Old wagon reuse

[Taunton]

A significant fire today in Southwold, Suffolk, showed an interesting feature. Far from the railway, an old Vanfit wagon body appears to have been in the middle of things. Seen (in better times) here:

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What's left of it is in some news photos. Now this used to be common on farms etc, old wagon bodies, which had been sold off cheap (were they £10 at one time?), buyer collects. This one has had some significant surgery, with a pitched roof installed on top, presumably to deal with a rotting/leaking roof. They really seemed to have died out though.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Well, the 'vanfits' and similar really dated from the 1950s, so to get around 70 years of life out of a wood+mild steel structure isn't bad.

They were often used as 'loose boxes' for horses or other livestock, so tended to (ahem) 'rot from the inside' as well as from the elements.

Plenty of farms now have old motor vehicle box bodies instead, often constructed from more durable materials as well as being younger anyway.

 

[edwin_m]

There used to be thousands of van bodies that were mainly wooden and therefore had little scrap value, so would have fetched more if sold off whole. From the 1970s onwards vans were all-steel so would have had a scrap value, as well as being larger so maybe too big for general storage. You also see shipping containers used as stores, which are effectively ready-made compared with a van body that has to be separated from the underframe.

 

[6Gman]

Well, the 'vanfits' and similar really dated from the 1950s, so to get around 70 years of life out of a wood+mild steel structure isn't bad.

They were often used as 'loose boxes' for horses or other livestock, so tended to (ahem) 'rot from the inside' as well as from the elements.

Plenty of farms now have old motor vehicle box bodies instead, often constructed from more durable materials as well as being younger anyway.

There was a "wildlife park" in Cheshire which used them for some pretty exotic livestock!

Pretty sure they housed wolves in one.

 

[Gloster]

That roof could have merely been added to fit in with all the surrounding huts: it looks as though every other one has a gable roof. Southwold is supposed to be a strange place with strange rules.

From photos it looks like the van is burnt out, although for some inexplicable reason the news sites are more interested in a fish and chip shop than the van. Really, I don’t know about journalists today…

 

[eastwestdivide]

There’s still loads of 12T van bodies as sheds around the country. I saw three yesterday while walking above Low Bradfield, W of Sheffield.
There’s a whole thread of photos over on the rmweb modelling forum, although many of the earlier photos don’t show up, hence the link to the last page:

Grounded Vans

www.rmweb.co.uk

 

[Andy873]

I saw many of these growing up, they were situated in farmer's fields for livestock. I always thought it was a good, practical way of using them even though they did look a bit odd in the middle of a field.

 

[43096]

I saw many of these growing up, they were situated in farmer's fields for livestock.

Jesse in the Fast Show also seemed to live in one!

 

[WesternLancer]

You do still see them reasonably often, but numbers do seem in decline these days, and indeed many the worse for wear. Quite often see them from passing trains come to think of it.

I always find it interesting to see one. Much better than your average garden shed and probably longer lasting in general!

 

[Cakestall]

A significant fire today in Southwold, Suffolk, showed an interesting feature. Far from the railway, an old Vanfit wagon body appears to have been in the middle of things. Seen (in better times) here:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

What's left of it is in some news photos. Now this used to be common on farms etc, old wagon bodies, which had been sold off cheap (were they £10 at one time?), buyer collects. This one has had some significant surgery, with a pitched roof installed on top, presumably to deal with a rotting/leaking roof. They really seemed to have died out though.

Far from the present railway but feet from the Southwold harbour branch.

 

[Pigeon]

There was a four-wheel wagon body as part of the collection of mostly-disused barns on the other side of our fence when I was little. Buried in brambles and nettles, and in such a state that it was a long time before I realised what it was. After a while it started to collapse. When it developed a big enough hole for me to get into it I found lots of rotten wood, tangles of tendrils wondering where the sun had got to, and some bits of remains of what might have been WW2-era military radio bits, but no noticeable traces of anything agricultural.

 

[randyrippley]

Many of the chalets at Pontin's Middleton Towers holiday camp (near Morecambe) were recycled tram cars (Bolton ? Bury?). One still exists as a wildfowlers hide on the seashore near Sunderland Point, though its in a bad state.
That wasn't the limit of Pontins recycling: the main building used the bridge and part of the superstructure of the SS Berengaria, saved from Wards scrapyard