Peco OO9 GR-340A 4 Wheel Ore Hopper Wagon Snailbeach District Railway SDR Grey No.32
A detailed OO9 narrow gauge model of Snailbeach & District Railways ore hopper wagon number 32 in grey livery.
The Snailbeach line was built to haul lead ore from the quarries around Snailbeach & Stiperstones in Shropshire to an interchange with the GWR at Pontesbury. The 2ft4in gauge line was well equipped, using rapid-discharge hopper wagons to transfer the load into standard gauge wagons. After WW1 two Baldwin 4-6-0T engines (as modelled by Bachmann) provided the main motive power for the line.
Model fitted with removable (NEM fitting) couplers and metal-rimmed wheels.
The Snailbeach & District Railways system was located in Shropshire and was built to carry lead ore over a narrow gauge route with a gauge of 2ft 4 inches. The mines were located at Stiperstones and they transferred their ore to a connection with the Great Western Railway at Pontesbury. A fleet of various hopper wagons was used to transport the ore and it is one of those wagons that is the subject of this model.
Opened in 1877 the railway was purchased by the famous Colonel Stephens in 1923 and re-equipped with 2 ex-WD Baldwin 4-6-0T locomotives and a smaller Kerr, Stuart 'skylark' 0-4-2T. Traffic slowly dwindled and loaded trains were often worked by gravity, a locomotive being steamed to haul the empty hoppers back to the quarries. All three locomotives failed their boiler exams in 1947 and a farm tractor was used for the upgrade run in their place until the line was finally closed in 1959.
The Snailbeach company had been owned personally by Colonel Stephens and ownership passed to his partner and assistant W.H.Austen and thence to Austin's family who maintained contacts with the district even after the closure. In the mid-1980s the company assets were finally sold off or distributed to local public bodies.
In recent years the Snailbeach mines area, including the former Snailbeach & District railways engine shed, mine buildings and engine houses have been conserved and adapted by the Shropshire Mines Trust as a museum site.
One wagon, numbered 32, has been reconstructed and is displayed in the former engine shed.