Steam era wagon decking

[mike morley]

Wagon exteriors were painted. Wagon interiors and floors were not.

 

But how about the decking of flat wagons, bolster wagons, timber trucks and so on, which fall in the no-mans-land between the two?

[The Stationmaster]

Wagon exteriors were painted. Wagon interiors and floors were not.

 

But how about the decking of flat wagons, bolster wagons, timber trucks and so on, which fall in the no-mans-land between the two?

 

Unpainted on any I have ever seen in traffic.

[mike morley]

Thank you for confirming my suspicions

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

But how about the decking of flat wagons, bolster wagons, timber trucks and so on, which fall in the no-mans-land between the two?

Timber floors of any vehicle be it high sided or a flat, or anything in between, unpainted for sure. But the steel decking, and steel members which effectively formed part of the wagon floor, specifically on specially constructed vehicles were definitely painted in the general body colour of the vehicle on those BR specimens I have seen up close, such as lowmacs and well wagons.

[Pennine MC]

I think Paul has the key to it here, TBH the OP query isn't clearly worded - steel parts of a 'specially constructed wagon' (which I think at one time included bolsters and other steel carriers) would be painted for a vestige of protection, whereas the planked floor of a bolster, plate or Lowmac wouldnt be. But internal 'walls', of say a High Goods or mineral, wouldnt normally be painted whether steel or wood.

[Donw]

It may be that the wood used for the decking of a flat wagon would have been something like teak which could give an impression that it had been treated in some way being naturally quite oily. Can anyone clarify.

Don

[The Stationmaster]

It may be that the wood used for the decking of a flat wagon would have been something like teak which could give an impression that it had been treated in some way being naturally quite oily. Can anyone clarify.

Don

 

The only time I regularly saw new wood going into wagon floors was in the early 1970s when i was a frequent visitor to Cathays C&W shops and the timber being used then was what goes under the generic title 'pine' - i.e. it was a yellowish colour when new and it weathered to what was largely a greyish shade, similar to what I had been seeing in the timber floors of wagons from the late '60s onwards. Teak might have been used in earlier years but I suspect the nationaiised railway, especially post Beeching, found it wasn't worth the extra cost?

 

As the question of metal floors has also been raised it's worth mentioning what could be seen in traffic as opposed to what might have happened in works etc in that any paint covering tended - from what could be seen of the floors - to either wear away or become dirty pretty quickly. For example the floors of the wagons used for coil traffic from Port Talbot to Trostre & Velindre were rust coloured where the metal could be seen through the old ballast (used as a sort of heat shield) on which the coils were stood.

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

It may be that the wood used for the decking of a flat wagon would have been something like teak which could give an impression that it had been treated in some way being naturally quite oily. Can anyone clarify.

Don

 

I don't think that teak would ever have been used. Nowadays truck flooring is planked in a wood called keruing which is tough and wiry a bit like larch but less brittle.

 

I would imagine that truck floors were made of the same material as sleepers which were pitch pine. Sleeper timber is cut to size, drilled and pickled in brine as a preservative. Pitch pine is a tough wood but like all hardwoods, slow growing.

 

Most of our timber, since probably the late nineteenth century, has been imported mostly from Norway and Canada. Hardwoods like teak and mahogany are far too expensive to be used in such a bulk situation.

[wagonman]

I would concur with David and the others. Wagon flooring was 'pine' and unpainted. Definitely not teak, and probably not pitch pine either: 'cheap' was the watchword – it was simple enough to replace the floor boards if they became too worn.

 

The same pine would be used for the body sheeting of ordinary wooden open wagons too, though underframe members would have been oak.

[Buckjumper]

On the GER, open wagons and covered vans used English oak for body and under framing, while sides, ends, floorboards and roof boards were Red deal (Scots pine). For strength, the GER Machine and Implement wagons used oak floor boarding.

[asmay2002]

Wagon exteriors were painted. Wagon interiors and floors were not.

But how about the decking of flat wagons, bolster wagons, timber trucks and so on, which fall in the no-mans-land between the two?

 

 

I'm not sure it's that simple. In the 19th century wooden parts of wagons were whiteleaded as a preservative before they were put together. A top (livery) coat was then applied to the external surfaces. This carried on in some places into the 20th century. In Jim Russell's GWR Freight wagons and their loads..." there is a photo of 6 plank open 148250 with the door open. This door definitely looks as though it was white leaded on the inside with wear clearly visible and no sign of any grain. The interesting thing is that the photo is dated 1947 and the external paint on the wagon looks fresh. By that stage the LMS seems to have completely given up on paint on opens and the BR did the same for a while before going back to painting the external surfaces.

 

Both timber and whitelead will go grey with time so on a well used wagon in a B&W photo it is hard to tell the diference.

 

In Western Australia in the 1980s they still carried on the practice inherited from 19th century British wagon builders of painting wagon interiors when it had long since finished in the UK.

 

Actual documentation on this subject is difficult to come by.