GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Moor Street Station: gwrms1720

An official posed photograph showing a ten ton, wooden Mink A covered wagon on the twenty ton electric wagon hoist ready to descend into the Shed B warehouse below. On the left is the island platform and terminal building of the passenger station and on the right are the bridges over Park Street. The tall brick parapet is the bridge carrying the main lines to Snow Hill, while the steel plate girder belongs to the later Moor Street extension.

Mink A No. 89167 was built at Swindon Works in 1912 as part of lot 708, which was for three hundred wagons constructed to diagrams V12 (252) and V14 (48). The main difference between these two diagrams being that the diagram V12 covered wagons had rod buffers sprung through the drawgear, while diagram V14 had self-contained buffers (type C) fitted. The diagram V12 contained both vacuum fitted braked and unfitted wagons, while diagram V14 were all vacuum braked (as the unfitted version was identified as diagram V16). All of these covered wagons were sixteen feet long, on a nine foot wheelbase with a double wooden door on each side. Their capacity was approximately 880 cubic feet and ventilation was provided by twin bonnet ventilators on each end with some being fitted with controllable shutters. This wagon design became the standard Great Western Railway covered wagon design until 1927, with a total of almost 10,000 being built, including several lots by external contractors. (according to J Lewis individual diagram totals, as built, were; diagram V12 - 3355, diagram V14 - 3109 and diagram V16 - 2761). The totals constantly varied because when V16 wagons were vacuum fitted they became V14, while other wagons were converted for specific traffic opportunities, including 300 converted to diagram X6 Meat Wagons during the First World War.

Robert Ferris

back