Compound2632

That building is present on the 1919 OS 25" map but was not there on the 1900 edition. Its location alongside the running line and rather remote from the goods yard (on the opposite side of the line and at the other end of the passenger station) does seem to make it rather unlikely as a stable. On the other hand, I can't see a good alternative candidate. 

So I gather from this that broad gauge vehicles converted to standard gauge were renumbered in a separate narrow gauge wagon series rather than retaining their original numbers?

@Northroader, snap!

Isn't it Blackfriars station, with the bridge over Queen Victoria Street?

Full baskets sheeted over and empties piled on top?

Yes, mostly buses and cabs - plus ça change...

A couple of perilous-looking loads at 2:07!

The opening few seconds demonstrate that three bus clumping is nothing new.

Splendid operation!

... but on second thoughts they're rather neatly and evenly spaced, so maybe.

... although it looks a bit feeble to be an original 19th century fitting.

That was me. I don't think it would work in fact unless one was comparing wagons in similar condition - probably only ex-works would give a fair comparison.

True, but I want my models to be as historically correct as the available information and the compromises of scale and gauge permit. That's Rule 1 for me. Rule 2 is to remember that other people's rulebooks may have a different Rule 1.

For some reason that I cannot recollect, the Iron Mink on the left escaped the black paint. Also, I was asserting recently that I'd painted the roofs of my Iron Minks red as they were iron so why would they be painted differently to the rest of the wagon? (I've since seen conclusive evidence that the roofs of Iron Minks in grey with 25" initials were white.)

I must be loosing my grip.

Oh bother.

I meant to finish by stating my conviction that they're all red.

I contended and still maintain that what we see here is a mix of some recently-painted wagons (dark, possibly with a glossier appearance) and well-worn wagons that have been in traffic a good while and have lost their shine. I note that those are also older types. Two of the darker wagons are iron-framed wagons - the 4-plank wagon can be no more than a couple of years old. The 3-plank wagon with straight end must be old series Lot 284 or later; it's got a low number - 260? Most lots had numbers in continuous runs in various 5-digit blocks but the last three lots (together with some others) are listed by Atkins as "various". Production of 3-plank wagons ceased in 1887; this wagon could be only three years old.

Apologies, just went back to the previous post and read comments there re. main line working. Still no place for the guard's journal, flags, detonators, lamps, tea caddy, etc.

These must only have been used in situations where no paperwork was required - guard's journal etc. Would they even have been allowed out on the running lines?

A model of image referencing! @AY Mod will be happy.

I note the Moira wagon in the second Slough photo. 

A couple of photos showing Midland stables, for comparison:

Probably Derby London Road stables, 16 December 1909:

NRM DY 9140, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

Derby London Road stables, 16 August 1905. Note the garage for carts etc.

NRM DY 2732, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

1 hour ago, Furness Wagon said:

This gives me a business idea, as I've never seen any for sale. If these coaches went everywhere. Then you could have a train full of them.

Marc

... if modelling Perth on the days before 12th August.

1 minute ago, wenlock said:

I really like the idea of a visiting dignitary visiting Sherton Abbas accompanied with his staff and horse drawn carriage.

The thing about this is that the ensemble of family carriage, OCT, and horsebox can come from any company you wish - LNWR, LBSCR, GER...

Clearly envisioning the day when the means of production - or at least cartage - would be in the hands of the workers, or at least their union. The Railways are still in private hands though, judging by the cart piled high with boxes marked GNR, GER, GW and SER.

Sorry to be an old grump but I think an S&DJR milk van on a Great Western branch terminus is a bit of a stretch. S&DJR milk vans did go up to London by the South Western, as I learnt from @bbishop who has been looking at the selfsame Roxey kit, but milk from Sherton Abbas dairy herds would surely go gout in one of those brown siphony thingies? Pre-Great War pooling, the presence of foreign wagons requires some explanation, especially on an out-of-the-way branch line. Statistically, your best bet for a foreign wagon is of course a Midland 5-plank open to D299, since they accounted for about 5% of all wagons on the rails c. 1905! But even before that, how about some more Great Western wagons in pre-1904 livery?

