Bachmann Queen Mary brake, too small?

[Derekl]

On 24/03/2019 at 19:18, The Johnster said:

 

Kudos to him for sticking it out; I imagine he'd have had chances to bail out when the guards were relieved, probably Preston, and perhaps Crewe or Rugby.  Those fast vacuum fitted freights required no braking from the guard, but could be a bit hairy, and on the ECML guards preferred to have the permitted 2 vehicles coupled behind the van to steady thing up a bit; there are tales of some very high speeds on these trains hauled by V2s or pacifics.   

 

They were often regarded as a bit of a challenge for the locomen as well, 800 or more tons to near passenger timings.  

 

A novice riding on a fast freight job at night, disorientated, terrified, cowed by the noise and motion, and probably mocked by the railwaymen, would certainly have an impression of the experience!

 

Thank you for the kudos - I suspect once he had taken on the task, he would have finished it. He doesn't really do "cowed", although I suspect he found it uncomfortable. All credit to the railwaymen he dealt with, far from mocking, they were impressed that he was prepared to give it a try. It did impress him - he recalls it clearly 60 years or so on!

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

19 hours ago, The Johnster said:

... the Railway industry was remarkably 'small c conservative' and the attitude that what had been good enough for the previous generation was good enough for you, so stop moaning and get on with it, was the main preventer of better riding brake vans.  Bogie vans needed universal joints in the brake rodding, and these needed greasing and maintenance, and we can't be doing with that! ...

Yet of course there were brake end and BG coaches going for scrap in quantity. If the engineering departments could take these and modify them, why not for traffic purposes too? I heard Dick Hardy a couple of times, and several other worthies from the ECML operation, on the subject of 'changing established attitudes' and the usual analogies of herding cats and pushing jelly up a steep hill with a stick were applicable.

[The Johnster]

The LMS BGs, with lookout duckets, could perhaps have been ballasted for freight work, but verandas or at least a method of getting at the side lamps from inside the vehicle, would have to have been provided, which probably made the cost more than a railway well supplied with traditional vans was prepared to authorise, and anyway those vehicles still had parcels work. 

 

And the men would have complained that they were difficult to keep warm. 

Edited March 26, 2019 by The Johnster

[asmay2002]

On 25/03/2019 at 15:30, The Johnster said:

 The original batch of QMs was built on the frames of never-finished LSWR 3rd rail electric locos that were cancelled at the grouping. 

No.  The original batch of 20 were converted in 1933 from LBSCR Motor lugagge vans made redundant after the LBSCR overhead AC electric was converted to third rail DC in 1929.  The second batch of 25 were built new on shortened carriage underframes.

[pete_mcfarlane]

2 hours ago, asmay2002 said:

No.  The original batch of 20 were converted in 1933 from LBSCR Motor lugagge vans made redundant after the LBSCR overhead AC electric was converted to third rail DC in 1929.  The second batch of 25 were built new on shortened carriage underframes.

I think they lasted about 4 years in their original form. Not the best investment.

 

[SRman]

Besides fitting down the Hastings line with its restrictions on width (R0), the Southern also worked out that having a smaller cabin by volume meant it was much easier to heat  and keep warm in Winter, something learnt after guards complaints about the old SECR 'dance hall' vans which had very large cabins.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

17 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The LMS BGs, with lookout duckets, could perhaps have been ballasted for freight work, but verandas or at least a method of getting at the side lamps from inside the vehicle, would have to have been provided, which probably made the cost more than a railway well supplied with traditional vans was prepared to authorise, and anyway those vehicles still had parcels work. 

 

And the men would have complained that they were difficult to keep warm. 

There you go, stuffed full of railway conservatism, and not prepared to 'think differently' about the potential.

 

They don't need ballasting, they are heavier than most brake vans already.

They are equipped with electric lighting, which makes operating side and tail and lamps from inside possible.

There's already a guards cubby with seat and table. Add one or two partitions around it and there's a small volume inside a vastly superior vehicle. A heating method has to be devised, but that's not rocket science.

 

The vehicles I had principally in mind were brake ends, many of which had duckets, and were scrapped in vast quantity by BR. Choose well, and some of them might have had a lav as well. Not for general deployment, but for use on fast fitted turns where a four wheeler must have been purgatory.

