4 and 6 wheeled coaches

[dexterph5]

I was looking at the hattons and Hornby 4 and 6 wheeled coaches and I was wondering how long these things stayed in service after grouping. Did they change their colors after grouping? Would any have made it to the BR era? I'm specifically looking at the NBR in the red livery. I can't seem to find many references to them.

[Wickham Green too]

That's probably been covered ad nauseum in the appropriate Hornby & Hattons threads - but few such coaches survived 'til BR days .... certainly no Southern ones ( Other than those reconstructed for electric units.).

[Steamport Southport]

49 minutes ago, dexterph5 said:

I was looking at the hattons and Hornby 4 and 6 wheeled coaches and I was wondering how long these things stayed in service after grouping. Did they change their colors after grouping? Would any have made it to the BR era? I'm specifically looking at the NBR in the red livery. I can't seem to find many references to them.

 

I don't know about NBR coaches.

 

But some Caledonian four wheelers survived until the 1950s, although looked nothing like the RTR ones.

 

https://caley.com/balerno.php

 

https://caley.com/assets/pdfs/balernoPn.pdf

 

Former GER coaches survived on branch lines in East Anglia well into the 1950s.

 

Some GWR ones survived as "workmen coaches" for miners trains until about 1948.

 

But I think most went pretty early on.

 

 

Jason

[Paul H Vigor]

I believe some GWR 4w coaches were used in South Wales miner's trains?

[F2Andy]

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

But some Caledonian four wheelers survived until the 1950s, although looked nothing like the RTR ones.

 

https://caley.com/balerno.php

 

https://caley.com/assets/pdfs/balernoPn.pdf

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but the second link says: "These coaches were built in 1920‑21 specifically for working the tightly curved Balerno Branch in Edinburgh ..." Surely bogie coaches would negotiate tight curves better?

[Wickham Green too]

Danger of buffer lock I'd guess.

[bécasse]

On 06/05/2023 at 15:58, Steamport Southport said:

Former GER coaches survived on branch lines in East Anglia well into the 1950s.

 

Some GWR ones survived as "workmen coaches" for miners trains until about 1948.

At nationalisation ex-GER 6-wheel carriages continued in use on the Mid-Suffolk, Tollesbury and (possibly) Thaxted Light Railway branches. Those on the Mid-Suffolk were replaced fairly quickly by bogie carriages, and the line closed in 1952 anyway. The Tollesbury branch continued to use them as brake carriages (coupled with ex-W&U bogie saloons) but closed in 1951, and the Thaxted branch used mainly (perhaps totally) bogie carriages until it closed in 1952. All these carriages were painted in allover LNER brown (a sort of milk chocolate shade).

 

4-wheel carriages for workmen (ie coal miners) continued in use on ex-GW lines in the South Wales valleys well into the 1950s, all were modified in some respects (including the odd conversion into a brake carriage) and almost all were painted overall GWR chocolate brown, usually very faded, but at least one acquired BR plain crimson livery.

Edited May 7, 2023 by bécasse

[Nearholmer]

North London Line non-electric services, four-wheeled coaches until cWW2, but looking nothing like the r-t-r model ones. The ex-GE suburban services also had some ancient-looking coaches, but I can’t recall if they were 4W or 6W.

 

On the SR, there was a mass cull of 6W suburban stock as the suburban electrification progressed through the 1920s, but a few LCDR ones survived as motor train sets, some at least having the centre wheel-sets removed to make them 4W, for instance two sets for the IoW. Other coaches of the same type, again converted 6W to 4W were used in the IoW in ordinary sets, several of them.

 

The IoW also had Stroudley and Billinton 4W coaches in ordinary sets, sent over from 1924 onwards.

 

The coaches that went to the IoW did look rather like the r-t-r models …… but they weren’t Scottish.

