BR(S) Bogie Van B

Jeremy Good
Posts: 278
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:36 pm

BR(S) Bogie Van B

Postby Jeremy Good » Sat Nov 06, 2021 7:07 pm

I have been building this Ratio kit for some time and decided earlier in the year to make a concerted effort to finish it.

It is now built and primed and ready for painting but that has been delayed whilst I researched the correct colour for my mid-1950's period. A comment in Simon Bendall's recently published bookazine "Modelling British Railways - Parcels and Mail Trains" that I was reading this morning confirmed that the batch built by BR (numbers 251 - 280) in 1952 were outshopped in crimson which gave me the answer I wanted about livery, as this batch were used on the West of England services that suit my requirements.

However, closer study of the photos revealed something that I think I had been told but had been trying to ignore, that is that the kit body is appropriate for this batch but the underframe is more suitable for the earlier, Southern built vans. I have replaced much of the plastic underframe detail with etched V-irons and wire but followed the kit for the underframe layout. The BR vans have a different layout of underframe equipment which, from the side-on photos I can find, looks as if it is simply a reversed version of the Southern layout.

Does anyone have any information to confirm that this is in fact the case - photos or drawings of the BR built batch - or could you point me in the direction of a suitable reference to confirm this?

Thanks for your help.

Jeremy

John Palmer
Posts: 825
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:09 pm

Re: BR(S) Bogie Van B

Postby John Palmer » Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:21 am

Photographs of Van Bs from the 1952/53 Lancing-built batch can be found in:
(1) 'An Illustrated History of Southern Coaches' by Mike King (pub. OPC)
(2) 'Southern Vans And Coaches In Colour' also by Mike King (pub. Noodle Books) and
(3) 'Southern Railway Passenger Vans' by David Gould (pub. Oakwood Press).

It appears from the photographs in these that the 1952/53 batch had a small difference in the double door planking arrangement, involving the incorporation of narrow planks matching those on the body side just below droplight level.

(2) on my list has an interesting photograph of one of the pre-war vans, number S393 (no suffix 'S'!) in crimson livery and featuring panels having a cream appearance to designate it a stove-fitted van. Not sure how much reliance can be placed on this as an indicator of colour as the original slide is noted as having deteriorated in quality.

Number 273 at Plate 195 in (1) and Number 278 opposite p.24 in (3) support your observation about the underframe, as they both have the V hangers on the right hand side of the vehicles when viewed sideways-on. (3) also has a picture, opposite p.23, of what is said to be one of the vans built at Lancing in 1952, for which no number is given, it being merely identified as one of the vehicles boarded to show its allocation to the Waterloo-Padstow newspaper circuit. However, this vehicle has its V hangers on the left hand side of the vehicle, as per the pre-war batches, raising two possibilities:
(a) it has been mis-identified as one of the 1952/53 batch when it is in fact a pre-war vehicle, or
(b) it is indeed one of the 1952/53 batch but at least one of the vehicles in this batch (i.e. this one!) did not have the 'reversed underframe fittings' arrangement.

Sorry to throw up this conundrum - perhaps best to number your model as one of those confirmed by photograph to have the modiified underframe layout.

Daddyman
Posts: 740
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2017 1:09 pm

Re: BR(S) Bogie Van B

Postby Daddyman » Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:54 am

Are Paul Bartlett's photos any good (EDIT: I mean for the underframe detail)? There are pictures of 1939- and 1952/3-Lancing-built ones, albeit late in life:
https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/srguvandb

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Noel
Posts: 1972
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 1:04 pm

Re: BR(S) Bogie Van B

Postby Noel » Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:26 am

John Palmer wrote:(2) on my list has an interesting photograph of one of the pre-war vans, number S393 (no suffix 'S'!) in crimson livery and featuring panels having a cream appearance to designate it a stove-fitted van. Not sure how much reliance can be placed on this as an indicator of colour as the original slide is noted as having deteriorated in quality


The SR used orange, BR SR used yellow as far as I know. "Historic Carriage Drawings" Vol. 3 page 33 shows the same picture of S381 as source (3); the text says Orange panels, the caption says Yellow :? . Since it is in SR livery apart from the prefix [which doesn't appear on the door] and there is no "Southern" I would guess it's green with orange panels. The Guard's door consequently had black lettering, which, as far as I know, did not include the van number in BR livery. The suffix appeared in 1949 to avoid duplications with BR Mark 1 number series according to "BR Mark 1 Coaches"; it also indicated which region would deal with repairs, which is why it doesn't always match the prefix. BR WR seem to have added the suffix, presumably locally, to vehicles between repaints in at least some cases; whether other regions did this I don't know.
Regards
Noel

Jeremy Good
Posts: 278
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:36 pm

Re: BR(S) Bogie Van B

Postby Jeremy Good » Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:07 pm

Thanks John and Daddyman for your responses.

I have been through most of the resources you've mentioned and, so far, haven't come up with any decent views that show anything other than that the V-hangar placing differs from the early batch and that the dynamo appears to be a different style on the later (blue) examples. There are some other photos covering the later eras in one or two other books as well but still no underframe detail.

On the basis that the V-hanger positioning is clear I think I'll adopt that and simply adjust the positioning of the linkages, vac cylinders and underframe equipment to suit. At least there doesn't appear to be any concrete evidence to prove I'm wrong (as yet...)!

I need to order some more l section for the trussing so it may be a few weeks before the changes are done but I'll post here once it's done.

Thanks again

Jeremy


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