Progress After a Break

I missed a Saturday at Bitton while I visited Hay on Wye with its bookshops. Plenty for railway enthusiasts there - and for any other kind of enthusiast!

When I returned to the AVR last Saturday I found there'd been significant progress.



While I was away Ollie and his crew had fitted the axle-guides, the buffer bodies and painted the outside of the timber frame.





You can see the spring-hangers on the underside of the sole-bars in those shots. Andy has milled those down to accommodate the thicker metal of the new springs.

Ollie and I spent some time on Saturday cutting to length the new bolts to support the springs in the hangers, cutting a new thread on them and cross drilling them for the split-pins that will stop them undoing in use.





Visiting

We are restoring the wagon's drop-doors, which had been all but completely removed by a previous user. All that was left were the catch mechanisms that held the doors up until released to drop out the contents. So we didn't know what size metal to use for the hinges.

Ollie told me that there is a similar wagon at the Somerset and Dorset Railway Trust in Washford near Watchet. So yesterday I went there by train and bus to measure the ironwork.



We'd had some discussion about how thick those hinges should be. It turned out that they are 5/8" thick by 2" wide and the pins are 1" diameter bar.

The Somerset and Dorset is well worth a visit. It occupies one station and yard on the West Somerset Railway. The whole railway is a credit to the people who run it and to Somerset Council who had the foresight to buy the line when it was closed down. The people at Washford were very friendly and gave me a guided tour of the yard and shed. They have enviable workshops and a good little selection of freight and passenger stock. I shall be going back there to ride on the railway and to visit the Somerset and Dorset Trust again.

Routing and Clouting

To fit the side members that support the side planks and protect the end-grain of the floor planks I had to route out some channels to accommodate the large washers for the bolts that support the axle-guides, and the nuts for the bolts that hold the upper straps for the sole-bar to headstock fixing.

I went along to Bitton today with a tool box containing my router, which I then put to work to make the channels.



I took rather longer than was necessary to mark out the positions and extent of the channels. A simple outline on one face of the timber would have been enough as I set the router's depth stop so I couldn't make the channels too deep. Simply marking the outline in one plane would have saved half the time or even more. You live and learn!

Once the channels were cut it was time to assemble the side-members to the sole-bars.



We had to drive the side to side tie bars right through so that their ends were flush with the sole-bar face on one side then fit that side's side-member. I put ratchet straps on again to pull the side-member down straight, then we drove the tie-bars back through to hold the side-member in place, making the tie-bar's other end flush with the other sole-bar.

The half-inch coach bolts went through easily enough and we tightened them up before moving to the other side where we repeated the process. This side was not so easy as the first one and we had to use a jack to force up the side-member a little so as to get the half-inch bolts in.



At last the side-members were in place and Ollie decided he wanted to see what the hockey-stick or J irons looked like in place. I took the piss because he's always leaping ahead to see what it will look like next - he did it again later with the buffers. However I had to get into the act by taking a photo of the J irons in place.



After tidying up the stuff we'd used to put the side-members in place we moved on to try out hanging a spring again. When we tried this before the spring leaves fouled the spring hangers, so Ollie got Andy to mill an eight-of-an-inch off the hangers and we set out to try hanging a spring again. We were perplexed when the spring still wouldn't go into place, until John came by and suggested that we try a different spring. We did, and it fit!



We were very pleased.

Ollie really had the bit between his teeth now and decided to install the inner straps that hold the sole-bars to the headstocks and at the same time support the buffer bodies. He'd got the gusset straps installed during the week, and now the whole wagon is taking shape.





Our next job is to install the axle-guide/W irons.

Of all our work what is most satisfying to me is that we've managed to salvage most of the original iron-work of the original wagon. Here is one of the iron straps that we have refurbished, John welded a new threaded part to the original strap that still has the maker's mark on it.



The wagon is taking shape now and soon we'll put it back on its wheels ready to be floored and the sides planked.