What LMS wagon is this?

[Spitfire2865]

Hello. I have a photo of a wagon in LMS livery and I rather like the side doors but I dont know its origin, or even what it was used for. I assume coal, but I could be wrong.

Photo doesnt belong to me.

The wagon in question is the full one to the right of the worker.

 

Thank you for any help.

[brossard]

Well that is a good question.  We are clearly in a goods warehouse so my first thought would be that it is a general merchandise wagon.  However, the corner plates would be on all corners and this one appears to have an end door suggesting a mineral wagon.  I've been through Essery's LMS Wagons Vol. 1.  The other anomaly I see is lack of diagonal bracing - none of the wagons in my book have that.

 

Over to the experts.

 

John

[Nick Holliday]

Given the lack of brakes and the cupboard doors I would suggest that it is a Scottish wagon - inside the warehouse there is a wagon which seems to be Caledonian, although the one on the right, outside the building, would seem to be Midland, but their wagons got everywhere.  It may turn up in the recent books on Caley and HIghland wagons, or it could be GSWR in origin, in which case there is little hope of tracking it down.

[62613]

There doesn't appear to be any brakes on the wagon, either. Cupboard - style side doors too. Obviously pre-group, but which company?

[Nick Holliday]

Looking through Mike Williams' book on Caledonian Wagons, I am pretty  convinced it is one of their mineral wagons, although it does not quite fit exactly the ones he  portrays. What we can see in the photo is a typical four plank mineral wagon with an end door, and cupboard side doors with vertical planking, and fitted with spindle buffers and shallow springs.  Of the three possible types in the book, the closest match is a batch of 400 wagons that were built originally for Dunn Brothers by Hurst Nelson and taken over by the Caledonian in 1897.  The one in the photo has vertically planked cupboard doors, shallow 8 leaf springs and spindle buffers, but is five planks high.  They were of a  similar size to the Dia 22 wagons, which comprised over 1,000 wagons which had been thirled to regular clients but by 1913 this hiring arrangement had ceased and the Caledonian took them in hand, and had to convert them from dumb buffers to sprung to meet RCH requirements.  So these wagons, or at least the one in the photo in the book, had four planks, shallow springs but its cupboard door is horizontally boarded and the buffers are the chunky self-contained ones typically used in the conversion Finally there are the Dia 46 wagons, slightly larger and built new for the Caledonian from 1900. Four planks and spindle buffers but horizontal planking on the door, and, usually, deeper 12 leaf springs, although the one pictured had only 8 leaf ones.

Given the history of first two types of these wagons, variations were likely, so you can take your pick, unless someone can read the LMS number and work it back from there. The big mystery, which  applies to all the above, is how it has survived to grouping without receiving a second set of brakes on the visible side?  Such an arrangement, even the crude Scottish method of fitting a single brake on the blank side was "approved", should have been implemented shortly after the end of the nineteenth century, so, theoretically, all should have been dealt with by grouping, It would seem reasonable that the brakes would have been added when the dumb-buffered ones were converted, although perhaps wartime conditions allowed the Caledonian to get away with it, and the Dia 46 were being built at a time when it was expected that they would have dual brakes, so it would seem to point to one of the ex-Dunn wagons, but with 4 wide planks rather than 5 thinner ones.

[Portchullin Tatty]

Caledonian mineral in my view.

 

The Highland did not have any with end doors.  The GSWR just might have but it was the CR that the most.  The NB had something very similar.

 

Few Scottish wagons had dual side brakes until the construction post first war and there were (at least on the Highland) a significant number that got into the grouping era without having any extras added.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Single side brakes seem to have lasted until at least the late 1920s and possibly longer. There was eventually a edict from the RCH banning them (presumably to avoid shunters having cross between moving wagons to apply the brakes).

[Rivercider]

Does anyone know where the photo was taken, does that give a clue as to the traffic?

 

cheers

[Spitfire2865]

No idea where I even found the picture. I pick up a lot of photos off the internet and I usually just save them to a railway folder for later reference. So most likely CR origin. Hmm. Any more info would be greatly appreciated.

Number looks sorta like 3203******??

[Nick Holliday]

"The Highland did not have any with end doors. "

The Highland did actually purchase some end door wagons, although it is not clear where they might be tipped.  In 1914 they bought 2 batches of 50 No., 12 ton, 6 plank wagons from Pickerings, to an RCH standard.  The LMS diagram for them shows an end door and Tatlow's HR stock book has a photo of one of them in that condition, although he is not convinced the entire batch was the same, as the end door was probably redundant on the Highland, but perhaps the wagons were cheap.

[DOCJACOB]

I would certainly plump for a Caledonian Railway type. The end door and cupboard side doors are typically Scottish.

 

Agree the North British were "Jubilee" were similar though.

[PenrithBeacon]

I think it's Midland.

 

Regards

[ian@stenochs]

Hi.

Certainly Caledonian mineral wagon probably 10 ton capacity but the 8 ton version was very simiar in appearance. The axleboxes are typically cr and if you can enlarge them there should be 'CR' cast on the fronts.

I am surprised that the wagon has been painted, recently by the condition, without the brakes being upgraded to either side ones. As built the wago would have single lever applying one shoe to one wheel and on the side away from the photographer in this view.

I think it was 1906, but I could be wrong, that the Board of Trade decreed that wagons should have brakes which could be applied from either side of the wagon. Most companies just added another single lever but the Scottish companies were a bit slow in application. However I would have thought that by the grouping all wagons would conform to the rules but your photo shows that not to be the case. Interesting!

Ian.

[Caledonian]

Does anyone know where the photo was taken, does that give a clue as to the traffic?

 

cheers

 

No idea, but if the missing panel above the entrance was replaced it would read COMPANY, which would suggest it was preceded by the words [        ] RAILWAY COMPANY

[kevinlms]

Hi.

Certainly Caledonian mineral wagon probably 10 ton capacity but the 8 ton version was very simiar in appearance. The axleboxes are typically cr and if you can enlarge them there should be 'CR' cast on the fronts.

I am surprised that the wagon has been painted, recently by the condition, without the brakes being upgraded to either side ones. As built the wago would have single lever applying one shoe to one wheel and on the side away from the photographer in this view.

I think it was 1906, but I could be wrong, that the Board of Trade decreed that wagons should have brakes which could be applied from either side of the wagon. Most companies just added another single lever but the Scottish companies were a bit slow in application. However I would have thought that by the grouping all wagons would conform to the rules but your photo shows that not to be the case. Interesting!

Ian.

The RCH set various deadlines for wagon brake updates to occur by. However various extensions were allowed, mainly because of the size of some members wagon fleets. Also things like depressions & WW1 intervened enabling further time extensions. I believe that by 1923 many wagons didn't meet the 1907 standards.

No wonder the LMS in particular went out & built large fleets of current standard wagons. In many ways these were technically inferior to some older wagons, notably the L&Y larger wagons, some of which were fitted too.

[AberdeenBill]

Nice photo...    Does anybody know what the branding on the wagon on the left consists of as XXXXXXX WAGON?   It also seems to have an extra-long brake lever?

 

Thanks,

Bill

[Worsdell forever]

Nice photo...    Does anybody know what the branding on the wagon on the left consists of as XXXXXXX WAGON?   It also seems to have an extra-long brake lever?

 

Thanks,

Bill

 

Most likely one of these.