Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

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65447
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by 65447 »

60117 Bois Roussel wrote:So if you are modelling the LNER in the 1930s, you need to get 51 other types, mostly non-LNER, to sit alongside a single D.39.
That's the ripest mis-application of statistical distributions I have seen since reading 'Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics' for my degree...

That is the equivalent of saying that there were 5,000 different types of locomotives and only 1,250 of those were LNER and so you need to have 3 non-LNER locomotives for every one that is LNER on your LNER-based layout.

Distributions were heavily skewed towards use of own-company stock and the geographical distribution would be such as to cluster the stock nearest to home territory.
60117 Bois Roussel

Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by 60117 Bois Roussel »

Distributions were heavily skewed towards use of own-company stock and the geographical distribution would be such as to cluster the stock nearest to home territory.
As it happens, I am a trained statistician and had quite a chuckle at your colourful thoughts. You're missing the whole point. Locomotive distribution was skewed, and so were the carriages.

But from the Great War, and more so from WWII, goods stock became common user. This point was being illustrated as far back as the 1970s and '80s in "Keeping the Balance" articles by Peter Tatlow and Don Rowland. On my w/s I have shown a heap of pictures which further illustrate this with particular reference to cattle trucks. I have plenty more. Myths among modellers are notoriously hard to shift but this one was laid to rest, ooh, forty years ago?
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by kimballthurlow »

The older model train manufacturers were rather immersed in what was going on around them in the real world.

In 1938 and on to the late 1940s, Hornby Dublo made tin plate cattle wagons lettered for LMS GW and SR.
For possibly a variety of reasons, which are germane to this thread, they did not bother to sell an LNER version.
I look forward to this thread being closed.

regards
Kimball
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by Hatfield Shed »

60117 Bois Roussel wrote:...But from the Great War, and more so from WWII, goods stock became common user. This point was being illustrated as far back as the 1970s and '80s in "Keeping the Balance" articles by Peter Tatlow and Don Rowland...
Further to which it is hardly worth bothering over such rarities as cattle wagons, when this aspect is still not understood regarding the common user general merchandise opens and vans that carried the large majority of the country's non-mineral traffic trade during the Big Four period. Any number of otherwise interesting layouts seen over the years present a distorted image in this respect.
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by jwealleans »

Now there's a theme worth developing.
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by john coffin »

It is certainly true that too many people model quite un-prototypical trains from the pre Nationalisation era, but that is mainly because of the lack of proper photographic evidence. It is also due to the fact that one set of documents which were discarded almost monthly were the traffic documents, by which I mean, Platform working diagrams for each station and passenger stock, and also goods working timetables giving some idea of the stock on various types of goods trains. Fast, Express, Milk trains, mixed freight etc all would have had a document specifying what and where and to whom?

There must still be some around surely? but so far, they seem rather like LNER cattle wagons, oft talked of, but little seen :roll:

Over the last few years, I have been adding to my photographic collection, and it is difficult to find many really useful things like tender or bunker
rear detail, or carriage rooves, or views of complete goods trains that you can actually inspect carefully and try to decide what it on the train.
My best one, but not really greatly prototypical is a GNR 4-4-0 drifting with a 7 wagon train. Great for modelling, but not really true to all trains.

Paul
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by 65447 »

60117 Bois Roussel wrote:But from the Great War, and more so from WWII, goods stock became common user. This point was being illustrated as far back as the 1970s and '80s in "Keeping the Balance" articles by Peter Tatlow and Don Rowland. On my w/s I have shown a heap of pictures which further illustrate this with particular reference to cattle trucks. I have plenty more. Myths among modellers are notoriously hard to shift but this one was laid to rest, ooh, forty years ago?
But Cattle Wagons were passenger-rated stock for a specific traffic (except when temporarily reassigned for non-bovine uses at peak traffic times e.g. fruit harvest) - a bit like Pigeon Vans one might say.

I have a photograph taken in BR days (mid-to late 1950s?) on the GE Section that includes an LNER Cattle Wagon in a line of other Cattle Wagons. Unfortunately it is not possibly to definitively identify the other Cattle Wagon types because they are on the road behind a line of 16T Mineral Wagons; the LNER Cattle Wagon happens to sit conveniently in the gap between the Mineral Wagon that has been cut out by a pair of shunting horses (the principal subject of the photograph) and the remaining Mineral Wagons. It is identical to that in Peter Tatlow's 'LNER Wagons - An Illustrated Overview' plate 265 - it must be one of the rare 10' 0" wheelbase versions because it is marked 'XP'.

