Port Talbot steelworks 80T general purpose wagon

[clarkea1]

Thought people may be interested in a few pictures of my model of one of these wagons:

 

 

They were used at the Steel Company of Wales (and successors British Steel Corporation, and then PLC) Margam works as general use wagons.   They were used for iron and steel scrap, mill scrap, slab crop ends, hot mill scale, hot mill and cold mill scrap and transfer/storeage of rolls, in other words, heavy traffic that would give the wagons a bit of a bashing.  This particular example was built by Cambrian Wagon & Engineering of Cardiff in 1959 - built as 60T capacity but soon uprated to 80T.  They were introduced at a time when the steel works in Port Talbot was extensively modernised with the construction of the Abbey Works, heavily based on then state-of-the-art American steelworks.  This extended to the locomotives and rolling stock - big (initially American Alco and then later Brush Bagnall) bo-bo diesel electric shunters, and much use of large bogie vehicles for rolling stock.  I have  a much better set of photos of the wagon (though not my copyright) from which I scaled the wagon and drew it up in Solidworks CAD, for 3d printing.  The CAD can be seen below:

 

 

I duly ordered the prints from Shapeways and sat and waited (with a quoted 4 week lead time) - I was pleasantly surprised that the prints arrived within about 4 working days!  Initial impressions were good, except for the damage which can be seen in the image below on the buffer heads

 

 

I fed back to Shapeways, in case this was a QC issue and the part was damaged before shipping.  Shapeways, to their credit, immediately ordered me a free of charge reprint, before I had chance to tell them I could probbaly salvage the model anyway, so I may well build a second of these wagons in due course. 

 

The first stage was to thoroughly wash the wagon parts in warm soapy water, soaking them for 3-4 hours a number of times to remove the residue of the support wax which this particular rapid prototyping method uses.  I then gave the body a quick coat of grey primer, to see what the finish was like (the material, being slightly transparent, is very difficult to properly see without a coat of paint).  There was then some judicious use of high build primer, rubbing down, more primer etc to get the body to a reasonable finish. It wasn't bad to start with, but the layering caused by the printing method was noticeable on the sloped sides of the wagon.  The damaged buffers were carefully sawn off, replacing them with some Lanarkshire Models which matched the photos I had of the prototype (code B050 looked very close).  I think I will do the same on the second wagon, as I'm not convinced the plastic is strong enough to withstand use as buffers.

 

The bogies, not having any large sloped surfaces, are a much better finish and have just been primed and sprayed. The bogies are mounted using an M3 bolt into a hole in the mounting point which I carefull tapped (the material taps well). I shamelessly nicked this simple mounting method off the etched kit I designed years ago for the large bogie wagons used at Workington steelworks. Brass pinpoint bearings were pressed into holes in the bogie prints (I got lucky - the sizes worked first time for a gentle press fit) and Gibson EM gauge lowmac wheelsets fitted.

 

 

 

 

There is a bit more left to do - I need to add the ladders which can be seen in the prototype photo (sorry the quality is poor, I have some much better photos but they're not my copyright so I'm keeping them to myself). I also need to sort out the end plates on the bogies, and the brake linkages - the brake levers which can be seen in the prototype shot are actually only attached to the bogies, and have sufficient clearance between lever and wagon solebar that the bogies can swing. Quite if this will work in 4mm I'm less sure - we'll see! Since drawing the wagon from photos and ordering the prints, I've obtained a set of drawings..... which show my wagon is spot on in most dimensions, except the body is a scale 6" too tall. I think I'll live with it for now!

 

 

 

[Mark Saunders]

Alistair

 

It really  looks good and I believe that I could do with some!

 

Are these available to purchase?

 

Mark

[Mark Saunders]

This is one with modified ends!

[clarkea1]

Hi Mark,

 

Interestingly - that's the same wagon (2551) as the original prototype photo I posted.  I presume the ends got damaged perhaps at one point - these things had a hard life.  Looks like it's loaded with side trimmings from the cold mill.

 

I'll PM you about getting hold of some prints.

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

[ianblenk]

[Mark Saunders]

3 hours ago, ianblenk said:

 

These were built by Standard Wagon at Heywood and were described as crop end wagons; they were originally twice the height as shown a photograph in Dave Tandy's book on SRW wagons!

 

Cambrian produced a two axle version and one remains at Brymbo in semi preservation!

 

 

[clarkea1]

I believe there were some at Workington - is that where this pic was taken? I believe they were originally built for pigs from a pig casting machine, hence the massively heavy construction, and then subsequently used for cropped ends from the mills.

 

There's a scale drawing and another photo in David Monk Steel's book 'Industrial Wagons - and introduction' published by the IRS.

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, clarkea1 said:

I believe there were some at Workington - is that where this pic was taken? I believe they were originally built for pigs from a pig casting machine, hence the massively heavy construction, and then subsequently used for cropped ends from the mills.

 

There's a scale drawing and another photo in David Monk Steel's book 'Industrial Wagons - and introduction' published by the IRS.

