SVR wagons 2018

Happy new year everybody, many thanks for the 8000 or so hits on my ramblings from last year.
If we were to take a quick walk through the works, at the north end of the Goods shed, we would find 101961 undergoing a what will hopefully be an intermediate repair, and won't turn into anything too heavy. The bodywork doesn't seem too bad but the canvass is at the end of it's useful life, so that has been removed ready for replacement. Some of the roof timbers underneath have been found to be in need of replacement, so as the canvas and roof hoops are off, now is the time to change them. The lads spent this weekend getting the replacement parts ready for fitting as well as giving the roof hoop a coat of paint too.
Immediately south of this is the conflat, this has had a new floor and now has its new chain pocket lids in place. While I can't remember what the old ones were like, Mark was telling me that having had the oppotunity to have a look at a drawing of the orgional design of the wagon suggests that they were not the origional lids but possibly the product of one of her many re-builds.
Outside in the cold, we come to the SECR open, which despite the cold, the corner plates were getting some attention. Rather than scrapping the whole thing off, some new patches have been welded into these, once the welds have been dressed, you'll hardly notice them. With the other two wagons in the dry (Although not any warmer) inside the goods shed, this is at the moment on a bit of a back burner.
Meanwhile in the machine shop there is a slowly growing pile of parts for the brake gear on the conflat and the SECR which hopefully will take some strides forward in the next few weeks owing to the person making them not having the distractions of driving / firing etc!
Have a great 2018,
Olly

 

And a Happy New Year to you.

Thanks for all the reports over the last year and hopefully the continuation into 2018.

 

That's certainly the plan. Hopefully there will be fewer distractions this year

 

One of the benefits of the railway being shut for 6 weeks is that we get 6 weeks where there are no distractions, no trying to pick up a job and figure out where you were several weeks ago, and so for myself there has been the satisfying sight of a small row of ticks appearing in my note book to say various bits that I've been making in the machine shop as the list of bits I need to make for the Conflat and SECR wagons is getting shorter.
Inside the shed, the conflat has had a coat of Cuprinol over the timber to hopefully provide the wood with a little bit of protection in the hope it will last a few years longer.
Meanwhile 101961 is also getting some attention, although the job appears to be getting bigger every time we look at it with rotten bits and broken off bits that had previously being well hidden, showing them selves now that the van has been emptied. An illustration of the work that will be required comes from a conversation on Saturday morning between two of the lads that went like this....
"Oh look, they got those bolts almost perfect, half a hole through the timber."
"No Kev, if you look at the other side of the wagon you'll see they used to be right in the middle of the timber, it's just the bottom bit has dropped off."
It sounds like this is turning rapidly into quite a heavy overhaul (See my previous comments on this!)
One thing that should be obvious from my notes is the wide variety of skills we use, every thing from welding, turning, woodwork and painting to Making the tea and sweeping up, we can find a job for anyone, there is no minimum skill requirement, although a sense of humour and working knowlage of Anglo-Saxon is handy, so if you feel the urge to join our merry band, we are usually around on Wednesdays and Saturdays (One or two of us do Sundays too althought these are rather more hit and miss) then why not contact our volunteer liaison office on 01299 401776 or vlo@svrlive.com and tell them you'd like to join the wagon department (Other departments are also taking volunteers) it could be a whole new way of life.

 

I've been nosey-ing at the Goods Gala in June, which says there'll be 3 goods trains, one of which will be modern era - any chance that the modern era one will include those ICI Hoppers that used to be in that long siding at Bewdley?

 

Now in the Stourport Triangle. Like its namesake in Bermuda, things go in there and are never seen again!
https://www.svrwiki.com/Category:Rolling_stock_at_the_Stourport_Triangle

 

The thing with restoring a wooden bodied wagon/van, is as long as you know which way up to use a hand saw, and a tape measure you will soon be able to help produce and fix wooden parts due to the simplicity of these and the lack of complected parts against a coach. Painting will be the same.

 

The WSR has a similar spooky Experience with the Norton Fitzwarren triangle not so long ago! Good to see that the ICI hoppers are still looking in reasonable overall shape, there are two more at Swanwick at the Midland Railway Centre, they've been restored to quite good condition - a bit too clean if you know what I mean! I'd love to see a rake of 16 or 17 of these monsters rolling by like they did when I was a kid - maybe some day hey?

 

No They are not runners

 

Yes, a lot of it is indeed quite simple although wood can be a little unpredictable, it can be quite easy to make a pigs ear of it

 

Not strictly true. It is a storage siding / p.way sidings, yes things up there are longer term projects but you need somewhere to put these else they end up all over the railway.

