Compound2632

5 minutes ago, magmouse said:

1. For a pre-grouping layout, you shouldn’t have too many

Which begs the question how many wagons is too many!

6 minutes ago, magmouse said:

2. Where is the fun in that?

Have you seen the one with working sliding door that @Tricky has built?

Then there's poseable roof hatches, of the sliding and rolling varieties...

The possibilities in the senior scale are numerous! 

11 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

But sometimes I may want an empty wagon, or a different load. You know, like on the railway 🙂

There's a lot to be said for modelling vans...

3 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

But then came the roping, so that was that. 

The wagon and the load are one.

7 hours ago, magmouse said:

Thanks - yes, this one is definitely not a ‘shake the box’’ kit, at least if you want it to represent a diagram N13 accurately. It would be close to a later type (N20, N21? I don’t have the books to hand) though the doors were wider on those, I think.

I suppose that the same applies to the 4 mm scale kit?

I like the method for increasing the width.

There are vertical rows (columns?) of rivets on the ends that don't get a mention... Also the triangular fillets on the corners of the top angle.

Coal is, or can be, shiny - especially, I think, as hewn out of the seam, and of one of the harder varieties. This should be Welsh steam coal - I don't know how hard that was.

Find a quiet corner to sit cross-legged in and repeat until your eyes glaze over:

"The wagon and its load are one."

For a moment there, I thought it was going to be individual bricks all the way down! 

(I see Juweela do them in 1:72 too...)

But why bother with the wagon floor if there's going to be a former supporting the top layer of bricks?

Delighted to see this wagon rolling by in the rotating gallery in the RH column of the page. Better than adverts for funeral plans!

35 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Then there are the wagons themselves, which are very uneven in terms of the height of the bottom of the solebars and the curb rails. They are all similarly loaded, so it can’t just be the deflection of the springs under load. 

We see a variety of wagons, of different ages. The wagon second from the right is a timber-framed 2-plank wagon of 1870s vintage; I think the one fourth from the right may be timber-framed too. So it's unsurprising that they're sitting at different heights - ages of bearing springs, etc. (Though bearing springs will have been replaced several times in the life of a wagon.)

23 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

IIRC you saw some of the photos in a Reading exhibition once.

Yes, back in 2016 - I contacted the curator of the exhibition (it was at Reading Museum) who put me on to where he had been alerted to the photos, GW Journal.

30 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Britain from Above has several good shots from later years of each yard, but those showing both yards are from a distance and grainy. Here is one, dated 1920. King's Meadow yard in the foreground, Vastern Rd yard in the background. 

There are some more good aerial photos from 1948 in this document: 

https://images.reading.gov.uk/2021/06/5.13-Heritage-Statement.pdf

which discusses the history of the ornamental gateway / lodge to the old electricity works and whether or not it should be preserved as part of the residential redevelopment of the site (spoiler alert - no). This area is of interest to me because from 1996 to 2002 we lived at 2 Lynmouth Road, backing onto what was then the SSE site.

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

King's Meadow photos. 

Vastern Road yard. There are no hay/straw loads in the otherwise equally nice panoramic view of the Kings Meadow yard, almost certainly taken from the same vantage-point - the water tower next to the bridge carrying the main line over Vastern Road.

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

For GWR at least, yes - the roping is different, as per the Appendix to the rule book. Three ropes across for straw, and two ropes plus diagonals for hay. By BR days, this has changed, possibly with the move to machine made bales.

Ah yes, of course, I now recall that we discussed this. But I also meant, in terms of the appearance of the material?

For anyone wishing to judge prototype fidelity, here's Reading Vastern Road yard, c. 1905:

Is there any way of distinguishing between hay and straw loads, at least 7 mm or 4 mm scale?

And of course it's not just a question of the chromatic response of the plate or film but also of the surface finish of the object - whether gloss or matt. Two surfaces of the same colour under the same lighting conditions will appear different depending on the proportion of specular to diffuse reflection.

Superb. The I is a centre-line marker to aid even loading, I suppose?

1 minute ago, magmouse said:

if the railway company photographer did it, I would expect it to be more side-on

It is in the LMS collection, which I'm pretty sure means it was taken for the railway - illustrating an unusual load, for example.

Is this one, just appearing on the left?

[Embedded link to photo in the Science Museum LM&SR Collection, caption says 1905 but I'm afraid I've learnt not to put much faith in their captions...]

52 minutes ago, Dave John said:

I think I just about got away with the frame spacing in EM

Sorry, I had been under the impression you were P4. But the gist of my comment was 00, no way.

