wagonman

The old Peco 'Wonderful' Wagons attempted something similar, from memory. Only problem was it didn't work – too much friction, not enough weight.

I totally agree – except they were built by the Swansea Wagon Co. Slip of the finger?

As Gloucester were building over 60 of the things it may well have made sense for them to cast the axleboxes themselves using patterns sent from Gorton. I am not familiar enough with the conventions of such transactions to be more definitive.

I concede Bill's point about the axleboxes, and probably other fittings, which must have been supplied by Gorton. The most obvious connection is Sam Fay. He was, up to 1899, Secretary and General Manager of the MSWJR upon whose line Edward(e)s' stable was located. It is conceivable that the men knew each other, though at the time of the horse box order Fay was back at Nine Elms. He took up his position as General Manager of the GCR in 1902. The timeline is not quite perfect!

Another example is the Highland Castles built for the French Ouest.

That's my thinking too. They had just built a batch of these horse boxes for the GCR so had the drawings (and jigs?) to hand, so it was the obvious choice of design when they received the order from Edwards. And as you say, no involvement of the GCR at all. Richard

The Gloucester Agendas, notoriously terse, merely state "11 December 1901; new cash; George Edwards one horse box" which rather implies they built it though I suppose they could have been acting as intermediaries. It also implies ownership by Edwards rather than mere hire. The railway companies were forbidden from building locomotives for sale to other railways/operators – did this also apply to rolling stock? One assumes it did due to the lack of any known examples – a bit of a black swan argument. The MSWJR did own three horseboxes described as "ex-privately owned" – this one was not included in that trio. Richard

What Norfolk folk call "a lazy wind" – it doesn't go round you, it goes through you. I expect there are countless local variations. Still it does seem apposite standing on our beach looking north as there's nothing between you and the North Pole except the odd oil rig and what's left of the Polar icecap. But no snow.

That frequently happens – but in this case the modern business is called P H Futter. Futter is not an unusual name in that part of Norfolk: there are seven 'Futters' in the Great Yarmouth area phone book.

Henry's father, also Henry, started the business in the late 1870s. Henry Junior had a brother Arthur but he became a general carter. When he died in 1924, the executors of his estate were his widow and two sons, none of them in the coal business. The mystery deepens...

Possibly though Henry only had one son (sixth time lucky), Henry James, and he became a bus engineer, later working for LT at Hatfield. He had no children living at home in the 1939 register and when he died in 1954 his widow was the administrator of his estate.

All those new parts would have made a nonsense of Churchward's drive for maximum standardisation. Collett was less concerned about that of course.

Possibly the fact that the old stagers were ... old. The operating department might have wanted a more modern replacement, though perhaps one that could run on yellow routes, unlike the Manor. They got it with the Ivatt class 2 moguls, but that was after nationalisation.

Erm... Rowland Brotherhood was based in Chippenham, not Cheltenham!

Henry Futter died in 1934. His eldest daughter Mary Ann Elizabeth was recorded in the 1911 as a 'clerk to coal merchant' though whether she inherited the business I don't know. She married an electrician named George Kettle and settled in Norwich. If P H Futter is a direct descendant (s)he must have skipped a generation.

A couple of D299s in the yard at Yarmouth Beach thought to be c1920. Why there was a Mariarchi band passing is unknown. Photo in the M&GN Circle collection. Richard

A couple more 3-plankers, one with round ends and one with iron underfame. This is the GWR ballast quarry at Dulcote before Foster Yeoman moved in next door. The wagon has a five digit number starting with a '3' – better than that I cannot manage – so it was built as capital stock rather than as a renewal. Here we have 39521 at, I think, Keinton Mandeville station on the Castle Cary to Cogload Jcn line just before opening in 1906. No lettering visible on the side of the wagons – possibly an effect of the lighting rather than a total absence. Richard

I was under the impression that the term 'Dark Ages' was a conceit of historians born of the fact that none of them were around to record the period. There were a few monks like Nennius toiling in their scriptoria producing Easter Annals but that was about it.

3 hours ago, Chrisbr said: 29382 (BG 2002) described as an Iron Tilt. Converted in Feb 1876 and condemned in Sept 1896, so the date of the photo is somewhat suspect...... The date was my guess based on no hard information. Only 4 years out! If the photo was taken before withdrawal it may not have been in revenue service. Alternatively it could have been taken after withdrawal when it was eking out its last days as an internal user wagon, albeit without the X marking.

I couldn't find it in my files (not an uncommon event) but then I remembered it was being used as a bookmark in the Atkins/Beard/Tourrett 'bible'... Got it just in time! Happy New Year everyone!

