake side of the O4 we can see in the Badminton photo - I can see blobs on the underside of the solebar that would align with the short metal verticals on the door but if anyone can point me to a better picture (or drawing) I'd be glad! The van behind is useful for the position of the painted number. The photo has been touched up - presumably it's a postcard; why oh why couldn't it have been hand-tinted too?

Thanks - see post #177 - but I've not got round to the final coat of matt varnish yet, as I still have to do the tare weights (HMRS pressfix), that's waiting on painting the rest of my queue of LNW wagons!

Own question answered, thanks to LNWR Liveries, Talbot et al. (HMRS, 1985). From 1889: SD Southern Division (Watford) RD Rugby Division CD Central Division (Crewe) BD Birmingham and Walsall Division ED Eastern Division (Manchester) WD Western Division (Liverpool) ND Northern Division (Lancaster) NWD North Wales Division (Bangor) SWD South Wales Division (Abergavenny) PWD was for wagons assigned to Crewe from 1913 onwards for ballasting, new works and major relaying projects. Ballast wagons had a cast plate fixed to the bottom plank at one end only e.g. L&NWR Co / BALLAST / 140 WD; the district letter code was repeated in cast iron white-painted letters 9" high fixed to the top plank at the same end and on the sides in painted letters 15" high (later 12" high) 30" apart; the diamonds were on the top plank with centres 2'6" from the inner strapping. Relate that to Brassey's photo! But no doubt the article by Dave Pennington gives more detail - and we can but eagerly await LNWR Wagons Vol. 3. The Ratio waterslide transfer sheet has PWD in 15" letters and all the rest as 12"; the HMRS pressfix sheet has a more limited selection (no B!), again 12" I think. Sorry, cross-posted with David and Penlan.

Could do - but I'm in danger of becoming interested - see my post on your thread...

Do! I imagine it would have been (even more) elegant than the GN design...

This splendid photo - quite a find - shows one version of the ballast wagon lettering but I think you'll find David has modelled a variation that eluded contemporary photographers... but not Ratio back in 1982! Some say one should only model a vehicle for which you have photographs from all angles taken on the very day your layout is set; I happen to think there's some advantage in modelling one for which there is no known photographic evidence! But I'm equally happy to go with the balance of probability. Am I seeing things or do the two NWD wagons in the second extract have some sort of semi-circular flaps to protect the axleboxes (Midland ballast wagons had such) - whereas the CD wagon in the first extract clearly doesn't? BTW for those without access to the literature, does NWD stand for "North Wales Division" and CD for "Crewe Division"? If so, what were the initials for the division that covered the Birmingham area and where were they placed? And what's PWD? Happy New Year to all LNWR wagon builders on here!

Thanks Mikkel. I do have a second-hand Coopercraft O4 for rebuilding when I turn my attention to GW wagons again, so it’ll be red with plates and conventional lever brakes. A redder red though – a better match for red lead than Humbrol 100 red brown. One point of doubt that wasn’t resolved was whether the door stops that stick down at an angle from the solebar were original – do the wagons in the photo you mention have them?

That looks like a very promising start to the new year! Perhaps by the end of 2017 you'll have modelled the Derby - Farthing through coach - a nice red clerestory brake composite? (The working was via Cheltenham and the M&SWJR of course.) With Slaters and also Parkside kits that have a plastic ring representing the end of the buffer guide, I've always poked the buffer shank through the ring first and then put a dab of MekPak in the guide and pushed the buffer home - that way there's less chance of losing the ring and everything ends up well-aligned. But I've not often bothered with sprung buffers. I suppose once the joint between guide and ring has set you could pull the metal buffer out and drill out for a sprung one. Happy New Year's modelling Mikkel!

Happy New Year! If I’d progressed just a little faster I could have finished the old year with brake van, which would have been appropriate, but there we go: LNWR D16 10 Ton brake van – the London Road Models kit. All soldered – the end-to-side joints aren’t perfect but at least it’s square and rolls along nicely (thanks to a rocking W-iron unit). I did have to swap the bearings in the kit for MJT waisted bearings to avoid splaying of the axleguards.