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Silver Bullet China Clay Wagons


TravisM
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I was watching the Spalding - Aberdeen China Clay Slurry depart and most of the train was made up TEA bogie tank wagons.  One stood out, and that was a ICA bogie China Clay Slurry wagon.  Is this the same wagon that Dapol marketed as the “Silver Bullet” though I don’t think any could now be ever called silver!  Any information would be great.

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If the train you saw was the same formation as the photos of the train on Flickr then yes, that wagon is the same as Dapol’s “silver bullet”. The other wagons (TEA) were also used on the Burngullow to Irvine train (where the nickname of “silver bullets” originated) but not until it had been in operation for about 15 years. 

Edited by Western Aviator
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They are called silver bullets as the tank bodies are made of stainless steel, and in the early days they were kept scrupulously clean to the point of a mirror finish on the tank body, over the years though that has fell by the wayside and they are no longer cleaned as often as they were.

 

37412 & 37411, Shaldon Silver Bullets

 

 

Edited by pheaton
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Which wagons were used for China Clay slurry traffic to the NE of Scotland in the 70s & 80s, prior to the silver bullets?

 

 

Steve

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49 minutes ago, 55020 said:

Which wagons were used for China Clay slurry traffic to the NE of Scotland in the 70s & 80s, prior to the silver bullets?

 

 

Steve


Don’t quote me on this but I think most China Clay Slurry came from Cornwall up until fairly recently.  I certainly remember seeing 4 wheeled tarpaulin covered wagons bouncing along behind Class 52’s in the 70’s :laugh_mini:

Edited by jools1959
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21 hours ago, 55020 said:

Which wagons were used for China Clay slurry traffic to the NE of Scotland in the 70s & 80s, prior to the silver bullets?

 

 

Steve


Prior to the arrival of the “silver bullets” china clay going from Cornwall to Scotland would, I believe, have been in dried form. The only exception I can think of is the pair of four wheel TTA/TTB tankers that were used for traffic to the Inveresk Paper Company. 

Edited by Western Aviator
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11 hours ago, jools1959 said:


Don’t quote me on this but I think most China Clay Slurry came from Cornwall up until fairly recently.  I certainly remember seeing 4 wheeled tarpaulin covered wagons bouncing along behind Class 52’s in the 70’s :laugh_mini:

 

There's certainly plenty of photos in the WR of covered wagons being used for dried China Clay, I just have no recollection of them being seen in the Aberdeen area nor can I find any photos.  I wonder how the local paper industry was supplied?

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looks like these were use in the late 60s, Triang have actually done a model of them...

 

I found this on Paul Bartletts website

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stsclaylinertta

 

they didn't get to aberdeen though by the looks of it.

 

anyone know what the two large stars were designating? 

 

 

this thread seems to show more info on china clay in Aberdeen

Edited by pheaton
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2 hours ago, 55020 said:

 

There's certainly plenty of photos in the WR of covered wagons being used for dried China Clay, I just have no recollection of them being seen in the Aberdeen area nor can I find any photos.  I wonder how the local paper industry was supplied?

They would have been ordinary 5-plank opens, with an almost flat tarpaulin covering the load; not the apex-roofed end tippers used within the West Country. The use of china-clay, (or chalk slurry), as a surface treatment for paper and board may have been less common in the region's paper industry in the past. I do know that my old employers, Tenneco Malros, sold enough of their resin-based finishing treatment to justify having a plant there.

I've just looked at the OMYA (formerly Croxton and Gary) site; they apparently built a storage facility for marble (calcium carbonate) slurry in Aberdeen as long ago as 1982.

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15 hours ago, jools1959 said:


Don’t quote me on this but I think most China Clay Slurry came from Cornwall up until fairly recently.  I certainly remember seeing 4 wheeled tarpaulin covered wagons bouncing along behind Class 52’s in the 70’s :laugh_mini:

From the 1970s I seem to recall that there was a Cornwall to Mossend working for the 5 plank opens in a wagonload freight working.

 

The 1980s had the use of the ECC PBA Tiger clay wagons from 1982, I think, and these got to the Thornton Junction area.

 

The bogie clay slurry tanks to Port Elphinstone, near Inverurie, came from Quidhampton near Salisbury and were of three types before the silver bullets were made.