There were definitely a few still kicking around in the early 1900s. I have a photo somewhere, given to me by the late David Hyde, of an iron bodied tilt wagon apparently still in use c1900. I'll try to find it before the year is out...

I assume you're referring to the Diagram Book which had basic drawings and various technical details – dimensions and capacity etc. I think this was a relatively late (c1900) introduction. A similar volume was produced for coaching stock so fish wagons could have appeared in either. Copies of the originals are probably kept at the NRM though they have been pillaged by the likes of OPC over the years. I can't lay my hands on actual source material at the moment but would suggest that someone at the BGS or the HMRS could help you.

I have found a piece I wrote a few years back for the S7 Newsletter, I think: "A close reading of David Bick’s “The Old Metal Mines of Mid-Wales, Part 3”—I’m old fashioned enough to resort to books rather than the internet, especially when they are already sitting in my book-stack—shows that Balcombe had interests in several mines in the area, not just Blaencaelen, and that he ‘enjoyed’ typically mixed fortunes from his ventures. Between 1852 and 1885 Blaencaelen (Bick calls it Blaen Ceulen) produced a (not very) grand total of 438 tons of lead, 18 tons of copper and a little blende (zinc)—but no silver apparently; his interest in this mine dated only from 1870 and was marked by the usual hyperbolic nonsense about its prospects. Good ore was found in the Engine shaft lode and also in the 10 fathom* level—and indeed 250 tons of ore were sold that year—but it petered out very quickly and by July 1873 another company was running the mine. If the wagons—I am reasonably certain there were at least two of them—had been used they would presumably have been kept in the yard at Aberystwyth until sufficient ore concentrate had been carted down from the mine to form a worthwhile load when it would have been taken to Llanelli or Neath, or wherever, for smelting. It would have acted as a secure store while in the yard; the only reference I can find to a fixed secure ore store at Aberystwyth station is to a Mr Harvey who was given a site for one in the yard for £5 a year rent. But that was in 1874. It is interesting to note that the intended purpose of the store was to enable the mineral to be dispatched by rail rather than by sea, not that there is any sign of such a store at the harbour either, at least not on the 1885 OS map, the earliest available. I doubt there would have been much trouble unloading the wagons: with the hatch open wide and the front ‘door’ out, a man standing in the middle with a long shovel could have reached all parts of the wagon easily enough at least by C19 standards. What happened elsewhere is another matter. Correspondence exists between the mine managers at Van (the only lead mine in Wales actually to be rail connected) and the Cambrian’s goods agent at Caersws asking specifically for empty low sided wagons with sheets for loading with their ore concentrate. Such wagons are visible in the background of a couple of the (few) photographs of the Van railway that exist, so that would seem to be the accepted means of transportation. The same no doubt applied at Nantymwyn where the ore was carted down to Llandovery station. Once in Llandovery it was placed in a special store house (just behind the LNWR engine shed and near the gas works) with its own bit of siding—PSA dated 2/10/1879, ceased 25/12/1901. *Old miners used the fathom as their unit of measurement—for the benefit of those schooled in the last 40 years or so, a fathom is six feet, or 1.83 metres in new money, or just over four cubits in very old money." A few additional bits of information, and corrections to what I wrote earlier. Richard

The lead ore produced at Welsh mines was crushed on site to concentrate the ore content, and then carried to Swansea or wherever for smelting. The ore produced at Nantymwyn mine, north of Llandovery, was carted to Llandovery station – this traffic providing a useful income supplement for local farmers who were paid 5s 10d per ton. At Llandovery it was kept in a secure store in the goods yard before being loaded onto railway wagons for the trip to Swansea. The Van mine, which actually had rail access, shipped out its crushed ores in low-sided (2 plank mostly) wagons that were sheeted for the journey. Presumably the same happened to the traffic from Llandovery, though in this case in LNWR wagons (D2 or even D1). Balcombe's wagons are a bit of a puzzle: there's no trace in my transcript of the Gloucester agendas but carrying a 'builders and owners' plate probably meant it was on redemption hire – and would probably have been repossessed before the hire period was up given the state of Balcombe's finances. Why he decided on a secure fixed roof rather than wagon sheets is unknown though may have been due to the wagon being used as mobile secure storage while awaiting onward transmission. Unfortunately I can't find my notes so can't give a more detailed response.

Alas I can't help with any actual details (have you tried the BGS?) but would offer the suggestion that if the GWR added another side door to the converted fish wagons it would likely be symmetrical – door openings the same distance from either end.