 

im not well enough up on the topic to know whether any of the IoW 4W/6W stock survived to BR, but I don’t think so.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Nearholmer

[DOCJACOB]

3 hours ago, F2Andy said:

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but the second link says: "These coaches were built in 1920‑21 specifically for working the tightly curved Balerno Branch in Edinburgh ..." Surely bogie coaches would negotiate tight curves better?

 

[DOCJACOB]

Fascinating little known line in Edinburgh 

 

4w coaches & specific 0-4-4 locomotives to boot. 
 

Served paper & snuff mills along Colinton Dell. 
 

Recall Colinton Tunnel well as a well known part x-country run route from my old school (Merchiston Castle) now a walk and challenge to thread a line through the Dell 

 

Only bogie coaches aware of used on line were at the 11th hour. Seen pictures at Colinton station of ex LNER inspection saloon & another of preserved CR coaches on special. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by DOCJACOB
Extra info

[Steamport Southport]

26 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

North London Line non-electric services, four-wheeled coaches until cWW2, but looking nothing like the r-t-r model ones. The ex-GE suburban services also had some ancient-looking coaches, but I can’t recall if they were 4W or 6W.

 

On the SR, there was a mass cull of 6W suburban stock as the suburban electrification progressed through the 1920s, but a few LCDR ones survived as motor train sets, some at least having the centre wheel-sets removed to make them 4W, for instance two sets for the IoW. Other coaches of the same type, again converted 6W to 4W were used in the IoW in ordinary sets, several of them.

 

The IoW also had Stroudley and Billinton 4W coaches in ordinary sets, sent over from 1924 onwards.

 

The coaches that went to the IoW did look rather like the r-t-r models …… but they weren’t Scottish.

 

im not well enough up on the topic to know whether any of the IoW 4W/6W stock survived to BR, but I don’t think so.

 

 

 

The NLR coaches disappeared quite quickly when the Jinties turned up. Most photos have bogie coaches, usually sets of six.

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p69971060/e516b1145

 

Loads of photos of them on passenger trains in the new Joy Of Jinties books, a lot more than I would have thought.

 

The jinties were then usurped by the Fowler Tanks.

 

 

Jason

[Nearholmer]

I can’t remember my source for NLR still having 4W coaches up to WW2, but I’ve got a vague idea it was CJF writing in reminiscence. I don’t know the exact details of NLR coaches, but I know a man who does, so if I remember I will ask him next time I see him.

 

Meanwhile 

 

 

There are more photos in that set showing 4W coaches, both original and LNWR design iirc.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

One line that was a late user of four wheelers was The Tanat Valley.

 

Still had a selection into the late 1940s as well as a bogie brake composite.

 

 

Jason

 

 

[Compound2632]

Exceptions are exceptional and not typical.

[PortlandStone]

In the July-August 1990 edition of BackTrack there is an article: Last of the Great Western Four-Wheelers (the last four-wheeled coaching stock on British Railways ended its days in the mining valleys of the South Wales Coalfield).

It includes pictures of four-compartment coach no 719 (still in use in June 1950), five-compartment coach W180 (May 1951) and five-compartment coach 2796 (May 1951).

 

BackTrack October 1996 p533 a picture of a rake of four-wheelers on a Senghenydd-Llanbradach colliers train, May 1951.

[The Johnster]

The very last use of GW 4-wheelers was on the Glyncorrwg Miner's service in South Wales.  This ran from Cwmmer Corrwg to North Rhondda Colliery (not in the Rhondda Valley, named after the Rhondda coal seam that was mined there).  At Glyncorrwg, a village a short way up the valley from Cwmmer Corrwg, the locomotive ran around the train and propelled the coaches to the collieries served, due to the lack of run around facilities at the collieries.  These were in a very remote and narrow valley hemmed in by steep mountainsides.  The train was composed of Dean coaches of the Ratio kit style, and the Hornby/Hatton's coaches, based loosely on LBSCR prototypes with 'balloon' brake ends, are not suitable.  It was made up BT/T/BT/T, with a droplight cut into the centre of the end of the 'uphill' BT. Livery is difficult to determine in photos, as the coaches were horrendously filthy, but GW plain brown is probable.  I believe two 4-wheelers were given Crimson livery at Caerphilly Works for use on the Senghenhydd Branch. 

