Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Colin Parks

Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Colin Parks » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:13 pm

Hi Jon,

Ah! I have just looked at the prototype photo again and the marking are only just visible. Operating the wagons must have been a very filthy business indeed.

Colin

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Noel
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Noel » Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:44 pm

Colin Parks wrote: Operating the wagons must have been a very filthy business indeed.


Probably no worse than the steam era railway generally. In this instance the only things the staff handled, so far as I know, were the door locking pins. Opening and closing the doors was done from the loco by means of the two high pressure airlines [the top two in the picture, the bottom one is the VB pipe]. The sets remained coupled to the loco throughout each round trip, and were not split except for maintenance or failures, during diesel operation.
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Noel

Mark Tatlow
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Mark Tatlow » Wed Jan 25, 2017 9:25 pm

I do like those hoppers, especially the weathering.

I have not used pastels before, or actually directly seen them being used but it is very effective. Would you mind doing and idiots blow by blow (with pictures) so I can copy you?!?!?!
Mark Tatlow

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Allan Goodwillie
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Allan Goodwillie » Wed Jan 25, 2017 10:30 pm

Hi John, :)

enjoying the thread and looking forward to seeing the layout in time. It is good to see you getting good results with the pastels. I have been using pastels for years amongst the various techniques I use for my own stock. There are techniques I use which use wet paint and pastels dusted in on top, sometimes shaved directly on with some depth and allowing the paint to soak in. Working this way everything stays matt and there is no need to varnish as the effect is permanent.

If you want to weather stock, yet not have it permanent it is possible to paint full livery and once finished and dry as ex-works you can weather by painting the surface with soap and adding the pastel using a range of techniques including blowing. Once dry the weathered stock can be handled without loss of weathering. If the stock has to be brought back to a pristine finish then all you have to do is wash it gently in warm water.

This is the technique I have used on Richard Darby's frosty layout Blackston Junction where I frost up the stock to run on the layout each time it is out and clean it off to run as normal on another layout if needed.

The best pastels are Conte pastels which cost a bit more than others, but have a density which suits use on models. There are quite a few shades for rust including a red oxide, bauxite,terracotta,dark orange,burnt and raw umber, burnt and raw sienna, all of which along with black can give a fine range of rusty weathering effects. The frost effect uses talcum powder, which adds a not unpleasant aroma to the scene. I tried one of these smell units fitted below Dubbieside for a couple of shows - someone thought the layout was on fire on one occasion - the smell was supposed to be hot oil and smoke!

Allan :)

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Thu Jan 26, 2017 10:47 am

Mark Tatlow wrote:I do like those hoppers, especially the weathering.

I have not used pastels before, or actually directly seen them being used but it is very effective. Would you mind doing and idiots blow by blow (with pictures) so I can copy you?!?!?!


Thanks Mark. I'll see what I can do but it really is a simple as just brushing them on. Terry has persuaded me to man a demo stand at Scaleforum so I'll have some of the wagons there to weather.

John

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Thu Jan 26, 2017 10:49 am

Allan, some interesting techniques there - the dusting on the wet paint won't work for me as I spray using acrylics but I may well give the others a try.

John

Colin Parks

Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Colin Parks » Thu Jan 26, 2017 11:40 am

John, just to add to the weathering techniques discussed here.

The same kind of effect can be achieved with tailors' chalks. It is possible to blend red, white, black and yellow (ochre) in varying combinations and amounts to give convincing results. I used to make small amounts of powder by rubbing the chalks on sandpaper, then mixing and applying with a flat brush.

Another trick when weathering wagons which has given a nice result has been to air brush a very, very fine mist of olive green onto the chassis. Having looked closely at old wagons and their paintwork, a lot of them develop a kind of algal growth over time. (Perhaps iron oxide dust would be an inhospitable environment for bio-organisms in the case of your wagons though!)

