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British Railways "Grampus" ballast and sleeper wagon, DB 991391

Richard Salmon, April 2003

The photo above shows the wagon completed, with lettering and replacement Southern Region cast plates in place.

This is an example of a 20 Ton drop-side Ballast and Sleeper Wagon to diagram 1/574 designed by British Railways and codenamed a 'GRAMPUS'. The wagon was designed specifically for the use of the Civil Engineering Departments and carried the 'DB' prefix to its number from new. The design owes its parentage to a similar, fixed-end vehicle designed by the pre-Nationalisation Great Western Railway and codenamed a 'Tunney'. The end arrangements have a similarity to those of the Southern Railway designed 'Lamprey'. Both the aforementioned types were out-shopped in 1949, shortly after Nationalisation (1st. January 1948). This type of wagon was used on every Region of British Railways and a total of 4781 were built between 1951 and 1961.

The Grampus has drop-sides enabling hand loading and unloading of building materials. There are two removable stanchions per side. Standard sleepers could be stacked across the floor; crossing timbers along it. The two top planks at each end are removable, allowing signal posts to be carried overhanging adjacent wagons. Wheeled vehicles could be moved along the Grampus over the hinged bottom steel end plank. Track ballast (sub-ballast for use under new track) would have been regularly carried in these, together with granite chippings (to replenish lineside bins and used for shovel-packing sinking sleepers) and sand (for surfacing/profiling the trackbed - the Southern Region used granite dust from Meldon Quarry). In the steam era, these wagons would also have been used to carry locomotive ash from sheds to sites where it would have been used to top off previous infill or to repair slipped embankments.

The Grampus was an extremely versatile vehicle. However, its drawbacks in the modern age were the timber floor, the flimsy doors and removable end planks which were easily damaged or distorted when it was unloaded by a mechanical excavator.

722 Grampus were built to diagram 1/574 by either British Railways' Shildon Works or, as this vehicle, privately-owned builder Pressed Steel. DB 991391 was one of 544 similar vehicles built under lot No. 3168 by the Pressed Steel Company in 1958. This wagon differs from the other Grampus wagons on the Bluebell Railway (built to diagram 1/572) in that it was built with vacuum braking and "clasp" type brakegear from new. This reflected the BR policy of the mid-1950's of speeding up freight (including engineering) trains by having new wagons built with power braking. Wagons with no power brake or through pipe were limited to 35 miles per hour.

These vehicles were allocated to the Chief Civil Engineer on a Regional basis, the allocation being originally denoted by a cast plate on the left hand door on each side. As these were easily broken if the door was damaged, it is not possible to determine the original allocation of this vehicle. However, it was latterly located to the Southern Region. In the 1980s, the Southern Region Grampus fleet was relegated to hauling spoil or spent ballast from worksite to tip. A fleet or 'Pool' of these vehicles was based at Tonbridge and served tips at Godstone and Hoo Junction. This wagon was selected to form part of a display demonstrating safe loading to trainee loading inspectors. It was transferred to Internal Use at Tattenham Corner and allocated the number 083658. Following Privatisation of the national railway network, the display was abandoned and this vehicle was offered to the Bluebell Railway.

Richard Salmon, October 2000

The "Fencing Gang" took on its restoration to traffic, including the fitting of a new floor made from steel channel sections. Here the gang take a break during the painting of the wagon. From left to right:- Roy Fletcher, Geoff Snow, John Rich and Geoff Hackett.

The exact origin of the BR practice of allocating 'fish' names to civil engineering vehicles is unknown. When railway operations messages were conveyed by Morse telegraph or teleprinter, if the number of words in a message could be reduced, it could be transmitted quicker. There were lists of code words for certain regular instructions and also for wagon type and capacity. The Great Western Railway favoured fish names for engineering wagons, and this may have been the origin. Whatever the reason, if one refers to a 'Grampus', any railwayman will know that one is not referring to the similar 'Lamprey' or 'Tunney'.

And what is a Grampus.......?
It is believed that the word was first coined by 18th. century mariners, as a corruption of 'graunde pose'; this term itself being a corruption of the French 'grand poisson' (large or fat fish). Subsequently, the word 'Grampus' was used to describe some whales, including the black-and-white Killer Whale. Early in the 19th. century, Risso's Dolphin was identified as 'Grampus Griseus' or 'Grey Grampus'. Adults of this species reach 4 metres in length. As they age, the majority of the creatures become covered with distinctive linear scars on their sides and back. Judging by the appearance of many of these vehicles in the latter days of BR, perhaps the GRAMPUS title became more apt than its originators intended?