Bullion Wagons

[Big Jim]

As the current vile weather has put a stop to construction of the PMR and a spot of bad heath has slowed all my modelling down to a virtual standstill. I have spent a bit of time thinking about the line and in particular what a narrow gauge line in this area would have been built to carry.
Stone is the obvious one as there are or were quite a few quarries in the area. Timber is another.

What is not so widely known is that this part of Wales also produced a fair amount of lead ore and where you get lead you get silver.

Now silver extraction in the area was never profitable and never on a large scale but for many years people went bust trying.

Also gold was mined commercially. Dolaucothi mines near Lampeter are still open as a tourist attraction and were worked profitably until WWII. With attempts to restart production as late as the 1970's.

Other smaller gold mines existed in the area as well.

Anyway this lead me to think about the possibilities of a few wagons on the PMR for the transportation of these prized metals.

I know there were lines in other parts of the world that carried gold and silver but did any of the British lines?

Has anyone got any thoughts on how these should be carried, or better still know of any 'security wagons' that ran on any British NG railway?

[MDLR]

I don't think they ever did - the quantities produced were so small that they could've been carried in a stongbox bolted to the Guard's van floor.

I once had an idea for a railway which served a bumph mine and refinery - the product was shipped out in vans and all sold to the Government!

[sstjc]

Don't know if this is of any help and I know its stateside but this link takes you to a page about Bullion Canyon. If you hover your mouse over the main picture some arrows appear and by clicking on them you eventually come across a picture of two wagons. These are not too far removed from those used in the welsh slate industry. I'm thinking particularly of the penrhyn rubbish wagon. So thinking logically (illogically ?) variations on many of the penrhyn stock would work.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/fishl ... width=full

[MuzTrem]

The GWR had at least one SG bullion van - I remember seeing a colour photograph of it in Steam World some years ago. Perhaps the design could have been scaled down for the Corris, VoR or W&L?

[laalratty]

The Vale of Rheidol was built to serve a silver lead mine, but I don't think the traffic from it amounted to very much, certainly not enough to go for specialist wagons

[Marquis DeCarabas]

Plenty of examples of Cape Gauge bullion wagons around - not just for precious bullion either. One example is the WAGR VY vans: LINK, other example of higher-security NG products would be the yellowcake trains on the RGS during the Manhatten Project.

[Big Jim]

Thanks for the input gents.
I know in 'real life' any amount of Bullion carried by most lines would probably be small enough to fit in a small box bolted to the floor of the Guards van.
But a little flight of fancy now and again can't hurt
I think there may be a special safe van constructed for the PMR just in case the Great Gwilli Gold Rush does occur, after all it pays to be prepared. And there are villains in the local area, most notably Dai Version the well known distraction burglar.