Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Martin S-C said:

...and I just assumed the bloke was eyeing up the busted bike in the hope it might get him to work quicker.

 

You see, Watson, but you do not observe

[Northroader]

Re GWR / GER vans, here is a link to a post for one, in 7MM, Kevin, wot I did earlier, obtained from Furness Wagons. If you follow the ensuing posts, you’ll see that Marc, their presiding genius, says that the last batch of GWR vans matched the GER ones for length, the only difference being the shape of the headstock ends.

 

[Martin S-C]

You see, Watson, but you do not observe

 

Yes, Holmes, but did you even notice the broken bicycle? The loose chain and the slow puncture in the rear tyre? And the fact the man's lunch sack bulges with two pasties because he pinched his brothers in a momentary fit of greed.

Holmes, your legendary skill is slipping in your dotage.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Martin S-C

[Nearholmer]

Many thanks Northroader.

 

I’m a bit confused about colour and lettering, though. Is the pale grey, big letters livery the later one?

[Northroader]

They changed from the small letters to the large in 1902-3. The grey was described as slate grey, quite dark, and didn’t change.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Northroader

[Edwardian]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Many thanks Northroader.

 

I’m a bit confused about colour and lettering, though. Is the pale grey, big letters livery the later one?

 

3 minutes ago, Northroader said:

They changed from the small letters to the large in 1902-3.

 

1902 a large experimental font, standard large letters from 1903, IIRC.

 

GER grey is described as "slate grey".  It's not supposed to have changed so far as I am aware. 

 

23 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Re GWR / GER vans, here is a link to a post for one, in 7MM, Kevin, wot I did earlier, obtained from Furness Wagons. If you follow the ensuing posts, you’ll see that Marc, their presiding genius, says that the last batch of GWR vans matched the GER ones for length, the only difference being the shape of the headstock ends.

 

 

Interesting if true, and logical, because than Holden is carrying a design across rather than randomly adding 7".  The information I have does not reveal any lengthening of the GW vehicles, however, so I'd like to know the source of this assertion. 

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

Graffiti artists do have a sense of humour: in Brixton in the '80s there was a big graffito "Free Winston Silcott" to which some wag had added "with every packet of Shreddies"...  

 

Sometimes words are superfluous as with this unofficial sign on the left bank of the Seine in Paris.

 

 

French policeman: Attention! Défense de pisser!

 

Drunk: Je ne pisse pas, je m'abuse.

 

FP: Ah! Vive le sport!

[Edwardian]

10 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

French policeman: Attention! Défense de pisser!

 

Drunk: Je ne pisse pas, je m'abuse.

 

FP: Ah! Vive le sport!

 

Caught one of our Gallic Cousins doing just that behind a gravestone in a church precinct in Brittany.  All credit to the fellow, when he saw we'd seen what'd he'd been doing, he just shrugged!

 

Anyway, we keep forgetting this is a family show ... 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Can we see a picture of one in service, preferably one of each W and E for comparison, please? A plan is forming inside my teeny brain.

 

 

The Great Western version, rescued from a beat-up model from the Kirk kit that I was fortunate to be given:

 

[Donw]

On 06/05/2019 at 20:33, Hroth said:

My Sphinx has no nose!

How does she smell?

Terrible!

 

boom boom....

 

 

I'd forgotten there was a Page 20!

 

Where you thinking we had only reached 19 pages?

 

Don

[Regularity]

9 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

French policeman: Attention! Défense de pisser!

 

Drunk: Je ne pisse pas, je m'abuse.

 

FP: Ah! Vive le sport!

To get back to trains...

...don’t visit the facility in Gare du Nord, unless you wish to find out why so many do it in the street...

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Regularity said:

unless you wish to find out why so many do it in the street...

Wasn't there a Fairport Convention song about that?

 

3 hours ago, Donw said:

Where you thinking we had only reached 19 pages?

More that back then, I was only reading and not joining in the (straight face) erudite discussions.  And there is the nigh-on 700 pages ago factor to consider too...

[runs as required]

I think the "Liveries" bit is fascinating (at its most absurd in the airline business where they worry about the weight and drag of all the overlaying clag - I always thought the most elegant  were the polished alloy 1940s airliners). And getting on that way with modern vinyls which do their best to disguise the form of the latest bit of franchise traction - like dazzle painting a Dreadnought.

So what would be the pre-occupations of the pre grouping companies in turning out their own goods vans and waggons?