 

 

[The Johnster]

A 20 ton brake van meant that the braking power of the van was divided between 2 axles, 10 tons per axle.  On a 30 ton BG or BS, the braking power is divided between 4 axles, 7½ per axle.  They would hence have had to be ballasted by an extra 10 tons to equal the braking power of a 4 wheel van.   This increases the gross weight of the vehicle to 40 tons.  Expressed as 'Brake Force', the amount of train weight it was expected to control in service, this would have been 20 tons.  Can't recall offhand what the gross weight of a Queen Mary was, but it was designed for fast fully fitted work and not the best thing for a class 7, 8, or 9 train.  Passenger brake vans could have had some use on fully fitted trains, but the guards migrated to the loco's back cab even on parcels work after 1969.

 

Surplus BS coaches were briefly used as brake vans on early Freightliner services, and I have often wondered why vehicles with duckets were not used; there were of course few left by that time but there were some that had been converted to mess or tool vans.  A better idea might have been to base a bogie van on the 57 foot BR standard GUV; easier to provide verandas and a better view from the duckets.

 

Electric lighting as fitted to coaches in those days, battery powered with the battery charged by dynamo, would have been hopelessly inadequate for freight work.  It was out of it's depth with parcels traffic in NPCCS for much of the time, and while it would probably have been ok for internal lighting (which would have destroyed the guard's night vision, but so did opening the stove door...), I can't see the Board of Trade putting up with it for something as safety vital as the tail lamps.  And the guard still needs to be able to get at the side lamps to remove the red shades when he is running on a relief or goods line, or in a loop or refuge siding.  Even if different coloured bulbs are used, and a switch, he needs to go out on the veranda to check that the lamp is illuminated and showing the correct colour.  I don't think filament bulbs would have been reliable enough; locos fitted with marker lights had oil lamp brackets as backup! 

 

The real reason it was never done was that, as well as the small c conservatism that certainly pervaded everything in those days, by the time the need was apparent it was the mid 60s and it was obvious that unfitted and part fitted freight had a limited life; nobody expected it to last more than another 2 decades.  

 

I designed a brake van in the early 70s and put it forward as a suggestion.  It was based on the bogie bolster E, and had electric lighting and bottled gas heating, but used oil tail lamps.  It was dual braked, not just piped through, and had a small diesel compressor to operate a 'straight air' brake; the wheel was a parking brake only  The body was to be fibreglass, and double skinned with insulation; outward opening doors clamped shut to prevent draughts.  This, fair play, elicited a polite response suggesting that the combination of fibreglass and gas heating was a fire risk, the bottles would be prone to pilferage, and that anyway there were no surplus bogie bolster Es, or budget for new builds.

 

Ventilation would have been crucial to prevent condensation in the fibreglass cabin, and the perspex windows would have soon fogged up with scratches.   It was probably better not built!

[Dunsignalling]

The Queen Mary brakes weighed in at 25 tons, the same as their 4-wheeled brethren. As you say, their raison d'etre was fast fully fitted freight work where the per axle brake force they could exert was not an issue. The Brighton Electric conversions weighed 27 tons, IIRC.

 

Common rostered duties ran to perishables traffic (including milk trains), strings of continental ferry vans to/from the channel ports, parcels trains and e.c.s workings to/from carriage works as there was no certainty of a brake coach being included in the consist.

 

In winter, they were the preferred first standby on any train normally requiring a stove-fitted Van B, BY or ex-LMS Stove R (the Southern Region ended up with several of the latter) in the event of no NPCS brake being available. It also wasn't unknown for one (or another fitted/piped GBV) to appear in the middle of a parcels train that was booked to divide in the course of its journey.

 

John

Edited March 27, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Karhedron]

Yes, they were popular on milk trains. Here is a shot of one on such a working at Seaton.

 

[Porkscratching]

On a slight tangent...did/does the Q.Mary brake van use the same bogies as the Van B parcel brake?

8ft SR bogies. I think?

[Dunsignalling]

25 minutes ago, Porkscratching said:

On a slight tangent...did/does the Q.Mary brake van use the same bogies as the Van B parcel brake?

8ft SR bogies. I think?

Yes, same as the Van B and all new SR passenger stock after the Ironclads, also the LSWR "rebuilds" (as produced in model form by Hornby) which had entirely new underframes and running gear.

 

John

[Porkscratching]

Nice one! ...Handy to know for my "cannibalizing" purposes..

