I've just finished building the test etches for a couple of pig iron wagons, along with another of my 'bogie' kits.
2 pig iron + bogie.JPG (83.49 KiB) Viewed 2855 times
Still weathering to do and the lettering is pretty c**p, but it looks not too bad from 3ft away, especially if you screw your eyes up!
I'd like to have them loaded, but the only photo I've found of a loaded pig iron wagon is of a model, which shows the pigs just in a heap and we all know the old adage of not modelling a model. I can find plenty about pig iron, but nothing on how it was loaded in wagons. Can anyone help? What was the average size of a pig in the late 1890's? C18-24" x 4-6"?
I was informed by the chairman of the Highland Railway Society (now how can you question someone in such a position?) that pig iron wagons were pressed into service carrying non-pigs. Might that be another option?
I built one from a kit purely because I had the kit. Why I had the kit is beyond me. It would never have a reason to visit Barnton (supplying a local nail mill on the river Almond would be stretching things. Mmm, would it?). But perhaps it might deliver something like farm equipment. OK, perhaps delivery of a thresher is grasping at straws as well!
Hi Jim
Your pig iron wagons look pretty good to me whatever the distance.
Re the lettering, the new TLM transfers include 'C R's' which are 6.5" high in 4mm/ft. That scales out at 2.15mm.
Would that be an acceptable compromise for 12" lettering in 2mm/ft? Would you notice the 0.15mm difference?
I can't remember off- hand what 6.5" high letters are used on, but it's not as common as 12" ones: maybe a donor could be found who doesn't need that size in 4mm.....?
Thanks for that, Alan. My problem is that when i started I was obliged to hand letter everything as there were no transfers available. Now I feel that using transfers to provide 'perfect' lettering would show up my hand lettered stuff and I have no intention of repainting and re-lettering (with transfers) nearly 60 CR wagons, let alone the PO and other company ones! At least at the moment the finishes are, while nowhere near perfect, at least reasonably consistent across my stock.
On the loading of pig iron wagons, thanks to the photo I missed in Mike's book and some others from other areas of the country posted by Stephen Lea via RMWeb I now have an idea of sizes and how they were loaded - roughly stacked lengthwise at either end of the wagon. I am currently experimenting how to model that and will report back when (if?) that is successful.
Well, the experiment has worked reasonably well. Judging from the various photos I estimated that pigs were around 5-6ft long and 4½-6" in section. I therefore took some 30thou square styrene strip, gently scraped two adjacent corners to slightly round off one face, and cut it into random 10-12mm lengths, with a few shorter ones, by nicking one face and breaking the pieces off. I then made a little 'tray' the width of the 6T wagon from scrap etch sheet edge, dropped a pile of strips (not too neatly) onto it, roughly levelling them off at one end and flooded them with solvent from a dropper. They were left for 24hrs to harden and then sprayed with grey primer from a rattle can. When that had dried I lightly dry brushed them with a darker grey followed by an even light dry brushing of rust colour. Finally they were generously dusted with dry grey powder colour mix. I'm reasonably pleased with the results, though one pile are perhaps a little on the long side. In this photo they are just sitting in the wagon and will be glued in with Easitrac glue.
6T Pig iron loaded.JPG (121.2 KiB) Viewed 2731 times
The Dia 16 has now been loaded in the same way, though I had to make a wider tray for it. The load is perhaps a wee bit too much on the 'haphazard' side!
2 pig iron loaded.JPG (103.22 KiB) Viewed 2656 times
jimwatt2mm wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 10:33 pm
I can find plenty about pig iron, but nothing on how it was loaded in wagons. Can anyone help? What was the average size of a pig in the late 1890's? C18-24" x 4-6"?
Jim W
Hi Jim,
Although not CR, I came across this the other day, much larger MR 6/7 plank wagon being gravity chute loaded. I should imagine that even at this size they will be extremely heavy to offload.
Thanks, Paul. I had already seen that photo, but dismissed it as being perhaps from amore recent time.
Incidentally, does anyone know if that photo in Mike's book of the men loading pig iron is at Summerlee? The furnaces in the background look very similar, but perhaps many ironworks were similar.
All most interesting.
I am surprised at the size of the pigs, each one must be pretty heavy. I had imagined that they would have been able to be lifted by one man (person?!) but suspect these would be too heavy.
The pic of chute loading is also interesting - I wonder what damage the wagon floor would suffer.
Jim P
Damage to the wagon is a fair point, note that the top of all the planking is reinforced, presumably steel. Perhaps the wagons were dedicated and the floor similarly treated?
jasp wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:51 pm
I am surprised at the size of the pigs, each one must be pretty heavy. I had imagined that they would have been able to be lifted by one man (person?!) but suspect these would be too heavy.
In the picture on p113 of the wagon book they are being lifted by one man.
I am reminded of the ingots of copper we used to load at Lobito in Angola in my Merchant Navy days nearly 60 years ago. These were about the same size although more evenly shaped and were stacked by hand into the bottom of each cargo hold. We used to carry up to 3,000 tons which was good ballast for the mostly timber cargo that was loaded on top of it at other ports on the West African coast.
All that is a precursor to commenting that pig iron was used as a raw material in many foundries and engineering works and individual wagons loaded with ingots or pigs would not be out of place on most model railways. Anderson's works at Panmure, on the Dundee and Arbroath Joint Railway, had regular deliveries as recorded in my article with Jim Page about the traffic to the the sidings published in the NBRSG Journal a few years ago.
I hope we will be able to include an up-dated version of this article in a future True Line.
