Western Star

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Bob has only recently discovered that the S.W.A. Newton collection held be Leicester Museums includes photos of Aylesbury station that cast new light on various details.

Stephen,

I thought that I had looked at all of the Newton images which are "on-line" (through the Railway Archives web-site).... I do not recall any for Aylesbury (LNWR).  If you can, please provide a pointer to the corresponding images.

thank you, Graham

Jordan, @F-UnitMad, are you still breathing? does your head hurt?

regards, Graham

What can be seen at or near to Westbury?  Where is a good place to be to see the services?

thank you, Graham

8 hours ago, airnimal said:

So returning to the last wagon I have decided to have a go at making a drilling jig out of a thin scrap of nickel.

Mike,  a neat approach.  How does the jig shown work for the rivets/bolts securing the corner plate to the end sheeting?  And for the other corner of the side sheeting?

Put another way, how many jigs to complete the corner plates of this wagon?

regards, Graham

On 29/12/2021 at 19:59, airnimal said:

I have glued the end stanchions on and left them to dry for a couple of hours. Then I filed them to shape with a large flat file before finishing them with some abrasive paper on a flat surface.

How did you get the taper to match across all four stanchions?

regards, Graham

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I have Bristol and Gloucestershire but not Forest of Dean - on the grounds that the Forest of Dean coalfield was supplying locally (vide the Gloucestershire volume) but probably not as far north as Brum, and equally seems unlikely to have had many customers for coal from north of Brum. But my presumption could be wrong - as I don't have the book, I don't know!

Tsk, tsk.  As you have the books you ought to know better than your comment about "coal" for there is more in each book than just coal.  There are many photos which show wagons that were written for operators in industries other than coal, a great example is Samuel Evers from Cradley Heath, (covered in Turton, for reference see Greaves).  Evers had premises in a location which today is thought of as a colliery site, what is not so obivous is that the location was also able to provide materials to make firebricks and that was Evers' business.  The Gloucester official shows that Evers' wagons were written as "empty to Cradley Heath" so not likely to be bringing in coal to a business sitting alongside a colliery.   After discussion with Ian Pope he is of the opinion that Evers' wagons were used for delivery of firebrick.

Time for some reading and sideways thinking maybe?

regards, Graham

17 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Given Heljan have now redesigned theirs to prevent repeat breakages...

What is available at this time as Heljan spares from Gaugemaster is a replacement/re-design of the gear cluster which meshes with the worm of the motor - what is not available is the final drive gear which is to be found on every driven axle.  The gear cluster and the final drive gear fitted to Heljan production are both plastic on a splined shaft hence both are susceptible to gear failure from stress fractures induced by the splines...  our Class 26 has suffered from failures of cluster and final drive gears, a total of seven split gears across the two bogies.  Unless I am mistaken the final drive gears are available only from Ultrascale.

regards, Graham Beare

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I had intended that my comment about lighting conditions and colour reference standards...

And there was I thinking that you were intending that our reaction might be a period of laughter.

What you have written interests me in that I want to follow the same path, either to re-paint in red or to repaint in grey.  A re-paint into grey may be necessary because the late Chris Klein showed to me the effect of re-numbering after using a fibreglass brush to remove the previous number - the original paint has sufficient depth as to produce a "step edge" after patch painting.

So what did you do and what was the result?

regards, Graham

22 minutes ago, kitpw said:

 I also have a set of "Hardware tables" by "The Ironmonger" from 1908 and from the same source - another treasure trove of information if you happen to want to know, for instance, the available sizes of galvanised corrugated steel sheet in the Edwardian period.

I do, yes please.

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I hope that the well-worn condition of my copy of the two volumes of Midland Wagons, purchased forty years ago, can stand as a small tribute to Bob Essery's influence on my railway interests and modelling:

Stephen,

My two volumes were bought at about the same time and are in a similar condition...  as are those of my Son which were bought about fifteen years back when the title was re-printed.  Truly a tribute.

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

If we see further, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Absolutely.

regards, Graham

Which shunter picked up the train order?

Staying with the text in the first message...  please consider these options:-

* Taplow goods yard, rather linear and to the east of the station;

* Lent Rise yard which was, I believe, a coal yard further east of the Taplow yard.

Mike @The Stationmaster can probably fill in more about these two locations.  At least they are on the main line and most of the GWR classes could have been seen on those tracks over time.

regards, Graham

thank you for the link, a very interesting video.

A simple question which, I suspect,has  a non-simple answer.

For this build of wagon there are two sliding doors on each side of the body.  Each door is roughly half of the length of the body and able to move out of the body so as to slide pass the other door.  I can see a bar under each door and I believe that bar has pads which clamp a closed door against the floor edge or body frame.

