19th Century and Pre 1906 PO Wagon Books & Information

[BG John]

I'm looking for books and other sources of information for modelling private owner wagons in the 19th century and early 1900s. This is what I'm specifically interested in:

- What may have been seen on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and surrounding area in 1905

- What may have been seen on a West Country GWR branch line in 1905

- Anything that would have run on the broad gauge in the West Country at any time between 1835 and 1892

 

I need details of real wagons, plus enough information to create some fictitious ones to suit my fictional locations. I'm not really interested in getting bogged down with information on anything else at the moment, and don't have the money or bookshelf space for it either.

 

So:

- What, if any, books are available that have enough information to be worth buying?

- What other sources of information are there?

 

I've got a variety of old HMRS Journals, Model Railway News and Model Railway Constructors that have some useful information, but not a huge amount.

 

I've just bought Bill Hudson's Vol 1 & 2 because they were cheap, but they're useless, so will probably be going on eBay.

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

[petethemole]

There are a lot of PO wagons dating back to the 1880s - 1900s in Private Owner Wagons from The Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd by Keith Montague. Not many from SE England but there is a Fremlins' brewery van for Kent. Many of their clients were in the West Country so a good selection for a GWR branch. The illustrations are works photos and there are colour details.

 

[bbishop]

John Arkell's book, title along the lines of "Private Owner Wagons pertaining to the South Eastern & Chatham Railway", will be published in the next couple of months.  This may help.

 

Otherwise, are their Oakwood Press type books on the K&ESR?

 

As a last resort, you could research into Kelly's Directories (say for Maidstone).  A small trader may not have his (or her) own wagons but could rely on a factor (ie Stephenson Clarke or Cory Bros) or a colliery to transport the coal. 

 

Bill

[Nick Holliday]

Why do you say the two Bill Hudson books are useless?  His work provides a lot of useful background information regarding the construction and operation of PO wagons, even if the ones pictured don't exactly fit your current requirements. 

No single volume is going to satisfy your particular needs, there are now, for example, 13 volumes by Keith Turton who often goes into great detail on company structure, history etc. giving interesting background information.  All of them are fascinating, but, as a pre-grouping Brighton modeller, only a small percentage of the entries has direct significance to me, but you have to bear in mind that it isn't only local traders whose wagons will appear on a line, you will see those from bigger nearby towns, large coal factors and collieries as well as others for various reasons, some of which have been discussed elsewhere on this site.

 

Taking your questions In turn:

 

What may have been seen on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and surrounding area in 1905?

 

In a way the best thing is to seek out picture albums of the KESR in its earlier glory and see what wagons are lurking in the background. In addition I would recommend the OPC Montague book on Gloucester wagons, as they tended to sell well into the South East England market, and the book has many examples of early wagons. Just remember that some of the colliery wagons in the Hudson books could easily end up in Kent.

 

- What may have been seen on a West Country GWR branch line in 1905?

 

Same approach, I would suggest.  Lightmoor Press, who publish the Turton series, and also lovely tomes covering specific areas such as the Forest of Dean, Somerset (West Country enough for you?), Bristol and Gloucester, also have available on-line a complete index of wagon owners featuring in all published books, although not covering the wide variety that can be found in the model railway magazines.  Download yourself a copy and search through it for relevant locations,  although it won't identify applicable eras. (It also has a helpful list of all books on the topic)

 

- Anything that would have run on the broad gauge in the West Country at any time between 1835 and 1892

 

Not much available on this subject, as generally well before photography took hold, at least for the humble goods wagon.  There are a few photos in the Montague book, and there is a lot more coverage in Len Tavender's book of drawings on Coal Trader Wagons, but there is some doubt as to the actual extent of such usage, due to the general lack of information appertaining to the era. Slightly easier to find is the Matthews' MAP booklet, which does have a couple of examples within its pages.

