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

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, MarcD said:

The instructions are all on the website as down loadable PDF files.

 

Doh!

[Compound2632]

Bah - just realised I had overlooked the 150 small cattle wagons of Lot 8 of 1877, all renewals, so one can discount the survival of Metropolitan and Oldbury wagons of 1869 / 1871 in 1893.

 

By the way, a typo in the text of Midland Wagons has led to large cattle wagons being widely described as D298; reference to the list of diagrams, Vol. 2 pp 1-2, and to the diagram book itself [three copies in the MRSC collection] confirms that this should be D296; D298 applying to calf vans. 

 

Noting that different diagrams were issued covering the two lengths of medium cattle wagons, I wonder if a diagram D295 can be postulated for the 18' 6" long (outside) large wagons to Drg. 101. This would imply that both types of medium wagon were still in service when the surviving copies of the diagram book were put together, but no large wagon from before Lot 336 of 1894. (I'll need to do some more arithmetic...) No diagram survives for small cattle wagons. Logically these would have been on D292 but then what was D297, which is another gap in the sequence?

Edited January 16, 2023 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Progress with the D294 medium cattle wagon:

 

 

Having soldered MJT pin-point bearings of the shouldered rather than waisted type into the axleguards, I had to rather gingerly drill out the axleboxes to clear 2 mm diameter - gingerly, not only because the printed resin is a bit brittle, but also because these are nearer the scale width of the Ellis axlebox than the Slaters or MJT representations. I got away with that; emboldened, I trimmed off the rear of the lugs on either side - these don't go all the way back, as on the Slaters moldings, but, I thought, could still be made a bit thinner. I did have one fracture off, but fortunately it was a clean break, easily glued back on. 

 

I spent half-an-hour fiddling, cursing, and unsticking myself from cyano making the triangular brackets that support the side rail, from phosphor bronze strip, because that's what I had to hand.

 

The etched brake gear has overlays for the brake blocks and push-rods, which I'd soldered up at the same time as fitting the bearings into the axleguards. The rest is glued in place; I made up the rear cross-shaft bracket from spare etch:

 

 

The brake gear etch is, I think, a generic etch for 10 ft wheelbase wagons; the brake lever isn't the Midland short pattern and I didn't fancy my chances of bending it to shape, so I've committed the extravagance of ordering the Bill Bedford etch from Wizard. (I had to order a D420 parcel van kit to make it worth the postage...) 

 

I dispensed with the compensation, simply packing the shallower axleguard unit with a rectangle of 0.040" plasticard.

 

I was all set to make the partition holders from Evergreen strip, when I stabbed my finger with a nice new craft knife blade, just to test how sharp it was, of course. Time for a break!

 

 

[Compressed crop from scan of Derby C&W Drg. 644, MRSC 88-D0211]

 

The partition holders are about 27" long and 2½" high; my plan was to carve them out of 0.030" x 0.040" strip - hence the self-harm - but I now think a wiser course will be to fabricate them in two layers from 0.015" thick strip.

 

Looking both at this drawing and photographs, I've realised that the iron rail or bar is too high - it should be at about the mid-height of the openings in the doors, and so less than half-way up the openings in the sides. I'm not going to try to correct this but the beauty of this technology is that Marc can easily modify his CAD for future prints.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Compound2632
typo.

[magmouse]

50 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I had to order a D420 parcel van kit to make it worth the postage...

 

I have a cupboard full of as-yet unmade kits to prove I follow the same philosophy...

 

Nick.

 

[Compound2632]

I've had a trip to the Midland Railway Study Centre today, to look at various things, including some documents relating to S&DJR wagons. On major railways such as the Midland there were, by the latter part of the 19th century, separate Locomotive and Carriage & Wagon Departments, each with their own Superintendent. (I think only the LNWR went so far as to have separate Carriage and Wagon Departments, with their own Superintendents.) But on smaller lines, the Locomotive Superintendent's responsibilities included the activities of the Carriage & Wagon side of things (as on the Midland in Kirtley's day). So, with the Midland taking on responsibility for S&DJR rolling stock, S.W. Johnson was the Joint's Locomotive Superintendent (with most of the work delegated to his appointee at Highbridge), and as such was responsible for the Joint's Carriage & Wagon Department too. Thus, when tender documents were issued for new rolling stock, they appeared from the Locomotive Department, Derby, under S.W. Johnson's name. The Midland's C&W Superintendent didn't get a look in. I think this goes some way towards explaining the subtle differences between some of the Joint's stock and that of the Midland. (Although in practice drawings and specifications originating from the Derby C&W DO were used - as for example the Cravens and Oldbury 6-wheel thirds, which were identical to the Midland D493 third.) The Study Centre has some of the specification documents. Drawings tell us what a carriage or wagon looked like and to some degree how it went together, but the Specifications give us rather more detail on what was expected on the latter front. Some of it sounds very familiar to a model maker. From a Specification for 8-ton open wagons:

 

"All Joints, Tenons, and Mortices, to be well and cleanly framed together, and bedded with a coat of good thick White Lead." (Perhaps we would want to substitue MekPak there!)

