Category Archives: Rolling Stock

Canute Road Quay, General, History, Rolling Stock

The lager must be mine… Graham’s Golden Lager and a tenuous link to Canute Road Quay

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Released by Oxford Rail, back in February 2021 , their OR76TK2006 Graham’s Golden Lager No113 12 Ton Tank wagon was a bit of impulse buy due to its branding and the fact that I feel their 12T tank wagon is one of Oxford Rail’s best models to date. Little did I realise at the time that a wagon of a Scottish larger brewer would have an interesting Southampton, and by association Canute Road Quay, connection…

The real Graham’s Golden Lager tank wagon, image copyright and embeded from HMRS website

In 1927 a new beer was brewed in Arrol’s Lager brewery in Alloa, Graham’s Golden Lager. This was produced on behalf of Allsopp’s of Burton, following the moving their lager plant to Arrol’s in 1921.
Being sucessful, and as now Arrol’s were brewing all Allsopps lagers, Allsopp’s took a controlling interest in Arrol’s in 1930, prior to their 1934 merger with Ind Coope.  Arrol’s was completely bought out in 1951 and the brewery converted to a lager-only plant.
Arrol’s of Alloa appeared to have a number of branded rail mounted tanker wagons that included the example as model by Oxford Rail.
In 1959, Graham’s Golden Lager was rebranded as Skol, though for a while it was branded Graham’s Skol Lager. It became the main lager of Ind Coope and later the whole Allied Breweries Group.

I think the Waterloo Tavern (Ian…) might have over ordered… the picture that uncovered the story…

…So where does this fit in with Southampton…
…following posting the picture left, on  my layout thread on RMweb, Pete Cottrel kindly related the story that the Southampton branch of the Wine Merchants business of the Eldridge Pope Brewery was bombed in 1940 and that buried in the rubble were several intact crates of bottled Graham’s Golden Lager.

They weren’t actually near the docks but in Above Bar Street, in the area that is now Guildhall Square, no rail connection though, it was in the heart of the Old Town, inside the medieval walls.

The Oxford Rail 12T Graham’s Golden Lager tank wagon, picture courtesy KMRC

In 2005 while doing trial excavations on the site the crates were discovered with a JCB bucket that broke several of the bottles. The Eldridge Pope brewery and bottling plant were at Dorchester, so bulk lager could have been sent there.  However Cooper’s Brewery in Southampton had a bottling plant and had ceased actual brewing due to war damage, so it could in theory have bottled Graham’s Golden Lager post war.

The find was also reported on the BBC website:

Archaeologists’ intoxicating find, by David Fuller BBC News June, 2005

One of the best and well detailed wagons produced by Oxford Rail to date. Picture courtesy KMRC

Archaeologists searching for remains of a city’s medieval past have made an intoxicating discovery, a cache of World War II beer.
The hundred-or-so bottles of lager buried beneath Southampton’s Guildhall Square were still capable of developing a head when they were opened. It is thought they had been stored in the cellar of an off-licence which was destroyed in the Blitz. The routine dig was to study the site before a new arts centre was built.
Pete Cottrell, the dig leader, was hoping to find evidence of a medieval leper hospital known to have been in the area. He said the bottles were in very good condition, but the liquid inside was not. “I think you’d be very ill if you drank that, it’s absolutely rank.”
Some of the bottles have now been handed to the city’s museum, while the rest has been reburied.

I thought this was a fasinating story emanating from a simple impulse buy and a picture, and was worth sharing (even as a real ale drinker), I hope this little diversion from the normal is of interest…

 

General, Model Reviews, Rolling Stock, Techniques, Workbench, Workbench Witterings

Workbench Witterings #21 Individualising the EFE Rail ex LSWR Cross Country Sets

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My Set 253 following a few tweaks and awaiting some light weathering

The EFE Rail ex LSWR Cross Country Sets were announced last November and as is usually the case with the Bachmann quarterly announcements arrived within a matter of weeks. This is not a full a review of the models as that would be a bit disingenuous of me, having been involved in my day job at Kernow Model Rail Centre , with their development (and yes, I hold my hand up to not spotting a couple of the gremlins that crept in to a couple of the livery details).

