NCC six-wheeled open wagon

[jhb171achill]

Before I start, MODS - there was some time back a thread where drawings / plans of locos & rolling stock could be posted; what follows better belongs there. I can't find it, so perhaps you might lift all this and deposit it under a more logical heading?

Anyway; I came across this, which may be of interest. It's a Belfast & Northern Counties six-wheeled open wagon, which would make a nice addition to any NCC / UTA layout. These were not all that common - obviously the standard four wheelers were more common, but the NCC and GNR(I) seem to have had somewhat more six-wheeled opens than other railways. While GNR ones were to conventional design, the NCC ones were a throwback - like many of their wagons - to a quite antiquated BNCR design.

The Irish wagon scene is thankfully getting much needed attention these days, with IRM, SSM, Provincial, KMCE, IFM and other manufacturers making (primarily) kits. However, for all too long it was the neglected child - while we (rightly) drooled over loco offerings and coaches, we'd see layouts with repaints of BR wagons, which in almost all cases - including their pre-grouping ancestors, are no more like Irish designs than an ICR is like "Maedb", or a bubble wagon like a Donegal railcar. A few years ago, we saw Nelson, of this parish (where are you, Nelson?) produce some excellent scratchbuilt NCC wagons, but apart from that, any replication of the very unique goods stock of this system has been left to Provincial's brown van, and little else.

Northern goods stock is overall a neglected thing - many BCDR wagons were also of designs simply not seen elsewhere. So here is a six-wheeled NCC wagon, examples of which outlived the BNCR into LMSNCC and early UTA days. Jhb171senior had them rostered on ballast trains on the NCC in the 1940s.

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by jhb171achill

[Northroader]

Very nice job, begging to be modelled. Two things strike me, it’s an old NCC wagon, yet it’s got the axleguards behind the solebars and the springs instead of in front; then for a sixwheeler there doesn’t appear to be any provision for sideways movement on the centre wheelset? -and the brakeshoe is acting on the centre, too.

(Nelson was producing great models, but he was at the growing up stage where you discover women and booze, good luck with that, matey. He’ll be back, I’m sure.)

Edited July 14, 2022 by Northroader

[jhb171achill]

Not sure how they dealt with wheel play!

I believe that in this diagram it’s in its final form in the 1950s. Like other NCC stock of older age, it kept its BNCR numberplates. 

[Dun Aucht]

Eventually found the Henry Casserley photograph of the 6 wheel NCC wagon at Cookstown after having data recovered from my previous PC which crashed.