GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill - Grouping Period Rolling Stock: gwrbsh2496

Great Western Railway five plank fitted open wagon No 108392 with other similar wagons on the down main line at the north end of Birmingham Snow Hill Station circa 1936. A suburban passenger train with bow ended stock can be seen waiting in bay platform No 4 in the background.

Open B wagon No 108392 was built as part of a lot of five hundred wagons (L929) constructed between 1924 and 1926. Running numbers were 108001 to 108500. In total 2186 twelve ton open wagons were constructed to this design (Diagram O22), but only 875 of these were built with vacuum brakes (designated Open B). The wagons were 16 foot over headstocks with a 9 foot wheelbase. The wagon body had straight external diagonal strapping. All the Diagram O22 wagons had a sheet supporter bar to prevent the tarpaulin sheets from sagging in the centre and collecting rain water. This bar was attached to a curved rail at each end of the wagon allowing it to be moved to either side during loading. The wide top plank was eleven inches wide compared with seven inches for the other four planks below, giving an internal height of 3 foot 3 inches. The door opening was 5 foot wide and the door had the standard ‘tapered foot’ feature – This sloping bottom plank was introduced in 1919 to provide a flatter surface to facilitated loading with sack trucks, when the wagon door was lowered on to an adjacent standard height platform. The Diagram O22 wagons were constructed with self-contained parallel buffers, which had been introduced in 1910. These had a large diameter shank which engaged against a coiled spring contained inside the parallel housing. The Diagram O22 wagons were the first Great Western Railway open wagons to be built with the Morton lever brake (fitted on either side to comply with Board of Trade requirements) which had effectively become the national standard, but the Open B wagons also had vacuum brake fittings (notice the vacuum cylinder underneath and pipework at the ends). The photograph shows the wagon with RCH oil axleboxes, instead of the more usual OK F oil axlebox, which was a standard fitting for the Great Western Railway on four wheeled wagons up to 12 tons.

In April 1916 the Great Western Railway agreed to place all its non-vacuum braked wagons (three plank or greater) in the Railway Clearing House (RCH) common pooling arrangement. This meant that wagons did not have to be immediately returned empty if they had been used to transport goods into another company’s area. Wagons that were not in this common pool were initially painted with two white 'X' markings on each side of the wagon, but after the Grouping in 1921, special NCU plates were attached. These plates had the words 'Return to - GWR - Not Common User' in white on a black background.

This photograph is displayed courtesy of the HMRS (Historical Model Railway Society) and copies can be ordered directly from them using the link HERE, quoting reference AEP605.

Robert Ferris

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