kitpw

After many sessions of looking in earnest and posting my question to you not half an hour ago, I did a search on Western Thunder (doh, why didn't I think of that before?) and, lo and behold, drawings of what i think is the system used on the N5 'box are posted in this thread: https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/v2-4-wheel-parcel-van.10709/. The drawings won't help with the non-outisde link clasp brakes for the fitted iron mink but would probably apply to the 4 wheel siphon, so worth book-marking the link for later reference!

The quoted visible light transmission is 84% for the material reference here: https://activewindowfilms.co.uk/122-museum-clear-uv-ultra-violet-995-anti-fading-uv-protection-window-film-clear-heat-rejection-sticky-back-film.html. (A complete specificaion in pdf format is downloadable).

I still don't have a really good grasp (no pun intended) of the clasp brake with outside linkage which seems to be present on horseboxes N1 to N5 and certanly on the 4 wheel siphon. Every time I think I've got it, I see something which doesn't quite align with my drawing of what I think is present under No 88. I followed your lead and the BGS have provided the etch which you referred to above: it certainly has many of the parts which I can identify from photos which is really helpful - do you know of any drawings or diagrams of the outside link braking equipment as fitted to 4 wheel stock? I think it may be different to the 6 wheel arrangement which is illustrated in Rusell's GW Coaches vol 1, plates 46 and 47 when compared with No 88 in plate 52. All a bit of a puzzle.

Our posts crossed! My lighting is definitely "older types", maybe 15 years old at least. Sleepers stained with black oak 4 years ago are now almost back to birch colour with no exposure to sunlight. I have wondered about humidity and pollution as possible causes and I use extraction for fumy things like soldering and a dehumidifier from time to time. I do know that water colour paintings should be framed under glass and made as air tight as possible as pigments can fade from pollutants as well as sunlight. Maybe both film on the glass and Ghiant fix would be prudent.

I've been considering a change to LED, my main concern being to reduce electricity consumption. However, I found this paper: 'Spectral Light Fading of Inkjet Prints' https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/4/209 which is a study concerned with museum conservation of inkjet prints under LED lighting. It has this: "All of the color patches were very sensitive to the wavelength range between 385 nm–420 nm. UV light is normally not present in LED lighting, but short wavelength blue light is. Long wavelength cut-off filters, as are used today in museum displays for daylight, fluorescent, and tungsten illumination, should also be considered for LED lighting." I can't say I fully understand the paper but the conclusion seems pretty clear.

Light from the sun and the sky is one thing but I've found that both wood stain (applied to sleepers and timber built platforms) and inkjet printed material have faded under artifical light, in my case, mostly fluorescent (the railway room has windows facing north only). Dave John's suggestion of uv protection to individual items within the space therefore strikes me as being a better bet than film on the glass.

I will look for it on Abe's. Splodge is a slightly corrupted technical term related to "lodge" which is placing an amount of something in a particular place as a starting point (was originally "first lodge" corrupted to "splodge"). [which suggests not believing everything you read in books].

Yes, I've noticed that too. If you look closely at the last few frames of the film, you can see some rather scruffy curved chalk lines under the curved letters so maybe they "winged it" against a roughly drawn freehand shape. The small numbers clearly didn't give the painter any pause, he dives in and turns out some nicley consistent letter forms. The Michelangelo of the petrol tank posted just now by @Schooneris telling - I love the expression on the faces of the two men watching, I probably looked like that too. PS: when in India a few years ago, we were directed to look at a shrine to the Hindu god (one of hundreds if not thousands in the Hindu pantheon) "Royal Enfield".

Tells us something about how it's done even if not a 1910 film, or an MR (or even a GWR) wagon. The film doesn't explain how the curved letters were drawn out: not that that matters for the Midland but perhaps there was a template for the G in GWR?

Hay for horses always reminds me of the cockney phonetic alphabet: A for 'orses; beef or lamb; c forth Highlanders; deaf or dumb; f forvescence...etc Agreed about the platform and the hay. It's aparently called a 'bail' platform: Lewis clarifies the meaning of bail (not bale) as being a rail separating horses in a stable and has nothing to do with cricket or hay. So perhaps it was intended to carry a bail not a bale but I don't find that convincing. By N3, it was a cupboard so perhaps the GWR got fed up with trying to sheet bales on the open platform and enclosed it or, as you say, never used it. Lewis dicusses running 4 wheeled vehicles in fast trains in the first of the two articles in GWRJ and refernces the 1919 restrictions on running 4 and 6 wheeld vehicles in trains of passenger rated stock running more than 80 miles without stopping and in other specific trains. I think that points to the more likely explanation you've provided - wheel base takes precedence over the accomodation.

