140-ton 'Gunset' wagons

[juggy0_1]

I was looking through 'British Railway Wagons - their loads and loadings Vol 1' by Brian Grant & Bill Taylor and on page 115 there is a picture of a 'gunset' wagon for the carriage of large gun barrels which i have never seen or heard of before,these had 16 wheel bogies compared to the 'boiler set' which had 12 wheel bogies, my question is, i presume they would have been built for WW2 and the info says that only one remained by 1964, so there must be more pictures of them if they were around for 20yrs or more but web searches have drawn a blank so i'd be grateful if anyone has any info,pics or drawings as i'd like to scratch build one of these oddities one day.

 

Darren

[Fat Controller]

I think they may have been built for WW1, rather than WW2. I'm surprised one lasted until 1964; the 'big gunned' ships went pretty soon after the end of WW2, so they must have found employment on other traffic.

[jwealleans]

The last battleship in the Royal Navy went into reserve in 1955 and for scrap in 1960 but were there other ships being built/maintained in UK dockyards at the time?

 

Or did it just take that long for officialdom to notice that it was to all intents and purposes redundant?

[juggy0_1]

Hi Brian, your probably right about them being built for WW1, further info says the last one was transferred to the Concrete beam wagon fleet in the mid 60's which suggest it may have lasted till late 60's or maybe beyond ?, how wasnt a wagon that large still around in the 60's photographed by a good few people for being something out of the ordinary, and its not like it could be hidden away very easily !!.

Edited January 26, 2013 by juggy0_1

[jonhall]

Surely that is a rail mounted gun (i.e. the gun is fired from the wagon) not a wagon for carrying barrels from A to B.

 

Jon

[jjnewitt]

Hi Darren,

 

That particular wagon looks more like a transformer wagon to me rather than something specifically built to carry the barrels of guns for warships. I haven't seen one quite that big before and am unsure of it's origin but there's some pictures of a couple of BR built (LMS design) examples here:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brtransformer

The GWR had a variety of wagons built for the purpose of carring gunsets code named Pollen. These later found use transporting girders after modification. The LMS I think had something similar. Photos here:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrgirdwagpollen

 

Justin 

[Fat Controller]

Hi Brian, your probably right about them being built for WW1, further info says the last one was transferred to the Concrete beam wagon fleet in the mid 60's which suggest it may have lasted till late 60's or maybe beyond ?, how wasnt a wagon that large still around in the 60's photographed by a good few people for being something out of the ordinary, and its not like it could be hidden away very easily !!.

If it had gone into the Concrete Beam Pool, then it's probable that only the bogies would have been kept, and probably fitted with some sort of cradle to carry the beams. Have a look at the vehicles on this link; there's some fascinating stuff:-

http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/SpecialVehiclesIssue.pdf

Does anyone know where these wagons worked to and from in their gun-carrying days, and for which company they were originally built? I have visions of one being sent down the rather steep branch to Rosyth, which I think specialised in work on large capital ships, such as battleships and monitors.

[jonhall]

 A better view of the railgun here

 

15 inch naval gun being conveyed by special train from Catterick bridge to Woolw

Description: 15 inch naval gun being conveyed by special train from Catterick bridge to Woolwich 24/7/46 at Selby.

 

 

 

Use non-commercially: The photo above is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) licence. In a nutshell, that means it's free for any non-commercial use as long as you credit "© National Railway Museum and SSPL" and add a link back to this page

http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=liverpoolst&item=4

[Grovenor]

That looks more like one of the mobile railguns intended for firing from the rail, google on "railway guns". 

Gunset wagons were substantially smaller and usually had one heavy duty wagon to carry the but and a lighter version for the thin end. There were quite a range of such wagons pre-group to carry gunbarrels to the shipyards.

Keith

 

edited the google search term, apparently railgun is now something else altogether.

Keith

Edited January 26, 2013 by Grovenor

[cctransuk]

Surely that is a rail mounted gun (i.e. the gun is fired from the wagon) not a wagon for carrying barrels from A to B.

 

Jon

Jon,

 

Spot on - nothing that large was used for transporting anything; it fired long range projectiles. This may be the British version, but the Germans had similar guns, on type of which was known as Big Bertha.

 

Lima, I think, made a RTR model, and it was also available as a plastic kit.

