What 5-plank wagon is this and what livery should it be?

[barhamd]

I've been trying to start renovating some of my wagons which haven't really had a proper look at in the last 15 years. I've learnt a lot over that time and some of my attempts from back then look, well frankly, a bit embarrassing. I'd like to try and get these wagons into a livery suitable for ~1955-60.
I've been trawling Paul Bartlett's excellent site but most of the photographs of 5 plank wagons seem to be much later when they had been transferred to departmental stock or were in such bad condition you couldn't really work out what livery was underneath.

I think the body is a Parkside LNER 12ton 5-plank wagon which according to the blurb on Peco's site were diagram 1/120 and were vacuum fitted but these appear not to be fitted.

Any guidance would be grand.

I know copying models is a bad idea but is this 3mm model more like it?



or should it be more like this image taken at Clare in ~1955

362221a.jpg (23.79 KiB) Viewed 2209 times

thanks
David

[billbedford]

You have a collection of BR 'Highs'. There were a number of different body styles, and at least four different brake arrangements.

Unfitted ones would have been painted BR grey, with increasing amounts of distressing after the 60s.

[Noel]

The left hand wagon appears to be a LMSR or BR built unfitted vehicle, correctly painted grey for an unfitted wagon, but with brake gear which is difficult to identify. The 3mm model is an LNER 6-plank unfitted with 2 shoe Morton brake, in BR condition; as it has a wooden underframe it would never have been modified. Numbering as shown is correct, with white characters on black patches

The other three are a bit more of a problem, as the answers depend on what period you are modelling, owing to modifications after building. The LMSR built a lot of corrugated end opens, some fitted, some not, but all 10' wb. Their fitted vehicles had a different underframe, so these models cannot represent those wagons. BR built more fitted and unfitted wagons to similar diagrams; the unfitted versions had 2 shoe Morton brake gear with a cross shaft and the brake shoes on the side with the reversing clutch. All would have been painted grey by BR, except some built i 1948/9 which initially only had the steelwork painted.

The fitted versions had 4 shoe Morton brake gear with a cross shaft, plus, of course, a vacuum cylinder and pipes. From the mid-1950s to late 1959 [i.e. the period you model ] all modern unfitted vehicles with steel underframes [with very few exceptions] were converted to fitted. This process mostly stopped with wartime built wagons; only a few late pre-war vehicles were so treated. All conversions were given 4 shoe Morton brakes. The problems arise with the buffers; initially they were given short buffers with an extension collar welded on the extend the length from 18" to 20.5", thereafter various types of self-contained or hydraulic buffers were fitted. As shown, all three are nearest in condition to earlier BR built fitted vehicles [but see later]. VB vehicles had white characters on body colour, no black patches [there were a few exceptions, but these are not relevant here].

So far as the Peco comment is concerned, something has gone wrong, as 1/120 was a vacuum fitted 21T steel mineral wagon. Also, only the LMSR and BR used corrugated ends on wooden bodies wagons; the LNER built both 5-plank and 6-plank wooden bodied merchandise wagons, but they all had wooden ends.

The prototype photo looks as though it may be an SR built wagon, because of the short number, but, if so, is most likely a BR conversion to VB; the SR also used a different underframe for most fitted vehicles, while the photograph shows 4 shoe Morton with a tie bar [which virtually all such vehicles, both built new and converted, had].

[Jeremy Suter]

Hi David
These might help for livery all taken by Don Rowland as Bill says they have different brake gear versions but mostly vac fitted with clasp brakes.
None of the ex LNER 5 planks I could find have that sloping end bracket
B477796 Millerhill 5.4.69

B497056 Millerhill 6.4.63

B494209 Millerhill 8.4.63

M423401 Crewe Works 21.9.66

B493898 Haymarket 2.1.68

M422538 Niddrie Yard 10.3.62

Those with Highbars added
B479065 Granton 12.2.66

B492046 Muirkirk 9.5.59

B485971 Millerhill 5.4.69

B493406 Longtown 23.3.68

M421053 Granton 12.2.66

M419519 Millerhill 30.3.63

[BryanJohnson]

Wagons in this period are a minefield, but Noel has covered many of the points.

If I can add some observations:
1) If you are going to build wagons for this period, I would recommend the three Wild Swan 4mm Wagon books by Geoff Kent and the 4mm Coal wagon book by John Hayes.
2) Whatever the external livery was, the interior woodwork for sides, ends and floors was never painted, so would be some form of faded / distressed wood colour. The photo on the last page of the 4mm Wagon book Part 1 by Geoff Kent shows this.
3) If you decide that the fitted livery is correct, adding the vacuum cylinder and the low level of upright vacuum pipe connections will make all the difference.

Regards,
Bryan

[jjnewitt]

Nice photos Jeremy.

