SVR wagons 2011

Happy New Year folks. Last year's thread has so far brought 6,400 views, so I thought we would give it a go for another year.

Hope everyone is well, and lets hope 2011 is better on all fronts for everyone.

While the railway may be closed at the moment, the work on the wagons continues, however, before we can go too far, the goods shed has to be cleared for the installation of some new saftey equipment to aid us replacing roof canvass's hopefully that won't take long.

As for the wagons themselves, working from North to South or at least that is where they were when I last saw them, so that makes the first one I shall deal with, 1925 built Mica B number 105873.

This wagon has been in for a long while, having her frames sprayed 5 or more years ago, then put out side under a canvass while more pressing projects have taken her place, however, having finally got the TLC she needs, large chunks of all four sides and doors have been replaced, and most of the wagon is now in undercoat. This should take a huge leap forward when she gets a new roof canvass, although these invaryably can be a sole destroying job because of the ammount of paint they soak up to little apparent effect.

Further south comes 1950 built OXFIT (fitted cattle wagon) 891054, which is currently at the south end of the goods shed. She has had simular work to the Mica, and is also largely in undercoat awaiting a canvass, although Bank holiday Monday was spent with me and Cornish Rob trying to replace planks on the rock side door (or put another way, me holding a spanner and trying to turn Rob round some very stiff bolts).

Outside, 80982, out 98year old S&T tool van (now our mess room) had her stove moved back to its origional location, revealing some perforation in the roof, mainly in the steel patches bolted to the old iron roof. The bench is going to be extended back to it's earlier length too, although these are a quite late addition to the van, but it is far to usefull in its current form to return her to orrigional.

Chaired sleeper wagon 40554 has made slow but steady progress in the last few weeks, owing to the appauling weather, however, the progress she is making is still positive. Once our straight line cutting machine is repaired (many thanks to the 1501 group yet again for their work to help out there) we can think about cutting the final section of the Southern raised deck.

The open and the ballast wagon have gone back out of our area for now, to be emptied to allow us to do hat is nessesary to them.

Toad brake van, 68501, is due to come in to have new pins and bushes fitted to her brake gear, which is shewing its age, although I can say that technically work has begun on it, as I am currently working on a series of CAD drawings of the offending parts.

Finally, as far south as the wagon department's repair facilities extend, our out post in Oxforddshire (Owen's shed) is playing host to a number of bits which are getting referbed, paintd, sign written, or built from scratch, as and when Owen's very limited time allows.

All the best for 2010 folks, lets see if we can get 7,000 hits this year!

 

Thanks, as ever.

Are the open and ballast wagons to which you refer respectively (1) open 41277, built to lot L556 at Swindon in 1890 and (2) 1893 ballast wagon 40841?

Patrick

 

Certainly 41277, but to be honest, can't remember which ballast wagon it is!

 

Eureka! I think it is, I found this in your post 18/10/10

Cheers

Patrick

 

yup, complete with my spelling mistake, hopeforly????? Disgracefull, even for me!

 

The second weekend of the new year brought another surge of activity at Bewdley. The Mica B had a rub down and a coat of paint on the Rock side (Undercoat I think, but I must be honest, I didn't look, while the repairs to the cattle wagon's rock side drop door also continued. Work on toad brake van number 68501 has moved forward with the machining of some replacement parts for her brake rigging, although I have a lot of work still to do on that.
Moving the stove in tool van 80982 has opened a can of worms, a hole in one of the roof sheets being found as the stove was moved, how ever, as repairs went ahead, one attempt found another hole, and so on, untill the offending piece of plate was removed, and was found to be more full of holes than a Tetley Tea bag, a temproary patch being inserted for now untill a new section can be made.
Ian

 

