t.s.meese

Very interesting. (I can hear my wife chuckling over what I find interesting, but, well, you know; I *do* find this interesting...) And thanks to everyone else too, keep them coming, in all varieties - including the pork... But to get back to the OP (I think). Examples of non-mineral open wagons...

I've wondered about those. So, they were owned by the railways then. Do you know how many of them there were? A handful, dozens? And why would these arrangements come into place? If palethorpes wanted special vans why were they not expected to pay for the build? Were they hired?

We are way of the OP on this topic. But I'm more than happy to see all of these comments coming in...

Does anyone make a sheet of 4mm transfers for the plates (builder, owner, repair, etc) found on wagon solebars (Big 4 through to BR)? I've looked in the usual places (Powsides, HMRS, Fox) but I might have missed something. A product code number would be great... Thanks Tim.

That was my thought too - but then, why any different from coal?

Was iron ore ever carried in wooden bodied wagons? All the photos I can find are for steel bodied tipplers and hoppers; most (all) look post-war. I'm wondering how these looked pre-war? For example, were the 4mm wooden bodied PO iron ore wagons we see used only for carrying coal to the plant?

Powsides - yes, I have some from them when I was in the hobby 10 year sago (only just returned); but first glance at their website led me to believe that they were now dedicated (largely) to 7mm. With further digging I see that is wrong - just an oddly organised site!

So this is what I understand - during the war there was a shortage of general merchandise wagons, so some 7-plank mineral wagons were converted by removing that top plank in the region above the door. That helps with unloading and makes sense to me. But then, I think independent of that, there are some mineral wagons that have about half of the top plank removed in that region. I think this is called the London plank, so presumably it is specific to private owners in that region. These wagons were still used for coal. What was the reason for doing this, and why was it regional? (I'm thinking maybe it improved line of site when shovelling out of the wagon, but if so, why just in London?)

So this is what I understand - during the war there was a shortage of general merchandise wagons, so some 7-plank mineral wagons were converted by removing that top plank in the region above the door. That helps with unloading and makes sense to me. But then, I think independent of that, there are some mineral wagons that have about half of the top plank removed in that region. I think this is called the London plank, so presumably it is specific to private owners in that region. These wagons were still used for coal. What was the reason for doing this, and why was it regional? (I'm thinking maybe it improved line of site when shovelling out of the wagon, but if so, why just in London?)

My question was really whether the tooling for these kits might be bought up by somebody else - haven't Peco just bought up Parkside? But I guess there is no news further to the links above...

Well, for info, I did make two orders - one at the end of Sept 2017, the other just into Oct (not realising the situation). Both orders still show as pending, awaiting further delivery charge. I notice that the second one (for ~20 quid) has been debited from my account (the day after making the order), the first one (for ~60 quid) has not. Go figure. (And I've received nothing in return.)

Thanks for that fine steer, Nick.

Thanks, Pentrhos - but from what I've seen at HMR, none of those include shaded letters either. (Though PO4 looks quite useful.)

I hobby (can I use that as a verb?) outside the mainstream, so I'm not always up with the news. But things seem to have ground to a halt with Coopercraft. The website is still there, you can make orders, but nothing happens, and the order sits in abeyance. Emails and other web-based enquiries are not replied to. From what I've gleaned from other posts (from about 2 years ago), the outfit is in, err, difficulties. Does anyone have an update? Can we expect those kits to reappear?

I'm looking for a source of PO wagon shaded number transfers - to renumber some RTR wagons. I feel sure shaded (e.g. white/black shadow) numbers and letters must exist, in various sizes, but I'm darned if I can locate them with google searches, or even targeted searches with the likes of Fox and Modelmaster. Any help appreciated. (I do have some left over from old Slaters kits; so the concept is there!)

Thanks; I did not know this. But how did that pan out in LNER days? From photos (I have plenty in books), I get the impression that PO wagons were far more common than LNER mineral wagons on the ECML. But could there be a bias in the images available? I would imagine photographers to be far more likely to spend film on an interesting rake of POWs than a dull set of company wagons...

Thanks to all those who have replied so far - these have been very helpful, largely confirming my hunches, but that's a good thing. More than happy to hear more... cheers t.

Many 5 plank POWs were for coal - typically coal merchants, as I understand it. But were any of those 5 plank POWs that we see from the likes of Bachmann (the ones that make no mention on their sides of anything coal related) used for general merchandise? (One can easily imagine such traders.) Or was general merchandise always carried by company wagons, there being no motivation for general merchandise traders to own their own wagons? (This is a big 4 period question.)