I have received a reply from Bob Essery. He says that the mounting furniture could be painted either Grey, Bauxite or Black and the picture may need some interpretation to work out which colour was used. Hope this helps?

Re the livery of the LMS milk tanks, especially any difference between the underframe and the tank mounting furniture. I have just e mailed Bob Essery, the 'guru' of all things LMS and am awaiting a reply. As soon as i get a reply i will post the details for all to see.

Having dug out yet more books from the cupboard, I have been looking at Vol 2 of Keith Turton's private owners wagons book series. In that Keith says he used to work in the local coal merchants just after the war and that wagons were unloaded by hand.This procedure consisted of throwing shovel loads...

Having made further enquiries through the HMRS stewards, whilst no 'concrete' evidence is available the concencus of opinion is that the doors intially followed the 'design' of some 12 tonn 'RCH' wooden bodied wagons. The accepeted reason being that coal merchants were looking for ways to make hand ...

Good questions Dave! Looks like we all have some more 'digging' to do! Incidently, today I was looking through 'Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company' - 'A Century of Achievement', in which is a picture of a welded body 16Ton Mineral wagon, photgraphed when new at BRCW in 1958, complete with t...

Having re-read Dave's posts I have done some further 'digging' and unearthed a very comprehensive article by Peter Fidczuk which appeared in 'Modellers Backtrack' in early 1991, which covered in detail all the detail variations of the pre-war , wartime and post war 16ton steel mineral wagon designs....

Further to my last post I have done some further research with the following results. Having dug out some old papers from the BRHSG...British Rail Historical Study Group, I came across a paper written by Trevor Mann, one of the leading wagon historians/researchers. Trevor contends that the conversio...

The current discussion regarding the removeable top planks over the side doors on mineral wagons prompted me to talk to friends in the model railway fraternity who are also historical researchers. Their belief(without concrete documentary evedence however) is that the inclusion of the 'top doors' on...

Eddyg, I think you are somewhere near the mark with your comments. From a purely personal point of view, and as i said in an earlier post, I joined because I was told at gilling 10years ago that the whole idea was to run prototypical trains as prtototypically as possible. Having been part of a group...

Well, after nearly a month and only 5 people actually commiting a response on this subject it would appear that Eddy is right .... we are apathetic! Dave and Doug, it appears that only a very small number of members care one way or the other! Perhaps its time for the committee to sort out a question...

I agree and in fact suggested that GL5/LMS/RSME produce such a booklet in a letter I sent to Dave for inclusion in the next issue of Turnout as a result of his response to Doug's letter in the last issue of turnout.

Nice to see that Dave's posting has got some replies. In answer to Richard's comment about elitism... no GL5 is not elitist, it is just a group of individuals who wish to run 5'' groundlevel trains in a prototypical manner. If you unsure about any spect of operation then please ask the likes of Doug...

Re the new standards drawings , is it possible to have them posted in a format that will print on A4 paper ?... Dave harris