Well, the lads at Bewdley have been busy, the railway may be shut at the moment, but it is business as normal for us.
The Mica B has had some temproary repairs to the roof, in order that she can be made waterproof to go out side for a short spell, while the cattle wagon has had one coat of top coat, and a tarpaulin thrown over her, and both of these wagons have been rolled outside.
The goods shed its self has had a good tidy up, and a sweep, Rugrat Rob being amazed at the sheer volume of muck we swept up off the floor, six wheel barrows full of dust getting removed.
Tool van 80982 had the hole in her roof repaired, with a new patch bolted into her, and a coat of paint on the patch.
40554 has had the final section of the raised deck cut ready for drilling, many thanks to the 1501 lads for repairing our straight line cutter, a most usefull piece of equipment when it comes to cutting plate work.
Over the next few weeks, the goods shed will be undergoing some work, so all of our Projects are outside, so it should provide some interest for people to wonder down on a weekend and see us at work.
See you soon
Ian

 

It has been a busy weekend at Bewdley this week, with a surprising ammount of progress being made on all fronts.
Lets start with Mica B number 105873, Mark and Kate busyly needlegunning and priming the corner uprights on the two corners that couldn't be reached from the platform in the goods shed. This may not seem much, but to get the metal work clean enough to give an acceptable finish takes time.
Cattle wagon 891054 had simular treatment on the sole bar, the problem with these wagons is that they are currently out to the north side of the goods shed well away from where we normally work, and so it a long way from the power supply, or the compressed air, adding to the problems of working on them.
Work on our mess room, 1913 built S&T tool van 80982, has continued at a pace, the seating on the river side and the wood cladding where the stove used to be, being extended back to where is was in her final days working for BR, the van is unlikely to return internally to her origional condition, as the modifications are too usefull, but outside, hopefully, when money allows, we may get the roof and sky lights repaired.
Anyone that happened to wander down to Bewdley to see the work that was going on may have heard a mix of cheery singing, and less cheerfull swearing, in a mix of English and Welsh coming from the machine shop, where the last of the pins for 68501's brake gear was being machined, and the last two plates for the raised decking of chaired sleeper wagon were being drilled.
The goods shed has had the scaffolding errected for the work that is needed, and the beams that are needed, have been hauled up into the gods ready for installing, which hopefully will not take long.
All the best,
Ian

 

Firstly, an appology for the lack of update last week, this was owing to the fact that while last weekendwas very productive, it was not one that made for a good artical, there only being so many ways you can say "We scraped, painted and wire brushed stuff."
So to this week, well, 68501 had the bushes made and fitted to the first part of her brake gear, although other demands on my time took me off this work.
The photographs show what a large percentage of the time has been spent on.
Oweing to my poor computer skills, I'm not sure how to re-arrange the pictures into the order I want, so starting with the pic in the centre, the observent of you will notice there are some crucial bits missing from the south end of 40554. The reason for this being that you can't rivet the floor into the raised ends of this wagon, you need the wheels and Drawbar spring out. The issue here being that she is equipped with eliptical draw bar springs, which are a combined draw bar and buffer spring, and as a result, are rather large! The first photo gives an idea of the scale of the spring (Compare against the Buffer Spindles for an idea of size) while the third one, gives an idea of the confined space in which they fit, and the problems involved in working on them. To add to our problems, the frames have over the years become distorted so places where the spring should clear by a fraction of an inch, it now fouls, how ever, some good work with a block of wood and a sledge hammer helped here (Precision engineering at it's very best).
Today by comparison, we were fitting the floor with afew bolts, and reaming the holes out to accept rivets (hopefully next week) so large parts of today were spent with me and the Bear swearing loudly, while the wind motor (an air driven drill for those who don't know) did its best to turn me round a 9/16" reamer, followed by an 11/16" one, and finally, nearly suceeding with the 13/16" one! The result, other than propperly aligned holes, is one very stiff, black and blue Olly, The things we do for fun!
I am hoping to get up in the week to carry on with the brake rigging on the Toad which will free me up to help with the riveting session next saturday.
The railway re-opens between Bridgnorth and Highley next week, and yours truely has a guards turn on sunday, so hopefully saturday will be productive so I will have an artical to write!
All the best
Ian

 