This post is about a few quick tweaks / improvements that I have made to my own malachite green set 253 (yes, I purchased it myself). Whilst these models have not jumped on the feature creep trend of magnetic roofs (we are yet to see how practical these might be in practice with handling etc.) and over bright interior lighting, they have a good level of detail and separately applied parts inclduing grab handles, handrails, underframe details and roof vents to look the part.

EFE E86015 coach set 314 in BR Green showing box set (Picture Courtesy and copyright KMRC)

The initial EFE Rail Releases, supplied in neat three coach book box sets are as follows:

  • E86013 ex LSWR Cross Country Set – 3 Coach set 253 – SR Malachite
  • E86014 Ex LSWR/SR Cross Country Set – 3 Coach set 130 – BR Crimson
  • E86015 Ex LSWR/SR Cross Country Set – 3 Coach set 314 – BR Green

So on the tweaks…

The very first thing I did was to blacken the faces of the wheelsets, I have simply and quickly used a black Sharpie permanent marker pen, this improves the look and is actually a darker finish to the eye than the brightly lit pictures show. (As an aside, a couple of Sharpie pens are always good to have in the modelling toolkit, especially when exhibiting, as they can be used to quickly touch up any chips or damage that might have occurred).

The Diagram 124 Brake Third

I have added, using HMRS Pressfix transfers, the missing class designation numbers to the brake thirds and for consistency also replaced and repositioned slightly higher those on the composite. The BR versions correctly only have ‘1’s on the first class compartments (and in the slightly lower position). To remove the factory applied class designations on the composite, I first soaked them in good quality enamel thinners and then using a cotton bud and some t-cut to gently rub them off.
For consistency, an element of individualism and personal preference, I like to brush paint all my carriage roofs with Humbrol enamel dark grey Number 33. I also took the opportunity to paint the side of the roof gutter at the same time, as these had been finished in the bodyside colour, that gives a bit of an optical illusion of the sides being too high.

Finally, a recap of the history of these sets, there were 36 sets formed wholly of 56ft vehicles and these sets were generically called ‘Cross County sets’. They were constructed between 1906 and 1910 being built originally as 4 coach sets. These sets comprised of the following:

  • Brake Thirds, four compartment to LSWR Drawing 1446, SR diagram 124, 2 per set
  • Composite (1st / 3rd class), seven compartment, to LSWR Drawing 1298, SR Diagram 274
  • Third LSWR Drawing 1302, SR Diagram 17, 8 compartment, (The all Thirds were originally introduced as 2nd / 3rd Composites but rebranded to all Thirds with no structural change by the end of 1919)
The Diagram 274 Composite

The set numbers were in the ranges 130-151, 253-263 and 311-314 All sets were reduced to three coaches in the mid to late 1930s by the removal of the 8 compartment Third Diagram 17 coaches which became loose stock. At the same time the number of first class compartments in the Composite, Diagram 274 was reduced from 5 to 3 (not a physical alteration just reclassification and change in class banding on the outside of the compartments)
In terms of use, they were seen all over the SW section of the Southern and their duties were pretty well interchangeable with any other 3/4 set. They did not generally run on Brighton or SE section lines, although photographic evidence exists of them running along the south coast to Brighton.
Withdrawal of these sets was completed during 1956/7 Brake Third number LSWR 1520 SR 2975 (ex Set 63 / 146) survives on the Bluebell Railway and Composite number 5065 (ex Set 134) survives on the Kent and East Sussex Railway awaiting restoration.
As was standard LSWR practice not all the coaches had full electrical equipment, i.e. dynamo and battery boxes the others being through wired.

