Grover's Bogies.

As the railways expanding across the state and with new lines being built from many coastal centres, it didn’t take long before six wheeled rollingstock was being ordered for the various networks. Some of this rollingstock was in excess of 40 ft. long. Up and down the coastal plains with larger radius curves, there operation was satisfactory. As the lines expanded towards the west and with the need to cross over the Great Diving Range, smaller radius curves were required. These range sections had curves as small as 5 and 4 chains. Not the best operating conditions for long six wheeled vehicles. Short four wheeled and bogies wagons operated on these sections with minimal issues.

 AHRS Bulletin No. 438 – April 1974 contains an article on “Radial Wheeled Rollingstock on the Queensland Railways” written by J. W. Knowles. The article indicates a number of radial wheel arrangements were used. The first being the “The Adams’ Radial Axle Box. Others included the “Clarks Radial System” and the “The Cleminson System”. From time to time one system was swapped for another.  By 1884, there was around 246 six wheeled vehicles in service across the various lines. (48 - B, 65 – E, 37 – G, 27 – J, 10 – M, 12 – O, 27 – R, 10 – X, 10 gunpowder van). 196 were Cleminson system with the remainder being the Clark system. By 1913 there was only 23 remaining in service, all were gone by 1914. Many were scrapped, modified to bogie wagons, some cut in two to make smaller four wheeled wagons, many were fitted with Grover’s bogies.

The Grover’s Bogie patented by J. W. Grover in 1870 entered service on the QR in 1879. Grover’s bogies are a two wheeled (one axle) arrangement which pivoted in the centre to the wagon floor, both bogies are joined diagonal with rods. On a curve the rods pull the bogies in the opposite direction to steer the wagon around the curve. Between 1879 and 1881, 16 Adams’ wagon were converted and fitted with Grover’s bogies.  These wagon were 20 ft. over the body. In 1880 the Northern Railway (Townsville) imported five wagons from the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company fitted with Grover’s bogies.     

 

Over the following years various contracts of wagons entered service fitted with Grover’s bogies.

ABG Butter Wagons built around 1900 (115 built), Some were altered to carry cheese ABGC/ABGX, ABGF fruit, ABGCP perishables.

ALG Louvred wagons in service around 1900 (784 built).

AG Box Wagons built around 1905 (248 built). 

FG Open sided wagons built around 1906 (2639 built).

FGM Open sided wagons to carry cars built around 1911. (246 built).

FGW Water Wagons, (plan date 1917) numbers altered due to requirements. 1924 – 192 in service, 179 in service 1930, 236 in service 1945-46. Between 1946 and 1957, up to 40 ran as WGF platform wagons. 

MG sheep/pig wagons built around 1913, (129 built).

SG Timber wagon in service around 1915 (26 built).

ZG horse box wagon (1885) had two stall, 64 in service. In 1916 three stall wagons entered service, in 1922 they were reclassed to ZXG. As this traffic declined most were converted to runner as ZGR, ZXGR. The ZGR were fitted with 7” x 3” journals, and were rated as a 5 ton axle load, the ZXGR were fitted with 8” x 4” journals and were rated as 8 ton axle load.  

Others wagons fitted with Grover’s bogies included BG Box wagons, ICG cattle wagons, QG platform / runner wagons. 

Most wagon had a 20 ft. body with 12 ft. wheel centres. A few like the ABG wagons had a 16 ft. body with 11 ft. wheel centres.  Some runners had even a shorter wheel centres.

ABGC for cheese.

ABG at Landsborough for Maleny butter.

Butter was conveyed from various SEQ towns to the Butter Board at Hamilton.

Some other locations others were Kingston, Beaudesert, Esk, Oakey, Caboolture, Eumundi, Cooroy, Mumbubbera. 

QR drawing suggest in their early days some of these wagons had roof ice hatches.

ABGF Fruit wagon.

 FG open goods wagon

From 1969 most goods wagons were painted grey, for many wooden wagons the number was moved from the solebar to the sides.

FG 7362 with empty 44 gal. drums. Cannon Hill. 

FGM open goods wagon with ends that fold down for end loading of cars.

AG covered goods wagons.

AG Camp Wagon Redbank. 

Some early AG and ALG wagons were 16 ft. over body with 11 ft. wheel centres. 

Do you like the gutter on the side for collecting water and the down pipe to a tank in the corner.  The pole beside the door is most likely a radio aerial, going back a year or two before TV, workers in isolated locations stay connected to the world listening to the local radio station.  

 Some AG had doors similar to the sides.

 There were a couple different door types on ALG wagons.

ALG with a louvred style of door

This photo illustrates the most common style of ALG wagon.

AG and ALG placed for loading. 

This illustration shows how wagons can be used in operations adding a reason for your railway. A truck can be placed on the layout besides a siding marking the location for placement of a wagon for loading/unloading. Next time you run the layout, the truck can be removed indicating the wagon is ready to be added to a train. This practice occurred at most public loading locations across the rail network, like station yards or isolated siding with vehicle access. 

