The LNER Encyclopedia

Hello all,

Whilst looking at a photo of a Midland Shunters truck in one of the Essery volumes I wondered if the LNER or constituents had an equivalent?

The only thing that I am aware of that's remotely like one, is the former NBR tender truck but since they also carried extra coal they are not quite the same.

An interesting question Rob, like you im only aware of the chip carts attached to the Y9s.

I'm not aware of any trucks being dedicated for shunters' use and they certainly weren't used in Scotland because the practice there was to provide a running step under the bunker with a handrail on the side so that if there was no room in the cab the shunter would simply ride on the side of the locomotive if there wasn't room in the cab

The Southern area volume of Peter Tatlow's survey of the LNER wagon stock has a GC shunter's truck diagram listed (among the copious choice of GC wagon diagrams!) in Appendix 2, and 2 'shunt wagons' of GC origin appear in the LNER's 1940 wagon census in Appendix 4.

Just that, no illustration or clue to function, allocations etc.. It seems not unreasonable that since the GCR had a shunter's truck diagram, that the two ex-GC shunt wagons on the LNER were likely the surviving examples of same...

An NER Shunters truck underframe, (Dia M1) was used as the base for the Double ended Snowplough 17 built in 1907.
This Snowplough was used mainly on the Tyneside Electric lines.

This rang a bell, and I pulled out "Railway Snowploughs in the North East" (David & Claire Williamson; NERA)...

There's a drawing of the shunting truck on pg 34. This is listed as built April 1902; Drawing 4036 (difficult to read). The 'chest' was towards one end to give space for the brake wheel column. It was rebuilt from a Diagram C2 open goods. Tare is listed as 5-8-0. 15 0in over headstocks; 8ft 6in wheelbase.

Brilliant thanks Gents - I have the NER Snow plough book so I now have the drawing and hopefully I can find some details of the original Diagram C2 open to complete the lack of detail in either Tatlow LNER Wagon volume 2 or North Eastern Record Volume 2 - watch this space for a scratchbuild.

I made a start on the shunters truck but I have a further question

If they converted this
from this Would they have retained the brakes from the open and if so how would the linkage have worked from the brake column to the cross shaft?

Excerpt of the drawing taken from Railway Snowploughs in the North East - copyright unknown and used for illustrative purposes only.

C2 photo copyright Peter Tatlow again used for illustrative purposes only.

Serendipitously, May's Gauge O Guild Gazette in the Trade News section reports that Chris at Invertrain is shortly to be announcing a whitemetal kit for an NBR Shunter's Truck priced about £25 (p71). For more details e-mail info@invertrain.com or see http://www.invertrain.com

Robpulham wrote:I made a start on the shunters truck but I have a further question If they converted this from this would they have retained the brakes from the open and if so how would the linkage have worked from the brake column to the cross shaft?

The operating linkage between the handbrake column and the cross shaft could be identical with that fitted to Brake Vans with the original yokes, brake pull rods and hangers retained. But then the next question is 'were the lever handbrakes retained or removed'? I would submit removed since the levers are opposite-handed which might be by the time of rebuilding out-dated, but that is only a guess.

65447 wrote:

Robpulham wrote:I made a start on the shunters truck but I have a further question If they converted this from this would they have retained the brakes from the open and if so how would the linkage have worked from the brake column to the cross shaft?

The operating linkage between the handbrake column and the cross shaft could be identical with that fitted to Brake Vans with the original yokes, brake pull rods and hangers retained. But then the next question is 'were the lever handbrakes retained or removed'? I would submit removed since the levers are opposite-handed which might be by the time of rebuilding out-dated, but that is only a guess.

Thanks 65447,
I would certainly tend to agree on the removal of the handbrake levers - they would be difficult to use with the footsteps in place I suspect?

Once again thanks to all who offered help on this.

This is the end result of my query.



More photos on my WB thread and Flickr site.

Does anyone know what purpose shunters' trucks were intended to serve? It is not clear to me at all. If they were semi-permanently attached to the shunt loco, I am puzzled why they had a brake column; obviously fitted so that the brakes could be applied easily and proportionally whilst moving, but only if someone was on board all the time. Perhaps they were intended to be used on inter-yard trips, to avoid using a brake van (and guard).
The GWR seemed to have them everywhere shunting took place but the LMS and Southern generally did not.
Perhaps coincidentally, the North Eastern Region much later seemed to like the idea of attaching a low sided wagon - often a conflat or lowfit - to the cab end of 204 HP diesel shunters. At the time, I thought that the intention was to give the driver a better view of the shunter (man) if he was between coupling vac. hoses etc. - seemed to be particularly used by passenger shunt locos..

This is purely guess work on my part, but given that the tare weight was only just over 5 tons, I suspect that the brake column was more to do with the difficulty in using a standard brake lever when the step boards had been fitted on both sides. I am happy to be corrected on this assumption of course.

As I understand it the flat wagons attached later to the 204 HP diesel shunters was to ensure electrical (?) connections across turnouts which wasn't always possible due to the short wheel base.

Robpulham wrote: " .... As I understand it the flat wagons attached later to the 204 HP diesel shunters was to ensure electrical (?) connections across turnouts which wasn't always possible due to the short wheel base. "

The only electrical, if so, reason for this that I can think of, would be to ensure detection by track-circuit for signalling/points-locking purposes when not completely within sidings/yards.
If this is correct, this might have become practice with the gradual increase in number of locations where such short-wheelbase locos were needed to work, and where points connections had become directly controlled by a non-adjacent signal box where the signalman seeing exactly where shunting movements were relating to points/lines that he controlled by direct vision was difficult or impossible (as opposed to points worked by a ground frame released from the box, with the points and movements locally operated/supervised by a shunter or guard), AND that somehow, these locos were actually shorter than the loco/vehicle minimum wheelbase dimension used in designing exact track circuit bonding or insulated end joint position arrangements.
[ I wonder if these locos also worked somewhere in hump marshalling yards, in which case it might have been necessary to cater for some similar situation in relation to areas controlled from hump towers, in the same way.]