Private Owner Coal Wagon Interior Colours?

[BillB]

Most model railway manufacturers paint the interiors of their private owner coal wagons with the exterior body colour. In the 1950s - 60s I lived next to Newmarket Colliery and its East & West Yorkshire Union Railway branch line, and I used to play in the ancient dead wagons stored in a siding just east of the bridge under the A642. As I remember they were all wooden and seemed to be bare, weathered wood inside and out, though I think there may have been rusty metal plates on the floors of some, maybe repairs to cover holes. I am wondering whether in the days of private owner coal wagons the interiors were painted (seems unlikely), creasoted (seems most likely), or just left as bare wood (I assume not, as some attempt would be made to maximise longevity)? Asked in the prototype section as it is about the prototype.

Thanks,

Bill.

[doilum]

I have always assumed them to be bare wood. Pitch pine was readily available in the first half of the century and probably didn’t need further protection. The floor planks took most of the wear and were replaceable. I know the area well and the E&W YU Rly is one of several that I researched but never got round to modelling.

[MartinRS]

This first hand recollection from a former employee of S.E.Stevens Wagon Works, Railway wagon building in the 1930s, is not specifically about mineral wagons though it does mention painting twice. I think the first reference of a visit to the paint shop is when the underframe is ready for ironwork to be fitted. In the final paragraph it mentions a coat of undercoat being applied to the exterior of the wagon only.

 

See http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/annexe/wagon-shops.shtml

 

archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/annexe/wagon-shops.shtml

 

[Wickham Green too]

Sometimes you'll come across a publicity shot of a new wagon posed with all the doors propped open ....... the interior is invariably unpainted.

[Cwmtwrch]

The grouped railways and BR left interior woodwork of open wagons unpainted, but internal steelwork was painted, from channels in place of the lower panks in the ends to nuts and bolts; photographs show that the steel body framing of open wagons was completed as far as possible and painted before any woodwork was added and steel bodies were painted before the wood floor was fitted. What happened to PO wagons would depend on the policies of the owners, which varied, but I would not be altogether surprised to find painted internal steelwork there as well.

[BillB]

Thanks very much to all. I will go for natural wood, with a good coating of coal dust for my empties!

To Doilum - I don't know if still available, but years ago I got several E&WYUR wagons, all with different nos., from Going Loco in Potovens Lane, Wakefield. They were not printed, but decalled, with whole body-side decals. I don't know the source of the decals. When I lived there the line was worked by saddle tanks, but I can't remember if they were BR or NCB. I used to sit on the banks of the cutting that ran from the bridge under the A642 towards Patrick Green, waiting for a train to rumble by, and never saw a tender engine, and whilst memory fades, I don't remember any long trains. I also don't remember the brake vans specifically, but I'm guessing they were the LNER / BR standard ones.

[jim.snowdon]

The insides of PO coal wagons (and railway owned examples, including the BR steel ones) were unpainted save for any metalwork on wood bodied wagons, which was generally given a 'black japanned' finish at construction. Open merchandise wagons were similarly unpainted when wooden bodied.

The unknown is the pre-BR steel bodied coal wagons - BR adopted a policy of using a self-weathering grade of steel (Corten) but how widespread that practice was for pre-BR wagons is unknown to me.

[bécasse]

3 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

The unknown is the pre-BR steel bodied coal wagons - BR adopted a policy of using a self-weathering grade of steel (Corten) but how widespread that practice was for pre-BR wagons is unknown to me.

That was my understanding of BR practice too despite the fact that Hornby Dublo finished the inside of their (rather nice for the time) 16T mineral wagon in black. An understanding that was seemingly confirmed by the discovery of a colour photo which showed a "pale-pink" interior which is just how I would have expected a lightly rusted self-weathering steel to look.

 

However, opening this month's Railway Bylines at page 137 I found a picture of a line of various steel mineral wagons stabled (doubtless for the summer when there was less demand for them) at Stoke Bruern station on the erstwhile SMJR in the early 1960s. A three-quarter view taken from the road bridge, it clearly shows parts of the interior of a number of wagons - and they all appear to be painted black or possibly dark grey, certainly a much darker colour than their exterior wagon grey finish and much darker than I would expect self-weathering steel to look. A number of them show marks left by their previous loads, and they would have been out empty in the rain for some time, so the dark colour is most unlikely to be the result of coal dust remaining from their previous duties. The source of the photo isn't acknowledged.

