GWR outside framed covered wagons (vans) - info wanted

[magmouse]

Morning, all. I’ve been looking at the early wooden framed covered wagons - pre Iron Mink. There is a picture in Great Western Way of one from the first lot, number 16556, which were the only ones with wooden underframes. This has the diagonal framing on the sides going the other way to all the other photos showing later lots with metal underframes. Unfortunately, the photo does not show the end framing, so my question is, were the diagonals on the ends the same as the other vehicles, or were they also reversed?

Any info, photos or drawings on the wooden underframed types would be gratefully received.

Nick.

[Miss Prism]

The framing on the ends is indeed 'reversed' compared to the later style. See Mikkel's blog, although this of course has a later metal solebar. I don't think I've never seen a pic of an original (1878) wooden-solebar type. The solebar change took place c 1885 I think. Impossible to say whether any of the early ones were retrofitted, but this would seem to be a lot of work, particularly with the V6 Iron Mink becoming the new standard at the time.

 

[Mikkel]

Welcome back.

[magmouse]

Thanks, Russ. The only picture I have seen of a wooden framed one is the photo I referred to in Great Western Way, taken quite close up at a rather oblique angle. 
 

However, having raised this query elsewhere, I was pointed towards the photo here:

 

https://www.facebook.com/DidcotRailwayCentre/photos/a.210517012308528/6860709467289216/?type=3
 

Where the wagon has ‘X’ framing on the ends. I’ve not seen a drawing showing this style. It’s all a bit bemusing…

 

Nick.

[Miss Prism]

I suspect that one at Poplar goods might not be a GWR specimen. Could be LSWR or MR?

[magmouse]

6 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I suspect that one at Poplar goods might not be a GWR specimen. Could be LSWR or MR?

l’d wondered about that - I haven’t found a type from another company that fits it, though. That’s not a proof of anything, of course.

[57xx]

Sorry for the off topic post, but good to see you back Russ!

[drduncan]

I’m sure there is a copy of the drawing in the Midland (yes really) Study Centre’s online catalogue. @Compound2632might be able to post a link to it given his knowledge of their holdings…

Duncan

[magmouse]

Thanks Duncan - there is such a drawing and the MRSC was kind enough to send me a digital copy. That, the other drawings I have, and all the photos apart from the one I referred to show the side diagonals with the low end at the wagon ends, and the high end by the centre doors. The one exception I have seen is the photo in GWW - hence the query about the end diagonals.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

Is that the drawing MRSC 88-C0219? Endorsed "Copied from GWR Drg. No. 12 7/1/61 Loaned by G,J,W. Clark (HMRS)" - which would imply the HMRS have the original, or that G.J.W. Clark's heirs threw it out with the house clearance? Might it be HMRS 25526?

https://hmrs.org.uk/hmrs-25526--covered-goods.html

 

If the Poplar photo is 1900, then the covered goods wagon with the double-X framed end is not Midland. By 1894, there were no Kirtley covered goods wagons in service; they had been entirely replaced by Clayton's sliding door type. I wish I knew what a Kirtley-period van looked like; there will have been significant evolution from the 1840s to the mid-1870s! But there is some evidence for covered goods and other high-sided wagons having double-X framed ends; on the other hand I have seen some evidence (where?) for this style on the Great Western too...

 

I was going to post this in my wagon-building topic but it goes well here. This photo has a couple of Great Western outside framed covered goods wagons:

 

https://herefordshirehistory.org.uk/archive/herefordshire-railways/146900-hereford-imperial-mill-and-railway-sidings-1903

 

The further one is the familiar type being discussed here but the nearer one, which looks a good deal bigger, No. 6754 (possibly), has some features that I've seen in conversions from Broad Gauge - self-contained buffers, headstock not the full width of the body, axleguards fixed to the rear of what may be an iron plate solebar...

 

@Chrisbr?

 

[Chrisbr]

675x wagons were all Open Goods in 1903 so we're missing something in the numbering for the Hereford picture, sadly I only have the 56xxx series and they were all Goods Brake vans for the relevant 10 wagons.....

[Compound2632]

24 minutes ago, Chrisbr said:

675x wagons were all Open Goods in 1903 so we're missing something in the numbering for the Hereford picture

 

Obvious now you mention it - see how the G of G . W . R is almost totally obscured by the framing. From my notes from GWR Goods Wagons:

• 16xxx - low end occupied by cattle wagons, upper end odd vans including CC2, gunpowder wagons and the 16' 6" iron mink but many gaps in my list
• 26xxx - more cattle wagons, at least up to 26617
• 36xxx - mostly 3-plank opens, including 36754
• 46xxx - entirely 4-plank opens
• 56xxx - brake vans, as you say
• 66xxx - entirely 4-plank wagons

So my money's on 16754, since the upper end of the 16xxx block evidently includes various odd covered wagons!

 

[magmouse]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Is that the drawing MRSC 88-C0219? Endorsed "Copied from GWR Drg. No. 12 7/1/61 Loaned by G,J,W. Clark (HMRS)"

 

That's the one. There is also a drawing in A Pictorial Record of GW Wagons, and there was a Ken Werrett one in MRN, February 1966, lost in the RMweb photo-apocalypse: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113035-more-pre-grouping-wagons-in-4mm-the-d299-appreciation-thread/&do=findComment&comment=4064440

 

I have also seen a couple of drawings from the NRM collection, one with bulb section solebars and one with wood. This raises a curiosity - GWR Goods Wagons lists only one lot with wooden underframes, but we have photographic evidence there were wagons with wooden underframes with the side frame diagonals going in different directions. Either wagons in the same lot were built with differently constructed side frames, or there was at least one more lot.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

This photo has a couple of Great Western outside framed covered goods wagons:

 

Another great picture from the Hereford collection - thank you. I agree with your thoughts on the nearer wagon - some broad gauge type features, and quite different to later ones we have more information about.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

This raises a curiosity - GWR Goods Wagons lists only one lot with wooden underframes, but we have photographic evidence there were wagons with wooden underframes with the side frame diagonals going in different directions. Either wagons in the same lot were built with differently constructed side frames, or there was at least one more lot.

