Information sought on Internal sheet bars fitted to 5 plank china clay wagons

[Tallpaul69]

The means of protecting the load in open china Clay wagons prior to the introduction of the "Clayhoods" has been discussed in my "Lower Thames Yard" layout thread.

 

In J.H. Russell's "Freight Wagons and Loads in service on the Great Western Railway and British Rail, Western Region" (Oxford Publishing 1981), figures 27 and 28 (the book does not do page numbers!!) show both ends of a 5 plank China Clay end door wagon W94071 fitted with an internal sheet bar.

The text does not make it clear whether the sheet bar is a permanent fixture or not, The top of the rail appears to be about 2 planks above the top of the wagon.

 

So my questions are :-

1) These wagons were built from 1955 onwards, when were these internal sheet bars fitted?

and

2) How did they work? Were they an internal version of the more normal external sheet bar, and did they pivot in a similar way? Or were they a permanent upright fixture?

 

Many thanks

Best regards

Paul

[watfordtmc]

P,

 

The three sources available to me (listed below, but all are secondary sources) all indicate that the BR Clay wagons were not fitted with sheet bars until 1973.  Until then, clay wagons were sheeted in the same way as ordinary open wagons without sheet bars.  The first two references both state that the bar was fixed rather than pivoting.

 

W94071 would seem to have been an experimental conversion, and I’m not aware of any use of clay hoods until BR began to fit sheet bars as noted above.

 

Although I suspect this will be academic, given your interest seems to be the early 60s, peering at images in the go to resource for BR era wagons: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brclayhood suggests that at the fixed end of a wagon, the bar was fitted to a bracket on the top plank, outside, the end.

At the opening end, there seems to have been a cross bar bracketed from the sides, and just inside the hinge bar of the opening door, to which the bar was fixed.

Paul’s images of B743647 and B743093 are the best I could find showing the arrangements, although I have to say that for B743647 seems to me to show the bar could pivot…!

 

References

1.    “The Clay Hood.”  Totman P, Railway Modeller June 1988, vol 39, No. 452, pp256-261.

2.    “Ratio Clays.”  Chambers J, Modelling Railways Illustrated November-December 1993, vol 1, No. 2, pp70-73.

3.    “Photofile – Special Wagons.”  Kemp E, Model Railways June 1990, vol 7, No.6, pp310-312.

 

Also: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brclayhood

 

Copied from your other post to see it elicits any better responses from GW experts.

 

Regards

TMc

[Hal Nail]

On 27/05/2020 at 14:23, Tallpaul69 said:

The means of protecting the load in open china Clay wagons prior to the introduction of the "Clayhoods" has been discussed in my "Lower Thames Yard" layout thread.

 

In J.H. Russell's "Freight Wagons and Loads in service on the Great Western Railway and British Rail, Western Region" (Oxford Publishing 1981), figures 27 and 28 (the book does not do page numbers!!) show both ends of a 5 plank China Clay end door wagon W94071 fitted with an internal sheet bar.

The text does not make it clear whether the sheet bar is a permanent fixture or not, The top of the rail appears to be about 2 planks above the top of the wagon.

 

So my questions are :-

1) These wagons were built from 1955 onwards, when were these internal sheet bars fitted?

and

2) How did they work? Were they an internal version of the more normal external sheet bar, and did they pivot in a similar way? Or were they a permanent upright fixture?

 

Many thanks

Best regards

Paul

I'm intending to run a rake if these (J &M Hughes) and have looked at loads of photos and never seen any sign of a bar, until the more usual external hood type later on.

 

Does the book say if this was a one off? I had read keeping their powder dry, so to speak, was a recurring problem and presume they tried a few things before coming up with the tent type hood.

[Tallpaul69]

7 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

I'm intending to run a rake if these (J &M Hughes) and have looked at loads of photos and never seen any sign of a bar, until the more usual external hood type later on.

 

Does the book say if this was a one off? I had read keeping their powder dry, so to speak, was a recurring problem and presume they tried a few things before coming up with the tent type hood.

There is no suggestion that the internal bar was a one off.

I should add that my statement that these wagons were built in 1955 is incorrect. The BR series of china clay wagons were built in 1955, the wagon W94071 was a GWR biuild and was modified in 1950 with the internal sheet rail.

 

What makes the understanding of what was done more difficult is that in the china clay traffic to inland locations many standard 5 plank wagons (ie without the end door) were used and many of these had external sheet bars!

 

Best regards

Paul

[Hal Nail]

3 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

I should add that my statement that these wagons were built in 1955 is incorrect. The BR series of china clay wagons were built in 1955, the wagon W94071 was a GWR biuild

Ah, good photos of these in BR days are less common - they pop up in the background at Lostwithiel and Fowey a bit. There are a few preserved though which may give a clue - Didcot has one but although i snapped loads of photos last time I was there, I didnt look inside (not tall enough!).

[ELTEL]

A couple of pictures taken a the NRM last year

 

Terry 

[Hal Nail]

3 hours ago, ELTEL said:

A couple of pictures taken a the NRM last year

 

Terry 

These are the BR design unfortunately, not the earlier GWR.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Hal Nail

[ELTEL]

Ok

[watfordtmc]

P,

 

Have now found what seem to be the same images you refer to in the monumental “GWR Wagons” (3rd Edition) although I doubt that are as satisfactorily reproduced as in "Freight Wagons and Loads in service on the Great Western Railway and British Rail, Western Region".

 

However, careful study of the images leads me to the view that the sheet bar arrangements are as I described for the BR wagons, i.e. at the fixed end the bar is fitted to a bracket secured to the outside of the wagon.

At the tip end, the close up image shows that a length of tube was welded to the capping clips, across the body, just inside the end door’s hinge bar and the tip end of the sheet bar was fixed (probably welded) to the tube.

 

I am not an engineer, but I would think the mechanical strength of the simple weld butt joint between the sheet bar and its support tube, and presumably a similar weld at the fixed end, must be rather suspect.

 

The text on china clay wagons which accompanies these images discusses the brakes in detail – but has nothing to say about the sheet bar.  It does note however that by 1950 BR were refurbishing these wagons to “… keep them in service for just a few years more…” and that the GW wagons were mostly withdrawn in 1959/60, by which time they would have been over 40 years old.

 

My personal opinion is that W94071 was a one-off.  As Hal Nail notes, pictures of china clay workings are hard to come by, but a quick Google search based on ‘china clay trains at Fowey’ returned a small number of relevant images, none of which showed sheet bars being used on clay trains until the 1970’s.

 

However, it’s your railway, so your call.

 

Reference

GWR Goods Wagons (3rd Edition), Atkins A, Beard W, Tourret R, Oxford Publishing Co (Ian Allan) 2013, pp 303-306.

 

Regards,

TMc