Note the diagonals on the sides of the courrgated opens. On the BR builds they ended below the body on a bracket but on the LMS ones they ended on the body itself. David the ones you have are BR builds. I assume they are Parkside kits?

Also there were variations in the angle on the top of the courrugated ends. This originally faced outwards on the LMS builds but this was later changed to face inwards to accomodate tarpaulin bars.

A note on the wooden ended 5 planks. I looked at these a fair amount when I did my LMS d.1892 'kit'. The 17'6" long, 10' wheelbase 5 planks built by the LMS, LNER and SR were basically the same. The major difference (aside from the type/thickness of wood used due wartime shortages) was the number/position of the bolts used on the ironwork. As was mentioned earlier yours is an LMS build David. LNER builds arraneg things mostly in a single vertical line on the corner plates. The SR were similar but were more frugal on the use of bolts.

Justin

[Noel]

Nice photos Jeremy.

Seconded.

The wagons with 8 shoe clasp brakes and secondary suspension were built as VB by the LMSR or by BR to the LMSR design, possibly with minor variations, so far as I know [Justin may correct me]. The rest were built VB by BR, with the exception of the last two, both of which are conversions from unfitted LMSR wagons. Many of them no longer have their original axleboxes, and some may have gained or lost the sheet bars since building, I haven't checked that aspect.

1) If you are going to build wagons for this period, I would recommend the three Wild Swan 4mm Wagon books by Geoff Kent and the 4mm Coal wagon book by John Hayes

I would add David Larkin's Wagons of the Early BR Era (1948-54) and Wagons of the Middle BR Era (1955-61) for prototype info on BR wagons, plus books on the wagons of the four grouped lines as so many of their wagons lasted into the 1960s, and would possibly not include the John Hayes one.

[barhamd]

Thanks everyone for your informative responses.

Those photographs are really great and give me lots to work on. It is amazing what cock-ups you find when you look at wagons you built a long time ago... These mostly have the classic pushing the brake lever down would take off the brakes issue!
I think I'm going to add some tie-rods between the W-irons, sort out the brakes so they actually would be applied and add a cylinder and crossrod on the brakes and some pipes.

David

[davebradwell]

Books - the advantage of the Geoff Kent Wild Swan books is they have both modelling and much prototype information. I agree the Larkin books are very good but you're starting a library there.

DaveB

[shipbadger]

The first of the prototype photos has what I can only describe as bi-concave discs on the bottom plank and the bottom of the door. Indicative of a product of Ashford works. They were where the ropes holding the sheet could be fixed.
Tony Comber

[barhamd]

And the other good thing about having a library is discovering what looks to me like just my wagon, in colour, on the front of Martyn Welch's seminal work 'The art of weathering'. At least by the time I've fixed the brakes and added the tie-rod.

David

[jim s-w]

B493406 Longtown 23.3.68

Any thought on what colour these barrels may be?

Regards

Jim

[Noel]

It very much depends on whose they are and what is, or was, in them. The next to bottom post on page 1 of http://www.railroad-line.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=28157&whichpage=1 may be of interest.

[BryanJohnson]

Some drums near the loco's smokebox. Stetchford in 1962

[Terry Bendall]

Some drums near the loco's smokebox

And in the rest of the picture no end of interesting things that could be modelled - the buildings in the yard, the piles of timber and the general clutter around the tracks.

Terry Bendall

[JFS]

And in the rest of the picture no end of interesting things that could be modelled -

I very much agree - anyone any idea what this thing is?

Yard Thing.jpg (251.76 KiB) Viewed 1049 times

[Noel]

I very much agree - anyone any idea what this thing is?

Looking at a printed copy of the photo, I think it may be more a case of what it was. The post looks as though it may have been broken, or cut short, and it seems to have supported a pipe, probably a gas pipe. Half way up the [remains?] of the post is a lever in a quadrant, to the far end of which some light chain is attached but not attached to anything else. I would guess it is the predecessor to the lamp next to it.

Stechford yard seems to have been popular with photographers; I am aware of another colour photo angled slightly to the left [it doesn't help with the question as the loco is blocking any view of the post], and a magazine some time ago published a black and white set of of the wider area.

[bécasse]

I wonder if it had been, and perhaps still was to a limited extent, a gong post for communicating with the relevant signal box. I can't see a gong but the lever could well have been used to ring a gong in the box.

[JFS]

I wonder if it had been, and perhaps still was to a limited extent, a gong post for communicating with the relevant signal box. I can't see a gong but the lever could well have been used to ring a gong in the box.

That was my guess also - I am not convinced it has been cut-down - it looks complete in this photo:-
https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lm ... fd1308.htm

I looked on a relevant 25in OS map, but nothing was referenced though the dummies are shown as "SP". Grid reference is SP130874 in case anyone has a larger scale map.

Apologies to OP! Not much relevence to 5-plank wagons I have to concede - but interesting nontheless.

Best Wishes,