hmrspaul

The conserved E3137 / 86259 worked to York from KX this morning and is now working the special back. It spent the day in Holgate Sidings. Photos in https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brelectric Paul

Are they in SR brown? 😒 Paul

Don't overlook that these conserved vans have come out of internal use with the MoD or RoF, this is 18871 at ROF Glascoed https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e606acf08 But could be used for MoD traffic before the VEAs. Hugh Llewelyn (on Flickr) - Diag.1/219 No.B80703 - 'PALSHOCVAN' 12 ton, ventilated, fitted shock-absorbing pallet van No.B80703, with plywood sides and doors and corrugated steel ends, Lot 3347, built at BR (Wolverton) in 1961 at Bitton, Avon Valley Railway, 28 December 2018. TOPS code VRV. This wagon ended up working for the MoD. It is incorrectly numbered as should be in the B555XXX series. It is a shock-absorbing bersion of the Diag.1/211 'PALVAN'. 200 Diag.1/219's were built by BR (Faverdale and Wolverton) in 1958-61. And this is it at Glascoed https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalshocvan/e69fa2cd2 I don't know who wrote it should be in the number series B555xxx. Those, of course, are BR mineral wagons! It should be B855xxx Paul

Terry Agreed, but the loss of summer show in the north Midlands because of the Guild trying not to offend/clash with Guildford is seen by some of us as disproportionate, ignoring the potential for poor weather in the winter. The problem with the Guild shows has been historically they had three, all within 100 miles of one another but ignored the South West (used to be served by what I am informed was a good winter time show in Bristol but the venue closed), the true north of our islands or the highly populated South East. Kempton is seen as a viable, affordable and filling of possibly the most important hole in their exhibition geographic profile, but it came at a cost. Personally I got into 7mm after visiting a GoG event in Milton Keynes, to me a useful alternative to Kettering and better positioned than Telford or Stafford. But affordability of venue has become a major driver in choice of locations - as well as availability. And my understanding of Barnsley was that it was available in the summer but becomes very busy in autumn and winter. By the way, it was a good venue and an interesting town. I thought Stafford was a horrible venue, although it would lend itself to having an exhibition and not just a trade show with a few layouts. We were informed that nothing could be found in Preston, which has a strong O gauge following, is further north and more accessible by public transport than Wigan. Paul

Rather OT but an interesting observation. I have found a standard van in 1980 with such a buffer https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brvanplywooddoorvvv/e35787e62 They are also on some Conflat As later - but these were engineers wagons by then. So, it does look like through the later 1970s they were systematically removed from many wagons built with them. They are easy to find on my photos of VB minerals in Wellingborough in 1975 but the same lots taken later have Oleo pneumatic - sometimes still in green undercoat. Paul

This shows the UIC double link suspension that the Modern Railways article discusses and solved the problem. Apparently too late as the vast majority of the vans had gone for scrap or into internal use. This is an example of a VB van with UIC suspension https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e30c345d3 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e346c91e4 This is the exhibition AB van as mentioned in 1989 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvanvpb/ee531ddc Paul

Nottingham Class 31 down grain and Class 45 up ecs March 75 J4184 Wow a Bass Charrington, LMS design grain in traffic at the head of the train. I've never noticed one of them out on the mainline before. Also looks like another just out of shot on left. Presumably working to Burton Paul https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/bchgrain

Only guessing as to local use. Other wagons in the yard were in active service so this may well have been. I was just surprised I had a photo of a wagon of interest. As can be seen photos in Italy are very rare, I don't go out of my way at all to photograph railway subjects when on family holidays. Paul

Interesting about the GCR mainline, an ER V2 in an accident with a WR Hall. Paul

But are these working to Sellafield? That was the original request. As mentioned earlier https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brtbogietank2/ed83fdec Later used by Hays for Sulphuric acid. Paul

That would suggest these were similar to this Acrylic acid tank https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/tiphookacrylic Paul

Unexpectedly I photographed one of these when unloading a car at the Milan motorail depot https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/italianrailway/ea46480d4 in 1995. I suspect in "internal use" the way the door is open and it is at the blocks. Paul

Hi anonymous ex major influencer on the GoG forum. Yes extensively discussed. The north (Wigan) is getting a winter show. There has been a demand for a southern show - hardly surprising as that is where the money is - but there is already a O gauge winter show by others - in Guildford - so avoiding this meant Kempton being in the summer. There is a great O gauge show in the autumn at Sunderland Nissan plant 28 - 29 September. I'm completely independent of that, but the only O gauge show I'm planning to go to this year. Wigan in winter, no thanks. Miserable journey from York. Yes, it was not a change taken without much anxiety on the forum. But you would know that if you had stayed. Paul

or convert you all to 7mm where the difference in discounted prices between 4mm and 7mm vanwide models is minimal. 😇 Admittedly the Palvan is a kit build at the moment in 7mm. Paul