"Brand"/ dignity / hard wearing longevity /legibility/ cheapness of turning out a batch of 150/ appeasing the Chairman's aesthetically sensitive wife (excuse for a pre-raph of the day?)

 

What drives the happy little band in our WNR shops?

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, runs as required said:

I think the "Liveries" bit is fascinating (at its most absurd in the airline business where they worry about the weight and drag of all the overlaying clag - I always thought the most elegant  were the polished alloy 1940s airliners). And getting on that way with modern vinyls which do their best to disguise the form of the latest bit of franchise traction - like dazzle painting a Dreadnought.

So what would be the pre-occupations of the pre grouping companies in turning out their own goods vans and waggons?

"Brand"/ dignity / hard wearing longevity /legibility/ cheapness of turning out a batch of 150/ appeasing the Chairman's aesthetically sensitive wife (excuse for a pre-raph of the day?)

 

What drives the happy little band in our WNR shops?

 

Interesting.

 

The WN, though smart and modestly prosperous, has always struck me as having a slightly antique air. It might be in 1905, but I've always felt that it's of 1885.  That is why I see it as having adopted, and retained, a relatively elaborate livery, Victorian in character.

 

Thus, locomotives have borders, incurved lining and distance lines, with coloured frames. and polished brass domes and safety valves. Coaches have two colours, with beading lined and gilt lettering, with class designations in full, not abbreviated. Wagons, though a fairly standard grey, have small lettering but blocked/shaded, with full stops to initials and some information in long-hand, e.g. "GOODS BREAK". 

[Tom Burnham]

I wonder whether the change in lettering style in the early c20 was to make it easier for the Railway Clearing House number takers at interchange points between railways?

 

Incidentally, no doubt the WNR was a member of the RCH, unlike many light railways?

[corneliuslundie]

I agree with the goods livery. Not all companies even identified their vehicles at that period, and for example the Cambrian only had the numbers on the ends and on the wagon plates, while others had them just on the plates. Underframes might be black but that was for ease of painting rather than aesthetics as the ironwork needed such protection. Bodies seem to have been universally dark red or grey, both lead based paints.

Incidentally, when we operated Childs Ercal, a joint LNWR/NSR  layout set in Shropshire we noticed that th companies whose wagons would have arrived via the LNWR were all grey whereas those which would have arrived by the NSR were all red. It simplified shunting outgoing goods trains.

jonathan

[Guy Rixon]

2 hours ago, runs as required said:

I think the "Liveries" bit is fascinating (at its most absurd in the airline business where they worry about the weight and drag of all the overlaying clag - I always thought the most elegant  were the polished alloy 1940s airliners).

Not always an absurdity. In the 1940s, my father massive annoyed his ground crew by making them polish his P51. When they learned that the extra speed gained had saved his life, they forgave him.

[Guy Rixon]

2 hours ago, runs as required said:

So what would be the pre-occupations of the pre grouping companies in turning out their own goods vans and waggons?

"Brand"/ dignity / hard wearing longevity /legibility/ cheapness of turning out a batch of 150/ appeasing the Chairman's aesthetically sensitive wife (excuse for a pre-raph of the day?)

 

What drives the happy little band in our WNR shops?

I'd expect cost, saving the paint money for the coaches and engines. Further, if they were buying wagons from the "trade", I expect the paint specs were left a bit vague to avoid driving up the cost. As with the SECR, who were much concerned with details of the coach and loco liveries but seemed to have accepted suppliers' variations on the wagons.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Tom Burnham said:

I wonder whether the change in lettering style in the early c20 was to make it easier for the Railway Clearing House number takers at interchange points between railways?

 

Incidentally, no doubt the WNR was a member of the RCH, unlike many light railways?

 

Probably should be.

 

The outlier is the Midland, which seems to have had the large "M R" for quite a long time by the turn of the century. 1880s?

 

IIRC, the following companies' large letter adoption dates were:

 

- GNR 1898

- GER 1903

- GWR 1904

- LNWR 1908

(feel fee to correct and add examples)

 

WNR generally takes its cues from the GER, after some delay.  I think that by 1905, a new large-letter wagon livery might have been adopted, but this would be restricted to brand new wagons on the layout (if any).  Given that wagon repaints could often be at 10-year or more intervals, more or less everything would be in the small "W.N.R" blocked style. 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

The outlier is the Midland, which seems to have had the large "M R" for quite a long time by the turn of the century. 1880s?

