Early Great Western wagon: identified as conversion from broad gauge

[drduncan]

What I find interesting about the Parkin and Peters wagon is that it appears to have axle tie rods.

Duncan

[Il Grifone]

What I find interesting about the Parkin and Peters wagon is that it appears to have axle tie rods.

Duncan

 

They are only on the side with brake gear (as would be expected). Tie rods seem to have been an optional extra, generally fitted with continuous brakes and omitted with hand brakes, though there are exceptions. Possibly they thought that the brakes would need to be applied more forcefully than usual, due to the slippery nature of china clay?

[MarcD]

There are a number of places that trains had to stop and brakes had to be tied down around St Austell and Fowey. This could be the reason that the owners wanted extra bracing on their wagon. The steep gradients was one of the main reasons there was a bit of a one way system for clay trains in and out of Fowey. It was preferred that loaded trains came in from the east along the Fowey river and empties via Par on the old Cornwall Minerals Railway route. The GWR stationed two 2-8-0Ts at St Blazey for that duty.  

 

Marc

[Compound2632]

Great Western experts - having tweaked you re. corridor carriages, are you willing or able to tell me anything about the wagon (No. 25637 I think) front left in this photo, taken in Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory, Reading, c. 1900.

 

Springs inside the W-irons, W-iron slightly behind the outside face of the solebars - iron frame? Self-contained buffers? - this and the non-full-width headstocks, suggests conversion from dumb buffers?

 

As I've been delving into the arcane science of Great Western wagon numbering, for completeness I'll note that this number was taken by a diagram O4 5-plank open wagon of Lot 459, built c. 1903-4, so presumably that is also the withdrawal date of this old wagon.

[Compound2632]

A rather similar wagon to the one in the OP, at Claverdon. It differs in that although the axleguards are outside the solebar, on this one there's no flitch plate. Also, the headstocks extend the full width of the wagon. G.W.R at the LH end, the style before c. 1893. Likewise this one, seen at Hill Evans & Co. vinegar works, Worcester (thanks @Mikkel).

 

The OP photo, at Huntley & Palmers, Reading, c. 1900, for comparison.

[Mikkel]

We'll have to build some 2-plankers Stephen!

 

Raymond Walley is ahead: http://www.raymondwalley.com/wagons/gwr/1-2plank.html

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

We'll have to build some 2-plankers Stephen!

 

 

Bags I the Huntley & Palmers one. (The W-irons hidden by the flitch plate looks easier...)

Edited September 19, 2019 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

I've just bought T. Wood, Saltney Carriage and Wagon Works (GWSG / The Wider View, 2007). This has a couple of photos of 2-plank wagons of the same type as, or at least very similar to, my OP wagon No. 28637 (at first I thought 25637 but I've come to thing 8 more likely than 5). These photos are credited to the collection of David Hyde. Both rather conveniently show the brake side (the OP photo shows the non-brake side). Both have a saltaire cross on the door, which I gather indicates an Engineering Dept. wagon; one of the captions notes that wagons were renumbered on transfer to the Engineering Dept., making identification difficult. One is numbered 225 (or possibly 825) and appears to be the same in all details as the OP wagon. It has the same type of self-contained buffer with a parallel or nearly parallel housing and a hole in the centre of the head, mounted on a substantial wood pad. This one's been subjected to a rough shunt - the buffer head is drooping and the wooden pad is split in several places. The second photo, showing No. 317, was taken at the Swindon Carriage & Wagon sidings on 30 April 1908. This photo is at a less oblique angle that the others, so reveals the shape of the axleguards - with diagonals starting very close to the keeper plate; brake V-hanger - more U than V; and wooden brake blocks. It has self-contained buffers on similar wooden pads, but the housings are more bulbous. (There were some RCH standard self-contained puffers of this shape, for conversion of dumb-buffered wagons; these wagons were evidently built with dumb buffers.) It is labelled in script on the top left plank, For [illegible] and on the top right plank, Factory.

 

Although these photos appear in a book about Saltney, there is no evidence these wagons were built there. They are quite different in construction to the 2-plank wagons built from 1871/2 onwards, which had conventional headstocks with leaf-sprung buffers and drawgear - there are several photos of such wagons in the book: No. 19159 of Lot 75, to traffic Sept 1872; Nos. 20159 and 20181 of Lot 97; and No. 20435 of Lot 112 - the last full Lot completed at Saltney, in Oct 1874. 

 

Apropos of Lot 153, built at Swindon and replacing cancelled wagons of Saltney's last Lot, 130, Wood writes "The inclusion of numbers in the 28xxx series ... implies the replacement of acquired stock". This leads to the conclusion that No. 28637 along with the two similar Engineering Dept. wagons are acquired or absorbed stock. I don't have a date for Lot 153 but according to my notes, Lot 167 for 55 covered goods wagons Nos. 28941-28995 was completed in Feb 1878 - possibly also as replacements for acquired stock? (The Lots referred to are all "old series".)

