More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Compound2632]

Another interesting project, Compound.

 

Can I ask if your sources have any details on the dates of C & G Ayres liveries? I ask because I have one of the Powsides kits, which has red sides - whereas all the RTR models seem to show the green livery featured on your wagon. I wonder if the red livery preceded the green livery, as the company's green livery seems to be remembered today. Or have Powsides got it wrong...

 

The company´s own site does not give any clues (but shows a nice horsedrawn van which could be modelled by modifying the Langley parcels van kit, but I digress).

 

I don't actually possess any of the PO wagon books in the Lightmoor index apart from the Keith Montague Gloucester C&W Co book so alas can't comment. I was rather fishing to see if anyone who does would comment! I would be confident that POWSides have got it right, equally I'm confident that the livery of No. 400 (or 406) is authentic and that he prototypes of the Hornby model were to either the 1887 or 1907 RCH spec - but whether actually 6-plank wagons is a question I can't answer without the books. Although the other models cited are nonsense as far as the wagons themselves are concerned, I'm inclined to believe the combination of livery and number 293 and 530. The number given by POWSides, 360, is in the middle of this range. There's no law which says any owner or hirer would be consistent in livery - I suspect that if hiring, they might be constrained by what the hirer offering the best terms was willing to do. If the Barsetshire Wagon Co. offered wagons at a low rate but said, sorry, we don't do green and yellow paint, Mr Ayres would be tempted - especially if he was in a hurry to fulfil a new contract.

 

The Lightmoor index lists 38 books - 35 if one's not into tank wagons - so one could easily spend much more on reference material than wagons! Perhaps I should be looking for a club with a good library.

 

Thanks for those links - the mention of parcels confirms me in thinking I'd read somewhere that Ayres were contracted as the Great Western's parcels agent in Reading. When we last moved within Reading 15 years ago, we had C & G Ayres quote but in the end I think we used another local firm.

[57xx]

Nice work upgrading r-t-r stock  I wonder if the 'high ride' may be in part due to the depth of the solebars. Compared with its neighbour that dimension looks greater. There seems to be a bigger gap above the iron fittings. This appearance may be due to the lighter colour of the woodwork.

 

They do look to be deeper, however, reducing the depth of the solebars would only give a bigger gap between the spring hangers and the solebars. Unless you can sink the W irons further into the body, then it isn't going to sit any lower. It either needs the floor thinning down or removing completely and making up a new one that allows the right ride height.

Edited June 13, 2017 by 57xx

[sharris]

They do look to be deeper, however, reducing the depth of the solebars would only give a bigger gap between the spring hangers and the solebars. Unless you can sink the W irons further into the body, then it isn't going to sit any lower. It either needs the floor thinning down or removing completely and making up a new one that allows the right ride height.

 

I didn't notice whether you were using the MJT W irons as compensated or not - if you're not compensating them could you bend out or cut off the 'feet' and then shim the flat surfaces of the W-iron assemblies with appropriate thicknesses of plasticard to the correct ride height? - the springs should be malleable enough to squish them up a bit.

 

As for brake gear - should you run out Slaters left-overs, Wizard do them for various wheelbases* (since I have run out of Slaters bits, these are my brake gear of choice these days, along with Bill Bedford bits for the levers and safety loops).

 

* They list 9'6, 10', 10'6, 11', 14', but with a bit of hacking I've turned them into other lengths. 

[Quarryscapes]

That ghastly moulded underframe can be easily replaced with a Cambrian Gloucester one - seen here on a 3 plank:

 

[Compound2632]

I didn't notice whether you were using the MJT W irons as compensated or not - if you're not compensating them could you bend out or cut off the 'feet' and then shim the flat surfaces of the W-iron assemblies with appropriate thicknesses of plasticard to the correct ride height? - the springs should be malleable enough to squish them up a bit.

 

As for brake gear - should you run out Slaters left-overs, Wizard do them for various wheelbases* (since I have run out of Slaters bits, these are my brake gear of choice these days, along with Bill Bedford bits for the levers and safety loops).

