GNRI four and six wheel coaches

[Northroader]

Just looking ahead at what I could be gainfully employed on in the future, and sizing up options available. I was wondering about an old GNR branch, pre 1900 setting, with a minimal amount of rolling stock. It struck me that I’ve seen hardly any photos of passenger trains for then, is there any information around at what Dundalk was doing before the bogie coaches were introduced? There’s some nice 3D prints produced for what was coming out of Doncaster, which could possibly be tweaked, main difference as far as I can see being a single radius roof instead of a “cove” roof.

[jhb171achill]

Go for six-wheelers, 27ft - 30ft length. While the GNR(I) had nothing whatsoever to do with the British GNR, by sheer coincidence it not only shared a name, but due to at one time a common engineer, similarities in some loco and coach designs.

The long wheelbase type of four wheelers, with "modern" 1890s-style body shapes, never ran in Ireland in general and certaintly not on the GNR, so the best thing is Hattons six-wheelers in the LNER or GNR teak livery. The sort of typical make up will be similar to that on other rural Irish lines, namely (in the case of the GNR) typically something like a full 6w brake, a first, second and third, or more likely a third and a 1st / 2nd composite.

Lines like Cootehill and Belturbet had mixed trains too, so add an old GNR brake van, a van or two, one open, and a cattle wagon or two.

[Niles]

There's a preserved GNR Dundalk-built six wheeler awaiting restoration at Downpatrick, albeit on a MGWR underframe but should give you an idea:

https://www.downrail.co.uk/rolling-stock/unidentified-gnr-six-wheeled-carriage/ 

[Northroader]

I was looking at a shot of Knockmore Junction, and trying to work out the composition:

they look like six wheelers, and there’s a full brake, and a six compartment third, (thanks, Niles, just like the one you’ve picked out) then two others. No oil lamp chimneys visible, was the GNR using gas or electric lights by then?

Edited June 22, 2023 by Northroader

[Northroader]

Thanks for your reply, Jonathan, I picked up on your mention of Cootehill, did an enquiry, and lo and behold! Six wheelers on the GNR in 1939! A composite lav., plus a full brake with an open door. Just the sort of train that’s needed:

 

[Northroader]

It’s fun when you start digging, isn’t it? Here’s the carriage sidings in the middle of Amiens Street in 1890, rather a cloudy image but given it's under a mucky old roof.. Definately oil lamps in use back then.

The nearest coach is four compartments with a central luggage locker, composite or first? Then a ventilated van, which must be vac fitted for perishable traffic, then a six compartment third.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Northroader

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Thanks for your reply, Jonathan, I picked up on your mention of Cootehill, did an enquiry, and lo and behold! Six wheelers on the GNR in 1939! A composite lav., plus a full brake with an open door. Just the sort of train that’s needed:

 

An interesting thing about GNR six wheelers is that uniquely in Ireland, many had no lower footstep .

And yes, that Knockmore photo is as I suggested - full van, followed by a third, and the other two will inevitably be a second and a first, or another third (especially if it’s off the Antrim line) and a 1st / 2nd composite.

 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by jhb171achill

[Northroader]

But when you look at the Knockmore and Amiens Street pictures, 1890-1910 era, there are lower footboards visible back then. There must have been a purge some time later.

[leslie10646]

Bob

Trying to be helpful, so I rang Richard McLachlan and interrupted his lunch at Konstanz on the Bodensee!

He has scanned loads of GN six wheelers, so he'll have a look when he's in front of his computer this evening ......

[jhb171achill]

2 hours ago, Northroader said:

But when you look at the Knockmore and Amiens Street pictures, 1890-1910 era, there are lower footboards visible back then. There must have been a purge some time later.

Correct. MOST had them, but just some didn’t. Apologies if I implied none had double! 

4 hours ago, Northroader said:

The nearest coach is four compartments with a central luggage locker, composite or first? Then a ventilated van, which must be vac fitted for perishable traffic, then a six compartment third.

Yes, it’s a first with a luggage compartment. The GSWR & MGWR had similar, though obviously if very different body design.

 

 

[Northroader]

Just picked up a drawing of the equivalent Doncaster built van, which can’t be far away from the ones in the pictures, and should give a basis:

Thank you, Leslie, you’ve got me imagining someone at the side of a lake with this marvellous view, sipping a glass of sparkling wine as his lunch goes down, when the phone goes…

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Northroader

[leslie10646]

Three GNR Six Wheel drawings en route to you by e-mail.