 

Google 'rail guns' for more than you ever wanted to know!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[jonhall]

This shows a typical gunset 'wagon' EDIT - actually I'm inclined to believe this is improvised from two ARM plate wagons - it certainly dosn't match the LMS gunset wagons! Jon

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/65793-special-wagons-traffic-photos-from-the-nrm/?p=885162

 

Gun being transported by rail, 1916

Description: Gun loaded onto railway wagons at Toton sidings, Nottinghamshire, 9 December 1916. The railways played a huge part during the First World War. They were essential for carrying soldiers and equipment. Many railway works such as Horwich were given over to the manufacture of weapons. The railways also provided ambulance trains to take sick and wounded soldiers to hospital.


http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=derby&item=217


http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=derby&item=218



http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=derby&item=219

Use non-commercially: The photo above is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) licence. In a nutshell, that means it's free for any non-commercial use as long as you credit "© National Railway Museum and SSPL" and add a link back to this page.

 

 

Jon

Edited January 26, 2013 by jonhall

[Gordon A]

Looking at your picture I would say that is a full blown rail mounted gun, including the crane on the rear end to lift the shells and bagged cordite charges up to the right level to be loaded into the breach.

 IIRC a number were based in Kent in the 2WW for cross channel bobardment.

The pictures I have seen of special wagons used to carry gun barrells were purely a series of bogies linked together, each with a cradle of different diameters to clamp arround the barrel and hold it in place during transport.

I sus pect the author got his description wrog, or gunset was the telegraphic code for rail mounted artillery.

Hasigwau do or did an HO plastic kit of one of the German 2 WW rail guns.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

 

 

 

Woops I was beaten to the draw while compiling this on my lap top. Apologises.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Gordon A

[halfwit]

1:72 scale railgun kit from HobbyBoss.

[Fat Controller]

I wonder what a rail-mounted gun was doing at Catterick? There were several sited within a few miles of where I sit; one was based on the Elham Valley Railway near Bishopsbourne, and some more between Dover and Deal. The remains of the specially-laid track for the latter can be seen on the relevant OS map, between Martin Mill station and the coast. I have looked at the Google views for the area, but can't pick them out, though I have done in the past.

[juggy0_1]

Hi John, that was my first thought as it does look rather over engineered to carry gun barrels (which granted were damn heavy) but to my knowledge only germany and USA built rail mounted guns so i can only defer to the authors info in the book..

 

daren

[Clive Mortimore]

AH!!!!!

 

One of my pet hates is when railway guns and gun sets are mixed up.

 

A gun set was normally made up from two wagons to transport a gun barrel from the gun works to the dockyard where the warship was being fitted. One wagon was built to carry the breach and the other to support the barrel. http://warwickshirerailways.com/misc/miscfr001.htm

 

The photo above is a 13.5 inch Railway Gun, or to give it its full title 13.5 inch gun MkV, on Mounting, Railway 14 inch MkI . The carriage was from WW1 and during the Great War mounted a 14 inch gun. The guns had been removed but the carriages not scraped. I don't know why. In 1940 three 13.5 inch guns that had been removed from the old Iron Duke class battleships were still in an ordnance depot were mounted on the old 14 inch carriages. They were called His Majesty's Gun Scene Shifter, based at Lydden, HMG Galdiator at Martin Hill and HMG Piecemaker at Guston Tunnel. The army did not have enough man power to crew these guns but the Royal Marines did, many would have been familiar with the 13.5 inch from serving on warships.

 

From 1941 they were used to bombard the French coast around the Calais area. By November 1943 the Royal Marines were short of manpower so the guns were handed back to the army and the marines wet off to learn how to sail landing craft. The Army saw a role for them in the future invasion and they formed part of the Super Heavy Artillery Regiment but owing to allied superior air power they were not needed and the regiment disbanded in the autumn of 1944. The guns declared obsolete in 1945 and scrapped so afterwards.

 

There was fourth mounting with an 18 inch Howitzer His Majesty's Howitzer Boche-Buster. This weapon was built in 1926 and also used a 14 inch gun carriage dating from WW. In 1940 it too went to Kent but remained under army command. It was said that the battery commander was the only man in the army with gun tables in one pocket and Bradshaws time table in the other. It never fired in anger as a howitzer it was designed to lob its shell a short range. It would have been useful had the Germans landed in southern England. It too formed part of the Super Heavy Artillery Regiment. An odd thing with the War Establishment XIV/524/1 August 1944 states the battery had 2 sections each with one 18 inch howitzer and no mention of the 13.5 inch guns. As there was only one howitzer to have two per battery was wishful thinking by someone in the war office. Boche-buster lasted until 1947.

 

The above information is from British and American Artillery of World War 2 by Ian Hogg and from the Trux 2nd Army List by Mike Simpson http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/trux-21st-army-group/  Ian Hogg's book is the first port of call regarding British artillery weapons of WW2 by most artillery historians.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Clive Mortimore

[Clive Mortimore]

 A better view of the railgun here

 

15 inch naval gun being conveyed by special train from Catterick bridge to Woolw

Description: 15 inch naval gun being conveyed by special train from Catterick bridge to Woolwich 24/7/46 at Selby.

