White painted rims on the wheels of PO wagons - how prevelant?

[Compound2632]

My feeling is that if one is modelling a wagon that has been in service for more than [insert conjectural period] white tyres are out, and that that accounts for the vast majority of wagons in service.

[magmouse]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

My feeling is that if one is modelling a wagon that has been in service for more than [insert conjectural period] white tyres are out, and that that accounts for the vast majority of wagons in service.

 

Well, that neatly skirts the question! Scene at a model railway exhibition:

 

Visitor: I notice none of your PO wagons have white rims?

 

Layout operator: I subscribe to the Lea hypothesis.

 

V: What is your conjectural period?

 

LO: 3 weeks and 2 days.

 

V: How did you arrive at that figure?

 

LO: I stood down-wind of a large heap of coal on a Welsh hillside in driving rain, and measured the dust accretion over a known period. It was a simple matter to extrapolate from there.

 

V: I salute your commitment to finescale modelling, sir!

 

 

Nick.

[whart57]

It's worth considering why wheel rims might be white in works' outshopping photos. Photographic technology a hundred years ago was not what it is today. Panchromatic emulsion for photographic plates was not available until 1906 and even then the need for total darkness for developing plus the much greater cost meant many photographers didn't immediately adopt it. Orthochromatic film could be developed under a safe light but orthochromatic film would be poor on distinguishing darker areas. Painting wheel rims white for a photograph would make for a better result, so that would be my guess why they were.

[WFPettigrew]

37 minutes ago, magmouse said:

I subscribe to the Lea hypothesis.

Brilliant!  

 

37 minutes ago, magmouse said:

V: What is your conjectural period?

 

Even more brilliant!

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, whart57 said:

It's worth considering why wheel rims might be white in works' outshopping photos. Photographic technology a hundred years ago was not what it is today. Panchromatic emulsion for photographic plates was not available until 1906 and even then the need for total darkness for developing plus the much greater cost meant many photographers didn't immediately adopt it. Orthochromatic film could be developed under a safe light but orthochromatic film would be poor on distinguishing darker areas. Painting wheel rims white for a photograph would make for a better result, so that would be my guess why they were.

 

Ingenious but I'm afraid this doesn't account for that S&DJR specification calling for white-painted tyres on all 50 wagons of the batch. So it was not just done for photography.

[billbedford]

12 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

60 thou square styrene strip? Nick it with a craft knife and break rather than cut and that will give you the 'broken ends' effect. You could 'distress' the strip first be scraping with a craft knife. 

 

 

Wrong shape. 

 

Think about it. Pigs were cast into sand beds where the channels were formed using something like a large draw hoe. Sand, being sand would tend to try and fill in the channels so the tops would be wider than the bottoms and so the pigs would have a trapezoidal cross section. 

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, whart57 said:

It's worth considering why wheel rims might be white in works' outshopping photos. Photographic technology a hundred years ago was not what it is today. Panchromatic emulsion for photographic plates was not available until 1906 and even then the need for total darkness for developing plus the much greater cost meant many photographers didn't immediately adopt it. Orthochromatic film could be developed under a safe light but orthochromatic film would be poor on distinguishing darker areas. Painting wheel rims white for a photograph would make for a better result, so that would be my guess why they were.

Presumably the same reason locos were in shades of grey.

[kevinlms]

7 hours ago, whart57 said:

It's worth considering why wheel rims might be white in works' outshopping photos. Photographic technology a hundred years ago was not what it is today. Panchromatic emulsion for photographic plates was not available until 1906 and even then the need for total darkness for developing plus the much greater cost meant many photographers didn't immediately adopt it. Orthochromatic film could be developed under a safe light but orthochromatic film would be poor on distinguishing darker areas. Painting wheel rims white for a photograph would make for a better result, so that would be my guess why they were.

But the question still arises of the quality of the painting applied to wagon wheels. Given the lack of evidence of white rims IN TRAFFIC, implies that any paint so applied either got covered in dirt very quickly, or the paint was of very poor quality. The amount of dirt picked up, would depend on the usage.

 

Given that many railway owned wagons had large lettering in white and appeared to stay very clean - lead based paint does, suggests that the same painting standards didn't apply, since both were white.

