HOW TO... BUILD A CHALDRON WAGON FOR O GAUGE

Achaldron (sometimes pronounced like ‘cauldron’, sometimes ‘sholdron’) was an English measure of dry volume, typically used for low-value but bulky commodities like coal and ironstone. The weight of a chaldron could be anything from about one to two tonnes, rather depending on the size of the lumps and the amount of water in and around them. This seems so approximate today, but the chaldron was a useful measure during times when it was easiest to measure quantities by their volume; the railway tracks at locations like the collieries and quarries were temporary affairs; and most of the public roads were unmade and susceptible to damage from wagons much heavier.

I found my interest in chaldron wagons while planning an 1890s branch line “might have been” for O gauge. I wanted a reasonable spread of wagons and a chaldron wagon represents the earliest design I could usefully have on the layout. I will use it for the stock of locomotive coal.

The design of a chaldron wagon originates when railway wagons were of the simplest form imaginable: inside bearings, no springs, and a rudimentary brake. The buffers are simple extensions of the solebars, these being located between the wheels