Some 1600 ten ton open merchandise wagons to Diagram 03 were built by the Great Western Railway in four batches during the years 1904-5 and 1912. These wagons were a development of the Diagram 04 introduced three years earlier and incorporated a 4ā ” wider top plank bringing the internal height to 3’3″ which remained the basic standard for GW 10 & 12/13T opens in all future builds. At the same time the width was made wider by 6″ bringing the inside and outside dimensions to 7’7″ and 8′ respectively. Many, perhaps most, of the 03s were fitted with the Williams patent sheet supporter to aid the wagons sheets protect the merchandise when in transit.
I recently completed a commission for an 03, built from a WEP kit and this was given a light weathering as if recently built. The running number suggests that it is one of the final batch, and as the wagon will fit into a c1912 scenario, I think the degree of weathering is appropriate.
As these wagons were introduced in 1904 it would be reasonable to incorporate a small number in amongst the larger proportion of 4-plank wagons running on the Metropolitan Line between Acton, and Smithfields through Basilica Fields on the Extended Circle around to the GW depot at St Katherine Docks. Of course they will have S7 wheels whereas this has standard 0 Fine wheels.
I’m not too happy with the photo as the light was fading so I used some artificial daylight to help but it mucked the colours up and I couldn’t fix it to my satisfaction on the computer. If I get some decent mid-morning light before the wagon gets delivered I’ll upload some better photos and hopefully show the folded wagon sheet inside too.
Basilica Fields 
January 22, 2012 at 7:10 am
This is a very nice model, the appearance is just as I imagine those wagons to look when out-shopped pre-WW1. The interior planks might be a tad too grey for a wagon from the last batch and might even be so for one from the earlier batches given that most of these wagons ran with sheets when loaded. I do hope that the porters remembered to put the folded sheet and ropes into the wagon when unloaded.
regards, Graham
January 22, 2012 at 8:29 am
Graham beat me to it as I was going to ask if you intend to model the sheets as well?
I take it that the insides were painted and not bare timber?
Excellent work as all ways Ade.
ATB, Col
January 22, 2012 at 10:31 am
Hi chaps – thanks for the comments. The inside does look too grey in the photo; there is more of a light brown hue to it in reality, that is due to the conditions under which the photo was taken. When I started to alter the saturation/brightness/contrast and added some colour correction as the grass came out lurid I lost the true colours on the wagon. If I can get half an hour of decent mid-morning sun the new photos will look much better!
However, you both throw up an important question to which I could find no answer in either Tourret or Stone’s contemporary (1903) treatise on carriage and wagon construction; that being how old/seasoned were the planks used for wagon bodies? This year I kept an eye on some unseasoned timber in the garden and watched it fade from a creamy yellow to silver grey in the space of just a few months last summer – and it wasn’t a particularly sunny summer either. Col, with your carpentry background you have a professional viewpoint I’d very much appreciate hearing.
Graham: Am I right to assume that a GW wagon of this period spent a greater proportion of its working life on home metals, however half of the time it spent on foreign lines would be spent unsheeted (ie working back home not loaded)? I wonder how much time a wagon was left empty and unsheeted in sidings waiting to be used? Actually I’ll bet there’s no definitive answer to that last bit!
There is a sheet inside, but the photo was appalling as I’d lost the light completely. I have the instructions here on how to fold a wagon sheet, but it ended up looking like a bagged tent with no indication as to what it might be – so having discussed it with my client I left it partially folded. Now I know that sheets were dealt with fairly quickly and carefully as pin holes developed easily and that spelled the end of a sheet, but in this case a little modelling licence was called for. There is also a coiled up rope, but I suspect there may have been a proper way to do that too which I’ve not yet discovered. In the new set of photos I’ll get a decent inside shot and post it here.
January 22, 2012 at 11:14 am
Ade,
The shades and colours of timbers when fresh cut vary quite a lot but as they weather down they tend to take on a greyish-blue hue.
I’m assuming the railway/wagon builders would have used softwood for the body construction(cheaper). In the era we are dealing with examples would have been Baltic white deal( spruce) and Baltic yellow deal (pine). These timbers were used a lot in the building industry for scaffold boards, floor boards, but also packing cases and some furniture.
There was American yellow deal but I doubt they would have used this on railway stock of this nature.
I have some info to scan which describes these and other timbers and I think you will find it most useful. To much to print here so I’ll email it to you Ade.
ATB, Col.
January 22, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Thanks Col, quite a lot of useful info.
I have to make a correction from an earlier statement; Touret’s GW wagons does indeed state that imported pine was used for the planks. I’ve also found a reference to the GER using red deal (Scots pine) for floorboards, sheeting and roof-boards in wagon & van construction, with framing from English oak. the colour of newly-cut red deal can vary from a straw yellow in the sapwood to a very pale cream in the heartwood.
January 22, 2012 at 4:53 pm
Yes, using oak for the frames would make sense, a lot stronger and would last a life time.
There is a wharf on the R.Crouch down here near me at Wallasea Island, it’s a base for a timber and steel importer. Some of the stacks of timber that are out in the open for some months definatly take on that grey look.
Col.
January 22, 2012 at 10:33 pm
I recollect that there was a relevant paper presented to the GWR Swindon Engineering Society – the subject was wagon construction and there is a section on timbers, seasoning and defects. I shall look at that paper and report back.
Your surmise about the use of these wagons in the period pre-WW1 is reasonable:- any working with a load would have likely a sheet over the bar…. if the wagon was unloaded on the GWR then the wagon would be available for traffic immediately and only run empty if required at some other location (or there was no space in the yard where unloaded)… if the wagon was unloaded at some foreign station then the wagon would be worked back to the appropriate exchange sidings immediately (and most likely without a load).
Things changed after the common user instruction came into force…. the GWR objected to putting a greater percentage of wagons with bars into the pool than other companies…. so the wagons were first marked as non-common user and then the bars were removed!