 

You've heard of "Singing in the rain?" Well on Saturday, the wagon department staged it's own interpretation of this called "Shunting in the snow," as with perfect timing we decided to do a shunt to get the conflat closer to the yard exit, and bring another wagon into the gap created by this. Yes at the moment we have 4 wagons on the go
So starting at the south end, the conflat is awaiting sign writing and the brake gear repair, although a large amount of the parts for the brakes are now completed.
The same can be said for the brakes on the SECR wagon, however the rest of the overhaul of this is at a much less advanced state and is waiting for the weather to improve before work starts seriously on this wagon.
At the south end of the Goods shed is now 1898 built fruit wagon 2303. This diminutive van has been in use at Kidderminster as a store room for many years, having last had a re-paint in the summer of 2001. The canvass has now become life expired and water has started to get in through the holes. It looks like the dammage isn't too severe but there are a couple of patches in the roof which will need to be repaired with a few repairs needed to the sides. Of course there will need to be the usual inspection underneath.
101968 is at the north end of the goods shed, and it is hoped that these two will be finished in time for the goods gala in June.
On the subject of the goods gala, in readiness for this there will be some goods trains out in the coming months to re-train guards on goods work. I will let you know once we have the times confirmed if anyone wants to pop along to photograph it etc.
Take care,
Olly

 

An apology in advance for thus report being a bit sketchy, I wasn't there on Saturday so my notes are lacking a bit, so I'll try to do what u can without turning this simply into "what Ian did next"
Looking at Grahams Facebook page it seems work has started on priming the timber on 2303 a lot of the paint on this being in pretty good shape.
Work has also started repairing the roof on 101961. I'm not sure if we are repairing the damaged hoops or if they are completely new, I will update you as soon as I know.
In the machine shop, work to make new brake pins for the conflat the SECR is now finished, although there is much to do on these projects, new or repaired drop links next I think.
See you soon
Olly

 

I did say I was going to keep this thread updated with photos this year...
We're in to February now, so maybe I'd better make a start.

2303 out in the snow.


Flaky paint scraped off and patch primed.


One side undercoated and door partly dismantled for repair.

 

My first ever attempt at glued lamination, so perhaps I should have kept quiet about this until it's finished, in case it all goes wrong.
This is one of the old timber hoops for the roof being used as a pattern to make the formers for the new ones. They are not really structural, they are bolted to the steel hoops to give the roof planks something to screw in to. The carriage guys drill and tap their steel hoops and bolt the roof planks down to them directly.

 

Some of the brake components that Ian mentioned.
Ian's done his bit in the machine shop. After I've welded them in, he will have them back to drill them out to the correct size.

 

And finally for now, a view of Bewdley Goods Shed that most won't have seen before.
Incidentally, if you click on any of these photos, it will take you to my Flickr page where you will find several albums of old photos of the SVR going right back to at least the 1880s if you like that sort of thing.

 

I’ve seen both methods of construction on BR vans; based on the ones I’ve looked at closely the earlier vans had the wooden hoops with planks screwed to them and the later vans had pre-drilled metal hoops with countersunk bolts through plywood roofs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Many thanks to Graham for the pics, they say a picture says a thousand words so that's the article written until Easter.
Seriously, allow me to add some more words to the pictures.
Firstly the roof repairs on 101961, Graham is experimenting with gluing strips of plywood together bent around a former. As many of you will know, I don't do trees, so all I can do is say good luck. I'm sure you can deduce as much about the process from the picture as I could tell you. The original hoops were solid timber, so it will be interesting to see how this works out.
2303 seems to be suffering from the Wagon fitters curse, this being that well known phenomenon of some one saying "We'll pull that one in as it just needs a re-paint" only to find there is a little more to it than the initial assessment suggested. You'll notice that between her arrival, and turning grey (Also something wagon fitters suffer from) she has developed a hole in one of her doors. Obviously some repairs will be needed here.
On the up side, some of the parts of the conflat's brake mechanism isn't as worn as first expected. As the new parts have already been made, these will be re-used on future projects (Meaning for once, I might be slightly ahead on the machining work) Attention here has now turned to repair of the drop links and push rods. In order to save money, we are bushing these and then welding the bushes in to prevent movement, this isn't our first choice but means we should get an extra 30 years or so out of the existing parts.
Most people's reaction is "Why repair it, as it's just made of flat strip?" The simple answer is that there is 80 feet of flat strip in a single wagon, given that there are a lot of wagons to work on, when money is tight, there is a considerable saving to be had there.
The SECR has had no work done on her this week, however another fault has been spotted, so at some point before we do too much to the floor, we are going to have to have the buffers out and replace some worn retaining pins. This shouldn't be a big job, but with our luck, you never know.
Take care, Olly

 

Presumably the originals were steam bent?

Yep I know that one well; LMS guard's van entered works March 2016 for "a quick touch up in time for gala in May" now almost ready for top-coating after a total rebuild...