Double swing door style ALG wagon. These wagons had a canvas roof.

BG 11914 Ipswich 1958. Service 1913 – 1973

Reclassed in 1972 to EBG.

From 1972, wagons in explosive were identified with “E” in front of their class. 

I have only viewed two photos of these wagons, both were different and they different to the QR Plan. 

MG sheep/calf/pig wagon.

ZGR runner wagon with low sides.

Marking show the wagon tare is 4 Tons 6 cwt. Carry shown 5 Tons 11 cwt. Gross of 10 Tons, wagon fitted with 7” x 3” journals. 

ZGR runner wagon with open low sides.

ZXGR platform runner wagon

ZGR wagon being used as a shunt runner. Scrap added for extra weight.

ZGR Ipswich Workshop shunt runner. 

Most of the runners don’t have truss rods.

QG 9706 wagon with swivel bolster.

Drawing 2519 Wagon Plan P 186 shows some QG wagons were only 14 ft. long with 9 ft bogies centres.  Drawing 720 Wagon Plan P 185 shows a 20 ft. wagon with 13 ft. bogie centres.

FGP wagon. 

SG wagon. 

Overview of Grover’s Bogies in service.

Type	1935	1945	1955	1965	1970	1973
Box wagons	1113	1058	1002	837	411	194
Open wagons	2847	2662	2130	1255	434	173
Livestock Wagons	192	137	134	131	107	100
Timber Wagons	44	31	31	15	7	4
Water Wagons	177	236	229	169	157	146
Total	4373	4124	3526	2397	1116	617
% of wagon stock	23	20	13	9	5	3

30^th of June 1960, the following wagon numbers were shown in the Annual Report.

ABG	ABGX	ABGF	AG	ALG	FG	FGM	FGP	ICG	MG
90	7	4	154	691	1624	161	27	5	127

 

QG	SG	ZR/ZXR	FGW	FGWP
11	12	36	178	2

Shown in the service vehicle section of the report is 38 Runners consisting the following classes, ZR, ZXR, ZGR, and ZXGR wagons. The line below shows another 15 - 4 wheeled runner. The ZR/ZXR wagons in the table above are shown as Goods vehicles. 

BG Explosive wagons were included with A, AG classes, 15 wagons across the three classes in service. 

The report showed there was 23,167 Goods wagons, 2,204 Livestock wagons and 2,036 Service wagons, all up 27,407 wagons in service at that time. 

Some remained is service until the withdrawal of wooden wagons in the mid 1980’s. Many were service (camp/material wagons) vehicles by this time.  

At first the bogies were constructed from wood and the wheelsets had 7” x 3” journals, giving a 5 ton axle load. Later the bogies were made of steel and the wheelsets has 8” x 4” journals lifting the axle load to 8 tons. 

The wagons were restricted to 35 MPH or 60 Km/h and could be found on Goods and Mixed trains.

In derailments, the bogie was very acceptable to damage.

At speed the wagons had a tenancy to hunt, side buffers and a tight screw coupling kept this in check.  

Wagons fitted with these bogies can be identified with a “G” in their classification as above. In later years the letter also identified a wagon modified for grain, i.e. VJMG, HSAG, VAOG. In the early 1970’s “G” wagons were gondolas type wagon built for mineral traffic, G, GH, GO.

 Models.

The following wagons are Chiver’s Fine Scale Kits that were available a few years back (Mid 1990's). 

AG wagon.

AG Kit modified into a Camp Wagon.

Wagon was fitted with working bogies

ALG wagon Kit. Single sliding door type.

ALG wagon Kit. Double door type. The kit roof was changed to a canvas type.

FG wagon kit with a load of empty drums. Full drums are loaded upright on the floor.

Tichy Train Group drums have been used for the load. If you have an oil company on the layout, check out the colour of their drums.  

FGM wagon kit with a Kerroby Models Kit Massey Ferguson tractor load.

FGM wagon with Land Rover load. Dunnage has been left on the floor.

FG wagon with gang material load for plant operator.  Portable shower and toilet, water tank, grader blades, ripper were scratch built. Some drums of fuel and oil have been added. The wagon usually runs on the layout with the AG camp wagon above.  

FGW drinking water wagon. The wagon was scratch built onto a Chiver’s Fine Scale platform wagon kit. 

When these wagons were built, I fitted Kadee H0n3 couplings. The method in my madness was the prototype were fitted with D4 drawgear, bottom of the drawgear classification list. Wagon with this classification were marshalled towards the rear of the train. The smaller coupling would give me the same restrictions in my operations. It didn’t really work, the small coupling did what should occur, they kept coming apart when shunting strings of wagons. Most were converted to Kadee # 158 scale whisker coupling.    

For some years I have had a few kits in the drawer for a rainy day, along came Covid with lockdowns etc. Time to go looking to see what’s in the drawer. 

