Mineral wagon axle tiebars

[Mark Saunders]

59 minutes ago, Artless Bodger said:

Probably a bit too early ('63) and outside the area of your interests, but a lovely photo here, of a 72xx on clasp braked minerals used for steel coil traffic at Llanharan.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/taffytank/46539176721

 

 

The minerals are the ones adapted for coil traffic with the addition of coil cradles, the outward sign is the removal of the end door stripe. Similar conversion was done using unfitted 16t minerals for RTB and BR had some 21t minerals treat the same (I do not know if they are BR or former PO wagons).

[Enterprisingwestern]

14 hours ago, rka said:

Hi Brian, 

 

I'm mainly interested in the late 60's and early 70's 

 

8 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

My train-spotting days....

 

By far the best modelling period IM(biased)HO!

 

Mike.

[br2975]

16 hours ago, rka said:

Hi Brian, 

 

I'm mainly interested in the late 60's and early 70's 

.

So am I, a time in South Wales I've researched for many years, and am now (slowly) beginning model.

.

Late 60s / early 70s in South Wales were a period of great change in railway operations; sadly it was an area few enthusiasts visited, or recorded in detail.

.

There have been a few threads / topics that touch on the South Wales scene, such as:-

.

.

Brian R

.

Edited October 7, 2023 by br2975

[Fat Controller]

I've often thought that the Morriston (LMS) branch would make a nice 'short-line. There were about half a dozen terminals of varying complexity between the bridge under the GWML  and the A48 bridge at Morriston. At the time I worked at BSC Landore in summer 1974, the booklet for 'Conditional Workings' for the Swansea area ran to about 30 pages.

[Richard_A]

14 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

I've often thought that the Morriston (LMS) branch would make a nice 'short-line. There were about half a dozen terminals of varying complexity between the bridge under the GWML  and the A48 bridge at Morriston. At the time I worked at BSC Landore in summer 1974, the booklet for 'Conditional Workings' for the Swansea area ran to about 30 pages.

I also have pondered this, as a northerner who has lived in Swansea twice now, the fact that companies from my area had a presence here is remarkable to me, I could model this line and still use my triang blue pullman as they were scrapped in Morriston.

 

Food for thought I think. 

[Richard_A]

I've been trying to find a picture of a class 37 with a rake of 16 ton wagons filled with scrap from Morriston scrapyard, I'm sure it's in a book I have, can I find it? no chance. 

[Compound2632]

On 06/10/2023 at 10:44, Trainshed Terry said:

If I remember the wagons with out tie bars are fitted with 8 brake blocks, and the wagon with tie bars had "Morton bake gear with was 4 brake blocks.

 

"Morton" refers to the design of the hand brake lever - with a cam so that the cross-shaft could rotate independently of the lever. But it was generally the case that wagons fitted with conventional push-rod worked brake blocks and were vacuum braked, were equipped with Morton brake levers. (Otherwise when the vacuum brake was applied, rotating the cross-shaft, the cross-shaft would try to rotate the brake levers with it.)

[Cwmtwrch]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

"Morton" refers to the design of the hand brake lever - with a cam so that the cross-shaft could rotate independently of the lever.

Actually to reverse the action of the lever, so that putting the lever down rotated the cross-shaft anti-clockwise when viewed from that side. The other side had a plain lever acting directly on the cross-shaft. It didn't have to be done by a Morton clutch, see the BR or LNER 8-shoe clasp brake levers, but with a cross-shaft there had to be some means of reversing the action of one lever.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

(Otherwise when the vacuum brake was applied, rotating the cross-shaft, the cross-shaft would try to rotate the brake levers with it.)

There were additional clutches in the system, not obvious, which meant that the levers were not affected when the vacuum brake was applied or the opposite lever put down. The same is true of the reverse situation; the shaft from the cylinder had an inverted "T" shape at the bottom which engaged with the link to the cross-shaft, but was not attached to it, so that the link could lift as the shaft rotated.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Cwmtwrch

[Compound2632]

32 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Actually to reverse the action of the lever, so that putting the lever down rotated the cross-shaft anti-clockwise when viewed from that side. The other side had a plain lever acting directly on the cross-shaft. It didn't have to be done by a Morton clutch, see the BR or LNER 8-shoe clasp brake levers, but with a cross-shaft there had to be some means of reversing the action of one lever.