 

* They list 9'6, 10', 10'6, 11', 14', but with a bit of hacking I've turned them into other lengths. 

 

 

They do look to be deeper, however, reducing the depth of the solebars would only give a bigger gap between the spring hangers and the solebars. Unless you can sink the W irons further into the body, then it isn't going to sit any lower. It either needs the floor thinning down or removing completely and making up a new one that allows the right ride height.

 

Both quite right - in fact there's no problem with space for the tabs on the W-iron unit - I will probably try setting up the compensation too. In fact I think I will use a false floor - there's room for 20 thou plastickard though it may be better to use a strip of brass to make a fully soldered sub-unit. The high riding is caused by (a) the axlebox/spring unit - to be solved by a bit of fettling of the spring shoes and (b) springiness in the solebars forcing the W-iron unit out - I maybe need to scrape a bit more plastic off the back of the solebars.

 

Thomas' front buffers are low - his rear buffers are at a more sensible height. However as a model it is faithful to prototype illustrations - always work from a good picture of the prototype, as they tell us. (Though I'll repeat my heresy that one is even better off when there's no photo!)

 

That ghastly moulded underframe can be easily replaced with a Cambrian Gloucester one - seen here on a 3 plank:

 

BFI-DSXT1775.jpg

 

Indeed, and I think I referenced your post on the Peckett thread where you illustrated this before. This would be a much simpler conversion but my point is to keep the superb printed solebar plates.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Compound2632

[sharris]

..(b) springiness in the solebars forcing the W-iron unit out - I maybe need to scrape a bit more plastic off the back of the solebars...

 

...This would be a much simpler conversion but my point is to keep the superb printed solebar plates.

 

You might need to do a fair amount of scraping to use them compensated if they're that tight! 

 

Agreed, that printing is rather lovely - I wouldn't have believed it came from Hornby, but then my Hornby bits are from the 1970s! 

[wagonman]

 

The Lightmoor index lists 38 books - 35 if one's not into tank wagons - so one could easily spend much more on reference material than wagons! Perhaps I should be looking for a club with a good library.

 

 

 

There are a couple more on the way: Ian Pope is doing the PO wagons of Berks, Bucks and Oxon, and I'm doing Wiltshire. Start saving up...

[Mikkel]

Thanks for those links - the mention of parcels confirms me in thinking I'd read somewhere that Ayres were contracted as the Great Western's parcels agent in Reading. When we last moved within Reading 15 years ago, we had C & G Ayres quote but in the end I think we used another local firm.

 

I was trying to remember when (and why!) we last discussed C&G Ayres, then remembered it was in connection to this photo on ebay from Vastern Rd yard where one of their delivery vans is faintly visible in the background. See also this post.

 

I think that's what led me to get the C&G Ayres Powsides kit, and why I'm extra interested in your research on the livery of their wagons. And so our knowledge develops in circuitous ways :-)

Edited June 13, 2017 by Mikkel

[Compound2632]

We interrupt this thread to bring you an important announcement:

 

The Mousa printed resin Midland D299 5-plank 8 ton wagon has arrived… in my case, a dozen:

 

 

Here’s what you get in the box. In common with Bill Bedford’s other recent wagon kits, the printed resin body is a single piece including the axleboxes and springs and also a rather neatly-done double V-hanger. There are quite a lot of pips on the top edge which I think have to do with the printing process but could also be taken to represent the boltheads for the vertical bolts that on the real thing held the iron capping strip in place. There’s also a bit of roughness on one corner plate than needs tidying up, along with filing back some over-protruding bolt heads on the end pillars and elsewhere. The axleboxes are a representation of the rather slim Ellis 8A grease axlebox used for new construction up to some time in the mid 1880s. (I gather from Bill that the principal sponsor of his current wave of Midland wagon kits models the 1880s.) Unlike the Mousa LNWR wagon kits, the axleguards are two separate units – the oval cut-outs locate onto lugs on the underside of the body. Bill’s usual spring system is provided for. The two straight straps top left on the etch are the fold-up safety loops for the brake push-rods. The handbag-like object bottom left are the label clips. The brake gear is a separate 3D print – the brake gear looks a little skinny but that’s just possibly because it’s nearer scale dimensions than the plastic mouldings I’m used to! The brake lever print is exquisite – not the usual solid stick of plastic but clear – you could almost imagine making a working brake lever! The remaining components are as for the LNWER wagons: 3D printed buffer casings, turned steel buffers with springs, and three-link couplings that are probably only fit as ornaments.

