Imaginary Rolling Stock

[Corbs]

A place to dream of what could have been in the world of carriages and wagons.

 

I was throwing together some ideas of what 1930s-1960s era goods wagons could have looked like had the railways been able to shake off 4 wheeled stock, and were able to invest in vacuum braked bogie stock that was able to keep to faster timings, thereby less need to be put into goods loops and the like.

 

It stemmed from a discussion on the imaginary locomotives thread. What traffic could a large 2-cylinder Stanier/Ivatt 2-8-4 or 2-8-2 have been useful for? 8F and 5MT locos were adequate for real life plodding unfitted trains, and some higher-speed fitted goods, but locos like the LNER P1 were overkill on the rubbish goods stock.

 

So these are the two I've drawn up. A bogie van and a coke hopper. I've used Seacow bogies for the time being (as Seacows weigh a lot), possibly a bit too modern for this though, any suggestions? The underframes are wider in the middle like Warflats are (also designed to hold heavy things).

 

 

 

 

[Rivercider]

A place to dream of what could have been in the world of carriages and wagons.

 

 

So these are the two I've drawn up. A bogie van and a coke hopper. I've used Seacow bogies for the time being (as Seacows weigh a lot), possibly a bit too modern for this though, any suggestions? The underframes are wider in the middle like Warflats are (also designed to hold heavy things).

 

 

In the 1930s the Southern Railway introduced the Walrus 40t bogie ballast hopper. Later diagram no. 1775 built 1947 had a cast steel bogie similar to American design,

 

cheers

Edited January 27, 2018 by Rivercider

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

A surprising amount of bogie stock actually made it off the drawing board....

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stayed away from the more obvious NPC stock

Edited January 27, 2018 by Dr Gerbil-Fritters

[Flying Pig]

This is what the LMS built when able to dictate the scale of operations:

 

http://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/143-lms-coal-the-40t-hoppers

[Corbs]

In the 1930s the Southern Railway introduced the Walrus 40t bogie ballast hopper. Later diagram no. 1775 built 1947 had a cast steel bogie similar to American design,

 

cheers

Thank you, a much more period appropriate style.

 

Also added a fish van.

 

Edited January 27, 2018 by Corbs

[Zomboid]

If the railway had been permitted to develop its freight equipment in such a manner, I suspect we'd have seen containerisation a little earlier, with road distribution to/ from major railheads, rather than sending a 4 wheeled van up a branch line. So we'd be looking at some bogie flat wagons on which containers about the size of a 4 wheeled van would sit. Or maybe the containers would be swapped around and dispatched up the branches accordingly.

The Southern got the Guard's accommodation right with the Queen Mary, but what of the others? A bogie equipped Toad?

[Ramblin Rich]

The other questions are what braking system and couplers to adopt. The LMS bogie vehicles still have buffers and 3-links (or tension locks!)....

[28XX]

BR once had a proposal to build containers which could be lifted on and off flat wagons by a skip lorry (dumpster truck). It could have saved the wagon load / less-than-wagon-load traffic from oblivion. I rather like the idea of a pickup goods train pulling into a wayside station with half a dozen lorries ready reversed up to the platform edge.

[Corbs]

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Really should be air braking and centre mounted auto couplers (US style)

[scots region]

bogie-train5.jpg

bogie-brake-van.jpg

 

Very decent work Mr Corbs.

[Corbs]

Thanks mate!

 

BR once had a proposal to build containers which could be lifted on and off flat wagons by a skip lorry (dumpster truck). It could have saved the wagon load / less-than-wagon-load traffic from oblivion. I rather like the idea of a pickup goods train pulling into a wayside station with half a dozen lorries ready reversed up to the platform edge.

 

That sounds like something I'd like to see!

 

I had a stab at a bogie conflat.

 

Also adjusted the various wagon lengths to make them less obviously based on one chassis - the hopper looked a bit weak in the middle being so long.

 

 

aaaaaaand a double ended bogie TOAD. Done rather lazily with the same bogie style and underframe. I think the GWR bogie coal wagons used this style of bogie though?

Edited January 27, 2018 by Corbs

[BernardTPM]

I would have thought that the horsebox would run on passenger bogies (possibly the guard's vans too - like the actually built SR ones). Also with the fish vans spreading the doors along the sides would make more sense rather than sticking them together. Possibly even three sets of doors on a van that long.

An interesting thread though.

[Corbs]

I would have thought that the horsebox would run on passenger bogies (possibly the guard's vans too - like the actually built SR ones). Also with the fish vans spreading the doors along the sides would make more sense rather than sticking them together. Possibly even three sets of doors on a van that long.

An interesting thread though.

 

Perhaps more like this?

 

Hmmm, the doors on the fish van gave me a humdinger. I actually ended up taking the double doors out and replacing with one wider one. Reason was - do more doors mean that storage space is lost? I've not seen the inside of a loaded fish van.

 

 

Perhaps this works better for loading as you say. Slightly longer, this version.

Edited January 28, 2018 by Corbs

[scots region]

That third one looks perfect.

[JimC]

Presumably your big bogie stock would be vac brakes, as there wouldn't be the myriad leaky connections that were problematic with 4 wheel stock, so a very big brake van would be unnecessary? You'd need it to ride alright, so perhaps a combined brake van and goods van, in other words a conventional parcel trains brake?

