Building NER carriages

[Paul Cram]

I am not sure the kits ever ha vacum fittings. The North Eastern was a westinghouse line and the kits accommodate that. It was only in 1930 that vacum fitting started.

[Winander]

Underframe next... but possibly not tonight.

Looking rather nice.

[Daddyman]

I'm building a diagram 116 Autocoach at the moment, mainly to go with my Rails/Heljan North Eastern railcar.

I always thought that D&S kits were great, given the ebay price fights....but am not currently so impressed when parts are not in the kits, and the instructions are really not good either.

Is this NER condition? I seem to recall H@#jan fudged (as is their wont) the railcar - wrong door arrangement for some periods and wrong roof for others? The D&S kits are the best we have (you should see the Langley D.116!) and I think it's in the nature of the prototype that they are complicated to model. Still, the D.14 will end up being 450-500 parts once I include bogies (depending on how I do the dampers) and only about 60 of those are taken from the kit in unmodified form (I'm using an additional 40-odd parts from the kit but they need to be modified). Yes, the instructions are dire.

I am not sure the kits ever ha vacum fittings. The North Eastern was a westinghouse line and the kits accommodate that. It was only in 1930 that vacum fitting started.

The D.116 has the vee hangers, and even instructions on the vacuum arrangement taken from the preserved carriage, and a few of the kits I've bought have come with vacuum tanks - it's true that they could have been added by the person who originally bought the kit, but they all look to be from the same manufacturer, suggesting they came from D&S. It's also ironic that Danny started this range of NER carriages to run on his GE section layout, by which time, I think, they'd been vacuum fitted (didn't they transfer in the 1930s?), as well as having all the details I've mentioned earlier in this thread (stepboards, lighting, roofs, vents, underframe details) already changed, long before they were transferred.

Looking rather nice.

Thanks! Should get it finished in the next day or two. But then I said that about the D.5 and three weeks later was still at it...

[Paul Cram]

The GER was also a wesinghouse company so were the cascaded coaches vacuum fitted?

[Noel]

According to Michael Harris' "LNER Coaches" p34, the LNER decided in March 1928 that all 'loose' [i.e. not in a fixed set] NER air-braked stock was to be dual fitted [completed by July 1929] as an intermediate step in conversion to vacuum only. Sets were to be converted to vacuum. GE stock was to be converted to vacuum where required to work with vacuum-braked stock, and all Scottish area air-braked stock was to be converted to vacuum asap. New stock was to be built dual-braked if appropriate, otherwise vacuum. GE suburban sets were to remain air-braked, and did so until replaced by electrification under BR.

[Daddyman]

Some of the ex-NER carriages were still being transferred to the GE in the late 1930s, so certainly would have been vac. fitted already. There are quite a few photos on the Transport Library (LSDC1145, LSDC1150, LSDC1151, LSDC2556, LSDC2557 - all well worth buying for £0.99 [some are even £0.89] for the details they give to modellers) of ex-NER carriages on the GE at the end of their lives (late 40s) and all have been vac. equipped. I doubt that was done to such ancient stock in the 40s.

[Daddyman]

Well, that's the D.14 just about done - one or two tiny jobs still to do, and various bits (bolsters, vees) lost in the post.

Vac. standpipe blanks. I made 4 so I suppose I've technically started on the second D.18...

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Attaching the filed-flat 0.6 wire to act as stepboard supports:

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Using the 6.7mm jigs to position the stepboards at the correct height on the supports:

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Vac. standpipe detailed and fitted to the end, but awaiting trimming and the connecting piece that goes from the standpipe to the solebar. A good cleaning needed - though most of this is actually the deposit from the Cif.

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Couple of views standing further back, one on bogies nicked from the D.5 before I put the trussing on.

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1 week just about dead on... A lie down, and then I'll turn to finishing the D.53 tomorrow.

Thank you again, Mike!

[davebradwell]

That's looking very fine, David but I suspect the true test is what your Dad thinks of it.

