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

[Andy Vincent]

I have been manically busy - a combination of trying to get some rolling stock together for Butley Mills appearance at Scaleforum plus eldest son getting A-Level results and the chaos that seems to ensue from that point forward. Consequently, I have been a bit remiss and failed to keep up with this thread.

 

By way of comment on the first three points where my name came up(!):

 

On 11/08/2024 at 23:09, Wagon nut said:

An LNWR D9 in preparation using the Ratio D4 as a basis. Common contemporaries of the D299.

Very impressive - a coat of primer seems to make all the difference. I look forward to seeing the finished article.

 

On 12/08/2024 at 09:01, Compound2632 said:

could you be persuaded to do the earlier Emmett axleboxes to replace the caricatures in the Ratio kits

I probably could - but I am now away and like @Compound2632 failed to take appropriate volumes from my library with me so will have to have a look when I get home!

 

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

It seems that the shortage of grease axleboxes is a problem that has plagued users of the Ratio kits since the ages of old.

As with @Compound2632's comment - if you can point to which ones in the LNWR book then I will take a look. I have already done the No 1 and No 2 grease axleboxes but they lie on that pile of things that never got 'released'. In this case because the person who asked for them wanted just the axlebox without the spring and I generally prefer to release the axlebox and spring combined, admittedly for no good reason. Another was that I wasnt happy with the legibility of the lettering so wanted to try some other techniques (this is a technical issue with the way that the lettering is effectively surrounded by a wall so things dont flow freely). I will take another look at those but let me know if there are others.

 

 

Comments on additional topics will follow but it looks like you cant quote text across different pages!

[Andy Vincent]

On 17/08/2024 at 09:36, RedTrain said:

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

 

There has been a good deal of debate via email about what is and what is not permissible under the new rules. Ironically, I dont yet have a small suppliers entry but I think there is now greater clarity between myself and Warners as to where the line would get crossed. I suspect the situation has arisen because there are a few people who seem to have started using that part of the forum for what looks like almost entirely commercial purposes - "I produced this, click here to order" to paraphrase. Whilst that likely still crosses the line even in the classifieds section, it appears that relatively subtle 'advertorials' are still ok - story of making some new wagon with some insights/history and then mentioning where you can get it is probably OK, at least for Gold members who can also post more details in the classifieds section. That said, if this were to become an endless production line of new models at ever more frequent intervals then that would cross the line towards being regarded as a trader and billed accordingly. 

 

I do still plan to add a small supplier's entry having had approval to do so, but for now I am working on revamping my web site and Facebook page both to add in many missing models but also to expand the information. Once that is all in a better place then I will create an RMWeb thread. On top of all that, I have also been working on addressing the one thing that, to me anyway, seems to make wagon building trickier than it should be . . . 

Edited August 23 by Andy Vincent
Clarified a couple of points

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, Andy Vincent said:

Comments on additional topics will follow but it looks like you cant quote text across different pages!

 

Use the "+" multiquote function to select the all the posts you want to quote, rather than selecting them individually using "quote". 

Edited August 24 by Compound2632

[sir douglas]

another random photo find, GC construction in Nottingham, i'm sharing it here not just for the brick discussion ages ago but also the dishevelled MR wagon sheet on the left

https://picturenottingham.co.uk/image-library/image-details/poster/ntgm009886/posterid/ntgm009886.html

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, sir douglas said:

the dishevelled MR wagon sheet on the left

 

MR Traffic Committee minutes 16 March 1852, General Manager Joseph Sanders' report:

 

"That a Midland company’s Sheet, No 3592, having been discovered at Bromyard in Herefordshire, I had it traced, and found that it had passed through various hands, during the last two years; but it appearing to have been feloniously possessed by a person named Samuel Broughton, he was apprehended, and has been convicted of the offence, at the Worcester assises, and sentenced to Four months imprisonment with hard labour."

 

You have been warned.

Edited August 24 by Compound2632

[Rail-Online]

I could title this "So your buffer heights don't match on some wagons......."  but really it is a demonstration of the condition of the older wagon fleet post WW2.

 

This is out on the ECML at Hadley wood tunnel in 1948 and the train is behind an A3 Pacific!  I doubt if it was doing 20 mph.  Ok the photographer might have captured a 'bounce' but I suspect this was a case of a broken spring - would a signalman communicate forward to the next box to have this train stopped?

 

Tony

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

I could title this "So your buffer heights don't match on some wagons......."  but really it is a demonstration of the condition of the older wagon fleet post WW2.

 

This is out on the ECML at Hadley wood tunnel in 1948 and the train is behind an A3 Pacific! 

 

Oh dear.