Well, it's been another productive day, with all of the effort aimed at 40554, the chaired sleeper wagon. The majority of the floor on the southern Raised end is rivited back in, although there is a couple of hours work still to do on it, before we can start thinking about the floor of the well, the south end wheels have been out, and primed, these are back in at the moment, to stop the local toe rags having the bearing brasses away, hopefully next week, i can tell you aboutr the brake rigging going back on.
I'm affraid this weeks up date is only half a job as the Northern end of the line has re-opened, and I am the guard tomorrow, if any of my readers are enjoying the short trip to Highley and back, feel free to come and say hello!
Ian

 

Here we are again folks, and it has been another Busy weekend.
Chaired sleeper wagon 40554 has had the south end raised deck finally rivited into place, although not without some drama, there are one or two rather awkward rivets to get at on the corners, but eventually, we got the job done. More of a challenge came today, re-fitting the draw bar spring, which did involve some interesting use of anglo saxon, a lot of muscle power, and several cups of tea, I think myself, Richard and the Bear could be rather stiff by monday morning, although the loud bang and the shudder from the wagon as the spring finally found its correct place was quite impressive.
Toad brake van 68501 has had the first set of overhauled brake gear re-fitted, and the second set dropped off, although this wasn't without issues, as first, we couldn't shift the nuts holding the brake saftey straps, so elected for another approach, taking the brake blocks off, and sliding the bow girder out of the side, bowever, there was clearly an issue on the River side, as the block was not seated on its shoe propperly, and promptly fell off as the shoe was hammered off the end of the shaft. Seems like there are no easy jobs at the moment!
Wish us luck
Ian

 

This week has seen some progress in areas people can't see. The pic on the right shows the vertical hangers off 68501s brake gear in the chuck of our elderly Mitchel Lathe, for the holes, which had worn oval, are being bored out to round again, in order to accept a bush. Someone had painted it first, so I ended up covered in oxide primer, with very little still on the part.
40554 has had all of her south end brake gear re-hung. The picture on the left shows just how much of a squeese it is on this wagon without the use of a pit, my colleague being volenteered for the job as he is the slimest of all of us, although when I had to crawl in and help him, I ended up lieing in a puddle! oh joy!
On a final note, while this is not normally within the scope of this thread, I recieved news via our inspectorate, of an injury to a guard on the Foxfield line, whilst handling a goods train, while i do not with this thread to be used to discuss the matter (and no, i do not know any more about it) I think I speak for everyone involved with the preservation of goods vehicals, and railways in general, in withing the injured guard a speedy recovery.
Ian

 

Thanks Olly as ever. The DMU group's blog relates how difficult it has been with the MPD pit out of use!

The Foxfield accident is covered here http://railways.national-preservation.com/showthread.php/29819-Foxfield-Railway-Accident-Report, not a secret as there have been ORR and RAIB investigations. I'm sure everyone echoes your good wishes

Patrick

 

Made no difference to us, we don't have a pit in the down yard.

 

just to explain that, to do that job on the pit, we would need to have a loco to move the wagon to the shed from the down yard, which is frequently not an option

 

I think the best way to descrive this weekend is hectic!
68501 has had the second set of repaired brake gear re-hung, with the third set being taken off, and fully repaired, and painted, and is no waiting to go back on next week when the paint has dried. This is totally different to most wagon work, probalbly one of the few pieces you need a micrometer rather than a tape measure for, and not bad going with some machinery which is not only as old as some of the steam locos in our fleet, but a credit to the 1501 lads who look after it. Basically, the work involves taking the brake rigging that has worn out, opening up and rounding up the rather oval holes in it (some of the holes showed 0.200" of wear) making a new bush and pressing this into place.
Two of the re-painted plates for 40554 have been returned, the remainder going for a holiday in oxfordshire to recieve a coat of paint.
105873 has had three rotten planks discovered in the repaired rock side door, so these were replaced on saturday, while the cattle wagon has had the NCU plates attatched.
The work in the goods shed is moving on at a decent pace, the beam for working on wagon roofs is now in place (Many thanks to the carridge department lads) while we have taken delivery of a new compressor and the pipe work is now well into the installation stage. Hopefully this new equipment will make many of our jobs easier.
The next few weeks should continue at the same rate of knots with some progress on all fronts with some luck.
Cheers
Ian

