Another bridge too far

That's a great picture full of charm Dundee Paul and congratulations on making POTW ... get some more wagons in.

 

Excellent potw Paul the rocks are superb .. stick Toto in a corner with a box of 'ard dinna you know' bits and pieces so you can get on that'll keep him quiet.. better than lego

Ian vt

 

Nice shot Paul. Congrats on POTW too, very well deserved!

Pete.

 

As far as I can say from experience from once working on BR the standard 20 ton van fell into three categories, vac fitted, piped and unfitted. The unfitted vans were always painted French Grey or the later Pale Grey these were classified as CAO under the TOPS (Total Operational Processing System), the Piped vans were either painted in Bauxite Brown or repainted in Oxide Brown and classified as CAP. The oxide brown repaints of the CAP van were often conversions from unfitted CAO vans, finally the vacuum fitted vans were always again painted Bauxite or Oxide (depending on when the overhaul fell due) and these vans were coded CAV. Now just to throw a spanner in the works the final air braked conversions involved fitting roller bearings, Oleo buffers and UIC continental draw hooks and screw shackles, these vans were coded as CAR and also initially painted in Oxide brown but later conversions were painted Rail Grey with a Rail Red top banding and yellow warning panels. To answer the Dapol query... yes they got it wrong if the model is not fitted with vac bags. Then of course there were the departmental ones painted Drab Olive Green.

 

I think you need to do some research here, I found this for you :- https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/srbrakevan

1948 built pillbox van 55640 pictured at Nuneaton Abbey Street in 1985 is in bauxite brown colour and having been transferred to departmental use as DS 55648 it has lost its vacuum pipe and platform mounted twin tanks along with sand box. Now other pictures of vacuum versions show the pipe as a low pipe and not the tall swan neck type, however the vacuum versions had modified end windows which the Dapol model doesn't (I don't think) have. So the choices are modify the body as a later standard Southern vacuum variant, leave it alone and just add some tanks and pipes (depicting it as a "reasonable representation") or repaint it into grey as an unfitted van as built unless you can find a picture of one in service circa 1960ish and vac fitted. It all depends how realistic you feel you want to pitch your rolling stock.

 

thought you'd say that Dundee, probably best to do a bulk repaint of all four vans but then weather them individually, that way the weathering doesn't all look the same. That's what I do with the 16 ton minerals so the rust patches and dirt layers appear different.