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

[Adam]

@AdamI know you started an ABS build over on WT, did you notice the difference with your Cambrian D1666s?

 

Yes, I had noticed the height discrepancy and, while it's very easy to check, since the drawings are readily available, I haven't, yet. They do come out at the same length as the Cambrian, however.

 

 

It's a rather quicker build though (if you solder). Quicker still if you use the whitemetal levers and guides. I must take a picture of the completed vehicle in paint.

 

Adam

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Adam

[41516]

27 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Is that ABS version short as well as tall? Or is that just an illusion consequent on it being too tall?

 

Slight optical illusion as it's slightly lower down that the built Westykit and Cambrian kits as I had to plonk it on a plastic pot for the line up, although you have got me to go check.

 

The ABS kit side is the same length as the 3H kit, about 1mm shorter than the Cambrian and 1mm longer that the Westykit...

 

EDIT -  We all like photos, don't we?  I would say to bear in mind both the ABS and Westykits have been disassembled from built kits and although the ends don't look like they've been filed down and material removed, I can't rule it out.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by 41516
Photo added

[Compound2632]

@41516, what transfers are you using for the BR markings? I'm a bit out of my depth with this "modern image" stuff...

[cctransuk]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

.... but I haven't been getting a good impression from what I have seen. I have a feeling that they were well-regarded simply because there was no alternative when they first came out.

 

I'm afraid that you do Adrian Swain a posthumous disservice.

 

If Adrian was known here for anything above all else, it was for his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things railway, and for his (intolerant?) criticism of the slightest deviation from the prototype of any model - RTR or kit.

 

As a self-confessed latecomer to the era of limited RTR and small supplier whitemetal kits, it might be wise to tread lightly, and carefully, before expressing an opinion on a very well respected researcher / designer / producer.

 

...... where angels fear to tread, etc.

 

John Isherwood.

[chris p bacon]

And yet another well respected kit maker whose range ABS took on, was rather frustrated that very little (if any) saw the light of day and his work was criticised for being inaccurate but without any evidence being produced.  

The same kit maker had reservations that ABS's own range was not as accurate as it was made out to be.

 

Horses for courses.

[41516]

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

transfers

 

Modelmaster (see ongoing thread in the Modelshops section...), CCT (Hello John!), Fox. 

 

I find the Fox number/letter range sheet to be a little on the small side when I'm trying to match against prototype photos.  It also depends how much you like fiddling with individual elements vs having provided number sets, but I think you're used to that!  I've shifted to cutting and shutting sets now I'm more modelling from a prototype photo rather than modelling 'representative' examples.

 

 

21 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

If Adrian was known here for anything above all else, it was for his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things railway, and for his (intolerant?) criticism of the slightest deviation from the prototype of any model - RTR or kit.

 

This is why I find it strange Mr Swain's D1666 is the odd man out, although like Adam, I've not got to the stage of comparing them all against drawings yet.  I do hope the ABS range resurfaces once the new owner completes the herculean task of sorting out the moulds and masters.

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by 41516

[Adam]

Adrian was an exceptionally good pattern-maker and caster (and very, very well-versed in the real railway). Declaring an interest dad knew him from the early '70s until Adrian's death and I knew him for probably 30 years, too. Did I think the way he expressed himself was always proportionate? No, and I did tell him so - but that was the nature of the man: a productive perfectionist. I'm not sure web forums were really his ideal form of communication; he was gentler in person but always of the view it took the same amount of effort to get things right as wrong (not that the 1666 in question makes that point well). Perhaps his manner, and a drift away from cast metal as a medium speak against the kits in some minds. Not for me to say.

 

Turning to the products. His kits were/are really very well engineered, within the limitations of the medium, and the opens detailed inside and out and the brakegear is generally an excellent representation which, were it still readily available, I would use in preference to almost anything else (levers apart). They go together well and require minimal additional detail. Unlike some other whitemetal kit manufacturers the metal is always of good quality, too.

 

Now, Slater's kits (not a lot of interior detail where applicable, though beautifully engineered and moulded) or Cambrian, which tend to have raised plank lines on the inside which I can't live with (though the interior detail is present and correct, the underframes can be a bit off) are different beasts, as are the more modern Parkside kits. That said, we're dealing with apples and oranges in production terms; the Cambrian kits are miracles of low-tech moulding by people without hard core engineering backgrounds. I've built lots of each.

