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Question about carriage construction


Firecracker
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This may seem a bit random, but for various reasons I’ve been hunting photos of grounded carriage bodies and a question keeps bugging me, simply how are they constructed?  First up, take a traditional 4/6 wheel carriage.  Wooden frame, wooden panelling, and a separate underframe?  So when one’s converted to a grounded body, would they split body and under frame, or strip the running gear off the underframe and leave the body attached?  If the underframe is removed, how much structural integrity does the body then have?  How easily (assuming it hasn’t rotted) can it be lifted and so on?

 

Second, a bogie carriage, say a mark 1.  I know the underframe’s pretty solid, they made car flats out of them.  I also remember a comment along the lines of describing a mark 1 as ‘A garden shed sat on a battleship’.  But the body, again, how’s it held onto the underframe, how destructive/damaging is removing it and once split, again, how much structural integrity has it got?  Then, if you have a grounded bogie body sans underframe, how critical is it that the underframe its refitted to matches the original? (I know the answer for 4/6w stuff, when you see them on CCT and PMV chassis).  Provided it’s the same length and width (does width vary in underframes?) can it simply be refitted to anything, say an LMS coach body onto a mark 1 underframe?

 

Finally, because I don’t know the current state of play, what’s the current deal with carriages in the UK in public service running on wooden underframes?  Allowed, not allowed, mainline network etc?

 

Thanks in advance

Owain

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Certainly nothing timber bodied or chassied allowed on the main line  -  but at 25mph on 'heritage' lines they're deemed to be safe enough.

The Mk1 is a bit of a special case a it's a semi-integral construction : the chassis is a 'valid rail vehicle' in its own right and a number of Lots were built at one Works on chassis from another ..... but the body consists of steel panels welded to the chassis and doesn't have the solid bottom rail that a timber carriage body would have. So you can put your 57' LMS body on a 57' Mk1 chassis but not vice-versa.

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20 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Certainly nothing timber bodied or chassied allowed on the main line  -  but at 25mph on 'heritage' lines they're deemed to be safe enough.

The Mk1 is a bit of a special case a it's a semi-integral construction : the chassis is a 'valid rail vehicle' in its own right and a number of Lots were built at one Works on chassis from another ..... but the body consists of steel panels welded to the chassis and doesn't have the solid bottom rail that a timber carriage body would have. So you can put your 57' LMS body on a 57' Mk1 chassis but not vice-versa.

Thanks for that, I didn’t know that about the Mark 1 body!  So your bottom rail holds a wooden body together independent of the underframe?  Hence, how such a body can be moved, lifted whatever if that rail hasn’t rotted without its underframe?  In your last sentence, you’ve confirmed my cunning plan exactly.  Thanks again.

 

Owain

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Most pre-BR coaches had traditional wooden frame body construction (there were exceptions, including all-steel, integral and 'direct build' where the body framing would fit into sockets in the underframe) so the bodies were built separately from the underframe and then attached to them at a late stage. This meant the body could be removed from the underframe for either maintenance or replacement. The Southern Railway were rather good at reusing parts. In the 1920s/'30s they built 'new' EMUs by splicing old coach bodies onto new underframes. Some 20-30 years later these now older EMUs were given new bodies.

So yes, most old coach bodies could be used as lineside 'buildings'.

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And I believe that Queen Victoria's first Royal Coaches were moved from the 2- or 3-axle underframes to a bogie underframe intact because she didn't want them altered.

 

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Yes, bodies and underframes were separate entities, which is why bodies could be conveniently moved off their underframes to become dwellings, sports pavilions, lock-up stores, etc. and why so few preserved 19th century carriages are on their original underframes - most use 4 or 6-wheel steel underframes of mid-20th century origin. The few that do sit in their original frames are usually ones that survived in departmental use. This drawing from the Midland Railway Study Centre collection [Item 88-D0001] should make all clear. Note the spacer blocks between frame and body.

 

So if you want to model a restored 4-wheeler on a preserved line, you could use the underframe of a Parkside Southern BY, or for a 6-wheeler, the shortly-to-be-reissued Chivers Finelines LMS fish van underframe. 

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The preservation world often relies on matching up old bodies with underframes recovered from departmental stock etc. Here are some at the Isle of Wight steam railway. The bodies have been parked on under frames while awaiting restoration. They may not end up on those shown.

IWR carriage bodies for restoration Havenstreet 19 7 2018 b.jpg

IWR carriage bodies for restoration Havenstreet 19 7 2018.jpg

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Yes structurally separate bodies generally correct for wooden bodied vehicles.  Steel bodied vehicles generally integral with the underframe.

Yes most restored 4 and 6 wheeled bodies are on some form of more recent van chassis though some are on original underframes and at least one on a matching original van frame..

