Buckjumper

The recent completion of a commissioned X2 MICA B in post-1904 livery prompted this entry, and the accompanying photographs illustrate that model. Located as it is between the dock and Smithfield market, meat traffic will play a significant part of goods traffic passing through the subterranean levels of Basilica Fields, with the GWR shouldering the greatest load. If, like me, you grew up unsullied by Great Western telegraph code nomenclature, and therefore completely in the dark about MORELS, MITES, MACAWS, MINKS, MOGOs and MAGOOS (one of those is a red herring, and that's nothing to do with fish traffic!), then hopefully you'll at least have some idea of what a MICA is by the end of this mini series. As these vehicles came in so many varieties I'll be dealing with each type separately, so this first entry serves as a detailed overview. Perhaps the most famous of GWR meat trains were those running between Birkenhead and Smithfield via Acton, but there were other services to Plymouth and Avonmouth, as well as one between Victoria Dock and Cardiff via the North London Railway. The Circle & Widened Lines Extension to the docks also gives an opportunity to transport meat from there to Smithfield, and occasionally direct to Acton without recourse to the NLR. Through the 1890s, beef from the Americas landed live at Birkenhead, and after a short period of recovery from the arduous journey, cattle was slaughtered and butchered locally. Their carcasses were then chilled before forwarding to Smithfield - a process taking up to 20 hours from abattoir to market. Ventilated vans were found to be sufficient keep the meat cool for this journey, and for the purpose of Basilica Fields we need go to back no further than the 110 vans built between 1889 - 1891 which were later diagrammed X1 and given the telegraph code MICA. Ventilation was via hinged bonnet ends that ran the full width along the top of the vans with scalloped bottoms to the sides, and a series of 1ft 8ins ventilation slots along the side of the vans on the third plank down. Construction was double-cased tongue and grooved planking with flush-fitted doors and no exterior bracing. These vans were fully vacuum fitted for running at fast goods speeds. Contemporaneously, a batch of 13 vans were built at Swansea Wagon Works for the South Wales Railway and later diagrammed X3 with the code MICA A. These were non-ventilated and were used for rushing chilled meats between Victoria Dock in London to Cardiff. They had ice containers installed and used straw for insulation. The vans were diagonally planked with a narrow cupboard door and were fitted with a vacuum through pipe for travelling at passenger speeds. With the increase of chilled and frozen meat such as mutton from Australasia, a new van emerged based on the X1 design but without the side ventilation slots and having plain bottoms to the ventilator bonnet sides. These vans were fitted with X3-type ice containers which were filled from the inside, and a 3" air space between the double body sheeting provided some degree of insulation. As such, these 240 vans to diagram X2 could be used either as ventilated or refrigerated, depending on the requirement, and were given the code MICA B. Ten further examples of X2 were built without the end ventilator bonnets and coded MICA A, and another ten X2 were fitted with the end bonnets but had no ice containers and were simply coded MICA. The liveries of the MICAs throws up a few interesting questions which I've not had answered satisfactorily yet, and so I'll begin with extracts from Slinn's Great Western Way pp.97 - 102: Question: Right-hand small GWR lettering was introduced c1893, so what colour were the X3 vans between being built in 1889 and 1893? I had assumed that the red lettering was introduced with the white livery from comments in other sources, such as Tourret et al. Question: Is there any other source to confirm black lettering was used on white-painted X2 and X3 MICA A and MICA B up to 1904, or did small red lettering in fact appear much earlier during the 1890s? The whole debate over the colour of general merchandise goods stock in the 1890s also throws up one further interesting query. Question: Were X1 MICAs originally painted red? The floor is open for debate! The model was built from a WEP brass kit, pretty much as designed, and given a light weathering. Screw couplings and safety chains from Laurie Griffin. Contemporary photographs show these vans got absolutely filthy, no doubt in part due to their journey to Smithfield on the Metropolitan Line, so this one represents a fairly recently repainted example c1912.

Stovepipes; the best looking of all chimneys...well, to my eyes, at least! But then the LSW and GE shared many aspects thanks to Adams' ties with Stratford's design office, even after he had taken the job at Nine Elms. Handsome little model. I've got a handful of photos of 735, but none of the rear to check those lamp irons for you. There were a number of differences between having the LSW livery applied for the first time and being taken over by the Southern, and I can't see anything you've missed. Are you sure it's got to be Southern and not the lovely LSW livery?

Following up an earlier entry, here are some more photos. All the info on the model can be found in the original post, and as promised, a photo of the interior with the sheet folded - but not as per regulations!

