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

[MarcD]

I can't identify it but I can say what it's not. Which might narrow the search. It's not Furness, Cambrian, north British, Maryport and Carlisle or NER. 

it could be one of the smaller Welsh companies.

Marc 

[corneliuslundie]

And I am pretty sure it is not Rhymney or Taff Vale.

R&SB might be a slight possibility as MWC did a kit - I can't of course find mine now I want it.

Not the MWC Port Talbot Railway van.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

I think we can presume that Jonathan has already eliminated the LNER constituent companies.

 

I just had a thought, looked in the back of Midland Wagons Vol. 2, and saw that it's not a LTSR van.

 

I wonder if it's Irish? Though most Irish vans were of the Henson type with roof hatch etc., I think. 

[jwealleans]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I think we can presume that Jonathan has already eliminated the LNER constituent companies.

 

Unless it's Scottish, where my knowledge is very sketchy, I don't recognise it as being from any of them.

[MarcD]

Doesn't look very Irish the wagons built after independence were completely different. It's not Highland or GNoSR.

Marc 

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

Unless it's Scottish, where my knowledge is very sketchy, I don't recognise it as being from any of them.

 

Pretty sure not North British.

[MarcD]

NBR wagon have a slightly different crown plates on the LH side.

[jamie92208]

Just a thanks to Stephen for the link a few days ago about an article in the HMRS journal by John Sykes/  I've been in touch with him and he has got back to me.   A very helpful reply that includes a photo of the siding outside Beadmans wagon works in Keighley with 4 wagons visible.   two are Skipton Rock which I am certain were built by Beadman, one is P D Bilbrough but I can't read the town.   John mentions Ulverston Coop in his email so possible the 4th wagon is from there.  If anyone can help me locate Bilbrough it would be useful.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Before anyone loses a sleep digging Google was my friend and PDBilbrough was a Coal merchant at Barnoldswick so would probably have had wagons registered with the Midland. 

 

Jamie

[Dave John]

I had a look, but the mystery kit doesn't match any of the horizontally planked Caledonian wagons. 

 

Model Wagon Co. was mentioned as a possibilty, certainly that is how mwc cast buffers on a sprue back then. For anyone interested there is a discussion with lists of what used to be available over on the CRA forum;

 

https://www.crassoc.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1611&p=10905&hilit=mwc#p10905

[billbedford]

I think it is a GNSR meat van, but there is only a photo of a derelict body in Tatlow so I can't be sure. 

[MrWolf]

24 minutes ago, billbedford said:

I think it is a GNSR meat van, but there is only a photo of a derelict body in Tatlow so I can't be sure. 

 

I had a quick internet search, didn't turn up a photo but got a. note on diagrams 66-69  here:

 

http://www.gnsra.org.uk/wagons.htm

[jwealleans]

Top man - i have that booklet and was able to have a look this morning.   The GNSR Meat vans had no end posts and louvres in the ends and also at the bottom of the sides.   So we can rule that one out.

Edited September 7, 2023 by jwealleans

[Compound2632]

I'm off to TNA today. I shall expect this mystery kit to have been identified by the time I get back this evening!

[sir douglas]

Glasgow & South western?

[ian@stenochs]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Edited September 7, 2023 by ian@stenochs
Premature reply

[ian@stenochs]

I can positively identify it as a Model Wagon Co product.  The subject is the

G&SWR 6 ton van.  Quite a rare kit as few were made.

 

 

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, ian@stenochs said:

I can positively identify it as a Model Wagon Co product.  The subject is the

G&SWR 6 ton van.  Quite a rare kit as few were made.

 

 

I can confirm this identification.  Found it in my round-tuit cache.  Note the price!  All the MWC kits I bought came with etched axleguards, and many had the springs cast with the solebars.  The casting in the original picture doesn't look quite as crisp as mine, and I wondered if it might have come from Kingswood Models of Milton Keynes, who seem to have been in position to reintroduce some of the MWC range, but disappeared after a short existence.

[sir douglas]

I got this photo from the association when i wanted to build my own and the old magazine drawing for it wasnt clear and then made my own drawing from the old drawing and the photo

Edited September 7, 2023 by sir douglas

[Compound2632]

Excellent work!

[Compound2632]

Private owner wagon registration:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of MRSC 11455. The red background is, I believe, an inauthentic restorers' flight of fancy.]