 

"The whole of the Under Frames must, when put together, be perfectly true and square, and quite free from any cross winding."

 

"Great care must be taken that the Axle Guards are fixed at the exact centres specified, and perfectly square with the Under Framing and each other."

 

Kit designers and manufacturers, and indeed kit builders, take note:

 

"The dimensions given on the Drawings are to be followed in every respect, so that the Wagons may all be alike, and not to differ in weight, and none will be received unless made and finished, both as to quality herein specified, and workmanship, to the entire satisfaction of Mr S. W. Johnson, Locomotive Superintendent for the Joint Committee or such Agent as he may appoint, who shall have full power to reject or condemn any or all such Wagons or parts of the same, as shall appear to him not in strict accordance with this Specification or the Drawings."

 

This detail I found rather interesting, in view of various debates about the apparent colour or colour density of newly painted vs. weather-worn wagons:

 

"The outside of the Body, Under Frame, Iron Work, &c. to receive three coats of Lead Colour, each coat to be allowed to dry before the next one is laid on. The last coat to be mixed chiefly with boiled oil, so as to come out with a good gloss." (My emphasis.]

Edited January 19, 2023 by Compound2632
punctuation

[Compound2632]

I'm working out what I am going to say on the subject of "The Midland in Berkshire" at the South East Area Meeting of the Midland Railway Society in Reading on Saturday 28 January. This meeting is open to non-members - PM me for details.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Compound2632

[Western Star]

Stephen,

 

Ever since you sent a flyer to me I have been puzzling as to how you create a talk with the title "Midland in Berkshire"....  and your post above suggests that you have a similar worry.

 

How about telling all of us just how the Midland managed to get a presence in Berkshire?

 

Just one week to go, the Basingstoke S7 Area Group is going to be there to learn about the answer to this question.

 

regards, Graham

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Western Star said:

Ever since you sent a flyer to me I have been puzzling as to how you create a talk with the title "Midland in Berkshire"....  and your post above suggests that you have a similar worry.

 

No worry - just thinking how best to present the copious material I have to hand!

 

Of course, if your researches have thrown up any photos of Midland wagons in Berkshire (old or new borders) in the pre-pooling period I will be very interested to see them.

 

Some teasers, that have appeared before:

 

 

 

 

[Crops from photos in the Huntley & Palmers Collection, Reading Museum Service.]

[MarcD]

Going back to the SDJR coaches are they the same diagram as that produced by slaters?

 

Marc

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, MarcD said:

Going back to the SDJR coaches are they the same diagram as that produced by slaters?

 

Yes, they* are the same as the 31 ft 5-compartment third for which Slaters do a kit in both 7 mm and 4 mm scale. They stick out in photos of S&DJR trains because they have the 3" higher roof profile - 8 ft radius - that Derby had been using since c. 1880 whereas Highbridge had kept the earlier 10 ft radius; also double rainstrips. 

 

*That is to say, the specification I was looking at, for 20 third class carriages, dated August 1890 and in ink on the cover by Craven Bros, Bramall, Sheffield [MRSC 13257]. From Russ Garner's Register one might deduce these were Nos. 60-79 (but see re. No. 98 below). There was an earlier batch built by Oldbury, Nos. 39-54 or thereabouts - 16 vehicles - which Garner lists as 30' or 31' and high arc, which I assume were also of the Midland pattern, and possibly some Highbridge-built examples also high arc (on the other hand, he lists the Cravens carriages as H or L arc, when it is evident that they had the higher roof). All I can say is, I haven't seen a photo of an S&DJR 5-compartment third in a train, that wasn't obviously to the higher profile. 

 

On the other hand, the five 31 ft third brakes built by Cravens at the same time as the thirds, Nos. 80-84, whilst having the same features of higher roof profile and double rainstrips, are sui generis - they've even got the most un-Midland feature of large guard's lookouts (confined to full brakes on Midland carriages at this period).

