4mm An EM Workbench: Mini-Signwriting (rough)

AJC

Western Thunderer
Hi Steph - Like so much else, modelling is a horses for courses discipline: I have neither the inclination or time (or budget, if it comes to that) to spend on learning CAD and doing interesting things with it. I could probably manage some of the less sophisticated things out there but have no great desire to at this moment in time. Nevertheless, I'm perfectly happy to take advantage of the results of what others can do with it, but I can get the results I want far quicker in some cases by simply taking a drawing and running with it! The SR lowmac earlier in this thread is a case in point.

This applies elsewhere of course. I'm a historian in the day job - I think I've read somewhere that you work in aerospace? - and happy with pencil, paper, pen and parchment but perfectly content to take advantage of technology where appropriate - I'd never get as much work done without my digital camera: 14th century scribal scrawl is much easier to read twice life size on a screen with colour adjustment, and especially with a mug of coffee. Only the most hair-shirted academic colleague - the equivalent of Tony Wright, perhaps - would do differently now.

Adam
 
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Dikitriki

Flying Squad
The end result looks reasonable if not exemplary and you'll note that I am not likely to join the 'no solder brigade' any time soon, a fact that bothers me not one jot.

Good for you. You'll never notice what is left when it is covered with paint and weathering.

Carry On like that and you are likely to suffer the wrath of the FS with careful adjustments to your avatar and / or WT-title.

The FS is far more concerned with encouraging members to show what they are doing than propounding a utopian cleanliness standard.

Richard
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Some small developments demonstrating thrift. Perhaps, all I'm really doing is utilising some of the spares very kindly supplied by etch designers to improve other wagons.

First, the source, the Rumney-chassised 21 tonner which has had its levers fitted. Just door springs to go and all soldering operations will be complete.

21_tonner_003.gif

The small horse loop under the solebar is more soft brass wire, formed and cut overlength before being soldered and trimmed to the cirrect length afterwards. All quite straightforward. I'm actually going to spring this one!

Moving on to the Parkside-based 21 tonner. I've used some levers from an etch by Dave Bradwell (it was intended for plate wagons but they're extremely useful for improving all sorts of things; these aren't list items but he does sell them at shows - basically Scaleforum). The lever guides are from the same source while the stays - very practical as well as prototypical - and are pinned to the solebar. The lifting links are also from this etch. The whole thing is finer and sturdier than what Parkside supply but I don't suppose in a layout context that the difference will be all that apparent!

Parkside_009.gif

Parkside_010.gif

Finally, the birthpangs of a wagon - a diagram 1/166 iron ore hopper - that has been hanging around for far too long. Fundamentally this is becuse of some unfortunate design decisions - the supplied headstocks are whitemetal, the brass is rather thick and the brake levers were dimensionally suspect. Another set of Dave Bradwell brake levers and leftover Rumney Models links have tidied that up and will be joined by some suitable lever guides. Once that is done I'll be able to face up to adding all the other soldered details before worrying about the quantities of whitemetal that form the brakeshoe assemblies. This is the kind of thing that can give multi-media kits a bad name, though I will own up to putting the solebar overlays on the wrong way round. That really isn't a fault of the kit!

Iron_Ore_hopper_001.gif

Adam
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
With the flat-bottomed 21 tonner, all soldering is now complete and the body is epoxied to the chassis. The solebar detail and buffers have been glued on and the basis of the hinges have been added.

21_tonner_005.gif

Underneath you can see that the body locates in place with a bit of 40 thou' cut to fit the hole in the chassis top plate. The generosity with the epoxy is down to wanting to keep the coupling links from hooking on the back of the hooks (as well as mixing too much). Yes, this is the right way round! I'm waiting on castings before I can finish the underframe, but that's no problem as there are jobs to do complete the body.

21_tonner_004.gif

Adam
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
While the solvent sets on the end piece completing the door end, I returned to look more closely at the dia. 1/166 iron ore hopper and the mess that is the design of the chassis and brakegear. The principal issue is the amount of whitemetal used in the midst of brass fittings. Now I can understand that this was intended to reduce the difficulty of the kit by reducing the number of fiddly sub-assemblies. The result, however, is to provide a rather crude representation of most of the bits and lots of very fiddly whitemetal to brass soldering in, as parts go in, lots of risk of doing irreparable damage. I will end up cheating and using epoxy, but only after I've worked out the hopper door gear that goes above the solebar. This is not going to be my most elegant build.