Oi, cheeky! *Rail gun lobs swedes, parsnips and other assorted root vegetables toward the Kingdom of Denmark*

The Highland Railway's Diagram 12 fish truck was the earliest of three types of open wagon for transporting fish in passenger-rated trains. There seems to be some uncertainty as to the exact livery - some speculate it was painted in goods red, others in passenger green - of course it's possible that they appeared in both if the type was moved from the wagon register to the NPCS register (or whatever it was that the Highland used to differentiate stock). I was impressed with Pete Armstrong's take on the wagon, but looking at other types of HR stock I thought the Fish Traffic legend should probably have been placed centrally on the door. Pete reckoned the transfers from the HR Soc. wouldn't fit (he was right!), so some judicious slicing up of letters and re-kerning took place, plus a close shave or two of a couple of letters and I think I've just about managed to get away with it. I went for a dual-fitted (piped only) version, which with the safety chains and screw coupling makes for a very busy pair of ends, but also looks slightly comical when juxtaposed with the one brake lever operating a solitary brake block. Classy. It appears the Highland insulated the barrels of fish with turf (whether individually on the barrels or lobbed on top of the load en-masse, I really don't know). Anyway, my brief was to replicate an empty with a barrel and a wagon sheet, with the suggestion that there had been some broken goods. No doubt in reality it would have all been swept clean after unloading, and the sheet properly folded, but a little modeller's license makes for what is hopefully a little scene that suggests the last trip was a little more eventful than usual. For the record, it's a Lochgorm brass kit, and I've added WEP compensation units to the 3' 7" wheelsets. Vacuum and Westinghouse pipes were from my spares box so could be from one of a number of sources such as Connoisseur, Alan Gibson or Laurie Griffin. The safety chains and screw couplings are by Laurie, and I added a representation of the door chains from twisted 5A fuse wire. Sprung buffer heads from Slater's, the barrel was from Ten Commandments, and the wagon sheet homemade. No chance of one of these appearing on Basilica, but they are a lovely wagon which could so easily be the raison d'etre of a little Highland layout.

Wish I'd thought of that as the title of the entry!

The key is when did it happen for the AA7s? A photograph of Acton yard c1911 (assuming the date is correct) with several AA7s in residence shows two with their ends to the camera. One definitely has a vacuum standard, but it appears the other one doesn't. If the photograph isn't lying, and the assumed date is correct, then perhaps the end of the Edwardian period is when conversion took place...in which case perhaps the Basilica AA7s should remain unfitted. More data please mister! Which would have been what...from about c1889 onwards using the X3 Micas?

I can't take the credit (but I accept any errors in my deductions); I'd have been equally in the dark had I not pestered Western Star of this parish to provide contemporary evidence of workings to Smithfield, and when the relevant page of the WTT dropped in my inbox it came with a note that ran something like, '...you'll never believe this but...' It does mean that those of us modelling the pre-Grouping scene need to be extra vigilant when reading such wonderful books as Tony Atkins' Goods Services, because not all the information is necessarily relevant to us, and without reference to other works and primary evidence could be misleading. Of course no one can blame Tony; the scope of his series is large as it stands, and to do justice to the whole of the GWR oven the entire life of the company would mean several dozen volumes (Smithfield could fill a volume on its own!) - besides which, I doubt the historical record is sufficiently intact to do so. As ever, traffic on the Metropolitan and Widened Lines in the late Victorian/early Edwardian period an interesting part of or railway history, but throws up some stinkers.

Twelve examples of the Great Western’s 13 ton AA7 brake vans were built between 1897 and 1898 to Lot 206 for working the company’s trains from Acton over the Metropolitan and (for a short stretch between Farringdon Street and Aldersgate Street) the Widened Lines to Smithfield – they were numbered in the series 56985-96. Essentially they were a short version of the AA3 vans with a 9ft wheelbase, measuring 16ft over headstocks with a proportionally smaller verandah than the larger vans. It has been suggested by various authors that the AA7s must have been the among the first fitted brake vans on the GW because of the Smithfield meat trains, which included fitted Micas, but in reality, the perceived volume of meat traffic to Smithfield has been blown out of all proportion, and careful study of the relevant WTTs show that in fact the meat trains made up only a very small percentage of the traffic over the route as Smithfield was also the main general merchandise goods depot for central London and the City. To put things in perspective; in 1912, out of sixteen daily goods trains only four were scheduled for meat traffic, and of these, three were mixed trains of meat and general merchandise. Quite surprisingly, only one single trip each day was solely reserved for the conveyance of meat. It’s worth remembering that Mica’s were vacuum braked to convey chilled and frozen meat between Birkenhead and London at passenger-rated speeds, and it would have been the brake vans on those trains which were first vacuum fitted. It wasn’t until later, maybe much later (post-Grouping?) that vacuum braked stock was required on the Smithfiled trips. The model is from Big Jim’s wonderful Connoisseur range, and the only major deviation I made was the addition of WEP compensation units rather than a solid chassis. GW paint from Precision, weathering from Humbrol and transfers from the HMRS. Glazing is 0.13mm glass, instanter couplings from CPL and sprung buffers from Slater’s. This example was built to commission, and is in 0 Finescale, but I have a pair to build for Basilica Fields where meat traffic not only shuttles between Acton and Smithfield, but east from Smithfield to St. Katherine Dock via Basilica Fields on the (Middle) Circle Extension. No photoshoppery…well, just a little to get rid of a couple of specks of dust, but the colours and lighting is au natural care of the fat old sun.