This is one of the last of these to be built. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/berrywiggins/efb2a888 Plenty of photos amongst https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/pounbraked An example of one remaining in internal use in 1988 and probably later https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/mtd/e32f01336 or https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/nationalbenzole/e3c7676e9 But I don't know if any of these are the same barrel size as the model. There were lots of differences. Paul

5239 in 2016 https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/mark2coach/e74e4015d Paul

Caustic Soda was carried in tanks as described. Smaller than the ECC ones https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/frenchcausticsoda Paul

Presumably if you are talking about the Nitric acid I think that may have been the tanks that were later used by Hays for UKF traffic, but I'm not sure. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brtbogietank2/ed83fdec But where they working to Sellafield or to Workington for the works at Albright & Wilson Corkicle. Paul

Possibly. Even having friends that worked for Rowntrees for decades they are too young to remember these vans. In the pub last week there was mention of trying to get one of the very large bogie ferry vans in. I digress. I think the problem may well have been as you suggest, with forklift trucks not so readily available at many yards. By the later 1960s when I worked at a Schweppes delivery warehouse the product came in on open sheeted flat trucks or the Freightliner curtainsided containers (type M). They could stand in the middle of the yard and forklifts could access either side. 20tons unloaded in a few minutes. But, yes not so easily done in 1954, or even 1964. The few times I went into freight yards I was surprised how often hand loading of vans continued - even the APCM Palvans in 1977 which were simply an extended Vanwide https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/apcmvan/e1a1401db. Paul

Not really, the VANWIDE replacement design was so successful that large numbers survived to be airbraked and used into the 1990s. And traffic such as the chocolate from Rowntrees survived to have it loaded in VDAs also into the 1990s 1987. It was the mis-judged end of Speedlink that filled our roads up with unnecessary long distance lorries. Paul

These had been in Nitric Acid traffic for MODA, but I don't know if they went to Sellafield https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/modanitric Nitric acid is very heavy and therefore specialist tanks in the past were much smaller than those for petroleum/oils. https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/modatopsacidtanks https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/iciunfittank/e1fbd472f Caustic soda, https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/icicausticsodatta https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/icicausticsodatua Paul

Finally out of the bag. Can someone post a link to the Bachy announcements please. All had black boards. Unusually instead of simply for marking some had permanent writing, differing on either side such as RETURN TO YORK. I don't think the large number reserved for Channel Islands traffic landed at Weymouth Quay have been mentioned. This was the origin of the large numbers condemned in Feltham MY when we visited in April 1968. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e3edd810c Very unsuccessful design, only a few survived in traffic into the 1970s and they had the revised double link suspension https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e30c345d3 or the very few airbraked versions. https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvanvpb As mentioned a good number became stores at the end of various yard sidings. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan Paul

Ah the joys of modelling the BR period. Although the officials don't often get it quite as wrong as that! It looks like they woke up to the mistake. In http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/Book300Part3Dugdale01_Issue.pdf there is TT071A for the IIRC unique 53129 and they don't have running numbers on TT071B but looks like it is for most of these wagons. Paul

Mark that is really useful. I wonder where they got some of the detail from as it looks good, but isn't the same as the XVA - for example the plate above the bogie https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brtrestlexva/e9c3b3d9 The cross bracing should be simple to add https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brtrestlexva/e9b89400 I've always had a personal interest in these because I was trying to get one of the kit manufacturer's to produce a BDO 40 years ago. The same frame is present beneath the LNER 1930s built Boplates and bogie bolster Ds (those with the two plank sides through to the later LNER builds, the BR BBDs of various types and Boplates as well as these Trestles - which ended up as under runners with no body work, And I still routinely see the remains of BDAs (which are really BDOs) hammering through York loaded with 60 tons of slab steel 60 years after their frames were manufactured. Paul PS for the very skilled with a soldering iron there is a lovely kit for the XVA in 7mm. One of my friends has made one - and he does say how useful my photos were.

Radford 3F 43729 up pw train c1951 JVol2238 The MR Ballast brake van is nice. Essery MR wagons vol 2 tells us he knew of 98 of these being built between 1888 and 1899. Is the running number visible? I expect more expertise will tell us about this. Paul