buffalo

Yes, many times. The site is a little idiosynchratic, but easy enough to use. First find the item. There are several ways to do this. For example, click on the red "Product Types" button then choose a category. This will take you to a list of products and at the right hand end of each one there should be column with price, quantity and an "Add to order" button. If you don't see any of this, you may have Javascript or frames disabled (either globally or for the Wizard site). Mind you, I would have expected you to have seen problems with other sites if any of these were the case. Nick ps. going to the 51L pages is only useful if you want 51L products -- as it says the 51L site is no longer being maintained.

Really good to see a practical outcome of that discussion, Mike. It will be interesting to see how you tackle the underframe as the W-irons, springs and axleboxes are all very spindly compared with the commonly available etched/cast components. Will you be cutting out the little splashers in the floor? They are certainly necessary, even with P4 flanges in my BG kit example. Nick

If this photo was correctly described there were trees at Weymouth goods yard, though no sign of inset/buried track as in Robin's photo. On the identity of the stick resting on the runningplate and cab handrail, storing shunters' poles here seems to have been common practice on these at Weymouth, see 1368 in figs 481 and 482 in Russell vol2 where the hook on the end of the pole is clearly visible. There's also an odd little hook and shackle thingy hooked onto the bottom handrail knob. This photo of 1367 shows two shunters' poles in the same place and this photo of 1369 (both from this page) shows the other side again with shunters' poles, although one almost looks like it is used to operate the bell... Nick

I'm not sure why the original topic was abandoned but this was posted when you were having similar thoughts a couple of years back. There may be more in that topic. Nick

Thanks for pointing that one out, Mike. It's quite well known, being published in Maggs & Beale's The Cameron Branch and Ian Pope's PO Wagons of Bristol & District. The photo dates from the early thirties (give or take a year or two) and shows the station after closure to passenger traffic and removal of the awning. The Mullis wagon dates back to 1910, but is in the livery adopted by the mid-twenties. Nick

Up to a point, yes, but don't forget that the history of superheating on the GWR parallels the history of their coal supplies and each CME worked to get the best performance with what was available. Experience with the first two GWR superheated engines, 2901 Lady Superior, fitted with a Schmidt type superheater in 1906 and 4010 Western Star, fitted with a Cole type in 1907, showed that a high superheat was simply unnecessary with the available fuel. This led to the development of Swindon's own series of superheaters that were intended simply to ensure a dry steam supply. Any more was just wasteful. Larry's point that Stanier found higher superheat necessary on what was essentially a slightly modified GWR design when it was run on a harder coal is quite correct. Whether it is right to say that Collett "ignored him" is another matter. Arguably, he didn't find the need to adapt to poorer coals, at least until the very end of his years in office. It was his successor, Hawksworth, who introduced increased superheat first on the Modified Halls and later on the Counties at a time when war-time and post-war coal supplies were far from optimal. Yes, there were some very significant performance improvements, but it was not so much "..despite using inferior...coal..." as a deliberate response to having to use inferior coal. Hawksworth would have been well aware of experience elsewhere, including Stanier's, not to mention Swindon's experience of building 8Fs during the war. However, Hawksworth's and the subsequent WR developments were not limited to superheating and double chimneys but to careful work on many aspects of the smokebox to optimise exhaust gas velocity. Developments under S.O. Ell such as the steam flow meter made a significant contribution here. The performance improvements were substantial but hardly "immeasurable". Swindon, after all had a very long tradition of performance measurement. btw, I thought blending of mineral and vegetable oils began in the 1870s or soon after, though I've no idea when this had an impact on steam oils. Nick

A couple of Crocodiles on one of the dump photos are 33994/6, a ventilated meat van was 10702, four plank opens include 11416, 11170 and 11385 and a three planker was 11530. So both five digit and numbers higher than our tilt waggon were used on the BG. From the lists in Atkins et al., many in the 11xxx series were converted to NG and appear to have retained the same numbers. See also my earlier point that more than four digit numbers are unlikely for waggons built in the 1850s. Again, according to the Atkins et al. lists, numbers allocated to four plank wagons, new builds and conversions, between 1887 and 1902 range from 2 to 74725. Of these 24,208 wagons, the great majority carried five digit numbers. Much the same is true of the earlier one, two and three plank wagons. Many of the 29xxx series were (re-)used when the O2 and O10 seven plank wagons were built in 1905-7. This may give us a latest possible date for 29382. Nick Nick

