Aire Head

I disagree, people are just as happy to be involved as they always have been, the environment which has allowed them to do so however is not there. Nail on the head there!

There is plenty of evidence out there of fitted stock behind unfitted on freight trains running on mainlines. Also a nice shot of cattle vans not at the front while carrying livestock albeit they are in what could be the fitted portion of the train.

I see this often stated but frankly the evidence does not bear this out. Enough photographs of goods trains exist showing trains which have fitted stock running as Unfitted in trains with no fitted head. Even photos of trains with fitted vehicle behind the loco is no guarantor of the actually being connected. The practice from the 1970s is different to practice from even a decade before.

Or money in this respect too. Cost of childcare is prohibitive mine costs around £1000 a month for 4 days a week and this is pretty normal. Cost of living Vs wages also means that most families are now dual income in order to get by thereby further reducing the chance of additional time to volunteer.

Thinking about how cattle vans are often at the front the thought occured to me that for good trains that are not stopping to shunt and working between two sorting yard like the majority of trains were. Having the cattle wagons at the front would be advantageous in that when reaching the destination the cattle wagons could be removed first in order for the cattle to be livestock to be cared and also reducing the amount of shunting that would be undertaken with them.

LMS 1937 General Appendix states as follows None of the later supplements I have of which the last is dated 1957 makes any amendment to this instruction.

The requirement in the general appendix is that vehicles carrying livestock should be marshalled in the location that requires the least shunting.

14/2/1917 according to this.

The correct railway terminology was "sheets". Sheets were common user and as such were used interchangeably by the railway so a GWR sheet on an LMS wagon would be perfectly plausible. Most photographs show matching sheets and wagons. The LMS was the largest provider of sheets in the same way it was the largest supplier of wagons followed by the LNER and then the SR. A rough guideline is around 48% LMS 36%LNER 10%GWR and 6%SR although some variation exists within that and railways like the GWR and SR built a higher proportion of vans than opens compared to the likes of the LMS and LNER. The LNER did have the highest amount of mineral wagons.

Form modelling a mineral train here are a few examples of models done by me to show what kind of stock would be used. First up is a couple of RCH mineral wagons in typical 1950s condition. The first one is heavily weathered unpainted wood and the second is the same with fragments of its old PO livery showing through. Until the late 50s wooden bodies wagons were the most common type of mineral wagon. These are both examples of the 1923 types but the earlier 1907 types was still very common and examples of earlier minerals were still present. Steel mineral wagons were the next most common type in the early to late 1950s, mainly 16T wagons, these would be at most slightly battered in the 1950s which a very sizeable portion being barely weathered at all as most would be brand new. These were overwhelmingly grey however some exLMS and MWT/MOT would be in weathered Bauxite and some of the earlier types may even have the remains of private owner livery. Sometimes merchandise opens were also pressed into service for mineral trains. I have included this model of an LNER D3 open as it shows a wagon which has had extensive replacement of planks mixed in with a few remaining older planks. BR officially didn't repaint wagons with wooden underframes except for lettering and by the 1950s a lot of these wagons would be a mish-mash of dirty weathered wood and newer fresher timbers for giving them an almost kaleidoscopic finish. Some wagons were repainted despite the official instructions but most would be increasingly decrepit.

Class J also covers Mineral Trains in addition to "empty wagon trains" which confusingly enough these are often seen with loaded wagons in despite their name 😅

Sheeted opens were really common and are quite fun to model. I make mine using Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Wrappers as shown in this thread. The other thing I'd strongly advise you to invest in is getting a lot of diversity, this means different diagrams of vans and opens from different companies. This does mean a lot of kitbuilding and research and becomes a whole rabbit-warren dive in and of itself!

I was responding to his subsequent question regarding vans. I don't want them to get trapped in the misapprehension that "Vans and Minerals" are the only option when the 1950s freight scene relied on a lot of open wagons. Something underrepresented by the majority of modellers.

