The Moseley Railway Trust has recently taken delivery of a pair of bogies which will form part of the restoration of a “Pershing” wagon. Used extensively by American forces in World War One, these are very much narrow-gauge sized versions of the classic three-piece bogie. The three-piece bogie has been around for donkey’s years – and is still widely used. For example, a derivative is shown under a DB Schenker HTA coal hopper. In its purest form, one of the clever features of the bogie is that there are no threaded fasteners whatsoever to come loose. As you will see in the photo, the Pershing bogies do deviate somewhat from that principle, but we’ll forgive them this time. On the downside, Railway civil engineers loathe the things, since the whole of the bogie side castings are unsprung mass. And, as you well know, unsprung mass = track damage. We can only hope that the Apedale Valley Light Railway civil engineering department haven’t twigged that, otherwise the track access charges for the Pershing will go northwards. Which would be a pity, as it will be a nice wagon, and a key exhibit at the 2014 Tracks to the Trenches event. Which we must tell you about in more detail sometime soon. Watch this space. As ever, get in touch here. Oh, and as a PS, don’t forget that the countdown to Operation Santa is now well under way – you can book to come and see the Great Man at Apedale here.
