Windcutter Wagons

I had a tidy up in the steam heat van and found a number of steel louvre strips so I welded the rusty ends to a couple of lengths of angle iron....
Then I took it to the van.......ooops I thought the strips would not be put in to collect water....wrong!
So I had to take it apart and reweld ...... Here is the second one in preparation.

 

The two louvre repair sections are (loosely) in place and the end is now a more even colour. The next job is to get the doors to close properly.

 

I thought I got the impression this was purchased for parts and was then going to be sold on after some wheelsets had been swapped around etc. , is that no longer the plan?

 

Hi Flying Scotsman
You are quite correct but, as it will be a while before the wheelsets can be swapped, I didn't want it to look too untidy! Also if it has a bit of work done, it may well sell for a better price....it would make a great "Glamping" vehicle............plus I have become quite attracted to it.
We did consider if the boiler could be used but it is badly vandalised.

 

Fair dos then, that's very good of you!

 

Are there any preserved working steam heat vans? It strikes me, as being a little bit like the brake tenders, in that they were a solution to a particular problem of the transition to a more modernised railway.

Not the most glamorous of things. But perhaps a touch undervalued as they were essentially departmental vehicles?

 

I believe the GCR did have a working steam heat vehicle quite a long time ago, but I suspect the cost of actually getting, and keeping one in operation, is not worth the effort. Far easier to get the locomotive off shed a bit earlier....

 

As did the NYMR (which I believe is still tarped up somewhere on the line), by all accounts the clouds of asbestos that circulated the interior were a not-insignificant issue.

 

A couple, if memory serves right. But those memories also suggest that “working” was a debatable term.


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I was able to buy some perspex and get it cut to size ( even though I had to guess the corner radius as I only sized the window frame with a handy piece of string!) Fortunately they fit and are secured used silicon sealant.

 

The best its looked in a number of years....

 

Thanks Lil Bear. At least it is now better protected from the weather. Looking at the corroded body panels, it seems likely that the main problem was condensation running down the inside then collecting between the fixing angle iron section on the tank tops and the bottom of the doors. It would not be a huge job to cut off the bottom sections and weld in new sheet.....

 

It's a nice little project for someone to be fair, and a vehicle that is a little bit different.

Sadly due to our numbers there wasn't enough interest to restore it as original, and to make it a useful vehicle required the fitment of a brake system and full replacement of the steam heat system. The costs from the original plan just seem to be escalating to the point of no longer being justifiable so we cut our losses in order to ensure the vehicle had a better future whilst we could concentrate on projects that had a more justifiable need for expenditure. The results so far seem to show this was the right decision.

 

Last seen at Shackerstone I believe :

http://www.ws.rhrp.org.uk/ws/WagonInfo.asp?Ref=6436

 

Thanks for posting those pictures Martin of the "On loan" S Wales Windcutters. Out of interest, are they working on the unrestored wagon #6?

 

We have not forgotten our 16t minerals.....

 

We have been fortunate in having our two wagons in the shed at Rothley and so B 573124 has now been repaired, repainted and now moved out of the shed - to Swithland I believe.
The other wagon, B279719 (with the inner skin), is now having that inner skin removed, not just the floor section. This has meant that we can now address the serious corrosion around the West door, which had previously been welded shut. This will return the wagon to full working condition in terms of door opening.

 

B279719 is one wagon whose real identity remains a complete mystery.

It’s one of a number modified circa 1969 for ICI Winnington Soda Ash traffic, apparently, which is when the inner skin was added. These were hired from, and presumably converted by Standard Wagon, who gave them 3-digit fleet numbers (the only one we know, B279722, was ‘790’). There’s no trace of either the ICI or the original number on this one so it will probably remain forever a mystery. But if anyone has any details at all of this hire fleet, I’d be interested to hear from them.


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When the full inner skin was removed, it showed the extent of corrosion on the inner face of the original outer platework. It was really thin in so many places that the only option is to effectively replace the lower 20" of the body. The doors have also been taken off for repair work. It is obvious that Soda Ash was nasty stuff for steel!