 

Modellers of the immediate post-war period should note that none of those leading mineral wagons is an RCH 1923 specification one. I think the five-plank next to the LMS van is a D663A - it seems to me to have the extra vertical strap twixt side knee plate and corner plate.

[Compound2632]

Whilst looking for something else:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue image of MRSC 27903.]

 

Although not very clear in this image, the date is 13 January 1897. As one might imagine from Thornton-in-Craven being the originating station, Tennant & Nightingale was a quarry firm:

 

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/26626/page/2968/data.pdf

 

William Fawcett appears a few times in the Skipton Mineral Inwards Ledger [MRSC 28948], which starts in October 1897, and which I have transcribed up to March 1898. In those six months, he received 32 ton 1 cwt of coal, in three wagon-loads from Rothwell Colliery, Rothwell, and one from Robin Hood Colliery, Rothwell, along with 31 ton 4 cwt of coke in five wagon-loads from Brandon, the originating station being given as Leeds, which means it may well have come off the North Eastern. Three Midland wagons were used, two, Nos. 3801 and 35019, for coal and one, No. 43556, for coke. the remainder were PO wagons. One had the 'mark' recorded as JC (coal from Rothwell), the remainder variously S&L or L&L (coke from Brandon), or J&J (coal from Robin Hood) - which might all be the same, just reflecting my poor transcription skills at distinguishing between copperplate J, L, and S. However, our old friends J. & J. Charlesworth were the proprietors of Robin hood and Rothwell Haigh Collieries, 

http://www.dmm.org.uk/company/c1011.htm,

so that probably accounts for both the marks JC and J&J.

 

Here's a nice model made recently by @sir douglas, in 7 mm scale:

 

 

[Embedded link.]

 

The wagons received by Fawcett had rather higher fleet numbers, Nos. 3041 and 1501.

 

The Durham Mining Museum website also turns up Strakers & Love, proprietors of Brandon Colliery at Willington, Co. Durham:

http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/b012.htm.

The firm has an entry in Keith Turton's Ninth Collection, p. 130, illustrated by a Hurtst, Nelson 12 ton wagon of 1923. It is noted that the Willigton coal had excellent coking properties. The firm had a coking plant there, from which coke was dispatched by the train-load to Barrow-in-Furness (@WFPettigrew) and also as far south of Birmingham, where J.C. Abbott were agents. So this is a rather interesting example of PO wagons in the heart of the NER's territory - but used for traffic off the NER's lines, which perhaps makes the difference - though the use of a Midland wagon is curious. The S&L wagons received by Fawcett were Nos. 83, 180, 197, and 262; the 1923 wagon illustrated in Turton is No. 435, so we're perhaps not looking at a fleet of more than 500 wagons.

 

But in those six winter months of 1897-8, William Fawcett did not take delivery of any lime or limestone, so what had changed about his business since January 1897?

 

Midland wagon No. 3069 also appears in a number-taker's book from Doncaster in June 1877, outward bound to Oundle. In my bones I doubt this was the same wagon Fawcett received - I feel sure his was a D299 built as renewal of the old No. 3069, which in turn had been built as renewal of a wagon that originally belonged to one of the Midland's three constituents. 

Edited August 25 by Compound2632

[Adam88]

 

This splendid little book arrived the other day.  It contains more than 350 PO wagon sketches and over seventy model photographs.  Written and collated by Tony Watts and published by him in partnership with the L&YRS, I expect that it will appeal to many members of this forum too.

[Mol_PMB]

6 minutes ago, Adam88 said:

 

This splendid little book arrived the other day.  It contains more than 350 PO wagon sketches and over seventy model photographs.  Written and collated by Tony Watts and published by him in partnership with the L&YRS, I expect that it will appeal to many members of this forum too.

That looks appealing. Where is it available from? I cannot immediately see it here:

https://lyrs.org.uk/shop/

...though having taken a look there I can definitely see some other titles I might be interested in!

[Adam88]

1 minute ago, Mol_PMB said:

That looks appealing. Where is it available from? I cannot immediately see it here:

https://lyrs.org.uk/shop/

...though having taken a look there I can definitely see some other titles I might be interested in!

 

I would recommend you contact the society directly if it doesn't show on the web site soon.

[Compound2632]

I think I've mentioned that the copy of Ahrons' British Steam Locomotives 1825-1925 that I got second hand a couple of years ago has J.P. Richards 1927 written on the flyleaf, making it doubly appealing!

 

I assume this is the same Jim Richards. It's always the prominent things like titles that don't get properly proof-read...

Edited August 26 by Compound2632

[Adam88]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I assume this is the same Jim Richards. It's always the prominent things like titles that don't get properly proof-read...

 

That sort of thing is so frustrating; it's not a book on greengrocery.

