LNER 6 wheeled tank traps

[Lenny]

I am after some help, with a photo, information or dwgs wrt a LNER 6 wheeled coal wagon built in WWII. From what I can remember from the article there where 6 of these wagons built in WWII by the LNER, there purpose was to stop enemy tanks or trains going through tunnels in the event of an invasion. 

They were filled with concrete (that's why they had 6 wheels). They were placed at the entry points to the tunnels, on a make shift siding. How the LNER positioned them in the tunnels I don't know or how they decided which tunnels they were stationed at.

They may have been even a private owner wagon converted by the LNER.

They didn't simply have a extra set of wheels attached to the wagon under frame, it was part of the wagon sub frame (I think).

I have only ever seen one picture of one many years ago in Railway Modeller magazine in the 60's or 70's . I kept the issue for many years and like so many in this hobby when you need it you can’t find it.  If anybody has that picture or any information I would be thank full as I would like to build one.

 

Can anybody help?

Cheers Richard

[Wickham Green too]

I don't know about the LNER but the Southern certainly 'built' some and "there were half a dozen or so at Havant alone" according to Southern Wagons Volume Four ........ these, at least, were very much a bodge with an extra pair of wheels added beneath a modified Private Owner's wagon over-filled with concrete.

[Tony Cane]

Here is a picture of one of those built by the SR. The LNER ones are probably similar.

[The Johnster]

 One has to admire the way the poor old thing's springs have failed to collapse. They prolly will as soon as it moves; the extra wheel is completely unsprung.  I assume the idea was to derail them in the tunnels as the enemy train would just propel them out otherwise, or was the idea to tip the concrete block out onto the tracks?

[davefrk]

Looks like the springs are 'blocked' to stop them collapsing and probably why the thing is off the rails in the shed yard.

 

Dave.

[Tony Cane]

Wooden blocks between the spring and solebar prevent the collapse. There is a similar picture in Service Stock of the Southern Railway taken at Folkestone in 1946

 

The reason for their existence was that it was decided that our limited forces in mid 1940  could not hope to prevent the Germans from landing, so a series of  defense, or stop. Lines were planed and sited inland. These used natural features, as much as possible, with the addition of pill boxes and anti tank ditches. All roads and railways that created a gap in these defenses had to have a means of  inserting a tank barrier. Roads were of course fairly easy to block, and as mentioned in the caption under the photograph, concrete sockets were inserted under railway tracks to allow specially shaped girders to be inserted. The solution where tunnels provided a bypass under the defenses, seems to have been the illustrated tunnel blocking wagon. The procedure was to derail the wagon in the tunnel and thus block it. This perhaps explains the notes on the reverse of the print. This is probably a record of a test run.

This may seem to be a limited, and easily removable obstruction, but this is in keeping with the thinking at the time, regarding how a land Battle of Britain would probably go. The more obvious solution, of using explosives to provide a  very blocked tunnel was not implemented for a number of reasons. The charges would be too dangerous to leave in place, they would take time, and expertise to place the event of an invasion and if detonated, on what proved to be false alarm, it would not be easy to restore the damage. After the initial panic of June 1940, it was realised that if we had not thrown back any invasion in a week or two at the most, then we would probably be defeated. It was thus unnecessary to do any damage that would take more than week to restore. This proved to be very prudent, as the false alarm of September 7, 1940 caused several bridges to be blown up. 

 

There were, if I remember correctly, eight of these wagons stationed at Fareham, due to the multiple tunnels at that location.

[The Johnster]

On 25/03/2020 at 14:12, Tony Cane said:

but this is in keeping with the thinking at the time, regarding how a land Battle of Britain would probably go. The more obvious solution, of using explosives to provide a  very blocked tunnel was not implemented for a number of reasons. The charges would be too dangerous to leave in place, they would take time, and expertise to place the event of an invasion and if detonated, on what proved to be false alarm, it would not be easy to restore the damage. After the initial panic of June 1940, it was realised that if we had not thrown back any invasion in a week or two at the most, then we would probably be defeated. It was thus unnecessary to do any damage that would take more than week to restore. This proved to be very prudent, as the false alarm of September 7, 1940 caused several bridges to be blown up. 