 

What you refer to there is the Morton reversing cam. The Morton clutch is illustrated in this photo of the non-reversing side of the brake gear of a Great Western wagon at Didcot:

 

 

[Copied from: http://www.gwr.org.uk/nowagonbrakes.html.]

 

The half of the clutch on the brake lever was arranged such that when the brake lever was pressed down, it engaged with the other half of the clutch, on the cross-shaft, rotating the cross-shaft and hence the tumblers, moving the push-rods so as to force the brake blocks against the wheels. When the brake lever was pulled back up again, the cross-shaft was free to rotate back, releasing the brake blocks. 

 

It was this clutch that was the subject of Morton's first patent; it was the first and simplest form of a brake that could be applied from either side of the wagon. In early implementations, by the L&Y and Midland (and maybe others), the simple clutch was used on both sides of the wagon, with the consequence that the brake lever on each side were facing the same end of the wagon. This arrangement satisfied the eventual Board of Trade rule that the brake should be capable of being applied from either side of the wagon and could only be released from the side from which it had been applied. It did not satisfy the rule that the brake lever should always be at the right-hand end of the wagon, on the side from which the shunter or brakesman was viewing the wagon. This requirement was met by the Morton reversing cam.

 

It is the Morton clutch that you allude to in the second part of your post: 

 

45 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

There were additional clutches in the system, not obvious, which meant that the levers were not affected when the vacuum brake was applied or the opposite lever put down.

 

Because the Morton clutch is rarely modelled but the reversing cam often is, confusion in the terminology as well as the mechanics of the Morton brake has become endemic.

 

Little seems to be known about Morton beyond his being an employee of the L&Y Carriage & Wagon Department.

[jim.snowdon]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

This arrangement satisfied the eventual Board of Trade rule that the brake should be capable of being applied from either side of the wagon and could only be released from the side from which it had been applied.

Have we any idea as to why the Board of Trade instituted this requirement? The GWR's Dean-Churchward brake did not comply, but they were allowed a dispensation to continue its use, apparently without any ill effect as far as staff were concerned.

 

[Compound2632]

11 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

Have we any idea as to why the Board of Trade instituted this requirement? The GWR's Dean-Churchward brake did not comply, but they were allowed a dispensation to continue its use, apparently without any ill effect as far as staff were concerned.

 

The 1911 Rules were made under powers granted to the Board of Trade under the Railway Employment (Prevention of Accidents) Act, 1900, which in turn was the Government response to the Royal Commission on Accidents to Railway Servants, which sat in 1899-1900. Accidents to those involved in shunting were high on the concerns of that commission. The first set of Rules, made in 1902, required such things as the boarding over of signal and point wires and rodding in goods yards, the provision of illumination, etc. There was to have been a rule on brakes but it appears that there was a general acknowledgement that the technology was immature. There was a good deal of experimentation under the auspices of the RCH, in which all sorts of weird and wonderful patent brakes were tried, which seems to have led to conclusions about the need for simplicity - with either the Morton brake or independent brakes on each side being preferred. The Dean-Churchward brake was permitted, if configured as a cross-cornered brake. (DCIII I think?) But the railway companies had 20 years to bring existing wagons into compliance, which is why DCI remained in use; the hazards associated with non-compliant brakes remained, but gradually diminished. Both sets of rules are reproduced below:

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Compound2632

[Wickham Green too]

17 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

... DCI remained in use; ...

From 1939 all wagon brakes had to be 'cross cornered' so a number of earlier DC-braked vehicles lost their left-hand levers and gained a set of pushrod brakes with 'conventional' lever in order to comply.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

From 1939 all wagon brakes had to be 'cross cornered' so a number of earlier DC-braked vehicles lost their left-hand levers and gained a set of pushrod brakes with 'conventional' lever in order to comply.

