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

[Compound2632]

@RedTrain I'll have a go at answering once I'm home from holiday and have LNWR wagons to hand and am not limited to using my phone!

 

But as a general point, older wagons tended to keep their original axleboxes and brakes, except in specific cases such as the upgrading of D4 to D9 - unlike the GWR where upgrading of older wagons to oil axleboxes was widespread.

 

It's unfortunate that the 'carriage' type oil axleboxes provided in the Ratio kits are not the most widespread oil axlebox type used by the LNWR, hence @Andy Vincent's printed ones.

 

As to grey, I think you want any grey that isn't blueish. Start from a mid grey and mix in some black - that way you will inevitably end up with a variety of greys.

[Compound2632]

On the wheels question, the LNWR was split-spoke and the Midland solid spoke, as a general rule. The LNWR made its own wagon wheels at the Earlestown wagon works and manufacturing processes seem hardly to have changed during zEmmett's long reign as wagon superintendent, from the late 1860s to 1903, IIRC. I'll have to check if there was a change to cast solid spoke wheels in the 20th century.

 

On the other hand, the Midland took wagon wheel manufacture in-house at some point in the 1880s - I'll have to check the date - setting up a wheel casting shop, for solid-spoked wheels. This was in response to outside firms being slow to deliver. There was, I think, quite a bit of re-use of old wheels where they were serviceable - presumably given new tyres - and so there may well have been re-use of wheels from the bought-up private owner wagons, which would have introduced some split-spoke wheels into the pool.

 

So, at least for my c. 1902 modelling, I wouldn't put solid-spoke wheels under a LNWR wagon but I might put split-spoke wheels under a Midland wagon. Though I'm not sure I have actually done so.

[RedTrain]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

On the wheels question, the LNWR was split-spoke and the Midland solid spoke, as a general rule. The LNWR made its own wagon wheels at the Earlestown wagon works and manufacturing processes seem hardly to have changed during zEmmett's long reign as wagon superintendent, from the late 1860s to 1903, IIRC. I'll have to check if there was a change to cast solid spoke wheels in the 20th century.

 

On the other hand, the Midland took wagon wheel manufacture in-house at some point in the 1880s - I'll have to check the date - setting up a wheel casting shop, for solid-spoked wheels. This was in response to outside firms being slow to deliver. There was, I think, quite a bit of re-use of old wheels where they were serviceable - presumably given new tyres - and so there may well have been re-use of wheels from the bought-up private owner wagons, which would have introduced some split-spoke wheels into the pool.

 

So, at least for my c. 1902 modelling, I wouldn't put solid-spoke wheels under a LNWR wagon but I might put split-spoke wheels under a Midland wagon. Though I'm not sure I have actually done so.

 

Fantastic info-- thanks for the quick response. Apologies I've caught you on holiday; don't feel pressured to spend any undue time picking through my ramblings!

 

That's good to know about the LNWR and MR's differences in approach to wheels. I had been looking quite intently at the ex-private owner wagons the Midland acquired with thoughts about doing something with dumb buffers (your own efforts with Cambrian PO wagon kits are wonderful inspiration on that front). Would there have been many stragglers of that lot still in use by 1913, or would most of them have already gone? Regardless, I may end up doing a D299 or D305 with split spoke wheels as I believe there's at least one photo of each in the book.

[41516]

1 hour ago, RedTrain said:

How would one do the reverse (convert grease to oil), if such a thing is even possible?

 

Not quite grease to oil, but I have pondered oil to oil before:

 

On 21/08/2022 at 14:25, 41516 said:

If I was doing the D9 again, I think I'd file down the front of the oil axleboxes and reverse them to give a reasonable starting point for the first type of LNWR AB as mocked up below... Maybe on the D64.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, RedTrain said:

It would probably help if I had any of the LNWR Wagons books to hand

 

Honestly, LNWR Wagons Vol1 would be a worthwhile investment!

[RedTrain]

6 minutes ago, 41516 said:

Honestly, LNWR Wagons Vol1 would be a worthwhile investment!

 

I began to realize that as the list of questions I was typing grew longer and longer... I'll have a look around for a copy and see if the price is right.

 

Out of curiosity, is Vol. 1 of particularly more help than the others? If I recall there are three; I suppose the first would be the best of the bunch to have if the whole can't be had at once?