[BG John]

There are a lot of PO wagons dating back to the 1880s - 1900s in Private Owner Wagons from The Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd by Keith Montague. Not many from SE England but there is a Fremlins' brewery van for Kent. Many of their clients were in the West Country so a good selection for a GWR branch. The illustrations are works photos and there are colour details.

Grrrr! I missed out on one on eBay last night!

 

EDIT: But just found one for about the price I might have had to pay (or maybe less), and ordered it!

[Poggy1165]

Coal Trade Wagons by L. Tavender reports the following wagons (coal traffic) at Sheffield Park between 1899 and 1900:

 

Newington and Co, Lewes

Lamont and Warne, London

Parry, East Croydon

Rickett Smith,London

Nuneaton

Pelsall

CRC, Brownhills

Bestwood

Linby

Talk O' The Hill (near Stoke)

Staveley

Birley (near Sheffield)

Roundwood, Park Gate, near Sheffield.

Wigan Coal and Iron Hindley

 

Also wagons from the following foreign companies (not LBSC) LNWR, GCR, MR GNR

 

This is not quite your era or quite your Kent and East Sussex location, but it's pretty near to both. Many of these collieries/traders feature in various publications, although without checking I'm not sure if any of the info. is early enough.

 

I find some of this quite surprising, not least the Birley and Wigan Coal and Iron wagons, which will have travelled about 200 miles, but there you are.

[BG John]

Coal Trade Wagons by L. Tavender reports the following wagons (coal traffic) at Sheffield Park between 1899 and 1900:

......

I think that's one book I won't be getting. There doesn't seem to be a single copy available for sale anywhere in cyberspace.

 

I'll wait for the Gloucester book to arrive, and see what useful stuff there is in there, and watch Amazon, AbeBook and eBay for cheap copies of anything that might be remotely useful. The first step is just to find one or two suitable wagons, with basic dimensions, and a photo I can scan for producing artwork for the body. Then find suitable chassis I can use or adapt to suit. I just want to avoid the usual boring collection of "Malsters" and Beehive Manufacturers on modern wagons, when there must have been quite a variety of styles going back several decades, with different dimensions, round ends and all sorts of variations. I like dumb buffers, although I suppose in moderation, especially in 7mm scale, as they are ideal for cheapskates like me who think buffers are expensive!!!

[burgundy]

I would suggest that Len Tavender's book is precisely the one that you should be looking for. It has a slightly idiosyncratic style, but is packed with not only drawings, but also with information on where wagons were found, indicating traffic patterns. I think there is another similar booklet entitled Railway Equipment Drawings, which is also worth a look. How about ordering on inter-library loan? It may take a little while, but both books are worth waiting for.

Best wishes

Eric  

[Penlan]

.......  Lightmoor Press, who publish the Turton series, and also lovely tomes covering specific areas such as the Forest of Dean, Somerset (West Country enough for you?), Bristol and Gloucester, also have available on-line a complete index of wagon owners featuring in all published books.....  Download yourself a copy and search through it for relevant locations,  although it won't identify applicable eras. (It also has a helpful list of all books on the topic)

That's a very useful link I wasn't aware of, many thanks Nick.  http://lightmoor.co.uk/BDLpdf_files/Private_Owner_Wagons_Index.pdf

 So much to do, so little time.

[wagonman]

I think that's one book I won't be getting. There doesn't seem to be a single copy available for sale anywhere in cyberspace.

 

I'll wait for the Gloucester book to arrive, and see what useful stuff there is in there, and watch Amazon, AbeBook and eBay for cheap copies of anything that might be remotely useful. The first step is just to find one or two suitable wagons, with basic dimensions, and a photo I can scan for producing artwork for the body. Then find suitable chassis I can use or adapt to suit. I just want to avoid the usual boring collection of "Malsters" and Beehive Manufacturers on modern wagons, when there must have been quite a variety of styles going back several decades, with different dimensions, round ends and all sorts of variations. I like dumb buffers, although I suppose in moderation, especially in 7mm scale, as they are ideal for cheapskates like me who think buffers are expensive!!!

