Mineral wagon

A Water Orton 'windcutter'. Ex LMS Fowler 0-6-0 4F 44458 passing Water Orton Station Junction and on to the fast lines to Kingsbury with a train of empty mineral wagons.

Some ex windcutter wagons at Loughborough MPD on the Great Central Railway

A mineral wagon is a small open-topped railway goods wagon used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to carry coal, ores and other mine products.

Background

A preserved 6-plank wagon of the Foster Yeoman company at Didcot Railway Centre

When the railways originated in the United Kingdom, the initial rules and laws of passage were based on those used on the roads. Hence the railway companies provided the track (road) and locomotives (motive power); whilst the transporter for bulk goods provided both the goods and the carrying vehicle. The result was a proliferation of private owner wagons, and growth in wagons makers. But with few rules except that demaned by the railway companies (there was no Railway Inspectorate), wagons were mostly specified by agreement between the wagon manufacturer and the transporting customer. The original goods wagons - with many designs based on farm carts, and hence utilising four wheels - were based on an iron or steel frame, with main bodywork made of wood. The wagons had no driver operated train brakes, but were equipped with independent hand-operatd brakes, which could be pinned on steep hills. The result was a cheap sturdy wagon, and one when damaged was easily repaired; but which proved relatively short-lived and hence increasing uneconomic.

Development

With wooden bodied wagons proving uneconomic to replace for their owners, and post the 1930s recession the wagon makers looking for more economic longer-life products, both Charles Roberts and Company and the Butterley Company started developing standard all-steel construction mineral wagons, with capacities of 14 long tons (14 t) and 15 long tons (15 t). those from Roberts had sloping sides, and both companies a combination of riveted or welded construction.

At the outbreak of World War 2, and with need for a quick expansion in railway carrying capacity, the Ministry of Transport (MoT) requisitioned all of the exisiting steel wagons from both companies, including the stock within the private mineral companies that they had sold them to; and also placed additional orders with both companies. The MoT then developed a specification for a standard 16 long tons (16 t) wagon:

• 2axles/4 wheels
• 9 feet (2.7 m) wheel base
• 2xside doors, 1xend door
• Designed for and equipped with the welded hangers for either vacuum or air brakes...
• But only equippd with the standard Moreton "V" hanger independent hand-brakes

Contracting out the orders to both existing wagon companies as well as general engineering contractors, the result was a huge variance in constructions methodolgies (welded/riveted), and some minor design differences (fabricated/pressed steel doors; sloping sides).

Variants

Vacuum-braked 21 ton coal wagon being loaded from a hopper at Blaenant Colliery, bound for Aberthaw Power Station, c.October 1965

The basic wagon had numerous variants.

The 60,000 original MoT wagons were given a B prefix by BR. Both the LNER and LMS had taken wagons from the MoT post-WW2, and once these were absorbed by BR were given the prefix M. In 1951, BR agreed to buy a number of ex-MoT steel mineral wagons from SNCF in France.

The most common varinat was an opening flap above both of the side doors. Known as a "London Traders" flap, there are conflicting ideas about its function, but it is generally thought to have been provided to make it easier for coal merchants to unload the wagon by hand.

BR then ordered its own versions, bringing the eventual total number of wagons to over 300,000. The basic variant stayed true to the MoT original specification, except they had linked Mortone brakes, using either welded (diagram 1/108), or riveted construction (diagram 1/108; only 10% of the total number of wagons).

BR eventually developed a 21 long tons (21 t) version, which was a 16T wagon with extended wheel base and two side doors.

Operations

In BR days there were even unfitted mineral trains run at express freight speed, locally known as "the Annesley Cutters" or "Windcutters". These ran from Annesley, a collection yard for the collieries of Nottinghamshire served by the ex Great Central Railway to Woodford Halse and then to major destinations across England. These days have been recreated on the preserved Great Central Railway using over 30 of these wagons purchased in 1992 by readers of Steam Railway magazine.

Mineral wagons were phased out in the UK in the 1970s, following reduction in demand for household coal and the development of merry-go-round trains, which use much larger (and braked) hopper wagons.

See also

• Gondola
• Slate wagon