 

Now if you want an interesting speculation, consider adoption of containerisation in the early/mid 19thC?

 

With easy transhipment of goods between wagons then many of the disadvantages of mixed broad and narrow gauge would be minimised. Wagons could all be railway owned, just the containers owned privately, and the speed and reliability of freight traffic greatly increased. 

Freight yards might contain instead of coal staithes working platforms where the containers would be swiftly offloaded...

By the 1930s just about all freight traffic might be in containers on flats and well wagons.

AIUI most vans were part loaded by weight, so containers might go down to much smaller sizes, maybe even small enough to be stacked two deep. Some containers were small enough to have 3 or 4 on a 16ft wagon, so bogie flats might have eight or ten...

[Zomboid]

I think brake vans need to be separate from the freight carrying vehicles for situations where the train in question doesn't need van accommodation (eg coal). How would a 4 wheel van run at passenger train speeds? That's the real driver behind giving the guard 4 axles.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I Imagined the guards van to look something like this, the SAR V7...

 

 

I'd also expect the freight stock to be the same length regardless of type, as in the US where 40' or 50' was the standard length in steam days.  This made it easy to compute trains by length and weight.  There would be exceptions of course, but the general principle was for standardised units.

[Corbs]

I Imagined the guards van to look something like this, the SAR V7...

 

385227_100508170831_V7_Box.jpg

 

I'd also expect the freight stock to be the same length regardless of type, as in the US where 40' or 50' was the standard length in steam days.  This made it easy to compute trains by length and weight.  There would be exceptions of course, but the general principle was for standardised units.

Yes, no-one would want open verandas on a high speed goods! It needs to be more like a parcel brake as above. Needs a rethink.

[cctransuk]

I had a stab at a bogie conflat.

bogie-conflat.jpg

 

 

That's a bit titchy - especially when BR had this :-

 

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[cctransuk]

Perhaps more like this?

bogie-brake-van2.jpg

 

 

The LMS got there before you - 40T bogie brakevan to Diagram 1799 for the Copley Hill - Armley Branch.

 

What needs to be remembered is that, if traffic and operating conditions required them, the Big Four and BR were perfectly capable of designing and building innovative rolling stock.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Edited January 28, 2018 by cctransuk

[PhilJ W]

If the railway had been permitted to develop its freight equipment in such a manner, I suspect we'd have seen containerisation a little earlier, with road distribution to/ from major railheads, rather than sending a 4 wheeled van up a branch line. So we'd be looking at some bogie flat wagons on which containers about the size of a 4 wheeled van would sit. Or maybe the containers would be swapped around and dispatched up the branches accordingly.

The Southern got the Guard's accommodation right with the Queen Mary, but what of the others? A bogie equipped Toad?

Someone has modelled a bogie toad. On the subject of bogies certainly all passenger rated stock such as the fish vans would be on coach bogies. Fish and refridgerator vans usually have relatively small single doors basically to keep the cold in. As for passenger rated stock what about milk tankers? As the dairies owned the tanks and they were sometimes transferred to new chassis its quite possible for two tanks to have been fitted on a single (bogie) chassis. A large horsebox like the one depicted would probably have a grooms compartment almost certainly placed centrally.

[rockershovel]

I would have thought that the steel vans would have been introduced along with bogie construction - you get the structural advantages of the steel shell.

 

Two doors, three doors - makes no difference. The real advantage is mechanised handling and loading. The hardest thing you can do with a loader truck is turn 90 degrees, which is why containers all have end doors... straight in, straight out.

 

There would probably have been half-height containers, there are certainly half-height stillages in general use for small items or loads

Edited January 28, 2018 by rockershovel

[Fat Controller]

The NER used bogie coal hoppers on traffic to Blyth Staithes from Ashington, in the early years of the 20th century- the design was inspired by North American practice. Photos of these seem to be very rare, the only one I've seen has been on a site about the 1980's Miners' Strike.

The GWR built some long-wheelbase four-wheeled vans, and some bogie ones, for goods traffic; even running between large centres such as Paddington Goods and Bristol or Birmingham, it was difficult to find enough traffic to justify them.

There have been some pretty big bogie insulated/refrigerated wagons in Europe; most I've seen have a single door, wide enough for a pallet. The reason for the minimal door provision is that door seals are problematic.

The skip-wagon idea was trialled on several wagons in the UK. One used short, conventional, skips, loaded transversally. Another, for bulk powder, involved the road vehicle reversing along the track until its tail touched the wagon buffers, the load being loaded longitudinally. The lorry used for the latter was an 'eight-legger' Foden, with a massive 'gibbet' for handling the containers. Wagons using similar ideas have had more success on mainland Europe: the ACTS system being one ( http://www.railmotion.com/site/EN/ACTS%20system/ ), whilst another uses forks which slide out of the side of the trailer bed, and fit into the fork pockets found under some ISO boxes. Both are confined to specialist traffic, however; most notably domestic rubbish and scrap.

[BernardTPM]

Fish and refridgerator vans usually have relatively small single doors basically to keep the cold in.

The GWR Insixfish vans had two pairs of double doors. Also French STEF bogie insulated vans had two pairs of doors.