Yes, that makes sense.  And of course if we'd managed to repel the invaders after they had established a beachhead with a front line away from the coast, we'd have needed the use of those tunnels ourselves to supply the fighting front that was pushing them back.  Luckily it never came to that, but looking at the defence plan I'd have to say that we stood a better chance than we reckoned we did, and that a German invasion of the UK would have been a long and costly affair for them.  Even if they established control of the island of Great Britain, our forces would have largely evacuated to the Empire, and they'd still have had a hell of a fight on their hands.  Our civilian casualties would have been immense.

[Tony Cane]

Here is a model of a tunnel blocking wagon that I built more years ago than I care to remember.

Although built for 16.5mm gauge track, I had to use P4 wheels due to the position of the extra wheel set.

[62613]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Yes, that makes sense.  And of course if we'd managed to repel the invaders after they had established a beachhead with a front line away from the coast, we'd have needed the use of those tunnels ourselves to supply the fighting front that was pushing them back.  Luckily it never came to that, but looking at the defence plan I'd have to say that we stood a better chance than we reckoned we did, and that a German invasion of the UK would have been a long and costly affair for them.  Even if they established control of the island of Great Britain, our forces would have largely evacuated to the Empire, and they'd still have had a hell of a fight on their hands.  Our civilian casualties would have been immense.

It would have failed, thanks to the Royal Navy. The Germans might well have got ashore, they could choose their time and place, after all, but once the navy arrived, that would have been it.

 

[dvdlcs]

Why the sloped end to the side of the wagon? What purpose did that serve against the original vertical end?

[Tony Cane]

2 hours ago, dvdlcs said:

Why the sloped end to the side of the wagon? What purpose did that serve against the original vertical end?

The caption on a picture of a similar wagon in British Railways Illustrated says that the method of deployment was to tip the wagon on end. The cut off sides presumably aids doing this.

[The Johnster]

22 hours ago, 62613 said:

It would have failed, thanks to the Royal Navy. The Germans might well have got ashore, they could choose their time and place, after all, but once the navy arrived, that would have been it.

 

I think it probably would, but not if the Germans had established air superiority; their failure to do this in the summer of 1940 is the likely reason they started thinking about Russia; big mistake.  The Germans did not have enough capital ships to protect an invasion fleet or the following supply operation, but with air superiority and Stukas able to put bombs down ships' funnels and blow the bottoms out as well as U boats to contend with, our naval losses would have been immense and I suspect the plan was to harry the Germans as much as possible at sea but deal with them on land, retreating to Canada if absolutely necessary.  

 

Despite pioneering naval air power in the form of carriers, the British RN seems to have been slow to appreciate the potential damage of a determined air attack; mind you, the Italians and Americans were guilty of the same mistake.  It cost us Prince of Wales and Repulse among others, and I was alarmed in the Falklands conflict to hear after the Sheffield and Coventry were lost to the obsolete Skyhawks just as the Italians lost ships to obsolete biplanes at Taranto, observed from the shore by Admiral Yamamoto, a British Admiral expressing surprise that a ship could be so easily destroyed aircraft attack, a thought process that should have been abandoned 60 years earlier after the US demonstrated that bombed warships tend to sink.

 

With air superiority, the Germans would have probably got ashore, with losses comparable to Omaha.  But staying ashore would have been another matter; with heavy losses of their men and equipment, we could have held the defensive lines pretty well.  The problem, if there was going to be one, was those Stukas and the Blitzkrieg tactic, which falls apart if it is slowed up.  Academic,  because thankfully it never happened, but fun to speculate.  

 

 

 

[62613]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I think it probably would, but not if the Germans had established air superiority; their failure to do this in the summer of 1940 is the likely reason they started thinking about Russia; big mistake.  The Germans did not have enough capital ships to protect an invasion fleet or the following supply operation, but with air superiority and Stukas able to put bombs down ships' funnels and blow the bottoms out as well as U boats to contend with, our naval losses would have been immense and I suspect the plan was to harry the Germans as much as possible at sea but deal with them on land, retreating to Canada if absolutely necessary.  

