Background

 

As those few of you who have read some of my previous posts know, over the past few years I have been building stock appropriate for the Forest of Dean in the early '20s. As mining was traditionally the largest industry of the area, a huge proportion of the rolling stock in period photos are PO mineral wagons, generally built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company. Broadly speaking, the wagons owned by the collieries themselves were 10t or 12t end door types, while the coal merchants favoured fixed end types.

 

When it comes to models, Cambrian makes GRC&W 10t fixed end and 12t end door kits, both with wooden solebars, of which I've built a few. Recently Brassmasters has also added 3D printed bodies to their range to go with their brass underframes, but I haven't tried them out, as although I'm sure they make are fine models, they are quite expensive when compared to plastic kits.

 

The problem for me was that, judging by the excellent Severn & Wye Railway books by Ian Pope et al., from which I got all of the photos I have based my drawings on, the most commonly used type of wagon used by the collieries was of the 10t end door kind, which I couldn't find a kit for. I had considered whether kitbashing the Cambrian kits could produce results, but after perusing a few websites, I decided that I could easily obtain all the bits, such as W-irons and brake gear, which would enable me to scratchbuild whatever wagon I liked. I thought it would be a quick and easy task to produce a CAD plan of a 10t end door wagon, but the more I looked at photos the more I discovered that there actually were quite a variety, with differing strapping patterns, number of planks and kinds of underframe. So I set about making drawings for each type, which I have presented below.

 

Some aspects are a bit speculative, generally because of the quality of the photos: while the GRC&W works photos are very crisp and detailed, some of photos of the wagons in the wild are not quite to that standard, plus the scanning process has inevitably produced slight distortions. I have assumed that the wheelbase is 9' for all wagons, and worked out the solebar length from there, assuming it is either 15' or 16'. The details on the ends are often hard to determine, so I have based them on the Cambrian kits. I have also only drawn the parts of the wagons that need scratchbuilding, so the brake gear, W irons, buffers etc. have only been sketched in.

 

7-Plank Wagons

 

These wagons all have 7 equal width planks and wooden 15' solebars and headstocks, side doors 5 planks deep with T-shaped catches on the 2nd plank from the top, and J shaped strapping on either side of the door. Most but not all have one set of brake gear.

 

Variant A

 

The inside diagonal strapping on the sides is secured to the outside of the corner plates on the ends. The end door pivot goes through the topmost plank on the sides and is connected to a full-height piece of strapping. The end door sometimes has a pair of inclined handles between the fourth and fifth plank from the top, and all feature a V-shaped vee-hanger.

 

 

 

 

Variant B

 

Outside diagonal strapping fixed directly to corner plates. End-door pivot sits in a cutout in the topmost plank and is connected to its own short piece of strapping, next to the full-height one. End door sometimes has diagonal handles. Door spring fitted centrally between arms of V-shaped vee-hanger.

 

 

 

Variant C

 

Only one photo of this variant, branded Speech House, in an unusual light coloured (yellow?) livery, so it was probably a special wagon of some kind.

Outside diagonal strapping, end door hinge through topmost plank and connected to diagonal strap and full-height J-shaped vertical strap. Additional short strapping on the sides around end door catch. Cylindrical cover between the side door hinges. Vee-hanger with parallel ends, handles on solebar between ends of crown plates rather than outside them.

 

 

6-Plank Wagons

 

The lower four planks are the same depth as 7 plank wagons, while the top two planks are deeper.

The end door pivot is supported above the wagon sides by two short bars which seem to be bent inwards, although the exact shape is a bit hard to determine. The short bar is bolted to the top of the vertical strapping.

The side door is still 5 planks deep, and held closed by catches to the side.

All have inside diagonal strapping secured through the corner plates at the fixed end.

Most of these also appear to have only the one set of brake gear.

 

Variant A

 

Wooden 15' solebars and headstocks, J-shaped strapping either side of the side door, presumably with the lower end bolted to the diagonal strapping. V-shaped vee-hangers.

 

 

 

Variant B

 

Steel 15' solebars and thinner steel headstock, all vertical strapping bends around the bottom of the sides and is secured to the solebars. The lower ends of the diagonal strapping are secured with bolts which protrude below the wagon floor outside the solebars. The detail on the fixed end more uncertain, there seem to be some bolt heads between the corner plates, but unlike the wagons with wooden underframes, the two vertical wooden beams are absent. Parallel-ended vee-hangers.

 

 

 

The 7 and 6 plank varieties are by far the most common, but there were also one photo of a 5 plank wagon and one of a 4 plank. The 4 plank wagon in particular is quite different from all the others, and seems to me might be an older style of wagon.

 

5-Plank Wagon

 

The planking on the sides seems to go deep, medium, shallow, shallow, medium, top to bottom. Having only one photo, I can't tell if this is correct. Wooden 15' underframe with parallel-ended vee-hangers and brakes on one side only.

4 plank-deep side door with T-shaped catches on the topmost plank.

End door pivot like 6 plank wagons, but the pivot supports are more sharply bent over the top of the sides.

Outside diagonal strapping going over the corner plates and the vertical strapping by the door. The diagonal straps are kinked outwards to accommodate this. At the open end, the diagonal straps pass under the end of the pivot supports.

 

 

 

4-Plank Wagon

 

A lot of features about this wagon are speculative, it is hard to tell from the photo even if it has an end door. As one end doesn't seem to be arched and the same end doesn't look like it has corner plates, it seems likely that it has an end door.

4 deep planks with the side door 3 planks deep, T-shaped catches on the topmost plank.

Wooden 16' underframe with apparently steel headstocks and V-shaped vee-hangers and brakes on both sides.

Narrow corner plates with a single row of bolts on the sides.

Bolts for the diagonal strapping on the sides and all details concerning the end door and pivot are based on the 5- and 6-plank wagons as that side of the photo is not as clear. The fixed end is also almost invisible in the photo, so details are also speculative.

 

 

So there you have it, that is what I was able to do with the photos I have available. I'm quite sure that there are inaccuracies here and there, apart from the speculative parts, I'll come back and correct them if I find any. It might be that this information is already out there somewhere, but I quite enjoyed the process of working things out, and I will eventually put some of it to use once I have finished building the loco to haul them. I haven't included any measurements, but the drawings are supposed to be to scale, and I do have the CAD files, should anyone want them, which can be scaled and measurements taken directly from them.

 

Anyway, enough armchair (or to be more accurate, beanbag) modelling, I need to get my 2021 done.