Compound2632

... in accordance with later instructions (para. 148). I suppose it stops water accumulating between the folds.

That's a very tricky question. The 1850s/60s are a real dark age for wagons. Going in, the primitive wagons of the 1840s, such as this; coming out in the early 1870s, recognisably "modern" wagons. If one supposes a typical wagon life in service of 30 - 40 years, these early wagons ought to survive well into the 1870s. For the Great Western, the fortunate survival of the wagon registers provides some hard numbers, as analysed in T. Wood, Saltney Carriage & Wagon Works (GWSG / Wider View, 2007). This shows 10 ft long coal wagons built in 1847 as condemned in 1880/1. So from that one could infer that wagons of the early 40s had probably gone by the mid-70s. But I can't help feeling that such very early wagons would have become outmoded and unfit for use more quickly than that. I suppose similar wagons built for colliery companies might have survived longer in internal use but there's so little evidence. I should think the majority were broken up.

Can Dunrobin be seen from Dunrobin Station?

Yes, the Brighton was well run, but not to time... ... not that the Midland was any better in that respect.

Many and various. As long as a line had all three classes, it had tricomposites - ideal for through working. I'm not sure about the Great Western, but on some lines one could find first/second, second/third, first/third, and tricomposites.

The Instructions are specific on that: it's under the control of the Continental Traffic Manager (para. 12).

My speculation is that the black patch was suggested by someone who had started their career in the C&W department of the NBR, where the parsimonious practice was to paint a grey patch for the crescent and tare weight after a wagon was overhauled but not repainted.

I'm afraid this is misleading. The 19th century 0-6-0 was very much a mixed-traffic engine, except for those specifically classed as mineral engines. After the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 only engines fitted for working trains with continuous brakes could be used for passenger trains but that applied to a lot of 0-6-0s. Particularly on a minor line, the 0-6-0 would be the maid of all work. As to names, very few of the pre-Grouping companies went in for them at all although that included two of the largest, the LNWR and GWR.

I have a scan of a G.R. Weddell article on the block trains from the Model Railway Constructor (issue/date not known). This states the original two block trains of 1872 were formed of eight carriages (the price keeps coming down!) formed of two brake thirds, three thirds, one second and two firsts. Four similar trains were built in 1873 along with two that had one more second in place of one of the thirds. These original trains were surplus in 1896 and broken up by 1900. Unfortunately of the drawings I only have a page with the third and brake third, so I can't say if the seconds had full-height partitions and separate quarter-lights. Others with access to fuller information will be along shortly, I'm sure.

Surely some second class?

Now that's branching out into castle-inspired railway architecture, which gives us any number of tunnel portals. Perhaps that's not a rabbit-hole to go down in this topic but needs one of its own? Likewise York, though no longer used for railway purposes.

Shrewsbury.

I propose tubes through the saddle tank in line with the spectacles to provide a forward line-of-sight.

Midland Railway Study Centre Item 14194 (and similar); also numerous Goods Manager's Circulars "Foreign Wagons and Sheets" that I want a read of once conditions permit!

There were a number where the castle was demolished in whole or part to make way for the station - Northampton and Fort William for instance. Though I suppose in the latter case, the demolished building was a fort rather than a castle.

The Brighton Circle have published on their website a copy of the LB&SCR's Instructions for Goods Staff dated 1 Dec 1903. This is a generally interesting document for understanding how goods traffic was handled. The section Traffic for Foreign Lines, paragraphs 91 - 100, is especially relevant to the present discussion; also paras. 76-77 on demurrage and siding rent, para 74. on the folding and return of foreign sheets, and para. 34 on the return of foreign ropes and other loading equipment.

I suspect that what we're looking at is an unintentional change of colour due to the substitution of zinc white for white lead. I've never come across an explanation for the change to bauxite; the idea that the 1936 small lettering didn't stand out so well on light grey might have driven the change is interesting. It took BR to come up with the idea of the black patch!

Headstocks too, I should think.

The Midland had access to Lancashire via Hellifield for Scotch traffic (indeed the express passenger service between Manchester Victoria, Bolton, and Blackburn, and also from Liverpool, was pretty much a Midland operation, quite apart from the Midland's goods trains) and also via Skipton and Colne for Lancashire traffic to Leeds and Bradford. What the Midland lacked was good access to the less glamorous parts of the West Riding - Halifax and Huddersfield - at least until the bit of the West Riding Lines that actually was built, was built. Those lines provided access from the south. How much was to be gained by access to those towns from the north was clearly questionable. I think one can see why such a line wasn't built, quite apart from the tunnel under Howarth Moor. It's not as if the Midland was averse to tunnelling when it considered there was an economic justification!

The second carriage, the ex-Midland Bain or round-light clerestory, is a 54 ft composite seen from the corridor side - the positions of the door vents give it away. It's not a brake vehicle as there's no guard's ducket. I think the fourth carriage may be an ex-LNWR "toplight" corridor third or composite, again seen from the corridor side - zooming in, one can make out the toplights. The fifth carriage might be an ex-LNWR arc-roof corridor vehicle, one of the 50 ft carriages built in large numbers around the turn of the century and commonly seen in express trains well into the 1920s.. The corridor is on the far side. I base this on the very prominent roof vents, two to each compartment but off-set from the centre line, and also on this carriage being narrower than the others. The final vehicle is almost certainly an ex-Midland square-light 31 ft 6-wheel passenger brake van, likewise still common and widespread around the LMS system before large numbers of the LMS standard 50 ft brakes had been built. The photo must be no earlier than 1928, given the LMS on the tender side, and could easily be well into the 1930s. It is a splendid train, with representatives of all the major English constituents of the LMS plus an LMS standard vehicle, along with an engine from a large and important class that is much overlooked - there were eighty of these engines and they were the mainstay of the ex-LNWR main line north of Crewe at least until the arrival of the Royal Scots. They may not have been the most successful engines but they were better on the job than the much-lauded Claughtons.

... £420. That starts to make the Coronation Scot set look like a bargain at £432!

Worsdell-von Borries; they held patents jointly. T.W.'s engines were all inside-cylinder. Were von-Borries' outside?

Thank you. I only have the original one-volume The LMS Wagon. That comments on the change in ingredients but does not say that gave a blue tint - in fact there is no blue ingredient though zinc white does have a hint of blue that is absent with white lead. Also the paint specification given there is one dating from 1934 rather than (as far as one can tell) a new one introduced in that year. Evidently in the expanded work Essery either gave more details or had additional information, or was prepared to speculate more.

I said mine lines... You are quite right; the matchboarding taking the place of the wood panels. However, I think this is a 20th century thing (not sure about the Highland there) so not really relevant to the sorts of 4 and 6-wheel carriages represented by the Hornby and Hattons models.

What is the evidence for this?