Highland Railway wagons

[JimG]

We can be certain the van in the photo wasn't the CR van built in 1906 as the photo dates from the 1880s.

It might still be a Caledonian or North British van. The Caledonian Diag 1 meat van was produced in 1888 and had smooth, vertical panelled sides with a higher, peaked arc roof. Looking closely at the van in the picture, you can almost see the vertical panelling when trying to rule out wishful thinking. There should be trumpet shaped ventilators on the roof and long thin ventilator grills on the sides just below the roof line, but I cant see enough definition to see if they are there on that van. The Caledonian and North British rolling stock designs had a good few similarities at the time since Dugald Drummond had walked down the road from Cowlairs to St.Rollox in 1882 taking a lot of his designs with him, so there might be a very similar NB design but I don't have a lot of information on NB stock to check.

Jim.

 

[Peter Bunce]

Hi Jim,

With some assistance of 'Overseer' I managed to find the photo of Aberfeldy, and as he says the definition is not good, the date mentioned is 1880 (I think) to 1904. The CR refrigerator vans were quite distinctive with the roof radii against the normal Scottish vans - which could be called the Drummond style used on all I think Scottish Railways - the brothers did get around! You forgot the G&SWR and the Highland for the 'Drummond' sphere of influence

I have a diagram of the early NBR meat vans from which I made a drawing with information from John Boyle and the later ones and also a weight diagram of the Refrigerator vans, which are quite like the CR ones, with a sharper radii to the roof (if the diagram is correct, they were do intended to be used by modellers; it is certainly sharper and thus higher than the normal radii used on the vans and were the same colour, of dark red, or brown; the yellow lettering was also smaller (no large letters). This could have possibly been changed later; the NBR fares very badly in the information stakes alas though the NBRSG does have some information available, and is good.

I have a general arrangement of a 6 wheel first class saloon from them which is very good -as usual its to the Drummond style of design, I have built a NBR CCT & a horsebox which I modified from the D & S kit, if I can build one it would run well with those.

Yours Peter.

 

[Peter Bunce]

Re the CR meat vans; John Boyle - otherwise known as 'Decent kits' has his 4mm section of the kits being re-started, by himself, the 7mm section has been sold to Alba models. He has a fully coach styled version in his range, listed as a Drummond design.

There are several variations to it shown as photos in the 'Caledonian Railway' wagons book, both this one and the goods design ('X' bracing to the sides), are interesting vehicles: I built one of the latter to go with John's kit.

There are variations of them primarily concerning the sides and the double style roof vents in the book.

I have attached a photo of the pair of them taken in my garden.

The LH one is the Decent kits kit, it can also be fitted with the same vents as the RH one, and there are several variations to this design. - The RH one is scratch built way back in 1993.

Yours Peter.

 

[Overseer]

Along with plenty of other interesting material, the latest issue of the Highland Railway Journal (Vol 7, Number 112) contains an article discussing some of the wagons visible in one of the photographs of Aberfeldy. A higher resolution extract of the photograph is provided which reveals more information than could be seen in the extracts included in posts 36 and 58. Richard Davidson has identified the two outside framed vans in the centre of the image as being Highland Railway and I agree, having previously stated that they probably weren't Highland stock. The higher resolution reveals that both vans have the standard Highland Railway axleboxes, the closer van has 3'6" wheels (also a Highland peculiarity) and the double shield illiteracy symbol is visible in the upper left corner of this van. Both the vans and the Type U cattle van adjacent have bulky self contained buffers which also appear on some of the timber wagons in other photographs.



The vans were probably inherited from one of the Highland's predecessors. So a couple more vans needing to be built. I don't know what to call them but they are now known unknowns instead of unknown unknowns. As well as keeping an eye out for early Highland rolling stock, I am still trying to work out whether Stroudley had any input into wagon and carriage design during the years he was at Inverness, it seems David Jones already had that side of things under control.

The Highland Railway Society is well worth joining for anyone with an interest in the Highland Railway and it successors, see www.hrsoc.org.uk for information.

 

[Mike W]

A fascinating thread Oversear, please keep it up.

Have Highland experts expressed a view on the roof door van behind? Caledonian? LNWR? Or did the Highland have some like that too?

Mike

 

[Peter Bunce]

A fascinating thread Oversear, please keep it up.

Have Highland experts expressed a view on the roof door van behind? Caledonian? LNWR? Or did the Highland have some like that too?