 

On a visit to TNA back in June or July, I transcribed the first thousand entries in TNA RAIL 491/923, registrations 24001-25000 (each volume of the register contains 8,000 entries). So I can report that registration 24948 was dated 8 July 1898, being Manvers Main Colliery No. 1552. This was one of a batch of 100 wagons, Manvers Main Nos. 1501 - 1600, built by Charles Roberts and financed by the North Central Wagon Co., their Nos. 15414 - 15463, 13634 - 13646, and 15647 - 15683 in the order of their Manvers Main fleet numbers. (Though I am wondering if I've made a transcription error and the 13xxx block should be 15xxx.)

 

These 100 wagons are registered in the block 24860 - 24959 but not in the order given above. Registrations 24860 - 24896 are Manvers Main Nos. 1564 - 1600, with registration dates from 17 to 30 August 1898, except the first, on 8 July. Registrations 24897 - 24946 are Manvers Main Nos. 1501 - 1550, registered between 22 and 28 June 1898, i.e. before the preceeding registrations, while the final block of registrations, 24947 - 24959 are Manvers Main Nos. 1551 - 1563 (the block I have as North Central 13xxx), all registed on 8 July, like the very first registration number. 

 

So it looks as if the wagons were built in two lots of 50 each, in Manvers Main fleet number order (and corresponding to the two blocks of North Central numbers, if 13xxx should be read 15xxx). But somehow the registration plates got put on in the wrong order! Were they stacked up at Charles Roberts' works in several piles and the registration-plate fitters started the wrong pile first?

 

These were 10-ton wagons, 15' 0" x 7' 0" x 4' 0" internally (implying 15' 6" over headstocks) with side, end and bottom doors, the side doors being 2' 11" high (suggesting seven planks, 7" for the bottom five and the top two adding up to 13").

 

Keith Turton's Fifth Collection has an article on Manvers Main, pp. 111-113; he has an illustration of a Charles Roberts-built wagon but from 1907, No. 1811.

 

Today I transcribed parts of RAIL 491/922 - I had been going to aim to do the last thousand but at registration 23501 it switched from 10-ton wagons to 8-ton wagons (which raises more questions about the way the register was compiled, or perhaps more accurately, about decisions on what to cast on the plates); this rapidly became more finicky with lots of small blocks of coal merchants' wagons rather than large blocks of colliery wagons, so I gave up after 23605 and did another 600 from RAIL 491/923, which was mostly large blocks of colliery wagons. This revealed some more registration plate curiosities.

 

RAIL 491/922, registration 23110, dated 8 January 1898, was a single 10-ton wagon built by Harrison & Camm for Grimethorpe Colliery, their No. 1. It was 15' 6" x 7' 0" x 4' 0" inside (16' 0" over headstocks) with side, end, and bottom doors, the side doors being 2' 4" tall - four rather than five 7" planks. This must have been ordered as a type or pattern wagon; RAIL 491/923, registrations 25047 - 25445 were for a further 399 wagons of the same dimensions, from Harrison & Camm, Grimesthorpe Nos 2 - 400, in the same order as the registration numbers. Nos. 2 - 210 were registered between 6 July and 22 December 1898. There was then a pause, with Nos. 211 - 400 not being registered until 2 May - 31 October 1899. There is a note in the register that the registration plates for these wagons were re-cast and dated 1899.

 

After this block, there is a single registration, 25446, dated 10 November 1899, for one of Babbington Coal Co's home-made wagons, 10-ton No. 230.

 

The next registration, 25447, jumps back to 4 July 1898, the first of a batch of 100 wagons built by Gloucester for Shirebrook colliery, Nos. 631 - 730:

 

 

[Embedded link.] Interesting that No. 631 was photographed in June but not registered until early July - waiting for the Midland's Inspector to call?

 

Construction of this order ran well into 1899 too, and at registration 25513, 20 January 1899, wagon No. 697, there's the same note of plates re-cast for 1899.

 

So, it looks to me as if the registration procedure ran something like this: the builder has an order of 100 wagons, say, and notifies the railway company that it will have 100 wagons to register. The railway company then has cast 100 pairs of registration plates with sequential numbers (or draws them from stock), dated for the current year. These are sent to the builder and sit in their stores until wagons have passed inspection, whereupon they are fixed to each wagon, usually in order of building. But an order of 100 wagons takes time to complete. Come January, the railway company's inspector makes his first call of the year, passes a batch of wagons, but says 'Ere, these are last year's plates, you cant use those... So replacement plates with the same registration numbers but the current year have to be cast. (By whom? The railway company, the wagon builder, or a third party supplier?)