 

It was established in a previous topic on this subject that the information in GWR Goods Wagons is very incomplete; there was fuller information in the instructions to the Geen kit, and from elsewhere, which I included in my notes. Latest edition attached, see p. 23. 

 

Atkins et al wagon numbers up to c1905.pdf

[drduncan]

4 hours ago, magmouse said:

Thanks Duncan - there is such a drawing and the MRSC was kind enough to send me a digital copy. That, the other drawings I have, and all the photos apart from the one I referred to show the side diagonals with the low end at the wagon ends, and the high end by the centre doors. The one exception I have seen is the photo in GWW - hence the query about the end diagonals.

 

Nick.

My apologies. I didn’t read your post correctly. I always thought the odd photo with the diagonals the wrong way was a repair mistake. 
D

[bécasse]

2 minutes ago, drduncan said:

My apologies. I didn’t read your post correctly. I always thought the odd photo with the diagonals the wrong way was a repair mistake. 

Or perhaps not a repair mistake but a near necessity resulting from the need to reuse as much as possible of sound timber in a wagon following damage. A snapped mortice and tenon joint in good quality hardwood, for example, could be the devil's own job to clear out cleanly, and running the diagonals the other way, making and glueing up new joints could well have been the preferred solution. Remember, the men doing the work were craftsmen who knew how to make life easy for themselves.

[magmouse]

31 minutes ago, bécasse said:

Or perhaps not a repair mistake but a near necessity resulting from the need to reuse as much as possible of sound timber in a wagon following damage. A snapped mortice and tenon joint in good quality hardwood, for example, could be the devil's own job to clear out cleanly, and running the diagonals the other way, making and glueing up new joints could well have been the preferred solution. Remember, the men doing the work were craftsmen who knew how to make life easy for themselves.

 

Thanks - that is a very interesting possible explanation. It's worth noting, though, that running he diagonals the other way would require new strengthening plates to be made for where the ends of the diagonals meet the rest of the framework.

 

Also, the one photo of a wagon with reversed diagonals also shows it has different door hinges to others I have seen:

 

 

Other vehicles have short hinges, with the bottom ones higher up, not in line with the bottom frame of the door.

 

Number 16556 places it in @Compound2632's "odd covered wagons" range.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

Variety in the angle fillets there. I'm wondering if those doors started life as a pair or not!

[magmouse]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

Variety in the angle fillets there. I'm wondering if those doors started life as a pair or not!

 

Indeed - or the fillet has been replaced? The wagon as photographed has 25" GW lettering, so it is fairly old at this point, and likely to have had multiple repairs of one sort or another. It retains wooden brake shoes and grease axleboxes.

[Chrisbr]

@Compound2632 I went through the C&W Order Book and compared it to your section on V- covered goods wagons and found a few orders missing and added some additional detail (all my work in red), which may or may not help Nick....

 

Body

 

Chris

 

[magmouse]

Thanks, Chris. That places 16556 in lot 73 of 1872, as well as indicating, more generally, there were quite a few wooden under frame vehicles.

 

I am curious about the dimensions given, which start with 15'6" OH and then change to 14'10". I assume the later are internal dimensions - the HMRS drawing discussed above gives 14'10" as the internal length, with 2 3/4" thickness for the framing, leaving 1 1/4" for the thickness of the planking. Similarly with the width. The 6' 2 1/2" height concurs with the internal height on the HMRS drawing.

 

Nick.

 

 

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, Chrisbr said:

@Compound2632 I went through the C&W Order Book and compared it to your section on V- covered goods wagons and found a few orders missing and added some additional detail (all my work in red), which may or may not help Nick....

 

Thanks; I'll update my list in due course.

 

But I note this makes my large Herefordshire van, if 16754, a member of lot 99 of 1873, to the standard dimensions. Curiouser and curiouser...

[Chrisbr]

@magmouse As far as I understand, GWR order books and Stock books both quote internal dimensions when referencing bodies - which make sense as that is the bit that mattered.

 

Chris

 

[magmouse]

Thanks, Chris. Certainly, as an overall method of recording dimensions, giving the internal ones makes sense. But I am very sceptical that the first 6 lots in your list show internal lengths - if 15’6” was the internal size and the construction method was similar to the later wagons, the over headstock dimension would be 16’2” - a very odd number. My feeling is the practice changed from showing external to showing internal dimensions around 1880.

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, Chrisbr said:

@magmouse As far as I understand, GWR order books and Stock books both quote internal dimensions when referencing bodies - which make sense as that is the bit that mattered.

 

I've seen this with Tony Woods' Saltney book: it is self-evident, when one looks at the photos, that 7' 5" or 7' 6" is the external width for one and two plank opens. There are some lots recorded as 7' 0" width; Woods has a convoluted discussion of this but to me it seems most likely that entries made by different clerks were not consistent and in these cases it is the internal width being recorded. The same wagons are listed as 6" shorter.

 

So I'm very much inclined to think that one has to apply a bit of wagon-sense here. An external width of 7' 5" and internal of 6' 9" gives sides 4" thick which cold be 3" framing and 1" boarding - or maybe slightly thicker framing and thinner boarding. Typical width over outer faces of solebars would be 4.5" + 6' 1" + 4.5" = 6' 10", in which case the kerb rail would project about 3.5", which I think ties in with the photo of 16556 that @magmouse posted.