[41516]

Vol 1 covers construction and mechanical details and also covers all open goods wagons, so would anyone answering a lot of your questions will being going directly to that book rather than the others.  I found it immensely useful after trying to work through a couple of wagons using the old LNWR society website, where a lot of wagon diagrams had their own page with photos and some infomation.

 

[RedTrain]

8 minutes ago, 41516 said:

so would anyone answering a lot of your questions will being going directly to that book rather than the others

 

Figured!

 

9 minutes ago, 41516 said:

using the old LNWR society website

 

That's what I'd been doing hours ago too. Unfortunately it seems multiple of the images no longer want to load on the Wayback Machine capture of the site, so there's no ability to reference what is said in the text.

[Compound2632]

Just now, RedTrain said:

 

Figured!

 

 

That's what I'd been doing hours ago too. Unfortunately it seems multiple of the images no longer want to load on the Wayback Machine capture of the site, so there's no ability to reference what is said in the text.

 

The philosophy of the new LNWR Society website is to encourage people to join the Society and partake of the vast amount of information in the online Document Management System.

[41516]

2 hours ago, RedTrain said:

Additionally, are shouldered or waisted bearings preferred? I would have assumed waisted as it would be a more accommodating fit for the axleboxes, but again shouldered is specified.

 

Waisted - you don't need to drill out any axleboxes as much to accomodate the bearing.   Rough photos taken quickly below with a recently arrived (and very poorly) D4/9 doing the honours, waisted left, shouldered right

 

 

2 hours ago, RedTrain said:

are these intended to be made available for others in need of oil axleboxes through any form of online storefront, or failing that, sold personally?

 

Small suppliers now need to tread carefully as any links or promotion of goods may breach the recent change in rules...

 

[RedTrain]

12 minutes ago, 41516 said:

Small suppliers now need to tread carefully as any links or promotion of goods may breach the recent change in rules...

 

That slipped my mind; my apologies to @Wagon nut and @Andy Vincent. Would rather not land anyone in hot water!

 

14 minutes ago, 41516 said:

Waisted - you don't need to drill out any axleboxes as much to accomodate the bearing.   Rough photos taken quickly below with a recently arrived (and very poorly) D4/9 doing the honours, waisted left, shouldered right

 

 

Thank you for the photos; those show me exactly what I was after.

 

I have managed to find a copy of LNWR Wagons Vol. 1 for only about 20 quid ($26.68 USD), which would've been an immediate trigger-pull were it not for the overseas shipping cost literally doubling that figure. The cheapest copy anyone has for sale on this side of the pond is being hocked for $90... plus $9 shipping, please and thank you. No, I don't think I will!

 

Still, $50 isn't bad considering most other sources have even worse shipping and prices closer to £30. I'll have to think...

[corneliuslundie]

Not Midland, in fact an official Cambrian Railways drawing, No. 1815, of a 4-plank wagon with sheet rail.

But an example of a drawing not to follow slavishly. I am sure the axlebox should be symmetrical!

 

One doesn't notice until the drawing is blown up of course, and probably hardly noticeable even at 7 mm/ft. There is also at least one line missing, see the bottom left of the W-iron. And where the W-irons cross the solebar the lines are not connected.

But I don't expect it worried the workshops.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

But an example of a drawing not to follow slavishly. I am sure the axlebox should be symmetrical!

 

Quite. what you want are the individual, dimensioned, drawings of axleguard, axlebox, bearing spring, spring shoes, etc. Fortunately, for Midland wagons, the Derby C&W drawing collection at the Midland Railway Study Centre has many of these.

[Compound2632]

 

This is a photo from Coal Merchant & Shipper magazine, 30 May 1925, reposted by permission of @John Arkell who has been working his way through this publication at the British Library. The photo appears in an advert for James Kenworthy & Son Ltd, a Huddersfield wagon building firm [C. Sambrook, British Carriage & Wagon Builders & Repairers 1830-2018 (Lightmoor Press, 2019) pp. 154-5]. Assuming this is a new wagon rather than a re-hired wagon, it will be one of the last grease-axlebox PO wagons built before the 1923 RCH specification applied.

 

The question is, who was SS with their triangle logo? The writing above Load 12 Tons has been read as Osset L & Y Rly.

