CARGO BUSINESS 1-10.indd - ZSSK Cargo

múzejných zbierkach
Two-axled wagons for coal transportations
Another part of the series on freight wagons will be dedicated to the
second most common type of universal freight wagon in the past –
two-axled coal wagons.
It might be quite surprising, but this type of wagon was not typical
for railroads from its beginnings. The first open freight wagons were
used primarily to transport coaches and only as the time progressed,
these wagons transformed into platform wagons. The real beginning
of high-sided wagons use was due to the need to transport coal. It
can therefore be assumed that major expansion of this wagon type in
the territory of Slovakia occurred in the late 60´s of the 19th century.
With regard to the strategic importance of coal industry, the number of
these wagons grew quickly and they soon made up more than a third
of the rolling stocks.
Construction of the first wagons to transport coal reflected the
customs of the mid 19th century - a wooden frame, wooden box,
continuous rod, wooden flooring and wall cladding, axle base of about
2.9 meters, loading length of about 5 m. Despite relatively small
dimensions, the wagons had – with regard to a relatively high mass
density of coal - a decent loading capacity - up to about 11 tonnes.
Efforts to reach the firmest possible construction of wagon box,
adopted to not very considerate handling, especially during loading of
coarse substrate, has caused that already first wagons were equipped
with characteristic structure of tipping doors with upper suspension
or lowered double wing doors. These enabled to maintain, from
the standpoint of firmness of wagon body structure, the important
uninterrupted upper longitudinal rolling bond timber of the wagon
sidewall.
As with other freight wagons, simplified iron manufacturing in the
60´s and 70´s of the 19th century resulted in replacement of wood by
iron in base construction – at first only the string pieces, later also the
other parts. It is quite interesting that already during the 80´s of the
19th century the iron was used also in the body frame construction of
coal wagons. These coal wagons were ahead of their time by almost
15 years when compared to wagons of other type.
At that time, the normal axle base of wagons reached 3.8 meters,
loading length was almost 6 m and load capacity increased to 15
tonnes. The second tipping doors appeared in the sidewalls. Two
wagons in the collections of Slovak railway museum are typical for this
period. The first of them can be found on the monument in the area
of Žilina wagon repair workshop. This wagon was manufactured by
Vagónka Kopřivnice in 1884. It is interesting because of its features,
such as raised centres of front parts, which enabled to increase
the loading volume of the wagon. The second dates back to around
1906 and is a part of railway exhibition in the former depot Bratislava
Východ.
In the last years of the 19th century, development of wagons, used
for coal transportations, continued with gradual replacement of
tipping doors by sheet metal flaps, sliding on the horizontal bar above
the discharge openings. Even before the World War I, the turnover
all-metal front doors came into use; the loading capacity of wagons
reached up to 20 tonnes, at axle base of 4 to 4.6 m. These types of
coal wagons were produced for ČSD, in series of several thousand
pieces, until 1929. One of them – dating back to 1921 – has been
preserved in the museum repository in Bratislava, unfortunately in
non-renovated state.
Another important type of two-axle wagon for transportation of coal,
operated by the Slovak railways, was the all-metal wagon of series Vtr,
produced between 1946 – 1957, virtually by all Czechoslovak wagon
works in series of tens of thousands. Wagons with a pair of sliding
flaps in each sidewall and a new pair of demountable flap in their
middle, with roller bearings, loading length of 8.7 m and axle base of
6 m, had a loading capacity of up to 30 tonnes, which corresponded
to the increase of permitted axial load on main rail tracks of
Czechoslovak Railways to 20 tonnes. By their improvement, in
particular by certain simplification, wagons of series Vte (currently Es)
were manufactured by wagon works in Romania and former Yugoslavia
between 1965 and 1974. Some of them are still in operation.
Jiří KUBÁČEK
Museum-documentation centre of ŽSR
Photos – archive of MDC ŽSR
46/47