Windcutter Wagons

Nice to see our loan 16T wagons in action on the P & B - but I thought they had another couple on site, are they unserviceable?
Meanwhile back at Rothley, we now have one of our "out of service" wagons come into the shed for restoration.
It is B279721 seen here at Swithland

 

The first job was to clear out the interior - as can be seen it also has a "double skin". This shows it was used by ICI for transporting Soda Ash. It also has the remains of the central support used by the wagon cover frame.

 

B279721 = original number B114733. This is the only one of the four ex-soda ash 16T minerals whose original ID is known - simply because it is stamped on the underframe.

Of the other three, we know B279722 was '790' in the ICI fleet (we think this is the Standard Wagon number, as they were the owners & hired the wagons to ICI) but joining the dots between original ID and Standard Wagon ID has proved impossible.

I keep mentioning this in case someone has the records in a dusty folder...

The other two (B279719 & B279720) are trickier as there is no trace of either BR or ICI number; 19 will probably forever remain a mystery unless someone has records of which four wagons were sold to Rover; 20 probably the same although this one is a diagram 1/106 which is rarer and might make pinpointing the exact wagon in the Standard Wagon fleet a little easier, if the BR->ICI records ever came to light. (For what it's worth, 20 now carries B64020 which at least puts it in the right series.)

For what it's worth, there is a book about Standard Wagon and some years ago I was in contact with the authors. Unfortunately the feedback was that of their two sites, records from one of them were chucked out so the book omits a lot of detail from that one.

 

Hi pmh
The plan is to retain and repair the inner skin, replace poor sections of the outer skin, install the wagon cover frame and cover. Then paint it with an ICI livery and probably number it 733 as a nod to it's original ID (As you say B 114733). We will still have our lengthy train of 25 grey minerals - plus 5 of the variants (Bauxite, PO Black, ICI, RND (Rosyth) Black and - possibly the other ICI livery).
This may not be to everyone's satisfaction, but it does show the variety within the Std 16 T mineral wagon scheme and is historically accurate. It also gives our travellers something else to be interested about.

 

I've no problem retaining the inner skin as long as the trapped nasties can be got out to prevent further corrosion. As for giving it a faux ICI number, in the circumstances of not knowing the real one, I'm OK with that too. However I am still hoping to add more to the research of these slightly oddball members of the fleet at some point, if any more data comes to light. I'm convinced the data must exist 'somewhere'...

 

Thanks pmh. We will be ensuring that the space between the skins is cleared out.
We are investigating the actual colour(s) used by ICI as it seems that neither of the two model wagon colours are quite correct. The two wagons are these....

 

I wondered if it was going to be like the Mainline one (the one with the orange solebars) as I've got a couple of those on my OO layout, bought when the things first came out in the 1970's!

That does seem to match the colours used on this real ICI Mond Division tank wagon....
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36034969@N08/7916731684


.

 

Hi Johann
The colour certainly is a variable as there are pictures of 16T ICI wagons which are clearly Blue (beneath the rust!) and there is a fragment of paint on our wagon which is a mid blue. Perhaps ICI changed the colour over time.
Wow ... a Livery debate in the wagon thread...

 

Hi Phil,
Here are 1979 & 1991 photos of the same wagon (both (c) Paul Bartlett):
https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/icibulksoda/e323e0720
https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/longbridgewagons/e1a39676a

Definitely blue! Though it looks like the ICI livery may have included yellow solebar.

Also, by comparing detail differences across Paul's excellent site we actually know the BRB (ICI) numbers for all four of the 16T ex-Soda Ash wagons. Apologies, I had forgotten:

B_____ = BRB 737 = Rover 1 = Windcutter group 19 ("B279719")
B_____ = BRB 726 = Rover 5 = Windcutter group 20 ("B64020")
B114733 = BRB 690 = Rover 6 = Windcutter group 21 ("B279721")
B_____ = BRB 790 = Rover 4 = Windcutter group 22 ("B279722")

Anyway, no need for a fictitious ICI number, you have the real one now!

