Poggy1165

I remember the 1950s and 60s very well, and as far as I am concerned, most aspects were ghastly. The present isn't perfect (I could write a flipping book about stuff I would like to change) but on balance I think life is better. Compared to my grandparents, I live like a king. On the specific topic of food, I don't think there's an argument, I really don't. Of course, if some people abuse the choice available to them - wider than it has ever been in human history - that is their problem, but it's a consequence of freedom. I wouldn't want to live in a country where people were told what to eat "for their own good". Anyone who wishes who has something like a reasonable income can eat a healthy diet, and the choice is amazing. If you want another example of something that has changed for the better - schools. The one I went to was barbaric, although it would have been an excellent training-ground for anyone contemplating a life in Strangeways. Children of today's generation nearly all want to go to school, and are really missing the current absence of it. I should have thought that I had died and gone to heaven.

School dinners - ye gods! My school had the miraculous ability to impart a taste to potatoes that literally made me want to retch. How they achieved this I have no idea, but it put me off eating potatoes - bar chips - for years. Once I got married, my wife gradually weaned them back onto them, but it took me a while to accept that potatoes didn't necessarily make me want to spew. At home "luxury" meals - that is what my mother set before honoured guests, and which she would have set before the Queen had HMQ ever visited Gorton - were tinned salmon (always "potted" that is, with added breadcrumbs to make it go further) or chicken, in those days a dish for high days and holidays only. I think people tend to go on about the "old days" with rose-coloured spectacles. It was mostly absolutely crap. OK, we had steam locos and trolleybuses and it was only 25p for an adult to get into Maine Road. But against that, the food was generally appalling and at present we enjoy far higher quality, a much wider choice, and generally speaking, lower prices in real terms.

Just what I need for my many excess wagons!

There was a line from Ashburys to Philips Park that (theoretically) gave the GCR access to Victoria and Exchange. It still exists. Truth is the GC and LY were often, if not invariably, at daggers' drawn, and relatively little use was made of it. Eventually GCR excursions were allowed to run this way (to Blackpool etc.) but engines (and crews) were invariably changed at Midland Junction (where the GC running powers over the Midland hit LY metals.) You might have thought Victoria was a more logical place for this than a crossover situated on a viaduct, but that's how it was. Although the GC had access to Philips Park sidings, and put pilot engines up there, the L&Y objected to exchanging coal traffic here and, inexplicably, their objection was upheld by the courts. This led to Ashton Moss exchange sidings being built by the GC (in 1911) because for a time they had to exchange coal traffic at Penistone or Barnsley. This cost the GC a lot of mileage, as they moved a whole load of coal for destinations on the LY and LNWR west and north of Manchester. There were at least two attempts to reach Blackpool. The second one - which Dow does not mention at all - involved building a line up to Heysham as well. I strongly suspect the GC hoped to get the Midland involved, but the Midland (I assume) was not interested. Perhaps they were more interested in keeping the GC out of Heysham than acquiring a more direct route to it and having access to Blackpool.

It seems strange to me that (most) railway companies were quite slow to adopt steel frames. Yes, there always exceptions to the rule, but most persisted with wood. One factor may have been that repair shops were simply better equipped to repair wooden wagons. Or maybe it was just the innate conservatism that (generally) pervaded railway culture.

I actually prefer wagon kits not to have wheels so I can use Gibson's. These come pre-blackened, which saves a job. Consequently, there is no question of their going rusty.

I have got several wagons finished during this "lockdown". In theory, the "lockdown" makes little difference to my daily life, but somehow it has focused my mind. I have discovered that several "apparently" completed wagons needed details added - tare weights and so on. So I am bashing on with it. It is a remarkable achievement to complete a model railway to a point where there is literally nothing more to add.