The horsebox is a better bet. If you really wanted to push the boat out on S&DJR blue stock, how about a first class saloon, horsebox, and open carriage truck with landau, as some Somerset nob comes visiting your local nobility?

Here's No. 6, according to Garner a 32 ft saloon first built at Highbridge in 1886; subtly different to the contemporary Midland family carriages to D459:

Copy of DY 8452, stolen a while ago from @phil_sutters's gallery that I can't now find.

On 24/12/2019 at 19:09, billbedford said:

 

But neither of your prototype photos show evidence of this. The van is in standard Derby grey livery with grey ironwork. While the open wagon looks as if it has been taken from straight from traffic and had its livery 'enhanced' for photographic purposes.

 

Note:

• there are chalk marks on the wagon planks,
• only the two headstock washer plates are dark, all the rest of the solebar ironwork is a similar colour to the timber solebar, 
• some of the nuts on the solebar have been picked out with a white background
• the brake lever and axlebox fronts, which are black in every UK wagon livery, are paler than the body ironwork
• there is a dark patch on the end planks just above the lefthand corner plate, where it looks as if someones paintbrush slipped which he was applying the blackening to the corner plate. 

 

The official photo of Road Van No. 1038, is, I'm fairly sure, take at Derby. (The row of old 3-plank wagons with 2-plank ends - the elusive "dirt wagons"? - gives me confidence of this.) It's not surprising that a Derby-built vehicle would be turned out in Midland style, irrespective of what Highbridge's practice was.

I take your point about the freshness of the black paint on the corner plates, knee washer plates, and hinges of No. 210. On the other hand, I don't think the standard 5-plank wagons in this photo have been specially prepared. I would wonder why it was thought worth freshening the black parts up on No. 210 if that wasn't the usual Highbridge livery style?

I also submit this cattle wagon for consideration. 

It is the case that well-worn wagons often appear to have black ironwork. I have two theories for this. Firstly, iron and wood would weather differently so differences in apparent shade in a monochrome photo may be due the differences in surface roughness and hence reflectivity. Secondly, ironwork would be painted black before assembly of the wagon (how universal was this practice?); the wagon might be painted all over the same colour but with weathering the black paint on the ironwork might start to show through.

Here's an example of a wagon that has been assembled and not yet painted while here we have a wagon that undoubtedly started out in all-over grey but now appears to have black ironwork. 

I'll be back among my books tomorrow...

An alternative starting point for the S&DJR 5-plank wagon would be the Slaters kit - a bit of extra work needed to make the raised ends but at least the axleboxes look more the thing. The S&DJR had a large number of 5-plank wagons of the Midland type - around half their wagon fleet - the majority of which were of standard appearance, without the raised ends, though some had a metal sheet rail. Some had the Ellis 10A grease axleboxes, with the lugs, while earlier ones has the narrower-looking 8A axleboxes, as on the road van (though I'll come on to that). All, however, had the local Highbridge adaptations of chunky doorstop and long brake lever. 

Here's my attempt in 4 mm/ft scale, using the Slaters kit (towards end of post):

If you are interested in my artwork for S&DJR numberplates, please do get in touch.

@Mikkel's mentioned his 4 mm/ft scale model of the very same road van; he's modestly not drawn attention to the skill required in starting from the Slaters kit for a 16'6" Midland van:

Some of these - fifty I think - were built at Derby and others by S.J. Clay I think (I don't have  Russ Garner's Registers to hand); from the date of build, 1896, and indeed the photo, it's evident that these vans had the Ellis 10A axleboxes not the 8A boxes Furness have given it.

Incidentally, these S&DJR road vans were virtually identical to a batch of 200 tariff vans (different name, same function) the Midland had built for its own use around the same time, except the Midland version had a two-pane widow in the end. The same design (without the windows) was used for the first lot of banana vans.

Apologies, I'm away from my copy of Midland Wagons so can't give chapter and verse on diagrams, drawing nos. and lot nos.