[sir douglas]

from that same colliery book as mentioned before

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

from that same colliery book as mentioned before

 

I would have settled for more wagon and less management.

 

The lettering style corresponds to a good few of the wagons seen in Turton's Eighth, pp. 41-45, but not the definitely post-grouping examples. The management look Edwardian to me but I think that formal style did persist well into the 20s.

 

It may just be to do with the contrast of the photo but they do all look as if they've been individually cut out and stuck on!

[corneliuslundie]

Stuck on? Quite possible. I remember in about 1978 a colleague adding to a photo of IHVE Officers one who was missing by cutting him out of another photo and sticking him on.

Who needs Photoshop?

Jonathan

[Wagon nut]

On 26/08/2024 at 16:42, Adam88 said:

 

This splendid little book arrived the other day.  It contains more than 350 PO wagon sketches and over seventy model photographs.  Written and collated by Tony Watts and published by him in partnership with the L&YRS, I expect that it will appeal to many members of this forum too.

Ooh - excellent discovery. Thanks for flagging this. I'd certainly like a copy. Jim Richard's photos on the HMRS site are a fantastic record of wagons - primarily around the grouping - although there appear to be a much later batch. His models in the Science Museum also look convincingly accurate. A very useful resource. 

[RobertJHG]

Hello all - not sure if this is quite the right place for this, so feel free to redirect me, but I feel the group interested in following this topic are the most likely to know what I'm searching for! 

 

Judging by the information in the LNWR Wagons vol 1 on them, I have probably a few too many Ratio LNWR D4 / D9 type 4 planks for my early to mid 30s modelling timeframe (and should have more D84s instead), mostly acquired through job lot type purchases, and looking through the photographs and information in there for variations to build in in terms of brake gear and so on, under D9, I found the section and photographs around the piped and fitted wagons - seemingly 22 with an 8-shoe clasp brake arrangement and improved running gear, and 44 piped with either side brakes both sides. It is mentioned that all 66 were in (revenue?) use on the formation of the LMS, and am looking to see if anyone has any further information on these, particularly into the LMS, or know of the appearance of one in a photograph other than the works-photos in the LNWR wagons volume? It so happens that one of my models has come to me well built and painted, but demolished below the solebars (in a box of parts), which would perfectly suit making up into one of the clasp brake versions, if I can justify one! The topic of livery that could be carried is probably likely to simply result in 'the last LNWR livery it carried', though I do wonder whether being either piped or particularly fitted it may attract rather better treatment from the LMS, at least early on, like fitted covered vans seem to have been.

 

Thanks in advance, I welcome any thoughts on the matter!

Robert

[WFPettigrew]

On 26/08/2024 at 16:51, Mol_PMB said:

That looks appealing. Where is it available from?

 

It is now live on the LYRS website - https://lyrs.org.uk/shop/

 

Thanks to @Adam88 for flagging this one up.  I have a copy now on order and hopefully there will be some useful information in there for me given that Jim Richards (yes it is THAT Jim Richards) had an interest in the Furness Railway as well as the LNWR. 

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[Compound2632]

33 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

It is now live on the LYRS website - https://lyrs.org.uk/shop/

 

Has anyone dared mention...?

 

Perhaps I'll hold out for the corrected second impression.

Edited August 30 by Compound2632

[WFPettigrew]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Has anyone dared mention...?

 

I didn't in my email correspondence with the LYRS when I got in touch yesterday to ask if it was them that would be selling it.

 

Now they have put the blurb on the website, it does correctly call him Richards in the text, just not on the title of the book... 

 

I will probably be chatting to Gavin Clark at Scaleforum in a few weeks' time and will ask him to briefly don his LYRS Deputy Editor's hat so I can pass on some feedback...  (By which time no doubt others will also have said something so they might be thoroughly sick of it all by then...?!)

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks for the updates, I've ordered one.

Now I'll need to find my copy of 'Eats Shoots and Leaves' and make use of the punctuation repair kit enclosed within.

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

Scaleforum in a few weeks' time

 

Incidentally, I will be there with the MRS stand and also at Warley at Statfold.

[WFPettigrew]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Incidentally, I will be there with the MRS stand and also at Warley at Statfold.

 

Excellent - another reason to trek the length of the country, to finally say hello to you face to face! 

 

I may yet be foiled by daughter demands but I do really want to be there again this year.  The layouts alone will be worth seeing, plus the demos, and of course the meeting up with friends... 

[Compound2632]

Any ideas on the identity of this bogie van in an up express at Settle c. 1925?

 

 

[See V.R. Anderson and G.K. Fox, Stations and Structures of the Settle & Carlisle Railway (OPC, 1986) Plate 7.]

 

It appears to have three sets of doors, probably sliding to the left. It's not Midland and, I think, not LNWR.