D & S LNWR Luggage and milk vans

[Sapper]

I have just started on the old D & S Luggage van kit (DS407) and have also the milk van kit (DS408) which will be the next one. I have a number of queries and if anyone can help I would be very grateful.

Luggage Van
1) Should there be a continuous truss rod between all axle boxes, the chassis etch does not have one although the etch for the milk van does?

2) I am having difficulty in setting up the etched shoe arms which are quite flimsy and bend in all unwanted places, and the location of the brake shoes is too high! From a photograph of a similar type of milk van I have seen the shoe arms could possibly be of rodding and not the flat etched section supplied - is this correct? These vans were originally fitted with chain brakes, subsequently being converted to vacuum but from photographic evidence the original shoe arms appear to have been retained. I am planning to run this with fitted vacuum brakes and would interested to know the location of the vacuum tank and cylinder - would this be as for the milk van and where exactly? Are there any drawings or sketches that anyone knows of the Clark & Webb chain brake fitted to these vehicles that I could refer to?

3) Would the centre wheels have had braking?

Hopefully, with these questions answered I should be able to tackle the milk van.

Regards

Sapper

[beachboy]

Hi Sapper,

Reading your post reminded me of the booklet LNWR 30ft 6-Wheel Carriages by Phil. Millard I purchased from Lond. Road Models. I think this would provide the answers your looking for.

I find most Railway Co's undeframes to be a common design, with a different body / hand or vac braked.
The differences here may well be the axle guards bolted to the inside, or outside of the solebars. The truss rods, I would have thought would be the Tie Rods bolted to the axle guards inside or out.
The book incls. a Clarke & Webb chain brake detailed drawing, with vac brake & much more detail overleaf. A great deal of model making.
Brake blocks were hung by two hangers ( metal strip ) attached to brackets bolted to the cross-members. Some / older etched kit designs considered this to be acceptable in ' two dimension '. Ie flat. Its one of the first areas, plus Yokes & Clasp Brake detail I now look for or would expect theses days, if we have moved on from past decades.

The centre wheel set would not normally have brakes applied.

If anyone may add further, I would be interested for future reference.

Steve.

[dal-t]

I would be a little wary of assuming that the 26ft vans had the same underframe as the 30ft 1" carriages, although I know from time to time various sources have offered modellers a 'universal' 6-wheel underframe (I believe Brassmasters still do). The D&S models are currently part of the London Road Models range, and it may be possible to get further details from John Redrup. I don't know if these particular kits are amongst those that have had their instructions rewritten/improved, but unfortunately they're not web-downloadable anyway, and at present there is no photo of either kit on the LRM website. However, they could possibly have made-up examples on their stand at S4um - worth a look, I would have thought (and don't let me put you off Phillip Millard's pamphlet on the 30'1" coaches, or his Non-Corridor Carriages co-authored with Ian Tattersall, both cracking good reads on L&NWR rolling stock).

[Jol Wilkinson]

I think that the centre wheels weren't braked and that there would have been trusses connecting the axle guides on both underframes.

I don't know about the other query so have posted the whole message on the LNWR Society forum for information. I'll get back with an answer if/when one appears.

The Philip Millard/LNWR Society 30' 1" Carriage portfolio is much more than a pamphlet and should be in any LNWR/LMS carriage modellers library. The same goes for the Non Corridor Cariages book. Both are available on line and from the Society's stands at expoEM North and Scaleforum.

Jol

[Sapper]

To Jol, Dave and Steve
Thanks very much for the information, I have approached the LNWR Society with a view to purchasing their pamphlet and am awaiting their reply. I am intending to visit Scaleforum and will certainly make enquiries there with John Redrup regarding the old D & S kits.

I will put a truss rod on the luggage van as Jol suggests, I assume it may have been a pre-computer omission. I noticed in an article in Your Model Railway in 1986 about converting the milk van to a 4 wheeled variety the truss rod was shown, also there were roof details which will be useful.

Once again many thanks.

Regards


Sapper

[grovenor-2685]

Some of these kits currently on eBay under finescale
Keith

[Jol Wilkinson]

Or you can buy a new one, with customer support, from London Road Models.

[dal-t]

I hope it is clear I intended no disrespect to Philip Millard's work on the 30'1" vehicles by referring to it as a 'pamphflet', and I entirely accept Jol's admonition that it should be considered an essential ingredient of any L&NWR/LMS library, but in my defence it does fit the UNESCO definition of a pamphlet, being more than 5 pages but less than the 48 required for a 'book'. A more accurate description might well have been 'monograph', as are all the Premier Portfolios, but that sounded too Victorian (despite the appropriateness of the subject); for preference I try to avoid using the "P" word, because although it's an acceptable peccadillo in the context of the Premier Line society (which once called its other publications Premier News and Premier Lines), it reminds me too strongly of studying Shakespeare for my Scholarship exam. In penance I undertake to order and test-build at least one of these 6-wheel kits from LRM, just as soon as I can wade through the half-unpacked contents of my sous-sol to confirm I don't have D&S versions lingering amongst the stacks of of unmade Ratio, Jidenco and Modellers World rolling stock.

[dal-t]

Hmm. Tricky stuff, NPCS - you never know whether to look for it under 'coaches' or 'wagons'. It seems neither Jol nor I spotted that there had been some prior discussion of this topic on the LNWRS forum, albeit in the context (whisper it quietly) of a 7mm scale model. It popped up under 'wagons', which these vehicles of course are not, as Philip M helpfully pointed out after providing his usual comprehensive input. You might like to glance at the thread (no need to be registered for the LNWRS forum to see it) and in particular look at some photographs which subsequently appeared on the Zenfolio website here: http://lnwrs.zenfolio.com/p445372665
Hope that helps!

[Jol Wilkinson]

David,

I found the Wikipedia description

"Pamphlets can contain anything from information on kitchen appliances to medical information and religious treatises. Pamphlets are very important in marketing as they are cheap to produce and can be distributed easily to customers. Pamphlets have also long been an important tool of political protest and political campaigning for similar reasons."

more closely matched my view of a pamphlet. The LNWRS publication, described by them as a Portfolio, doesn't fit the cheap to produce ideal (although it isn't expensive at £9.90) being printed on high quality stock, etc.

Well spotted with the other information. The photo on Zenfolio shows what appear to be clasp brakes on a vac fitted vehicle. This is rather unusual on LNWR stock, although they were used by the NLR and fitted to the 10T goods brake vans built by the LNWR for use on the NLR.

Jol

[Jol Wilkinson]

The LNWR Society Forum produced the following reply from Philip Millard;

"There should be a continuous tie rod between the axleboxes.

The angled brake shoes are very tricky to model. The etched parts supplied are far too flimsy and fold in the wrong places. But the support arms for the brake shoes are flat section, not round. In the end I simply left them off on my model.

The vacuum cylinder would be the horizontal type.

There is a drawing of the Chain Brake in my "Register of WCJS Joint Stock" book."

Jol

[dal-t]

A nice clear reply from the LNWRS - well deserves its charitable status! Now I just need to track down the publisher who sold me a whole series of Conflict Resolution Pamphlets at $7.50* a throw in the early '70s, and explain to him that they should have been 'cheap to produce'. Looking forward to getting some of my money back ...


*At current rates that's £27.24 each, or €32.38 in the money I use. Should be able to buy quite a few kits with the refund!

[Sapper]

Jol, Keith and David
Thanks for the further info - currently awaiting my copy of the book from the LNWRS and then I can perhaps get on the road to completing these kits.

Regards


Sapper