 

So were the rims painted properly, with sanding down, rust treated, undercoated and then top coats of good quality white paint? The evidence suggests that none of it lasted long - (maybe the Caledonian did a better job?) so perhaps given a quick coat of cheap paint, for the purpose of a photo? After that, who cares?

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

Wrong shape. 

 

Think about it. Pigs were cast into sand beds where the channels were formed using something like a large draw hoe. Sand, being sand would tend to try and fill in the channels so the tops would be wider than the bottoms and so the pigs would have a trapezoidal cross section. 

 

Apologies for continuing this OT discussion but yes, I agree, and furthermore the pigs should be rough on the three sides that were in contact with the ground and smooth on the wider top surface.

[MikeTrice]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before but there are photos of GNR wagons with white rims and the LNER certainly adopted this for both wagons and carriages. In the dim distant past I think I heard it was to make detection of cracks in the tyres easier presumably on passing out of the respective works. As stated previously the white eventually became dirty.

[Nick Holliday]

12 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

Wrong shape. 

 

Think about it. Pigs were cast into sand beds where the channels were formed using something like a large draw hoe. Sand, being sand would tend to try and fill in the channels so the tops would be wider than the bottoms and so the pigs would have a trapezoidal cross section. 

This photo, from the Harmsworth Self-Educator, shows clearly the cross-section of the pigs produced at that iron works, others may be different.  More of a truncated triangular shape, perhaps.

Many had the name moulded onto the bottom face, probably a detail too far.

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

This photo, from the Harmsworth Self-Educator, shows clearly the cross-section of the pigs produced at that iron works, others may be different.  More of a truncated triangular shape, perhaps.

 

Depends, I suppose, on what shape of hoe was being used.

 

2 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

Many had the name moulded onto the bottom face, probably a detail too far.

 

Some of those, and some in the photo, have more of a roughly semi-circular section.

 

I suppose the name was stamped in the bottom of the trench - I'm imagining a broom-shaped tool. 

 

But to get close to the topic, I think we can assume that in practice the firm's name was not picked out in white?

[billbedford]

...and the ones that were photographed were the clearest text they could find?

[Caley Jim]

On 06/04/2023 at 06:15, Compound2632 said:

 

Apologies for continuing this OT discussion but yes, I agree, and furthermore the pigs should be rough on the three sides that were in contact with the ground and smooth on the wider top surface.

Hence my suggestion of 'distressing' the strip first. Scrape two opposite sides to give it a trapezoidal cross section, at the same time rounding off the corners and roughening the sides. Seemples Igor! 

 

(That's how I make copings for stone walls) 

Jim

[Engineer]

I only recently noticed this thread.  Not here to comment or change anything - I accept all that's been said and suggested so far on the reasons for painting, the practicalities and likely life of the paint and how often white rims would have been seen.  However, an image from my own interests came to mind and it took a while to find it.  Though it is not relevant to the wagons topic, it involves wheels and white painting.  

 

This is only an aside reflection and speculation - as an outsider and non-specialist.  There's clearly an aesthetic purpose to white-painting of rims when a vehicle is new or on show.  For some companies that felt the extra need, there could be a routine information purpose and meaning for the painting, too:  'This is a newly-fitted wheelset and bearing combination".  In the context of plain bearings, there could be a risk of early life bearing failures so it might be helpful to indicate where to look - and feel - for potential trouble.  The need for a specific check would be less as the paint disappeared.  

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/photographs/item/1998-88974

The photograph is from the LT Museum, showing a 1906 Third Motor Car with BTH equipment and 200Hp motors.  The image, of good quality, dates from March 1934 with Metropolitan livery and details still present, and the car is in Neasden Depot, clearly coupled and connected by jumpers and inter-car barriers into a train formation.  The third axle from the Driver end has a white-painted wheel rim with signs of dirt.  My hypothesis is that the car has had a recent casualty lift, and there could have been many reasons for this.  The single wheelset is a replacement.  The dark streaks suggest to me that a small amount of (bearing) lubricant has escaped and been thrown to the wheel rim in running, and has picked up some road dirt. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Engineer
Use of English and clarity

[kitpw]

1 hour ago, Engineer said:

The dark streaks suggest to me that a small amount of lubricant has escaped and been thrown to the wheel rim in running, and has picked up some road dirt

It's an interesting idea that the wheel rim painting was some sort of indicator coating, a bit like dye penetrant weld testing.  It's certainly used contemporarily - see Akzo data sheet https://international.brand.akzonobel.com/m/6531375a1a49f6a5/original/Railway_Wheel_Paint_eng_A4_20140703.pdf which is a light grey coating going to a dark grey with overheating of the wheel but when this subject came up before, I couldn't find any longer history for it. I much prefer the idea that it had a solid practical purpose than simply an aesthetic one.

