GNRI four and six wheel coaches

[Northroader]

I hadn’t commented on @seagoebox’s Antrim picture, which looks around the 1920/30s timeframe. There’s no oil lamp chimneys, so electric lights are fitted, and all the lower footboards are removed, including the brake van. We’ve got two six compartment thirds, followed by a four compartment coach, probably a composite? There’s a ventilator centrally placed, but no door handles, so most likely a pair of toilets for the two inner compartments. At the back end there’s a standard brake van, with side lookout duckets.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Northroader

[Paul 34F]

Nice to see a picture of the Vacuum Cleaner Van.  I’ve got a drawing from the diagram book of it.  
 

Paul

[Paul 34F]

Hello Bob,

I’ve sent you a PM related to the Vacuum Cleaning Van.

Kind regards

Paul

[Northroader]

Thanks again, Paul. One thing that’s emerged is that the vac cleaner van and the standard brake van both have 28’ bodies.

[Northroader]

In Norman Johnston’s book on GNRI loco’s, there’s one picture of a coach, a second class five compartment six wheeler illustrating the “Doncasterisation” of the GNRI by Park in the 1880s.

The keynote in modelling this is the panelling of the sides. There’s a step between the lower panels and the upper panels, so that the mouldings covering the panel joins on the upper panels are flush with the lower panels, and the lower panel mouldings stand proud. The mouldings are nice to do in micro strip for a modeller, as they meet at the corners with right angles, the majority of coaches from other companies have the corner joins rounded off with a curved fillet, which makes the whole job very fiddly. The downside, I suppose, was that it was easier for dirt and moisture to accumulate at the corners. Here’s a detail from a preserved English GNR coach which should show the mouldings better.

The other Irish firm that did this was the MGWR, but the windows had round tops and square bottoms, rather than the rectangular windows of the GNRI. The “generic” 4w/6w coaches by Hornby or Hattons in 4mm scale have the other type of body side mouldings, on flush top to bottom panelling, which is sufficiently different to rule them out for representing the GNRI or MGWR.

Looking at the brand new coach picture, there’s two things catch my eye. First off, the coach ends are supported by two vertical braces. In wagon building practice, both vans and open wagons have these, but on a coach? I fancy this was quite uncommon, there’s another picture of a new six wheeler on the “cross border archive” without them, which I would think is the norm.  (I haven’t copied this as it’s overprinted)

https://www.louthnewryarchives.ie/online-exhibitions/great-northern-railway/engineering-pride.shtml

The other thing is the wheels, which stand out, as they are Mansell type, with the hardwood segments between the centres and the tyres, and these are new clean wood, freshly varnished. They don’t look full size, usually the top of a coach wheel disappears well up behind the sole bar., and the tops of these are barely behind. Checking with the diagrams I’ve been kindly supplied with, it turns out the GNRI had their own standard coaching stock wheel size, 3’4” diameter (!)  Pity, in 7mm I go for Slaters wheels, and they do 3’1” wagon, or 3’7” coach, so I’m afraid there’ll be some oversize wheels on my coaches, and very scruffied up so as to be less obvious.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Northroader

[Bob49]

Where would I get my hands on a copy of the GNR(I) coach book?

[Galteemore]

https://irrs.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Digital-Drawings-List-22-UK.pdfYou 

[Northroader]

On that cross border archive I’ve linked to, there’s another interesting picture, the inside of Dundalk carriage shops in full swing:

It’s the nearest coach that’s taking my attention, it looks four compartments well spaced out, with a toilet placed between the two pairs, so possibly two second class outside of two first with toilet accommodation?  Then at the near end there’s a small brake compartment, so a brake composite? Another useful coach. The one beyond is a later bogie job, with a “cove” style roof, I.e. made from three radii.

[Northroader]

Not the best of times, my father could have been the guy in the picture before he got sent to the Western Front, but I found this picture on an RTE website, and it’s worth a look at. In my mind it’s very rare to get such a fully detailed look at a van, I’ve just trimmed the view to a single van.

 

A GNRI ventilated van to go with the passenger coaches, for “perishable” traffic, meat, fish, dairy, and so on. There’s one of these in that poor picture of the trains in the carriage sidings at Amiens Street on page one of this thread, only that one doesn’t have the “torpedo” ventilators on the roof, which this one does have. The seriffed capitals suggest to me that it lettered to run with passenger stock, presume the van was painted brown? You can just make out a vac. pipe on the end, and there’s a vee hanger in the middle, suggesting a cross shaft coupled to a vac brake cylinder, although the hand brake is the old style lever to the block on the far end wheel, so the brake work could be a bit of a tangle. You’ll see that the leaf springs end in small swing links, which is a concession to a suspension running at passenger train speeds. The wheels, could these be some more 3’4” diameter jobs?

