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

[jwealleans]

Anyone else notice that the brake van in that last shot is one of the ex-ROD ones to an LSWR diagram, sold post war to the GC, NER, GER and Met (among others)?

[Penlan]

On 30/03/2023 at 12:54, WFPettigrew said:

Cannot be sure but many of the Metro drawings did survive, in the library at Birmingham. 

I have mentioned this before, though probably some time ago.
Back in the early 1980's I did a bit of searching around the Archives for various drawings, mainly South Wales Companies , Joseph Wright etc., and at the time which had been micro-fiched.
I was made aware by staff that there was plenty more drawings in a wharehouse/store somewhere which hadn't been copied and were unlikely to be due to more important things for the staff to attend to.
This of course was the era when lay people were assumed to have no knowledge etc., of archive records and any cataloguing could only be done by qualified staff, I seem to remember I advised them of at least 30 drawings available were wrongly attributed, that didn't go down well. 
So, it is probable that not all the drawings in the 'archive' at Birmingham are available, or catalogued. 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Penlan

[corneliuslundie]

There is anyway a big problem about access to the Birmingham drawings, as I have said before. Basically you have to go there on one of e fairly limited open days and photograph any drawings you want to copy. There used to be a copying service, even by post, but that has stopped. And i am not sure whether now you can even find out what is there before going.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

There is anyway a big problem about access to the Birmingham drawings, as I have said before. Basically you have to go there on one of e fairly limited open days and photograph any drawings you want to copy. There used to be a copying service, even by post, but that has stopped. And i am not sure whether now you can even find out what is there before going.

 

It's part of the Public Library service, and as you can imagine they've been cut and cut again by those to who the wealth of private individuals is more important than the public good.

[Penlan]

I think any of the relevant South Wales Drawings I found, and had A1 or A2 copies printed off* are now with the WRRC.
* These were printed at the Archive office whist I waited, that's of course long ago.
The prints had a very shiny surface, not photo-copies.

[Dave Hunt]

8 hours ago, Penlan said:

This of course was the era when lay people were assumed to have no knowledge etc., of archive records and any cataloguing could only be done by qualified staff, I seem to remember I advised them of at least 30 drawings available were wrongly attributed, that didn't go down well. 

 

In the mid 1990s Bob Essery, Fred James and I spent many hours at the NRM going through all the Derby Locomotive Drawing Office drawings that they had and listing them, which took several years. When we listed a drawing we sometimes added notes, such as the locomotive class to which it related as without a copy of the appropriate drawing register it was often not possible to do so without actually seeing the drawing. When the NRM catalogue finally appeared our notes had been missed out and when we asked why that was we were told that it was not considered good library/archive practice to add anything to the official notation, i.e., the drawing number.

 

Dave 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Dave Hunt

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Dave Hunt said:

When the NRM catalogue finally appeared our notes had been missed out and when we asked why that was we were told that it was not considered good library/archive practice to add anything to the drawing number.

 

You have kept your own copy of those notes.

[Dave Hunt]

Yes.

[Chrisbr]

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

When the NRM catalogue finally appeared our notes had been missed out and when we asked why that was we were told that it was not considered good library/archive practice to add anything to the official notation, i.e., the drawing number.

and yet from the same location the Swindon C&W Drawing List has precisely this information in a Notes column, thankfully...

[Chas Levin]

On 27/02/2020 at 20:05, Compound2632 said:

In my OP, I described my approach to modelling as pseudo-finescale. I could make an analogy with those conductors and orchestras who perform the music of the eighteenth century on modern instruments, not in the overblown manner of a Stokowski but in a style and using techniques informed by the work of the period instrument orchestras. P4-informed 00, if you will.

Hello Stephen, apologies for interrupting the flow of the discussion, but in looking at earlier pages of this thread in search of something else, I happened across the above. As a musician who favours Romantic performance styles in a post-Romantic musical world, and as a similarly quasi-finescale railway modeller, the analogy pleased me enormously!

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

in looking at earlier pages of this thread in search of something else

 

If you find a way of doing that efficiently, please let me know!

[Chas Levin]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

If you find a way of doing that efficiently, please let me know!

No, no effecient way that I've discovered (the Search function can be a little hit and miss) but re-reading - or even outright browsing - is very pleasant and almost always turns up something I'd either missed or forgotten about...