Edited April 9, 2023 by kitpw

[Engineer]

I apologise for stepping in straight away, to be very clear.  Yes, my hypothesis is that the white paint is an indicator to crew and to vehicle inspectors, saying:  this is a wheelset and bearing combination that might be worth watching, given a risk of early life failure.

 

I don't envisage the paint - in this context - to have a role either in temperature-sensitive indication, or as base coat for dye-penetrant testing.

[Compound2632]

@Engineer, I like the idea of the white tyres being an indicator for new bearings, which might need more careful attention and lubrication.

 

That might make some sense of that S&DJR specification calling for white tyres when ordinary Midland practice didn't call for them: the S&DJR wagons were to be built by the trade; perhaps there was doubt that the initial quality of their bearings might not be up to Derby's? 

 

Parts of the specification that I didn't quote go into details of the testing regime for tyres and springs; these are much the same as the requirements in the RCH 1887 PO wagon specification.

[Compound2632]

Wigan Coal & Iron Co., 1911, from a Keystone film produced for the LNWR:

 

 

[Embedded link to a post in the L&NWR Society Facebook Group.]

 

These are all wagons in, presumably, the same livery- dark lead grey with black ironwork and white lettering shaded black, according to A.J. Watts' Ince book. It seems that the most recently-painted wagons are the darkest - most glossy? There's a white-painted tyre there, on the darkest-looking wagon. Builder's photos in Watts' book of a 1908 Ince-built and a 1923 Hurst Nelson-built wagon show white tyres.

[magmouse]

Interesting. Perhaps the upshot of all this, from a pragmatic modelling perspective and when considering a stock of say 10-20 PO coal wagons, is:

 

 - bright white tyres don't need to feature. If they do, then only on one, freshly-painted wagon, unless there is a specific reason (e.g. "a delivery of new or newly-painted wagons").

 - zero to four wagons might have, dimly visible, the remains of white paint. These wagons should be otherwise fairly clean, indicating they are only months from having fresh paint.

 - all other wagons, and possibly all wagons, have no sign of white rims.

 

Nick.

[Chas Levin]

21 hours ago, magmouse said:

Interesting. Perhaps the upshot of all this, from a pragmatic modelling perspective and when considering a stock of say 10-20 PO coal wagons, is:

 

 - bright white tyres don't need to feature. If they do, then only on one, freshly-painted wagon, unless there is a specific reason (e.g. "a delivery of new or newly-painted wagons").

 - zero to four wagons might have, dimly visible, the remains of white paint. These wagons should be otherwise fairly clean, indicating they are only months from having fresh paint.

 - all other wagons, and possibly all wagons, have no sign of white rims.

 

Nick.

Excellent summary Nick: we should get that printed up and distributed on paper flyers at model railway shows! 😁

[ChrisN]

1 hour ago, Chas Levin said:

Excellent summary Nick: we should get that printed up and distributed on paper flyers at model railway shows! 😁

 

No, no, no!  You will be violently disagreed with by people who have no evidence but know they are right.  😀

 

(Very, very interesting discussion.  I always think history is finding out today what people then just took for granted.)

[Schooner]

History - docudrama of the past.

 

Archaeology - reality tv of the past.

 

Which is more informative?

 

*exit hurriedly Stage Left, persued by Mob*

[CKPR]

On 15/04/2023 at 00:39, Schooner said:

History - docudrama of the past.

 

Archaeology - reality tv of the past.

 

Which is more informative?

 

*exit hurriedly Stage Left, persued by Mob*

When I was at the LSE studying social psychology, our prof used to say that we were basically making things very easy for historians in the future.