 

I’ve done a trial assembly of one and put it alongside a Slater’s kit for comparison:

 

 

I had to do a bit of work on the body to tidy up the boltheads and in fact smoothed down the top.  The first body I looked at, one of the springs was imperfectly printed – in fact there was a gap. I cut off the axlebox/spring parts and replaced them with some MJT whitemetal Ellis 10A axlebox/spring units I had to hand – these are more appropriate to my early 1900s period anyway. I’ve soldered these to the axleguards rather than gluing them to the solebars; I couldn’t find my MJT waisted bearings so for the moment I’ve not set up the suspension but just pushed standard 2 mm bearings into the axleboxes. As I said, this is a trial assembly: nothing is glued yet, just pushed together, which explains the lack of brake gear. There’s a bit of a glitch on the top plank of this body (which isn’t the one in the first photo – I have yet to examine all twelve bodies to see how many have these little problems).

 

Some comparison of the two kits: The ironwork on the printed resin body isn’t as crisp and sharply-defined as on the injection-moulded version (a limitation of the current state of the art of the printing process) but the ironwork on the solebars is nearer to scale and the V-hanger – as I’ve previously noted the least satisfactory bit of the Slater’s kit – is nicely done. I’m not entirely convinced by the Mousa buffer casings; the moulded Slater’s ones have bolt-heads. With the Slaters kit, I had to add a square of plasticard to represent the bang plate that protects the woodwork when the door is dropped and hits the V-hanger; the Mousa kit has this on both sides, so I scraped it off the non-brake side! At least the Mousa kit doesn’t have the Slaters kit’s incorrectly-positioned numberplate to scrape off!

 

Unlike the Slaters kit, the Mousa kit has a representation of the interior ironwork. Because the resin is slightly translucent it’s a bit hard to pick it out in this photo:

 

 

… but it’s all there, including the for verticals in the corners (see Spitfire’s gauge 3 build). The side knees could be beefier but that’s getting pedantic – something is way better than the usual nothing!

 

The Mousa kit is more expensive than a second-hand Slaters kit - £17.50 plus, in my case, £2 for the MJT axlebox/spring units as against around £15 on ebay. The Slaters kit does need much more time and effort to produce a good model; on the other hand I personally don’t think the printed resin quite stands comparison with the cast resin of e.g. the Mousa LNWR D32 covered wagon, which was almost RTR! I’m happy to have pre-ordered a dozen – it’s just slightly embarrassing credit-card-wise that they arrived on the same day as my Heljan L&B Yeo! I’m now closer to that target of 60,000 D299 wagons and I’m looking forward to the other Midland wagons Mousa have in the pipeline.

 

Normal service will be resumed shortly…

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[Compound2632]

Way back in January, my burst of whitemetal kit building was put on hold because of the cold weather. So on the hottest day of the year so far I have no excuse! Having got the soldering irons out for the brass W-irons and whitemetal axlebox/spring units for the Hornby and Mousa wagons, I returned to my two whitemetal works-in-progress, the David Geen L&Y D15 3-plank dropside wagon and the London Road Models LNW D16 10 ton brake van, soldering up the brake gear on both:

 

 

