I [Richard] have been doing a little bit of research regarding the wagons visible in the pictures of the Aberford Railway. Most of the open wagons cannot be identified beyond being typical open wagons of the era.
I’ve had more luck with the coal hoppers. The wagons in the foreground of the “Garforth Colliery” picture (Page 72, Hudson’s book) are NER Diagram P4 10.5 ton coal hoppers (some of the ones at the colliery look to be of the same type – the curved ends and general proportions are distinctive)
Many of these survived into LNER ownership, but they were virtually extinct by Nationalisation (1948). For the complete wagon train-spotter (but useful in dating the photo), wagon No. 89380 appears to have been built in 1898 at an unknown location. (Source: ‘LNER Wagons, Vol 2″ by Peter Tatlow, recently published)
The Aberford Staithes photo (Page 108, middle picture; and also on your Aberford Railway page near the bottom) has some spindly old looking wagons above the staithes. These appear to be “P2” hoppers. I’ve found some drawings, but it looks like no decent photos are known to survive. None of these wagons survived into LNER ownership. A possible model scratch-building project for the future!
John Elliot (“Private Owner Wagons of the North-East, Volume 1 The Chaldrons”) describes this wagon as a ‘missing link’ between the chaldron, and the later hoppers. It is definitely a hybrid design.I was also surprised to find a passing reference to the Aberford Railway in the above book. It was a noted user of chaldrons outside of the NE (ie. Newcastle/Darlington/etc) area. No further details, but I assume this was from construction through to about the time the steam locomotives arrived.
(Chaldrons are the small but stocky wooden coal wagons usually seen in pictures of the early Stockton & Darlington Railway – they originated in the mid-18th century, were banned from public railways in around 1914, and a few survived in use at Seaham until about 1970!)
This post was sent by email and is by Richard the owner of the Aberford Railway For those of you who don’t have the book on the Aberford Railway I will arrange to post the pictures in due course.