Personally, I try to paint my GC wagons so that no two are exactly the same shade of grey. I strongly suspect that there were so many variables at work that you would not get a uniform colour. 1. First, paints were mixed by hand. There was a theoretical ratio, but I doubt they measured the paint with any degree of exactitude. 2. It was done in different locations, under the direction of different foremen. 3. Weathering, and the filthy industrial atmosphere of the time would work on the paint. 4. Wagons were covered in muck anyway. Even in those days, no one washed or polished wagons. 5. The bosses weren't that bothered as long as the wagons did their job. But that's just my theory. If anyone wants to believe there was a Duluxe wagon grey ready mixed that was always used, feel free.

I think the lettering on the Wigan Junction wagon is fine. It may be a top professional could do marginally better, but really, I'd be absolutely delighted if I could get anywhere near that standard. Having attempted to hand letter wagons on odd occasions, usually when transfers have failed, I know how flipping difficult it is. Ideally one needs to be a trained artist who has studied calligraphy, and that rules me out. Having said that, it's obvious from this thread that you set very high standards for yourself, which is admirable.

Awesome workmanship, as ever. It's like watching David Silva play football.

The GBP was very slow to accept "open" coaches - they were for many years regarded as "American" and therefore a Bad Thing. I suspect, traditionally, people liked the "privacy" of a compartment, but then society changed and it began to feel safer and more comfortable in "open" stock.

I think it's excellent. As (I think) I said before, if I could letter as well as that I would never buy another transfer. It may not be perfect, but it's damn close.

If you read Dow's Great Central, Volume 2, you will find that just such a merger was contemplated. There was a a proposal that the MS&L, LNWR, Midland and GN should jointly absorb the NSR. The LNWR wanted the NSR stripped of all its running powers as part of the deal, while the Midland wanted all four companies to be able to use the NSR free of toll. The GN and MS&L rejected both points and negotiations were broken off in the autumn of 1875. The MS&L then proposed a straightforward merger between itself and the NSR. However the MS&L wanted a traffic agreement as a first step and the NSR would not agree. So quite early in 1876, the proposal was aborted, without troubling Parliament.

Yes, that would fit in with what I remember. A zinc floor, I suspect, easier to keep scrubbed. Because fishes are exceedingly stinky traffic and their odour soaks into anything permeable. It seems slightly "odd" to put fish in open wagons, but the GWR certainly did so, to name but one.

For an imaginary scheme you just have to imagine that railway history changed from what it actually was. No one will put you in jail for coming up with something improbable. In the 1890s or very early 1900s the GC had a scheme for a massive "cut-off" from the Nottingham area to the Manchester area by way of Leek and Ashbourne. (I came across this when reading a book about the history of the Leek and Manifold.) I have to say it was one of a number of grandiose schemes the GC was allegedly involved in at this time, for which greater or lesser amounts of evidence exist. How they (or anyone) imagined the capital might be raised is beyond me. However you could, for example, imagine a situation where the NSR granted running powers to avert such a proposal. If I wanted to model such a scenario, I'm afraid I would not allow trifles such as financial probability stop me, nor yet the likely opposition of the LNWR. After all, the London extension was not exactly built on the basis of the plaudits and support of other companies.

The GC's workings usually ended at Macc. as there were no running powers beyond. However the GC exchanged quite a lot of goods traffic there with the NSR from both its own and the CLC systems. (In Per Rail the GC's goods handbook for the public there is a map showing the entire NSR as a "connection", a distinction not granted to the LNWR lines which are shown, if at all, as "other". In one timetable, I rather think the 1903 one, there was a passenger train off the GC to Stoke or Leek or some such place, but it is not clear whether the GC engine worked through. This practice was not perpetuated, and may have been a "one off".

I think I am right in saying these were "fitted" wagons, or rather "piped" so certainly not used for coal or mineral traffic but for merchandise, including transit in "fast" trains. Of which the GC ran rather a lot, although mostly overnight which is why photos are rare. I have an idea I have read somewhere they were sometimes used for fish traffic, but don't quote me on that as I don't recall the source or whether it had any real authority. Anyway I suspect these things would have had tarps on them more often than not, and they would use two or even three tarps if it was necessary.