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

The Workington ones were Standard Railcar- built, with a body built of vertical lengths of bullhead rail. Here's a link to Paul Barlett's album of Workington photos:-

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/workingtonsteel

[ianblenk]

Sorry, I should have said taken at W'ton. I took snaps of every item of rolling stock that day. It was very sunny which made some photography difficult.

 

Ian B

[NRMS]

Nice prints from shapeways Alastair. The wagon looks to be fitting together nicely.

[hmrspaul]

14 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

The Workington ones were Standard Railcar- built, with a body built of vertical lengths of bullhead rail. Here's a link to Paul Barlett's album of Workington photos:-

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/workingtonsteel

Nothing to do with topic, but this is the correct link https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/workingtonsteel/e3a6a4846

 

Back on topic we found a wagon similar to the SCW wagon as modelled, but with an open framed, very beefy, diamond bogie, at Ravenscraig. The buffers look strangely lightweight (perfectly functional I'm sure) compared to the rest of the wagon. 

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/ravenscraigwagon/e3dde643c

I think if there had been more I would have photographed it so perhaps a one off at the time we visited. 

 

 

Paul 

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by hmrspaul

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

Nothing to do with topic, but this is the correct link https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/workingtonsteel/e3a6a4846

 

Back on topic we found a wagon similar to the SCW wagon as modelled, but with an open framed, very beefy, diamond bogie, at Ravenscraig. The buffers look strangely lightweight (perfectly functional I'm sure) compared to the rest of the wagon. 

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/ravenscraigwagon/e3dde643c

I think if there had been more I would have photographed it so perhaps a one off at the time we visited. 

 

 

Paul 

 

Thanks, Paul. I wanted to link to your photo without actually putting it on line, so erred on the side of caution.

Regards

Brian

[clarkea1]

9 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

 

Back on topic we found a wagon similar to the SCW wagon as modelled, but with an open framed, very beefy, diamond bogie, at Ravenscraig. The buffers look strangely lightweight (perfectly functional I'm sure) compared to the rest of the wagon. 

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/ravenscraigwagon/e3dde643c

I think if there had been more I would have photographed it so perhaps a one off at the time we visited. 

 

 

Paul 

 

 

Hi Paul,

 

Very interesting - thanks! My motley collection of photos of this type of bogie open at Port Talbot shows wagons by at least two different builders (Head Wrightson and Cambrian Wagon) with many detail differences (and indeed, similarities), so I guess it's entirely possible that one was supplied to Ravenscraig.

 

By the time of your photo, of course, Ravenscraig and Port Talbot were both under British Steel's Strip Products Division, although I doubt wagons like these would be transferred between works, except perhaps on works closure or downsizing (as we know happened from Corby to Stocksbridge with Panzer wagons, for example).

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

 

[hmrspaul]

11 hours ago, clarkea1 said:

 

Hi Paul,

 

Very interesting - thanks! My motley collection of photos of this type of bogie open at Port Talbot shows wagons by at least two different builders (Head Wrightson and Cambrian Wagon) with many detail differences (and indeed, similarities), so I guess it's entirely possible that one was supplied to Ravenscraig.

 

By the time of your photo, of course, Ravenscraig and Port Talbot were both under British Steel's Strip Products Division, although I doubt wagons like these would be transferred between works, except perhaps on works closure or downsizing (as we know happened from Corby to Stocksbridge with Panzer wagons, for example).

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

 

David Monk-Steel pointed some of us to a Head Wrightson advert that illustrates one they built which is like the Ravenscraig one. 

Have you posted photos of Port Talbot anywhere. Not one of the steelworks I visited, apart from Margham yard itself - we spent days in there measuring BR wagons. Happy days setting up camp at some public toilets/car park near Kenfig. 

 

Paul

 

[clarkea1]

44 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

David Monk-Steel pointed some of us to a Head Wrightson advert that illustrates one they built which is like the Ravenscraig one. 

Have you posted photos of Port Talbot anywhere. Not one of the steelworks I visited, apart from Margham yard itself - we spent days in there measuring BR wagons. Happy days setting up camp at some public toilets/car park near Kenfig. 

 

Paul

 

 

Hi Paul,

 

Unfortunately I can't post my Port Talbot collection online as most of the photos have been sent to me by a contact on the instruction that they don't want them published online as they are using them for a series of articles in Bylines. 

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

 

[hmrspaul]

27 minutes ago, clarkea1 said:

 

Hi Paul,

 

Unfortunately I can't post my Port Talbot collection online as most of the photos have been sent to me by a contact on the instruction that they don't want them published online as they are using them for a series of articles in Bylines. 

 

Cheers

 

Alastair

 

Alastair, thanks I look forward to seeing them in Railway Bylines. Hopefully they will realise the merit of publishing more than just the locos. I don't know why we didn't apply to go around that huge site - only one of our group did go at one stage and before 1983. 

 

Paul

Edited July 30, 2020 by hmrspaul

[Mark Saunders]

On 28/07/2020 at 17:55, ianblenk said:

 

There were nine of these built by SRW at Heywood in 1975 for BSC Workington.

 

The Standard Railway Wagon company book by David Tandy.