4 Wheeled tank wagons.

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Darryl Tooley
NBR J36 0-6-0
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Location: Briston, UK

Re: 4 Wheeled tank wagons.

Post by Darryl Tooley »

This thread and some other research also indicates 6 wheel dairy tank wagons were in use - were there more of these than 4 wheel wagons, or were they applicable more to one company (eg' LNER,LMS,GWR,SR; dairy company eg United or Express or maybe the wagon manufacturing company). Unless I've missed it, the 2 LNER Wagons books by Peter Tatlow I have ('A Pictorial Record of LNER Wagons' and 'LNER Wagons Vol Two') do not devote any info on this particular aspect.
Milk tankers were non-passenger coaching stock, and as such do not appear in any of Mr Tatlow's wagon books. They do however warrant five pages in his Historic Carriage Drawings Volume Three: Non-Passenger Coaching Stock (Pendragon, 2000), which says much the same thing as Hatfield Shed, with regard to the transition to six-wheelers and the reason for it.

As far as the LNER goes, all newbuild was six-wheel from 1934, and the earlier tankers rebuilt as six-wheelers between 1936 and 1938.

D
65447
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
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Re: 4 Wheeled tank wagons.

Post by 65447 »

john coffin wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 1:45 am Tidying up some files recently I came across an article from the GERS about rolling stock,
and the summary of wagon types from 1862-1910 actually shows no tank wagons at all.
What surprised me was that the GER did not have its own coal wagons, rather it relied on
PO wagons, It did however have a number of Loco Coal wagons, and about the same
number of cattle wagons.However, they Cattle wagons had declined in the period.
Finally of value is the fact that the GER had very few covered vans, finding open wagons
with securely roped tarpaulin sufficient.

Although not a direct answer to the question it does put an interesting perspective on how
we view goods trains.

My view is that very little changed on the GE section of the LNER into the 1930's, it certainly didn't on the GNR.

Paul
That would not strictly be factually correct. The GER did have tank wagons but they were gas tanks for refilling cylinders on coaching stock.

Most railways did not have any mineral wagons other than for their internal uses such as Loco Coal; it was the NER that, by virtue of being first and using bulk shipments to ports, was able to require the colliery companies to use its wagons rather than their own.

Cattle traffic was variable but still substantial but the wagons increased in capacity therefore less wagons were required for the same quantities of cattle. It also had a useful supply of special cattle vans.

The GER in common with many other railways used open wagons in the earlier days - even for the transport of passengers - but was gradually switching to covered vans. Two relevant facts here: the first is that the GER had a good supply of Sundry Vans and other Vans for special traffic (e.g. Yeast) that came within coaching stock; the second is that the GER was more forward in its engineering, building wagons and vans with steel underframes and longer wheelbases that had greater carrying capacity - hence as above less carries more. There was a good range of special vehicles such as machinery wagons you've not mentioned - agricultural machinery being a major product of the likes of Ransomes and Rapier.

The LNER period was retrograde as far as the GER was concerned in that the standard LNER mineral wagons and covered vans were on a wooden underframe and had a 9' wheelbase - all because the wise and wonderful Sir Vincent Raven had re-equipped Shildon to build history rather than progress.
drmditch

Re: 4 Wheeled tank wagons.

Post by drmditch »

65447 wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2019 2:28 pm The LNER period was retrograde as far as the GER was concerned in that the standard LNER mineral wagons and covered vans were on a wooden underframe and had a 9' wheelbase - all because the wise and wonderful Sir Vincent Raven had re-equipped Shildon to build history rather than progress.
In this context do you not mean Faverdale rather than Shildon?

Hindsight is always easy. I'm not sure what the relative costs of steel vs timber in 1920, but I am sure that steel was far more difficult to protect than it is now!
john coffin
LNER V2 2-6-2 'Green Arrow'
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Re: 4 Wheeled tank wagons.

Post by john coffin »

Given that my comments were based directly on stuff published by the GERS, I find it difficult to accept that it is not factually correct.

All companies seem to have had Gas tanks but almost certainly they would have been in carriage stock listings.

Very sweeping to state that railways did not have mineral wagons, the GNR in particular had many, as well as originally having
a wide range of their own coal wagons for retailing coal. Indeed there was a period when they were the largest supplier of home
coal in London, until a monopoly complaint came in.

Since machinery wagons and so on were not mentioned in the article referred to, they were not included.

Paul
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