A sign writer’s delight

The Southern Railway’s carriage livery under R E L Maunsell seemed to me to be an example of effective restraint that was carefully looked after (photo 1). Photo 1. SR Maunsell Brake Composite No 6585 to Dgm 2401 in its nearly completed form.

Photo 2. SR Type 3 Conflat 39351 to Dgm 1399 and container A337 to Dgm 3005. NOVEMBER 2013 More lowly freight stock carried a very practical dark brown livery that had its own admirers, me included. Just every so often, however, this uniformity amongst the lowly was leavened by some eye-catching examples of advertising that brightened the railway panorama in the depression years of the 1930s.

Two examples are shown, one for a Southern Railway provided service, the other for a bespoke customer’s commercial activities. First a Southern Railway’s Conflat A 39351 to Diag. 1399, a conflat type 3 vehicle built at Ashford in September 1938 carrying a May 1931 Birmingham RC & W built Diag. 3005 container A337 in its original form and advertising (photo 2). Photo 2. SR Type 3 Conflat 39351 to Dgm 1399 and container A337 to Dgm 3005.

Second an Express Dairys livery highlighting its egg traffic as applied to four Diag. 1458 vans converted to Diag.1460, including 48323, in June 1938 some two years after this van was built and just as the depression was beginning to lift before WW2 (photo 1). Photo 3. SR Dgm 1460 van No 48323 for Express Dairy’s egg traffic.

Both of these were fairly short-lived liveries, with the vans being returned to the brown livery by the end of March 1942, during wartime conditions and all that implies. The container was changed even more quickly being one of three converted to Diag. 3014, becoming AF337 in insulated form some two years after it was built. The new form received a different livery with slightly different wording, layout and font sizes.

These insulated conversions were a significant proportion of the original build. The causes of this rapid change may only be surmised. The container and its wagon could have gone anywhere the loading gauge would have permitted, together or separately, but the van probably would have had a more SR based life; metropolitan egg traffic, one assumes.

However, as both wagons were non-common user, hence the white Ns, their travels would have been closely monitored by wagon control; the container would not have strayed far from their sight either. Both wagons were XP rated as befits their ten feet wheelbase and both had automatic vacuum brakes, with single cylinders for four brake blocks, not eight as on many SR vehicles for express goods work, but at least they could form part of a vacuum fitted head in a freight train.

A Morton clutch was used with the handbrake on the Conflat as it was on all Diag. 1399 vehicles, no matter whether they were built as type 3 or 4. Both these vehicles had three-hole disc wheels and both had screw couplings as befitted their anticipated work, together with longitudinal tie rods for the W-irons too. Through steam heat piping was applied to the Conflat and it was to the model too, but that has had to be removed from the latter to cope with coupling up problems! The van was not through piped for steam heat, which would imply it was not meant to work at the head of passenger trains except in the non-steam heating season.

Photographs of rakes or even complete freight service trains of SR wagons in SR livery in SR days on SR metals seem rare indeed. Consequently, if you were seeking details for model building official photographs tend to be the main source; the SR were rather good at this aspect, thankfully, e.g. De’Ath & Condon at Ashford. So armed with some clear sources work began, starting with the Conflat and container, the van to follow.

I took a Slater’s conflat kit and discarded some items like brake gear, side raves and three link couplings; the van’s three-link couplings also departed. These were replaced by screw couplings, Morton clutch pattern brakes, plus a single vacuum cylinder brake assembly, scratch-built side raves with three crib rail supports appeared.

The last is a critical feature compared with other SR conflats. Flooring and lashing ring bases plus their rings hove into view and the latter had to be operational. Vacuum brake stanchions and piping were also fitted along with the now departed steam heating pipes. The end stanchions, removable in the prototype, but not on the model, were fabricated and fitted. Lamp brackets at left hand end for this particular wagon were also added; the same applied to the van. You have to be vigilant here as both drawings and photographs show some contrary variations for these items.

Three-hole disc wheels were an essential too so they appeared along with the sprung buffers. Building was completed and it looked very pleasant in sprayed primer grey, but the complete March 1938 livery was required.

The black and SR freight brown were no problem and the flooring received what I thought to be a suitable shade, but the lettering was fairly fiddly, especially the Conflat A and the WB 10.0. The wagon numbers are individual digits applied separately. A modicum of patience and steady hands manoeuvred them into place on both sides; at least this was good practice for lettering the container. A pair of hardwood cocktail sticks is invaluable at this stage for this shuffling about operation of fine, miniscule transfers.

