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

[corneliuslundie]

And rope details?

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

25 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

And rope details?

 

Well, yes, I was on the point of setting to to make some Cambrian ropes, with one red, one green, and one white strand but then I thought, might my wagon not have come from the Mid-Wales section, where the white strand was omitted? [Essery, op. cit.] 

 

I had thought of Welshpool as the point of origin of my wagon, thinking it had come to Brum by LNWR (or possibly GWR) train along with my 2-plank wagon, to be loaded with slate from the Aberllefenni quarry. But I've realised that I wouldn't see the two wagons in the same train, as one is coming and the other going. So my empty open could easily have come loaded from somewhere up the Wye valley and transferred to a Midland goods train at Three Cocks Junction, and be being prepared for return by the same route. 

[corneliuslundie]

Re your comment about a source of information on wagon sheets, one for the HMRS methinks as many companies would be involved. I know there is information on some companies in the various books, but it would be useful to have it pulled together. Though probably as a download as not viable as a book.

Jonathan

[kitpw]

42 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

one for the HMRS methinks as many companies would be involved

...and, within each company's stock, changes in design over time.  I'm still not certain what a GWR sheet would look like in 1927, nor indeed what their service life might be or, come to that, their numbering. I've only just got to grips with appropriate wagon liveries and I'm only just now turning attention to sheets: given that a sheeted wagon is mostly sheet above the sole bar, this is an oversight on my part!

 

 

 

 

[Mikkel]

3 hours ago, magmouse said:

I feel your pain - we could really do with some consolidated information on the sheet designs for the pre-grouping companies at different periods.

 

Have you pitched it to Elon Musk? Sounds like a billion-dollar opportunity 🙂

 

Flippancy aside, I found this recently. Interesting to see the material before treatment (assuming that the caption is correct).

 

Caption:  16th April 1936. A Woman At Work In The Great Western Railways Tarpaulin Works At Worcester. Source: Getty Images (embedding allowed).

 

PS: Our could it be a different kind of sheeting, e.g. the thinner type for use when covering stored goods in yards etc?

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Mikkel
Writing on a train

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

PS: Our could it be a different kind of sheeting, e.g. the thinner type for use when covering stored goods in yards etc?

 

Yes, that's what I was thinking. The Essery article has a further LMS-period extract about linen sheets for cloth traffic in the Lancashire and Yorkshire areas (as undersheets keeping the goods clean and out of contact with the regular wagon sheet), the stock of sheets being based at Salford station, and linen sheets for goods stored in warehouses - essentially dust sheets - and only available on request from the District Goods Manager.

 

Also, the passage from Ackworth includes this picturesque description:

 

"Widths of jute sacking are stitched together by machines that bear about the same proportion to the sewing-machine of domestic use that a warming-pan does to a watch."   

[Chas Levin]

17 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I've been practising origami, with reference to possibly the most useful article ever published in Midland Record, Bob Essery's Sheets, Ropes and Sacks [No. 3, pp. 41-58], specifically the LMS 1936 instructions on how to fold a wagon sheet. First, I made up a sheet, 21' 0" x 14' 4" (84.0 mm x 57.3 mm), from 80 g/m2 recycled paper:

 

 

 

You can see the photo was taken after my first attempt at folding!

 

The instructions show the left side folded over as far as the first seam on the right side, then folded back:

 

 

Then fold the right side over and back again:

 

 

Sides to middle, leaving a gap in the middle:

 

 

Then each side should be folded over by a quarter, then again, and again. This is where it goes pear-shaped:

 

 

At my second attempt, I glued with slightly diluted PVA at each stage, pressing the the folds in a clamp. Also, rather than folding in by quarters, I folded by thirds - only two folds. Then I was able to get to the final step of folding the two halves together:

 

 

A quick splash of black acrylic later, we've got a foreign (Cambrian) wagon that had arrived with a sheeted load from Welshpool ready to be returned empty home, complete with its sheet, avoiding demurrage on the sheet of 6d for the first day and 1s each day thereafter:

 

 

(There ought to be a couple of coiled ropes too.)

