Ballast wagons.

Which heritage railway has the most ballast wagons?

 

Just to get the subject rolling, IOWSR turned out a charter train recently of four air braked ballast hoppers, headed by "Calbourne" and tailed by a "Shark" complete with ballast ploughs although piped for air rather than fully fitted. Looked very smart in photos and could be said to be the IOWSR's fourth heritage set after the two passenger rakes and the demonstration goods set.

PH

 

I believe the SVR have recently purchase a rake of 10 "Rudd" wagons, originally lent to them for use in repairing the flood damage. As they must have had some ballast wagons prior to getting these they probably have the most. In contrast the NYMR fleet is small but high capacity.

 

GCR: 2 Catfish, 8 Dogfish, 1 Herring = 11 hoppers. 7 Grampus, 1 Tunney, 3 Rudd = 11 spoil wagons. 1 Mermaid side tipper. 2 Sharks (ploughs).
This ignores an SR Tunney and LMS Sole which are technically ballast wagons but not used as such.

GCRN have: 6 Dogfish, 1 shark, 2 Grampus (I'm sure they used to have 4 Grampus but VCT only lists 2; must have sold a couple)

Mostly servicable.

I am looking forward to seeing the whole lot together, post-gap!

 

If the Bluebell stock list is to be believed, we have 7 "Grampus" and 3 "Dogfish" wagons which are considered part of the engineering fleet. One of the Grampus wagons is on loan elsewhere and three are marked as "for disposal", so I guess that means 9 currently on site, but with a long-term requirement for three of each.

In addition, there is a SECR 2 plank dropside ballast wagon and an SR dropside which are considered part of the "heritage" fleet, as well as a non-operational BR-built Shark brake van.

Tom

 

On the NYMR we have currently 1 x Dogfish and 4 x 21t ex coal hoppers operational giving 104t possible per drop.
However we purchased last year 4 Seacows and 1 Sealion at 40t capacity each, this will mean that when all the hoppers are fully overhauled we will be able to have 220t per drop.
The ex coal hoppers will be sold or transferred. Some may be retained in an on call basis but will not be part of the regular Civils fleet.
We also have 2 x Grampus and 1 x RUDD in use as spoil or ballast carriers.
Ballast profiling can be carried out by the Shark or the Ballast Regulator prior to tamping.
We used to have 2 x Walrus but these were scrapped at Stockton.

 

At Swanage we have a relatively small nominally-operational ballast fleet, comprising 1 Dogfish and an ex-LT ballast hopper, and a 'Rudd' that is used for spoil workings. We have a SR 'Ling' operational that is not used for carrying ballast, 3x 'Tunny's' and a SR 'Walrus' that are all currently out of service.

Having a mainline connection though we do have the benefit of being able to obtain ballast deliveries that way, and so far this year we have had 20 autoballasters of ballast delivered (along with further deliveries of spent ballast for stabilising embankments as well).

 

15 Rudds . Managed to photograph them all this year for the SVR Wiki. (Sad. Ed.)

http://www.svrwiki.com/Goods_Wagons

I think the full count is 30 ballast wagons including hoppers and tippers, plus a Shark plough brake. BR era, there are 15 Rudd, 3 Dogfish, 1 Mermaid, 1 Tunny. There are also 3 Herring hoppers ex LUL. GWR era, there are 7 ballast wagons.

 

Bowes has a trout hopper, we are wondering what happened to the other ex Hawthorn Colliery trout hopper.

 

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

Yes at the DFR we have 11 Dogfish, and they no longer have trees in

 

Recently two more "Dogfish" wagons arrived on the Railway. Using all three "Dogfish" ballast hoppers in the last few weeks has allowed around 1,000 Tons of stone to be dropped during Winter PW work. I understand this will be followed up by the use of a contract Tamper covering the line from the NR/SR boundary, near Worgret Junction, to Swanage.