SMR - Freight Stock

1. The oldest vehicle on the line was a four-wheel truck for the driver to sit on behind the original tank engine. This vehicle was built at Sheffield and moved with the line to Saltwood. It was not for passengers, so is probably best listed here.

2. The first ‘genuine’ freight vehicle was a four-wheel open wagon. Technically a 3-plank (!) wagon, it was in scale terms a 7-plank wagon. This vehicle was used extensively at Sheffield for freight work in connection with gardening and also railway maintenance. In those days the railway had just one 2-seater passenger coach, and there is photographic evidence that this first freight wagon was often pressed into service to carry a passenger! There is no known photographic evidence that this vehicle came to Saltwood - but see below.

4. In 1987 when the line closed, only one freight vehicle remained on the line - this was the charming and eccentric “Wire Brush Truck”. This vehicle was certainly in use at the time of the temporary closure of the line, at the start of the 70s, but probably much longer, as it appeared very old. It was a four-wheel truck in plain brown livery, and it had wire brushes attached to the underside of the frame. It was used for track cleaning, and was therefore weighed down with a heavy load of rocks and rubble.

3. The only bogie freight vehicle ever to work on the line was a beautifully built scale model of a Great Western Railway ‘siphon’ van. This was an attractive addition to the rolling stock and looked good - but it was also a very practical vehicle, designed to run behind “Trojan” in order to separate the passengers from the engine, due to this locomotive’s reputation for producing a somewhat wet exhaust! Once Trojan had been relegated to ‘second engine’ the siphon van was broken up and her frame & bogies reused - as described on the Passenger Coaches page of this site.

The WBT mystery: Was the Wire Brush Truck the same vehicle as the original Sheffield open wagon? Some evidence says ‘yes’ - the two vehicles appear identical in photographs. Evidence from David Harris places the Wire Brush Truck at Saltwood at least as early as the late 1960s.

Couldn’t Alex Schwab have solved the mystery?: Well, no actually. The author spoke to Alex Schwab around about 1984, and asked him directly whether the WBT was the same vehicle as the Sheffield open wagon - the owner’s response was that he honestly couldn’t remember!

And why is it important?: Simply for this reason - if the Sheffield open wagon did come to Saltwood, and survive all those years, and find a new life as the Wire Brush Truck then it becomes the only vehicle of any sort to have operated in original condition and form throughout the entire life of the railway, from the beginnings in Sheffield, to the closure in Saltwood 67 years later. Quite a history!

5. At Sheffield there was a snow-plough, consisting of a large double blade mounted on a three-sided, four-wheeled truck. This gave the appearance of a snow plough fashioned out of a redundant locomotive tender, in line with British railway practice. Little is known of this vehicle, although there is photographic evidence that it existed, and even that it was used! There is no evidence that it moved to Saltwood with the rest of the railway.