 

The Glyncorrwg train lasted until 1953, when the coaches were replaced with three compartment clerestories of a style similar to the old Triang 'shorty' clerestories.  There was no brake coach, but the leading compartment was converted for the guard's use and had three windows cut into it, a brake 'setter', and an autotrailer-type bell operated by a foot pedal.  Livery was the same indistinguishable filth as the 4-wheelers, GW plain brown most likely.

 

This set, also the last revenue use of that type of stock, lasted in service until 1956, when it was replaced in it's turn by the last revenue use of Mainline & City stock, a 3-coach set BT/T/BT.  A droplight was cut into the centre of the end of the leading coach similar to the one that had been provided on the 4-wheelers, but as Mainline & City brakes had end windows anyway the appearance was somewhat different.  The bell was transferred from the clerestory set.  By this time the pits had been provided with pithead baths and the men went home clean, so this set, in 1956 unlined maroon livery, was kept externally clean.  It was withdrawn in 1960 when the rough mountain track accessing the collieries was improved enough for a bus service, and is the source of the Mainline & City coaches preserved at Didcot.

 

The only workmen's services I know of that were operated on the WR in BR days were the Senghenydd and Glyncorrwg trains mentioned, but there may well have been others.  There were certainly a lot more before the war.

[Helmdon]

There’s always the GER six wheeler that made it into blue-grey as the cinema coach….

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Helmdon said:

There’s always the GER six wheeler that made it into blue-grey as the cinema coach….

 

... generator unit. The cinema coach itself was a former LNWR 12-wheel sleeping saloon, now at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.

 

Hattons have done a simulacrum:

 

 

[Embedded link to Hattons website photo.]

[PortlandStone]

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

The only workmen's services I know of that were operated on the WR in BR days were the Senghenydd and Glyncorrwg trains mentioned, but there may well have been others.  There were certainly a lot more before the war.

The other services mentioned in the BackTrack article are:

Nelson & Lancaiach - Dowlais (Cae Harris)

Burry Port - Cwmmawr

[asmay2002]

As far as I can tell, BR inherited 21 thirds, 14 Brake Thirds and 12 composites from the GWR (all 4 wheeled).  They got 9 brake thirds, 3 composites,  14 thirds and 2 third saloons (all 6 wheeled) fom the LNER (mostly either GER or GNR types).

[The Johnster]

I've seen a photo somewhere I'm sure of the Nelson & Llancaiach-Dowlais (Cae Harris) workmens in the early 60s with a 56xx and BR mk1 non-gangwayed stock.  If the stock was working in a diagram that saw it in normal service during other parts of the day, which was not an uncommon arrangement, it would suggest that this was not a miner's service, and of course Cae Harris suggests the Dowlais Steelworks being the customer.  Miners' trains tended to use stock reserved for that purpose, with the upholstery removed from the seats so that cleaning between uses could be carried out by hosing the dust out of the compartment, though some trains had recognised 'clean' compartments for the use of clerical and managerial staff.  TTBOMK none of the South Wales miners trains had any first class accommodation, even downdgraded, though others may well have.  The miner's trains tended to use redacted stock that had no future in normal service, and as well as the Glyncorrwg and Senghenydd 4-wheelers there were some ex-TVR coaches used in the Afan Valley.

 

The big ROF factory at Tremains, Bridgend, which started operation in 1938, attracted workmen's trains from Abergwynfi, Penygraig, Neath, and Llantrisant, and wartime photos of the island platform station built to deal with this  traffic between the up and down SWML lines show clerestory stock being used as well as some Collett bowenders and toplights.  This factory wound down after the war and closed in 1947 I think, but the site became an industrial estate, and still is.  The Abergwynfi workman's ran for many years afterwards and is mentioned in a 1960 Working Timetable, with connections at Tondu from the other 'Tondu' valleys. 

