Gravity train

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 6:58 pm

The first 9 wagons have been completed and are awaiting their loads (still undecided how to do these). They consist of 5 wooden bodied wagons and 3 coopercraft examples, with the chassis of another broken wagon that I found. From Spooner I have a list of which numbers the different types of wagons carried so these will be applied at some point along with markings to say which wagons would be used in which quarries. I plan to get around 15 more wagons at some point too, these will all be coopercraft. This is once I have finished negotiations and hopefully then payment for an exciting new loco!

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:52 pm

Wow they are excellent

,

I have just ordered 4 Coopercraft Slate Wagons and another Binnie one so my rake will stand at six but like you i plan to get more, alot more, are you going to motorise one of them to help get them to the top of the slope to begin with?or will you do this by loco?

Tom

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:59 pm

I will motorise one as i don't have my own line and people won't be too happy if I start 'playing' during a steamup. Putting a motor in will allow it to keep running round. It'll be something to use in between steam, in particular at bressingham when it is good to keep something going for the public.

90733 · Post by **90733** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:08 pm

Very Nice, I want to make a rake now

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:23 pm

I thought you might motorise one

please do a thread or take some pictures during motorisation as I would be very interested to see how you do it and how it turns out.

I dont know if its intentional or not or even if anyone else picked up on it but in the 1st picture, the 2nd and 6th wagons have red spacers between the bars and the 3rd, 4th and 7th have black spacers, is this one of the ways that the quarries colour coded their stock?

will you be including brakesmen and other items to make it more realistic?

I dont know if you know or anyone else does but was there a limit to the amount of wagons they could have in a gravity train or was it just the wagons that had slate in at the end of the day that formed the gravity train?

Tom

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:44 pm

In pictures some of the spacers are red, some are black, on some axelboxes and ironwork are also red oxide although none of mine are. The origionally ran 16 slate trains a day, this changed when locomotives were brought in and would have changed as there were less slates to bring down. I don't know if there was a limit, but the common amount seems to be around 50, I can see this many causing problems in our scale though so I'll stick to around 20/25. I'm sure you know that the empties were brought up on the rear of passenger trains (origionally the loaded ones also gravitated back down with the carriages until this practice was quickly banned) so there were a few gravtiy trains a day, not sure exactly how many though. I will have a couple of brakesmen, there are many more on the current gravity trains because of health and safety, origionally the brakesmen would run along the top of the wagons applying/releasing brakes when neccessary. Pretty scary on top of cei mawr I expect! I have an account of a brakesman somewhere.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:57 pm

oh ok i see, i thought it was one of the ways you were colour coding them

16 slate trains a day running with about 50 wagons each?

now thats alot of slate

and i spose they were all cut down and neatly stacked in each wagon?

I wasnt going to go stupid 10/15 would do me i think

maybe a few more

I knew about the empties being brought up on the back as i had seem some pictures of that happening, i didnt know they did it with the coaches too, i presume they were the quarrymans coaches?

Health and safety ey? what it used to be like in the past, wouldnt get away with any of that today

running along the top sounds scary, i have only seen pictures and the countryfile piece on the gravity slate trains and i thought they all just sat down on the wagons that had brakes, CEI MAWR? i guess thats really high, or bendy or a sheer drop?

Tom

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 11:14 pm

Here's a link to the FR wiki site and the page on cei mawr although you might find other areas interesting...http://www.festipedia.org.uk/w/index.php/Cei_Mawr
Believe it or not it was passenger trains that were run down by gravity, with slate wagons going first, although this was very quickly banned and I don't think any pictures exist. Theres information about slate trains on that site too

90733 · Post by **90733** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 6:58 am

Tom wrote:16 slate trains a day running with about 50 wagons each?
Tom

Well they did have around 2000 slate wagons

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:05 am

after replying to you last night I did type Cei Mawr into Google and its came up with the Ffestipedia Site, i now know what you mean and i wouldnt like to be running along the tops of wagons going across it. :D

Well them being passenger trains does change the situation a little bit and i can see why they would ban it :)

Well they did have around 2000 slate wagons

i did know they had 2000 plus all the other ones from the other mines and quarries, i was just getting at the fact, that just think how much slate that actually is, that must be a riduclous amount in excess of 100+ Tonnes :D :o :P It just goes to show how much of a logistical excercise it was, and the grand scale at which it was happening

TonyW · Post by **TonyW** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 11:25 am

taliesin001 wrote:... but the common amount seems to be around 50 ...

From Festiniog Railway Gravity Trains by Peter Johnson:
"Normally there were two brakesmen on a train, and three if there were more than 80 wagons..."

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 8:45 pm

TonyW wrote: more than 80 wagons...

now thats a huge amount of slate and a very heavy train!

SillyBilly · Post by **SillyBilly** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:36 pm

Our eventual aim is to have a train 100 waggons long, currently it stands at 38, hopefully 40 in October.

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:09 pm

Got the complete rake out today to see how it all looked together. I think you will agree it looks quite good, although I definately need a few more slate wagons. Money is tight at the moment after buying russell so this project will come to a halt for a while until I can raise funds for a few more.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:26 pm

WOW! they're excellent

they both look really good together, cant wait till you get some more slate wagons.

I forgot to ask in one the of the first post's, what do you use for coupling the slate wagons together? or do you just use the ones supplied?

Im still waiting on my 5

is the people who run Coopercraft on holiday at the moment, been waiting for some bits for about 5 weeks now

Cheers

Tom

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:30 pm

I use the ones supplied, but make them a bit tighter, but not too tight or they won't get round the tighter corners! I haven't run them yet so don't know if this works.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:34 pm

Ok, i havent fitted any to my other coopercraft wagons yet as i wanted to see whats best and what works first

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:09 pm

I probably didn't make that clear, I forgot that you can also make the coopercraft wagons to use 3 link couplings, I use the single link at one end and link and hook at the other.

Pendo Pilot · Post by **Pendo Pilot** » Tue Aug 31, 2010 9:14 pm

Very nice indeed, a good mix of types. Hopefully you will get to finish it , will certainly be nice to see.

taliesin001 · Post by **taliesin001** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 6:48 pm

First run of the first slate wagons today with the whole rake. At first there were a few derailments. This was expected as they have no weight at all just yet, I want to add proper lead weights underneath rather than the coopercraft ones which don't really work. Once loading the wagons with a few plant pot feet they ran much better, only the first wagon came off because of the makeshift coupling, they were different heights so when the wagon and brake van came together suddenly the front wagon would be pulled up, often pulling it off the track, the coupling adapter for the brakevan will be completed for next time. Even got the oppurtunity to try and run a semi prototypical FR train with a russell at the front.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Garden Railway Forum

Gravity train

Gravity train

Who is online