[Dave Hunt]

17 hours ago, Chrisbr said:

and yet from the same location the Swindon C&W Drawing List has precisely this information in a Notes column, thankfully...

 

I suppose that it depends on who was in charge at the time.

 

Dave 

[Asterix2012]

4 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I suppose that it depends on who was in charge at the time.

 

Dave 

And whether they are a qualified jobsworth 

[John-Miles]

On 03/04/2023 at 16:47, Dave Hunt said:

 

I suppose that it depends on who was in charge at the time.

 

Dave 

There was a change of strategy by a number of archives because they eventually realised that the "plebs" who were not qualified museum staff actually had a lot of knowledge and represented a huge source of volunteer labour.  Sadly this came too late for your efforts but in time for the GWR documents. Roy Burrows had quite a struggle to get his cataloguing recognised as being up to museum standards.

 

I once was allowed to have a look behind the scenes at the NRM. They have stores the size of barns full of uncatalogued  material. It's just going to waste because the outside world can't access it.

[Dave Hunt]

I'm well aware of the amount of uncatalogued material in the York black hole John. When I was writing the Wild Swan LMS Locomotive Profile on the LMS main line diesels I was put in touch with a chap from GEC who had personally taken a complete set of service manuals on the locomotives to the NRM but when I tried to get at them the staff there denied all knowledge of them.

 

Dave

[Adam]

17 hours ago, John-Miles said:

There was a change of strategy by a number of archives because they eventually realised that the "plebs" who were not qualified museum staff actually had a lot of knowledge and represented a huge source of volunteer labour.  Sadly this came too late for your efforts but in time for the GWR documents. Roy Burrows had quite a struggle to get his cataloguing recognised as being up to museum standards.

 

I once was allowed to have a look behind the scenes at the NRM. They have stores the size of barns full of uncatalogued  material. It's just going to waste because the outside world can't access it.

 

Coming to this as someone lucky enough to be salaried in historical research, I can only empathise with all parties. It's not impossible, but is is a big challenge. This is a problem across the archive sector - there's simply no money for the business of archiving and the skills needed are massively under-rewarded: training requirements are substantial, wages are appalling - the Science Museum Group is well-known for being a poor payer, too even by these standards. The Head of Research at York is someone I know (along with others in his team) and he (and they) are well aware of the issues.

 

The NRM has a large scale problem, borne of erratic acquisitions policies (or just saying 'yes' to everything for a long period if you like). As an accredited archive, with the requirement to do things a certain way to retain that accreditation, especially as that comes with statuary elements, coupled with extremely limited resources, complex collections at locations across the country, and big buildings full of stuff about which people feel very strongly.

 

Funders to facilitate a proper volunteer liaison cataloguing programme are very, very few (The British Records Association, the Business Archives Council, some grants via the National Archives, a scattering of charitable trusts) and generally only attracted to limited scope, specific collection material (Ruston & Hornsby at the Lincolnshire Record Office, Dowty and GRC&W Co. at Gloucestershire Archives, Thomas Cook at Leicestershire and Rutland, and so on). As someone who works in the wider field, it has to be said that the general reputation of railway researchers for citing their sources in a way that's useful to researchers is poor, though it is improving and that - while unfair, perhaps - does not help (it isn't for want of enthusiasts in the archival sector, either!). Show the NRM the money - and we're talking six figures for project-based, multi-year work - and then it would be a different conversation. That they have no process for accepting the work of others is something that could be done, and probably should, but again, that costs staff time and with that, money. I might, but it's not my budget or my collections.

 

Adam

Edited April 6, 2023 by Adam

[corneliuslundie]

There are several members of the HMRS who are actively involved as volunteers in cataloguing at the NRM.

However, in the other direction, the NRM has shed a lot of material which does not fit its collecting policies to other bodies. The HMRS received a big batch recently and that is not the first.

An issue for me is the "if it is not the original we don't want it even if the original no longer exists" policy at the NRM.

But the far bigger issue, I am afraid, is local authority archives. Like libraries, they are not a statutory duty of local authorities and are there fair game for cuts when money is short (when isn't it?). So depositing material there seems to me to be risky. A few of the line societies have their archived housed with local authorities and that worries me for the long term.

Jonathan

[Adam]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the far bigger issue, I am afraid, is local authority archives. Like libraries, they are not a statutory duty of local authorities and are there fair game for cuts when money is short (when isn't it?). So depositing material there seems to me to be risky. A few of the line societies have their archived housed with local authorities and that worries me for the long term.