 

 

 

Use non-commercially: The photo above is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) licence. In a nutshell, that means it's free for any non-commercial use as long as you credit "© National Railway Museum and SSPL" and add a link back to this page

http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=liverpoolst&item=4

Caption issue....BIG time

[Clive Mortimore]

Jon,

 

Spot on - nothing that large was used for transporting anything; it fired long range projectiles. This may be the British version, but the Germans had similar guns, on type of which was known as Big Bertha.

 

Lima, I think, made a RTR model, and it was also available as a plastic kit.

 

Google 'rail guns' for more than you ever wanted to know!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Hi John

 

Big Bertha was a 42 cm siege howitzer used by the Germans to smash the Belgium forts at the start of WW1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_%28howitzer%29

[juggy0_1]

Hi Darren,

 

That particular wagon looks more like a transformer wagon to me rather than something specifically built to carry the barrels of guns for warships. I haven't seen one quite that big before and am unsure of it's origin but there's some pictures of a couple of BR built (LMS design) examples here:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brtransformer

The GWR had a variety of wagons built for the purpose of carring gunsets code named Pollen. These later found use transporting girders after modification. The LMS I think had something similar. Photos here:

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrgirdwagpollen

 

Justin 

Hi Justin , i did think about them being converted into Transformer MB's, Gridwags, Congers or Pollen B's but the individual bogies had 8 wheels each whereas everything else including the Boiler set only has 6 wheels per bogie so the mystery continues.

[Clive Mortimore]

1:72 scale railgun kit from HobbyBoss.

Hi Paul

 

It is a nice kit but as the box says it is German and massive compared to our railways. 

[juggy0_1]

Many thanks Clive for all that information and solving the mystery, would anyone still have drawings or approximate dimensions for these beasties..

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi John, that was my first thought as it does look rather over engineered to carry gun barrels (which granted were damn heavy) but to my knowledge only germany and USA built rail mounted guns so i can only defer to the authors info in the book..

 

daren

Hi Daren

 

The British used quite a few during WW1, but the biggest user was France, that is until her arsenal was captured by the Germans in 1940. Most large European countries had some rail mounted guns. The US built guns never left North America being emplaced as coastal artillery.

[cctransuk]

... but to my knowledge only germany and USA built rail mounted guns so i can only defer to the authors info in the book..

 

daren

As per other postings here, the British did have rail-mounted guns.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[jonhall]

My pre-nationalisation diagram books are a bit too fragile to scan, but looking at gunsets 9(i.e. wagons fro carrying gun barels)

 

The LNER seem to have two 140T Gunsets 231273 &4

 

The LMS have Dia 139 an (ex Midland? ) 105T Guntruck, code GTX 9696 and Dia 140 an (ex LNWR? ) 160T gun truck Code GTL no257881

 

Dia 139's parts appear elsewhere in the diagram book as dia41 (35T Ingot flat ex CR) with wagons 360 and 361 when fitted with a special girder becoming the breach unit of the 100T gunset, dia 41A a 35 ton truck adapted from the muzzle portion of GTX (and carrying 9696) and Dia 41B which is a 70T truck adapted from the Breach portion of GTX (so 2xdia41=dia41B and 41B+41A=139)

 

I think this is dia 139 http://warwickshirerailways.com/misc/miscfr001.htm

 

Dia 41C is a 50T truck adapted from muzzle portion of GTL (dia 140)  and dia 41D is a 107T truck adapted from the breach portion of GTL both carry no257881!

 

From the above its not totally clear if the LMS gunsets were normally kept as a set and just split up when the smaller wagons required, or if the gunset was only assembled when a gun needed moving?

 

The 1953 issue of the classification of special wagons booklet list all four gunsets 9696/257881/231273/231274 (and no others)

the 1956 issue of the same also lists all four, with LMS dia 139 having become gunset MB EB, dia 140 as gunset MC EC and the LNER pair Gunset EA (MB and MC having been crossed out by hand)

The 1964 issue of the same shows only the LNER pair

 

Jon

Edited January 26, 2013 by jonhall

[Clive Mortimore]

Many thanks Clive for all that information and solving the mystery, would anyone still have drawings or approximate dimensions for these beasties..

Hi Daren

 

Drawings for the WW1 14 inch gun can be found in Rail Gun by John Batchelor and Ian Hogg (ISBN 0 85242 328 4) one of the drawings is in 4mm scale.

 

The barrel of the 13.5 inch gun was 625.9 inches overall.

The barrel of the 18 inch howitzer was 648.4 inches.