With regards to the kit, I suspect that most of the changes are due to improved information and especially your own researches. The implications of the change from gas to gas incandescent lighting (with mantles) are pretty obvious but until you put it to me, I don't recall seeing it in print, regardless of company. A gas-lamp top was just that. Anyway, the major components of the kit are useable and fit together and that's a threshold some don't reach. Mine included 2 vac cyls so I wasn't grumbling.

Handrail knobs have been a sore point for a long time as I'm sure I used to buy much finer ones than are available these days where a 1mm ball is considered scale. Like you I turn them down but even a lathe only makes the job slightly easier. I've also been known to use split pins made out of filed down 0.4 wire and thin copper wire wrapped round and twisted into a stem - techniques going back to the 60s. Have you seen the Markits N gauge knobs? Scale 0.85 ball but the stem is just a parallel pin - they have their uses and at least are discreet.

Not quite there yet - oval buffer heads to source.

DaveB

[Daddyman]

That's looking very fine, David but I suspect the true test is what your Dad thinks of it.

With regards to the kit, I suspect that most of the changes are due to improved information and especially your own researches. The implications of the change from gas to gas incandescent lighting (with mantles) are pretty obvious but until you put it to me, I don't recall seeing it in print, regardless of company. A gas-lamp top was just that. Anyway, the major components of the kit are useable and fit together and that's a threshold some don't reach. Mine included 2 vac cyls so I wasn't grumbling.

Handrail knobs have been a sore point for a long time as I'm sure I used to buy much finer ones than are available these days where a 1mm ball is considered scale. Like you I turn them down but even a lathe only makes the job slightly easier. I've also been known to use split pins made out of filed down 0.4 wire and thin copper wire wrapped round and twisted into a stem - techniques going back to the 60s. Have you seen the Markits N gauge knobs? Scale 0.85 ball but the stem is just a parallel pin - they have their uses and at least are discreet.

Not quite there yet - oval buffer heads to source.

DaveB

Thanks, Dave.
My dad... well, yes... Actually, he's usually quite gushing about the carriages. Well, "gushing" might not be the right word. But the grunt certainly has a note of approval in it.
Oval buffer heads done some time ago. The NER's were very crudely oval, like the NSR Y7, which is risky on a model.
You're right that the changes are obvious, and I can't understand why builders over the years haven't twigged. I suppose if the instructions hadn't been so bad I wouldn't have needed to look for prototype photos. But, yes, as you say, threshold met - they're just complicated vehicles. Each compartment has about 25 parts - hinges, door grabs, partition, door window, roof pip, roof pip feed, vents, backing strip for vents, different vent, backing strip for different vents, third type of vent, etc...
I think we've lamented the handrail knob situation before. I've recently used N-Brass ones, but there was no point using these on the carriages as I'd started the rake with filed down ones, effectively making them into pillars (I checked the Romford and 247 WD pillars but even short ones were too long for the job). There used to be superb fine handrail knobs available from the much lamented Hexham (née Alston) Model Shop - as fine as the ones Hornby used on the A3 and A4. I had my mum buy them by the hundred, but I never found out who manufactured them, and they disappeared with the shop. But no handrail knob would ever be small enough for the bodyside (and clerestory-side) handrails on these carriages, though: I think the bodysides might have knobs on the real thing - hence the twizzles. The D.53 has lots of bodyside handrails...

[billb]

I am not sure the kits ever ha vacum fittings. The North Eastern was a westinghouse line and the kits accommodate that. It was only in 1930 that vacum fitting started.

The decision to become a fully vacuumed braked line was taken in 1928. There were some exceptions, IIRC the GER and Aberdeen suburban services and the NER Tyneside electrics.

[Daddyman]

A few photos of the D.53 here, partly as a record for anyone else building one of these, and partly as I need to call on the forum's expertise.

First up, my best guess for the arrangement of the gas lines on the roof (remember, any carriage from 1908 onwards could - and gradually should - have this arrangement). I'm certain of the route over the top of the birdcage from the photos of a carriage at York in the BRJ NER Special Issue, but everything else is just conjecture. (Excuse the Milliput - repairing instructions-induced errors .)