 

Despite pioneering naval air power in the form of carriers, the British RN seems to have been slow to appreciate the potential damage of a determined air attack; mind you, the Italians and Americans were guilty of the same mistake.  It cost us Prince of Wales and Repulse among others, and I was alarmed in the Falklands conflict to hear after the Sheffield and Coventry were lost to the obsolete Skyhawks just as the Italians lost ships to obsolete biplanes at Taranto, observed from the shore by Admiral Yamamoto, a British Admiral expressing surprise that a ship could be so easily destroyed aircraft attack, a thought process that should have been abandoned 60 years earlier after the US demonstrated that bombed warships tend to sink.

 

With air superiority, the Germans would have probably got ashore, with losses comparable to Omaha.  But staying ashore would have been another matter; with heavy losses of their men and equipment, we could have held the defensive lines pretty well.  The problem, if there was going to be one, was those Stukas and the Blitzkrieg tactic, which falls apart if it is slowed up.  Academic,  because thankfully it never happened, but fun to speculate.  

 

 

 

Is it worth pointing out that operating under similar conditions to those that might have obtained over Britain in September 1940, that is, British fighter aircraft that could intervene intermittently over the front, the RN managed to evacuate 336,000 troops from the port and beaches around Dunkirk; although destroyer losses were fairly high, only two actually lost to aircraft; off Crete a year after that, the seaborne part of the German invasion attempt was utterly defeated, and the RN evacuated about 60% of the garrison, despite the Luftwaffe having complete command of the air.  OK. shipping losses were fairly high (a cruiser and several destroyers sunk), but given what was at stake in September, are you suggesting that the C-in-C home Fleet would have been any less determined than A.B. Cunningham in the Med.

Lastly is it worth pointing out that only Goering really thought that he would succeed. The Wehrmacht high command thought it was a suicide mission; admiral Raeder thought so as well.

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by 62613

[laurenceb]

The Germans didnt have the resources to invade, all they had for troop carriers were Rhine barges. All the Navy would have had to do was steam past at full speed and they would have been swamped

[The Johnster]

Cunningham was the right man in the right place at the right time in the Med; his responses to the Crete invasion and protection of Malta convoys in both directions were, IMHO, brilliantly conceived and executed, though the losses were severe.  My father was 3rd Officer of the Melbourne Star, a Blue Star line merchantman that was one of the survivors of the 'Operation Pedastal' convoy to relieve Malta; 5 merchantmen including the tanker Ohio which was basically a mostly submerged hulk on arrival at Valletta, sinking as it's cargo was pumped off, and the naval escort lost the aircraft carrier Eagle and the cruiser Manchester to Italian submarines.

 

But even the aggressive Cunningham had planned the withdrawal of the battleships Nelson and Rodney along with the other capital units before they could come in range of Italian aircraft from Sardinia; the risk was simply too great despite the importance of this convoy (it was vital that Malta be relieved as it was besieged and on the point of capitulation for lack of supplies and fuel, and had Malta fallen Rommel's forces in North Africa would have had an uninterrupted and unchallenged supply route; the Suez Canal would have probably been lost.  Moreover the Med would have been effectively closed to British shipping, which would have seriously compromised the supply routes from India, the Far East, and the Antipodes; a loss we could ill afford).  

 

Pedastal took place shortly after the PQ 17 disaster, in which German disinformation successfully led the Admiralty to believe that the convoy was about to be attacked by the Tirpitz, resulting in the withdrawal to Scapa of the capital units protecting it.  It does seem that British policy was to hold capital ships back from actions in which they might be lost, probably exacerbated by the loss of Hood.  The Germans seemed to have behaved similarly after they lost Bismark, but they had the U boat campaign to take up the slack in the Atlantic.  The Italians seemed reluctant to leave harbour at all as long as there were British warships in the Med; the real naval aggression in WW2 was the no-holds-barred full on action in the Pacific between the Americans and Japanese.

[DCB]

On 26/03/2020 at 17:05, Tony Cane said:

Here is a model of a tunnel blocking wagon that I built more years ago than I care to remember.

