Accurascale has unveiled ambitious plans to produce a series of Chaldron wooden framed coal wagons, as its next ‘OO’ gauge project.
Heading up its ‘Powering Britain' range of wagons that have helped fuel Britain through the years, these pioneering two-axle wooden bodied open wagons enjoyed a remarkable career spanning some 150 years, first appearing in the 1820s and were utilised on coal traffic in the North East coalfields.
Their characteristic name came from the unit of measurement, equating to 53cwt, which was also used as the standard carrying capacity of a wagon into the mid-1850s, when three tons became the new standard. The name stuck with them. Around 1860, four-ton examples with new body outlines were pioneered by the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company and Londonderry Colliery Railway and became known as ‘Black Waggons’. By the mid-19th century, as well as the North East hotspot, examples could be found at work in Cornwall and Scotland.
By 1867, the North Eastern Railway (NER) had around 34,000 wagons in its fleet, following absorption of other companies, although many were offloaded to local collieries over the next few years. By the turn…