Well, we're both inside normal wear tolerances on a 3'6" wheel. On your image you've marked it as 13.5mm which scales to 401/2" or 3'41/2". My "about 41" scales to 3'5", Both are essentially the same within measuring tolerances and good enough to assume a 3'6" wheel (42"). Nick

It's worth looking at the Swindon dump photos (in several books including Atkins et al., and small copies here and here on the Steam photo gallery). These and other photos show a range of bonnet widths from none to perhaps three feet or so. I doubt if bonnet width alone is a key to dating their original build. As to how the ends were altered, remember that the stantions are not just decoration or strengthening, they probably cover butt joints in the iron sheeting. The BG version has four sheets making up its ends to about 9'9" wide. Three of these sheets would give a width of 7'33/4". A bit narrow, perhaps, but close enough to an expected inside dimension for a NG wagon. Nick

I'm not sure about the Sharman one but, IIRC, the BGS white metal kit was of the earlier 1840 version, itself a development of the 1838 version. I've only seen models built from either of the white metal kits in the corners of small photos. Nick

I think you are right about the lower height of the bonnet, Mike. On my BG IKB/BGS kit the height from bottom of buffer beam to top of bonnet is 34.5mm. Not only is your 31mm more in line with Richard's photo, it also looks more balanced and aesthetically correct, not that that is any guide to what they did in the 1890s. btw, another thought on the numbers question. I don't recall seeing any BG wagon from the 1850s, when they were built, with more than a four digit number, so the five digit number might be an indication of a converted wagon. Of course, they might equally have been renumbered in the BG era. I wonder if there is any information surviving about the conversion lots, unlike earlier c19 wagon registers? Nick

If we are right in thinking that Richard's photo is NG then, comparing with other know dimensions, the wheels appear to be about 41". Nick

No, there were plenty of BG wagons with five digit numbers and plenty of NG wagons with four digit numbers. Nick

Yes, Mike, the bonnet wrapper does go inside the sides. This is clear from both Richard's photo and the NRM drawing on Cor De Jong's page. The angle pieces at the top of the sides continues to the ends of the wagon. If you look carefully at the model photos on De Jong's page, you may be able to see the cunning way this is done in the kit. The outer layer of the sides and the bonnets (above the sides) are a single etched piece with all the outside rivet door detail. An overlay with the inside detail is slightly smaller than the outer sides and so provides a registration step for both the ends and the floor. It also ensures that the ends of the sides donot look too thick when viewed from the ends. The whole piece is then wrapped around and soldered to the ends. Unfortunately, this does mean there is an incorrect step at the top of the sides behind the bonnets but, being in shadow under the bonnet, it is only really visible when you know it is there. Nick

Thanks for finding that, Gareth. Cor De Jong has made many superb BG models and I had lost my bookmark to his old site. His old site had many pages in English as well as Dutch, his English being far better than Google's translation. The information on that page is mostly from the kit instructions, although the NRM drawing is only referenced by number. Nick

Axleguards bolted to the inside of iron or outside of wooden solebars with the springs mounted between them and the wheels are a common feature of many 19th century wagons on the GWR and elsewhere. If you look at Richard's photo of the tilt wagon in post #10, you will see a similar arrangement. You're unlikely to find anything like this in Atkins et al. as they only cover wagons that were incorporated in the diagram book which was first compiled in 1905. Are you sure it is a GWR wagon? I can't see anything that would make for firm identification. It would if we had the information. I had a check through the BGS data sheet index and found that I don't have any of the ones on tilt waggons, although the sheets that have been produced appear to cover earlier types from the 1840s. I then found an article by Alan Garner on modelling tilt waggons in BGS Broadsheet no 61 in which he says the BG numbers are unknown, but suggests, as a guess, that 1800-2499 might be appropriate. Whether there is any information on narrow gauge numbering, I don't know. Nick

That's an interesting find, Gareth. The ends are much higher (5 planks above the sides) than the one you showed earlier and it looks like a good match for the one in the H&P photo. Nick

It's possible but I'm not convinced. From what we can see of the end panels, the coaches behind look to be narrow bodied. They are on a track at a higher level and, between the tilt and the open to its left, we can see what looks like a solebar and, perhaps, a lower footboard. There's no sign of a wide underframe. As discussed above, the tilt appears to have two end stantions, not the three of the typical BG version. Also the crane platform looks too narrow for BG. I'm sure Richard had good reason to suggest that it is narrow. Perhaps there are other reasons not seen in this extract from the original? I did not for one moment think that you did, as I said Nick