 

The Montague book has some great photos but the captions are at best uninformative, at worst plain wrong. 

 

I don't know where in the West Country your GWR branch is intended to be, but bear in mind the further west you go the more likely it was that coal was brought in by sea rather than rail. Coal brought by sea into Bridgwater and Dunball was still being forwarded by rail in a BG goods train as late as April 1892 which is why Sully & Co retained 25 BG wagons right up to the end. There is a well known photo of one of these wagons on the dump at Swindon waiting to be converted, after which it ran as a GWR wagon.  Other than that the only info on broad gauge PO wagons in the south west is documentary. The late Mike Jolly of the BGS copied out the one surviving GWR Register of Freighters' Wagons that covered the broad gauge (there must have been at least one more) though there is nothing much on your area as it wasn't GWR until the mid 1870s by which time many of the lines had already been gauge converted.

 

If you are interested in Somerset then I think you would find the "Private Owner Wagons of Somerset" (Lightmoor Press) useful – if you'll forgive me plugging my own book!

[Penlan]

I don't know where in the West Country your GWR branch is intended to be, but bear in mind the further west you go the more likely it was that coal was brought in by sea rather than rail.

I spent a little time looking for PO's in Cornwall, especially west of Truro and basically nothing - Other than China Clay.  

As you say coal was shipped in mainly by boat.

Yes there were the occasional PO's, but from the big companies up Country, not Cornish owners.

Bar of course the ubiquitous 'Helston Gas Works'.*..

There's a PO for 'Great Grimsby Coal...' which lists Newlyn as one of it's centre's.  I'm not sure where the artworks from, but it's not listed on the Powsides web pages, though my stock inventory states 'Slaters Pre-Printed  Powsides' ?

But that would have been mainline, not a branch line visitor - if one believes the line to PZ is not a branch 

 

I have a few Cornish PO's, made up liveries though, but in the style of the period.  Somebody told me many years ago that I probably had more Cornish PO's on my layout than there ever was in reality....

 

* - Helston Gas works was about half a mile away from the station, all the coal had to be double handed to reach the Gas Works.  Presumably the tar went straight to boat owners.

[wagonman]

I spent a little time looking for PO's in Cornwall, especially west of Truro and basically nothing - Other than China Clay.  

As you say coal was shipped in mainly by boat.

Yes there were the occasional PO's, but from the big companies up Country, not Cornish owners.

Bar of course the ubiquitous 'Helston Gas Works'.*..

There's a PO for 'Great Grimsby Coal...' which lists Newlyn as one of it's centre's.  I'm not sure where the artworks from, but it's not listed on the Powsides web pages, though my stock inventory states 'Slaters Pre-Printed  Powsides' ?

But that would have been mainline, not a branch line visitor - if one believes the line to PZ is not a branch 

 

I have a few Cornish PO's, made up liveries though, but in the style of the period.  Somebody told me many years ago that I probably had more Cornish PO's on my layout than there ever was in reality....

 

* - Helston Gas works was about half a mile away from the station, all the coal had to be double handed to reach the Gas Works.  Presumably the tar went straight to boat owners.

 

There is photographic evidence of Renwick Wilton wagons at Bodmin in c1925 – along with a wagon from New Rock Colliery of all places. Renwick Wilton wagons would have been seen in much of the area in later days as they were based at Torquay. They had the contract for Torquay Gas Works coal which was hauled all the way from, er, Kingswear. RW was associated with Dunkerton Coal Factors so their wagons may have shown up occasionally too. Otherwise, as you say, mostly china clay related and not moving far from the basic clay pit to port circuit.

 

Some of the big trawler fleets had wagons loaded with bunkering coal which reputedly followed the fleet around the coast, though whether they bothered taking the stuff all the way to Penzance, then having to cart it to Newlyn, is moot.