[Northroader]

Moral of this is: join the I.R.R.S ! Thanks, Leslie and Richard McLachlan, just wish I could produce the models as fast as the drawings came!

Edited June 22, 2023 by Northroader

[Mayner]

There is a lot to be said to be starting with a clear slate, starting a new layout/totally different from your GSWR and MGWR modelling

Although I made a number of fresh starts, I always find it difficult to let go the (clutter) of the past still holding on to my American N gauge, British outline EM collection over 15 years since I was active in those scales, while I struggle to find time for my 4mm Irish and large scale American modelling.

The forthcoming Accurascale "Buck" has me tempted to get rid of my Irish stuff and model an East Anglian coastal byeway minimum space shelf layout, big sky background single loco, 1-2 ex-GER Tram coaches, doz open wagons and vans, some Peco Bullhead track and points

Will you be continuing in O or down-sizing to 4mm/OO?

[Northroader]

Well, John, moving to a much smaller house showed me I had to offload many finished models, and scrap what was lying around in unfinished layouts, and this has worked very well. I’ve met a lot of new faces, who I now regard as friends, and I feel my models have all gone to good homes. The items that are going with me all need finishing. One thing that has emerged is that everyone says go on with what you’re doing, so whilst there should be a clean slate, in effect I’ll need to have a micro layout, which is ‘common user’, like a small theatre with frequent scene shifting, even if the track will look odd in some applications.

There’s some lovely models appearing in 4mm scale, but I’m afraid 7mm has become ingrained, and I’ll stick with it. I think I need to follow the example of the two Daves on here, and go for the proper gauge for this projected GNR idea, meaning two micro layouts rather than one. (Problems with the boss here, I think!)

Good luck with the 4mm East Anglian idea, the one that caught my interest recently is “Lockdown Fen”.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/159751-lockdown-fen-4mm-wuish/

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Northroader

[Northroader]

I’m starting to wonder about the initial idea of cannibalising English GNR coaches. The drawing I placed for the 29’ luggage van is probably the best chance, given a new roof. The main difference for six wheel thirds is the English GNR used five compartments, Dundalk went for six, as per the one at Downpatrick. The drawing for a U2 diagram coach shows a body 30’ long and 8’9” wide, so six compartments allows less than 5’ per compartment between partitions, with two wooden benches facing each other, very restricted legroom, and five a side seating to manage sixty people in the coach. Not ideal travelling conditions! The construction requires square cut windows, and the mouldings covering the panels can be strips meeting at right angles, no rounded corners, which is a very handy way of going on, but there’s still very many cuts to make, so a full third loses its attraction. Composites and brake thirds sound more enticing.

The drawing shows three oil lamps per carriage, symmetrically placed above pairs of compartments, whereas the Amiens Street picture shows six oil pots on the roof, one per compartment.

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Northroader

[Northroader]

Just looking at the leading coach of the Cootehill train, I must acknowledge Leslie McA’s help with a drawing, which shows it as a R2 tricomposite. The body is 30’ long and 8’9” wide, with a 10’1.5”+10’1.5” wheelbase. Near end there’s two third compartments, with a more generous spacing of 5’9.75” between partitions. Then there’s two side by side lavatories, with a spacing of 3’5.5”, followed by a first class compartment, and then a second class, both compartments having 6’10.75” space between partitions.

The lav’s are reached by short passageways, that for the thirds being the far side of the coach. I just show a sketch of the arrangement, as it’s nearly a corridor, but not quite.

As to the carriage lighting, I’ve read that the GNR was a pioneer in introducing electric lights, which accounts for the bare roofs in some pictures. I think I’ll stick to the oil lamp chimneys for my model, giving it a pre 1900 look.

You'll appreciate as it caters for all three classes, it just needs a brake van, and you’ve got a full train, so it’s just what’s wanted for a very short branch line terminus, and will be down on my must do modelling list.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Northroader

[KMCE]

Bob,

Some nice ideas being teased out here, but for me you have solved a problem I wasn't aware I had. 

I have built/printed a model of a DSER 1st/Lav/3rd - No. 30D, and I was wondering how various compartments, excepting those next to the lav accessed it.  This coach has 2 x 1st class and 3 x 3rd class compartments, so slightly larger than your coach at 34ft.

Of course the answer is corridors, however I wasn't aware 6-wheelers had internal corridors, but your sketch makes eminent sense.

You mentioned access to some drawings, if so, would you have an idea of the internal corridor dimension? 

It looks like I will need to re-model the interior and re-print, not a biggie, but it's worth the time to get it right!

