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Southern Railway
40T bogie bolster wagon 57883, DS 64622
(formerly thought to be 57889)

On long-term loan to the Swanage Railway

40T bogie bolster, as incorrectly numbered 57889, October 1996 Richard Salmon

The Southern Railway had little need for bolster wagons for commercial use, as there was little heavy industry generating suitable traffic on the SR network and timber traffic was in decline. 30 flat wagons to a LSWR design, which could be fitted with bolsters, were built in the mid 1920s. These could carry lengths of 45-foot rail. The SR started to use 60-foot lengths of rail during the 1920s, and standardised on this length in 1936. New bogie bolster wagons with eight bolsters, capable of carrying this length of rail, were built to SR diagram No.1598 and the first of them appeared in January 1937.

This wagon was built as part of that intial batch at Ashford Works. Probably originally lettered as "ED" for the Engineering Department on the Southern and painted in Engineers' Orange Oxide, it was formally transferred to departmental service with the BR(S) Chief Civil Engineer and renumbered DS64622 in November 1950. Withdrawn on 5 September 1978, it became Internal User 083345 on 18 November that year. It arrived on the Bluebell on 5 July 1990 from Redbridge (the location of the Southern's sleeper creosoting and chairing works, and the workshop where new switch and crossing components were made, just west of Southampton).

On the Bluebell Railway it was used alongside No. 57949 as an engineers' wagon for carrying rail, components for pointwork and any long load such as felled timber. An overhaul, including the purchase of new steel for the low sides, was started, but the opportunity to place it on loan to the Swanage Railway was taken up soon after, in mid-2010.

Recommended reading:

An Illustrated History of Southern Wagons - Volume Four, by Messrs Bixley, Blackburn, Chorley and King; published by The Oxford Publishing Company, 2002. ISBN 086093 5647.

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57883 or 57889?

On arrival on the Bluebell, the vehicle's Internal User number was painted on a reversed Southern Railway works-plate plate, as was common when the number was changed on entering departmental service. This plate was found to be that of No. 57889, and it was assumed that this was the vehicle's earlier number, and it was painted up as such by the Bluebell, with the worksplate returned to its original way round. However, official records show otherwise, and Ted Crawforth revealed that these showed that it had been No. 57883 which had ended up at Redbridge, and therefore the vehicle now in Bluebell ownership.

With both vehicles being renumbered in November 1950 it must be assumed that there was little concern (or indeed reason) for the plates to return to the same vehicle they had been removed from, and it appears that DS64622 was painted on the back of the plate which had originally come off 57889. So it is now recognised that this vehicle was indeed built as 57883.

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