The ICA (15 wagons, ICE554) and TDA (12 wagons, in blue, TD011A) as used on Aberdeen Kirkhill below:

1953497941_Slurrytanks(1).jpg.b36e51fb6248cb1b31fe429be3bae039.jpg

 

The other design was the ex Crosfield TCA (5 wagons, TC009B) as shown on Paul Bartlett's site:

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/crosfieldchinaclaytca/e2d939fb4

 

I have seen photos of clean ICA wagons from 1986, the Crosfield wagons may well have been repainted and refurbished for use on the Port Elphinstone services at the same time. The TDA conversions were made in 1987. All three types also worked from Quidhampton to Sittingbourne. They probably replaced the STS Clayliner 4 wheel wagons which had worked from Burngullow.

 

There were also 4 wheel ex caustic soda tanks used from Burngullow to Aberdeen (at least 8 wagons, TU013A):

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/icicausticsodatua/e3e145baf

 

Edited by Flood
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1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

They would have been ordinary 5-plank opens, with an almost flat tarpaulin covering the load; not the apex-roofed end tippers used within the West Country. The use of china-clay, (or chalk slurry), as a surface treatment for paper and board may have been less common in the region's paper industry in the past. I do know that my old employers, Tenneco Malros, sold enough of their resin-based finishing treatment to justify having a plant there.

I've just looked at the OMYA (formerly Croxton and Gary) site; they apparently built a storage facility for marble (calcium carbonate) slurry in Aberdeen as long ago as 1982.

 

Thanks Brian.  I'm particularly interested in the loads that would have run to Tait's Inverurie paper mill at Port Elphinstone.  I believe they tended to produce higher quality paper and was wondering if that would influence what was used to finish their products?

 

 

Steve

 

Quick edit:  My slow typing managed to ensure I didn't see Flood's reply above until after I hit send. 

Edited by 55020
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55 minutes ago, Flood said:

From the 1970s I seem to recall that there was a Cornwall to Mossend working for the 5 plank opens in a wagonload freight working.

 

The 1980s had the use of the ECC PBA Tiger clay wagons from 1982, I think, and these got to the Thornton Junction area.

 

The bogie clay slurry tanks to Port Elphinstone, near Inverurie, came from Quidhampton near Salisbury and were of three types before the silver bullets were made.

The ICA (15 wagons, ICE554) and TDA (12 wagons, in blue, TD011A) as used on Aberdeen Kirkhill below:

1953497941_Slurrytanks(1).jpg.b36e51fb6248cb1b31fe429be3bae039.jpg

 

The other design was the ex Crosfield TCA (5 wagons, TC009B) as shown on Paul Bartlett's site:

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/crosfieldchinaclaytca/e2d939fb4

 

I have seen photos of clean ICA wagons from 1986, the Crosfield wagons may well have been repainted and refurbished for use on the Port Elphinstone services at the same time. The TDA conversions were made in 1987. All three types also worked from Quidhampton to Sittingbourne. They probably replaced the STS Clayliner 4 wheel wagons which had worked from Burngullow.

 

There were also 4 wheel ex caustic soda tanks used from Burngullow to Aberdeen (at least 8 wagons, TU013A):

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/icicausticsodatua/e3e145baf

 

 

Flood, after reading your posts on the Kirkhill thread I was certain you'd be able to answer my question.  SImply fantastic info, many thanks.

 

 

Steve

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On 11/06/2020 at 03:33, jools1959 said:

I was watching the Spalding - Aberdeen China Clay Slurry depart and most of the train was made up TEA bogie tank wagons.  One stood out, and that was a ICA bogie China Clay Slurry wagon.  Is this the same wagon that Dapol marketed as the “Silver Bullet” though I don’t think any could now be ever called silver!  Any information would be great.

 

Jools, sorry for hijacking your thread.  I hope you don't mind too much.   :drink_mini:

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7 hours ago, 55020 said:

 

Jools, sorry for hijacking your thread.  I hope you don't mind too much.   :drink_mini:


Nah, life’s too short :laugh_mini:.  Aren’t Kernow doing a china clay wagon Of sorts. which is based on a conversation in the 1980’s?

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I saw this particular ICA earlier today at Spalding and I was doing a bit of cross checking and I thought that up to 60 going by Dapol’s running numbers on the wagons, but I’ve discovered that there’s approximately 15 left in service.