Colin

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Allan Goodwillie
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Allan Goodwillie » Thu Jan 26, 2017 8:21 pm

I can confirm that what Colin says is quite common on older wagons on preserved lines. This material will accumulate particularly near Silver birch trees and I wonder just how common that was on stock when it was in regular use and not sitting for long periods in the same sidings.

I have recently been building a middle sized Barclay tank which worked at Methil. Interestingly the locomotive was differently coloured on either side - one side permanently faced south and the other north. The south side was decidedly paler. On Dubbieside which is partly a harbour scene, I run a number of brake vans with bird droppings and a few other wagons which just sit at the end of sidings the same. Needless to say there are also marks on the scenery.

Traffics carried by the wagons often made some major contribution to the weathering of the wagon. Coal dust, sand,cement, oils, cattle, etc. all make contributions. Most peoples cattle wagons seem too clean to me, if they are carrying traffic. I remember the station master at Thornton Junction remonstrating with a loco crew who had pulled up a cattle train in the station, rather sharply than was wise and looking back along the platform you could see just what effect this had had on the cattle all the way along the platform. I don't know if you have ever seen a train load of lime travelling at speed through the countryside, but the effect can be very dramatic.

I personally think that wooden wagons are far more difficult to get right compared to steel. Steel is wonderful for the sheer variation as the samples we have been looking at. The weather on the day you have modelled will also have had its say - we very rarely do a wet day. I am considering doing just such a scene as it is the only weather condition I have not tackled over the years.

Time of year also makes a big difference as different dust colours build up on the stock if the weather is warm or hot or frost creeping over wagons on a cold night. Vans in summer time could quite have an almost non descriptive colour scheme all -over. Rather dull for most, but that is the way it was. The odd vehicle not long out of the works can stand out like a sore thumb and seem very odd if all your stock is well weathered, but I would suggest having everything well weathered does not feel quite right as there , perhaps should be wagons on your system each of which will have a different paint date and therefore different levels of weathering. If you have stood in the snow watching trains at speed kicking up the snow and dragging it along in a snow flurry that consumes the hole train it makes it clearer how brake dust can swirl around a wet train and hang between wagons and coaches in the doldrums between vehicles.

There will be differences in the original paint work depending on where the wagons were constructed, or repaired. There will also be wagons running together with different liveries, so the base colour could be very different. Individual happenings were also occurring on a daily basis. I stood on the between platform bridge at Carlisle one time with a passenger set sitting in the through road as painters painted the bridge and quantities of paint dropped all over the carriage roof below. :cry:

Sitting this evening with a "Sky at Night" special on Titan (with old friend Patrick Moore) and how the Heugens probe brought close up information from the moon for the first time and how they were trying to interpret the photographs. They were trying to work out whether there were any liquids on the surface (probably liquid ammonia) and whether the liquids would be reflective or have a scum all over the surface and therefore matt.

All great fun to try to interpret. :D
Last edited by Allan Goodwillie on Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Andy W
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Andy W » Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:18 am

Damn, I've painted my Titan gloss.
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Noel
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Noel » Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:04 pm

Allan Goodwillie wrote: The odd vehicle not long out of the works can stand out like a sore thumb and seem very odd if all your stock is well weathered, but I would suggest having everything well weathered does not feel quite right as there , perhaps should be wagons on your system each of which will have a different paint date and therefore different levels of weathering.


Although not that common, judging by photographs, there were examples of wooden opens and vans with partial repairs without a full repaint. This could be anything from a few new planks to a complete van sliding door. It shows up clearly in colour photos of bauxite vehicles just out of shops; I assume that unfitted vehicles with that much damage were just withdrawn, at least after 1955. Some plywood vehicles seemed to acquire a rash of patches of varying vintages and sizes applied to sides and ends, presumably where loads had shifted and caused damage.