The L&Y wagon has single-sided brakes but with levers on both sides, acting via a cross-shaft. The simplest way of arranging this was to have the lever on the non-brake side facing to the left, a practice which was eventually outlawed by the Board of Trade. I’m a bit hazy on this: was it because, like the Dean-Churchward brake, the brakes could be released from the opposite side to that from which they had been applied? If so, how did that work? If the brake had been applied from one side and pinned down, how could it be released from the other? As far as I can tell from the drawing (in the kit instructions and more clearly in Noel Coates’ Lancashire and Yorkshire Wagons. Vol. 1, there was no ratchet arrangement so both levers must have moved together. A photo (Op. cit.. Plate 128) shows left-facing lever down but the brake side lever up but this is a wagon modified to have both side brakes, with each side presumably working independently. This wagon is now ready for paint, so I have to work out how to represent the pre-1903 “unpainted wood” livery.

 

The LNW brake has its primitive chunky wooden brake blocks fitted, along with buffer housings (drilled out for turned buffers – sprung if I can make them work (likewise the L&Y wagon). The other job was the axleboxes which required a bit of filing as I’d disobeyed the instruction to cut the springs off their chunky whitemetal bases before fitting – with the result that they were too proud of the axleguards. There’s just some more of the nickel silver detailing to be added – I stopped at the point where I was struggling to fold up the footboards neatly.

 

I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to add these small whitemetal parts. The key is to have good polished surfaces, then to tin each surface with the low-melt solder. The components are then sweated into place, holding the small component with the pliers in one hand, the main body steadied with the second hand and the iron held in your third hand… Meanwhile, apply a drop of flux with a brush held in your spare hand. While doing this, you are at liberty to keep any additional hands in your pockets to demonstrate your nonchalance. Keep the iron away from the plastic wheel centres! (Fortunately not advice from unhappy experience, yet.) For whitemetal to brass or nickel silver, tin the brass/nickel silver with 145 deg solder and the whitemetal with low-melt, then sweat the parts together.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Spitfire2865]

You are wrong regarding the L&Y brakes.

They were almost similar to Morton type brakes, except instead of a reversing clutch, both sides had lost motion clutches so all brakes could be applied from either side. However, as with all other brakes aside from Churchward, they had to be released from the side applied.

Earlier the L&Y used one brake per side per axle, which doesnt make a whole lot of sense due to the axles being fixed to the wheels, so doubke brakes one side would have done the same thing.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Spitfire2865

[brian777999]

Compound2632 : How will you paint those white metal wagons ? Do you remove the wheels before painting ? Can they be sprung out like a plastic kit ?

[wagonbasher]

We interrupt this thread to bring you an important announcement:

 

The Mousa printed resin Midland D299 5-plank 8 ton wagon has arrived… in my case, a dozen:

 

Midland D299 Mousa parts.JPG

 

Here’s what you get in the box. In common with Bill Bedford’s other recent wagon kits, the printed resin body is a single piece including the axleboxes and springs and also a rather neatly-done double V-hanger. There are quite a lot of pips on the top edge which I think have to do with the printing process but could also be taken to represent the boltheads for the vertical bolts that on the real thing held the iron capping strip in place. There’s also a bit of roughness on one corner plate than needs tidying up, along with filing back some over-protruding bolt heads on the end pillars and elsewhere. The axleboxes are a representation of the rather slim Ellis 8A grease axlebox used for new construction up to some time in the mid 1880s. (I gather from Bill that the principal sponsor of his current wave of Midland wagon kits models the 1880s.) Unlike the Mousa LNWR wagon kits, the axleguards are two separate units – the oval cut-outs locate onto lugs on the underside of the body. Bill’s usual spring system is provided for. The two straight straps top left on the etch are the fold-up safety loops for the brake push-rods. The handbag-like object bottom left are the label clips. The brake gear is a separate 3D print – the brake gear looks a little skinny but that’s just possibly because it’s nearer scale dimensions than the plastic mouldings I’m used to! The brake lever print is exquisite – not the usual solid stick of plastic but clear – you could almost imagine making a working brake lever! The remaining components are as for the LNWER wagons: 3D printed buffer casings, turned steel buffers with springs, and three-link couplings that are probably only fit as ornaments.

