Wagon building

[AberdeenBill]

Hi all,

 

We all know that in the 1950s and early 1960s, the vast number of BR wagons constructed were built by various BR workshops and numerous outside contractors.    In terms of wagon building, did each establishment actually construct everything, or were key components (wheelsets, buffers, Instanter couplings...) obtained from elsewhere?    (and if so, where...?)

 

Thanks,

Bill

 

[Fat Controller]

Hi all,

 

We all know that in the 1950s and early 1960s, the vast number of BR wagons constructed were built by various BR workshops and numerous outside contractors.    In terms of wagon building, did each establishment actually construct everything, or were key components (wheelsets, buffers, Instanter couplings...) obtained from elsewhere?    (and if so, where...?)

 

Thanks,

Bill

BR workshops, and private builders, may have assembled the wagons, but components were often sourced from third-parties. Forged wheels came from a works on Trafford Park Trading Estate. Buffers from various sources, including Dowty at Ashchurch. Couplings and buffers were often supplied by a company who had factories at Darlington and Sheffield. 

[The Johnster]

I assume the same could be said for the more modern of the Big 4's wagons and vans as well.  The GW had it's own pattern of instanter coupling, though.

[hmrspaul]

in some instances the entire metalwork was put together at one works and then they moved them to other works for completing. There are photos showing van frameworks stored in sidings. Derby and Wolverton were doing this in LMS days and I believe the SR did the same.

In other instances the (under)frame was manufactured at one works and the body at another. One consequence was that some early BR construction had the distinctive brake rigging of one pre-nat company with the bodywork style of another. For example cattle wagons built at Shildon with the distinctive off set V LNER clasp brake with a Derby built LMS style body. I haven't looked at the records but I suspect the same is true for the diag 1/230 fruit van with the LNER frame and LMS body https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brfruitvan/e169fba7

 

Few of the works had a foundry so the few that did supplied forgings to the others. Similarly the pressed ends used by LNER, LMS and BR appear to have been bought in, although why the BR ones varied so much is difficult to understand.

 

This book gives some idea of the size of the industry, although it largely (entirely?) omits the role of the big 4 and BR:

 

Sambrook, Chris (2007) British Carriage and Wagon builders & repairers 1830 – 2006. Lightmoor Press, Witney, Oxfordshire, 200 pages, ISBN 13: 9781899889273

 

http://lightmoor.co.uk/books/british-carriage-wagon-builders-repairers-1830-2006/L9273

 

Paul

Edited September 16, 2018 by hmrspaul

[Fat Controller]

I assume the same could be said for the more modern of the Big 4's wagons and vans as well.  The GW had it's own pattern of instanter coupling, though.

Moreover, it held the patent on it. It also had the patent on the Williams folding sheet support rail.

[Compound2632]

in some instances the entire metalwork was put together at one works and then they moved them to other works for completing. 

 

I believe it's the case (but haven't found where I read it) that down to c. 1890, Crewe made the underframes for carriages built at Wolverton. This meant that F.W. Webb could dictate their design - with outer axles in his patent (?) radial trucks rather than bogies. It was only when Wolverton finally got Board authorisation to set up its own steel plant that the switch to bogies could be made. A train of radial underframes making its way south down the main line would have been quite a sight!

[jim.snowdon]

I assume the same could be said for the more modern of the Big 4's wagons and vans as well.  The GW had it's own pattern of instanter coupling, though.

The GWR invented it, and BR improved on it by redesigning it to better withstand the stresses of operation.

 

Jim

[jim.snowdon]

in some instances the entire metalwork was put together at one works and then they moved them to other works for completing. There are photos showing van frameworks stored in sidings. Derby and Wolverton were doing this in LMS days and I believe the SR did the same.

The Southern did the same for carriage underframes, the arrangement being, I believe, that Eastleigh built the underframes and sent them to Lancing, where the bodies were built.

 

Few of the works had a foundry so the few that did supplied forgings to the others. Similarly the pressed ends used by LNER, LMS and BR appear to have been bought in, although why the BR ones varied so much is difficult to understand.

A possible reason is that some of the contract suppliers lacked the press capacity to form the larger components for the two piece ends. In turn, that may have meant that what BR did was place contracts for complete ends against an outline drawing and then leave it to the contractors to do the production design, which would then have been approved by BR as part of the contract.

 

Jim

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

in some instances the entire metalwork was put together at one works and then they moved them to other works for completing...

Were I modelling a location somewhere near Shildon during the build of the Steel highs, I would so have a trot of all new examples without floors, en route to wherever the woodwork was put in. Good pic in one of the Tatlow volumes, makes for a very different appearance.

[The Johnster]

The GWR invented it, and BR improved on it by redesigning it to better withstand the stresses of operation.

 

Jim

 

It worked.  In nearly a decade working as a guard at Canton in the 70s I never heard of a coupling failure involving an instanter.  Axles broke sometimes, but never the couplings.

[hmrspaul]

I believe it's the case (but haven't found where I read it) that down to c. 1890, Crewe made the underframes for carriages built at Wolverton. This meant that F.W. Webb could dictate their design - with outer axles in his patent (?) radial trucks rather than bogies. It was only when Wolverton finally got Board authorisation to set up its own steel plant that the switch to bogies could be made. A train of radial underframes making its way south down the main line would have been quite a sight!

Co-incidentally this subject came up at the O gauge meeting I am just back from. As a young man one member went to school overlooking the line near Wolverton and remembered trainloads of wagons being moved as steelwork frames into the works. I would assume from Derby.

 

In Essery, R, J, & Morgan, K. R. (1977) The LMS Wagons. David & Charles, Newton Abbot, Devon. ISBN 0 7153 7357 9. 128 pages  they show many batches of wagons as being built by two works.

 

Paul