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Cravens of Sheffield


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I wonder if anyone knows where there might be an archive of drawings from the Cravens Companay of Sheffield, who built coaching stock, DMUs' etc., until taken over by Metro Cammell, itself now part of Alstom.

 

I am trying to find out if any drawings exist of 70 "spoil wagons" which were built for the Ulster Transport Authority in 1966-1967. These 4 wheel wagons, carrying 30 tons approx, were used in trains of 20 for the last main line hauled steam trains in the British isles, which carried spoil from a site near Larne to provide the reclamation land for a new motorway north of Belfast. The contract ended in 1970. I attach a picture for info of one of them as delivered to Larne Harbour in February 1967.

 

If anyone has any "leads" that might be worth following up I'd love to hear from them.

 

Colm Flanagan

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I would suggest that you try the HMRS study centre at Butterley. They have a large archive of Metro Cammell drawings though I'm not sure how far the cataloguing has got.

 

Jamie

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I wonder if anyone knows where there might be an archive of drawings from the Cravens Companay of Sheffield, who built coaching stock, DMUs' etc., until taken over by Metro Cammell, itself now part of Alstom.

 

I am trying to find out if any drawings exist of 70 "spoil wagons" which were built for the Ulster Transport Authority in 1966-1967. These 4 wheel wagons, carrying 30 tons approx, were used in trains of 20 for the last main line hauled steam trains in the British isles, which carried spoil from a site near Larne to provide the reclamation land for a new motorway north of Belfast. The contract ended in 1970. I attach a picture for info of one of them as delivered to Larne Harbour in February 1967.

 

If anyone has any "leads" that might be worth following up I'd love to hear from them.

 

Colm Flanagan

 

The Metro Cammell collection is in Birmingham Library. The bad news is that Birmingham Library is being rebuilt........

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Cravens' drawings were sold off when the Company folded. A friend of mine bought some drawings at the sale, though not of these wagons.

 

The original Met-Cam drawings are held by the HMRS, though I don't think they have all been catalogued yet. The Met-Cam collection in Birmingham library consists of microfilm copies of some of the original drawings. These were done in the 70s I believe.

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I wonder if anyone knows where there might be an archive of drawings from the Cravens Companay of Sheffield, who built coaching stock, DMUs' etc., until taken over by Metro Cammell, itself now part of Alstom.

 

I am trying to find out if any drawings exist of 70 "spoil wagons" which were built for the Ulster Transport Authority in 1966-1967. These 4 wheel wagons, carrying 30 tons approx, were used in trains of 20 for the last main line hauled steam trains in the British isles, which carried spoil from a site near Larne to provide the reclamation land for a new motorway north of Belfast. The contract ended in 1970. I attach a picture for info of one of them as delivered to Larne Harbour in February 1967.

 

If anyone has any "leads" that might be worth following up I'd love to hear from them.

 

Colm Flanagan

 

Sorry can't help with drawings for the UTA Spoil wagons, but these two photos I made in 1979 & 80 might be of use.

MPD's 64&51 leaving York Rd on a ballast working 12-12-1979

C331 Spoil Wagon Lisburn 15-03-1980

 

K9-70

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It's a pity that one or two of the Cravens Ballast Wagons weren't preserved as the remaining ones weren't cut up until 1994 by Hamills of Ballymeana.

 

Photo attached made 11-1993, shows 103 plus 4 of the Cravens ballast wagons stored at Ballymeana.

 

K9-70

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  • 8 years later...

Slowly working my way around this site having just joined and found this thread as this afternoon I was looking through my Cravens of Sheffield publicity book that I have. My grandfather was chief buyer their until he retired in the early 60's so it doesn't cover what you wanted (I have just realised this was posted 9 years ago) but does have a lot of pictures and some line drawings of the various DMU, EMU, carriages and wagons they built for the UK and foreign markets. I'd guess it was from around 1960, possibly before.

 

Would you object, when I can get it scanned or photo the pages (it's not going to be today), if I put these here as the title is entirely appropriate.

 

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3 hours ago, Busmansholiday said:

Slowly working my way around this site having just joined and found this thread as this afternoon I was looking through my Cravens of Sheffield publicity book that I have. My grandfather was chief buyer their until he retired in the early 60's so it doesn't cover what you wanted (I have just realised this was posted 9 years ago) but does have a lot of pictures and some line drawings of the various DMU, EMU, carriages and wagons they built for the UK and foreign markets. I'd guess it was from around 1960, possibly before.

 

Would you object, when I can get it scanned or photo the pages (it's not going to be today), if I put these here as the title is entirely appropriate.

 

 

That would really be appreciated!

 

thanks

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I'd have no problem in your posting the info on this thread, in truth I had forgotten it as a few years later a scale model of the wagons was produced as a limited run and I have the models I wanted! Look forward  to seeing the results of your work in due course  Colm

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Try the National Archives catalogue as it covers not only their holdings but other archives as well. There does seem to be possibly some Cravens material out there just doing a rudimentary search of Cravens Ltd. I cant say it will find exactly what you are looking for but you never know where their material may have ended up.

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I have found a slightly newer version of the book I have here;

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124446949@N06/albums

 

It's not complete though, so I'll copy my book (well photo it as it doesn't fit on my scanner), then up load all the pages.

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As a first port-of-call, I would suggest Sheffield City Archives, as local firms would normally deposit material there. However, I note from Wikipedia that Metropolitan Cammell took over Craven's rolling stock activities in 1966, which might mean either Birmingham City Archives or wherever Alstom's archives might be.

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I visited the Birmingham archives a couple of years ago and found them most helpful.

They found a full set of drawings for the wagon I was after.

 

I was able to quote the date the order was placed and the customer.

 

Gordon A

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At Birmingham library they've some additional drawings which they'll supply a list (MS99 Additional if remember correctly). Seem to remember they were 60's onwards and featured several countries and included some Cravens Ulster drawings. Bad news they're not catalogued.

 

Michael

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