6 wh wagon - Not milk - Guinness!

Guinness archive dept, now part of Diageo following merger with Grand Met, has apparently turned up some info. In the post, will post details when it arrives.

Mike

First (hopefully) large envelope arrived but this material covers the 500+ gallon demountable tanks, all of which I believe went by road from the ports to the bottling plants.

Hopeful of getting something on the road-rail tank trailers anon.

Mike

Mike Smith said the following on 17/01/2007 10:56:

You do realise that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness? :-)

The Roche drawing may have shown the 1951 BR built dia 1/332 - There were a fleet of 18 6 wheel chassis for Guinness road rail tanks, later an additional 13 wagons were provided (to a different diagram) providing a fleet of 31 wagons by 1955. The tanks were of conventional design, but had two filling domes toward the front end, they ran on six wheels rather than the more usual four and required larger 6 wheeled wagons to carry them. They were secured using rings on the tank sides as for the smaller tanks. There was a ladder on one side of the tank (possibly on both but I do not think so).

Langley offer a similar tank in OO, their model has no tank side securing points, it features a one-piece mudguard over the rear wheels and has a platform around the filling domes with an end mounted ladder. The catalogue shows the tank sitting higher on the wheels than my sketch and in a light body colour with dark lettering but I am pretty sure that the lettering should be as per my sketch. The Langley model may well represent a slightly different design from the tank shown in my sketch, however my drawings are based on photographs and hence are correct as regards general details

The Guinness deliveries from their Park Royal brewery in London to the varoious 'stores' depots around the country were truly epic in nature. Up to World War Two the stout was shipped in wooden casks, local deliveries (including the south Midlands and East Anglia) were by road, further afield Guinness stores were supplied by rail. During and after the war the shortage of American oak for the casks lead to a move toward bulk shipments, large (80 barrel) stainless steel demountable tanks proved a success (over a thousand were built) and road tank trailers were supplied in some numbers as well as a fleet of eight wheeled tanker lorries (operated up to 1953 by the firm of Thomass Allen, who had been road-hauling Guinness for many years). Following the nationalisation of road haulage British Road Services had to be employed for deliveries of more than 25 miles from base but in 1953 the fleet of Thomass Allen delivery vehicles (and most of the staff) were purchased by Guinness and restablished as Park Royal Transport Ltd). On the railway side regular trains ran to Bristol, South Wales and up the WCML, there was a twice weekly block train up to the distribution and bottling plant in Newcastle with open wagons filled with casks and several demoutable tanks as well. The road rail tanks were used to supply depots in Newcastle, South Wales and Plymouth (as well as other destinations).

Regards

Mike

No I think that was getting a Farish train set - Got an e-mail on this requesting further info so posting it to the group in case any other lurkers might find it handy.

Regards

Mike

Diageo - Formed by the merger of Grand Met and Guinness in the later 1990s - have passed me some info on the Guinness tanks however they are concerned that showing their livery somewhere that children may see it might break the law so were not prepared to provide pictures (fair enough). I do have a photo taken at an angle showing one of the six wheeled tanks (looks like my sketch not the Langley model) but the wagon does not have the plank sides of the Roxhe drawings, its just a six wheeled version of the standard road-rail tank flat wagon. The sketches on the site are near enough I think, although the rear of the tank should have the work wrapped in a curve across the lower part of the tank t=with the Harp logo above it - I have not added that as it is a trade mark and I could get into bother. Once I re-livery the model however I will put up a photo on the page.

What I have so far is at . . .

Mike

In message , Mike Smith writes

I've never heard such a load of complete and utter rubbish.

Note - if that were true, Guinness would be breaking the law themselves with all their advertising by the roadisde, etc.

They did appologise . . .

quote

Unfortunately I won't be able to supply you with any images of road rail tankers, the legal department have said because you want to use the images to allow people to create models of the tankers (possibly in schools) that they cannot be used for this purpose.

Sorry about this,

Best wishes,

unquote

Not sure what the exact problem was, could be it's to do with models rather than children, but the mention of schools seems to suggest the kids were at least part of the problem. I have a lot of info on Guinness distribution (truly epic stuff) if anyone is interested, some is on the website but there is rather a lot, although railways are not the central issue in any of the material they supplied.

Regards

Mike

It sounds as though the legal department have been 'smoking the carpet' as my French chums are wont to say. Brian

There are regulations regarding the advertising of alcohol that prevent the use of anything that might be construed as appealing to children. This is would explain the apparent response from Guinness. As Model Railways can be viewed as toys, then in theory any assistance by Guinness could be construed as going against the regulations. This may seem somewhat anal, but as these regulations are voluntary, other drinks companies would (and are) be very quick to complain loudly if if came to their attention. Hence Guinness may well show 'strange' reluctance in this case to be of help. Add a nervous legal team, and we have this situation.