Although built for 16.5mm gauge track, I had to use P4 wheels due to the position of the extra wheel set.

Looks like the block is a bit too far forward compared to the prototype pic.

The whole thing looks pretty daft unless they could tip the block out, otherwise Jerry would simply hook up three or four locos and drag the derailed wagon out along the rails, even a concrete block would probably slide out along the rails. Maybe they planned to remove a rail to ensure it tipped over.  Or perhaps they relied on Jerry falling about laughing at the feeble Englisher lokmotiven they would have found down Kent way.

[rodent279]

Can't help thinking that, assuming the Nazis had got ashore in sufficient numbers, and were able to maintain their supply routes, they would simply have been slowed down. After all, they simply avoided the Maginot line, and went straight through the Ardennes instead.

I think if the Nazis really wanted to invade, they would have built a fleet of proper landing craft. That they never did says a lot. Given air superiority and U fleet support, I think the result would have been a short, intense battle, occupation of London, some sort of uneasy coming to terms, and probably years of guerilla warfare from the north of the country, until eventually the Americans and/or Soviets chose to liberate us.

Whatever, it never happened. In some ways, Hitler and his refusal to listen to his generals was our best asset.

[Invicta]

The whole 'Sealion' scenario was wargamed at Sandhurst in the 70's by a group of military historians and senior officers from both sides, and I think the outcome was that the Germans would have successfully achieved a beach-head in Kent and Sussex, but the Royal Navy then arrive in the Channel just in time to slaughter the second wave of the landing , leaving the advancing German forces short of heavy weapons, ammunition and fuel and unable to resupply, forcing them to evacuate or surrender after about a week.

 

[Invicta]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Pedastal took place shortly after the PQ 17 disaster, in which German disinformation successfully led the Admiralty to believe that the convoy was about to be attacked by the Tirpitz, resulting in the withdrawal to Scapa of the capital units protecting it.  It does seem that British policy was to hold capital ships back from actions in which they might be lost, probably exacerbated by the loss of Hood.  

 

One of the escorting destroyers on both PQ17 and Pedestal was HMS Ledbury, skippered by Lt-Cdr Roger Hill DSO, DSC. Hill, a man once described by a colleague as 'a natural rebel, in another age he would have made an excellent, if humane. pirate' was haunted by the outcome of PQ17, and before sailing on Pedestal, his briefing to his crew was simple "You remember what happened on PQ17. This time, as long as there's a merchant ship afloat, we'll stay alongside it and to hell with  any signal we get from anybody"

 

He was as good as his word- when the SS Waimarama, carrying fuel in drums as deck cargo, was sunk by a direct bomb hit, spilling burning oil into the sea, Hill steered Ledbury into the heart of the flames to pick up survivors, and along with HMS Penn and HMS Bramham, Ledbury was one of the three destroyers that shepherded the Ohio into Valetta harbour.

 

Returning from Naval to railway matters, tunnel-blocking/tank traps weren't the only wartime re-purposing of mineral wagons.

 

In order to compensate for a shortage of double bolster wagons, a quantity of mineral wagons were converted into improvised bolster wagons by the simple expedient of removing one end, coupling them in pairs with the now-open ends facing, and adding some internal timbers to strengthen them and support a bolster.

 

According to the Bob Essery LMS Wagons books, the LMS take on this was Diagram 2050, and apparently about 2000 pairs were converted, with the LMS, LNER, GWR and SR all chipping in with varying quantities. Some were later re-converted, but about 1000 were still in traffic after 1945. There is a drawing in the book (Vol 1, p.119). but it states no photos are known.

 

I did see one modelled on a 7mm layout at a show last year, and from very vague memory, there was an article on them in the Modeller back in the early 70's- I recall coming across it in a pile of old mags at my former club some years back.

 

Does anyone know any more about these?- or does the vaguely-remembered RM article ring any bells? It's been on my 'I must model that sometime' list for several years!

Edited March 28, 2020 by Invicta

[The Johnster]

That’s interesting; I wonder if there were any ‘hybrid’ sets, pairs of wagons from different companies.  
 