Now this is a vehicle that, at 4 mm scale, really couldn't be built in anything other than P4! The Midland (like all the larger companies) had trolleys built on the same principal but with end platforms that more-or-less hide the inner frames and bearings. Mike @airnimal mad an S7 model of one a while back.

As to the weight, could you have used strips of lead or steel for the timber, flitched in plasticard? 

11 minutes ago, magmouse said:

The sun is high in the sky (see the shadows of the springs) leaving the sole bar in shadow - all but the front edge of the bottom flange, which just catches the light. That's why the sole bar looks darker. The darker end to the buffer beam is because the ends of the buffer beams are angled, so the L-section in the corner bends to tuck under and follow the diagonal cut of the beam. The light on the buffer beam ends is therefore at a skimming angle to the surface and lights it less brightly.

 

I'm convinced this wagon is all the same colour, and I am fairly sure (but less certain) it is grey, not black.

Yes, seeing the whole picture gives the eye more context. It becomes reasonably convincing that the axleguards are the same colour as the body side - they are in parallel planes under the same illumination. I would agree that if this is a photograph of a newly-painted wagon, it is not black - unless there has been some jiggery-pokery in the developing room to provide an image with better contrast.

I have some questions:

1. Were wagon wheels and axles painted?
2. If so, why?
3. Did the GW manufacture its own wagon wheels and axles at this period, or buy them in from one of the specialist suppliers, such as that well-known Wednesbury firm, the Patent Shaft Co.?

Question 3 arises from my research into the MR C&W Committee minutes. Before the mid-70s, new wagons that were additions to stock were built by the wagon trade. They would quote for construction of the wagons but separate tenders would be put out for wheels and axles, and bearing and buffing springs, these being sourced from specialist suppliers. No doubt the wagon builders would also buy in such components for the PO wagons they were building. Then in the aftermath of the Great War, Reid several times complained that the limiting factor in the rate of wagon renewal was the supply of wheels and axles; at one point a batch was bought from a Belgian supplier.

Now, if I was to look at that photo of wagon No. 9669 with no knowledge of GW liveries to prejudice me, I think I would say that it was clear that the underframe - solebar, headstock, and running gear - was darker than the body. Note the change of shade on the headstock, even though the material seems to be continuous.

27 minutes ago, Western Star said:

To my eye, this photo seems to present a wagon with black wheels / axle and that goes against all that we have been told for either the red or the grey liveries.

I can't recall the question being discussed. In fact, I don't think I can recall any explicit statement of the colour of wheels and axles for any wagon livery of any company, except for the Brighton, which is stated to have painted axles blue.

As an 00 bodger, they're a part of my models to which I am reluctant to draw too much attention!

Beautiful.

8 minutes ago, MarcD said:

Plate 4 in LNWR wagons vol 1 shows the LNWR experimenting with the on 1 Dia 4 4 plank and 4 dia 2 2 plank fixed sides.the 4 plank has a paint date of 04/09. there is another photo on page 36 of a Dia 2 2 plank fixed side with a rail no date. How ever both ae ex works and do contain the dimonds on the sides which was not used aftr 1910.

This is the SE/LSW/GW type, described in the captions as the "Williams automatic sheet support". A date of April 1909 is reasonable; the photo was taken at Earlestown and everything looks freshly painted.

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The Study Centre does have Drg. 2820 for the D304 wagons, item 88-D1092, but I have not yet seen this.

I have now seen this drawing but it does not advance us much. As one would expect from the photo, the drawing shows a mechanism that is a dead ringer for the drawings in Williams' patent but there is no note or comment on the drawing concerning it.

But the chronology remains curious. Williams' patent is dated 29 May 1902 and the Midland was using this design in 1906/7. However, the arrangement with the semicircular guide is evidently earlier - the Great Western was using it from the first building of O4s in 1901, as far as I can make out, but the South Eastern was using it at least as early as 1897 - vide Southern Wagons Vol. 3 plates 31, 33, and 36. Plate 33 is a close up of the end of steel-framed wagon No. 2284, with what is said to be a patent plate mounted just below the pivot plate. The South Western seems also to have been using it from around about the same date - Southern Wagons Vol. 1 plates 25 and 26, the latter posted above.

So I suggest we should be looking for a Williams patent from the mid-90s for the arrangement used by the South Eastern, South Western, and Great Western. The Midland, coming later to the game, adopted an improved patent design - improved, I suggest, in that the sheet support did not have to be lifted up at both ends in order to drop it down to one side. But if this was an improvement, why did the RCH 1923 specification and later BR adopt the earlier pattern? Influence of the Swindon or Ashford C&W Drawing Office?