What are the chances of that then?
60117 Bois Roussel

Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by 60117 Bois Roussel »

But Cattle Wagons were passenger-rated stock for a specific traffic (except when temporarily reassigned for non-bovine uses at peak traffic times e.g. fruit harvest) - a bit like Pigeon Vans one might say.

[1950s photo] must be one of the rare 10' 0" wheelbase versions because it is marked 'XP'.
Cattle wagons were goods stock.

The LNER 10ft WB cattle wagon was not rare in that it became the "standard" after elimination/conversion of 9ft ones started in the 1930s, followed in 1937 by new construction (=700+). Or do you mean rarely seen?
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by Dave »

Interesting info on the good old bendy LNER cattle wagon and how long they lasted, maybe the non modelling info
needs transferring to a traffic thread ?.

I came across 2 interesting photos at the weekend.

Photo A, shows a ferry van next to a SR cattle wagon No.2617 coupled to a NER dia K1 cattle wagon
No.37994. the SR wagon is through piped with maybe 3 link couplings, the NER wagon is fitted and has
another pipe, (Steam or Westinghouse?), screw couplings, 9'-6" wb and has N branding (not common user) and lettered
medium, with the label clip on the end stanchion, rated at 10 tons.
The photo is dated on the back circa 1936-39.
Both wagons are empty.

Photo B, shows 3 cattle wagons, part wagon unknown LMS type no number coupled to a NER dia K1 cattle wagon
No.85720 coupled to an unknown GER cattle wagon. The LMS wagon is unfitted but through piped with
screw couplings. The NER wagon is unfitted, with screw couplings no through pipe, lettered medium, has no
N branding so common user, rated at 10 tons, 9'-6" wb. The GER wagon is unfitted no through pipe, screw couplings no
N branding, lettered large, rated at 10 tons.
The photo is dated on the back circa 1936-39.
All wagons are empty.
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by jwealleans »

You'll be bringing the ferry van photo to Wakey for my perusal, I trust?
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Dave
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by Dave »

Hi JW.

They are not mine, you can just see the little hut bit on the end and it's white, thats all you can see of it.

The pics will be going to El Wako and I will give you a peep.
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by drmditch »

I'm just completing a small rake of LNER (10'wb) and LMS Dia 1661 cattle wagons. (Thanks to Mr Banks and others who have posted on this thread.)

I keep browsing through my library, and finding pictures of different vehicles at different times and places. However, I am still uncertain about the prevalence and date of cross-strips on the roof.

For both LMS and LNER vehicles the only photographs I can find showing these strips are in BR days.

Does anyone have any more information?

(Additional note - there always seem to be four strips - never just the two provided by Oxford.)
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by jwealleans »

I haven't put those onto any of my cattle vans, but recently found a picture dated 1939 of a V2 heading north from Grantham with over 40 LNER cattle trucks on the back, all of which have the strips.
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by 1H was 2E »

With regard to the correct representation on model layouts of the proportion and types of wagons to reflect the prototype may I point out that this might not be straightforward.
In the FRS section we used to get those statistics of wagon utilisation which was pretty dire (this was pre TOPS, of course). These were expressed, from memory, as number of days per loaded journey (or possibly, number of journeys per year). My point is that these varied widely between different wagon types; for instance, lowfits which we required for a regular flow of "invalid carriages" were loaded as soon as an empty wagon arrived but many coal wagons spent the summer idle, and wagons involved with the steel business had a cyclical use.
So interestingly it seems to me that the mix of wagon types in sidings should be different from that on trains, with sidings for WO (waiting orders) wagons.
I don't think that cattle wagons similar to the model were ever passenger rated; other railways did have wagons for passenger rated cattle traffic but these were for high value animals such as prize bulls and show cows, which presumably attracted a higher rate. Last one of these I saw was in a loading dock Aberdeen station, possibly connected with the eponymous Angus.
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Re: Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

Post by Dave »

I've looked at the photo's and none of the wagons have roof strips.
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