[WFPettigrew]

On 17/08/2024 at 06:36, RedTrain said:

I'd eventually like to try modelling some Furness Railway stock (signalling @WFPettigrew...) and in looking at the kits featured on the Pre-Grouping Railways store (all of which seem fantastic, if perhaps slightly daunting for someone mostly used to plastic kits and not 3D/etched mixed-media) I notice that the FR seems to have had quite similar practice to the LNWR regarding early wagon brakes (one-sided, single-shoe, long lever) as well as body styles (both seem to have enjoyed four plank opens). Has anyone ever tried bodging a Ratio LNWR wagon into an FR wagon of any kind? Are there any known diagrams that are close enough in dimension and detail to make that approach a desirable alternative to simply buying a kit for an FR wagon?

 

I would have to have a look at LWNR wagons Vol 1 and compare sizes to be able to give you an answer here, and that might take a day or three.

 

A few thoughts. 

 

The FR D13* open is available as a whitemetal kit from Wizard/51L.  And as you say @MarcD does a number of FR wagons in 4mm and indeed 7mm, S Scale, HO and even possibly gauge 1!   The only thing to watch with the latter in 4mm scale is that as these are "blown down" from 7mm, the floors are thicker than we are normally used to from the likes of Slaters and for which most W iron sets are made to fit, so I use Masokits W irons for these and fit the springs for the Mansell carriage sized wheels, which neatly corrects the difference.  There is an article I have written about this in the forthcoming next edition of Scalefour News for those who are members.   But apart from this issue, they are easy to put together - the whole body comes as a one piece print. 

 

And - the Cumbrian Railways Association is about to start selling some FR wagon parts in 4mm scale. These will start with 3D prints of the No2 and No3 grease axleboxes (latter for 6-8 ton wagons, the former for 10 ton rated wagons), the No 9 oil axlebox used from 1909 ish, the 1880s and earlier single wheel brake assemblies and the standard FR buffer guides - plus etches of the characteristic pivot plate for the single wheel brake's long lever.   These are likely to be available either per different type or as a set for a wagon.  

 

Finally, the FR wagon diagram book (actually drawn up in 1922 purely as an exercise to tell the incoming LMS what it was inheriting, the FR did not use diagram numbers itself) is available on the CRA website. See the first four items in this list https://cumbrianrailways.org.uk/wagons.php plus there are also drawings of a number of different wagon types from Ross Pochin/Bill Shillcock.  The diagram book drawings are scale sketches rather than full blown works drawings, but they are annoted with the critical dimensions and would allow you to compare them to - say - LNWR examples. 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Neil 

 

* one of the (many) joys of FR wagons is that the Diagram book of 1922 does not have the same page numbers as a later edition produced sometime in the mid-late 1930s by the LMS.  The latter was sold by the British Railways publicity department in the 60s and 70s to people asking for info about FR wagons, and so the D13 kit is actually labelled there as D12 as that was the number it had in the LMS/BR list.  Ron Allison, the expert on FR wagons at the CRA, prefers to use the 1922 numbering as it was at least drawn up by FR staff - and I think this is indeed the better approach, so for me it's a D13. 

 

 

[jamie92208]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

This is a photo from Coal Merchant & Shipper magazine, 30 May 1925, reposted by permission of @John Arkell who has been working his way through this publication at the British Library. The photo appears in an advert for James Kenworthy & Son Ltd, a Huddersfield wagon building firm [C. Sambrook, British Carriage & Wagon Builders & Repairers 1830-2018 (Lightmoor Press, 2019) pp. 154-5]. Assuming this is a new wagon rather than a re-hired wagon, it will be one of the last grease-axlebox PO wagons built before the 1923 RCH specification applied.

 

The question is, who was SS with their triangle logo? The writing above Load 12 Tons has been read as Osset L & Y Rly.

Two things come to mind..one is Settle Speakman  the other is possibly Shawcross Colliery which was served from Ossett.  However I have no real information. 

 

Jamie

Edited August 19 by jamie92208

[corneliuslundie]

If Ossett is correct then it may be worth trying to get hold of a local trade directory of the period.

Jonathan

[MarcD]

I have been reducing the floor thickness on the 4mm kits and following a discussion with @WFPettigrew yesterday I'm looking into printing and updated compensation unit for my wagon range so it's easier to fit the more bulky 4mm axle bearings.