[doilum]

8 hours ago, BillB said:

Thanks very much to all. I will go for natural wood, with a good coating of coal dust for my empties!

To Doilum - I don't know if still available, but years ago I got several E&WYUR wagons, all with different nos., from Going Loco in Potovens Lane, Wakefield. They were not printed, but decalled, with whole body-side decals. I don't know the source of the decals. When I lived there the line was worked by saddle tanks, but I can't remember if they were BR or NCB. I used to sit on the banks of the cutting that ran from the bridge under the A642 towards Patrick Green, waiting for a train to rumble by, and never saw a tender engine, and whilst memory fades, I don't remember any long trains. I also don't remember the brake vans specifically, but I'm guessing they were the LNER / BR standard ones.

Back in the day the motive power was a a handful of large Manning Wardle tank engines which survived the grouping to become J— and N— ( I need my book!) In BR days J 52 ( with a sun roof / ventilator) and latterly J 94 seemed to do most of the work. To these had to be added the eclectic mix of colliery locomotives which had random running rights which occasionally ended in tears. I actually have the J 52 in 7mm although I think it is slightly over scale due to a well known limitation of enlarging images on early photocopiers.

[Cwmtwrch]

18 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

The insides of PO coal wagons (and railway owned examples, including the BR steel ones) were unpainted save for any metalwork on wood bodied wagons, which was generally given a 'black japanned' finish at construction. Open merchandise wagons were similarly unpainted when wooden bodied.

The unknown is the pre-BR steel bodied coal wagons - BR adopted a policy of using a self-weathering grade of steel (Corten) but how widespread that practice was for pre-BR wagons is unknown to me.

The body metalwork of wooden BR merchandise wagons was painted in whatever the relevant body colour was, grey or bauxite, confirmed by photographs. LNER 16T minerals and 21T hoppers seem to have been grey inside and out, also judging from photographs. The LMS carried out some experiments with batches of loco coal wagons with bodies in beryl steel, copper bearing steel [which might have been corten], and wrought iron, none of which were apparently pursued, although the wagons lasted well into BR days. Why paint the internal steelwork on wooden 13T but not on steel 16T?

 

So far as I know, corten steel was not normally used at any time for railway wagons in the UK. It was used, I think for passenger cars(?) in the USA and found to be ineffective. It depends on the formation of an oxide surface layer which adheres, preventing further rusting, which works quite well on the outside of buildings. However, this rust layer is not impact resistant, so it would be destroyed by 16 tons of coal being dropped into the wagon, and is rendered ineffective by paint. It is also more expensive than mild steel, and would have been available in very limited quantities, if at all, during and immediately after WW2, when steel was rationed, with railway use definitely not the highest priority. While it is only slightly more difficult to weld than mild steel, using modern techniques, these may not have been available earlier, as the wide-spread use of welding in the UK only developed during the 1940s.

 

As Becasse points out, photographs consistently show a very dark interior, which colour photos suggest was black originally. There is a black and white photograph of a brand new 16T mineral at the Battersea Wharf exhibition in 1952, built by BRCW, which has a matt interior finish, which could be dark grey, black, or dark brown. It has white wheel rims, which would have been for the exhibition, but there is no reason to suppose that the internal finish was anything but standard. Given the acid nature of wet coal, bituminised paint would seem to be strong possibility.

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

19 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

... The unknown is the pre-BR steel bodied coal wagons ...

Of course a lot of what we think of as BR 16 tonners started out with the Ministry ( whichever it was that week ) and only gained BR numbers later ........ though whether that affects the finish applied when built is another unknown - but there was a war on, you know !

[bécasse]

14 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Given the acid nature of wet coal, bituminised paint would seem to be strong possibility.

Bituminised paint was my assumption too, particularly as I suspect that the reason that GWR Loco Coal wagons were black (rather than the dark grey used on other wagons) was that bituminised paint was used on them, the GWR being known to have been significant users of it.