 

I’ve done a trial assembly of one and put it alongside a Slater’s kit for comparison:

 

Midland D299 Mousa Slaters comparison.JPG

 

I had to do a bit of work on the body to tidy up the boltheads and in fact smoothed down the top.  The first body I looked at, one of the springs was imperfectly printed – in fact there was a gap. I cut off the axlebox/spring parts and replaced them with some MJT whitemetal Ellis 10A axlebox/spring units I had to hand – these are more appropriate to my early 1900s period anyway. I’ve soldered these to the axleguards rather than gluing them to the solebars; I couldn’t find my MJT waisted bearings so for the moment I’ve not set up the suspension but just pushed standard 2 mm bearings into the axleboxes. As I said, this is a trial assembly: nothing is glued yet, just pushed together, which explains the lack of brake gear. There’s a bit of a glitch on the top plank of this body (which isn’t the one in the first photo – I have yet to examine all twelve bodies to see how many have these little problems).

 

Some comparison of the two kits: The ironwork on the printed resin body isn’t as crisp and sharply-defined as on the injection-moulded version (a limitation of the current state of the art of the printing process) but the ironwork on the solebars is nearer to scale and the V-hanger – as I’ve previously noted the least satisfactory bit of the Slater’s kit – is nicely done. I’m not entirely convinced by the Mousa buffer casings; the moulded Slater’s ones have bolt-heads. With the Slaters kit, I had to add a square of plasticard to represent the bang plate that protects the woodwork when the door is dropped and hits the V-hanger; the Mousa kit has this on both sides, so I scraped it off the non-brake side! At least the Mousa kit doesn’t have the Slaters kit’s incorrectly-positioned numberplate to scrape off!

 

Unlike the Slaters kit, the Mousa kit has a representation of the interior ironwork. Because the resin is slightly translucent it’s a bit hard to pick it out in this photo:

 

Midland D299 Mousa interior.JPG

 

… but it’s all there, including the for verticals in the corners (see Spitfire’s gauge 3 build). The side knees could be beefier but that’s getting pedantic – something is way better than the usual nothing!

 

The Mousa kit is more expensive than a second-hand Slaters kit - £17.50 plus, in my case, £2 for the MJT axlebox/spring units as against around £15 on ebay. The Slaters kit does need much more time and effort to produce a good model; on the other hand I personally don’t think the printed resin quite stands comparison with the cast resin of e.g. the Mousa LNWR D32 covered wagon, which was almost RTR! I’m happy to have pre-ordered a dozen – it’s just slightly embarrassing credit-card-wise that they arrived on the same day as my Heljan L&B Yeo! I’m now closer to that target of 60,000 D299 wagons and I’m looking forward to the other Midland wagons Mousa have in the pipeline.

 

Normal service will be resumed shortly…

 

The slaters open mineral wagons are still available through POW sides undecorated and I think without wheels. £6.50 from memory 

 

Andy

[Compound2632]

Compound2632 : How will you paint those white metal wagons ? Do you remove the wheels before painting ? Can they be sprung out like a plastic kit ?

 

A thorough scrub with Cif and an old toothbrush, then an undercoat of Halford's grey primer. The wheels can be sprung out of the brake van - the nickel silver axleguards have enough flexibility (the axleboxes are soldered to the axleguards but not to the springs, the latter being soldered to the solebars) but on the open wagon they are well and truly trapped in place. My thought is to try some sort of paper cradle as a mask for the wheels.

 

The slaters open mineral wagons are still available through POW sides undecorated and I think without wheels. £6.50 from memory 

 

Andy

 

Indeed, though my order from April hasn't turned up - I need to chase that up. But it's the Slaters kit for the Midland Railway D299 8 ton open wagon that I'm specifically writing about here - at last we have an alternative for the single most common item pre-grouping rolling stock, 60,000 having been built to this design between 1882 and 1900.