Looking very good. Victorian locos could get surprisingly busy with adornments, but we often see past them to the graceful designs underneath...selective vision! Up until 1885 the GER used 'sockets and spoons' for lamps; sockets on the buffer beams and spoon-shaped brackets on the smokebox from which lamps hung by their handles. I'll bet they swung all over the place! With the advent of Holden from the GWR in 1885 he very quickly ripped the lot out and replaced them with irons.

These episodic tales give you away. Presumably Mr. Alan Woodcourt lives at Bleak House...? I think we've run out of adjectives on here. Perhaps it's time to learn some Danish ones!

Well if it works, it works! Might be worth noting that London Road Models will happily sell you a set of etches that build up into a pair of LNWR radial axleboxes (but then Worsdell did come from Crewe and Webb's influence is all over his designs), so if you ever consider building an F6...

The rail / trimmed sleeper length ratio looks pretty good to me. Unless deep ballasting I have to admit I prefer full depth sleepers as sometimes the ends were fully exposed, and as you've pointed out, with all the effort of trimming the webbing you might as well have used individual sleepers. Still, I like what you've achieved with weathing them. Carrs ash ballast seems a bit coarse for its intended purpose in 4mm - probably not bad for 7mm or even G1, but having said that it looks pretty much spot on for normal GWR ballast when compared it to photos in books like Edwardian Enterprise. For ash ballast I've seen little to match Chris Nevard's air dry clay method. And yeah, that breadcrumb's a teeny bit overscale...

Blimey! It does my head in just thinking about painting or sticking that lot down. I suspect the essential tools are pair of matchsticks for the eyes and Espressos administered intravenously at regular intervals.

Stylistically they are very similar, but I think it's more to do with proportions and the feeling that I'm looking at a caricature of a human. Or an orc.

The rods look very delicate - the big question is are they going to last? I've got an Ace Terrier for a future build and will probably replace the etched rods with milled ones. Adrian at ABS sells appropriate profile-milled jointed rods in nickel silver, but that would certainly put the brakes on progress for a bit if you're ordering from Brazil.

Either that or she'll see though my attempts at Victorian prose as downright fraudulent ;-) But seriously, I appreciate your comment.

Thank you for your kind comments. Mikkel: The GW wagon series for BF will encapsulate about eight basic designs. Some of these will be split into separate posts, for example X1, X2 Mica, X2 Mica A , X2 Mica B & X3 and Toads AA7 and AA16. Then theres the NPCS series and the Metro carriage series... Brinkly: I believe they lasted until 1943, though my knowledge of GW matters declines exponentially after the Edwardian period, so don't take that as gospel.

Lovely! The Wills N7 was my first ever kit build (a 6' x 3' snooker table turned upside down in my bedroom was my workbench back then), long before there was an etched chassis to go with it. I used the chassis from my dad's Triang Jinty and it was a noisy old thing and ran like a dog. Whenever I use Araldite now the smell instantly transports me back the early 80s and that first build. Later I discovered the etched chassis and new castings to make a round-topped N7/5 which was perfect as I wanted it to be 69633. I bought the bits, began in earnest abut part way through fell upon the Connoisseur kit in 0 Gauge in Pete Marshall's emporium in the Maltings, Sawbridgeworth. After almost being tempted by his 10mm version kit I bought the Connoisseur one. Oh dear; bye-bye 4mm...

Some 1600 ten ton open merchandise wagons to Diagram 03 were built by the Great Western Railway in four batches during the years 1904-5 and 1912. These wagons were a development of the Diagram 04 introduced three years earlier and incorporated a 4⅛†wider top plank bringing the internal height to 3’3″ which remained the basic standard for GW 10 & 12/13T opens in all future builds. At the same time the width was made wider by 6″ bringing the inside and outside dimensions to 7’7″ and 8′ respectively. Many, perhaps most, of the 03s were fitted with the Williams patent sheet supporter to aid the wagons sheets protect the merchandise when in transit. I recently completed a commission for an 03, built from a WEP kit and this was given a light weathering as if recently built. The running number suggests that it is one of the final batch, and as the wagon will fit into a c1912 scenario, I think the degree of weathering is appropriate.

Thanks for this Mikkel, I know diddly about 4mm figures - the last time I bought any was back in the mid-80s - and we'll need a small but quality selection for the 4mm layout #1 son and I are planning. I'm astonished at the detail in the faces of the Stevens figures, both they and Monty's seem very well proportioned. Slipping back to 7mm as well as Pete Armstrong's fabulous Border Miniatures, Andy Stadden's figures are also smashing, and you can have your favourite Locomotive Superintendent or literary figure too..

Modelling Railways Illustrated Vol2 No.10 (June 1995). A good issue for GER afficianados as it also features Graham Overton's astonishing 7mm Little Fen & Beckford Market, a two-station minimum space continuous run in 16' x 8'.

Easy fella

Captain Barnacles' mind is drifting back into the past again, this time from the Napoleonic Wars to the Hundred Years' War against the House of Valois as 'gotten' was in the Plantagenet vocabulary. Perhaps he was a pirate after all with ill-gotten gains he's forgotten about...Arrrr!