 

From May 1912 for all new construction; all existing non-compliant wagons to be altered within twenty years, the GWR having in excess of 20,000 wagons. That deadline was extended more than once, eventually to 1939. I have edited my post to make this point clearer. 

 

The Midland had been compliant for new construction from 1907. It had adopted the arrangement of the Morton brake with levers at both ends in 1905, but changed to the reversing cam configuration from 1907; for wagons with bottom doors it had adopted independent brake gear on each side. In 1909 that arrangement became standard for all new construction (except fitted vehicles, which had clasp brakes with Morton levers for hand operation) - presumably it was found cheaper either in first cost or maintenance or both.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Compound2632

[jim.snowdon]

I was interested, not in the right hand brake lever rule, which the DC brake satisfied in its cross-cornered form, but the requirement to be able to release the brake only from the same side as which it had been applied. The DC brake did not meet this requirement as it could be applied from one side of the wagon and released from the other.

 

11 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

From 1939 all wagon brakes had to be 'cross cornered' so a number of earlier DC-braked vehicles lost their left-hand levers and gained a set of pushrod brakes with 'conventional' lever in order to comply.

My understanding is that wagons fitted with the DC1 version of the brake simply got converted by the removal of the 'left hand' handle and the addition of a 'right hand' handle coupled by rodding to the original brake handle shaft, thus becoming a cross-cornered DC1 brake. The wagons that got an additional, often single shoe, set of pushrod brakes were the earlier wagons that had been built with only a single sided pushrod brake.

[Wickham Green too]

I think the 'Iron Minks' book has full details* - but there's an example of a DC2 conversion as plate 499 in the latest 'GWR Wagons' tome.

 

* my copy seems to have gone into hiding 

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

I was interested, not in the right hand brake lever rule, which the DC brake satisfied in its cross-cornered form, but the requirement to be able to release the brake only from the same side as which it had been applied.

 

Yes, I don't fully understand that requirement either. The principal motivation for the 1911 Rules was to avoid the need for shunters etc. to have to pass between wagons, which was a major cause of accidents to railwaymen - sudden and unexpected movements, etc. I suppose that it might be thought dangerous to be able to release the brake from the opposite side to that on which it had been applied, as the shunter who had applied the brake would be unaware that it had been released? Maybe reading the report of the Royal Commission - which will include evidence presented to it - might shed some light on this. 

[SM42]

On 08/10/2023 at 21:59, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes, I don't fully understand that requirement either. The principal motivation for the 1911 Rules was to avoid the need for shunters etc. to have to pass between wagons, which was a major cause of accidents to railwaymen - sudden and unexpected movements, etc. I suppose that it might be thought dangerous to be able to release the brake from the opposite side to that on which it had been applied, as the shunter who had applied the brake would be unaware that it had been released? Maybe reading the report of the Royal Commission - which will include evidence presented to it - might shed some light on this. 

 

It makes some sense.

 

Looking at a wagon with a brake lever down says brake applied.

 

You could look under the wagon through to the other side to see if the one opposite was up or down.

 

With either lever releasing the brake you had no way of telling the state of the brake at a glance as either lever could be down and the brake not applied.. 

 

One of the levers down was brake on. Both up brake off. 

 

Andy

[Wickham Green too]

10 hours ago, SM42 said:

... either lever could be down and the brake not applied. ...

??????????!?

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

??????????!?

 

Suppose that the brake levers on both sides had been pushed down to apply the brake. If the brake could be released from either side, the brake could be released from one side but the lever on the other side would still be down, unless both were rigidly fixed to the cross-shaft. With DCI, I presume both hand levers moved together? That's possible where one had short actuating levers but not where one had a pair of heavy iron levers six feet long! 

 

With the Morton brake, if the brake lever on both sides had been pushed down, to release the brake, both levers would have to be lifted one after the other, as the clutch on each was preventing the cross-shaft rotating. That would involve passing from one side of the wagon to the other, which was exactly what the 1911 Rule was intended to render unnecessary.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Compound2632

[jim.snowdon]

A feature of the DC brake was that even in its cross cornered form, both brake levers worked together. The ’master’ lever worked the ratchet and the release pawl, the other ‘slave’ lever was simply solidly connected via rodding to the master lever and its shaft. 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

A feature of the DC brake was that even in its cross cornered form, both brake levers worked together. The ’master’ lever worked the ratchet and the release pawl, the other ‘slave’ lever was simply solidly connected via rodding to the master lever and its shaft. 