 

Because they are SNCF registered, are the rest of the fleet working in France and the rest of Europe or have they slowly been withdrawn and were left with just a handful?

93B84C59-D845-45CA-9CAE-8FCA950B362C.jpeg

714FCD97-7393-4AEF-B676-AD8AD03A4B2C.jpeg

F488C381-59F4-43B8-85D4-9E3246C3FE5E.jpeg

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Interesting those are the Ermewa ones. The NACCO ones seem far more common; to the extent I really struggled to find pictures of the Ermewa ones when working out if they ever got mixed. 

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11 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I saw this particular ICA earlier today at Spalding and I was doing a bit of cross checking and I thought that up to 60 going by Dapol’s running numbers on the wagons, but I’ve discovered that there’s approximately 15 left in service.

 

Because they are SNCF registered, are the rest of the fleet working in France and the rest of Europe or have they slowly been withdrawn and were left with just a handful?


They still appear to be in use on the Antwerp-Dollands Moor-Irvine train. Same destination as the original “Silver Bullets“ but the clay is now sourced from overseas. A rake of twenty wagons seems to be the norm for this working.

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I've been trying to work out in which year did Dapol's version of the 'Silver Bullet' china clay wagons first enter use in the UK.

 

This has proved to be not as straight forward as I'd have thought. The original 'Silver Bullets' used from 1989 on the famous Cornwall - Scotland services were, from what I can make out, British registered TIA wagons (originally supplied by Tiger Rail numbered in the UIC 33 70 7890 XXX-X series). The wagon version produced by Dapol, whilst very simlar to the TIAs, are actually ICAs and whilst they too were bulit from 1989 they remained French registered (UIC 33 87 7898 XXX-X series). When you look closely there are quite a few differences between the two wagon types particularly around the depth of the sole bar, size and position of the number panels, size of handbrake wheels etc. The sole bars on the TIAs where also blue (as per the picture earlier up the thread), whilst they were black on the ICAs.

 

So my question is still, if anyone can help, when were these latter wagons, as modelled Dapol, first used in the UK?

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5 minutes ago, WILLIAM said:

To answer my own question after an epic trawl of Flickr, this picture shows the ICA tanks in use from new in 1989 in the UK despite them not being used on the Burngullow to Irvine 'Silver Bullet' workings which were TIA wagons. Phew!

 

sittingbourne

 

On third-rail territory; Sittingbourne?

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On 19/10/2020 at 20:12, WILLIAM said:

I've been trying to work out in which year did Dapol's version of the 'Silver Bullet' china clay wagons first enter use in the UK.

 

This has proved to be not as straight forward as I'd have thought. The original 'Silver Bullets' used from 1989 on the famous Cornwall - Scotland services were, from what I can make out, British registered TIA wagons (originally supplied by Tiger Rail numbered in the UIC 33 70 7890 XXX-X series). The wagon version produced by Dapol, whilst very simlar to the TIAs, are actually ICAs and whilst they too were bulit from 1989 they remained French registered (UIC 33 87 7898 XXX-X series). When you look closely there are quite a few differences between the two wagon types particularly around the depth of the sole bar, size and position of the number panels, size of handbrake wheels etc. The sole bars on the TIAs where also blue (as per the picture earlier up the thread), whilst they were black on the ICAs.


This Flickr picture by Kernow Rail Phots demonstrates the point quite well. Even from a distance you can see that the first two wagons (ICA) have a different profile to the rest of the train (TIA).

 

Silver Bullets at Carlyon Bay

 

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On 19/10/2020 at 21:45, WILLIAM said:

To answer my own question after an epic trawl of Flickr, this picture shows the ICA tanks in use from new in 1989 in the UK despite them not being used on the Burngullow to Irvine 'Silver Bullet' workings which were TIA wagons. Phew!

 

sittingbourne

 


The ICA type did occasionally appear in the consist of the Burngullow to Irvine train as the photo in my post above shows but I don’t think they ever made up the entire train; the most I have seen is 6 ICAs and 6 TIAs on a northbound working. In order to be strictly correct, anyone modelling the original “Silver Bullet” would need TIAs which I don’t think are available RTR. I have a rake of eleven Dapol N gauge ICAs with the Caledonian Paper plc markings and blue frames that I don’t think actually existed but they are close enough for my purposes. 

Edited by Western Aviator
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