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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
Warwick Station: gwrw2627
An official photograph for the Great Western Railway
Magazine (October 1928) showing a large consignment of crated Winget concrete
mixing machines leaving Warwick for Liverpool Docks from where they were to be
shipped to Nigeria in West Africa. In 1924, Winget Ltd moved from the
North-East (where it had been founded by Mr John Faulder Burn in 1906) to
Warwick, where a foundry and engineering works was established at The
Cape. The company specialised in machines for stone crushing, brick
breaking and concrete mixing, as well as their modular building system using
concrete pillars and panels. The company flourished and subsequently moved to
Rochester in Kent in the 1930s. From there its modular system was extensively
used to build municipal housing in cities such as Wakefield, Glasgow, Hull and
Norwich.
Each of the machinery crates weighed approximately 2 tons,
12 cwts and these can be seen loaded individually on to Passenger Train Well
Wagons (telegraphic code Hydra). These wagons were designed to carry road
vehicles, but their well usefully kept the large crates within the railway's
standard gauge restrictions. These well wagons had; Mansell coach wheels, oil
axleboxes and vacuum brakes, as they were intended to travel in passenger
trains. They were painted brown with yellow ochre lettering. The goods train
equivalent had the telegraphic code Loriot and generally had a greater carrying
capacity. The well wagons seen in this photograph are a mixture of diagram G11
and G19 types, which both had a well loading area of eleven feet long by seven
feet wide. The table below gives details of the three types of passenger well
wagons (Hydra) available in 1928:
Lot |
Diag. |
Date built |
Load |
Tare |
Quantity |
Running Numbers |
Comment |
L243 |
G11 |
1898-99 |
6 tons |
7.4 |
Ten |
42291 to 42300 |
Thomas brake |
L468 |
G16 |
1904 |
5 tons |
7.10 |
Two |
42289 & 42290 |
Shallow Slope |
L593 |
G19 |
1908 |
8 tons |
7.13 |
Ten |
42279 to 42288 |
DC II brake |
The Leamington branded 12 ton goods brake van
(telegraphic code Toad) No 56290 was built to diagram AA3 in Swindon Works as
part of lot 174 (brake vans in this lot were all built between May 1897 and
June 1899). These were the first of the classic style of Great Western standard
brake vans, with external metal frames and a large single verandah. These
diagram AA3 brake vans had the following dimensions:
Overall length: 20
feet Wheelbase: 13 feet Width: 7 feet, 6 inches Internal height 6
feet, 9 inches Verandah length: 6 feet
The brake van had eight clasp type brakes with sanding gear
to assist adhesion. There were two sand boxes on the verandah and two inside
the van. To improve adhesion, the weight of the diagram AA3 brake vans was
gradually increased to 16 tons and 20 tons by adding scrap metal in to their
hollow chassis. Once fitted trains became more common these brake vans were
fitted with vacuum pipes (with the guard having a brake valve in the van), some
also had a vacuum cylinder.
Robert Ferris
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