At one time the GCR had some CCTs painted: DAILY MAIL WAR EXPRESS I have seen the odd photo. Apparently these dated from the time of the Boer War. (I could comment further about how this particular traffic developed, but it might be seen as "political" . Suffice it to say that demand for a particular type of war coverage increased in the Northern shires and the GC was able to get these papers from London up to Manchester in time for early morning distribution.) What colours were used I have no idea.

Pretty much any goods traffic you can imagine, but bear in mind the CLC had its own fleet of wagons and in pre-group days these would predominate. Most (if not all) CLC wagons were GC/GN/Midland types - but often with subtle variations, particularly around brake gear. There are some photos in Tatlow's LNER Wagon book (vol one) and the HMRS has some others in its collection that are available for purchase. But ware post grouping stuff! (Because the CLC kept on buying new wagons through the 1920s, and brake vans to 47.) The Midland and GC both worked their own goods trains over sections of the CLC. The Wigan and St Helens (GC) branches produced a very considerable amount of traffic, the most important element of which was coal (mainly in PO wagons). But note that the Wigan coalfield (and to a large extent the one around St Helens) were apt to use antediluvian wagons and many of these can only (correctly) be produced by scratch-building. Moreover, some of the collieries are a tad obscure. Photos of Wigan Junction Colliery wagons (for example) are few and far between, although they do exist. St Helens (GC) also produced a useful amount of glass traffic, for which special (GC) wagons were provided. OTOH there was at one time a CLC block train of coal from Ashton-in-Makerfield (GC) to Northwich. (Not sure what route it took, but at a guess via Manchester, Fairfield, Woodley and Altrincham). It would have a GC loco but a CLC brake.

Low melt solder would certainly give you more confidence that the joints would not (eventually) pull apart.

The GC's Buckley Railway made a physical connection with the LNWR at Connah's Quay. However, the Buckley Railway was extremely primitive, with steep gradients and a very tight loading gauge and only the smallest of GC engines worked over it. (Actually, pre-group, mostly ex WM&CQ classes.) So I suspect only local traffic would have been exchanged, for example wagons from the various Buckley brickworks onto the LNW. You would certainly not see any of the big GC loco classes at Connah's Quay.

The Midland provided locos for its own trains. These were chiefly expresses between Liverpool, Southport and either London, Derby or Chinley. (You would need to check your year.) Midland "Spinner" single wheelers were certainly used. I would not be surprised if there were also Midland goods trains. In fact, I'd be surprised if there weren't as the MR had its own goods facilities in Liverpool. I am less clear about the GN. If there were GN trains they would have been headed by GN locos, but I'm not sure they operated west of Manchester. The GC pretty much used all its knackered old engines on the CLC, particularly on goods trains. A J9 or J10 would be the last word in modernity. J12s would be quite normal, many were at Trafford Park. Pollitt singles were used on Manchester-Liverpool expresses, and you would also get D5, D6, D7 and D9, the latter (D9) being on the principal trains only. Much older engines were put on locals including sundry Sacre relics. You might also reasonably use tank engines of F1, F2 and C13, An awful lot of scratch building is going to be required. But that's nothing compared to the CLC coaching stock.

I have been looking at this very question. In terms of size the '23 version seems little, if at all different from many pre '23 12 tonners. The axleboxes are certainly the main difference. I should also be inclined to change the buffers which are atypical of earlier practice. As so often in railway matters, there was not really an overnight change, more a slow evolution. If anyone can suggest any other significant differences, I for one would be grateful.

The Turton books on PO wagons usually give details of whether or not transfers/special wagons were produced, and the source. But this of course would mean ploughing through Turton's books, and in any case I am sure his books do not cover every PO wagon that has had a transfer produced.

Coal drops were (relatively) common on the former MS&L. There used to be a splendid set-up at Ardwick (Manchester) and I think they still exist at Penistone, albeit long converted into garages. Where they were not found was on the London Extension.