Up until the early 1960s, steel minerals were on a 5 year cycle for descaling and repainting, and new ones were still being built until 1959, so there would have been significant variations in the degree of rusting of random vehicles in any train. The life of the bodywork was expected to be 10-15 years, so from about 1959 onwards partial replating started to be applied where older bodywork had rotted in the lower sides/ends and floor. Only the repaired areas were painted, resulting in wagons where the top of the side had weathered not just longer, but probably in a totally different fashion to the lower, repaired areas.
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Noel

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Allan Goodwillie
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Allan Goodwillie » Fri Jan 27, 2017 1:30 pm

Damn, I've painted my Titan gloss.


Happens to us all at some time Andy. :D

If you are interested in early BR days there were wagons being built and entering service unpainted except for a black background for the wagon number. Such was the shortage of wagons and materials at the time. I remember painting the black panel on one or two wagons in positions other than bottom left hand side. I had remembered seeing them there occasionally and being slated for doing this at a couple of early shows when I had Dubbie out, or when demonstrating, way back then. Chris Pendlenton and I seemed to be the only people up here who wanted to paint wagons and weather them as you saw them in real life. Most of the West Group members modelled Pre-group and liked to have everything pristine and maybe just a smidgeon of dirt on the wagons - being more interested in the livery. A discussion we have had around stock on Burntisland has left a bit of a mix when all seen put together, which by accident is probably about right.

Back to early BR - I have come across quite a number of variations in the positioning of numbers in recent years, not just with tank wagons. Variations were more common than you might imagine. The normal place was so that the number could be read by staff at eye level on the wagon - so there was a practical reason. As things progressed from 50's to 60's wagon number readers became more common in large marshalling yards and positioning became more crucial.

BR wagons during the early days were unpainted in the interior and the wood became very dirty as loads were carried, taking on the colour of the loads carried as well as the general shape of the load. On wooden wagons, steel was used at the ends to cut down on damage. Occasionally damaged wagons could still find themselves in traffic if the damage had just been to the top plank. :D

Andy - Pleased to find that Pluto has proven to be a "proper" planet after it had been declassified as such. Not sure what the surface is like however and recent mathematics based on planetary movement seems to suggest that there is an outer planet with a rather strange trajectory which they hope to track down over the next few years. Weathering on Mars and Venus in particular, would do serious damage! :( ;)

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Penrhos1920
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Penrhos1920 » Tue Jan 31, 2017 8:08 pm

John Donnelly wrote:Hi Colin,

Yes, there is an incline albeit, for stage one of the model at least, the incline begins off stage. In later steam days, the trains were hauled by a 9F and, at South Pelaw, a banker (typically a WD, 9F or, towards the end a Class 40 diesel) would be taken on. From November 1967 double headed Class 24s took over with no banker and that is the period I'll be modelling.

John



So a pair of 24s could haul the same load as pair of 9Fs? Or was the load reduced?

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Jan 31, 2017 8:52 pm

Penrhos1920 wrote:So a pair of 24s could haul the same load as pair of 9Fs? Or was the load reduced?


Both hauled a load of 9 wagons. When the 9Fs hauled the trains, just a single loco headed the train but required a banker from South Pelaw which the 24s didn't. The 9F hauled trains did also have a brake van which the 24s did not.

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Photo copyright Roy Lambeth

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Photo http://www.rail-online.co.uk

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Photo copyright Bill Jamieson

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Allan Goodwillie
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Allan Goodwillie » Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:59 am

Lovely photographs, I used to go down to the area in days of steam - and enjoyed the sounds as well as the sights of the 9F's working on such duties, never to be forgotten. A modelling area I always fancied, but so many other distractions - I hope to build a 9F for our Grayrigg layout some day if I get enough time. My son Dave will be looking out to see your locos as he is the one collecting diesel types and is keen to see them weathered-it is green period he and I are doing on Grayrigg. I am going to get my starters group to have a look at your thread as we will be moving on to wagons as one of the themes this year along with track making. :)

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:43 am

I was born six months after the last 9F hauled ore train and didn't even know the line existed when the 24s stopped running although I did see the 37s on the replacement trains as they ran past the bottom of my school fields.

