A bogie bolster wagon is a British railway term for a wagon designed to carry long thin cargoes such as timber or rails and other steel sections. The sides and ends are minimal and there is no roof. The load is carried longitudinally and borne by three or more bolsters (half baulks of timber) fixed transversely. The load is constrained sideways by movable metal stanchions fitted into the ends of the bolsters, and secured with chains and shackles.
A bogie bolster has both bogies and bolsters.
Bogies are four-wheeled, articulated carriages beneath the main load bed. They allow a long wagon to carry long loads, but still have individually short wheelbases, and so go round tight curves.
Bolsters are baulks of timber fixed across the bed. The bed is thus not flat, but most loads such as girders, rails, timber lengths, signal posts etc. are stiff enough that they only need to be supported at intervals, not continuously across a flat planked bed. The space between baulks allows room for tie-down chains or lifting straps, making the bolster design easier to work with than a completely flat bed.
Bolsters could be fixed in place, or be removable. Some had as many as five bolsters. [1] Some designs had multiple sockets and a pair of bolsters could be moved between them. The bolsters could even be allowed to swivel around a central locating pin, and curved steel rubbing strips on the wagon deck. [1] The design of bogie bolster wagons had developed from earlier timber wagons, which were short four-wheeled wagons, each carrying a single swivelling bolster. [2] A pair of such wagons could carry a large tree trunk to a sawmill, but they required either the tree to take the full tension of the train, [lower-roman 1] or a suitable number of match wagons to be marshalled between the two bolster wagons. The long, but relatively lightweight, bogie bolster replaced that arrangement with a single wagon.
Most designs also had "stakes", which are removable vertical steel bars to restrain a load from rolling or sliding sideways. They could be either fixed through the bolsters, or inserted into pockets along the edge girders of the wagon body. [lower-roman 2]
Bolster wagons are relatively lightweight. Heavier well wagons, used for machinery loads, had deeper and stronger side girders. They had a cranked side profile, so that the centre of gravity was of the load was lower. Bogie bolsters could carry typical loads of 15 or 30 long tons (16.8 or 33.6 short tons; 15.2 or 30.5 t). [3]
The GWR telegraphic code word for a bogie bolster was 'Macaw'. [4] Other codes for specific types were 'Beaver' or 'Gane'.
Bogie bolsters were particularly useful for permanent way loads, such as rail. Many such wagons were not part of the railway's commercial stock, but were included as part of departmental stock (stock used for engineering works on the railway itself).
Codes for these wagons included 'Salmon', Bobol [5] and 'Gane' [4]
A number of bogie bolsters have been preserved on British heritage railways, as they are convenient for moving rails, telegraph poles and other permanent way loads. [5] [6]
A bogie is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transport. A bogie may remain normally attached or be quickly detachable. It may include a suspension component within it, or be solid and in turn be suspended ; it may be mounted on a swivel, as traditionally on a railway carriage or locomotive, additionally jointed and sprung, or held in place by other means.
The railway track or permanent way is the elements of railway lines: generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers or ties embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. It is described as permanent way because in the earlier days of railway construction, contractors often laid a temporary track to transport spoil and materials about the site; when this work was substantially completed, the temporary track was taken up and the permanent way installed.
A flatcar (US) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted on a pair of bogies under each end. The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads. Flatcars designed for carrying machinery have sliding chain assemblies recessed in the deck.
The Loughor railway viaduct carries the West Wales Line across the River Loughor. It is adjacent, and runs parallel to, the Loughor road bridge. The 1880 viaduct was granted Grade II listed building status. Before it was demolished in early 2013, the viaduct was the last remaining timber viaduct designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
The Eaton Hall Railway was an early 15 in gauge minimum gauge estate railway built in 1896 at Eaton Hall in Cheshire. The line, which connected the Grosvenor estate with sidings at Balderton on the GWR Shrewsbury to Chester Line about 3 miles (4.8 km) away, opened in 1896. It was built for the Duke of Westminster by Sir Arthur Percival Heywood, who had pioneered the use of 15 in gauge with his Duffield Bank Railway at his house at Duffield, Derbyshire in 1874.
Open wagons form a large group of railway goods wagons designed primarily for the transportation of bulk goods that are not moisture-retentive and can usually be tipped, dumped or shovelled. The International Union of Railways (UIC) distinguishes between ordinary wagons and special wagons (F/6). Open wagons often form a significant part of a railway company's goods wagon fleet; for example, forming just under 40% of the Deutsche Bahn's total goods wagon stock in Germany.