I'd mind less if the whitemetal bits were better representation of the real thing:

Iron_Ore_hopper_004.gif

Compare the above (cruelly enlarged, though if installed as supplied are too high up relative to the rail) to the real thing:

9083901065_3d498f7aa2_b.jpgBR 25.5T Iron ore hopper by Wild Boar Fell, on Flickr

Other parts - the corner steps, notably - are supplied in whitemetal when they really should be brass. Even allowing for a proficient soldering job, which is probably dubious given the size of the joint and the competence of the workforce in these things, the chances of a whitemetal step surviving in service are slim. I replaced these with spares from a Dave Bradwell chassis for an LNER 21 ton hopper and, suitably reinforced with solder, this should be fine.

Iron_Ore_hopper_002.gif

Iron_Ore_hopper_003.gif

Moving on, there is absolutely no location whatsoever provided for the hopper (nicely cast in resin), its supporting ribs and struts (whitemetal - a good choice here actually, much less cleaning up needed), any of the hopper operating gear, though only part of that is provided, or anything else that's supposed to go above the solebar. Onwards!

Adam
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
Something complete. My not-quite-fitted welded 21 ton hopper. I've quite enjoyed this and it's now ready for painting.

Parkside_012.gif

The door handles are from another Rumney Models etch for a chassis for precisely this wagon (which I shall use for something completely different, as is my wont). This also yielded the rather nice kick steps, but not the brackets which are spares from Dave Bradwell. The end supports are 30 thou by 30 thou Evergreen strip - almost certainly overscale, if not by much - which is just about robust enough to put a 0.5mm hole through. The other brackets were melted in, gently, gently with the tip of the soldering iron; if it's good enough for Iain Rice, it'll do for me!

Parkside_011.gif

The rather exotic livery is something I'm looking forward to. :)

Adam
 
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Open (High) Season

AJC

Western Thunderer
Clearly there's something in the air, because here's another completed wagon, a Parkside BR hybar titivated with Rumney Models tarp rail. These are lovely etchings and work rather like the prototype, even locking in place. They'd be a good thing to scale up to 7mm I think...

BR_op_005.gif

Having reworked a couple of these kits into other variants, it was good to build one, more or less, as Parkside intended. Now it's time for paint...

Adam
 
Charringtons hopper livery

AJC

Western Thunderer
A couple of slightly indifferent pictures in this lovely morning light showing the BR hybar in its painted condition. Obviously it isn't actually finished; a final coat of matt lacquer and weathering, not to mention paining the insides, will follow, but a sense of what the finished vehicle will look like is clear. The painted view shows off Justin's tarp' rail etches to their best advantage I think.

BR_op_007.gif

BR_op_008.gif

More exotically, we also have - not complete because, if I have Rail Alphabet style lettering for wagons I can't lay hands on it right now - my 21 ton hopper, liveried for Charringtons. I think it's fair to suggest that the coal factors in question certainly got their monies' worth!

Parkside_013.gif

Red stripes are also wanted on the axleboxes but the impression, courtesy of John Isherwood's transfers, is in place.

Adam
 
Charringtons hopper livery

AJC

Western Thunderer
Hi Adam

Love the 21t hopper, as well as all your other work. I Searched Google to find a prototype pic, but only found these....

View attachment 60877

View attachment 60878

Do you have a full size wagon pic ?.

Steve :cool:

A couple of course - there's a nice one on p. 41 of Malcom Castledine's Industrial Railways in Northumbria and County Durham in the latter days of Steam (Booklaw, 2004). The grey-liveried ones do seem to have been the more common if photographic evidence is anything to go by, but having seen a handful of pictures of vehicles obviously in freight brown, I thought that I might as well. There's a little more detail in this thread over there http://www.rmweb.co....ches/?p=1246131 with a scan from Jon Hall, of a news item in Modern Railways from August 1963 marking the opening of the depot - note the hoppers, said to be of a dedicated rake of 19 - shown in the accompanying pictures. And there's this, which I posted a couple of pages ago:

Parkside_003.gif

This is a crop from a BR official picture published in Railway Bylines used for illustrative purposes (the wooden-framed wagons are internal users).

Note that it's coupled to a riveted, BR-ordered vehicle with welded-pattern supports and RCH long link brakes (Hurst Nelson built these - there's a glorious picture of a recently repainted example in '71 at Fenwick Colliery, here: No. 6 at Fenwick Colliery Weigh Cabin). I have plans, and the sacrificial Parkside kit for the purpose, to model one of those. I'll have to do a grey Charringtons vehicle - all the pictures I've seen are of welded vehicles - at some later point perhaps. Only one of Paul Bartlett's pictures seems to show one: http://paulbartlett....00716#h3d79ba9a

The Hoveringham version is fiction as far as I'm aware, or at least, on anything resembling an LNER hopper; they might well have had their own fleet of hoppers but not to that design.