 

The instructions say that folded sheets should be stood on end but I don't really see how that works for one sheet loose in a wagon. Also they should be stored under cover. The BR period instructions, paragraphs 147-148, speak of sheets loaded in wagons that are then sheeted but this is for return to the sheet stores; at this date the business of returning foreign wagon home promptly was ancient history. These instructions also show a slightly simpler method of folding.

 

Sheets, Ropes and Sacks bears repeated careful reading. Essery quotes from W.M. Ackworth, The Railways of England (John Murray, 1900), who, writing of the Midland's Sheet Stores (at Sheet Stores Junction, Trent, of course), says:

 

"Some ten thousand [sheets] are turned out new every year; and nine times that number come back annually to be repaired and redressed, though there are repairing establishments at Birmingham, Leeds, and St. Pancras as well."

 

On the face of it, this implies a stock of sheets of upwards of 100,000, or about two for every Midland open wagon in goods traffic. That number might come down a bit if one supposes that a sheet might have a time in service of nine months or so, so a considerable number would go to Trent twice in any one year.

 

Ackworth also writes:

 

"The manager of the stores has recently designed an ingenious folding trestle which runs from end to end of the truck, and acts like a ridge-pole to form a sloping roof, and so prevent water from lodging."

 

This might explain why there's nothing relating to wagon trestles in the Carriage & Wagon Drawing Register, despite several references in other documents such as Superintendent of the Line's circulars, if they originated with the Stores Department and were procured by them. I'd still like to see a photo, though!

Excellent Stephen, thank you so much for trying this out and posting pictures - details like that really add to realism and I'd have assumed sheets being returned were simply rolled up. I shall try this out in due course.

 

I modelled an LNER open wagon a couple of years ago with sheets being returned to the yard and simply put a few, loosely folded flat, into the bottom of the wagon... only to be told by various members including your good self that this was wrong as thy should be rolled. I didn't want to mess with what I'd done (partly because I like the look of the folded numbers and letters and good old Rule One was invoked) but I was still a little troubled by it, until @jwealleans came back a month or two later with a photo of a pickup goods train on Pendon including a wagon with sheets laid flat, which made me feel better about it.

 

The photo you posted back then Jonathan (July 1st 2020) is no longer on my thread (due to the RMWeb system crash a while back) but you mentioned it being in the June or July 'Friends of Pendon' Newsletter.

[jwealleans]

I think this is the image you mean, Chas - from the 1930 Reading - Oxford pickup goods:

 

 

The 4 plank is carrying returning sheets.

[Buhar]

 

There's discussion about sheets and ropes on the Caledonian forum (accessible to non-members) which includes scans of some older articles. The LMS had five years as the life of a sheet.

On 18/02/2023 at 16:53, Compound2632 said:

 

Can't get rid of this quote box. Stephen is always worth quoting, though.

[Compound2632]

17 minutes ago, Buhar said:

Stephen is always worth quoting, though.

 

Even when I have nothing to say!

 

32 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

I think this is the image you mean, Chas - from the 1930 Reading - Oxford pickup goods:

 

They do say never model a model. What evidence do the Pendon people have for this? Were the Great Western instructions on returning sheets different? (Paging Mike @Stationmaster!)

 

21 minutes ago, Buhar said:

There's discussion about sheets and ropes on the Caledonian forum (accessible to non-members) which includes scans of some older articles. The LMS had five years as the life of a sheet.

 

An excellent forum which I enjoy browsing from time to time - there's always something of interest. But please could you point me to this particular discussion? I may have seen it but don't recall; a search on wagon sheets was met with the response that my search term was too common. There are three forum areas it could be in: operation, rolling stock, or equipment!

[Buhar]

Operation, currently the topic with the most recent post

https://www.crassoc.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1929&sid=779de6cab973bb2f8d40d3d59efc834a

 

 

[jwealleans]

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

They do say never model a model. What evidence do the Pendon people have for this?

 

Indeed and it was only offered as circumstantial evidence (and at the time it was apposite, having landed in my inbox at around the same time as the discussion).   However I do know that Roye England made fairly meticulous notes about the composition of goods trains which are used as the basis of these models, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that this is exactly what he observed.