Hill, and Ledbury, contributed heroically to Pedestal’s strategic success (there is no other way in which such losses could be regarded as succesful), and the struggle to bring  Ohio in, sinking, without power, with an Italian bomber and a Stuka crashed aboard her and moving only by virtue of Ledbury and Penn lashed to her to get her under what little way they could (maintaining a course must have been difficult in the extreme), was a full on epic.  

[dvdlcs]

Not so much mineral wagons, but in Australia there are gondolas that have been repurposed for steel traffic by removing the side doors (and a centre panel) and having bolsters fitted for carrying steel sections, although these are individual wagons rather than pairs.

 

There have also been gondolas repurposed for container traffic: having holes cut in the side and container mounting points fitted to the deck, etc.

 

All happened a long time after the original post and in a land far away, so somewhat off topic. Sorry :-)

[Tony Cane]

42 minutes ago, Invicta said:

 

One of the escorting destroyers on both PQ17 and Pedestal was HMS Ledbury, skippered by Lt-Cdr Roger Hill DSO, DSC. Hill, a man once described by a colleague as 'a natural rebel, in another age he would have made an excellent, if humane. pirate' was haunted by the outcome of PQ17, and before sailing on Pedestal, his briefing to his crew was simple "You remember what happened on PQ17. This time, as long as there's a merchant ship afloat, we'll stay alongside it and to hell with  any signal we get from anybody"

 

He was as good as his word- when the SS Waimarama, carrying fuel in drums as deck cargo, was sunk by a direct bomb hit, spilling burning oil into the sea, Hill steered Ledbury into the heart of the flames to pick up survivors, and along with HMS Penn and HMS Bramham, Ledbury was one of the three destroyers that shepherded the Ohio into Valetta harbour.

 

Returning from Naval to railway matters, tunnel-blocking/tank traps weren't the only wartime re-purposing of mineral wagons.

 

In order to compensate for a shortage of double bolster wagons, a quantity of mineral wagons were converted into improvised bolster wagons by the simple expedient of removing one end, coupling them in pairs with the now-open ends facing, and adding some internal timbers to strengthen them and support a bolster.

 

According to the Bob Essery LMS Wagons books, the LMS take on this was Diagram 2050, and apparently about 2000 pairs were converted, with the LMS, LNER, GWR and SR all chipping in with varying quantities. Some were later re-converted, but about 1000 were still in traffic after 1945. There is a drawing in the book (Vol 1, p.119). but it states no photos are known.

 

I did see one modelled on a 7mm layout at a show last year, and from very vague memory, there was an article on them in the Modeller back in the early 70's- I recall coming across it in a pile of old mags at my former club some years back.

 

Does anyone know any more about these?- or does the vaguely-remembered RM article ring any bells? It's been on my 'I must model that sometime' list for several years!

Attached are some images of these emergency twin bolster wagons.

The larger images are, unfortunately, scans of scans from an album that is in the PRO at KEW.

The picture of the set marked HYTWIN is dated 1954

And finally there is a picture of my 4mm scale model.

[Invicta]

That's brilliant Tony, exactly what I was looking for! The interior view shows the bolster arrangement much more clearly than the LMS drawing, and the photos show the side doors removed, whereas the LMS drawing seemed to imply them being left in place

 

I've got a few Parkside RCH minerals in my wagon kit stash, and I can see a couple of them embarking on a whole new career as bolster wagons fairly shortly...

[Fat Controller]

The 'improvised' twin-bolsters were still in use in South Wales ( most notably from Llanelly Steel) into the late 1950s/ early 1960s. Some seem to have doors, and some didn't. There's a photo of some in service in 1961 in John Hodge's 'The South Wales Main Line- Part 5- Swansea to Llanelli' This shows three sets; not only is the end door and side doors removed, but the fixed end has had an opening cut in it. The  2nd to 4th (inclusive) planks counting from the top)  have been removed , but the two steel straps between the headstocks and the top edge of the end remain in situ. I can imagine removing the planks, but not the strapping could be challenging...

[rodent279]

Why didn't they just remove all the sides & ends, and create two flat wagons with bolsters?