Windcutter Wagons

Another excellent workday with five of the team in action. Wagon #733, in the shed, had its end door repair section fully welded and primered. the rest of the inside was Bitumatstic coated. Most of the outside is in undercoat so only the topcoat and numbering to do.
Outside #560 (ex B279711) was also prepped and bitumasticed inside with lots of the outside undercoated. The frame had more prep work and is started to be painted/bitumasticed.


We are very grateful for the support being given by the C&W staff at Rothley as we have 4 wagons there at present, and it has meant that we have all been able to work without getting in each others way, so lots is being achieved.

 

Interesting bit of damage... any thoughts on how to fix it?

 

We have discussed this - it could be cut out and a new piece welded in, or heated and hammered... or we could just leave it...we will be guided by the GCR C & W team. You do have to wonder what was dropped on it to do that!

 

Was it someone who asked when it would be ready? Or commented that the livery was the wrong shade?

 

I'd previously been told a lot of the 16T wagons had been used by an industrial carrier to store engines in. These unsecured engines rattling around were apparently what caused many of the dents in the sides... Presumably if you dropped one from a decent height it could have caused it?

 

Hi Chris - yes we had 24 wagons from Rover Cars Ltd in 1992, then a further 5 in 1997. Despite being "Empty" there was a lot of compacted rust, swarf and scrap small parts of all sorts left in many of them. I'm sure scrap large castings, engine blocks etc would have been carried, but a lot of the dents were caused by the grab buckets and crane grippers used for loading and unloading.

 

Another good day with five at work on Wednesday. A lot of time was spent weld repairing the buffer shanks on the North end of #733. This was very old damage which was largely hidden under many coats of paint! The inside had its bitumastic coating finished and the remaining undercoating of the outside. A start was made with the East side and South end topcoated. More undercoating was done on #711 outside and the floor of B 551846 was given a fresh coat of bitumastic. We also have the ability to 3D print wagon plates - the small ones will go on our sales stand!

 

As may be realised we are on course to getting four, or even five, wagons back into running order by the middle of this year. So what is left to do?
By my records we have five wagons requiring major work. B 279722 (Ex ICI with poor wheelsets), B 273798 Unfitted, (never restored but work started 2023), B99163 (to be RN Black), B279702 (running but poor floor), B 573403 (poor floor).
Hopefully these will be coming to Rothley over the next few months. We will also need to keep our existing fleet running and they will have FTR exams towards the end of the year, so the "Lengthy train" of Windcutters will be in regular operation in 2025 ( certainly we aim to have 25@25!)

 

Another workday saw four of us in action. The paintwork on #733 has been finished (bar the stripe and numbers) and we now have 3 d printed wagon plates fitted!


and the wagons outside the shed are looking presentable but a new floor is needed on #711

 

Nearly a month later and we have been making steady progress. Wagon #733 is still in the shed and just needs its white numbers and white stripe painting.

Wagon #711 has had more work done on its underframe with needle gunning and stanchion prep for welding.


Then we had a closer look at the floor in the wheel swap wagon #723...and started to take that out as there was a lot of rust and debris trapped between the original and inner body floor. It was all solid but would only get worse and so whilst it is at Rothley it makes sense to do it.

 

The shed staff at Rothley have been busy and completed the wheel swap on #723, we have also swapped brake shoes. They then put #711 into the shed and got the other two wagons outside together awaiting their FTR.

 

As can be seen, wagon #711 is now in undercoat. It is having a new floor but we are trying to retain as much of the lower curved steel at the bottom of the sides as possible, as this is a typical characteristic of the 1970's re-bodies. There a couple of bits on the end door which need some welding to improve the appearance.
Also to be seen are the welds on the headstock, which is where the original body had its fixed end stanchions. They swapped the bodies round, end for end, when rebodying, as the end door increased the headstock corrosion. We will probably leave these "as is" to show its history.

 

Two more workdays have seen more progress on #711 in the shed as the end door has had two welded repairs done, the fixed end has had two repair patches done and there have been six repairs done to the eight stanchions. Wagon #723 has had some of its underframe cleaned and bitumastic applied, also some of the inside.
The Steam Heat van has had some parts removed for re-use. It is still for sale but, we do need the space, so it could end up being broken.

 

Good progress on #711 as we have all the floor sheets in the wagon with the centre two sheets fettled and mostly welded in place. Two welders in actions speeds the process!

The fixed end has been repaired as well.

 

I presume #711 means B279711? Real number is B266560. Built Gloucester RCW 1957/58 (does anyone know which?), rebodied Horwich 1976 with body reversed, and also carries a 6003 (Shildon) 1979 repair plate, according to my notes.

Vacuum fitted from new with empty/loaded changeover lever and clasp brakes.*
(*It'll look lovely in a nice authentic coat of bauxite...)

 

Hi pmh
Yes you are correct and when we paint it it will revert to its original number, I expect it will stay grey though as we need to get a full 20+ grey wagons ready to run for next year.

 

Yes Phil, just yanking your chain on the fictitious livery!
In a perfect world I'd have (a) kept the ones which were sold to MOSI, (b) not sent six to the P&B, and then you'd have had enough built-unfitted ones (even if later fitted) to paint grey, whilst allowing the built-vacuum ones plus at least some of the converted ones to form an authentic bauxite second set. But we are where we are.

 

Another good workday with five of us in action. The North floor sheets for #711 were fettled and then tacked in place with quite a lot of final welding done. The two South end stanchion repairs have been completed and those two South end floor sheets prepared for welding. We also top coated the End door and South end. The final part of inside undersealing of #723 has been completed but the floor repair work has yet to be done.

 

Here is the painted South fixed end of #711 ( see posts #473 and #474 for comparison).


Of course, when we paint the sides, it will revert to its as built number B 266560.