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Builder of van to be identified


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Can anyone suggest who may have built the van in the drawing? 

It is one of the second generation of vans owned by the Bishops Castle Railway and the drawing was done by Mike Lloyd but with very little associated detail.

I am hoping that the unusual shape of the "V-hanger" will be a clue. There is very little else to giver any ideas.

547257191_bcrvandrawing.jpg.dea1d4783457c726ceed2d49afc032ac.jpgObviously with those wooden brake blocks it is pretty pre-grouping! And the buffers look to me to be self contained.

In case the number is familiar, it was later replaced by a second hand Iron Mink.

Jonathan

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Is this one of the same type, lurking in the background of this photo of Carlisle?

 

It seems to have features in common with this low-sided wagon - specifically the self-contained buffers and U-shaped V-iron.

 

Did the BCR at any point buy wagons new from one of the rolling stock manufacturers?

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In the previous topic...

... @John-Miles suggested that it could be a Mike Morton-Lloyd drawing, based on measurement of those grounded bodies. If so, the representation of the running gear and brakes must be speculative? Or even based on the photo of the 1-plank wagon, in which case my comparison to it becomes circular...

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Yes, it looks like the same batch. I suspect that there were several as they were replaced by a number of Iron Minks.

I honestly don't know where the BCR obtained all its wagons. There was certainly a relationship with the Midland Wagon Company as they were owed money (like most companies the BCR dealt with!).

Jonathan

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11 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

There was certainly a relationship with the Midland Wagon Company as they were owed money (like most companies the BCR dealt with!).

 

Yes, I was reading that here, from which I glean that the stock for the opening of the line was built by the Midland Wagon Co. in 1865 and bought back by them two years later. But that would be the first generation of stock whereas you describe the drawing as depicting the second generation. 

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I was hoping you wouldn't say that, but certainly it was withdrawn before Mike drew it as its replacement was acquired in the early 20th century. I was hoping that Mike might have redrawn it from someone else's drawing, as he sometimes did (Trefor Jones and A M Gunn come to mind).

But if what is suggested is true then no-one will be able to tell me that my model is wrong when I finish it - just like the early cattle wagons for which i have not seen a drawing or a photo which shows anything less than 6 ft from the ground as they are always behind something else.

The alternative view is that if I build the model and publish a photo someone will come out with the definitive evidence that it is wrong.

Re the underframe being copied from an open wagon, No 59 seems  to have had hangers shaped something like that in the drawing., though not as curved. No 58 when rebuilt seems probably to have had V shaped hangers, though again not completely clear. Though they were more modern with iron brake blocks.

So perhaps my question should simply have been: does anyone know of a wagon company which used V hangers that shape?

Jonathan

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I am not sure why, but somewhere I have seen the statement that it was the second generation.

Albyn Austin wrote this in the BCR newsletter:

The early stock used on the railway is mentioned in the newspaper report of the Jan. 1867 auction at Shrewsbury of the stock of the bankrupt railway. The reports mention 25 goods waggons (sic), 14 cattle trucks, 5 coal waggons, 5 enclosed goods waggons, composite carriages (two perhaps?), 4 third class carriages, 2 passenger vans and two locomotives. Most were bought by the Midland Carriage and Wagon Co. They were first debenture holders of the railway, having accepted the debentures (effectively mortgages for 25 years at 5% interest) in lieu of payment and having received no payments appointed a receiver. He promptly rented back some of the stock to work the railway. Thus the 1872 stock is likely to be from these auctioned wagons and coaches.

I have to admit that the design seems possibly pre 1872 which would make it an ex Midland Wagon Co vehicle - though I am not clear whether all the stock taken by the MWC was originally built by the company.

Jonathan

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There is at least one photograph showing an open wagon being built for the BCR  by local joiners /cartwrights, so it is possible that much of the later rolling stock was home-made. It has always been a rather isolated and self-contained locale, so building a wagon with recycled  wheels and running gear using local skills and labour wouldn't have been a difficult job back in the day and probably much cheaper than buying new or even second-hand. Interestingly, timber, joinery and iron casting for stoves are the still the main industries in Bishops Castle.

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Yes, that wagon caused some correspondence between the LNWR and the BCR. It was built as a direct copy of an LNWR wagon, but they initially refused to allow it onto their system - until the BCR pointed out that if it were unsuitable, then so must be several thousand of their own...

Whether there were more than one built, though, I am not sure.

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14 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am hoping that the unusual shape of the "V-hanger" will be a clue.

It looks like part of an axle guard casting (the inverted U shape which is behind the sole bar).

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19 minutes ago, Regularity said:

It looks like part of an axle guard casting (the inverted U shape which is behind the sole bar).

 

Forging, surely? Ingenious thinking. In which case a couple of the bolt holes in the crown have presumably been filled in. Looking again at the grounded body photos, the solebars are intact so presumably the bolt locations shown on the drawing are by measurement (sizes are given) rather than by estimate or imagination. Open No. 58 has the same continuously-diagonal wings to the axleguards. 

