Oxford Rail LNER Cattle Wagon . Rebuilding guide.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

That's a fine picture and I wish I had a hard print to study with a magnifying glass! But I would like to make a key point, well covered by "one swallow doesn't make summer". Random sampling of a mixture can show all sorts of variations and a single sample simply shows a single event, but not how often it happened.

It can be an extremely rare event as my sample of 23 pictures so far (in Big Four and BR days) shows. A 24th photograph does not change the overall picture, that LNER cattle trucks were in a minority.

Note that both of the recognisable LNER 1927 designs are manually braked, which were common user; it's why so many other companies' cattle trucks - of which there were many more - dominate service pictures wherever you look, LNER and elsewhere.

[mick b]

Hornby show what the Cattle vans should have aspired too.


http://www.hornby.com/uk-en/news/the-en ... y-updates/

[adrianbs]

Hi All Golly! the Hornby one even has a vacuum cylinder, that's a novel idea for a vacuum braked wagon.
Unlike the LNER you can easily turn the Bulleid version into a Vac piped only wagon as the first 101 out of a total of 401 were unfitted but alas if you remove the cylinder it will not be usable on an LNER wagon as it is the peculiar Bulleid design. The last 150 were built with B prefix numbers. Watch out for buffer design as at least 3 types were used and it appears that some supposedly tabled as Vacuum fitted were either built without or lost their Vacuum cylinders. In view of the fact that the similar design Bulleid Vacuum cylinders under early builds of his coaches were replaced early on, it may be that a similar fate befell the cattles but they just remained as piped instead. S 52318 seen in 1962 appears to be one such.

I just hate to have to say this however as the batch numbered 52418-52518 includes 52478 which is the wagon chosen by Hornby and that is the batch WITHOUT a vacuum cylinder. The old old story "check twice cut once" or rather "Check twice, only make one tampo print platen" OR did some of this batch get built with Vacuum cylinders ??

[D2100]

Interesting to see that a thread specifically headed 'rebuilding guide' has wandered away from practical modelmaking and into the same waters that got the previous thread locked. Hey ho, in for a penny...

...but alas if you remove the cylinder it will not be usable on an LNER wagon as it is the peculiar Bulleid design.

Why would anybody do that, Adrian Are we really such pennypinchers in this hobby that we can't source a vac cylinder without robbing another model?

Down to either cost (which I doubt very much) or very poor research . It looks like they used one photo/drawing and not much else as a guide .

(my bold)

Not unprecedented, and I believe Hornby did exactly the same with their Blue Spot pattern fish van and (probably more to the point) BR iron ore tippler. It does smack of naivety to assume that a wagon of all things would never be subject to design improvements or in-service modifications.

As you say though Mick, the forthcoming Hornby cattle and coke look superb, and both cater for build variants, which to me is a sign of very welcome change at Margate (or wherever Hornby HQ now is).

- Guessing how or why a manufacturer gets it wrong is, as the saying goes, a fool's errand. ... but it matters not - we should be assessing what is being placed before us, full stop.
.

And there Steve, we agree. I believe that the ascribing of motive to what Oxford have done, and all that goes with it, is what needlessly raises the temperature in these threads. An error is an error; there could be the best or worst reason in the world for its having been made - but in cold hard factual terms, it's still an error. We as individuals only have to decide whether to live with it, alter it, or reject it.

[adrianbs]

Hi All Bearing in mind the apparent attitude taken by so many modellers that they would rather buy OR 7 plank POWs than spend a little more on the far more accurate Bachmann "Blue Riband" versions, it would appear to me that many enthusiasts are indeed of the "penny pinching" variety. I am sure most purchasers of the OR cattle wagon will not even bother to buy a vacuum cylinder to correct one of the more obvious errors, let alone the extra costs of correcting or altering other problems. Making a vacuum cylinder out of scrap, at no cost, would seem to be well outside the capabilities claimed by many contributors.

[D2100]

What of it though, Adrian? What does it matter - really, actually matter?

It's not your way and it's not mine - but this is a *hobby*. There's no one prescribed way to go about it. If folk want to improve their own standards, they will; sneering at them and berating them will just have the opposite effect.

[Horsetan]

Adrian

You keep mentioning your range , for the second time where can you buy them and what is in the range please? I am sure lots of people as well as me would like to know!!.... .

Only from him, and only by traditional mail order (this means writing letters and posting them) or at shows. None of this online lark.

It's a massive range - think he'll bother to list it all here

[adrianbs]

Hi All My business is currently closed down on health grounds whilst I receive treatment for bowel cancer and other problems so I am afraid that until later this year I will not be doing any mail order or shows.
Sorry about that, just hope that I will be able to continue later on.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Very sorry to hear that Adrian. Best wishes in your recovery.