...exactly so: I still have my letter cutting chisels to prove it. (The word serif is possibly derived from a proto Indo European word meaning "cut" or "scratch") When the chisel exits the stone, it naturally tends to leave a tag which is formalised into a serif: it's extremely difficult to hand cut a "stopped" end to a narrow cut - I found it impossible!

No, the Lewis articles don't show the wooden brackets. I've been back through all the reference I have on the 'boxes and can't find an example. Repeating the quote from the article: "N1 shows a metal triangular brace at the bail platform end. N2 has a wooden brace; however, as noted above, there is evidence that this change may have taken place during construction of the last two lots of the N1 'boxes and some seem to have been fitted with angle iron braces" [my underlining] Lewis gives no source for the statement that the N2s had wooden brackets. The diagram (reproduced up thread) shows a bracket on the N2 but it looks far more like a metal bracket shape. I'm beginning to wonder if some misunderstanding has crept in over time and that there was a indeed a change but from one style of metal bracket to a different style of metal bracket, some of which were fitted to the later N1 'boxes. Was there ever a wooden bracket?

...and to me. It looks very much like a typical forged iron architectural bracket (blacksmith's stuff) of the period. Which raises the distinct possibility that there were two different styles of metal bracket fitted to N1 'boxes (both types shown in Nick's photos above) and possibly two styles of brace fitted to N2s - the curved iron brace as above and the timber brace which was also curved. The second of those photo is exceptional in clarity. I note that there are no up and over type handrails evident and presumably no end steps. No sign of a lamp top either and each end has a cover (?) strip too close to the end to be a closed lamp hole. The horizontal boaring appears to be rebated into the corner posts to end up as a flush joint at the corner - very impressive work preventing cupping of the boarding. The bail end floor might be metal sheet: if wood, it's a very wide and thin plank which would deteriorate with use and weather. Rain strips and warning wire loops present. It's also the best picture of a trumpet ventilator I've seen which will help in making up something to represent it on my N5. PS "Miscellany" Vol 1 delivered by mail a few seconds after I posted this. Booksellers doing well out of this thread!

...also 'onion skin' and 'air mail' paper might be worth following up. Onion skin is a textured surface which might be appropriate for worn sheets.

Rizla is (said to be) 20gsm. The lowest gsm tissue paper I can find is 22gsm at Jacksons - https://www.jacksonsart.com/search/?fq[paper_surfacegsm]=22+gsm&q=paper. I think "India paper" would be a better paper - defined as being less than 30gsm. I haven't done a search for it but it is the traditional paper for bibles for export (ie lightweight editions, if that isn't a contradiction in terms). It's a hard smooth paper like Rizla paper but, perhaps, with a nobler intent.

I hadn't focussed much on N1 and N2 as I was mainly concerned with N5 and then with N5's braking arrangements. Indeed, I had forgotten the Lewis articles until the end of last week and was then involved in a family get-together 200 miles away so didn't have a chance to look them out until last evening. In Mikkel's last posted picture, I also noticed the theatrical flats which is a curious coincidence as, at the weekend, my son was recalling driving a 7.5 ton truck from south London to Dublin via Holyhead carrying a theatrical set - he worked for a theatre workshop at the time. Anyway, about horseboxes... The bail end of the box next to the flat truck shows a distinct crank at the upper end of the raking strut between the floor and back of the 'box. This must be the metal angle as the timber version of N2 is radiused up to the top of the bracket. Lewis says this, however "N1 shows a metal triangular brace at the bail platform end. N2 has a wooden brace; however, as noted above, there is evidence that this change [metal to wood] may have taken place during construction of the last two lots of the N1 'boxes and some seem to have been fitted with angle iron braces" [my note in square brackets] I'm confused by that: if some of the N2 had the N1 brace (bracket), then he means that they had the metal bracket so some N2s could be confused with N1s because they had metal brackets but not the other way about - or have I missed something? The blankness of the roof does seem to suggest that there wasn't anything there although I agree with Nick that there is something between the end handrails which, incidentally, aren't shown on the N1 or N2 diagrams (nor end steps to go with them).