Just to give me an inkling of container building, I had examined some cast resin examples, but these were of the much larger varieties. A337 was a smaller one, with much lettering upon it. I thought this needed a cautious approach to its building. Getting the essential body shape into being was the first task, with the roof shape being a particular challenge. It was wondrous what a short time in a just finished hot dishwasher cycle will do for curving plastic sheeting. Then all the strapping, operational lashing points and roof mounted lifting shackles, chaining and metal handles could follow. The body sides, floor and roof are all Plastikard attached to a solid wood core. All the strapping items are Plastikard too. Handles are brass wire as are the lashing rings, shackles and chains, whilst the rivet heads are track pins placed into pre-drilled holes. Two small wooden skids were also attached to the bottom.

SR freight brown in three fine coats was applied plus a coat of varnish, which was allowed to dry for several weeks so it was rock hard to work upon. For such a small container the SR filled both sides with wording, with even a good attempt on an end door too. There were seventy-one letters plus three numerals per side, with eighteen letters and five numerals on the door end. When all added together, assuming only one end being lettered, gives a total of eleven numerals and one hundred and sixty letters! The non-door end was and is still a mystery, therefore, until a clear photograph appears, neither numerals nor lettering have been applied.

The phraseology was the standard SR advertising of the time, but letter sizing tended to vary between container types, so the clear photograph was essential. For the larger containers, ‘for details’ was added after station, but there was no space for this on the small A337 with the chosen font sizes.

All the lettering, thankfully white without any shading, was from the HMRS wagon-lettering sheet. Each letter of both sides had to be applied individually, with drying times in between, so progress was not rapid. To get the spacing needed, first and last letters were applied initially, then the significant intermediate ones so that they matched the strapping geography as best they could. The remaining letters then followed and once completed the whole lot was varnished.

The door letters and numerals were much smaller and called for the use of a large illuminated magnifying glass to complete the ensemble; then that was varnished too. The prototypes must have kept the sign writers at Birmingham R C & W occupied for quite some hours.

The SR had a predilection for roping containers to wagons, whilst other big three companies preferred chaining. Why? To the ever prudently economical SR, ropes were cheaper and more easily replaced. Skills for this method were evidently available at Nine Elms and elsewhere, but undoing this knitting when wet ropes were encountered in rainy conditions in an open goods yard would have been no sinecure. The effect of the wagons boxing at speed would have doubtless tautened the knots too, as would the rain, so it may well have been marlinspikes to the fore in receiving yards to loosen the knots before any off-loading onto road vehicles occurred.

On the model the container was lashed to the conflat using some fine bookbinder’s linen thread that I normally use for backstays on the fivemasted windjammer I am trying to build. Suitably rove through the lashing rings and knotted, it was then wetted to produce, not just some tension, but also give it some shape. Then it was painted dull brown. The ensemble was complete.

For the van, the body was scratch-built, but not by me. The body is wood and had been finely constructed. I spied it in an erstwhile second hand shop in Brighton. Once I had inspected it thoroughly, I purchased it for an agreeably negotiated sum. It was then in the later SR standard brown freight livery, but that was about to be changed from a quite ordinary fitted freight van into a mobile sign writer’s delight.

The van was standard SR fare in construction, but with the new livery it was to become quite exceptional. Whatever the shade of blue employed as the body colour, it was a dark colour and I have avoided a dark navy colour as advised. Once applied, the base colour was varnished and allowed to dry hard. In this case this was a vital step.

There were forty-eight letters and eleven numerals per side, a quite hefty total when doubled. Thirty-nine of them were the large letters, though font size did decrease as you progressed down the wagon side. The advertising letters were painted cream and shaded to the right and down with light blue, with a slight gap intervening between these colours This gap I took to be the base colour. HMRS wagon lettering was again used, but it came in white only. This was carefully over painted in cream and then the light blue shading, Humbrol No. 60, was applied. The earlier coat of varnish then allows the blue paint to slightly shrink back from the cream letters, aided too by the edging to the transfers, thereby generally producing the gap required.

The completed side is shown in the photograph, the other one is nearly finished now.

The SR rarely threw their money about, but in these two examples some judicious expenditure certainly brightened the railway scene and, very hopefully, produced some extra traffic for the SR. However, they were gone very quickly. To have stood a chance of seeing them I might suppose the best opportunities would have to have been on a platform at Clapham Junction that commanded views of both the ex-LSWR and LBSCR lines, though at what hours of the day I am not at all sure. At least now they live on in model form.

Reference. An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons Volume 4 G Bixley, A Blackburn, R Chorley and M King OPC Rev. Impression 2004 ISBN 0 86093 564 7.