 

A similar station was provided in 1953 at the Steel Company of Wales' Margam Abbey Steelworks, which expanded considerably at that time with the construction of the gigantic rolling mill still in operation there.  This was served by trains from Swansea/Neath, Porthcawl, Bridgend, and the Afan Valley.  All of which is drifting off-topic from 4-wheelers, but serves to show the complexity and density of workmen's services in South Wales, which because of the nature of the valley-orientated geography, perhaps hosted more of these sorts of trains than other areas of mining and heavy industry; the war and the building of large industrial complexes that needed to be staffed by a labour force from more than one valley generated these services as such routings were difficult and long-winded by the normal timetabled service trains, especially as the sites were a good distance from the stations at Bridgend and Port Talbot.  A vanished world which was little recorded in it's own time, but the Glyncorrwg trains did attract some enthusiast attention, and photographs, because of the unique operating methods and the various museum-piece stock...

 

Before this period and included in it, though, were many collieries which had miner's platforms served by such trains.  These were usually pretty basic, you were lucky if there was a shelter and a seat was a luxury; a lamp which may or may not have functioned and a footpath leading away from a timber or ash platform about 100 feet long tops, sometimes less than half that, with a usually derelict railing on the rear face would be typical.  I have modelled one on Cwmdimbath, as it's about ten minutes walk to the Colliery from the main station, a simple platform in a cutting underneath the road approach overbridge.  My train is inspired by the Glyncorrwg service two valleys over, and consists of Ratio coaches, a filthy brake third and a crimson liveried all-third, or a single Triang clerestory BT which is in the process of having a cut'n'shut compartment added to make it the correct length.  It has the correct full-length footboards and ersatz Dean 8'6" bogies, actually the original Triang B1s with footboards glued to the frames featuring cutouts to accommodated the axleboxes.  The footboards are real wood from real trees, Sainsbury's Cafe coffee stirrers cut in half lengthways, the long ones between the bogies being secured with Rexel No.13 staple brackets...  I will probably buy a Mainline & City BT when they are available from Dapol.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by The Johnster

[IWCR]

The  last of  the  SR  4  wheelers  were  on  the  Isle  of  Wight,  most  trains  had  been  replaced  by  bogie  stock  by  the  end  of  1938,  however  the  Freshwater line  mail  train  was  still  4  wheel  stock  being  formed  of  three  ex  LCDR  Brake  Thirds.  The  replacement  of  these  were  delayed  by  WW2  and  they  just  lasted  into  BR  days  before  being  withdrawn  in  1949.  By  then  they  were  in  SR  Malachite  green  livery  with  Sunshine  lettering.  They  only  had  a  few  passenger  compartments  and  while  these  were  available  for  public  use  there  would  have  been  little  demand   at  the  time  the  train  ran.

 

Pete 

[Tom Burnham]

Non-bogie passenger stock lasted longer on the IoW than elsewhere on the Southern, where from memory it was all withdrawn in 1937, the last survivors being mostly ex-Chatham 6-wheelers in excursion sets. As I think has been mentioned,  quite a lot of non-bogie carriages were rebuilt in pairs on new bogie underframes to form "new" Southern electric units.

The Broad Street to Poplar service continued to use sets of 4-wheelers until it was suspended following bombing of the London Docks in 1940. One of the brake thirds survives on the  KESR, via Woolwich Arsenal.  It was built at Wolverton in 1910, so relatively late for a non-bogie carriage.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Tom Burnham
clarity

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Tom Burnham said:

... As I think has been mentioned,  quite a lot of non-bogie carriages were rebuilt in pairs on new bogie underframes to form "new" Southern electric units. ...

Not just pairs of complete bodies but lots of 'bits' too - some even brand new to fit a non-standard gap !