Can anyone idenfify these wagons seen in South Wales in 1965 please?

[Rail-Online]

Hi,

 

Can anyone idenfify these wagons seen in South Wales in 1965 please?

 

 

 

Thanks Tony

[33C]

Best guess. GWR Heavy duty "Crocodile" wagons, modified for tunnel segments. Didcot has one.

[jonhall]

1/411 bogie slab coils - Appleby did a kit a long time ago.

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcoilz

 

Jon

Edited December 1, 2023 by jonhall

[The Johnster]

I concur; GW plate frame bogies and ratchet handbrake levers.  If the load is pre-cast tunnel sections, they are probably for the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 in Newport, built 1962-69, and will be on the up SWML.  I think the location may be St.George's, west of Cardiff about a mile from St.Fagan's; the skew plate girder river bridge is typical of those over the River Ely in that area, and the building is the row of houses next to the church, which will be just out of frame, top left.  If that is right, the photo will be taken from the then disused bridge carrying the connection from the Barry Railway Main Line to the SWML, and the current A4232 link road passes just to the east of this, along the route of the Barry Main Line.  Loco is a 37.

 

'Interesting' 60mph ride for the guard...

[Wickham Green too]

Most of those 'slabs' look far too straight for tunnel lining segments ! 😉

[rodent279]

What tube lines were being built at that time? Victoria line segments?

[Nearholmer]

Whatever they are, they don’t look like Underground tunnel lining: the radius (if indeed there is one) is too great.

 

To me, they look more like slabs  of steel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Fishoutofwater]

46 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Most of those 'slabs' look far too straight for tunnel lining segments ! 😉

Motorway tunnels 

[Wickham Green too]

......... and, of course tunnel lining segments would have some sort of interlocking shape on the edges.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

If the load is pre-cast tunnel sections, they are probably for the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 in Newport, built 1962-69, and will be on the up SWML. 

 

Years ago I got a fright just as I switched on the headlights as I entered that tunnel. I was driving home after having a new exhaust fitted.  The engine cut out and all the lights failed, and there's no hard shoulder.  The battery in the old mini was in the boot, and its wire to the engine ran in the same channel as the exhaust, which had melted the insulation!

[Enterprisingwestern]

11 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Most of those 'slabs' look far too straight for tunnel lining segments ! 😉

 

They aren't for 4mm tunnels!!

 

Mike.

[Cwmtwrch]

As jonhall advised, they are 1/411 Slab/Coil wagons; a batch of 58 was built at Swindon in 1962. They worked out of Margam carrying slabs for rerolling elsewhere, possibly at Llanwern or Ebbw Vale.

[jonhall]

4 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

As jonhall advised, they are 1/411 Slab/Coil wagons; a batch of 58 was built at Swindon in 1962. They worked out of Margam carrying slabs for rerolling elsewhere, possibly at Llanwern or Ebbw Vale.

 

I was beginning to wonder if I'd written that in invisible ink.

 

Jon

[Wickham Green too]

... and you'd make an awful mess trying to reroll concrete tunnel segments ! 🙄

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Whatever they are, they don’t look like Underground tunnel lining: the radius (if indeed there is one) is too great.

 

To me, they look more like slabs  of steel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or mattresses, especially the 2nd vehicle!

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Or mattresses, especially the 2nd vehicle!

Those wagons are a tad over-engineered for carrying a few mattresses!

[Wickham Green too]

Maybe they're heavy mattresses for heavy sleepers ?

[Poor Old Bruce]

16 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Years ago I got a fright just as I switched on the headlights as I entered that tunnel. I was driving home after having a new exhaust fitted.  The engine cut out and all the lights failed, and there's no hard shoulder.  The battery in the old mini was in the boot, and its wire to the engine ran in the same channel as the exhaust, which had melted the insulation!

 

My Mini Clubman Estate did that in the middle of the roundabout adjacent to Truro police station.

[Southernman46]

Accurascale - if you're watching - I'd have a few - would look good behind a 37.

 

13 on - 1300t - that's a good load - 2 x 37's ? - Brake van for reversal purposes ? Each wagon's got a lot on if that is steel slab (comparing the slab loading on BBA's for example) - would these maybe be aluminium (bit dull looking though) or tin bound for Trostre or Velindre ? 

Edited December 2, 2023 by Southernman46

[rodent279]

4 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Maybe they're heavy mattresses for heavy sleepers ?

And with this post you officially win RMWeb today!

[The Johnster]

5 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Brake van for reversal purposes ?