 

Aha. That explains why "All waggons fitted with the Dean and Churchward brake, as described in Specification Number 202, of 1902, if arranged as a cross-cornered brake" were an exception to the rule; that was something that had been puzzling me.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Compound2632

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 08/10/2023 at 22:59, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes, I don't fully understand that requirement either. The principal motivation for the 1911 Rules was to avoid the need for shunters etc. to have to pass between wagons, which was a major cause of accidents to railwaymen - sudden and unexpected movements, etc. I suppose that it might be thought dangerous to be able to release the brake from the opposite side to that on which it had been applied, as the shunter who had applied the brake would be unaware that it had been released? Maybe reading the report of the Royal Commission - which will include evidence presented to it - might shed some light on this. 

 

How does the single sided brake brake, as in mineral wagons with bottom doors, square with all of this?

 

Mike.

[Compound2632]

23 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

How does the single sided brake brake, as in mineral wagons with bottom doors, square with all of this?

 

The 1911 Rules applied to newly built wagons with effect from six months after the Rules were issued - giving enough time for orders already placed to be completed. The 1911 Rules also required that existing wagons should be converted to comply, within a time period that depended on the number of wagons the owner or company had (see copy of the rules posted previously). For most railway companies, that period was 20 years; this was in due course extended until the deadline was pushed back to 1939, by which time any unconverted wagons were at least 28 years old and due for withdrawal anyway. (If they'd been worth keeping, they would have been converted.) Most of the railway companies and wagon building firms had been building wagons with brakes meeting the 1911 Rules for several years beforehand, anyway.

 

So, wagons built before May 1912 with single sided brake remained in use, in gradually diminishing numbers. The deadline for conversion for owners with smaller fleets was shorter - minimum ten years - so in theory PO wagons would have had to be converted at faster rate. Certainly there are plenty of photos of PO wagons built in the 1880s and 1890s still in traffic in the 1930s, with an additional set of brakes on the previously unbraked side. Since PO wagons accounted for about half of all wagons and the majority of wagons in mineral traffic, which, I think, tended to require more remarshalling, the improvement in safety from shunters having to pass between wagons so often must have been more rapid than the 20 years allowed to the railway companies would suggest.

 

I dare say that there were complaints from the private owners that they were again* being required to have wagons built to a more stringent specification than those of the railway companies, as, having smaller fleets, they had a shorter deadline for conversion.

 

*As they claimed they were with the introduction of the RCH scheme of specification, inspection, and registration in 1887.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Compound2632

[Wickham Green too]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Suppose that the brake levers on both sides had been pushed down to apply the brake. If the brake could be released from either side, the brake could be released from one side but the lever on the other side would still be down, unless both were rigidly fixed to the cross-shaft. With DCI, I presume both hand levers moved together? That's possible where one had short actuating levers but not where one had a pair of heavy iron levers six feet long! ...

Exactly - I can't see how the lever on one side can be 'down' ( i.e. a 6' long one ) and the brake be released from the other side !!?! ( without some complex de-clutching arrangement designed for the purpose )

[jim.snowdon]

On 08/10/2023 at 21:59, Compound2632 said:

The principal motivation for the 1911 Rules was to avoid the need for shunters etc. to have to pass between wagons, which was a major cause of accidents to railwaymen - sudden and unexpected movements, etc.

Another substantial safety concern, if not a greater one, was shunters having to cross ahead of moving wagons in the early hump yards in order to be on the correct side for the (only) hand brake lever. The puzzle is why the British railways never adopted a device such as the German 'hemmschuh' - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hemmschuh - which could be placed on the rail ahead of the moving vehicle and acted as a sledge brake. The device is almost unheard of in Britain, yet is virtually ubiquitous in mainland Europe.