Since I built the first batch of wagons, I joined NMRA to attend conventions to learn new skills. The Achievement Program was undertaken which gave me the opportunity to look and valuate other modellers work, this has caused me to look at my modelling and adopting new standards for the layout to improve operations and modelling in general. Additional detail has been added to this batch of wagons. If Covid continues for much longer and I will run out of kits to do, I can revisit some of the first batch of wagons I build and add more detail to further enhance them a bit more. 

The wagon has been fitted with Caintode Flats buffers, Queensland Railway Miniatures brake hoses and Kadee # 158 couplings.

The plan was to run the wagon empty, as above the total mass is 8 grams. Lead sheet was packed into all available spots to lift the total mass to 32 grams.

FG and FGM wagons kits are shown on the PGC Scale Models website. Not sure of their availability

Cheiver’s fine scale underframe kit was used for the running gear, frame and tank were scratch built using styrene. Queensland Railway Miniatures detailing parts were used to detail the wagon. The water filler was turned up in the lathe. Caintode Flat buffers, brake cylinder and Kadee # 158 were used on the business end of the wagon. Lead sheet was added during construction of the tank, the wagon mass is 32 grams. The canvas side delivery hose is a washed used tea bag cut to size and painted with Vallejo acrylic.     

Queensland Railway Miniatures has a very nice kit of this wagon.

 ZXGR runner wagon.

ZXGR wagon with raised sides.

Same materials were used for the two ZXGR wagons.

This BG wagon was scratch built using the underfame kit. 

The kit allows you assemble the underframe with or without truss rods.

Delrin wheel bearing are included in the parts resulting in a free running wheel with no sideways movements in the wheelset. 

Caintode Flats etch brass MG wagon kit.

January 2018 blog has more information on this wagon. 

Caintode Flats ABG wagon kit. The kit is also available with roof ice hatches.

Caintode Flats Grover’s bogie is available as a separate item. The bogie has been manufactured to allow the fitting of couplings when the bogie is mounted near the end of the wagon as like the ABG. With these bogies being available many of the Grover’s bogies wagon can be scratch built today. I have some on order with a small project in mind, maybe a later post. 

In the October 1997 Australian Model Railway Magazine, Paul Blake illustrates how he made “Compensation Grover’s Bogies”. One end is fixed and the other end rocks side to side.  Paul indicated the modification allowed the empty wagon to operate satisfactory on the layout. 

This was something I wanted to try out, I’m not a big fan of four wheeled wagons when it comes to operations. At the best of time you are limited with small strings when pushing and pulling in shunt moves. All wheels need to be square on the track to stand a chance for a derailment free session. Then troublesome trucks said the Fat Controller, and he is right. I place the wagon on a flat sheet of glass to see if there is any imbalance of rocking. 

I didn’t have the same material on hand as Paul, but I found something similar in the cupboard. A shim brass sheet 10 mm x 6 mm was used for the base plate for the floor of the wagon. A 6 mm long piece of 1.6 mm (OD) was soldered to the centre of the brass base plate. A length of •040 brass rod was used for the rocker. On one end, 5 mm of the rod was bent at 90°, the rod was passed through the tube and cut to length allowing for another 5 mm to be bent at 90°. The rocker assembly was fixed to the floor of the wagon with super glue along the centre line, Make sure the centre of the tube is the required distance for the correct wheelbase length. Holes to line up with the two protruding rocker arms with drilled on the bogie. The bogie was fitted and secured to the rocker was a small drop of super glue to hold the bogie into place for when the wagon was being lifted off the tracks. The mechanism gives the bogie just over 2 mm of rocking across the wagon floor. I guess time will tell if that is to much rock and side bearers (blocks) are required to reduce the amount of rock, maybe my track condition will play a part. The wagon was weighted to 32 grams and completed. 

 

 

On the layout at first the fixed end was giving some trouble on one or two sets of points. A check and adjustment to the back to back on the wheelset and all was good. After a couple of running session the wagon performance has been good without any issues.

 At the start I was talking about six wheeled wagons, there others on the network in a different format. In 1927 some rail motor trailers were six wheelers, these had a bogie at one end and a fix axle at the other. The 20 ft. Northern Division Dental Car had this arrangement and remained in service until the mid-1980’s.    

My bits have arrived from Caintode Flats, excellent service from Gary, maybe some more four wheeler next time.

Happy modelling, stay safe. Trust you found the information usefully for your projects for your railway.

 Arthur H

Acknowledgements.

QR Plans

QR Annual Report 1960.

Australian Model Railway Association Queensland Library.

AHRS Bulletin “Radial Wheeled Rollingstock on the Queensland Railways” “Radial Wheeled Rollingstock on the Queensland Railways” J. W. Knowles.

Wooden Wagons of the Queensland Railways 1880 – 1980 John Armstrong.

Australian Model Railway Magazine - October 1997.