Wagons

The 80 year period of the L&Y saw the development of the Company’s wagons mirror that of the nation’s railways, from simple 4 wheel wooden open wagons (unbraked in some cases) through to sophisticated bogie well wagons capable of carrying over 50 Tons.

During its time the L&Y built or possessed around 67,500 vehicles, the vast majority of which were open wagons for carrying general merchandise (over 80%). The number of wagons in use rose gradually across time thus:

1850………………3,737
1879……………..18,536
1895……………..24,423
1920……………..37,585

The men who had the greatest effect on wagon design were Carriage & Wagon Superintendent F. Attock (1875-1895) and Assistant C&WSs G. Banks (1899 – 1904) and F.E. Gobey (1910 – 1922), each bringing their own idiosyncrasies to the stock.

Much of what Attock did was still visible in the 1930s whilst the ideas of Banks and Gobey created a visual image which was unmistakeable anywhere in the country. It was the former who introduced the 21ft 6in length of vehicle whilst the latter reduced this to 20ft from 1910.

Attock created the iron bodied brake van, basically iron plates fixed to the wooden side frame which was continued on the 20 Ton vehicles of the 20th Century, and the canvas roll-back on the roof of small covered goods which allowed crane access to ease the movement of heavier parcels in and out of the vehicle.

Among Bank’s creations were the 20 Ton Loco Coal Wagons in use from 1903 up to 1955 and the double end door half box (5 plank) general merchandise wagons. He also began to paint ordinary wagon bodies from 1902 (grey) and use the large initials, generally 18in high from April 1903. Banks was also responsible for the flirtation with 30 Ton bogie merchandise wagons; these were an American influence following fact finding missions to the New World organised by Aspinall.