Adam
 
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Overseer

Western Thunderer
Adam,
The Charrington's hopper looks good but was the lettering really black? I only have another published version of the photo at Mansfield Colliery you posted but the lettering looks paler than the wagon body colour, but darker than the band. I don't know if the livery changed at some point and don't really know the date of the photo. The caption to the version I have says 'late 1960s' but I think it is earlier based on the other wagons in the photo.
hopper mansfield.jpg
The 'old wooden wagons' in the background are described as 'a motley collection' even though the four wagons visible are all ex Midland Railway Diagram 673 wagons (9150 wagons built between 1913 and 1922). The 16T to the right is also interesting as it looks like a Diagram 1/102 still with its original pressed side and end doors (one of 20,000 ordered by the LMS and delivered between 1946 and 1949 all with B numbers rather than M). Combined with original style markings on the 16T wagons it all adds up to looking earlier than 'late 1960s'.
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
@Overseer Hi Fraser - I agree that in this picture the lettering colour is ambiguous and the ascribed date is plainly too late. In the other picture (which I can scan for comparison this evening) the blackness of the lettering seems more clear cut, or as much as it can be from a monochrome image. In any event, it is probable that the treatment of the grey wagons which were definitely black lettering on a red ground from the colour pictures I've seen would have been consistent with the brown.

EDIT - these images from the HMRS collections also suggest a colour other than black for the lettering, but what?

http://www.hmrs.org.uk/photograph-collection/images/1200px/AAX122.jpg

Note that the vehicle below is an LNER-built example, number E304700, dated 16 November 1963.

http://www.hmrs.org.uk/photograph-collection/images/1200px/AAX534.jpg

The odd feature of this treatment is that it seems up bear no relation to the colours used by Charringtons for their advertising or road vehicle fleet which was green (though when they had a railway wagon fleet these were red):

Charringtons Coal & Coke Bedford J type

I'm reasonably sure that the date must be c. 1963 since these wagons were repainted in conjunction with the opening of Charringtons coal concentration depots: see the report scanned from Modern Railways in the link above. They are certainly a very early example of the boxed lettering style and the application of the figure '5' in the box adjacent to the number is indicative of this date: the boxes and figures seem to have been part of an attempt to provide a visual indicator of the speed classification of wagon stock. There has been relatively recent informed discussion on this subject on the BR wagons Yahoo group. Again, I'll unearth the conclusions and dates later. The use of the numbers was soon abandoned, though application if the boxes continued for quite a long time - well into the 1980s in fact. This is a secondary reason for choosing to model this wagon: I wanted to reflect the changes in treatment of the wagon fleet in this period. The physical things - roller bearings and fitting of vacuum brake - are only part of the picture. I was interested to see that attempts to speed freight running were included in livery treatments too.

Adam
 
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Charringtons hopper livery

AJC

Western Thunderer
Right - in the office and I have been through the archives of the Yahoo BR wagons group. Firstly, from Modern Railways 1963. In the April there is an article about 'House Style'. There are pictures of a conflat - this picture, I suspect: BR Conflat A wagons and containers FAV ZYV ZSV ZRV ZXA ZVV | B504777 Conflat A BD46577B Experimental livery � Paul Bartlett Collection w - with the white square displaying a figure 4 in the centre, and also a standard 12 ton vanfit also with the 4 in a box. There is plenty of discussion about the new colour schemes and to which types of wagon would be repainted, but no comment on the actual box. Of interest is that long wheelbase palvans built at Ashford for Ford traffic in 1963 carried a box with the figure '2' in it, though ex-works pictures of similar vans show a figure '1'. Compare these two pictures:

BR Ford Palvans VQB RRB ZEB ZRW Diag 1/235 | B787044 - work's picture, figure '1'

BR Ford Palvans VQB RRB ZEB ZRW Diag 1/235 | B787047 - in service picture, figure '2'

In November there was an article about a new stricter system of wagon control on BR, it has one very interesting statement, that for Control purposes the wagon stock has been divided into four classes. That these numbers refer to one of the proposed classes is an interesting but, erroneous theory; the 21 ton hoppers have the number 5 in their boxes for a start, but read on...

Ian Fleming supplied information from Minute 5821 of the Wagon Standards Sub-Comittee, dated 28.2.63 and found at the NRM. It details proposed categories 1 to 8, descending in speed from 75mph to 35mph - this ties in quite strongly with occasional photographic evidence such as the vehicles above, and suggested that the figure was, or would have been, painted in the box that in practice more usually contained the 'XP' in the post-1964 [sic - it was current for some new build stock from at east 1963; see the Palvan images linked to above] lettering style.

