The Railway Wagon

A Railway Wagon has kindly been donated to Claymills by the Midland Railway Trust.

Most of the coal for the boilers was delivered to Claymills by railway and then shovelled out of the wagons into the bunkers in the boiler house. The wagons were hauled in and out of the boiler house by a steam driven winch.

It is our intention to set up a winch (hopefully the original one) to haul a wagon along the short section of track that remains within the pumping station. To achieve this demonstration, we also needed a wagon. Several of our members have close links with MRT and a request was made. A wagon was selected and after a day's shunting was moved to a location where it could be loaded onto a lorry and brought to Claymills.

The wagon in storage at the MRT, complete with trees.

On the move... The wagon was stored the "wrong" side of the historic carriage workshop and had to be shunted through the building.

The plan was for the lorry to lift it over our fence and straight onto the tracks, but unfortunately the lorry was unable to lift it high enough, so the wagon was unloaded in the yard. After careful planning & risk assessment, we then pulled the wagon round the engine house to a location where restoration could commence.

The railway siding has been one our storage areas for a number of years. (The wooden sides & roof of the Joiner's shop had been stored there.) After the area had been cleared, the wagon was finally moved onto the tracks on 17th January 2004 and is now under cover. The wagon seems huge, now it is inside - it occupies almost half the entire indoor siding!

Restoration can now continue in much more pleasant conditions!
While the wagon was outside, the whole of the rotten floor was removed, together with some of the framework.
This required the removal of the rusty tie bars and buffer springs.


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