Marc 

 

[Compound2632]

Article on Ossett collieries here:

https://www.ossett.net/ossett_coal.html

But mostly 19th century and as far as I can see sheds no light on SS, who might be a later owner.

[sir douglas]

4 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

If Ossett is correct then it may be worth trying to get hold of a local trade directory of the period.

Jonathan

there are some directories in Wakefield museum library

[jamie92208]

I've just realised that Ossett L & Y would be down in the Calder Valley and not on top where the GNzr ser Ed Ossett Town.  Most of the L & Y 'Collieries were on the Southern side of the alley such as Caphouse and the other Kaye Collieries. 

 

Jamie

[Wagon nut]

On 17/08/2024 at 09:15, 41516 said:

Waisted - you don't need to drill out any axleboxes as much to accomodate the bearing.   Rough photos taken quickly below with a recently arrived (and very poorly) D4/9 doing the honours, waisted left, shouldered right

 

You will find that with good scale axleboxes such as Andy's you will be better off fitting brass W irons. The ratio W irons are not set fully behind the solebar and the ratio springs and axleboxes are therefore slimmer than prototypical. I found out the hard way! Having assembled things and drilled out for the bearing cups in the plastic W irons, realised that Andy's springs would sit proud of the solebar. Rummaging I found some acceptable W irons that, with some scraping of the solebars fitted tightly (not bothering to compensate in EM with a short wheelbase). I think they are those sold in Wizards / 51L kits. 

Chris

[Compound2632]

Elsewhere, @WFPettigrew contributed to attempts to read a Midland wagon number in a photo. There, I said, was not the place for a discussion of Midland wagon numbering. So here is a very brief summary of where I've got to, with lots of help and hints from Andy Brown:

 

Wagons bought or built as additions to stock, including wagons taken over from absorbed companies (in fact very few) were, in Kirtley's day, given the next highest number available. This was done in blocks - at least by the 1860s - so although, say, lowside wagons and cattle wagons might have been ordered from the trade on the same day and be delivered concurrently, they were in distinct series. From about 1867, it is possible to build up a continuous list with considerable confidence, using numbers known from photographs and other records as anchor-points.

 

This numbering system for additions to stock continued under Clayton, up to about 1890. Again, a more-or-less continuous list can be made using known numbers as anchor-points. The highest numbers in this series that are positively known are those of the pair of gas holder trucks of lot 249, ordered in July 1890, Nos. 41642/3.

 

Meanwhile, the private owner wagon purchase scheme got underway in late 1882. According to F. Crocker, 66,813 were purchased up to 1895. These were numbered in a new series which seems to have started at No. 43000 and would therefore have run to No. 109812. These were of course steadily renewed by standard 8-ton highside wagons, D299 and D351, so the numbers of these are concentrated in this range. 

 

Likewise, older wagons were steadily renewed, usually by wagons of the same type - thus cattle wagons built in the 1890s-1910s took the numbers of cattle wagons built in the 1860s and 70s. A significant exception is the major expansion of the covered goods wagon fleet in the first decade of the 20th century, achieved by renewing old open wagons on a value-for-value basis (i.e. fewer covered wagons were built than the number of opens they replaced, since covered wagons cost more to build). The opens they replaced dated from the late 1870s, so many covered goods wagons built at this time have numbers in the lower end of the 3xxxx range. 

 

From late 1890 onwards, wagons built as additions to stock were numbered in a new series, after the ex-PO wagon series. This series seems to have started at No. 110001 and continued to No. 117297, the last of the six wood skeleton wagons of lot 532 of February 1902. (This lot was for eight but two were renewals.) The earlier part of this series is rather sketchy but from No. 114118 onwards it seems to all fit together nicely. 

 

There was a bit of back-filling: the four pairs of boiler trucks, lot 535 of April 1902 were numbered 109812-109819, then the pulley wagons of lots 540 and 650 were 109820/1. (Note the overlap of one with the ex-PO series. Rather conveniently, it is known that an ex-PO wagon was destroyed in an accident at Martham on the Eastern & Midlands Railway in 1884; presumably another ex-PO took its number!) 

 

With the exception of pulley wagon No. 109821, the very few wagons built as additions to stock after 1902 - all specials of various sorts - took low numbers, possibly the lowest vacant numbers available.

 

Although the 500 banana vans of 1905-6 were not built as additions to stock, at least some appear to have taken vacant numbers, including, probably, further back-filling in the 1098xx range and Nos. 117301-500. 

