t.s.meese

7 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Re-checking the article in Steam Days from October 2014, the six-wheelers had 'Forced Ventilation' according to the LMS Traffic Committee Minutes of 26 May 1936. Don't know what the difference to the bogie vans with electric fans.

 

The estimated cost of the eight non-gangwayed LMS vans was reported as £6910, with Palethorpes paying a total of £650 p.a. on top of normal carriage charges for the lettering, increased weight and exclusive use of the vehicles, including return empty to Dudley Port.

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.

The Furness Railway, and probably others such as the North Eastern, built wooden hopper wagons for ore carrying, as produced in 7mm by the eponymous Furness Wagon Company, their Number 3. It would seem unlikely that normal 5 or 7 plank opens would be used for this traffic, as emptying the ore with a flat floor would be onerous.

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 are worth a look.

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...

Firstly, DON'T attempt to make a purchase.

 

 

Secondly read this thread. Just the last couple of pages should give you an idea that this range is probably dead as a dodo.

 

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/112011-coopercraft-its-fate-and-thoughts-on-an-alternative/

 

 

 

 

Jason

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.)

If you actually go into the shopping box, most of the wagon transfers have a misleading "colour" option. This doesn't offer lettering in various colours, just the option to have white lettering or white lettering shaded black. HMRS would be wise to change this wording as you aren't the first person here to give up at that stage.

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!)

That difference between companies is perhaps most pronounced with the NER where there were very few PO wagons for minerals.  The NER preferred to transport and control this merchandise themselves.  

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.)