Great Western Railway telegraphic codes were a commercial telegraph code used to shorten the telegraphic messages sent between the stations and offices of the railway.
Flat wagons, as classified by the International Union of Railways (UIC), are railway goods wagons that have a flat, usually full-length, deck and little or no superstructure. By contrast, open wagons have high side and end walls and covered goods wagons have a fixed roof and sides. Flat wagons are often designed for the transportation of goods that are not weather-sensitive. Some flat wagons are able to be covered completely by tarpaulins or hoods and are therefore suitable for the transport of weather-sensitive goods. Unlike a "goods wagon with opening roof", the loading area of a flat is entirely open and accessible once the cover is removed.
Baulk road is the name given to a type of railway track or 'rail road' that is formed using rails carried on continuous timber bearings, as opposed to the more familiar 'cross-sleeper' track that uses closely spaced sleepers or ties to give intermittent support to stronger rails.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of both 4-wheel and bogie open wagons for the transport of a wide range of loads.
The fleet of Great Western Railway wagons was both large and varied as it carried the wide variety of goods traffic on the Great Western Railway (GWR) in the United Kingdom. This was the railway company that operated for the longest period of time in the country and covered a large geographical area that included big cities such as London, industrialised areas including the West Midlands, areas of coal and mineral mining such as South Wales, and Somerset and other important agricultural districts. In 1902 the company owned 59,036 wagons, and by 1926 this had risen to 88,580.
Unlike the broad-gauge, the Victorian Railways' 2 ft 6 in narrow-gauge network never had four-wheeled trucks. Instead, a single design of 249 underframes was constructed, with identical structure, bogies, couplers and brake equipment. Different bodies were provided on these frames for each purpose. The most common, by far, was the convertible flat/open truck, followed by cattle, louvred, insulated and boxcar types.
The Victorian Railways in Australia have had a vast range of hopper-type wagons over the last century, for transporting anything from grains through fuel to various powders.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of boxcars or covered goods wagons for the transport of all manner of goods. This page covers the history and development of the various classes, and how they changed through their lives.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of air-cooled and iced wagons for the transport of all manner of goods. This page covers the history and development of the various classes, and how they changed through their lives.
A new wagon numbering system was adopted in Indian Railways in 2003. Wagons are allocated 11 digits, making it easy for identification and computerization of a wagon's information. The first two digits indicate Type of Wagon, the third and fourth digits indicate Owning Railway Zone, the fifth and sixth digits indicate Year of Manufacture, the seventh through tenth digits indicate Individual Wagon Number, and the last digit is a Check digit.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of flat wagons for the transport of a wide range of loads. Generally speaking, the bogie wagons were custom-built for the job, while the fixed-wheel variants were cut down from former open wagons. Loadings would be placed on the deck and, if necessary, protected with tarps, then secured to the wagons with chains or rope connecting to lashing rings along the side of the wagon frames.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of former traffic wagons around depots and for specific construction, maintenance and similar tasks. Very few of these vehicles were specially constructed from scratch, often instead recycling components or whole wagon bodies and frames from old vehicles that had been withdrawn from normal service as life-expired or superseded by a better design.
Bogie bolster may refer to
A pocket wagon is a freight wagon that has been specially designed for the transport of truck semi-trailers. This wagon belongs to the group of flat wagons in special design with bogies and is used in combined transport (CT). The name of these freight wagons comes from the fact that between the narrow longitudinal girders on the outside and also lengthways between the bogies, the so-called pockets are located, in which the wheels of the semi-trailers are particularly low. For flexible use in CT, pocket wagons have hinged latches with ISO spigots on the solebar, so that containers and swap bodies up to 45 ft can be accommodated. As a flat wagon, it bears the UIC generic letter S and, since it is intended for the transport of road vehicles on one level, the code letter d. Since it is also possible to transport containers in a pocket wagon, it bears the UIC generic mark Sdgs. In this context, the code letter g stands for "containers up to 60 feet" and the lower case s for the permitted speed of up to 100 km/h (62 mph). The wagons have a yellow triangle with a black P on the long side. The first pocket wagons were built in Germany as early as 1972 and further developed according to requirements.