I did some work a few years ago at RAF Menwith Hill and the sniffer Dog would get thrown into my car every morning while I chatted to the two MP7 toting chaps accompanying him. One Monday as the dog was thrown into the back of my car I realised with a chill up my spine that a tin containing blank ammunition was under my seat. Dog completely ignored it but I confessed to my sin to be on the safe side and was told it happened more often than you'd think given that everyone goes shooting around that neck of the woods.

In 1956 roughly 2/3rd of goods vans were fitted. Merchandise opens 5/6 plank and smaller outnumbered goods vans by around 2/1. Around 1/3rd of merchandise opens were fitted. Big four era stock dominated with a rough ratio of 8 LMS, 7 LNER, 2 GWR to 1 SR wagon. So in short get building open wagons mainly LMS and LNER types and mainly unfitted!

The majority of goods trains during your period would be Unfitted (Class F,H,J&K) and of those trains most of them would be "mixed goods" trains which would be composed of a mixture of rolling stock. These trains would not have had a "fitted head", it is common to hear people say that it was done for additional braking power but in MOST cases this did NOT happen. Connecting up the vacuum system (correctly known as "bagging up") was dirty, time consuming and most importantly dangerous as it require going between the wagons. People by their nature do not make extra work for themselves especially if it ticks all three of those boxes. Mineral trains in the 1950s were mainly composed of old 13T wooden mineral wagons however as the decade progressed these became less common and the 16T steel mineral took over. The overwhelming majority of the 16T steel wagons were painted grey and were Unfitted, the overwhelming majority of the 13T wagons would be unpainted or carrying fragments of their previous identities becoming increasingly decrepit as the decade progressed. The composition of Departmental or Engineers trains would be dependent on the job being undertaken. Dedicated stock did exist but quite often merchandise and sometimes mineral vehicles wagons would be pressed into service for these too. Photos are always your best reference for these and are elusive.

I did answer this. The answer is that it depends on the size of the shed. Smaller shed wouldn't justify a full train and it would either be tripped there or dropped off in the pickup.

Dependant on the size of the shed would depend on the amount. A large shed would warrant a dedicated train however the smaller more typical sheds are more likely to have the loco coal travel to the nearest sorting yard then tripped as a small working to the shed.

Absolutely, you want a mix of stock from across the big four, more open wagons than you can imagine too. Hope you like kitbuilding!

Pretty much any big four freight vehicle. What isn't permitted is probably easier to list but depends on exactly what class of train is being run. Do NOT fall into trap of only running LNER owned vehicles. By 1939 pretty much everything was common user, meaning that it could be used by any company as if it was their own vehicle, even then non common user did travel onto foreign metals a lot. Note that XP markings only apply to Express Passenger trains and are not a requirement to run in Class C trains.

🤔 I've discovered this is what Push Pull trains are for. When all the goods trains are point the wrong way in the fiddle yard run the push pull out, then rapidly swap everything around in the fiddle yard and if anyone happens to turn up to watch run the push pull back out again 😅 Hopefully giving you enough time to swap at least one train around!

On a more serious note I'd personally like to see D663A 5 planks, D607/D673 7 plank wagons and D362/363 10T Vans all from the Midland Railway. All of which were pretty distinctive in design, crop up quite often in photos including into the 50s/60s. Some of these were certainly sold off/loaned out and appear in non railway company liveries. I've definitely seen examples of these wagons in MR, LMS, BR and WD/MOD liveries.

Common user very quickly overrides that idea I'm afraid. An LMS common user wagon on the SR could be used by the SR as if it was the SRs own wagon.

Thank you that might explain why I couldn't find the SR diagram! Indeed the D1375 bears a lot more similarity to the GWR and LNER wagons with the narrower corner plates and placement of bolts.

The Airfix wagon in question represents an LMS D1892 and a family of very similar diagrams (only around 20,000 built) During the Second World War D2094s which are externally identical were built at Ashford for the SR (can't remember the diagram) and LNER (Dia184).