 

Around 1896, the practice started of not withdrawing a renewed wagon until its replacement had been built. Consequently, wagons built as renewals took new numbers. It appears that lowside wagons, D305, took numbers in the 118xxx - 119xxx range (many of these were later assigned to the Engineer's Department) and highside wagons, D299 and D351, along with some other types, numbers in the 120xxx - 145xxx range. (Renewals were being built at the rate of 6,000 per year, so over five or six years could easily fill that range, along with taking other lower numbers.)

 

The 1,900 or so wagons taken over from the LTSR in 1912 seem to have been given numbers that filled gaps in the list, notably gunpowder van Nos. 109985-110000, 117298-300, and 117501-5 and traction wagons Nos. 117556-91.

 

One bit I'm uncertain about is the gap between the end of the pre-1890 list and the start of the ex-PO list, i.e. from around 41650 to 42999. L. Tavender listed some wagons on hire from the Birmingham Wagon Co. in 1887 in this range (and either side of it).

 

There's a lot of dead reckoning from known numbers in all this!

Edited August 21 by Compound2632

[WFPettigrew]

Thank you Stephen for setting that all out so neatly. 

 

Going back to @Worsdell forever's linked photo - https://co.pinterest.com/pin/1910-annfield-plain-railway-delivery-for-atkinsons-market-bananas--296745062951952083/ 

 

If it was 28902/3, would that work, making it - from what you put on Paul's thread - an early D357?

 

Best wishes

 

Neil 

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

Going back to @Worsdell forever's linked photo - https://co.pinterest.com/pin/1910-annfield-plain-railway-delivery-for-atkinsons-market-bananas--296745062951952083/ 

 

If it was 28902/3, would that work, making it - from what you put on Paul's thread - an early D357?

 

289xx is in the right range for the 1,000 lowsided wagons ordered in February 1875, 500 from Ashbury and 250 each from Gloucester and Janson. These were of the early Clayton type, 15' 0" over headstocks, Drg. 10.

 

The D357 covered goods wagons were built in two goes. There were 164 built in 1893 as part of lot 309 (lumping in the versions with roof hatches); 200 of the 220 wagons of this lot were additions to stock, numbered, I believe, 114151-114350; the official photo shows No. 114193 of the D357 type. These were built to the same drawing, Drg. 401, as Clayton's previous covered goods wagons, despite being 12" taller in the body. They had non-continuous drawgear, 10A grease axleboxes, brakes on one side only, and the doors slid on skates on the bottom runner. 

 

The great bulk of D357 wagons were built over a decade later, 2,496 to lot 562 of June 1903, ordered in the minutes as 2,500 in lieu of 2,800 open goods and coal wagons, and 471 to lot 625 of August 1905, ordered as 481 in lieu of 581 ordinary goods wagons. (This was supposed to bring the total number of covered goods wagons up to a round 10,000 but I think someone did some careful sums and discovered that the costs didn't balance, though 471 could be built for the cost of 571 opens, hence the odd lot 632 for 10 D299 wagons.) These were built to a new drawing, Drg. 1830, with continuous drawgear and doors that had rollers bearing on the bottom runner. Officially, oil axleboxes had been adopted for new construction in 1902, but it seems that many were given 10A grease boxes, using up existing material. Brakes seem to be a mixture of single-sided and Morton clutch, originally with levers at the same end. From the dates at which the Morton brake was applied to lowside and other wagons, I'd say that the lot 625 wagons had the Morton brake and lot 562 single-sided brakes. 

 

In the photo, the horse and banana cart are obscuring much of the distinguishing detail but one can see 10A axleboxes and single-side brakes. Moreover, one can see a double vee-hanger (vee hanger either side of the solebar) which is the indicator of continuous drawgear. Therefore I think this is a lot 652 wagon - which there would be an 80% chance of it being if one couldn't see any distinguishing features. 

 

So a wagon built in 1903/4 replacing one built in 1875 - 28 years, which is a bit more than the nominal 20 years book lifetime to renewal.

[WFPettigrew]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

So a wagon built in 1903/4 replacing one built in 1875 - 28 years, which is a bit more than the nominal 20 years book lifetime to renewal.

 

Thanks - but that number doesn't really solve the mystery does it??!