 

One can also compare the S&DJR 31 ft centre-luggage composites, Nos. 13-20 and probably others, built at Highbridge in the early 90s, with the Midland equivalent, D516. Although identical in overall and compartment dimensions, the Highbridge carriages have the lower arc roof. But the feature that really prevents one from using the Slaters kit as a basis for these S&DJR carriages is the luggage doors. Since the luggage compartment was only 3' 7" between partitions, it was not possible to fit the usual standard 4 ft wide double doors. On the Midland carriages, the left-hand door was the standard 2' 0" wide but the right-hand door was a non-standard unit 1' 7" wide. On the Highbridge carriages, the two doors were made of equal non-standard width. The suggestion has been made to me, very plausibly, that it was more cost-effective at Derby to use a standard component and just make up 200 non-standard right-hand doors, but at Highbridge, where perhaps workshop practice was more artisanal, with doors made up bespoke for each carriage rather than drawn from stock, there was no such advantage. 

 

This is exactly the sort of thing that I find makes S&DJR rolling stock so interesting.

 

I gather that the SDRT, who restored the S&DJR 4-compartment first No. 4, have a pair of 5-compartment thirds awaiting restoration, a Highbridge-built example, No. 114, and a Cravens one, No. 98 (I am confused about numbering...) Once they've done those, they just need to build a pair of replica 6-wheel brakes and an Avonside 0-4-4T and they'll have a typical S&DJR ordinary passenger train of the turn of the century!

Edited January 20, 2023 by Compound2632
grammar tidy

[Compound2632]

Continuing with the cattle wagon theme, more progress on the Parkside D1661 wagon:

 

 

The rails are the straight wire supplied with the kit, glued in place with cyano. The plastic strip supplied for the diagonal straps is 1 mm wide (0.040") which is grossly over scale, so I used some Slater's 0.025" x 0.010" microstrip - the very last piece in a packet that I bought for 95p sometime in the early 80s! To fit this, the molded bolt heads on the side rail and the corner plate had to be trimmed off. Replacement bolt heads in those locations, and also where the strap crosses the frame uprights, are resin transfers from Railtec. My thanks to @Graham T et al. on @MrWolf's Aston on Clun thread for drawing my attention to these, as replacements for the Archer transfers. As they're intended to represent rivets rather than bolt heads, I bought two of the larger sizes from the 7 mm scale range. Here I've used 7mm-9227, intended to represent 1" rivets, which would scale to a 1¾" bolt head - possibly a tad over-large here, though a good match for the molded bolt heads. The Railtec rivets are white - I'm hoarding my black Archer ones for use on grey- or red-with-black-ironwork PO wagons!

Edited January 21, 2023 by Compound2632
typo.

[Compound2632]

A trial fitting of Accurascale screw couplings:

 

 

They are a bit long. That's probably OK for coupled vehicles but for a loose coupling hanging down, it's a problem. Of course the shackle could be hooked up - fine for the front of a locomotive but would get in the way if two vehicles with these couplings are coupled together. I'm unsure if they are rated for use as well as ornament. (Buffer heads are MJT 12", also test fitted and loose in the guides, which didn't need drilling out.)

 

Here's the real thing:

 

 

[Crop from DY 9165.]

 

 

[Chas Levin]

On 19/01/2023 at 21:06, Compound2632 said:

This detail I found rather interesting, in view of various debates about the apparent colour or colour density of newly painted vs. weather-worn wagons:

 

"The outside of the Body, Under Frame, Iron Work, &c. to receive three coats of Lead Colour, each coat to be allowed to dry before the next one is laid on. The last coat to be mixed chiefly with boiled oil, so as to come out with a good gloss." (My emphasis.]

Hello Stephen, that is indeed interesting. Having experimented with linseed oil as a retarder of drying times, I can confirm that it does elevate the gloss level, rendering matt as satin and satin as gloss, but I didn't know it was also used specifically for that purpose.

Boiled as opposed to unboiled affects the degree of retarding of drying time too, but I'm not sure why they'd have specified that if the sole purpose was a glossier finish: does anyone have any ideas about that?

[Chas Levin]

On 20/01/2023 at 10:57, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Wonderful photo, full of fascinating detail and so sharp and clear.

 

Would they really have loaded open wagons that high with relatively small, loose boxes though? Were they perhaps sheeted over in transit, the sheeting having been removed before unloading in the shed?

Edited February 5 by Chas Levin

[Andy Hayter]

10 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Hello Stephen, that is indeed interesting. Having experimented with linseed oil as a retarder of drying times, I can confirm that it does elevate the gloss level, rendering matt as satin and satin as gloss, but I didn't know it was also used specifically for that purpose.

Boiled as opposed to unboiled affects the degree of retarding of drying time too, but I'm not sure why they'd have specified that if the sole purpose was a glossier finish: does anyone have any ideas about that?

