Unfitted Wagons - Your Wagon Fleet Needs You!

[Brinkly]

Greetings chaps,

 

I don't know whether this has been covered before, but recently I've been reviewing my wagon fleet and I have a bit of a bias towards fitted box vans, over unfitted wagons/box vans. My own knowledge of wagons isn't great, but I would really like to create an authentic wagon fleet and thought perhaps this would be an area of interest for other RMWebbers!

 

Recently I bought a GWR Wagon Plan book, which has a huge list of different wagons diagrams and scale drawings, but trying to work out what had gone by 1955/6ish was a nightmare.

 

So what I thought we could do is create a list of different unfitted wagons (both open and box vans) running around in the mid to late 1950s, including diagram numbers so that modellers could create more authentic wagon fleets.

 

When posting any information I thought it might also be of use to include any previous articles, either in the modelling press, books, or your own work explaining what the starting point was for example;

 

BR Diagram 1/352 Cattle Wagon

In Service 1952-1970 (approx)

Modelling Articles

The 4mm Wagon by Geoff Kent

Model Rail Magazine September 2003

Prototypical Books

Wagons of the Early British Railways Era by David Larkin

Great Western Wagons Plan Book by Russell

Other Sources

Website Link

 

(I know the above example is for a fitted wagon but you get the idea!)

 

I really hope that this idea appeals to others as there is an awful lot of knowledge on this forum! And perhaps if this works we could create a fitted example in the not so distant future.

 

Kind regards,

 

Nick

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Alternative approach, rather more impressionistic. I too am interested in late 1950s BR as a subject. I am trying to build up a wagon fleet to represent the trains and 'yard contents' I saw; backed up with what photographs are available with good views of freight traffic of that era, operating on the ECML.

 

This will not of course lead me to have a wagon fleet wholly representative of BR's stock at the time, as some more specialised wagons relating to such activities as supply for steel making were not seen in my location. The most important principle is that the grouping era stock be dominated by ex-LNER and LMS designs, as these companies supplied near 80% of BR's inherited wagon stock, and the effect of common user pooling was that the general merchandise wagon fleet was thoroughly 'mixed up'.

[Brinkly]

Well yeah things like that, I had no idea that ex-LNER and LMS stock made up such a large amount. My own wagon fleet at present is a mix of BR and ex-GWR & SR with LMS & LNER very much on the sidelines, and I would really like to address this.

 

Regards,

 

Nick

[bbishop]

Hi,

 

First, let's ignore mineral wagons because they were effectively a separate traffic flow except for pick up goods.

 

My take on pregrouping wagon stock is 44% LMS; 33% LNER; 6% SR; 17% the other one. The percentage of vans gradually increased to about 25% by nationalisation: this continued afterwards but the big acceleration probably happened in the late 1950s. So in 1956, less than half the wagons in a train would be vans and by 1960 well over half would be vans. You might find some long shots of freight trains and count!

 

The average life of a wagon was in the order of 30 years. There was a standard deviation, so some pregrouping stock still existed but it would be exeptional to find any stock with grease axleboxes anywhere near the main line. So in 1956, perhaps ¼ of the wagons were BR and ¾ were pre-nationalisation.

 

Bill

[Brinkly]

Cheers Bill,

 

So working on that basis can we produce of suitable non-mineral wagons based on the information above?

 

Regards,

 

Nick

[craigwelsh]

Cheers Bill,

 

So working on that basis can we produce of suitable non-mineral wagons based on the information above?

 

Regards,

Nick

Working with RTR you'd have to buy a lot more of the recent LNER set of releases from Bachmann. The LMS family will hopefully follow in the future.

 

There should be a few thread in the rmweb archive where the percentages have been given in the past. Pennine has done a lot of work contributing to those.

 

1960 would be a bit easier than mid 50s when a lot of old stuff was still being displaced by the BR standard designs. The best course of action is probably to get a lot of freight train photos of your specific area and model accordingly. Most areas had a specific traffic or two that would skew their local numbers.

[bbishop]

Very true Craig, there was a significant increase in container traffic by the late 1950s.

 

Bill

[dube]

I`m trying to stick to 1955, I know there were a lot more open wagons than vans in use mostly grouping stock and a lot more unfitted stock was around many were vacuum fitted by BR in the late 50s, I always check the running no.s in the David Larkin Wagons of the BR era books before I buy anything RTR but trying to find info on grouping stock and when/if it was vacuum fitted is a lot more difficult anyway I could really do with a decent 5 plank open and ExLMS van RTR

[craigwelsh]

I recently went through a couple of boxes of LMS van and open underframe drawings at the NRM. The unfitted wagon drawings were all modified by BR mid 1957 to show a detailed step by step guide to the required parts for a vacuum conversion. It was an interesting read as we wondered on here in the past how that was carried out. Things like the 3-link are crossed out and details of the drawing to get a screw link from referenced.

 

I'd think it'll be a few years til we get the LMS underframe as Bachmann have a few more body moulds they could put on the LNER chassis first to maximise tooling usage.