There is, however, no mention of any 'unclassified' category, which is possibly what an empty box signified at that point. Although only speculation on Ian's part, it could be that an empty box signified nothing more than that the vehicle *wasn't* XP-rated. I think this is extremely likely, at least, in original intent.

The following appeared in LMR WON [Wagon Operating Notices] in September 1963 (information from Mike Hollick). I have highlighted the appropriate bit.


NOTICE TO STAFF.

Limited speed of all four-wheeled vehicles of 10 feet wheelbase or less, and reduced maximum speed of Class 4 trains.

Until further notice all four-wheeled vehicles with a wheelbase of 10 feet or less are subject,to a speed restriction of 50 m.p.h. ,
If it is necessary for any such vehicle to be conveyed on a Class 1, 2 or 3 train, the Guard must advise the Driver and instruct him not to exceed 50 m.p.h.
Class 4 or 4+ trains must not exceed 50 m.p.h. at any point unless indicated in the timetable by a "club" symbol, in which case a maximum speed of 55 m.p.h, (Class 4) or 60 m.p.h. (Class 4+) will be permissible. Should it be necessary for a train so indicated to
carry a four-wheeled vehicle with a wheelbase of 10 feet or less the Guard must instruct the Driver not to exceed 50 m.p.h.

Painting of Freight Stock and Non-bogie Coaching Stock.

It is the future intention that all freight stock and non-bogie coaching stock will be marked to Indicate the maximum speed at which it may run. It may have been observed that a number of vehicles have already appeared in service bearing a white numeral in a white lined square, and without the symbol "XP" where applicable.

Full instructions on this subject will be published in due course. In the meantime it should be noted that the Numerals "1" "2" or "3" are equivalent to "XP" marking.
(21-9-63)


And finally, we have this document, showing that the idea was still live in 1967 but had not been generally acted upon at that date and, if photographic evidence is anything to go by, never was.

Speed-Class-IMG_20140710_0001.jpg

If anyone is still reading at this point, all this points to the two 21 tonners being repainted in 1963 (both wagons were constructed in the 1950s: B429561 from Gloucester C&W Co., lot 3159 of 1958, for example) and that this, taken with my previous post suggests with a very high degree of probability - and rarer still, in the world of wagon discussions, with proper contemporary references! - that the photo was taken in 1963.

Adam
 
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Lyndhurstman

Western Thunderer
Excellent sleuthing, Adam. Back story gives flesh to the bones of our intention.
I remember the long chat in the BR Wagons Group about the white square. Can't contribute much to the gestalt mind, but much in awe of those that do.

Long Live Research!

Cheers

Jan
 
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AJC

Western Thunderer
Excellent sleuthing, Adam. Back story gives flesh to the bones of our intention.
I remember the long chat in the BR Wagons Group about the white square. Can't contribute much to the gestalt mind, but much in awe of those that do.

Long Live Research!

Cheers

Jan

Filleting the thread of the blind alleys, crossed-purposes and misinformation Jan; this isn't my area of expertise as a researcher at all! Still, it is interesting and, to me at least, useful. None of this sorts out the colour of Charrington's wagons though. I'm semi-anticipating evidence occasioning a repaint any time now...

Adam
 
Charringtons hopper livery

Pugsley

Western Thunderer
@Overseer Hi Fraser - I agree that in this picture the lettering colour is ambiguous and the ascribed date is plainly too late. In the other picture (which I can scan for comparison this evening) the blackness of the lettering seems more clear cut, or as much as it can be from a monochrome image. In any event, it is probable that the treatment of the grey wagons which were definitely black lettering on a red ground from the colour pictures I've seen would have been consistent with the brown.
To my mind, the top of those hoppers is either yellow, or most likely, grey. I say grey, as comparing the colour of the top of the hoppers with the mineral wagon to the right, they look to be eerily similar. With that in mind, I suspect the that the lettering is red.

Here's a little demo:
Charringtons.jpg
The bottom two are the same as the top two, but desaturated to greyscale. On the basis of that, I reckon grey with red lettering is most likely.
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
To my mind, the top of those hoppers is either yellow, or most likely, grey. I say grey, as comparing the colour of the top of the hoppers with the mineral wagon to the right, they look to be eerily similar. With that in mind, I suspect the that the lettering is red.

Here's a little demo:
View attachment 60907
The bottom two are the same as the top two, but desaturated to greyscale. On the basis of that, I reckon grey with red lettering is most likely.

Red on grey seems plausible: the yellow idea less so, visually exciting though it might be. That being the case, I can seet that resecrahing the availability of alphabets in red might be in order. Hmm.

Adam
 
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