Mike

Hi Mike,

I am no expert, but here are my thoughts.

Possibly Caledonian, and as you say the LNWR had some as well.

The 'possibly' is as a result of the high position of the lettering; all the CR van photos I have seen it is lower down. The Highland did not have any with roof doors.

Yours Peter.

 

[JimG]

Certainly could be Caledonian. Early in Drummond's reign they produced single door/roof door vans with heavy twin headstocks very similar to LNWR designs. There's a picture of the non door side and end in Mike Williams CR wagon book :-



As for the lettering, Caledonian style was to have the letters close to the vertical centre line of the body as in the above picture. But there is also a picture of a Caledonian gunpowder van in the same wagon book with the lettering at the top of the side :-



...so it might be an early Drummond period Caledonian van being used as a gunpowder van.

Maybe.

Jim.

 

[Mike W]

Thanks Jim.

Just to avoid confusion, I am Mike Williams, but I didn't write the excellent book on Caley wagons. Mike Williams also runs Agenoria, but I am not he either. I DO run Williams Models - Gauge 3. It seems we are very common!

Mike

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

Fraser,

I hope you may be able to help. I have recently found this picture of Tarff on the Port Road. This is quite an early view judging by the number of dumb buffered wagons and roofless cattle trucks on view, plus the early signal.



I am pretty sure that the cattle vans are G&SWR in origin but I cannot identify the van on the left of the rake. Looks very like a double deck sheep van to me. Could it be Highland?

I copied this photo from earlier in your thread . There are similarities but I cannot be sure if the ends on the vans in the Kyle photo are open.

As far as I know the G&SWR did not have any double deck sheep vans and I am not sure about the Caley. Tarff was in the middle of a livestock area so sheep may have been sent there for fattening.

Ian.

 

[Overseer]

Fraser,

I hope you may be able to help. I have recently found this picture of Tarff on the Port Road. This is quite an early view judging by the number of dumb buffered wagons and roofless cattle trucks on view, plus the early signal.

View attachment 233738

I am pretty sure that the cattle vans are G&SWR in origin but I cannot identify the van on the left of the rake. Looks very like a double deck sheep van to me. Could it be Highland?

I copied this photo from earlier in your thread . There are similarities but I cannot be sure if the ends on the vans in the Kyle photo are open.

As far as I know the G&SWR did not have any double deck sheep vans and I am not sure about the Caley. Tarff was in the middle of a livestock area so sheep may have been sent there for fattening.

Ian.

Ian
I will need to look at the photo on a bigger screen. It could be Highland but I can’t see enough of the detail to be sure. The ends of the sheep wagons at Kyle of Lochalsh have horizontal boards but that is after 1900. I don’t recall seeing a photo of a Highland van with open bar ends but there was a direction (Board of Trade?) requiring solid ends on livestock vans - I will have to look up the date and details - there would have been vans with bar ends earlier. The North Stafford had double deck sheep wagons as well. I will look up the Caley wagon book in the morning.

 

[simond]

FWIW my interpretation of the photo at the bottom of #69 is that the ends are planked with gaps between.

 

[Overseer]

Without a closer view of the van I think the best we will be able to do is 'quite likely Highland Railway'. Tatlow in Highland Railway Carriages and Wagons tells us that two sheep vans with canvas covered roofs were acquired in 1858/9 from Ashbury, another 28 double deck sheep vans in 1862 from Railway Carriage Co. Oldbury, and another ten in 1874 from Midland Wagon Co. The Caley didn't have any double deck sheep wagons. The drawing of the NSR version shows planked ends.

The planked (with gaps) ends of livestock wagons on the Highland seems to follow a request from the Easter Ross Farmers' Club in 1866 for boarded ends on cattle wagons, the early cattle wagons were open, with some bars, above waist level.

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

Thanks Fraser,

That reinforces my own thoughts and given that there was a big livestock market at Castle Douglas, next station up the branch, not surprising. There has always been stock movement between the highlands and the more fertile, and less inhospitable, lowlands. It makes sense to bring sheep and cattle down for fattening before sending them off for slaughter

As I said the photo is quite early so the van may be an earlier version of the similar vans in your Kyle photo. The sides look very similar so perhaps later versions were built with solid ends.

It also gives me justification, if I needed one, to add a sheep van to my cattle train.

Ian.