These make up useful pre-grouping type sets for the Western section Southern modeller and are still widely available at retailers such as Kernow Model Rail Centre.

Canute Road Quay, Rolling Stock, Techniques, Workbench, Workbench Witterings

Workbench Witterings#15 Going bananas with a Great Eastern flavour

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It is not often I post about a new Great Eastern ready to run model but this post is about the latest Oxford Rail Great Eastern Railway 10 ton banana van, confused? Read on…

In fact, along with some information courtesy of friend and SR coach and wagon guru Mike King, 100 of these banana vans were transferred to the Southern between 1933 and 1937, along with 225 of LNER origin.

The GER Banana van edges into the shot of an LSWR insulated van. Picture courtesy and copyright M King

The reason was the transfer of banana traffic from Hull to Southampton in 1933 and a return to the Royal Albert Docks in 1937.
The numbers of the ex-GER vans, (I believe to their  Diagram 72) were 632822-632921 and they kept their LNER wagon oxide livery but had “SR” applied in the usual position, over a painted patch but with “NE” in small letters in lower Right Hand corner of each side. The return of these wagons was requested by the LNER on 24/11/37. We have not seen any evidence of SR diagram numbers, but no doubt there was one allocated.  Mike has kindly provided the prototype images seen left.

A GER banana van is shunted by ‘Normandy’ at Southampton

The first shows the right hand end of GER van 632849 at Southampton Docks in 1936 with the painted patch under the ‘R’ and the small ‘NE’ lettering. The second image shows van being shunted by “Normandy” at Southampton Docks in September 1936 so the justification for having at least one on Canute Road Quay is all too obvious.

Oxford rail have released their  OR76BAN001 Oxford Rail GER 10t Banana Van number 632882 in LNER wagon oxide livery, so I  thought it would make a quick and easy livery adaptation. With a cost of only £16.95 at retailers such as Kernow Model Rail Centre this van with its level of detail, especially the underframe, is very good value for money.

The Oxford Rail GER 10T Banana Van out of the box
The nicely detailed underframe noting the two plain brake levers

The only error on this particular model is that it has a plain brake level on both sides, instead of having a Morton Clutch type lever on the [edit] side adjacent to the vacuum brake cylinder, the incorrect plain lever would in fact be taking the brakes off when the lever was pulled down!
Ironically I understand that the OR76GEGV001 Oxford Rail GER 10t Covered Van version has two Morton Clutch style levers!
I have therefore replaced the incorrect brake lever, on the side adjacent to the vacuum cylinder,  with an etched version obtained from Wizard Models.

The van is pretty light and only weighs 30g which is under my preferred approx. 45g for a van of this size. Easing a small screwdriver between the bodyside and the chassis side allows the body to be removed to add some additional weight inside it.

Masked up ready for patching
SR Decals added, brake lever removed

To amend the livery I simply masked around the original NE letters and painted with Precisions Paints P952 ‘Light Brick red’ as when tested I found this to be a better match to the Oxford Rail representation of LNER wagon oxide than the Precision Paints P67 LNER Freight wagon oxide which was much darker.

Normandy in her slightly later guise shunts the finished GER Banana van with an SR Diagram 1478 version at Canute Road Quay

I then applied standard ‘S’ and ‘R’, and the non common user ‘N’ on the bottom plank from HMRS Pressfix SR Wagons transfer sheet 13 and the small ‘NE’ from HMRS Pressfix LNER wagon transfer sheet 12 to complete the relettering.