I do have a Bradwell 9F chassis to build as my plan is to run trains from 1966 to the line's final lifting in 1985 although, as I've never built a steam loco chassis before, starting on a 2-10-0 might be a step too far :D

Terry has persuaded me to man a demo stand at Scaleforum this year so I'll be bringing along some of the rolling stock for the layout to display.

John

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Allan Goodwillie
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Allan Goodwillie » Wed Feb 01, 2017 8:29 pm

Hi John, :)

good luck with the 2-10-0, they are high quality kits and not for rushing - the enjoyment is in the doing. :) My new layout is based on the Wemyss Private Railway and the reason - it ran past the playing fields at my school! :D One of the few sports I was interested in was cricket as there was a chance of playing out on the boundary right next to the line. It was always exciting watching a train pounding up the grade towards the road crossing and watching the gates closing against the traffic on a busy road, with the engines whistle going repeatedly as the driver was determined not to be stopped on the grade. A train going down the other way came off the catch prior to the gates as the signalman failed to get the gates open and the catch switched before the train slid off and on to the ballast. The railway allowed permissive block which added another dimension. :)

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:04 pm

Tonight I've also finished another Bachmann 16T wagon, this time an MCV, a rust free example, with weathering done with oils on the body first then pastel chalk on the underframe and body.

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Image

I am aware of the limitations of the Bachmann wagons but, as I've said before, when your planned layout will be able to swallow a few dozen of these, I'm having to be pragmatic and accept certain compromises so, as a result, those wagons that will sit in full rakes and go round the layout will be Bachmann whereas those that will be shunted front and centre will likely use Rumney models underframes and detailed bodies.

John

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:12 am

I've discovered this morning that the wagon should have a tie bar between the W Irons so that will be taken care of...

John

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Serjt-Dave
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby Serjt-Dave » Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:19 am

DOUGH!

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:33 am

It also appears that, as the wagon has 4 rather than 8 brake shoes that it should be an MXV rather than an MCV, why do wagons have to be so complicated :mrgreen:

John

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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby essdee » Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:46 am

Are you modelling a wagon, or a sizeable chunk of NER mineral infrastructure John? Do you know what type of grass grows on your embankments......?!

Beautifully observed weathering - and that's what will catch and hold the eye. Remeber the tale of C.J.Freezer having a final look at Peter Denny's 'Buckingham' cariages, and asking P.D,how he had done the lettering/numbers?

'There isn't any!' said Peter......

I am having to adjust to this as I ease away from the fitting shop into the real world!

Superb.

Cheers,

Steve

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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby essdee » Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:46 am

Are you modelling a wagon, or a sizeable chunk of NER mineral infrastructure John? Do you know what type of grass grows on your embankments......?!

Beautifully observed weathering - and that's what will catch and hold the eye. Remeber the tale of C.J.Freezer having a final look at Peter Denny's 'Buckingham' cariages, and asking P.D,how he had done the lettering/numbers?

'There isn't any!' said Peter......

I am having to adjust to this as I ease away from the fitting shop into the real world!

Superb.

Cheers,

Steve

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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Fri Apr 07, 2017 10:02 am

Cheers Steve, much appreciated.

I guess we sometimes lose sight of the fact that a lot of what we do ultimately gets lost in the overall picture...

John

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jim s-w
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby jim s-w » Fri Apr 07, 2017 10:12 am

John Donnelly wrote:I've discovered this morning that the wagon should have a tie bar between the W Irons so that will be taken care of...

John


Can you swap the brake levers round too? As supplied the brakes wouldn't work

HTH

Jim
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John Donnelly
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Re: Wagons for South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Fri Apr 07, 2017 10:17 am

jim s-w wrote:Can you swap the brake levers round too? As supplied the brakes wouldn't work


That is one of the issues that I'm aware of so I might give it a try...

John


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