 

 

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Buhar said:

Operation, currently the topic with the most recent post

https://www.crassoc.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1929&sid=779de6cab973bb2f8d40d3d59efc834a

 

Thanks, I don't think I had seen that but I do recall a previous discussion on whether the blue cross was right or saltire - which parallels the similar discussion about the red cross on LNWR sheets, where the evidence seems to point towards a right cross not extending to the edges of the sheet, at least for my period.

 

I'm beginning to feel the need to get access to a complete set of backnumbers of the HMRS Journal. Those RCH documents sound tasty too...

[corneliuslundie]

There is a project under way at the moment to digitise all the HMRS Journals, so if you wait a bit you can probably access them for free.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

I've been sent this photo, which has lots of relevance to discussion of sheets and loading:

 

 

[Getty Images, embedded link.]

 

It's an LNER official, dated 4 June 1925, the location is Bishopsgate Goods Station. My correspondent notes:

• Common-user wagons in profusion,
• lots of rolled-up something-or-other in the wagon on the right (look a bit light in colour to be wagon sheets),
• a rolled-up wagon sheet to on top of the load to the middle-left
• Fairly new D1666 in the background? and a Midland open coupled to it

and also the various drays.

 

I like the iron railings loaded up in the cart in the foreground, also the random array of crates on the platform under the awning.

 

I'm puzzled to identify the van on the right, with a vertical strap between its end pillars and apparently unpainted end boards.

[magmouse]

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I like the iron railings loaded up in the cart

Iron railings with spikes - the natural enemy of the wagon sheet….

 

Nick.

[Schooner]

I think I like the mobile yard lamp the best.

[Asterix2012]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I've been sent this photo, which has lots of relevance to discussion of sheets and loading:

 

 

[Getty Images, embedded link.]

 

It's an LNER official, dated 4 June 1925, the location is Bishopsgate Goods Station. My correspondent notes:

• Common-user wagons in profusion,
• lots of rolled-up something-or-other in the wagon on the right (look a bit light in colour to be wagon sheets),
• a rolled-up wagon sheet to on top of the load to the middle-left
• Fairly new D1666 in the background? and a Midland open coupled to it

and also the various drays.

 

I like the iron railings loaded up in the cart in the foreground, also the random array of crates on the platform under the awning.

 

I'm puzzled to identify the van on the right, with a vertical strap between its end pillars and apparently unpainted end boards.

There is a folded sheet on the ground next to the wagon being loaded from the lms open on the left.

 

Folded sheets of tarps are far easier to handle and store than rolled ones from experience.

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, Asterix2012 said:

There is a folded sheet on the ground next to the wagon being loaded from the lms open on the left.

 

To my mind, neither that one nor the one on the wagon look big enough to be folded wagon sheets. My experimental one came out at about 3 ft x 2 ft 3 in x 2 ft...

 

7 hours ago, Asterix2012 said:

Folded sheets of tarps are far easier to handle and store than rolled ones from experience.

 

... and is folded in accordance with the instructions, not rolled. All the instructions I've seen say they should be stacked on end, to prevent the retention of moisture. But I have been wondering how it would be manhandled. 

 

At least it didn't have to go in an optimistically-sized bag, unlike the tents I've had to wrestle with after being hung on the washing line after a Scout camp. It always rains in the last few hours of a Scout camp...

[jwealleans]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm puzzled to identify the van on the right, with a vertical strap between its end pillars and apparently unpainted end boards.

 

I think that is NBR.  I've not seen that combination of timber and steel end posts on any other vehicle.

[Chas Levin]

14 hours ago, jwealleans said:

I think this is the image you mean, Chas - from the 1930 Reading - Oxford pickup goods:

 

 

The 4 plank is carrying returning sheets.

Thanks for finding it again Jonathan; the 'never model a model' point is a good one of course, but this photo still makes me feel more comfortable about my own example!

[Chas Levin]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I've been sent this photo, which has lots of relevance to discussion of sheets and loading:

 

 

[Getty Images, embedded link.]

 

It's an LNER official, dated 4 June 1925, the location is Bishopsgate Goods Station. My correspondent notes:

• Common-user wagons in profusion,
• lots of rolled-up something-or-other in the wagon on the right (look a bit light in colour to be wagon sheets),
• a rolled-up wagon sheet to on top of the load to the middle-left
• Fairly new D1666 in the background? and a Midland open coupled to it

and also the various drays.