 

Ken

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, KMCE said:

Bob,

Some nice ideas being teased out here, but for me you have solved a problem I wasn't aware I had. 

I have built/printed a model of a DSER 1st/Lav/3rd - No. 30D, and I was wondering how various compartments, excepting those next to the lav accessed it.  This coach has 2 x 1st class and 3 x 3rd class compartments, so slightly larger than your coach at 34ft.

Of course the answer is corridors, however I wasn't aware 6-wheelers had internal corridors, but your sketch makes eminent sense.

You mentioned access to some drawings, if so, would you have an idea of the internal corridor dimension? 

It looks like I will need to re-model the interior and re-print, not a biggie, but it's worth the time to get it right!

 

Ken

A handful did - the MGWR even had several (but only several) with a full length side corridor. Overall, the NORM in all 6-wheelers of all classes on all railways was just a row of non-connected compartments, sometimes with just the central two sharing a jax. The exceptions, where they existed, were a fascinating mix, though.

I am unaware of the internal layout of any DSER ones having any sort of mini-corridor. jhb171Senior never recalled any having it when he commuted on the Harcourt St line in the late 1920s and the 1930s. he DID recall, though, that (like the GNR and the MGWR at the very least), some of the DSER stock only had half-height internal partitions - which schoolboys used to climb over into the next compartment....

That's a fantastic looking model, by the way! 0 or 00 scale?

 

[Northroader]

Looking at the drawing, Ken, and there’s no dimension for corridor width. Typically, they could be as narrow as two feet, but you think of the doors in your house as 2’6”, so somewhere in that block hole. Getting off the boat at Waterford as a kid, and getting into  a 5’3” coach, I thought the corridors seemed a bit more generous than a British coach because of the wider bodies, but that could be just me, and having the internal doors hinged rather than sliding.

As Jonathan says, a lot of six wheelers with lav’s just placed them centrally in the coach, and only the first compartment on each side could access them. In these cases the partition between the two slanted diagonally, so the entrance doors were both placed centrally in the compartment.

The fact that the bogs on your coach are placed between the two classes implies everyone could have access, not just the firsts, with a similar passageway arrangement to the GNR.

The one thing about your coach is that you’d need lighting and ventilation in them, so with two side by side loos the gas lights and shell vents would be offset from the centre, the more so with the water tank sticking up in the middle, and this might be worth checking.

Presumably such a vehicle would appear on through journeys to Waterford, and not show up on the Bray services, where was less chance of getting taken short., well, not til you’re 85 anyway!

[Northroader]

Dredging round for old coaches, and I found an interesting one in the background of one of the “Smug Mug” loco collection. (Edit: here’s a link:  

 

it’s a six wheel first and second composite, but there’s some variations which suggest it’s one built early to the general standardised appearance of these coaches. Things which are different to me are the axleguards are placed in front of the solebars, with the springs behind them, and the louvre ventilators above the quarter lights. The body panels look as if there’s the step in levels between the lower and upper panels, but the moulding strips are simpler, just round the windows and on the waist strip. I’m guessing at a body length of around 27’. It’s very like the third vehicle in this train:

Edited July 22, 2023 by Northroader

[jhb171achill]

The GNR, like the BCDR and CBSCR, seems to have had a liking for non-standard* lengths for six-wheelers, though 27ft wasn't among them. All but the third vehicle shown appear to be of types which were either 31ft or 32ft - though the GNR also had a few of 34 & 35ft length.

I would suggest that the 3rd vehicle here is 30 or 31ft; they didn't have anythging shorter, though several pre-1876 constituent companies did - but these aren't of this type. The ones either side are maybe 32 or 34ft. The "Doncaster" design you have above is a 29ft body - nothing on the GNR(I) was this dimension, though in 00 scale it would barely be discernible.

(*  Standard length for six-wheel coaches in most cases was 30ft - virtually universal on GSWR, MGWR, BNCR (MR / LMS NCC) & WLWR; not universal but common on CBSCR & DSER)/.

[Paul 34F]

Bob,

I’ll have to check through the 6 wheel carriage diagram book to see if I can identify the vehicles in the train in this image, especially the one you are interested in.

Kind regards

Paul

[Bob49]

In the 4ft8.5 world the smallest 6 wheeler I have found is a 28ft on a 18ft (9+9) wheel base built by the LSWR in 1879-83. After this date the length of the coaches grow out to 35ft with a 20ft (10+10) wheel base before the move to bogie stock in the 1890's. You can also guarantee that there was a coach with a dimension any where between the two.

