BR Brake Vans

Hi all
I am going to start rebuilding a BR Brake van at the Avon Valley Railway soon. Its currently suffers from the usual rot down below and I am intending to flat pack the whole body and start again replacing where needed. My question is does anyone have any drawings or know where I could obtain any. Most of the upper frame is complete but below on the main beam bits are missing

Thanks
Ollie

I hopefully as before with other wagon restoration projects will be keeping a website showing the progress the address is http://avr-wagon-department.fotopic.net/

 

Although I can't help that fotopic is rather good, I have bookmarked it

 

Ollie, we have met at the Mid-Hants wagon dept.

We have competed one with another to be completed this coming September.

I suggest you try the search engine at the NRM as we did and were successful. Any number from the series will do to get a drawing but I am not sure that flat packing is the answer as we jacked one of ours up on accro,s, replaced the bottom rail and let it down again, it worked.

I will send you a link.

Regards
Chris

 

Ollie, we have met at the Mid-Hants wagon dept.

We have competed one with another to be completed this coming September.

I suggest you try the search engine at the NRM as we did and were successful. Any number from the series will do to get a drawing but I am not sure that flat packing is the answer as we jacked one of ours up on accro,s, replaced the bottom rail and let it down again, it worked.

I will send you a link.

Regards
Chris

 

Chris, thanks for your post

I do remember meeting you at the Mid hands a few years ago and have been closely looking at the two vans you have been doing. I was hoping all wood above the main beam would not be too bad on our van, but as I started taking it apart last weekend I found a lot was badly rotten or damaged. A few of us at the AVR have been looking at how BR would of made these vans and come to the conclusion they were assembled in kit form and bolted together on the chasses (anyone please correct me if I am wrong). So the method we are thinking of doing is taking each section off one by one repair it and put into store until all are completed then reconstruct it. The advantage of doing this we can get right down to the chasses, repair as needed, without damaging the wooden box frame.

When I get a bit of time off work soon, I will most likely have a trip upto York to have a look at the drawings and go from there.

Ollie

 

i went to NRM to look for drawing for 20 BR brake vans in june, they could not find any on the day then a couple of weeks later e-mailed me saying that they had none! So may be best giving them a ring before going.

 

We found that the biggest design fault in these vans was when water got in betwwen the bottom rail and the concrete and stayed there. A mixture of flashband, denso tape and arboseal has stopped this water trap turning the bottom timbers to compost.

Regards
Chris

 

try tim hobham at nene valley as he is making a whole new body in flatpack form and putting it on the wagon he is making amazing progress