 

That odd Babbington registration must have come about because Harrison & Camm were expecting to build 400 wagons for Grimethorpe Colliery, forgetting the pattern wagon built earlier in the year, so there was a pair of plates going spare.

 

My main reason for looking at registrations in the 23xxx series was to get the details of some registrations I was aware of: wagons by @jamie92208's J.B. Beadman & Co., for Henry Robinson & Sons (HR&S) of Skipton - wagons which I have come across in the Skipton Minerals Inwards Register:

 

Reg. 23286, 27 January 1898, HR&S No. 5, 10-ton wagon 15' 7" x 7' 0" x 2' 11" inside, side door only, 2' 11" tall, tare 5-18;

 

Reg. 23459, 24 February 1898, HR&S No. 6, and reg. 23460, 1 March 1898, HR&S No. 7, both of the same dimensions as No. 5 but 1" shorter internally. (Forgot to note the tare weight.) 

 

also:

 

Reg. 23287, 25 January 1898, J. Haggas & Co., Keighley, No. 11, 10-ton wagon 15' 7" x 7' 0" x 3' 6" inside, side door only, 2' 11" high, tare 6-0. This wagon has the same dimensions as HR&S No. 5, except for being 7" deeper - six planks rather than five, hence the greater tare weight.

 

HR&S No. 5 first appears in the Mineral Inwards Register on 7 February 1898, with 6 ton 18 cwt of coal from Pope & Pearson's West Riding Colliery, Altofts, making a total of seven appearances by the end of March, all loaded from the same colliery. No. 7 makes its first appearance on 29 March, with 7 ton 11 cwt of coal from Carlton Main Colliery, Cudworth. No. 6 doesn't turn up at all, but March is as far as I've got in the register. HR&S's Nos 1 - 4 also put in appearances, once each over six months; I think this means the firm was trading at other stations as well as Skipton.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Compound2632
typo.

[jamie92208]

@Compound2632that@Compound2632that' s a fabulous bit of work Stephen. I may have more information about Robinson but need to gand look in a book later.  I wil try and digest the info later.  I now have 427 Beadman built wagons on my spreadsheet. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

The other thing I looked at at TNA was some statistics on cattle traffic, from the Midland's Reports and Accounts, RAIL 1110/329 and 330. The half-yearly reports down to the end of 1912 simply give revenue from cattle traffic; interesting enough since rates remained stable, as far as I'm aware, so this can be correlated with the size of the cattle wagon fleet. But the change in reporting introduced by the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act, 1911, resulted in reporting not only of revenue but of head of beasts - though this reporting was suspended during the period of government control. But for the year to 31 December 1913:

 

Receipts from livestock traffic: £116,673 14s 5d.

 

Total livestock transported by goods train: 2,371,897, of which 1,356,548 (57%) originated on the Midland.

 

Of those originating on the Midland:

horses - 13,675 (1%)

cattle - 335,077 (25%)

calves - 51,885 (4%)

sheep - 811,695 (60%)

pigs - 142,823 (10%)

miscellaneous - 1,393 (0.1%)

 

That's a lot of sheep.

 

 

Oxenhope Station, 1935 [Embedded link to Telegraph & Argus website].

 

What is lacking in these statistics, as with those for tonnage of merchandise or minerals conveyed, is information about distance travelled. Did sheep, for example, on the whole make shorter journeys than cattle? Or even just considering cattle, did those going for slaughter travel further than milk cows?

 

And what were those 1,393 miscellaneous animals by goods train? Circus animals, travelling with a circus, would presumably have been passenger-rated. Livestock, so we're not counting stuffed giraffes here, either.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Compound2632
Location of photo corrected.

[corneliuslundie]

"Though I am wondering if I've made a transcription error"

You have my sympathy. Trying to identify numbers from handwriting can be very difficult, especially 5, 6 and 8 in some handwriting, and then there are those entries which have been altered . . .

Jonathan

[jwealleans]

Would calves going by passenger train be counted separately, for example?   The phrasing suggests they might.