Jonathan

 

That isn't accurate - or at least, not completely so - the relevant legislation is noted here:  https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/legislation/other-archival-legislation/local-government-acts/

 

Local Authorities have a statutory responsibility to archive certain types of documentation relating to their own activities and archival arrangements are part of the process of establishment of all new local authorities (including the various unitary authorities established this week, it's a major citation headache for a book we have ready for typesetting). Collections not created by local authorities have slightly different status, particularly with regard to access and the nature of custodianship (they may be given, or placed in safe keeping under various arrangements - there's massive variation in the nature of those arrangements, some more logical than others). And there are, now, very, very clear standards for deaccessioning collections. So what I would say is that any body with materials vested in a local authority archive makes the paperwork on the status of that material securely stored and keeps their contact details up to date.

 

The difficulty, in London boroughs in particular (as one of my PhD students is finding), and this is very pronounced, is accessibility, particularly opening times, and this comes around again and again with each review of local government spending (there are various approaches to getting around this - mostly by founding a trust that can provide local archival services on a commercial basis). I've written about this problem before, as part of - successful as it goes - opposition to cuts in Northants, and my view has not changed: https://blog.history.ac.uk/2017/07/access-to-archives/.

 

Adam

Edited April 6, 2023 by Adam

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the far bigger issue, I am afraid, is local authority archives. Like libraries, they are not a statutory duty of local authorities and are there fair game for cuts when money is short (when isn't it?). So depositing material there seems to me to be risky. A few of the line societies have their archived housed with local authorities and that worries me for the long

 

This is a question I asked at a Line Societies Liaison Group meeting at which society archives were being discussed. The representatives of those societies that have lodged their archives with LA archives seemed confident that the agreements they had in place provided adequate guarantees, including for access.

 

What concerns me more is those smaller groups which are still operating essentially as unincorporated clubs, where primary source material is held in members' lofts.

 

I'm not an out-and-out enthusiast for the Indian Jones films, but:

 

 

[billbedford]

Are there any kits of MR 16' 6" vans?

 

Inquiring minds would like to know. 

[2750Papyrus]

On 03/04/2023 at 16:47, Dave Hunt said:

 

I suppose that it depends on who was in charge at the time.

 

Dave 

and how "clever" they considered themselves.

[corneliuslundie]

Thanks for the clarification of the legal position regarding archives.

The Birmingham situation illustrates what can happen though: now extremely difficult to access compared with the past.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

Are there any kits of MR 16' 6" vans?

 

Inquiring minds would like to know. 

 

In 4 mm and 7 mm scale, Slater's have long done a 16' 6" van with oil axleboxes, suitable for post-1904 construction of 8-ton vans, D362, and 10-ton vans, D363, to Drg. 1642. With substitution of Ellis 10A grease axleboxes and a modification to the lower door runner, rmoving the little guide wheel, this is also good for D362 from 1895 onwards to Drg. 1032. The earliest lots, to Drg. 981, did not have continuous drawgear - the only visible sign of this is that in place of the second V-hanger behind the solebar, there was a vertical support for the cross-shaft behind the tumbler, fixed to the middle bearer. The Midland Railway Study Centre has high-resolution scans available of its copies of these three drawings.

 

Slater's also do the ventilated van with passenger running gear, D361. By swapping over the underframes from this kit and the D362 kit, the ordinary van with passenger running gear, D360, and the ventilated van with goods running gear, D364, can also be made. There's an example of this way upthread.

 

Back in my teenage years a did a bit of cutting and filling of the D361 kit with a stretched 9 ft underframe to make a covered fruit van to D378.

 

Pre-Grouping Railways do a 3D print for the cupboard-door van in variations that cover the S&DJR Road Vans, D382 Tariff Vans, and D365 Banana Vans; unfortunately I had to return the examples I ordered because the end pillars were very noticeably too close together - 8 mm centres rather than 11 mm - but perhaps their CAD has been revised. The Midland Railway Study Centre has the relevant drawings.

 

For the more specialised vehicles such as the various Refrigerated Meat Vans there is currently nothing I'm aware of, but the Slater's underframes would provide a good starting point for scratch-building.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Compound2632

[billbedford]

Thanks for that Stephen, I should have realised that Slaters would have got there before anyone else.