The IOW bodies shown above will be an exception to this , they will be on new timber underframes, this is in part due to them being to short for most steel frames and they are not intended for every day use.  They are all original stock built new for the Isle of Wight Railway Company, one has been restored and is operational, see "Great Railway Restorations, Episode 2".  The vehicle pictured at the top is currently under restoration, see the IOWSR Carriage and Wagon facebook pages for pictures.

 

Pete

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2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Yes, bodies and underframes were separate entities, which is why bodies could be conveniently moved off their underframes to become dwellings, sports pavilions, lock-up stores, etc. and why so few preserved 19th century carriages are on their original underframes - most use 4 or 6-wheel steel underframes of mid-20th century origin. The few that do sit in their original frames are usually ones that survived in departmental use. This drawing from the Midland Railway Study Centre collection [Item 88-D0001] should make all clear. Note the spacer blocks between frame and body.

 

So if you want to model a restored 4-wheeler on a preserved line, you could use the underframe of a Parkside Southern BY, or for a 6-wheeler, the shortly-to-be-reissued Chivers Finelines LMS fish van underframe. 

Excellent, thanks for that, that’s answered a lot of questions.  Your last paragraph is exactly what I’m planning, I just wanted to be sure what I was designing in 1:76 was feasible from an engineering point of view in 12”-1’ (also a ‘I don’t know how this works, so I want to know’ attitude is in there).  Thanks again, every day is a school day!

 

Owain

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If covid ever lets you, try to go to the "Steam" museum at Swindon, because they have a display showing a wooden coach body in the course of construction.

 

You can see the same at numerous preservation sites if you can get access to the carriage shop, but that isn't possible at all sites. IIRC, Horsted Keynes is one where you can enter the shop to see it all being done.

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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

If covid ever lets you, try to go to the "Steam" museum at Swindon, because they have a display showing a wooden coach body in the course of construction.

 

You can see the same at numerous preservation sites if you can get access to the carriage shop, but that isn't possible at all sites. IIRC, Horsted Keynes is one where you can enter the shop to see it all being done.

Both of those are firmly on the post Covid tour list!  Thanks for the recommendation 

 

Owain

 

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They can be pretty rotten and still be movable. I can't remember the details of this relic at the Midland Railway - Butterley

 

IMG_8399.JPG.b2fa27218b7570601bb111d9d51ee377.JPG

 

IMG_8403.JPG.f9e55b6716993839668d9417808fc818.JPG

 

Edited by Davexoc
Photo restored
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I think you could do a lot worse than look at Dave Clarks photos of the restoration of 3188 a LCDR third at the Bluebell - I'll start you on page 5 which are the oldest photos, but the change by page 1 (the most recent) is remarkable.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/extension3363/albums/72157626960166136/page5

 

a more modern coach would be a Bulleid , but even this is still fundamentally a wooden bodied, steel framed coach 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/extension3363/albums/72157626601424746/page5

 

For a mk1 I'd probably suggest the GWSR at Winchcombe http://cwatgwsr.blogspot.com/

 

Jon

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2 hours ago, Davexoc said:

They can be pretty rotten and still be movable. I can't remember the details of this relic at the Midland Railway - Butterley

The added problem with that is that it is a wooden integral body. Those rotton/rotted lower timbers hold everything together.

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10 hours ago, Davexoc said:

They can be pretty rotten and still be movable. I can't remember the details of this relic at the Midland Railway - Butterley

 

 

 

 

 

 

But in that example, its so rotten that its sat on a Salmon or some other chassis to support it, having gone beyond the point it can be shunted.

 

Jon

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Right, thanks to all who’ve chipped in so far.  I’ve now got a lot of ideas, know more than I did when I started and have several post covid trips in mind!  Think that’s classed as a result.  

 

If you’re wondering where I’m going with this, it’s a spin off from the Hornby and Hattons generic coaches, followed by a lot of poking around the database of  The Railway Heritage Register Carriage Survey Project, followed by my inner engineer wanting to know if what I fancied in 4mm:1’ was possible in 12”:1’.  Anyway, here’s the first, a reconstructed LMS brake lavatory third (built out of remains of a brake third and a compartment third recovered from Aberdeenshire) on a chassis from a mk1 BG (for anyone who’s wondering exactly what the point of this is, I’m modelling a ‘might have been’ preserved line). 

 

Next up, a Hornby/Hatton generic body on a Chivers LMS fish van chassis.

029E58AE-CF43-4050-BCDD-45D61DFA874B.jpeg.013e49ad3cb811e0b34488cf75138c39.jpeg

Owain

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In a previous life, I was involved with compiling a risk assessment on behalf of the LNERCA to facilitate them to transfer the wooden body of ECJS Restaurant Car 189 from a "wrong" underframe onto something more appropriate. In essence, the body rolled from one underframe to another on old boiler tubes while being moved by a hand winch. 

From memory, the body of 189 has 14 mounting points where the wooden body attaches to the steel underframe.

ECJS 189

 

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