 

Not in 1965; all goods trains needed a brake van with a guard riding in it on running lines, even if the train was fully fitted (there were locally authorised exceptions for some very local runs, but certainly not on the 90mph SWML at St.Georges (if in fact that is the location).  I am not sure that this train is fully fitted, as there is what looks like a side lampe on the rear veranda of the brake van, which would indicate a part-fitted or unfitted train of class 7, 8, or 9.  Fully fitted trains carried a single tail lamp at the rear, and did not require side lamps.

 

The single-manning agreement for drivers signed with the unions in 1969 allowed guards to ride aboard the locomotive in the rear cab on fully fitted trains except where a brake van was provide for operational purposes (usually for propelling).  For example, one of my link jobs was he 13.35 Canton Sidings-Calvert empty bricks, fully vacuum fitted empty 'pipe' wagons.  This was single-manned, wit no secondman, and it was my job as guard to work as 'acting secondman' for the light engine movement from Canton shed to the sidings.  I would then ride in the rear cab of the loco* as far as Bristol (Lawerence Hill), where extra traffic was added including a brake van, because the final part of the train's journey required it to be be propelled for about 5 miles along the stub of the GCR main line from Verney Jc to the London Brick Co's Calvert brickworks.  I would ride in this as far as Swindon where we were relieved by Swindon men, booked cushions home.  Intereting to me because this was my only brake van job along the 'old' main line and through Box Tunnel.

 

 

 

*In theory.  In practice the driver would often request you to ride in the front cab with him, and as he is in complete charge of the loco, one could hardly refuse...  Most men preferred this for company, to continue 'acting secondman', and to help ensure they kept awake on nights.  Some resented the single-manning agreement which they saw as the means of eliminating many secondman posts, and blamed our union for accepting it, and were minded to ensure that we rode where the agreement said we should, particularly if we'd also committed the heinous offence of being recently recruited, but they were a minority.  I liked riding front cab of course, and driving when I was given the chance, but was quite happy to ride back cab as well.

[br2975]

They are British Railways built Dia. 1/411 45 ton 'Slab / Coil' wagons - written 'SLABCOIL', of which 58 were built at Swindon in 1962 to Lot 3424..

.

The wagons were numbered B949551 - B949608.

.

Under TOPS they became 'JZV' 

.

In the photo they are carrying steel slabs, (not concrete sections) for re-rolling at a works other than where they were cast.

.

They could also carry steel coils 'eye to the sky' both over the bogies and in the well.

..

Once their BR life had ended, during the 1980s several passed into the ownership of 'Allied Steel & Wire" and with the framework cut down became 'internal user' wagons at ASW's Cardiff plants.

.

They were scrapped after ASW went to the wall in 2002.

.

For once I may concur with 'Johnster' and feel the location 'may' be the SWML at St. Georges-super-Ely - with the train heading in the up direction (east) toward Cardiff, and would suggest the destination is the then Spencer Works (Llanwern) as opposed to Ebbw Vale.

.

My photo was taken a few yards to the left of the original image above.

.

.

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by br2975

[Cwmtwrch]

19 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

13 on - 1300t - that's a good load - 2 x 37's ? - Brake van for reversal purposes ? Each wagon's got a lot on if that is steel slab (comparing the slab loading on BBA's for example) - would these maybe be aluminium (bit dull looking though) or tin bound for Trostre or Velindre ? 

The load capacity of 1/411 was 45T and the Tare 29T, so maximum weight 74T per wagon, plus 20T for the brake, giving a total of just under 1,000 tons for a 13 wagon train, assuming all wagons are carrying the maximum. The wagons were built for carrying slab or rolls from Margam steelworks, and were branded "Return to Margam".

The only aluminium production plant in south Wales at the time was at Rogerstone north of Newport, which had its own rolling mill for producing plates and sheet, fed by slab brought in from North Wales or Scotland, for which the train is in the wrong place and going the wrong way. Trostre and Velindre used electrolytic plating processes on steel sheet delivered as coil. I don't know how the tin arrived, but neither that nor aluminium would seem to need such a substantial wagon.

[Cwmtwrch]

14 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I am not sure that this train is fully fitted, as there is what looks like a side lampe on the rear veranda of the brake van, which would indicate a part-fitted or unfitted train of class 7, 8, or 9.  Fully fitted trains carried a single tail lamp at the rear, and did not require side lamps.

I see what you have seen, I think, and can't explain it, but I'm not sure that it is in quite the right place to be on the corner lamp bracket. In any event, 1/411 were vacuum fitted, so the only vehicle which might be neither fitted nor piped is the brake van, and that seems very unlikely given the weight of the train and the date?

[Wickham Green too]

It's a BR or LNER van so will be fitted or, more likely, piped. The 'lamp' may well be something in the background - there's something similar above the penultimate wagon ( I don't think it's a house window ).