 

Adam

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Adam

[Compound2632]

31 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

I'm afraid that you do Adrian Swain a posthumous disservice.

 

Well, perhaps I'm just looking with fresh and unprejudiced eyes. The example shown - the D1666 open - is clearly wrongly proportioned; the Cambrian kit, despite its shortcomings, is correctly proportioned.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Compound2632

[magmouse]

Well, I can't speak for the character of the man, and I haven't been checking dimensional accuracy, but I have been having great fun with the 7mm kits recently made available again by @djparkins. The LSWR 3-plank captures the chunky character of the prototype:

 

 

 

I upgraded buffer heads, couplings and some brakegear components (vee-hangers and lever), and looking at these close-up pictures makes me wish I had done the ratchet and the safety loops. Ho, hum.

 

The GWR 4-plank I have on the bench stands on a par with the excellent Webster/Peco injection moulded kit as far as detail goes, though it has a slightly different character - not better or worse, just different. I don't think it is just the grease axle-boxes on the ABS version - they seem to capture different aspects of the prototype's character. Again, some upgrades:

 

 

(this will have a sheeted load of hay, so I am not worrying about the internal detail, hence the blobby solder in the inside corners. It's a shame to cover up the interior detail, though.

 

Nick.

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by magmouse
Fixed typo

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, magmouse said:

The GWR 4-plank I have on the bench stands on a par with the excellent Webster/Peco injection moulded kit as far as detail goes, though it has a slightly different character - not better or worse, just different. I don't think it is just the grease axle-boxes on the ABS version - they seem to capture different aspects of the prototype's character. 

 

Which reminds me that the whitemetal 4-plank open used as runner to my timber-loaded wagons is an ABS kit; it doesn't jar alongside the Coopercraft wagons and of course the extra weight in a wagon modelled empty is handy:

 

 

14 minutes ago, magmouse said:

this will have a sheeted load of hay

 

Which is my intention for the 4-plank made from @41516's salvaged Coopercraft O4, so I'd be interested to see how that goes. I'm thinking static grass?

 

 

[Crop from photo of Vastern Road yard, Reading, c. 1905.]

 

[magmouse]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

so I'd be interested to see how that goes. I'm thinking static grass?

 

I'm working with plumber's hemp - amazingly, still available online in this day of PTFE tape:

 

 

I've cut the hemp into short lengths, and glued them to a former made or corrugated cardboard stacked up to make the rough shape of the bales. I'll probably stuff some more loose hemp under the sheet once that goes on, to plump it up a bit. It's curious - the pictures in Jim Russell's "Freight Wagons and Loads in Service on the GWR" show neatly rectangular stacks of bales, before the sheet goes on. but in pictures with the sheet in place, like the one you posted, the shape seems much more rounded. Maybe the corners of the bales squashed down with the tightening of the securing ropes, though my occasional encounters with bales suggests they aren't very squashy. Maybe its the difference between hay and straw, or modern machine-made bales and earlier hand-made.

 

The sheet will be made with the same method I used on this:

 

 

Artwork printed on the thinest paper I can find (60gsm) on a laser printer, then a layer of self-adhesive aluminium foil on the back. On this one I went over the black sheet and the white lettering with paint, as I didn't like the finish of the paper and laser ink - it was just too papery, somehow. I am hoping that for more weathered sheets, that won't be necessary - I have some recycled paper without optical whiteners, which should calm down the otherwise glow-in-the-dark white of the paper. That's the plan, anyway, and I also want to experiment with changing the black in the artwork to a dark, warm grey, and see what the printer does with that, as a head start for the weathering process. Looking at photos, with the dirtiest sheets, the lettering is barely visible.

 

I'll keep you posted on progress - this one is slightly stalled while I work on another wagon, and pluck up the courage to tackle the lettering, which is a stage I dislike greatly.

 

Nick.

 

PS I remember visiting Pendon the best part of fifty years ago, and being told they used plumber's hemp for the thatch on some of the cottages. Previously they had used human hair - Chinese because it was fine and straight - but that had become difficult to obtain....