Edited August 20, 2023 by Northroader

[Galteemore]

Interesting. The GN seems to have updated the design later with the standard style of Irish van doors and vents placed higher up. Seen here courtesy Ernie. What date is the photo ? I have seen similar associated with the UK 1922 withdrawal.

[Bob49]

Interesting prototype 

[jhb171achill]

Regarding livery, the one with the soldiers beside it will be carriage brown, as it has coach transfer shaded lettering. The one pictured on the SLNCR will be plain wagon grey as it has standard wagon lettering.

[exciecoachbuilder]

On 13/8/2023 at 11:22 AM, Northroader said:

On that cross border archive I’ve linked to, there’s another interesting picture, the inside of Dundalk carriage shops in full swing:

It’s the nearest coach that’s taking my attention, it looks four compartments well spaced out, with a toilet placed between the two pairs, so possibly two second class outside of two first with toilet accommodation?  Then at the near end there’s a small brake compartment, so a brake composite? Another useful coach. The one beyond is a later bogie job, with a “cove” style roof, I.e. made from three radii.

Great photo, a big workshop too. I never knew that the Dundalk carriage shop was that big. 

[Northroader]

And the lads at Downpatrick are busy fettling up an Ulster Railway first class four wheeler, with a very useful drawing, which is just what this this thread needs, so….

(and there’s a drawing of an U.R. van there, too)

 

 

[Northroader]

I was looking at a picture the other day, and first I have to admit it’s the most shocking place to draw a reference from, as it the Armagh calamity, which must have really hit many people in that community, and still has the power to shock today. It’s just there are very little sources  left to us from that time.

The carriage on the left would appear to be a standard GNRI third class six compartment six wheeler. I would venture that the one on the right is also third class, with the close spacing of the compartments, and the skimping of the lamp spacing. It has five compartments rather than six, though. As much as can be made out, the body style of panelling and so on matches the other coach. Would it be an earlier build, or one of the absorbed lines? The three axles underneath look very close, was it a four wheeler which gained an extra wheelset similar to the saloon refurbish of the previous post?

[jhb171achill]

15 hours ago, Northroader said:

I was looking at a picture the other day, and first I have to admit it’s the most shocking place to draw a reference from, as it the Armagh calamity, which must have really hit many people in that community, and still has the power to shock today. It’s just there are very little sources  left to us from that time.

The carriage on the left would appear to be a standard GNRI third class six compartment six wheeler. I would venture that the one on the right is also third class, with the close spacing of the compartments, and the skimping of the lamp spacing. It has five compartments rather than six, though. As much as can be made out, the body style of panelling and so on matches the other coach. Would it be an earlier build, or one of the absorbed lines? The three axles underneath look very close, was it a four wheeler which gained an extra wheelset similar to the saloon refurbish of the previous post?

No, it's the standard length for many six-wheelers in the mid 1870s - early 80s period. Short six-wheelers (under 30ft) were still to be seen on the West Cork system, albeit rarely in use, into the 1950s. The left hand coach would be 1875-85, probably.

Carriage design from early days to the 1890s in Ireland was very different indeed to the Larger Neighbouring Island.

When we look at the Genesis coaches, one important thing to remember is that while (as we've seen) their six-wheelers are very like a number of types we hd, especially of GSWR design, the long-wheelbase, but more modern body shape FOUR wheelers seen commonly in Britain were entirely absent in Ireland. Thus, no Genesis long-wheelbase four wheeler, nor any Ratio GWR kit of same, is even remotely like anthing that ever ran here.

There were one or two "one-offs" of six wheelers having a centre pair of wheels removed in later years, usually GSR times, but (a) these were exceptions, and (b) long gone before CIE days.

In Ireland, almost every railway company went from straight sided yokes like the Ulster Railway saloon at Downpatrick, to equally straight sided SIX wheelers by the 1870s. Very few of the much older four wheelers lasted beyond that, though the MGWR had at least one which lasted until about 1920. However, our early six wheelers had a very ancient body shape, while the British ones were by the standards of the day, fitted with modern bodies.

So, if populating an Irish layout with early coaches, six-wheelers are really your only show in town, unless you'd be modelling pre-1880, or certainly pre-1900, and any four wheelers you had would have to be scratch builds of the entirely different Irish prototypes.

Edited November 9 by jhb171achill