Diagram 65 20ton Loco Coal Wagon, Steel Body & Frame

As the drawing below shows the wagon is constructed from thin galvanised steel sheets braced with T and angle section irons riveted together with ½in rivets. The under-frame is constructed from channel section steel. The 7-plate springs are rated to carry the required load and the whole is supported on 10in by 5in journals running in oil boxes. All 62 of these wagons were built in 1902 presumably at Crewe where the technology resided rather than at the Earlestown Wagon Works.

Numbers 71533 to 71594 are recorded in the Wagon Diagram Book.

The article comments on the tare weight, 8T 1¾Cwts, which is low for a vehicle capable of carrying 20 tons. In the same vein a Loco. & Eng. Committee minute, no. 19075, dated 14.6.01 recommended their construction and claimed that used in a 600T capacity train they would provide a saving of 93 tons dead weight and of 420 ft on the length of the train in comparison with the standard 10ton Loco Coal Wagon.

The above drawing of the unusual all-steel wagon is credited to Mr F W Webb and the design is likened to that of LNW locomotive tenders which also were constructed from galvanised steel plate.

Railway Engineer Feb. 1903 pages 58/9

An official photograph of the unusual all steel D65 Loco Coal wagon. The brakes on the wagon in this photograph are a variant of the ‘Vee Brake’ with round section pushrods. Compare these with the clasp ones operating only on the outside of the wheels in the drawing above. All known photographs show vehicles with pushrod brakes so we must presume that there was a change between design and production.

Other phoptographs are as follows: a) A G Ellis collection No. 23341 of no. 71580 b) HMRS AAH 316 (ex-JPR negative) no. 271588 c) A.G. Ellis collection no. 23398 of no. 71590 d) ? ex-JPR neg. X57D?, of no. 271563 e) NRM York ETN/80 & 80A of no. 71592.