 

[Compound2632]

10 hours ago, magmouse said:

The sheet will be made with the same method I used on this:

 

I know it well:

 

 

Your sheet was issued, or was best before, October 1909 (I can't remember which the white numbers indicate, there should be red numbers for the other - unless that was later or non-GW practice). So well-worn red with cast plates is plausible, if you subscribe to red until 1904. Here's my version, using a printed sheet from @Ian Smith's template - probably too matt. The cast numberplates are also printed; colour matching wasn't perfect. But one can get away with things in 4 mm scale that I think one can't in 7 mm scale.

 

 

On straw, I think that the wagons in the Vastern Road photo are loaded with loose straw; from a previous discussion somewhere upthread or elsewhere, in which as I recall @Nearholmerwas involved, I gathered that mechanical baling only took off during the Great War - shortage of agricultural labour I suppose. There's a superb photo in G. Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 2, plate 14, of a LBSC Open D being loaded by hand with loose hay at Arundel, probably summer 1903 or 1905. The load towers up over twice the height of the wagon side - so around 6 ft from the floor - and overhangs the sides by one plank's depth or so. Think Boris Johnson on a bad hair day, if you can bear that mental image. There are six labourers standing on top of the load, posing for the photo; one has a two-pronged ptitchfork, another a four-pronged fork, and a third what may be a rake, though it's head down so one can't be sure. A seventh labourer is on the ground, raking at the load. There are piles of loose hay on the ground behind the wagon. To the left of this wagon is one that has been sheeted over, apparently so that the hay is fully covered, and on the right is a wagon waiting to be loaded, with a sheet draped over its end.

 

For loading of bales, there's this Midland official photo, one of a how-to-load-bales series:

 

 

[DY 10921 or DY 10922, MRSC item 88-GV/119-01, taken at Lowdham in May 1918.] 

 

The next photo in the sequence, which I have not seen, shows the wagon sheeted. 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Compound2632

[Schooner]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Perhaps most interesting is how easily one could copy the roping in 4mm. I don't suppose the other side was photographed?

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Schooner said:

Perhaps most interesting is how easily one could copy the roping in 4mm. I don't suppose the other side was photographed?

 

Remember that the wagon would be sheeted, so unless you're making a static model as part of a goods yard cameo, all that roping except for the one coming down over the door would be hidden.

 

This is the only one I've seen out of a set of five. The first one is catalogued "loaded with hay, side view ; not roped, gap top of bales"; then there are two of which the one I posted is one, "loaded with hay, side view ; roped, unsheeted", and two "loaded with hay, side view ; roped, sheeted" - so it's likely those two pairs each show opposite sides of the wagon.

[Mikkel]

GWR double sheeting on tall bale loads:

 

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

GWR double sheeting on tall bale loads

 

What date is that?

[magmouse]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Your sheet was issued, or was best before, October 1909 (I can't remember which the white numbers indicate, there should be red numbers for the other - unless that was later or non-GW practice). So well-worn red with cast plates is plausible, if you subscribe to red until 1904.

 

My period is 1908, and one of the disadvantages of modelling sheeted wagons is that it pins you down quite specifically to a time period, as you have noted. My understanding is the white date is the 'best before' date, hence choosing October 1909 for this one. The matter of red letters for the issue date on GWR sheets is a mystery to me - I accept red text wouldn't show up due to the photographic processes of the period, but there is no obvious place for the red date in the layout of text on the sheet. I'd be delighted if anyone had more info on this. And yes, I am a 'red until 1904' proponent (though based on insufficient evidence!).

 

Regarding the matt-ness of your sheets, I think they need to be either new and shiny, or weathered and matt. The new sheets do have quite a shine to them.

 

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

On straw, I think that the wagons in the Vastern Road photo are loaded with loose straw; from a previous discussion somewhere upthread or elsewhere, in which as I recall @Nearholmerwas involved, I gathered that mechanical baling only took off during the Great War - shortage of agricultural labour I suppose. There's a superb photo in G. Bixley et al., Southern Wagons Vol. 2, plate 14, of a LBSC Open D being loaded by hand with loose hay at Arundel, probably summer 1903 or 1905.

 

Ah - loose straw makes sense. I don't have Southern Wagons vol 2, only volume 1 (LSWR, as my imagined GWR Dorset location has the LSWR as a neighbour). That photo sounds great. That also confirms I need to pad out my straw former to make it budge out as in the Vastern Road picture you posted.

 

Relatedly, I had a look in the GWR General Appendix (1936) and found this:

 

 

So, as well as knowing we shouldn't put hay and straw in round-ended trucks (shame - who doesn't love a round-ended truck?), we can also tell a load of hay from a load of straw from the way the load is roped. The Vastern Road wagons are therefore carrying straw, while the double-sheeted load in Mikkel's picture is hay.

