RSS Fetcher Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Two years ago I left the series on GE coal wagons incomplete, not for want of information, but simply an oversight – a silly error as the drafts were already complete. Here then is the penultimate entry, and the final one will go live in a couple of days. During the 1890s receipts for coal traffic into London via the GN & GE Joint Line were strong, and investment in coal became a priority in the Boardroom at Liverpool Street. In 1892 the Great Eastern Railway became the major financial supporter of the proposed Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway (from which access would be gained via a junction at Pyewipe on the Joint) by sinking a quarter of a million pounds into the building of the new line, for which the Company was given two seats on the Board. When the new line opened in 1896 the GER insisted that operations be concentrated between Chesterfield and Pyewipe, thus gaining unlimited access to all the collieries on the system. By the end of the century twenty five Great Eastern-bound coal trains came off the LD&ECR each week, and to bolster the company’s loco coal wagons for this traffic, between 1899 and 1902 six hundred 15? long, 8-plank wagons were built to a new design. Damping down the coal dust at Stratford a decade and a half after the curtain closes on Basilica Fields. In front of the rotary tippler and 800 ton capacity reinforced concrete coaling bunker (containing about one and a half days’ normal supply) sits a line of loco coal wagons made up of a diagram 32 8-plank, two diagram 31 7-planks, a further diagram 32 8-plank and what looks like a post-War diagram 80 timber-framed 8-plank. The medium-sized post-1903 lettering for wooden-bodied loco coal wagons makes an interesting comparison with the large 24? lettering applied to general merchandise opens. A T18 ‘Buck’ fusses in the yard. Photograph ©Public Domain Rated at 10 tons, the top three planks ran the length of the wagon over the top of the side doors, and as the steel floor precluded a curb rail, a length of timber was attached to the side of the solebar onto which the door hinges were mounted. The steel underframe was the standard Stratford design with a 9? 0? wheelbase, and a single brake lever actuated two brake blocks on one side of the wagon. Continued with photographs on my external Journal here. Attached thumbnail(s) View the full article Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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