Detective Flugel - by kerry Young

19th July 2007

Excellent! It was supposed to rain, but it held off. The day was of unusual interest because of the imminent departure of the unit, necessitating the total clearing of the branch line to allow access to the main line beyond. Thus several wagons that do not usually feature in these notes made an appearance on the scene.

Just before we look at the changing scene, let's have a look at final work being done in the unit, prior to departure.................

Here's Joe Pickering removing the seat squabs for storage. In the event that the unit does go to Wellington for temporarily return to service, later style seating will be installed. Meantime, the unit will go to the local Linwood Loco Dept, there to undergo the final acceptance checks for probable return to service.

A short time ago, this guards compartment was full of spare parts. You couldn't see the walls.

Road two of the workshop and this sad carriage from the branch line will hopefully get its roof covered while here. When retired from service, it was a 'works' car, but I have no information as to it's use. The underframe (chassis) still has it's brass 'identity' plug, so proving its provenance...............

The original plug reads 'A 1535 (of) 1925.

After conversion to a 'works' car we have EA 3178 of 1969. Note the incorrect stampings too!

1381 second class. So that's not a matching carbody.

But those bogies??....................

These are the 'deluxe' bogies, having four fully elliptic springs and the three side springs, to give an improved ride. Incidentally, this is 'two bar' bogie. (That's the two longitudinal bars carrying the sprung load to the axle boxes.)

Now for another interesting vehicle.....................

Here's the two tank wagons that usually sit at the far end of the branch near Big Daddys main line to Lyttelton. Let's look a bit harder at the nearer one.

An interesting stencil on the side.

The identification brass plug on the chassis shows it is 'Ua 501' An early 'Ua' wagon.

This valve shows it to be a pressure vessel, rated to 125 psi according to the plate. The Pressure Rating plate looks the same as a boiler rating plate and can just be seen at the bottom of the round end plate. There are a number of other expensive looking brass fittings adorning this tank. So why confined to Greymouth and return? Why was I not surprised to learn the story from Sir Colin? Turns out this is a special wagon to carry pressurised town coal gas from Christchurch to Greymouth for the purpose of charging the lighting gas cylinders of carriages over there at the time they used gas lighting for carriages. How's that for something different? Sadly, I omitted to picture the bogies, which are to a very early design. The only ones of their type I have seen.

The other tank wagon was a rather more conventional diesel wagon on roller bearing trucks. Seems the taggers have found it.

Being curious, I just had to take a closer look at the carriage generator lying on the workshop floor. So I slipped off the end cover. It gets more interesting when you look more endwise on...............

This gets all sorts of interesting. For those not familiar with the setup, the brush holder can freely rotate through 180 degrees. This is accomplished simply by rotating the armature. How many have already said....."So that's how they re-arrange the polarity when the carriage runs in the other direction!" And so it is. The look of the construction suggests it wasn't built yesterday. Now this is what I find fascinating, almost as good as tracing rolling stock numbers.

Now for your input. Two pictures of the same thing. One from Sir Colin and one from me. There's this one above and................

...............this one. Which do you prefer? Is there any difference? They were taken because as far as I'm aware, the Toshiba 'Ea's haven't been parked at the platform before.

There I'll leave you for this week. Next week, we may well have more detective work, this time on bogies. (Trucks for our American readers.) Cheers, 'K'.