LNWR 6 wheelers were all 30ft1 long and the DNGR coaches were no difference. 

[Northroader]

On picking a body length, I was guided by a sample of GWR coaches from the Penrhos site: http://www.gwrcoaches.org.uk

particularly the U9 diagram six wheeler composite:

This has a 28’ body, but the width of the vertical panels between the windows looks a bit more generous than the coach in the Smug Mug picture, so I knocked a foot off.

Looking at the Irish 30’ body six wheeler composites, they all fitted something like a luggage locker or a pair of toilets at the centre tween the pairs of compartments, and there is a GNR version of this in that very dark photo of Amiens St a few posts back.

So, if the GNR didn’t have any below 30’, this must have come from one of the constituent companies pre 1878 amalgamation, although it sounds from Johnson’s book as if everyone went on doing their own thing for a few years after. This makes it all the more interesting, and would account for the other non standard items like axleguard placing and quarter light ventilators.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Northroader

[Paul 34F]

Hello Bob,

I’ve sent you a PM.

Kind regards

Paul

[jhb171achill]

7 hours ago, Northroader said:

On picking a body length, I was guided by a sample of GWR coaches from the Penrhos site: http://www.gwrcoaches.org.uk

particularly the U9 diagram six wheeler composite:

This has a 28’ body, but the width of the vertical panels between the windows looks a bit more generous than the coach in the Smug Mug picture, so I knocked a foot off.

The GSWR had first class 5-wheelers of very similar design to that, though they were 30ft.

Edited July 23, 2023 by jhb171achill

[Northroader]

Paul has just shown me a diagram for a GNR 6wheeler four compartment all first coach with a 30’ body. There must have been very roomy compartments, and the vertical dividing strips between each set of windows are quite wide. Still, a full first class coach on a limited space layout for a country branch line wouldn’t be a good idea.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Northroader

[Paul 34F]

Depends on the time frame you are considering.  A note on the drawing mentions the vehicle class being altered. This is the clue to it becoming third class vehicle.  No doubt this would have been when the bogie carriages took over duties on the mainline.

Paul

[Northroader]

I like to aim at pre 1900, there was a bit more colour in the paint schemes, and single drivers were still around….

[jhb171achill]

On 23/7/2023 at 7:28 PM, Northroader said:

Paul has just shown me a diagram for a GNR 6wheeler four compartment all first coach with a 30’ body. There must have been very roomy compartments, and the vertical dividing strips between each set of windows are quite wide. Still, a full first class coach on a limited space layout for a country branch line wouldn’t be a good idea.

A 30ft with four wheels? 

[Northroader]

No, six wheels. Over this side of the channel quite a lot of railways went in for taking the middle axle out of six wheelers in later years, but it doesn’t seem to have been such a common practice over in Ireland?

[jhb171achill]

45 minutes ago, Northroader said:

No, six wheels. Over this side of the channel quite a lot of railways went in for taking the middle axle out of six wheelers in later years, but it doesn’t seem to have been such a common practice over in Ireland?

Correct. Sorry, I’m just seeing I misread it. 
 

A handful - single individual vehicles - here were 4-wheeled in departmental use but I only ever saw evidence if z as single vehicle like that in traffic - and it was a completely non-standard design.

6 wheels was the rule here long before in Britain, so we never had the generic type of long wheelbase 4-wheelers like the Hattons ones or the Ration kits.

While we got rid of our earlier generation 4-wheelers largely by 1890, we kept six wheelers in traffic until as late as 1963 with passenger-carrying ones, and 1968 with a couple of full brakes (which, though seemingly out of use) were actually still on the books as late as 1970.

[seagoebox]

77 "Achilles" at Antrim

[Northroader]

There’s a real treasure appeared on @Irishswissernie Photo collection today, an old GNR brake  van converted for service use. It’s got the window and door spaces matching what might be termed the later standard vans, but then you’ll see: Axle-guards on the front face of the sole bar and the springs behind, Louvre ventilators over all the door windows, simplified mouldings over the panelling. So just like the composite that appeared in the smug mug photo a few posts ago. Presumably built some time around the GNR amalgamation before Park standardised the “Doncaster” appearance, or possibly from a constituent company? Wonder if it started life with a “birdcage” lookout on the roof? Compare it with the later vans, they have extra panels under the lookout, so would this be a 30’ body, and later ones are 32’? Either way, it’s crying out to be modelled.

 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Northroader