 

There is a certain feeling of "thank heavens that is over" to the work on 68501's brakes. While there is still more work needed, the last bush was pressed into the last drop link today. The photo's above show why the job was needed, one pic shows a worn out pin against a new one, while the other shows the extent of the wear in the drop links, a worn out rather pear shaped one on the right, with a re-bushed one with a rather rounder hole is on the left, precision stuff! All that remains now it to re-hang the last set of brake gear, and some adjustment to get it to all work propperly.
The Mica B had her Rock side brake gear re-hung, while Ade got on with the cleaning and painting on the frames of the cattle wagon.
One un-planned piece of work was replacing sections of rotten step board on BR Standard Brake van, 953153, part of which had come adrift, so i suppose, now would be a good time to give a brief history of the above mentioned van.
Built in 1956, at Darlington, she had a fairly run of the mill life, untill the very end of her BR career.
In 1985, loco number 2857 took a rake of restored wagons to Newport and back. BR refused to allow us to use the toad (Oddly, the above mentioned 68501!) as the brake for the train, so supplied us with a BR standard, which was detatched and stabled while the train was on display at Newport. The van then got blocked in by a derailed freight liner at Alexander Docks Junction, so BR supplied 953153, on what turned out to be the last job she ever did for them.
Left at Kidderminster, she was forgotten and unwanted by her real owners, so was put to work on the SVR's P-way trains, untill BR sold her for scrap. As this was a usefull addition to the fleet, a very quickly arranged deal with the scrap man saved her again at the 11th hour, but even this was not the end of her story, being dammaged by fire 9 years ago, she was put through the works and re-paired getting new cladding, while the vac pipe and step boards came from a donor, she was also the guards van on the train on which i did my first ever guards turn, happy memories!
Cheers
Ian

 

Here we are again folks, sunday night, so it must be time to bring people up to speed with what has gone on at Bewdley this week.
68501s brakes are back together, and the flanges have been ground off the blocks, although it seems we have an unexpected problem with the setting of the brakes.
Stuart has made a start on 40554's well floor, gassing the heads off and drifting out several rivets over the course of the day. On your own, this can be a slow task. The plan is that the plates of the floor will be scrapped, while the 'T' sections will be retained, cleaned up and re-used.
Meanwhile, we have also installed a new air compressor, our old one not being up to the task of powering our air tools for a sustained period of time. Myself, the Bear, Richard and Big Ian, have spent a good many hours installing pipework and a reciever.
Hopefully, next week, I will be able to tell you of a few things being finished,
Wish us luck,
Ian

 

It's been one of those weekends! Need I say more?
Saturday, having finaly found time to go to Kidderminster to take a look at 17410 and compare it to the brakes on 68501, in order to see why they weren't working propperly, however, all I found in the end was the same problem, and can only come to the conclusion that the un-even aplication of the brakes (the ones on the side of each wheel furthest from the verandah end appear to pull on harder than their opposite number) was down to the Wiltshire job creation scheme, and not us!
The frames on the Cattlewagon and Mica B recived some cleaning, but the main focus on sunday was installing the remainder of the pipe work for our compressor, which should now make using air tools much easier.
I hope to have more of interest to talk about next week,
Ian

 

This weekend has been frustrating, we appear to have solved 65801s issues with the brake blocks not all coming on together. It appears that the slack adjuster is adjusting the brakes on the south end of the wagon by 1/8" more than the north end. We also discovered the south end Bow girder to be bent, perhaps causing the brakes to misalign and cause flanging of the brake blocks.
The block on the left is one of the discarded ones, you can see the level not only of wear but also flanging, compared to the part worn buffet car block on the right.
Charied sleeper wagon 40554 has had the southern portion of the well floor removed, and the cleen up of the remaining bits of frame and floor strengthening ribs has started. It seems odd to see a gaping hole where once there was an apparently solid floor.
Our new compressor is also fully up and running, and should get its first use next week, many thanks to all concerned in getting that up and running.
Hope everyone is enjoying these weekly updates, feel free to coment in return,
Ian