Windcutter Wagons

Suppose that by the end of steam the Pre BR wagons had aready gone to either industrial concerns or the scrappers...

 

Most of the GCR Windcutter fleet came from Rover Cars Ltd where they were used for carrying steel and cast iron scrap ( some of these came via ICI Soda Ash) . Six more came from Rosyth dockyard, Four from British Coal Onllwn washery and Two came from Transport for London. So none direct from BR - this was 1992/3.

 

One of the wagons built for the SNCF was stored at Bodiam K&ESR for some years in the 1980s. Privately owned and never used on the line. Eventually removed but I don't know what happened to it after that.

 

pmh wrote of one with bottom doors - that is B 64020 and it has the part V on the side doors.

 

Indeed, although it's a fictitious (though plausible) number, no trace of the original ID having been found.

 

According to an issue of Model Railway Constructor in late 1978, the last two SNCF wagons had been claimed by the NRM. Don't have the copy to hand right now, and have no further knowledge of what happened after that.

 

http://www.ws.rhrp.org.uk/ws/wresults.asp
shows that there are several SNCF wagons 'preserved', but none at York/Shildon...

 

I seem to recall a former SNCF one being on the Science Museum Group de-accession/disposal list a few years back, about the time they were advertising that GCR bolster wagon for diposal.

 

Yes there was a 16T SNCF mineral wagon de accessioned in June 2020 ish from the NRM. We did know about it and briefly thought about getting it for our Windcutters, but then remembered that it is hard enough trying to get all 30 running at the same time!
We are continuing to work on #16....

 

A good workday yesterday saw progress on the new vac pipe with the tube being cut to length and threaded ready for the elbow connectors.


We also made progress on the floor repair sections.

 

Further progress on wagon #16 as the vac pipe is nearly finished, the end door repairs are progressing and three patches have gone into the West side.

Needless to say we are looking forward to seeing our rake running on June 17th as part of the 50 wagon train!
We will also have a display in Quorn yard so come along and chat to the team.

 

We now have two 16T mineral wagons ready for display at Quorn.
B279723 which arrived from Rover Cars Ltd in Aug 1992, was painted in Oct 1994, then overhauled in 2004. It was repainted in 2019 but then withdrawn due to excess wear on wheel flanges. It has the rare oversize axle journals 10" x 5 1/2" so big axle boxes. This is the "After" wagon.
The "Before" wagon is B273798 came from British Coal Onllwyn in Aug 1992 (as one of the first four wagons to arrive on the GCR). It is unfitted and has had nothing done to it since arrival apart from cosmetic painting in April 1995 and April 2018.
The first job has been to remove the tree growing inside and assess the contents!


Then a start has been made on emptying...7 dustbins full later.

 

Looking at the pictures above highlights one of the difficulties of preservation - how much do you do?
On the nearside it can easily be seen that the lower 12" needs cutting out and a new steel plate goes in to replace the various patches and broken welds. However on the other side there is a single replacement repair sheet about 24" high with corrosion/holes along its top edge. Do we cut out that sheet (which is still solid) and replace it with a taller sheet about 30"...or do we put a much narrower sheet along the top of the original repair sheet?
The fixed end will have the bottom 18" of assorted repairs replaced as will the end door. The side doors will needs new door skins and one hinge bracket will need replacing.
Or do we replace the lower 36" all round??

 

Here are pictures of the outside of B 273798 which show the present condition.


Of course this can be seen at Quorn during the GCR 50th Anniversary Event ...and our Windcutter Team 30th Anniversary!

 

As a point of order B279723 (and 24) are not 16T mineral wagons.
It's not entirely clear what they are. The nearest I have been able to find is an obscure batch of LMS iron ore tipplers which were built with mineral wagon bodywork, however the buffers are wrong for these, unless there was a later batch (or later examples within the batch) built with Dowty buffers. (The GCR pair now have OLEOs but came to the GCR with Dowty buffers and there's no evidence of them ever having had spindle buffers as per the LMS batch; the headstock hole for the spindle is missing.)

It will be good to finally see something happening with that one! Good luck!

 

Thanks for the extra info pmh.
I too am very pleased to get some work done on B 273798...the tree had been growing in it for far too long! It is interesting in that the remains of the top door flap are still very much in place so it is a "modified" original rather than a rebody. The SW corner is only just hanging in place!

 

I agree with PMH74 up to a point. The numbers B279723 (and 24) don’t appear in the list on page 175 of ‘An illustrated history of BR wagons’ volume 1 by Bartlett, Larkin et al.

But they can’t be LMS Iron ore tipplers to D2153 as they have the wrong type of brake gear (no drop link) and the doors were all welded up which they are not on these two. However, they do have corner reinforcement plates, and the remains of ‘London doors’ which the Tipplers had. There is a picture of the LMS Tipplers on page 154 of the October-November Modellers Back Track 1991. I’ve got an idea the LMS Tipplers had stronger axle box springs and larger axle journals than the standard 16 ton mineral wagon. The owners would be able to verify this.

Given the state of these wagons and their history they could just be a hotch-potch of parts assembled by a wagon repair-shop at some time and given numbers from a vacant series of the vast fleet of BR 16 tonners.

Regards

Martin

 

Thanks Martin
Those B273xxx numbers were given by us to the wagons as they arrived on the GCR, because many had no numbers. However, much work was done by pmh, John Buckland and others to identify the wagons, so we are renumbering to correct numbers where we can. However some wagons cannot be identified and so those will remain B273xxx which were an unassigned series in BR days.