Wheel Drops

We have one in the newer works building at Didcot, although I have no idea where it came from. I remember Sir Lamiel using it once

 

There's also the Ex-Hammerton Street (Bradford) one at Haworth - Although I don't know if it's operational at the moment, following the flooding the area saw a few years back...

Richard.

 

The economics of wheel drops are a bit more complicated than merely that sheerlegs are cheap to install, wheeldrops require a deep and expensive pit, and the photo in Post 3 says it all.

Most usually, it was a driving axlebox which needed attention. On a wheel drop, the job in Photo 3 would have needed the coupling rods, brake rigging and sand pipes to that wheel set removed; uncouple the spring hangars and horn ties, then the axle could then be dropped out without disturbing anything else. On the sheerlegs, it has been necessary to do all that, but also to pull out the bogie and drop the leading coupled wheelset, uncoupling the springs and horn ties as above, but also, since this is a Castle and this is therefore another driving axle, disconnecting two inside connecting rods and two inside eccentrics. This makes it a much longer job, increasing payment for fitters' time, but more importantly keeping an expensive locomotive unavailable for traffic for an extended time period.

Which is why the Severn Valley Railway spent a lot of money investing a new one of its own.

 

Wow! That cannot be remotely practical! I'd have stood well back...

 

There's photographic evidence of the sheerlegs on the IoW being put to use on carriages too. Handy chaps, these sheerlegs!

 

pe

I do wish that we had one that we could use on the bogie coaches at Havenstreet. The present sheer legs for the wheel drop are okay with the 4 wheelers after we constructed a special lifting beam.

 

That's about to produce a question on the relevant thread ..... just give me a few minutes to brew up!

 

There's one at Tyseley as well.

 

Just on the "how strong is a piece of oak?" front: Entire weight of loco on blocks, front and rear.



Incidentally, one of the interesting things about that picture, in the "prototype for everything" class: still in LSWR livery, but a newly-painted section of tank side just large enough to write the Southern Railway number. Picture is "Earl of Mount Edgcumbe" at Plymouth shed, summer of 1923.

Tom

 

Isn't that the PD&SWJ design that came within an ace of becoming a Southern 'standard' loco?

 

PD&SWJR loco, but I think the design was essentially down to Hawthorn Leslie. Not quite sure if Southern "standard" is quite the phrase I'd use, but I believe that there was a plan to order some more to the same, or similar, design, for use on the ND&CJR, but Maunsell chose to rebuild the Stroudley E tanks to E1R instead as a cheaper alternative.

Tom

 

Interesting picture, Thank You for sharing! I well remember seeing 75078, minus all wheelsets, stood on piles of sleepers under the front bufferbeam and rear frames in Haworth Yard for several months back in the '80s during an overhaul period. After a few months, I remember seeing that the front bufferbeam had sunk into the sleepers by a good inch or so...

Richard.