How is the top of the door supported?  What is the mechanism which allows one door to slide pass the other?

thank you and regards, Graham Beare

On 27/09/2021 at 13:01, airnimal said:

So I have started on another dumb buffer lime wagon. This one is a 8 ton one for Joel Carrington lettered for Buxton Lime Works. But he was a resident of Oldham where he had a depot but I am not sure if he owned a quarry in Buxton or just obtained his lime there.

Given that Stephen has asked about how the load was carried / packed...  I think that one needs to understand what was being carried - did Joel buy limestone from the quarries and then crush/burn the mineral in his premises near Oldham or did he buy "lime" in a processed state from a lime works near to Buxton.  Limestone does not need generally to be sheeted as the rock is likely to be processed at destination, burnt limestone must be kept dry and so would be bagged and sheeted during transit (or as bags in a cottage roof van).

regards, Graham

Note my comment re Hobo in a recent PM on another channel..

Mike,

I like your intent to re-inforce the carrier retention tabs, some of my underframes have suffered from the loss of tabs - at this time I do not have a solution for post-failure parts.  When I have folded the tabs and achieved a smooth springing action then I re-inforce the tab folds by solder...  plenty of flux in the fold and then drop a solder ball into the flux.  Using a 2mm chisel bit in the soldering iron I heat the tab on the opposite side of the fold.

You are correct in what you say about the minimal contact area between the axleguard and the locating tab...  to date I have never had a failure of an axleguard/tab joint and that is over something like 15 years of using the Exactoscale 7mm underframes.

You have some of the Exactoscale brake gear etches...  the re-inforcements that you have fitted to your carrier tabs are located over the slots which provide reference / location for fitting the brake hangers.

regards, Graham

19 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

There are a couple of anomalies:

 

18733, a 1-plank open of old series Lot 1

23403, which I think may be a 3-plank open.

 

I can't quite place 13593 either.

 

Saving your reverence, might these be transcription errors?

At risk of going off question although in pursuit of historical accuracy, I put your comments to John Lewis (HMRS Steward for GWR wagonary)...  herewith his reply.

<<quote>>

Of the wagons you asked about:

18733 was a 1-plank open built on Lot 1. However, I wonder if 18733 was a mistake for 13733, which was a cattle wagon built on Lot 64.

23403 would probably have been a loco coal wagon as the 23xxx series seems to have been reserved for them.

13593 was probably an 'old' wagon pre-dating the Lot list i.e. pre-1867, or a wagon built on a renewals lot where we do not have all the numbers, or else a wagon acquired from an absorbed railway.

The only way to check on these wagons is to mount an expedition to the NRM Library and look at the Registers.

<<end quote>>

regards, Graham

All this mention of pigs in crates does puzzle me...  if pigs in blankets are in vogue at the end of each year then when are pigs in crates to be considered as "delicacy of the day"?

On the other hand, and being serious for once, there were regulations relating to the comfort / well-being / call of nature of animals in transit.  In the case of cows the animals had to be inspected and watered after a prescribed period of travel.  I suspect that the same regulations applied to live pigs... can such regulations be applied "inspected" or "watered" in the same manner as cows?

Looking at the train service times offered earlier one may put one and one together and come to the conclusion that Kemble was an authorised place for carrying out the regulations - there are several loads which arrive at Kemble on one day and leave on the next.  Easy to carry out the regulations with cows, just unload into a convenient cattle dock.....  but a pig in a crate?

Is this the point when we ask The Stationmaster for his view?

regards, Graham

Stephen @Compound2632,

To answer your question about anomalies, access to the relevant GWR wagon registers in York is desirable, I shall ask Chris Brown about what number ranges he copied a couple of years back.

A transcription error is possible, I shall talk to my "source" to see if the original reference material is available at this time (item was - maybe is - in a private collection).

regards, Graham

For those who love trying to interpret the way things were in the past....  here is an extract from the Kemble wagons received book of 1881, the extract focussing on GWR wagons used for pig traffic to / from Kemble.  The data tells us where the traffic originated and the destination of the traffic - in most cases the pigs are being sent to Cirencester.  What the data cannot tell us is if the pigs sent from Cirencester to Paddington on 13th September where amongst those which were received at Cirencester from New Milford on 11th Spetember.

An initial scan of the wagon numbers suggest that the traffic was carried in cattle wagons...  to be confirmed.

regards, Graham

The paint finish is excellent.

Irrespective of the unusual plank / frame arrangement for today's model the impression is just so for the intended prototype.  Do not lose heart, keep going and overcome the "Dreaded Dec".

regards, Graham

Kit @kitpw ,

I believe that Richard Kelham @wagonman has done some research on this image in regard to his book on Somerset PO wagons (published Lightmoor Press and a good read / reference).

regards, Graham