Heritage Wagon Group’s First Project Completed
{/webgallery}The Isle of Wight Steam Railway’s Heritage Wagon Group, established in 2010, have completed their first restoration project by returning an 86-year-old wooden framed goods wagon to the rails.
In 2010 a small group of like-minded people, with the help of C&W Manager Gary Walker, set up the IWSR Heritage Wagon group to focus on the restoration of the railway’s historic collection of wooden framed wagon stock. SR 10 Ton Open Goods 27834, being part of the Heritage Lottery funded rolling stock restoration programme, was selected as the group’s first project.
Built in 1925 by the Southern Railway at Lancing Carriage Works to a LBSCR design, 27834 was sent to the Island in 1931 to replace older island goods wagons and during the next 36 years worked all round the Island’s railway system on coal trains from Medina Wharf. After this it moved into preservation at Havenstreet via the Vectrail organization.
By 1990, age, coal and the weather had taken its toll on 27834 and this caused it to be stored off the rails in the overflow car park at Havenstreet; just about every part of it being in need of rebuilding or replacement.
Moving forwards in the story to 2004 and the opening of the new C&W workshop, John James worked on building a new seasoned oak underframe for the wagon but pressures of work within the department caused it to be stored in flat pack form in one corner until 2010.
After a thorough inspection and the taking of many pictures of the remains of 27834 to provide a reference point for the restoration, the gas cutting gear and a selection of tools were taken around to where 27834 was stored. With some gentle and not so gentle help it was dismantled and the large components, wheels, W-irons, buffers etc. shot blasted by our local blasting company to remove rust then taken around and placed in the C&W workshop where they were painted. As already stated, many of the smaller mild steel fixtures and fittings that had held 27834 together needed completely remaking, requiring much time and effort. Then, with the help of John James, the new underframe for the vehicle was assembled with new bolts and metalwork to complete a rolling chassis.
One area that became a particular challenge was the repair of the wagon’s drawgear. The main draw bar springs were found to be too far gone to re-use, luckily a spare set of springs from LBSCR brake coach 4168 were found to be of the correct size. The draw bars at each end also had to be rebuilt where they fitted into the springs as these had wasted away, new metal having to be machined and welded into place to bring these items back to original condition.
Having got to the stage of a completed underframe thoughts turned to fitting the floor and body of the wagon. Here John Clark used his skills to paint all of the pine planks before John James fitted them to form the body. To finish the wagon it was painted in Southern Railway Wagon Peat Brown with post 1936 small lettering
With the 27834 project complete, thanks must go to Heritage Wagon Group members Colin Brock, Peter Clowes, John Clarke, Roger Key, Graham Redfern, Steve Rowntree, Andrew Tavener and also to Charlie lemon, John James, Dave Smart and Gary Walker of the railways C&W and Engineering staff for their help in getting the project through to a satisfactory conclusion. It has been quite a steep learning curve for the group with 2 steps forwards and 1 back at times. Looking forward, the IWSR Heritage Wagon Group’s next project is LBSCR car truck 60579 which is now being dismantled ready for restoration to get underway, with completion sometime in 2012.
For a further update on recent Carriage & Wagon maintenance and restoration progress on the Isle of Wight Steam Railway visit this website’s Carriage & Wagon News pages.