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I'm not even sure which side of the lamp tops the main line should go - the York photos suggests this side but this photo suggests perhaps the other side, as the feeds from the lamp tops to the main line seem to be visible (circled):

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I'm also not sure how wide a berth the main line keeps from the skylights. This photo (not of a D.53) shows differences:

not D.53.jpg

Anyway, to the question. I'm puzzling over vee hangers. The normal arrangement on NER carriages is a vee-hanger unit at the NW & SE corners (or NE/SW when it's upside down), which does not traverse the full width of the underframe, as on this photo seen earlier in the thread:

20231022_192911.jpg

However, there's some evidence that the 49-foot carriages (which the D.53 is) had a single central (longwise) vee unit traversing the full width of the underframe. So this (next photo) is weird, as it seems to show two vee hangers (marked in green) on this side, with also two vac. tanks (marked in red, and confirmed as vac. tanks by the solebar stars?). How can that be? What would the arrangement on the other side be? Would the vee units go all the way across? Every other carriage managed with two vac. tanks, so it's not like there'd be another two on the other side.

18-11-2023_16-15-07 2.jpg

This photo of a D.53 shows a different arrangement, seemingly with one central vee (vee location in green; queen posts in red) - but then why the white solebar disc in the position seen?

18-11-2023_16-58-55 2.jpg

This one (from the arc-roof family, though not a D.53) seems to show a different arrangement again, with a vee at the NW corner, with presumably a twin at the SE corner:

Screenshot (2639).jpg

[billb]

The normal arrangement on NER carriages is a vee-hanger unit at the NW & SE corners (or NE/SW when it's upside down), which does not traverse the full width of the underframe, as on this photo seen earlier in the thread:

Err not so... the standard arrangements for NER carriages as built was not to have any vacuum cylinders or V-hangers. What you described was the common arrangement on most vacuum-braked railways. This was the brake arrangement fitted to ex-NER coaches after air brakes became obsolete. Before that time for dual-braked coaches, the NER placed two vacuum cylinders on one side of the coach and the Westinghouse cylinder on the other. This is most obvious on the early dual-fitted corridor stock.

[Daddyman]

The normal arrangement on NER carriages is a vee-hanger unit at the NW & SE corners (or NE/SW when it's upside down), which does not traverse the full width of the underframe, as on this photo seen earlier in the thread:

Err not so... the standard arrangements for NER carriages as built was not to have any vacuum cylinders or V-hangers. What you described was the common arrangement on most vacuum-braked railways. This was the brake arrangement fitted to ex-NER coaches after air brakes became obsolete. Before that time for dual-braked coaches, the NER placed two vacuum cylinders on one side of the coach and the Westinghouse cylinder on the other. This is most obvious on the early dual-fitted corridor stock.

Thanks, Bill. I meant to say "ex-NER".

What you say helps the penny drop, thanks. I though there must be something on the other side to prevent fitting one vac tank per side, and the W/h equipment would make sense. So it seems on some carriages the earlier arrangement - two tanks on one side - survived, and to the end (more below). And presumably the D.53 in ersatz teak at York hasn't yet been changed (or never was). But as bécasse pointed out earlier in the thread, if changes were made, it must have been worth spending the money to make them, but what advantage could there be to moving one tank over to the other side?

Also, how on earth do you know this stuff? And do you know if 49-footers tended to change over to a single, central vee hanger stretching the full width of the underframe?

Coincidental with your post, I've found confirmation of a carriage - an end-of-life D.18 on the GE in rhe late 40s/early 50s - with two vac. tanks on one side, and the vee units seemingly not stretching all the way across:

twin vac. tanks.PNG

I'm about to set the vees on the model up in this way - unless anyone stops me...

While I have you, these lamp tops on the arc-roof stock - I'd always assumed they were adapted to work with incandescent-mantle lights. It's surely not possible that they're an outward indication that the old-style burners had to be retained due to headroom problems inside preventing incandescent mantles being used? EDIT: no, that's not possible: shots of the carriages in their early days (BRJ) clearly show four gas tanks on the non-brake arc-roof carriages, and a late-life photo on the NERA archive clearly shows one tank, confirming incandescent.