[Worsdell forever]

...Indeed, though my order from April hasn't turned up - I need to chase that up...

 

That's interesting, I'm still waiting for some transfers I ordered in early May and replies from the two emails I've sent since.

[timbowilts]

Re POWSides I too am awaiting a response to two emails re a missing order, mine being placed in April!

 

Tim T

[Compound2632]

That's interesting, I'm still waiting for some transfers I ordered in early May and replies from the two emails I've sent since.

 

Re POWSides I too am awaiting a response to two emails re a missing order, mine being placed in April!

 

Tim T

 

I've started a topic in the Smaller Suppliers section. There might be illness or other issues. And of course can't rule out the vagaries of the post...

[Compound2632]

There’s also a bit of roughness on one corner plate than needs tidying up

 

The first body I looked at, one of the springs was imperfectly printed – in fact there was a gap. [...] There’s a bit of a glitch on the top plank of this body (which isn’t the one in the first photo – I have yet to examine all twelve bodies to see how many have these little problems).

 

To do full justice to Mousa I should report that I this was the only one that had these defects - the remaining eleven are all perfectly-formed. More to follow!

[drduncan]

Does anyone have copies of the 1887 and 1923 RCH standards for PO wagons?

Drduncan

[Guy Rixon]

Does anyone have copies of the 1887 and 1923 RCH standards for PO wagons?

Drduncan

 

 

The Ince Wagonworks book has reproductions of some of the spec. drawings, but not all the component drawings and not the wording of the standards. If there's something specific you wanted from a drawing I could look it up for you.

[jwealleans]

Doesn't Bob Essery's British Goods Wagons have a detailed drawing of the 1907 spec?

[Penlan]

The most comprehensive set of RCH Specification Drawings* I've seen - other than those at the NRM, York -

is in A.J.Watts 'Private Owner Wagons from the Ince Waggon & Ironworks Co.', published by the HMRS.

 

If you really want to wallow in detail, though the above book is by far the best to understand, and probably easier to obtain, then L.Tavenders 'Coal Trade Wagons', published by L.Tavender in 1991 may be of interest.

 

* As opposed to say the Gloucester Wagon Cos., related to their own needs wagon drawings in the OPC book.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Penlan

[Compound2632]

Heatwave continues, more soldering:

 

 

The nickel-silver step-boards and door-locks have been added to the LNW D16 10T brake van – except for the key on this side which was getting a bit ticklish so I had to back off! Instead, I started another London Road Models ex-D & S kit, for a Midland D393 6-wheel, 20T brake van. This kit is mostly etched brass; I’ve got about as far as I can with the high-temperature iron and 145 degree solder, i.e. up to the point at which I start adding the whitemetal components. This kit went together very easily and neatly, though some of the brake gear and the little bits of body ironwork required some patience. I have a set of bending bars which make forming the folds reasonably straightforward, even where there’s only a millimetre of brass on one side of the fold. I find it works best to clamp the narrow side in the bars.

 

The etch contains strapping pieces for the SER version (as built with one veranda); this is fortunate as I dropped and lost one of the T-shaped pieces that go on the centre of the body at the bottom of the side but was able to make a substitute by cutting down one of the pieces intended for the SER van.

 

The whitemetal spring/axlebox castings are for oil axleboxes; I’ll be replacing the oil boxes with MJT Ellis 10A grease boxes whilst, hopefully, keeping the existing springs…

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[drduncan]

The Ince Wagonworks book has reproductions of some of the spec. drawings, but not all the component drawings and not the wording of the standards. If there's something specific you wanted from a drawing I could look it up for you.

I wanted to ascertain the differences between the 1887, 1907, and 1923 standards.

D

[drduncan]

Doesn't Bob Essery's British Goods Wagons have a detailed drawing of the 1907 spec?

Yes it does, so I just need the 1887 and 1923 standards for comparison.

D