Thanks Mikkel, and for posting those two photos. The colourisation of the Newbury picture gives it a "model" like quality, I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't having my leg pulled (again). Great Western Railway Journal No 76 (Autmn 2010) and No 78 (Spring 2011) carried a two part article by John Lewis "GWR Horse Traffic and Horseboxes". Part 1 "The Traffic" and part 2 "The Earlier GWR Horseboxes". Both articles are useful but for my present purposes have no underframe detail drawings for the N5 (or for any of the other boxes). Again for present purposes, I hadn't focussed on the N1 and N2 which we dicusssed above. Part 2 does have diagrammatic drawings from N1 to N9 and a good shop GA for N8 (June 1894) so taken together, several years' worth of scratchbuilding without leaving the Edwardian era! The best underframe detail comes from the Tavender book but only for the N1 and probably the N2 and, even then, without the workings of the braking gear. (Titfield Thunderbolt bookshop has No 78 listed but no longer has No 76). Part 1 covers a good deal on horsebox operations, trains in which they could run, trains in which they could not, times/days and locations when horses weren't accepted for travel and examinations before loading - all valuable if trying to present "authentic" activities involving horses on the railway. If you wanted the articles and can't get them, let me know. There are references to survivors in preservation - I'll list them out when I've a moment this week and post it here - none, I think, are in near original condition but had a second life as tool vans and such like. I noticed particularly (amongst much else) the hanging lighting at Paddington. I've been keeping an eye out for globe LEDs. They're available in appropriate sizes in the US but only in inappropriate colours which makes me think that there are some out there - I just haven't tracked them down yet. The other type seen in the photo look more promising as they might be contrived using conventional panel mount type LEDs. All that belongs to plans for a station building which are very much still on the drawing board.

I don't know about Edwardian (Newbury) Farthing but I believe that London regs at the time would have doors opening in the direction of escape from fire - so outwards.

...and also tells us the name of the company unloading pipework: Knowles "all over" London - chimney pots and clay drainage pipe manufacturers. WT Knowles & Sons Ltd are still making chimney pots at Elland, West Yorkshire. I particularly like the last picture in the set: I would dearly like my own layout to get lost in a smoky mist where it reaches out to the "rest-of-the-world".

...it may even be a trough shape. Is the catcher at the bottom using a piece of sacking? The picture raises some questions just as it answers others: Any guesses about what the objects packed neatly in straw on the lower right of the picture might be - chimney pots? With that much straw in the wagon, I wonder if was sheeted: it would be a pretty damp, matted load if it wasn't. Any idea who the manufacturer might be to have their own wharf at St Pancras? The photographer (or later editor) seemed keener to record the activity than the name of the company.

That's a wonderful piece of modelling. The small pane windows are a triumph and the decorative woodwork (from my 7mm scale point of view) near impossible but utterly convincing. Well done seems an understatement,,,but well done!

I strongly suspect that drainage goods were packed in straw - note the sophisticated unloading apparatus referred to in the picture caption. Getty Images: embedding permitted. Caption reads: St Pancras goods yard, London, 1933. UNITED KINGDOM - DECEMBER 17: Pottery being unloaded from a railway wagon at St Pancras goods yard. These fragile ceramic pipes were well wrapped and padded in straw for their journey. The pottery manufacturers had their own private siding at the St Pancras goods yard, so all their loading equipment could stay in place.

On checking, I find that Lomas & co from West Ham were taken over by Thomas Thomson Ltd, tarpaulin manufacturers at Barrhead. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F183344 tells us "NRAS1050 1843-1935: letter books, ledger, purchase book, day book, plans: Collection held privately: enquiries to National Register of Archives for Scotland" (which is a pity as Kew is just round the corner from where I am) but might answer your question! Barrhead, adjacent to Glasgow, to add to Dundee for tarpaulins. (Random interest in weaving and textiles from researching the small Hugenot cemetery which is local to us in Wandsworth - although they turned out to be hat makers).

West Ham (East London) gets a look in too: S. Lomas & Co., tarpaulin manufacturer, High Street, Stratford, 1870. More generally, sheets were being produced to cover hay ricks (rick cloths), for marquees and tents, particularly for the military, and for vehicle coverings (Benjamin Edgington, Piccadilly, London advertised "waterproof brown dressed cloths for wagons, carts and coaches"). PS - I forgot windmill sails

That's looking very convincing. Working in soft materials is quite another challenge (now I get the reference to a piece of string, up thread [!], took a long time for that one to sink in). The red wagon, of course, sets it off very nicely. Would the person-in-charge have rejected a sheet with a small tear and had the sheet replaced (gaffer tape not being available in the 1900s)?