Roadside ads are fine, as long as they don't involve anything vaguely appealing to children (ie those under 18). Ever wondered where the old Guinness Toucan went, or the Hofmeister Bear?

The regulations are part of the role of the Portman Group, of whom I believe Guinness (ie Diageo) are one of the main financial backers. A Google search will provide the regs in full for those really interested. And details of some tenuous (and some not so tenuous...) cases brought over the years.

Steve Banfield

All the old Guinness adverts are alive and well in the Guinness brewery in Dublin, and are available on a wide range of souvenirs (but no T- shirts in children's sizes). I have a toucan on my fridge.

If the above is true, how come EFE and Corgi/Lledo can manufacture a whole range of scale model brewery vehicles, not to mention buses and trams with adverts extolling the virtues of Mackeson, Tetleys, etc.

But try to find a model with adverts for Players, Senior Service or Woodbines...

MartinS wrote: [...]

Here and there in web-space there are websites featuring ancient advertising, when people believed that smoking was good for you. These are mostly run by private individuals indulging their particular nostalgia. You may find suitable adverts for those estimable brands. Also, some sites featuring trams and buses may have images of of such vehicles with the desired advertising on them. These too are a source of model adverts.

Download the images that suit, print them out at the correct size. Cut out leaving a large amount of white space around them. For signs and billboards, use as is. For signs on busses, etc, sand them _gently_ on the back with fine emery paper until the paper is tissue-thin. Cut out with a fresh, sharp blade to avoid tearing the paper. Glue onto model. Print out several copies, so you can practice.

HTH

Or use decal paper, available from (amongst others)

Odd point, just rummaging through my bits box and relalised that till rols (the longer thinner type, roughly 15-17mm diameter tube, I got mine from the supermarket) would do rather well for OO scale road rail tanks, good for the milk types, might do for a Guinness but might be a bit short. Cheapest OO scale (or thereabouts) military truck kit for the wheels. The rail chassis can be a standard 4 wheeler for a Whitbreads beer tank, can't comment on making 6 wheeled chassis in OO as I havent played with anything more recent than my old Triang stuff.

What I have on these vehicles . . .

Mike

MartinS said the following on 29/01/2007 17:20:

Has anyone actually got this stuff to work? Not that it's an issue for me any more as I have an Alps printer, but when I tried inkjet printing on this stuff it just came out as a smudge!

I've used it successfully, but you can't print white or light colours on transparent sheets! You must throughly seal the decals with acrylic spray, giving a final coat after cutting out to seal the edges (without getting any on the back) to prevent bleeding when soaking the decals in water.

I found that fine black lines tended to smudge, so I printed the black on its own with a laser printer on a transparent decal sheet (sealed before and after with acrylic spray). So some of my decals have 3 layers - a blank white base to provide opacity, colours only on a white decal and black only on a transparent decal. It's a lot of work, but it works!

I recently bought an HP colour laser for CDN$345 with taxes (about £160) and ordered some laser decals from Crafty computer, but haven't had a chance to try them yet.

MartinS said the following on 30/01/2007 19:23:

Fair play! White & gold was the reason I bought an Alps though (eBay bargain from the USA - a calculated risk that paid off!). My first project was a set of railway crests that had a lot of white in them, and I couldn't face printing them on white decal paper and cutting them out. The whole thing came about after being ripped off by Blackham Transfers, who still owe me about £50 after a couple of years.

With the Alps printers, each colour is printed on it's own, and a sheet of paper can pass through the printer half a dozen times or more. It's quite fun to watch, and the Edward Scissorhands sound effects are fun to listen to :-)

Yes, ALPS is the solution, but aren't they quite expensive and hard to find, including the printing supplies?

I used to subscribe to the rrdecals group on Yahoo! but I haven't followed it for some time. There might be some useful info there.

Presuambly extolling the virtues of Tetley won't take up much space? Whether it is beer or tea, I'd always avoid Tetley in favour of Taylor.

I've built a model of a "plastic paddy" pub for our layout. Too many layouts have quaint Ye Olde Worlde pubs, so I thought we'd have something more (depressingly) modern image on ours. We printed off some "My goodness ..." posters we found on a website, and as far as I know we haven't corrupted anyone. Yet.

It always amuses me that in much of Europe there is a fear that including swastikas transfers in kits would turn people into raving fascists. I have visions of gangs of skinheads sat around building model aeroplanes.

Of course, the bans on unconstitutional symbols are as ineffective as were the bans on broadcasting the words of Irish terrorist leaders. One European model shop I went to offered Reichsbahn logos with only half a swastika, and another set of transfers with the other half, for home assembly on your HO scale Kriegslok :-)