 

Boiled oil is lighter in colour and will be much more consistent than raw oil, where the colour and composition will depend on the source and perhaps how long the linseed was stored before being crushed to extract the oil.  

[sir douglas]

just thought you would like this, a Midland Schenectady that a club friend is scratch building in o gauge for someone else

Edited January 21, 2023 by sir douglas

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Wonderful photo, full of fascinating detail and so sharp and clear.

 

Would they really haev loaded open wagons that high with relatively small, loose boxes though? Were they perhaps sheeted over in transit, the sheeting having been removed before unloading in the shed?

 

Loading, rather than unloading - the photo is captioned "Lower Loading Shed, 1899".

 

But yes, undoubtedly sheeted for transit - standard practice to protect such consignments from the weather, from fire due to sparks from the engine, and I suppose also from pilfering.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

jsut thoguht you would like this, a Midland Schenectady that a club friend is scratch building in o gauge for someone else

 

Splendid. If we ask nicely, @Dave Hunt might show us one he made earlier.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Compound2632

[Chas Levin]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Loading, rather than unloading - the photo is captioned "Lower Loading Shed, 1899".

 

But yes, undoubtedly sheeted for transit - standard practice to protect such consignments from the weather, from fire due to sparks from the engine, and I suppose also from pilfering.

Yes, loading, of course, as they are the factory.

Pilfering would surely have been a problem with a load like that: it's Huntley & Palmer, after all.

Mmmmmm...

Off to the kitchen 🍪

[Compound2632]

Just now, Chas Levin said:

Pilfering would surely have been a problem with a load like that: it's Huntley & Palmer, after all.

 

 

Eagerly awaited the world around.

 

Colonialism: discuss...

 

[Chas Levin]

36 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Eagerly awaited the world around.

 

Colonialism: discuss...

 

Oh dear: I thought your post was opening a tin of biscuits Stephen, but then I scrolled down and realised it was a can of worms...

Are we on safer ground with McVities? 😀

Edited January 21, 2023 by Chas Levin

[chris p bacon]

19 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Splendid. If we ask nicely, @Dave Hunt might show us one he made earlier.

Thanks to Dave's generous help, I currently have a 4mm GN Baldwin I'm test building on the bench.

[magmouse]

35 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Boiled oil is lighter in colour and will be much more consistent than raw oil, where the colour and composition will depend on the source and perhaps how long the linseed was stored before being crushed to extract the oil.  

 

Having researched this for entirely other purposes*, boiled linseed oil has a faster drying time, as the the more volatile constituents have been reduced/removed. This matters for making oilcloth (the original, not the modern, plastic-coated variety) - even with boiled oil, each coat takes days to dry, and you need quite a few coats to make the fabric waterproof.

 

I seem to remember reading that wagon sheets (for covering biscuits) were made by this process, which would make sense - carbon black (soot) being added to give the colour. And they were quite glossy when new.

 

Nick.

 

* Since you ask: an early 20th century avant-garde theatre in Hellerau, near Dresden, where the lighting was concealed behind oiled cloth on the walls and ceiling, creating a glowing box within which the performance took place and the audience sat.

 

 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, magmouse said:

I seem to remember reading that wagon sheets (for covering biscuits) were made by this process, which would make sense - carbon black (soot) being added to give the colour. And they were quite glossy when new.

 

I'm getting confused about which thread I'm in, since the Rapido D1666 thread has just turned to a discussion of wagon sheets. I was looking for a photo of a sheet stores with the freshly treated sheets hanging up to dry in a sail-loft-like space but instead found this:

 

 

[Embedded link.] Captioned as "A warning about the dangers of sheeting wagons, from a 1930s accident prevention booklet." with the image itself tagged as 1932. Two more Midland wagons, a D357 covered goods and a D299 open (a new number for the list). But whose Prevention of Accidents booklet is this?

Edited January 21, 2023 by Compound2632

[Schooner]

1 hour ago, Chas Levin said:

 

Boiled as opposed to unboiled affects the degree of retarding of drying time too, but I'm not sure why they'd have specified that if the sole purpose was a glossier finish: does anyone have any ideas about that?

 

10 minutes ago, magmouse said:

boiled linseed oil has a faster drying time

 

Used both a fair amount as an ingredient in the various unctions and gunks required to keep traditional sailing vessels Bristol fashion. They're different products with different properties, so it's entirely correct to specify 'boiled oil'. Raw typically on coatings which need to move - it doesn't dry hard. Boiled does, and so is useful as a retarder (eg to aid flow in varnish) or to boost gloss in paints because it slows things down but will still kick off properly.