 

I like the iron railings loaded up in the cart in the foreground, also the random array of crates on the platform under the awning.

 

I'm puzzled to identify the van on the right, with a vertical strap between its end pillars and apparently unpainted end boards.

Very nice photo Stephen, lots of interesting detail as has been said.

 

I'd agree that the folded sheets in the wagons on both right and left look too light for tarps, unless they're pre-treatment with something that darkened them or they're not wagon sheets but some other kind of covering (as discussed earlier and seen in Mikkel's GWR tarpaulin works photo).

I'd have assumed that what certainly looks like a folded wagon sheet on the floor on the left has either just been removed from the wagon on the left being unloaded into the horse-drawn cart, or is going to be put over the one loaded with light coloured rolls, sitting next to it.

I'd also noted that some of the sheet rolls in the right-hand wagon (the one in front of that mystery van you're asking about, with which I cannot help) are lying on their sides in contravention of what we believe to be the fairly strict rules, but having fully loaded the wagon I'm guessing they bent the rules a little and popped the last few rolls lying flat on top? Rules like that get bent all the time these days so I'm sure things were similar then.

I know from historical musical research that turning up books of rules from the past about how things were meant to be done doesn't necessarily mean they were done that way, at any rate all the time - please forgive me if I'm teaching anyone to suck eggs with that comment.

 

I'm also interested to note the wrinkled or ridged loading roof cover to what I take to be the ex-NER 12T van on the left, the one in front of the wagon being unloaded into the cart. I made one of these a while back from the D&S kit 152 and couldn't find much in the way of photos showing detail of that covering so I modelled it flat, which was all I'd seen, assuming it would look that way when it was drawn fully over the opening and secured above the side door. It looks there though as if it's lying in quite prominent folds, even when it's fully drawn over the opening.

 

It also looks to me as if the last van in the right-hand line is another roof-loading one but it has it's roof covering rolled back and sitting up on the centre-line of the roof. There appears to be a light-coloured area inside what I take to be the roof opening, which is presumably the lighter coloured interior edge of the opening: I hadn't thought of an area like that being painted such a light colour - was that usual?

 

Also interested to see the wagonload of barrels, lower right-hand corner, all on their ends (referencing recent conversations about how barrels should be loaded) and apparently with a large gap between some of them which I should have thought would allow movement in transit, though that may be because the wagon's already been partially unloaded.

 

Also, almost all the vehicles in the left-hand line of the two lines out in the open are LNER (with the noted exception of the LMS one being unloaded and possibly a GW one fifth from the far end of the line) but almost all the wagons under cover in the goods shed are non-LNER as far as I can distinguish: might that view have been intentional, as you mention this being an official LNER photo?

[jwealleans]

22 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

I'm also interested to note the wrinkled or ridged loading roof cover to what I take to be the ex-NER 12T van on the left, the one in front of the wagon being unloaded into the cart.

 

The roof doors on those G2 vans are tarpaulin with laths secured to them - the laths slide in the runners and the tarpaulin folds to open it, then when pulled taut again there are ropes on the leading corners to secure it closed.

Edited February 27, 2023 by jwealleans

[Chas Levin]

1 minute ago, jwealleans said:

 

The roof doors on those G2 vans are tarpaulin with laths secured to them - the laths slide in the runners and the tarpaulin folds to open in,then when pulled taut again there are ropes on the leading corners to secure it closed.

So the one on the left is simply not pulled tautly shut and still shows the wrinkles between the lathes? With I'd known that before I built the one I did: I could have put small strips of wood cut from matchsticks under the 'tarp' - better that than strips of plastic card which might bend with age.

 

Good to know for the next one though, thanks Jonathan.

[41516]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

It always rains in the last few hours of a Scout camp...

 

It was the same when I was involved with the DofE, always rained on the last night so wet kit all round for the last day.  It was less of a problem when I became a Expedition Assessor!

 

1 hour ago, jwealleans said:

I think that is NBR.

 

Horizontal end planks, so D38B or later. Seems quite narrow so perhaps the 7'11" max width D38B and not the later 8'5" width vans?

Edited February 27, 2023 by 41516