Edit: I should add that there is a possibility that they received a fresh coat of blue before they went to Rover, probably c.1982 (i.e. soon after Paul took his Soda Ash wagon photos at Reddish, though this date is a complete guess on my part). In those photos, ICI 790 has a distinctly ghostly all-over-grey appearance (undercoat or covered in soda ash?) whereas as Rover 4 by 1991 it is blue-and-rust, like the others. Also, Rover 2 & 3 (Windcutter 24 & 23) (see post #361) seem to have been in all-yellow livery ex-CEGB Kearsley traffic in 1979, but by 1991 they were in the same shabby blue as the ex-ICI four at Rover.

 

Thanks for that information pmh. The photographs are an unexpected bonus. Now we will have to decide exactly what colour we paint the wagon.

 

pmh mentioned trapped "Nasties", this is some that we got out yesterday....

Here is the Blue colour used in the 1980's

 

Here is some more "Nastiness" from the East side. The dangling root was from the small tree which can be seen cut down in an earlier picture (post #402)! It was very firmly fixed all along the base of the side door.

 

With permission from Paul Bartlett, here are the two views of the wagon taken in 1979 and again in 1991.

We will be restoring to the 1979 livery.

Also our Windcutter wagons will be in use on Friday and Saturday during the GCR Autumn Gala. We will also be having our Information/Sales Stand at Rothley - so please come along to see them and have a chat (Sat and Sunday).

 

Unfortunately our wagons were substituted by the van train as some of ours needed some minor work doing to pass the annual FTR and there was insufficient time to complete it. Still our Sales Stand was quite busy today - thanks to all who came along.

 

A bit of an hiatus due to holidays (me), illness, house move, sudden work trips abroad etc (of the team). Anyway yesterday saw more work done on the ICI wagon and we were able to look in more detail at the 6 wagons in the yard.
One B279711 will need a new floor and other repairs (This was a known expectation following last years FTR). B 551846 had some minor brake rigging adjustment and pad exams now ready for FTR, B 570618 pad exam and ready for FTR, B589163 has two failed Oleo buffers at its South end (we have replacements which need fixing holes drilling), B555696 has a corrosion hole in the vac pipe where a bracket holds it below the headstock and B556456 which had a pad exam and is ready for FTR.
These are all part of trying to keep wagons safe and ready for use - when they were mostly built in the 1950's, rebodied in the 1970's and bought as scrap in the 1990's!

 

I have been busy with my paintbrush on the inside of the ICI wagon. Note where the cover bar will be secured at each end.

 

Windcutter Change of Plan!

The C & W staff have been looking more closely at #721 and the amount of trapped debris. This was hiding the inevitable corrosion and so the decision has been taken to remove the whole inner skin and replate the floor and stanchions etc where necessary. Also this wagon has a good chassis and wheelsets. The early body has top flap doors so will be restored as a grey wagon to go back into the running rake.

This decision has also been influenced by the poorer condition of B 279722 at Swithland which will be cosmetically restored as an ICI wagon ( Its wheelsets are below spec and so display and shunting at Quorn is likely).

Today we were pleased to see that a lot of inner skin has already been cut out by the C & W staff. We will be able to use some of these cut out sheets again as they are still quite thick in section.

This is typical of the decisions that have to be made with these old wagons, built in the 50's, sometimes on older chassis, repurposed in the 70's and again in the 80's, sold as scrap in the 90's and we are trying to keep them running in the 2020's!

 

More work by the team has seen more rusty steel sheet removed, more trapped debris revealed and removed and more rusty steel revealed....

 

Regarding the use of 16T Mineral wagons for Soda Ash I am puzzled. Obviously they sealed the side doors and put in the complete inner skin to prevent any leaks of corrosive and conductive Soda Ash (there is a report of 100 miles of chaos regarding signalling circuits when a few non sealed wagons were used!). They had wagon covers to prevent rain getting in. However later on in BL days there were no covers and so water would have been trapped. Would this have been when holes were cut at the bottom of the side inner skins to release the trapped water? Would this slurry of swarf, dirt and cast iron cuttings then have filled between the inner and outer skin? The pictures show how high the trapped material went and how much there was. Certainly when the wagons arrived on the GCR there was usually a large pool of water inches deep in the wagons with inner skins.
Are there any ex ICI or BL workers who know about these wagons in those days?

 

Another two days of work has seen one small patch put in and several more sections of rusty steel removed! We have also taken the doors and door beams off, as there were some cracks and corrosion - which didn't matter when the doors were welded shut but now they are opening again the door beams need to be sound. We have also re-opened the end door.