All in all, despite having to replace the brake lever this has been a quick win addition to the wagon fleet, although it awaits some weathering, for Canute Road Quay and will be something Southern Railways wise slightly different…

Canute Road Quay, Rolling Stock, Techniques, Workbench, Workbench Witterings

Workbench Witterings#14 A quick brake… in 3D a SECR Diagram 1558

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One of those occasions when looking for an item you come across something else purchased a while back and think I should really finish it… The other weekend I found my 3D print, purchased from Simon Dawson’s store on Shapeways (in those days when it was much cheaper than it is now…), of the 6 wheel ex SECR Diagram 1558 20 ton brake van, so I decide it would make a nice quick win project and be one less thing on the things to do one day list/pile…

The D1558 brake van is shunted at Canute Road Quay by an ex LCDR T class 0-6-0t

Forty 6 wheel 20t brake vans were built in 1898 by the South Eastern and Chatham Railway to Diagram 1558, these had an open veranda platform (i.e. with no roof, sides or end rail) at one end and a closed one at the other. In 1910, 50 more were built with close verandas at each end, between 1914 and 1920 the original vans were modified with two closed verandas. These modified vans were identifiable as had double top rails at the rebuilt end only.  All 90 vans entered Southern Railway stock and most passed into British Railways ownership. There were also variations in some of the framing, planking and handrails between the two built versions.

Buffers heads, handrails and lamp irons added
Brass bearings fitted and the ‘T’ section to support the weighted floor is added to the inside of both sides.
A dusting of Halfords plastic primer. The double top rail at the modified closed veranda end can be seen.
Painting and lettering complete, some etched brake gear will be added in due to finish

The one piece 3D print represents one of the first batch as modified with both verandas enclosed and correctly has the double end top rails at one end only. The print is pretty basic but was quite a clean print, has no floor, and is missing some of the fine top corner strapping detail. Handrails and lamp irons are thankfully not part of the print as I would have replaced these if they were. I replaced the printed bufferheads with finer turned metal 13″ versions, drilling the buffer stocks to take the shank.
There is no representation of any brake gear, although its omission is mainly hidden behind the full length stepboards, I will at some stage add some brake gear, once I purchase some suitable etches.

I drilled the axle boxes to take standard brass top hat bearings for Alan Gibson 12mm spoked wheels, wire handrails and lamp irons fashioned from Bambi staples were added. I made a floor from plasticard onto which I added some lead strip to bring the van weight up to approx. 45g to ensure good running. To affix the floor I first glued some plastic ‘T’ section to the inside of the van sides to provide a mounting location.

Following a dust of Halfords plastic primer the van was brush painted with Precision Paints P91 SR Freight Brown and P90 SR Venetian Red for the ends. Lettering and numbers were added using HMRS Pressfix SR Wagons transfer sheet 13 and then give a spray coat of Railmatch satin varnish to seal. Glazing for the end windows was glued into place before the floor was affixed.

For the time being standard slim tension lock couplings have been fitted using Peco Parkside P34 mounting blocks. It is now added the queue of items to be weathered.

I am sure there is potential for these vans to become a ready to run model one day, as interest in pre-grouping rolling stock is on the increase, hence this project being done as a bit of quick win.

 

Canute Road Quay, Fisherton Sarum, Rolling Stock, Techniques, Workbench, Workbench Witterings

Workbench Witterings #8 Taking a ‘brake’ from wagons rolling of the workbench

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As I advised in my recent Covid, exhibitions, mental health and life changes post, in an attempt to restore my modelling mojo whilst on furlough I started to build a number of the wagon kits that I had added to the to do later pile over the last few years.

The Diagram 1410 Covered Goods Wagons awaiting painting
The crispness of the Cambrian Models mouldings can be clearly seen in with this Diagram 1316 open
The finished painted and lettered wagons in pre and post 1936 liveries.
The Diagram 1426 shows of its height against a low roofed Diagram 1410

The kits were all from the excellent Cambrian Models range and comprised of:

  • 4 off ex LSWR 10t Covered Goods Wagon to SR Diagram 1410
  • 2 off ex SECR 10t Covered Goods Wagon to SR Diagram 1426
  • 1 off ex LSWR 8 plank 12t Open Goods Wagon to SR Diagram 1316

These kits are of an excellent standard, with crisp mouldings and assemble quite easily once you have got your head around some of the various options, mainly around the type and number of brakes fitted. As usual I refer to the bibles for Southern wagon builders the “Illustrated History of Southern Wagons” the four volumes are now sadly out of print but are worth tracking down if you don’t already have access to copies.