[Cwmtwrch]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Of course a lot of what we think of as BR 16 tonners started out with the Ministry ( whichever it was that week ) and only gained BR numbers later ..

Only the B prefix was new, the numbers didn't change. The MoWT/MoT wagons inherited by BR amounted to approximately 55,200, those built for BR to just under 240,000, to which can be added about 9,100 built for the MoS to be used by the SNCF, which were purchased by BR in 1950, a total of a little over 300,000.

[hmrspaul]

22 hours ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Only the B prefix was new, the numbers didn't change. The MoWT/MoT wagons inherited by BR amounted to approximately 55,200, those built for BR to just under 240,000, to which can be added about 9,100 built for the MoS to be used by the SNCF, which were purchased by BR in 1950, a total of a little over 300,000.

... and painted a red oxide/bauxite. Which is why some 1950s photos in black and white are interpreted as them being in a dark grey. 

 

Very unlikely to have an internal paint, BR instructions give no suggestion that the inside of any open wagons should be painted. Avoiding contamination would be important - mineral wagons were just that, they could be used for many different products both inorganic and organic - agricultural. 

 

Paul

[Oldddudders]

On 09/02/2024 at 13:30, Cwmtwrch said:

So far as I know, corten steel was not normally used at any time for railway wagons in the UK. It was used, I think for passenger cars(?) in the USA and found to be ineffective.

From the late 1930s, Pullman-Standard used truss construction with Cor-ten steel framing, roofs (sic) and ends in passenger car construction. Stainless steel was used for the external corrugations specified by some roads, to ensure visible compatibility with contemporary Budd vehicles. The wealth of detail in the Official Pullman Standard Library series is not matched in the same authors' (Randall & Anderson) work covering Budd and ACF, sadly. 

 

By the early '50s, P-S was now using stainless steel throughout its new builds, although this was a market that was fast dwindling, of course. 

[BillB]

I just found a pic on Pinterest of the interior of an empty BR steel mineral wagon, derailed on Basford Crossing. It answers the question for these wagons, at least, and provides a useful guide for modellers modeling empties.

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

Looks like that twenty one tonner has a very shallow end door ...... is it one of the GWR variants ?

[41516]

No end doors and replated would be my guess - you can see a similar level cut between the side doors on the left hand side.

[Wickham Green too]

Ah - looking at the GWR 'bible' I was mis-remembering the shallow doors ; they were side doors in GWR loco coal wagons. THIS wagon has the lack of end doors in common with those - but 'standard' side doors would suggest a former Private Owner.

[Cwmtwrch]

35 minutes ago, 41516 said:

No end doors and replated would be my guess - you can see a similar level cut between the side doors on the left hand side.

15 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

but 'standard' side doors would suggest a former Private Owner.

I agree there is some welded replating in the visible side, but the doors appear to have a vertical division in them, suggesting to me that they may be 'cupboard' doors rather than the standard type, possibly welded replacements for pressed originals. The end door [I think it is a door, not replating] appears to have four hinges evenly spaced, the corner pair of which have a rivetted strip extending from the hinge to the floor. Ex-PO seems the only answer, I think; a shame there is no external view of the wagon.

 

The shot is reversed, incidentally - we drive on the left...

[roythebus1]

Yes, you're right there! The wagon handbrake is the wrong way round as well. 

 

There was a picture on other groups of an early District Railway train showing catch points on the "wrong" track , background items not quite right. I eventually sussed it was the wrong way round and had been since the picture was published in 1906! It was taken at South Harrow.

[jim.snowdon]

1 hour ago, Cwmtwrch said:

I agree there is some welded replating in the visible side, but the doors appear to have a vertical division in them, suggesting to me that they may be 'cupboard' doors rather than the standard type, possibly welded replacements for pressed originals.

The rivet pattern would also suggest side hinged 'cupboard' doors, as would the presence of a door hinge visible on the right hand side (as posted) at the top of the second stanchion. That, plus the generally welded construction, would indicate it as an ex-LNER loco coal wagon.

[41516]

Right way around

[iands]

I imagine the signalman had a few nervous moments wondering which way the derailed wagons might go. Fate decided he didn't end up sitting on top of one of them.