 

I am assuming both hay (fodder) and straw (bedding) are required for horses, but again I'd be pleased to hear from more knowledgable people about that traffic.

 

Nick.

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

34 minutes ago, magmouse said:

So, as well as knowing we shouldn't put hay and straw in round-ended trucks (shame - who doesn't love a round-ended truck?), we can also tell a load of hay from a load of straw from the way the load is roped.

I wonder why round-ended wagons/trucks were frowned upon for carrying hay or straw.  No doubt there was a good reason for it since 'must not' in the instructions tends to indicate strong feelings on the subject.

[Mikkel]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

What date is that?

 

It is a crop from a rather nice photo of a longer train of hay bales "at Pershore, before WW1" according to the caption (I'd better not show the full photo here for copyright reasons, but see PM).

 

It was the inspiration for my loaded Q1 wagon. 

 

 

 

 

[Mikkel]

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

I am assuming both hay (fodder) and straw (bedding) are required for horses, but again I'd be pleased to hear from more knowledgable people about that traffic.

 

Regarding GWR fodder mix, see this post: 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/79259-gwr-provender-wagon-loads/?do=findComment&comment=3532455

 

IIRC the issue of bedding has only been briefly touched upon in past discussions - so there's an opportunity for a longish thread 🙂 

 

 

[magmouse]

42 minutes ago, Annie said:

I wonder why round-ended wagons/trucks were frowned upon for carrying hay or straw.  No doubt there was a good reason for it since 'must not' in the instructions tends to indicate strong feelings on the subject.

 

This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if there is a risk of the load settling (mentioned elsewhere in the rules) and then part of the load being still supported on the raised ends, so becoming precarious. The rest of the instructions have quite a lot of focus on the load staying together, with references to interlocking trusses or bales, etc.

 

Nick. 

[magmouse]

3 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Regarding GWR fodder mix, see this post: 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/79259-gwr-provender-wagon-loads/?do=findComment&comment=3532455

 

IIRC the issue of bedding has only been briefly touched upon in past discussions - so there's an opportunity for a longish thread 🙂 

 

 

Thanks for the link, which I now remember reading first time round! The mix is interesting, and shows you need loads of hay, straw and sacks for the beans, oats, etc., if you want to show the complete traffic for horses. And manure going the other way, of course, which I seem to remember you have done.

 

Nick.

[phil_sutters]

52 minutes ago, Annie said:

I wonder why round-ended wagons/trucks were frowned upon for carrying hay or straw.  No doubt there was a good reason for it since 'must not' in the instructions tends to indicate strong feelings on the subject.

I wonder if the rounded ends would have allowed the ropes and sheeting to move in transit. The square ends would provide more predictable geometry for those who were loading and covering the contents.

[Annie]

20 minutes ago, magmouse said:

 

This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if there is a risk of the load settling (mentioned elsewhere in the rules) and then part of the load being still supported on the raised ends, so becoming precarious. The rest of the instructions have quite a lot of focus on the load staying together, with references to interlocking trusses or bales, etc.

 

Nick. 

 

9 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

I wonder if the rounded ends would have allowed the ropes and sheeting to move in transit. The square ends would provide more predictable geometry for those who were loading and covering the contents.

Thanks for your replies to my question.  Thinking about it that does seem to be the likely answer where the load might settle and if the ropes and sheets then moved because they were less secure then it could result in the load going adrift.

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, magmouse said:

The Vastern Road wagons are therefore carrying straw, while the double-sheeted load in Mikkel's picture is hay.

 

Interesting to understand the distinction and the reason for it. Compare the BR era instructions on the Barrowmore Model Railway Group website, pp. 27-33. This gives instructions for sheeting and roping loads of bales (which makes me want to see the last two photos in that Midland sequence). I suspect by this date loading with loose hay or straw had ceased, bales taking over completely.

 

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I wonder why round-ended wagons/trucks were frowned upon for carrying hay or straw.  No doubt there was a good reason for it since 'must not' in the instructions tends to indicate strong feelings on the subject.

 

In the Brighton photo I mentioned, all three wagons appear to be flat-ended Open Ds, whereas the much more numerous Brighton wagon was the high round-ended Open A.