Was it just a general increase in spoke thickness and overall robustness as wagon capacities increased, or a deliberate increase in size each time the new heavier wagons were introduced? Mid to late 19th century wagon and coach (not all were Mansells) wheels had remarkably spindly spokes with much thinner rims than later types. On solid wheels, Atkins et al. suggest the situation was a little more complex. In 1911, 13 brakevans and 14 coal wagons were fitted with Schoen wheels, a pressed steel type with spiral ribs on the inside face. At a quick glance, these would have looked like solid wheels. The GWR introduced their own rolled steel solid wheels in 1926 as part of the adoption of RCH standards. 3-hole discs appeared "...progressively after 1930." They note that unlike these solid types, the earlier spoked varieties had separate tyres. Perhaps this contributed to their longevity. Nick

Yes, I'm tempted to scratchbuild one or convert from the BGS/IKB kit. Photos of them on the BG dump at Swindon suggest T section stantions. I'm not so sure about the material in the H&P photo, the light line representing the highlighted part of the stantions is only a single pixel wide. Yes, the ends are inset to the depth of the end stantions. I see what you mean about the hint of a horizontal member at the end, though I'm not convinced and have not seen anything like this on the BG versions. Note the wooden piece along the top of the door. The BG versions usually have something like this along the top of the sides immediately below the angle. It may have been removed later as on the photo example. I think those lines are a scanning artefact. I'm not sure about the purpose of that horizontal line of rivets below the To Carry signage. According to the BGS/IKB kit instructions, that's the "Brotherhoods patent tarpaulin rail system [which] was fitted when new [1853-4] but does not appear to have lasted long." Certainly, I've not seen one so fitted in a photo and, if the parts in the kit are anything to go by, it was a very flimsy structure. The instructions also suggest that the standard gauge ones are converted BG examples rather than original NG builds. One other interesting feature, like many BG wagons, the 3'6" wheels protrude slightly through the wooden planked floor and are covered by small splashers. Nick

There are some horizontal lines that suggest planking but, otherwise, the proportions are quite different from the round ended LCDR wagon, or any other round ended open that I can think of. The latter is a four planker with only two additional planks for the extra end height. In the H&P photo the rounded part of the end is higher than the wagon sides, just as on a tilt wagon. Compare with the four plankers in front of the wagon and the van alongside. As to the end bonnets, these are about 18" wide on both BG tilts and the narrow gauge example in Richard's photo above. Even so, they would not show well on a photo from this angle. There looks to be a sheet hanging over the top at this end and a pronounced shadow underneath the bonnet at the far end. Pure guesswork, but if the ends really are planked, could it be a wooden variety of tilt wagon or, perhaps a converted BG example? Nick

Just noticed a distant end view of a narrow gauge tilt wagon in this photo. Other aspects of the photo are currently being discussed in this topic, and I think it came up in one of Mikkel's blog entries in the last year or two. The photo appears to confirm my suggestion of two end stantions. Nick

Hi Ian, I can imagine the difficulties in trying to make your own 2mm scale bridge rail Perhaps someone with wire-drawing equipment might be able to do it but you'd probably need to buy several kilometers to make it worth their while. Would 10thou not be a bit thick, even if you were trying to represent both the rail foot and the wooden spacer underneath? As it is, the code 40 bar looks quite good, though, particularly with a bit of residual solder. I wonder if careful use of a scrawker along the baulks, holding a piece of metal sheet against the rail edge would allow you to give the impression of a step between rail and baulk? It might help to tin the whole surface of the baulks first so that there was some solder to scrape off. That and careful differential painting of the baulks and where the rail should be might do the trick. Just thinking out loud, I've not tried it other than to run a scrawker down the edge of BGS 4mm rail to clean up stray solder... Nick

Very impressive start, Ian. I don't recall seeing the slide support parts modelled so well in larger scales. What section is the Association "Plain Rail"? Is it just a simple bar shape? Looking forward to seeing this develop. Nick

If you haven't read the whole topic then you may not have come across Rugd1022's excellent western liveries topics which are pinned at the top of the Diesel Hydraulic Group. All the livery answers are to be found there. Nick