[asmay2002]

On 27/03/2019 at 16:06, The Johnster said:

Electric lighting as fitted to coaches in those days, battery powered with the battery charged by dynamo, would have been hopelessly inadequate for freight work.  It was out of it's depth with parcels traffic in NPCCS for much of the time, and while it would probably have been ok for internal lighting (which would have destroyed the guard's night vision, but so did opening the stove door...), I can't see the Board of Trade putting up with it for something as safety vital as the tail lamps.  And the guard still needs to be able to get at the side lamps to remove the red shades when he is running on a relief or goods line, or in a loop or refuge siding.  Even if different coloured bulbs are used, and a switch, he needs to go out on the veranda to check that the lamp is illuminated and showing the correct colour.  I don't think filament bulbs would have been reliable enough; locos fitted with marker lights had oil lamp brackets as backup! 

Battery powered dynamo charged electric lights were used on brake vans in Australia from the 1950s onwards.  See for example

 

http://westralia.uk/z461_wagon.htm

 

and

 

http://westralia.uk/z114_wagon.htm

 

These are 3'-6"  gauge and speeds were not particularly quick.  On the really slow trains (I think averaging about less than 12mph) they stuck with oil lights until quite late on.  I suspect the reasons that they weren't used in the UK come down to money and conservatism as much as anything.

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 25/03/2019 at 16:30, The Johnster said:

My view is that the BR standard van was a missed opportunity, a fundamentally flawed design with the ballast outboard of the axles almost guaranteeing a poor ride once the van had a few miles under it. 

 

There was also a fair bit of ballast in the wells under the floor too, so probably just a poor design outright?

 

Mike.

[Dunsignalling]

14 hours ago, Porkscratching said:

Nice one! ...Handy to know for my "cannibalizing" purposes..

No need to cannibalize anything to get bogies, Bachmann ones are available separately.

 

I've recently replaced the well-worn originals whilst overhauling my veteran Bachmann Bulleid 5-set. Not sure exactly how old my coaches are, but they appear in photos illustrating the first published article on TMRG's Bath Green Park, Railway Modeller December 2002.

 

They broke new ground for me, back then, being the first coaches to which I added flush glazing and close coupling. 

 

John

Edited March 30, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Porkscratching]

I did have a hunt round for the SR type bogies ...it seemed they were the only ones I couldn't find !

(I need some for a Van B)

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Porkscratching said:

I did have a hunt round for the SR type bogies ...it seemed they were the only ones I couldn't find !

(I need some for a Van B)

https://www.petersspares.com/Bachmann-accessories.irc list Bulleid bogies. Are these the ones you seek?

['CHARD]

On 23/03/2019 at 22:21, The Johnster said:

old hand Hereford relief

 

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Porkscratching said:

I did have a hunt round for the SR type bogies ...it seemed they were the only ones I couldn't find !

(I need some for a Van B)

Hatton's have them in stock, Bachmann 36-007A, but not easy to find, search " By Manufacturer" then under "wheel sets"   

 

Also, Ratio used to sell the ones from their Van B kit separately, though I don't know if that's still the case.

 

John

Edited March 30, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Porkscratching]

Thanks for the links FC and DS...I'll trawl thru and have a look, I thought if memory serves they were a slightly different looking pattern than the Bullieds but ???

[Porkscratching]

Having had a look, the quoted Bulleid ones are certainly what's on the QMary , the grey side is from the Ratio kit, hence my feeling they were a bit different, minor removal surgery reqd to the Bachmann ones if the Ratio version is correct.

( I've only got the one solitary side hence the need !)

Obviously the brake shoes are a bit silly on the Bachmann bogie!

Edited March 30, 2019 by Porkscratching

[pete_mcfarlane]

Both are models of the same type of bogie - the Bachmann one is a one piece moulding, so has things like bolster, axlebox covers and brake shoes that are missing from the Ratio one (because they come as separate bits). 

 

If you want a really good SR steam bogie, then have a look at the NNK ones: https://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/products/nononsensekits/nnknononsensekits/nnk-nnk-bogies/4-bs001

 

 

[Porkscratching]

Thanks for the link , tho unfortunately, grrr..they don't show a photo of the actual piece and I couldn't find an obvious pic of their model on t'internet , if you've used them yourself happily, that's a good recommendation.

I realised that the solitary ratio component is just that,  a component part of the whole, the Bachmann version does look a tad chunky by comparison tho!

If I'm going to get replacement bogies as they're missing anyway, I may as well get something reasonably accurate..!

[Steamport Southport]

Try Comet/Wizard or Dart/MJT if you are after accurate SR 8 foot bogies.

 

Reference numbers. BS1 for Comet. 2406 Dart/MJT.

 

http://www.cometmodels.co.uk/

 

https://www.dartcastings.co.uk/mjt.php

 

 

Jason