 

 

Not outlier, pioneer. It all started with the mass buy-up of sub-standard private owner wagons in the 1880s - those that were deemed fit to remain in traffic pending replacement with the company's standard 5-plank wagons were given a quick coat of lead grey and the 18" initials M R. The practice soon spread to other open wagons and, by the later 1890s, to covered goods wagons, cattle wagons, etc. - though for these initially 9" letters separated by a stop were used - M . R - before the more familiar 12" letters became more-or-less universal by the Edwardian period.

 

On the other hand, the Midland was rather late in the day - 1917 - to the practice of painting the wagon number on the body, at least for open wagons. Covered goods wagons had the number on the sliding door from an earlier date, late 1890s I think. My speculation is that as covered goods wagons were more often dealt with at goods stations with platforms, it was easier to have the number at eye level. For a number taker walking alongside a line of mineral wagons, the number on the solebar plate was at the right height.

 

The few photos of MS&LR wagons I've seen all carry small initials, as do contemporary wagons for the Cheshire Lines (photos dated 1896), but all photos of Great Central wagons show the serif G C (or C L for contemporaneous Cheshire Lines wagons). That would seem to indicate 1897 as the date of adoption of large initials.

Edited May 8, 2019 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Brighton: 1895 for replacement of the rather ornate logo with 9" letters, then 1911 for 18" initials. Which counts? 

 

See, I'm getting good at this saf-of-the-river stuff. The dead mackerel doesn't have it all its own way.

 

Anyway, I've been off mackerel ever since my inability to spell the word, as team captain in a tie-breaker, put my school team out of a West Midland schools quiz competition c. 1980.

Edited May 8, 2019 by Compound2632

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, runs as required said:

I think the "Liveries" bit is fascinating (at its most absurd in the airline business where they worry about the weight and drag of all the overlaying clag - I always thought the most elegant  were the polished alloy 1940s airliners).

 

Although it doesn't rust like steel,  Duralumin can corrode. Polished alloy has to be kept constantly polished or else small scratches will appear on its surface that could turn into cracks . Airliners are typically repainted every four years whle unpainted aircraft need to be polished about three times a year. Differences in drag have been shown to not be a factor favouring painting or polishing. 

 

Boeing did a study on this

https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_05/textonly/fo01txt.html

and found that, though there were cost savings in not having  to fly the weight of paint, they were more than outweighed by the extra maintenance costs incurred for a polished skin."The net operating cost of polished airplanes, calculated as a percentage of the total operating cost, is between 0.06 percent and 0.30 percent more than the total operating cost of fully painted airplanes." in the end the difference is fairly marginal so the decision tends be taken for other reasons. 

 

An aircraft shoildn't have more than two layers of paint and a "build up of clag" by simply overpainting could actually encourage corrosion to take place in chips in the old paint under added paint. The total weight of a fully painted 737 is about 70Kg more than a polished one with customer markings. so about the weight of one medium sized passenger.

Edited May 8, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Flymo749]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Brighton: 1895 for replacement of the rather ornate logo with 9" letters, then 1911 for 18" initials. Which counts? 

 

See, I'm getting good at this saf-of-the-river stuff. The dead mackerel doesn't have it all its own way.

 

Anyway, I've been off mackerel ever since my inability to spell the word, as team captain in a tie-breaker, put my school team out of a West Midland schools quiz competition c. 1980.

 

Blimey!  There's a worrying parallel here.

 

I was my school's team captain in a general knowledge quiz for Black Country schools, a couple of years earlier.    I lost the tie-break by not knowing what a squirrel's home is called...

 

Cheers

Flymo

Edited May 8, 2019 by Flymo749
Edited for typos - doh!

[Edwardian]

Whereas my, brief and trivial, moment of glory was to answer the question that won the jack-pot on the trivia slot-machine at the Cambridge Union.  

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

An aircraft shoildn't have more than two layers of paint and a "build up of clag" by simply overpainting could actually encourage corrosion to take place in chips in the old paint under added paint. The total weight of a fully painted 737 is about 70Kg more than a polished one with customer markings. so about the weight of one medium sized passenger.

 

I was fortunate back in the autumn to have a guided tour of carriage restored and under restoration at Quainton Road by Tony Lyster. Pride of the collection is an ex-Royal Train Wolverton diner. It was the custom to give the roof a fresh coat of white lead paint every time the Royal Train was prepared for service, until it was discovered that the carriage was down on its springs and the roof starting to sag.