Although I follow the well written and detailed instructions; I tend to replace the plastic buffer heads with metal replacements from the Alan Gibson range or similar to give additional durability. I also add some cut lead sheet to the underside of the chassis to bring the weight up to approximately 30 grams (around one ounce for older readers) as this improves running. I always fit brass top hat pin point bearings into the axle boxes and use Alan Gibson wheels.
I tend to purchase these kits, wheels etc. either at shows, when we could, or online from H&A Models whom always provide a friendly and efficient service and in these times it’s always good to help and continue to support such excellent traders.

The Hornby Diagram 1543 ‘New’ van showing the incorrect brown and oversize Tare lettering height
The paint dries in the oven
B4 No. 82 runs around the two repainted Hornby Diagram 1543 brake vans.
A very busy scene at Canute Road Quay as all the wagon builds have come to visit

In addition to the above wagons, whilst on a roll, I have finally got round to repainting the two Hornby ex LSWR 20t Warner ‘New’ diagram 1543 brake vans that arrived at the start of year. Whist excellent models the SR versions in this first batch were not finished in the correct shade of SR Brown, also the Tare lettering was incorrectly the same size as the wagon number when it should be smaller. A nice touch by Hornby  is that they provide a separate beautifully printed plate for the “Not to work between Tonbridge and West St. Leonards via Battle” in addition to it being pre printed on the wagon side, so I have affixed these to the repaints.

For all my wagons I tend to follow the same painting process:

  • Firstly for the kit builds I give a dusting of Halford plastic primer from an aerosol ‘rattle’ can
  • I then brush paint the base colour, I prefer to paint two thin coats rather than one heavy coat.
  • I always help dry the paintwork in a warmed oven (set to less than 50 deg and the door kept open, luckily, I don’t need to ask anyone permission first!).
  • In most cases I use lettering from the HMRS Pressfix transfer range and I use a mix of pre (large SR) and post 1936 (small SR) styles to give some variety.
  • Finally, I apply Railmatch Satin Varnish from a rattle can to fix the lettering and even the finish.

Well I said finally, but actually the wagons now await degrees of weathering that I tend to do as a batch and still have to do so for those shown here.

 

Fisherton Sarum, HW&DMRS, Rolling Stock, Techniques, Workbench, Workbench Witterings

Workbench Witterings #1 A 45T steam crane and a green Van ‘B’

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As promised a few posts ago when I first opened the box on my Wild Boar Models  45T Ransomes and Rapier Steam Breakdown Crane I thought it was about time I started “a whats on my workbench” type series of posts, so welcome to the first of my “Workbench Witterings“. I am sure I am similar to many modellers in that I have a large number of both unstarted and or unfinished projects on the go,  so hopefully this series of posts might encourage me to actually get on with completing a few of the outstanding things currently on the go…

The Wild Boar Models 45T Ransomes and Rapier SR steam crane is nearly complete, just the rigging to go. I have modelled number 1561S

First up then is progress on the above mentioned 45T steam crane. Following the comprehensive instructions for this kit has been pretty easy and all the parts, a mix of 3D printed and brass etchings have good together really well and enabled painting to commence. Where the parts needed to simply clip in place or be held with brass wire acting as hinge pins such as between the weight relieving trucks and the main carriage or the crane body and the jib the they have done so very easily. The rest of the items including the etched brass detailing parts such as handwheels and cast name and information plates have been attached with superglue. The components were then primed using the the trusted Halfords plastic primer rattle can and then top coat brush painted using Humbrol matt 32 to represent the SR Grey livery as first carried by  the SR steam cranes before they became black in early British Railways days. I took the opportunity last week to give her a test run on the High Wycombe and District MRS test track and all was fine, although a little additional weight has now been added to the underside of the main carriage truck. All that is needed to complete is the rigging from the fine cotton supplied as part of the kit.