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3 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Based on a video I saw years ago, they were cast, then formed: hence W-irons - wrought.

I always thought the 'W' referred to their shape rather than the way they were formed.  they are often referred to as 'W-hangers' in the same way as V-hangers.

 

Jim

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37 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

I always thought the 'W' referred to their shape rather than the way they were formed.  they are often referred to as 'W-hangers' in the same way as V-hangers.

 

Interesting. I've not come across W-hanger before - W-iron or axleguard. A V-hanger has something hanging off it - the brake cross-shaft. I don't think the axlebox can really be said to hang off or on the axleguard, it is simply guided by it.

 

48 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Based on a video I saw years ago, they were cast, then formed: hence W-irons - wrought.

 

I'm struggling with this since wrought iron has a much lower carbon content than cast iron. (Leading to different mechanical properties.)

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1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Based on a video I saw years ago, they were cast, then formed: hence W-irons - wrought.

 

This is a misunderstanding of the types on iron/steel. 

 

Cast iron is brittle and cannot be forged. It would also be difficult to get a good casting of such a size of an axle guard that was only 3/4" thick. 

 

Wrought iron was made from pig iron by puddling, ie hammering and the rolling a semi-liquid lump of pig iron until most of the slag had been expelled. It was then tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion-resistant, and easily welded unlike cast iron. 

 

 

 

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Thank you @billbedford you have explained to Simon my difficulty with his statements, without me having to state baldly that I thought he was wrong, which I don't like doing. I can imagine the straightened-out axleguard in his diagram being made of bars of wrought iron, the wings forged on, and then the whole lot bent as he describes.

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I have a copy of the same drawing which has extra text on suggesting that similar vans were used on the B&M railway. I don't think Mike Lloyd did this drawing as he always signed his and this one is unsigned.  As for the v-irons the early Cambrian Railway used some very similar.  I had some Cambrian V-irons etched many years ago by Meteor models which has the same shape as the U shaped one. The missing one on this etch is a slim V-iron. I use to keep seeing these V-irons on various kit manufacturers stands at exhibitions because the range was transferred between different companies and most people didn't know what they were.

20210330_184634.jpg

1617127760841419747080235599544.jpg

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1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Thank you @billbedford you have explained to Simon my difficulty with his statements, without me having to state baldly that I thought he was wrong, which I don't like doing. I can imagine the straightened-out axleguard in his diagram being made of bars of wrought iron, the wings forged on, and then the whole lot bent as he describes.

Yes, but I saw a dvd of an old information film produced by a railway company, and that’s what they did. Unfortunately, this was at a friend’s house many years ago, and he is no longer with us, so I don’t know which dvd it was, but it is in the public domain even if it is theoretically impossible.

 

I was surprised, but there you go.

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You have prompted me to look at Mike Lloyd's Cambrian drawings. His drawing of an early lime wagon has a "V" hanger exactly the same shape as that on the BCR van. Unfortunately no builder is stated and it went too early for me to have any further sources. Two of the brake vans have a different shape again, angled sides and a straight bottom, as do the four brake van drawings I have had from the HMRS. The other Cambrian vehicles with a "U" shaped "V" hanger are numbers 2510 and 2511 of 1907 which the Cambrian classified as Well Trucks but the GWR later reclassified as Roll Wagons. They appear to have been built at Oswestry.

Anyway, even if we have not found the builder, you have given me some useful pointers for when I come to build the underframe. As stated, since the grounded bodies (at least one of which I believe still exists in the area) had their underframes, whoever did the drawing would have had information about fixing points. And yes, although my copy has Mike's name on it in hand writing (but not the notes shown above) it may simply have been a drawing he collected so it may have been from an earlier drawing which we no longer have. I think I shall build the model as per the drawing and wait for brickbats.

Can I expect to see one soon on Lydham Heath?

Jonathan

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https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-butterley-1943-codnor-park-wagon-works-1943-online

 

That sent me rummaging but I didn't find anything directly relevant.  This film from Butterley in1943 shows some forging operations but not of V hangers or W irons and certainly no casting activities.  As with most other things we can find plenty of film showing locomotives being built, one or two relating to carriages and scarcely any of wagon works.

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5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

"A nucleus of male supervision." !

 

And did he mention an upsetting machine?

 Well it was 1943 and Rosie the Rivetter wasn't based in Butterley.

 

Upsetting - my friends Google and Wiki give upsetting as a recognised forging operation and offered to put me in touch with various manufacturers of electric upsetting machines.

 

There are many different kinds of forging processes available; however, they can be grouped into three main classes:

Drawn out: length increases, cross-section decreases

Upset: length decreases, cross-section increases

Squeezed in closed compression dies: produces multidirectional flow

Common forging processes include: roll forging, swaging, cogging, open-die forging, impression-die forging(close die forging), press forging, cold forging automatic hot forging and upsetting.

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