MR Chuffer

Centre of the roof, irrespective of the wagon wheelbase, 9', 10'6" and 12'

@petrox I uncovered some interesting stuff in this

Cursory glance through LMS Engine Sheds Vol.2, p57 Bournville - random heap; p124 Kentish Town --random heap; p124 Lincoln - sq cornered blocks; p194 Skipton - random heap.. There may be more with a closer look.

Absolutely, dive in and be prepared to lose several hours of your life, for instance here

No, I came across them researching Barnoldswick, just some guy with a passion for the subject has put together a treasure trove of information across several sites dating back to prehistoric times.

Crikey, where do you buy your beer? So as I don't go there. Currently drinking exotic 5% IPAs (from Yorkshire principally) at £3.20 a pint. Drinking some Blackjack West Coast Pale at 5.7% for only £3 this afternoon, scrumptious....

For a low/no cost option, check out National Library of Scotland online maps, NLS where you will find high detail maps sufficient for track plan details dating back to ~1900.

Try this and scroll down (its slow to load but well worth it). And checkout the 1909 map in here for context regarding the coal drops. BTW - I think the Dapol rectank model has a 10' wheelbase against the more likely 9' wb, see slaters kits occasionally on ebay for a more accurate model.

It did just that in the town I'm modelling, Barnoldswick in Yorkshire (at the time), when they extended the coal sidings about 1907. Side door wagons, push the coal straight into a cell or waiting wagon at a lower level. And the coke didn't have to be shipped out as it was a premium product for domestic fuel and also in other industrial processes e.g. smithies, forges/metal bashing.

Plus, of course, coal tar that needed handling.

My neck of the woods, all good stuff...

Not apparent in Midland Wagons - Vol 2 (Essery), post-WW1 there may have been an increase but photos I've seen pre-WW1 don't support this theory in the MR, time for @Compound2632 to adjudicate?

So, in summary, direct journeys best, unfitted cattle wagons can't be attached to a passenger train, but drover(s) can ride in the Guards Van on purchase of a suitable ticket, or a carriage may be provided for their conveyance (in a good train?).

The majority, from the photos I see in Essery - pre-WW1, I stress - don't seem to have, though I quite agree, they would reduce the snatching tendency, as would marshalling immediately behind the engine.

In latter days yes, but pre-WW1, the vast majority of the 3,500 cattle wagons the Midland built were unfitted and not much evidence of through pipes either (Midland Wagons Vol.2 - Essery), and this is likely to have been the case for other railways too. So transitioning to fitted, a much later development? Which still begs the question, would an unfitted cattle wagon do a short journey tacked on to a passenger train, pre-WW1?

Thanks for the above contributions, further clarifying (confusing?) my thoughts, the 2 closest markets are 6 miles and 9 miles, so "droving" to market quite feasible. Would this have to be - in pre-grouping (MR) days - a vacuum-fitted or through piped wagon or could it be unfitted and appended to the rear of the train for the short journey, and of course the handlers could travel too? There is probably less use for my MR and L&Y cattle wagons (2 of each) than I originally thought as I've now found out that, pre-WW1, Colne had a cattle market once a month and Skipton, quite a large regional market, twice a month. So perhaps I re-orient the traffic to bring in stock for fattening at the country station location from Irish Sea ports. Thinking aloud.....

Trying to fit cattle wagon movements into my WTT (pre-WW1 - MR), assuming the country town market starts at the crack of dawn, is the cattle wagon usually picked up from the country station, say 10 miles away, in the early morning before the start of market day or on the previous day? Or does it matter?

Dia.74, brake levers RH end both sides, brakes acting on wheels one side only, same for Dia.80

I don't actually see vac pipes in use on single plank wagons in the L&Y era, what diagram does your kit purport to be? And bear in mind that if this is a MAJ kit, they tended to load all the brake gear in there that any of their models might need, which is why I have a bits box chocker with L&Y brake gear left over from kits properly finished.

Too early to get involved - I have an acquaintance that's just had the whole setup done because of his rural location and no gas. Its taken months, the installers travelled from Chesterfield to near Preston every day, seemed to be learning on the job as they went along, its only just gone live with a direct line from Mitsubishi in Manchester to dial into his system and analyse issues - of which there seem to be a fair few - and a government inspector dropped by the other day to verify the set up - it has been substantially grant funded. Its not possible to compare his setup with gas, because he never had any but a massive investment is required in insulation - old farmhouse building - and floors ripped up for underfloor heating. I wouldn't be in a hurry to go there until there is a track record of successful installations taking less than a few months and proven cost benefits, they're saying it could be more expensive to run than a gas boiler, even at today's prices

That's the problem with MAJ kits, plastic tending towards brittleness, but we'd be much poorer for L&Y core wagons. As I've said previously, I've learnt a lot from the various brake and underframe configurations such that I can now scratch build my own 9' wheelbase with various L&Y brake options from a basic Cambrian chassis.

Curiouser, the L&YR Diagram Book of 1906 referenced "fruit" wagons, half box open wagons from 2' sides upwards and believed to be a corruption of freight by someone who couldn't spell. As the so called fruit wagons go back to Dia. 15 of 1892 and Dia.16 of 1870, whether the term fruit was in use at the time of building or was later used as a description in the 1906 Diagram book is a moot point.

A rare beast indeed, only 25 built and suffered from poor access through the single door on each side. Might be easier/cheaper to create from scratch rather than carve up multiple insulfish vans.

You may say that but if you look at an old NLS map of the Whittingham County Asylum Line (comes off the LNWR/L&YR Preston - Longridge branch at Grimsargh), that's exactly what they did and I think I saw upthread that this was a reference for the model.

You say that but a lot of their longer wheelbase wagons, e.g. dia.73 and dia.76 12'wb 10T covered goods and 12' wb 10T "fruit" opens, take up loads of extra trackage in trains, sidings and the fiddle yard compared to an equivalent MR train. The covered goods wagons in particular dwarf MR 10' wb covered wagons, typically D.360 and upwards, and as for the earlier 8T ones, positively diminutive next to them. Most disconcerting....