The Hornby Van B is now in malachhite green as number 231. I have also replaced the roof ventilators with white metal castings.

Secondly is the repaint of a Hornby Bogie Van B from its original blue livery to malachite green, embarrassingly looking back at this blog post here I actually started this at the end of last year! Before reassembling the Van B I took the opportunity to replace Hornby’s representation of the roof vents. Although these are separate mouldings  I felt they looked a little flat so replaced them with some suitable cast white metal ventilators from my coaching stock bits box (but I think there were originally obtained from Southern Pride Models) and then repainted the roof. She now awaits some weathering before she enters my operational fleet on Fisherton Sarum.

Now to kick off / complete a few more projects so watch this space…

 

 

 

 

 

Fisherton Sarum, Rolling Stock, Talking Stock, Techniques

Talking Stock #11 A 40 ton load of ballast, SR dia 1774 hoppers

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One of my signature trains on Fisherton Sarum is a rake of Southern Railway Diagram 1774 40 Ton hopper ballast wagons and ex SECR ballast plough brake van. These hoppers were converting from Lima “Sealion/Seacow” a long time before either Bachmann or Hornby produced their own version of the later BR built hoppers. The Bachman model being the riveted style, rather than the Hornby welded version, could now be used for this conversion.

N1 class no. 1822 heads a rake of SR dia 1774 40t ballast hoppers from Meldon Quarry

Bogie 40 ton hopper wagons were first introduced by the LSWR in 1903/4, built by G & R Turner of Nottingham. This led to a number of versions prior to the introduction of the SR dia 1774 which along with SR dia 1775 that had cast style bogies, were the forerunner of the later BR built Walrus, Sealion and Seacow hoppers. Variations include brake equipment, the angle of the hopper sides, hardly visible to the naked eye, and some very minor body differences which I am more than happy to accept with a very small amount of modellers licence as life would be too short otherwise.

SR Diagram 1774 40T Ballast Hopper in pre-1936 livery.

For my conversions I used Diamond bogies available from Ratio for these models along with Keen Maygib disc wheels. These ratio bogies provide a reasonable representation of the type fitted to the SR dia 1774 if I was doing this conversion again I would utilise the Cambrian Kit bogies specific for the Dia 1774 and they also produce the correct cast style bogies to allow the SR dia 1775 to be represented. Cambrian also produce complete kits for these two prototypes but they are not the easiest of kits to build!

SR Diagram 1774 40T Ballast Hopper in post-1936 livery. Note the smaller SR lettering.

I carefully removed the two vacuum cylinders and associated mouldings and repositioned then centrally at each end between the stanchions supporting the door operating hand wheels. I added an additional horizontal cross member, from microstrip, between the central two hand rail posts at each end which provided the top fixing point for the vacuum hose (white metal castings from ABS). Cast white metal buffers from ABS (SR Brake Van Buffers) were used to replace the later BR style

The ex SECR Ballast Plough built from a old Jidenco etched brass kit. Apologies for the white roof against a white background, weathering is still needed.

I painted using an aerosol of Halfords red oxide plastic primer which is of course the correct final colour as these hopper wagons were allocated to the engineers department they were painted in red oxide with black under frames. As some of the SR dia 1774 hoppers were introduced in 1935 some examples were seen with the pre 1936 style large 18” SR initials . Eventually these were replaced by the post 1936 smaller 4” style lettering in the bottom right hand corner.

The N1 once again on the Meldon turn heads west passing the Fisherton Sarum shed. occasionally this turn sees a Maunsell S15 or Drummond 700 locomotive.

In common with all Engineers Department wagons the prefix E D to the wagon number was used. HMRS ‘Pressfix’ transfers were used to produce models in both Pre and post 1936 lettering style. Weathering was applied with rust highlights, stone dust colour spray from the top and track colour from the base to give the finish I required.