 

Looking at a chronological listing of absorptions by the Great Western, following the absorption of the West Midland Railway in 1864 there were no further absorptions of standard gauge lines that owned their own stock until the Monmouthshire Railway in 1880. The major absorption, or rather amalgamation, of the 1870s was with the Bristol & Exeter and the South Devon in 1876. These were broad gauge lines but the Bristol & Exeter had been obliged to lay a considerable mileage of mixed gauge and purchase or build a considerable quantity of standard gauge rolling stock in the years immediately before the amalgamation (so says Wikipedia, anyway), in response to the standard gauge Somerset & Dorset reaching first Highbridge and then in 1874 Bath, providing a standard gauge route from the Midlands to Exeter - I believe it was this that finally drove the B&E into the arms of the GW. 

 

So, in 1876, the Great Western acquired a quantity of nearly-new Bristol & Exeter standard gauge stock, with a potential life in traffic of 30 - 40 years. Were these the wagons numbered in the 28xxx series? Some were being replaced from the late 1870s but many may have survived into the early 20th century, to be replaced by O2s of Lots 518 and 534. 

 

So, I suggest that the wagon in my OP is a former Bristol & Exeter standard gauge wagon. I suspect that examination of the wagon registers at the NRM might reveal more.

[Chrisbr]

Stephen,

 

I'm not sure you're correct about the number of the HP wagon - it was only looking again just now that I noticed the number is on the end as well as the side of the wagon and I'm pretty convinced it's a 5 not 8.

 

If that is indeed correct, the wagon in the photo is converted BG wagon (ex 1461) and is recorded as having a wooden body 1' 10" tall and an Iron underdrame. It was converted from BG in October 1874 and scrapped in 1909.

 

Chris

[Compound2632]

15 hours ago, Chrisbr said:

I'm not sure you're correct about the number of the HP wagon - it was only looking again just now that I noticed the number is on the end as well as the side of the wagon and I'm pretty convinced it's a 5 not 8.

 

If that is indeed correct, the wagon in the photo is converted BG wagon (ex 1461) and is recorded as having a wooden body 1' 10" tall and an Iron underframe. It was converted from BG in October 1874 and scrapped in 1909.

 

Looking back, I had previously convinced myself it was a 5 so was probably guilty of reading it as an 8 to fit my absorbed wagon theory! Anyway, I'm glad the mystery of its identity has finally been nailed. I presume that 1'10" is the inside depth - i.e. two 11" planks? Did the wagon register record length and width as well?

 

I have edited the topic title and opening post to point to this identication.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Compound2632

[Chrisbr]

Length is 16' 2" and Breadth is 7' 2". Wheels 3'6" dia and 9' 9" wheelbase with Double (lever) brakes. Orignal tare 4.7.0 and load 9 tons, at some point amended to tare 4.14.0 and load 8 tons.

[Compound2632]

Thanks, I'm sharpening my knives.

[Compound2632]

On 22/07/2020 at 21:46, Chrisbr said:

Length is 16' 2" and Breadth is 7' 2". 

 

I'm drawing this wagon up on the basis of these dimensions, the H&P photo and the two photos in the Saltney book. I'm running into a bit of trouble reconciling that 7'2" width with the position of the springs, on the inside of the axleguards. If the wagons are on standard axles with 6'6" centres of journals, and the springs are mounted on the journal centre lines as is usual, then if they are the usual 4" wide and the axleguards are ¾" thick and the outer solebar plate say ⅜", the width over the solebars would be 7'0¼". The overhang of the curb rail would thus be less than 1" on each side; it's clearly considerably more - probably about 4½". 

 

Working the other way, if the wagon is 7'2" wide, with 4½" overhang of the curb rail, the width over outside faces of the solebars would be 6'5" and between the inside faces of the axleguards, around 6'2¾". The distance over the front face of the wheels (tyres) is 5'3⅝". The clearance between the back of the axleguard and front of the wheel would then be 5½". That's enough room for a 4" wide spring but it does imply journal centres of 5'10" and journal lengths no more than 6". I think this may be what the photo shows - I think the springs are nearer the wheels than usual - but it does raise some questions as these wagons must be using non-standard axles. Are these somehow recycled from the original BG axles? That seems unlikely, even if the 3'6" wheels are the original BG items. Also, the journal size is rather small for a wagon rated 9 tons, or even 8 tons.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Compound2632

[Chrisbr]

Wagon  register records "Length between centres of Journals" as 6' 4" and Journals as being 8 x 3 1/2. Beyond that I can't help....

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Chrisbr said:

Wagon  register records "Length between centres of Journals" as 6' 4" and Journals as being 8 x 3 1/2. Beyond that I can't help....

 

Well, that gains 2". It's also possible that the springs are not on the journal centre line, though that seems mechanically unsatisfactory, likely to result in uneven bearing wear.