My apologies also gentlemen for steering the conversation somewhat back to the previous one (albeit unintentionally).

I agree the Hornby cattle and coke wagons look superb. Some painted examples appeared over the weekend and I intend to take advantage of the multi pack cattle wagons for my mostly implausible (but fun to run) cattle train.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

I'm glad that Adrian has declared where he stands. Many of us had noticed the cessation in trading going back a year and wish him well.

Now, where were we? Oh yes, rebuilding OR's vague impression of an LNER 1927 AVB cattle truck from 9ft to 10ft WB, which is essential for the BR period. I've added two more pictures on my w/s (see link below) for the BR period.

- The one from 1948 shows 4 cattle trucks, three ex-LMS and one ex-LNER - except that it's ex-GNR 10ft manually braked: these lasted well into the 1950s (and there is a D&S kit). CORRECTION: This has now been identified as the almost identical LNER 1924 cattle truck, which were built on the same 9th WB as the 1927 ones, and to the same proportion of 2:1, AVB:manual brake. It's proving hard to tell which one this was, or indeed, if it had been converted to 10ft WB. It's going to call for some clever calculation of perspective and the surrounding wagons.

- The picture from 1960 shows 10 GWR/BR and LMS designs and, wait for it, an ex-LNER 10ft AVB.

So I'm afraid to say it again for BR-period modellers: forget the OR model unless you are prepared to rebuild it, or, more easily, opt for the Parkside or D&S kits.

[John Palmer]

I do like that new picture of a Patriot at Berkhamsted in 1948. I think the fourth vehicle is a LNWR large cattle wagon, so not the LMS design, but that of one of its constituents.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

Thanks, John, I realised that but you can't always say all you know for fear of overload and not seeing the wood for the trees, especially in an LNER topic where pre-Grouping origin of other Big Four companies' vehicles is outside the remit.

Meanwhile, I shall step up my use of "-owned" rather than "design": mea culpa, here. All this will come to the surface when I deal with cattle traffic across the whole of the country. As part of which I am compiling a compendium of all known cattle trucks, some of which are devilishly similar, like the LNWR and LSWR, for example (where the only clue in a train picture is the number of bars).

[John Palmer]

Indeed, I was nearly seduced into thinking it might be a LSW vehicle until I noticed the number of bars was wrong. Apologies for straying off-topic on a subject of much interest to me, and I too will take this opportunity to express the hope that Adrian's treatment is fully succesful.

[60117 Bois Roussel]

Good news: I can now say with confidence that the LNER cattle truck in the 1948 Berkhampstead picture is the GNR-based LNER design of 1924, converted to 10ft WB. The jury is still out on whether it is AVB or manually braked & and through piped. It is not the only photographic evidence of this design (and the preceding GNR design on 10ft WB) to run in BR days, with both 9ft and 10ft WB and AVB and the relevance to this thread is that BR-period modellers have four proven choices:

- rebuild the semi-fictitious model from OR, correcting the bodysides and underframe to 10ft WB.
- modify the Parkside kit with 10ft WB and AVB.
- the GNR version on 10ft WB per the D&S kit. Modifying the end stanchions from 4 to 2.
- ditto, converted to the LNER 1924 design, build with AVB and either 9ft WB as-built or converted to 10ft WB.

I should add something that is being missed in this debate - that in all four cases distinctive triangular strengthening plates were added over the lower end of the diagonal bracing, and in most cases, rectangular ones (some with a corner clipped) at the top end as well.

The upshot is that, because the LNER was so out of kilter with developments elsewhere, there is no simple choice for BR-period modellers seeking to run an ex-LNER cattle truck. All four options require modification, only the degree varies. Given that in BR days LNER designs were eclipsed and eliminated by LMS, GWR, SR and BR standard designs, my advice is to go there first and only when you have 5-10 of them, depending on whether early or late 1950s, think about an ex-LNER one!

PS - I have added two pictures to the w/s regarding the GNR and 1924 designs in BR days (link below).

[adrianbs]

Hi Everyone, Does anyone know any details about the NER design cattle trucks that were upgraded, presumably??, by the LNER to full vacuum brake. Tatlow 4b shows one such on page 288 which uses standard LNER components for the brakegear. This differs from the NER version of fitted underframe in various ways. Were these upgraded wagons part of the 902 mentioned by Peter T. and were they confined just to the LNER batch built in 1924 or extended to ex NER wagons as well. Are there any figures for how many were dealt with and did they receive a new Diagram number?? The LNER built 605 of these in 1923 with unfitted 2 shoe Morton brakes and if many of these were included in the upgrade program this materially alters the numbers of LNER standard design wagons that were converted. Looking forward to hearing from you.