4-wheel carriage wheel size

Can any member say if the wheel size of 4-wheel carriages would have been larger than that on 4-wheel box vans.

Alternately what is the wheel size on preserved 4-wheel carriages.

Thanks in advance, Morton

 

Carriage wheels tended to be larger than wagon/van wheels but that is a generality. RCH wagon wheels are 3'-0" and coach wheels tended to be in the range of 3'-6"-4'-0" diameter, usually the former.

 

Also bear in mind most 4 wheel carriages in preservation aren't on their original frames and wheels.

(When sold out of railway service, the bodies and underframes were generally separated and the underframes reused by the railway company, with only the body sold. 70 or 80 years later, only the bodies survive for preservation, so generally they are mated with redundant van underframes - on the Blubell and IoWSR at least, very often ex-SR designed parcels vans. Which is one reason given why the Chatham 3rd 114 on the Bluebell is so uncomfortable - the van springs are 8ft long, whereas when originally built, it would have had rather softer 12ft springs so would have ridden better at speed.)

Tom

 

Those spring lengths quoted are quite something! Are you sure that your tape measure isn't missing the last few feet!!!

 

Just testing that people were awake at the back... A slip of the typing finger, though the general point remains - the springs on the replacement van underframes are rather shorter (probably about 4ft, not 8ft) and thus give a stiffer ride than such coaches originally would have had.

Tom

 

Regarding van wheel diameters, if vans were permitted to be attached to passenger trains, didn't they have to have wheels at least 3'6" diameter, and be oil lubricated? ('XP' markings on them?)

 

Express vans certainly had larger wheels - we have two LMS XP vans.

 

I believe a common size used was 3' 7" . Anything much over 3' 9" could lead to the complication of having to provide 'pockets' in the floor as the buffer centreline, and usually the centreline of the undeframe was nominally only 3' 5 1/2" above rail level