Information sought on the use of Internal Sheet Rails on Open Wagons

[Tallpaul69]

The means of protecting the load in open china Clay wagons prior to the introduction of the "Clayhoods" has been discussed in my "Lower Thames Yard" layout thread.

 

In J.H. Russell's "Freight Wagons and Loads in service on the Great Western Railway and British Rail, Western Region" (Oxford Publishing 1981), figures 27 and 28 (the book does not do page numbers!!) show both ends of a 5 plank China Clay end door wagon W94071 fitted with an internal sheet bar.

The text does not make it clear whether the sheet bar is a permanent fixture or not, The top of the rail appears to be about 2 planks width above the top of the wagon.

 

So my questions are :-

1) These wagons were built from 1955 onwards, when were these internal sheet bars fitted,

and

2) How did they work? Were they an internal version of the more normal external sheet bar, and did they pivot in a similar way? Or were they fixed?

 

Many thanks

Best regards

Paul

[watfordtmc]

P,

 

The three sources available to me (listed below, but all are secondary sources) all indicate that the BR Clay wagons were not fitted with sheet bars until 1973.  Until then, clay wagons were sheeted in the same way as ordinary open wagons without sheet bars.  The first two references both state that the bar was fixed rather than pivoting.

 

W94071 would seem to have been an experimental conversion, and I’m not aware of any use of clay hoods until BR began to fit sheet bars as noted above.

 

Although I suspect this will be academic, given your interest seems to be the early 60s, peering at images in the go to resource for BR era wagons: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brclayhood suggests that at the fixed end of a wagon, the bar was fitted to a bracket on the top plank, outside, the end.

At the opening end, there seems to have been a cross bar bracketed from the sides, and just inside the hinge bar of the opening door, to which the bar was fixed.

Paul’s images of B743647 and B743093 are the best I could find showing the arrangements, although I have to say that for B743647 seems to me to show the bar could pivot…!

 

References

1.    “The Clay Hood.”  Totman P, Railway Modeller June 1988, vol 39, No. 452, pp256-261.

2.    “Ratio Clays.”  Chambers J, Modelling Railways Illustrated November-December 1993, vol 1, No. 2, pp70-73.

3.    “Photofile – Special Wagons.”  Kemp E, Model Railways June 1990, vol 7, No.6, pp310-312.

 

Also: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brclayhood

 

I'll copy this reply into your other post to see it elicits any better responses from GW experts.

 

Regards

TMc