Ammunition wagon for Foxfield restored at Her Majesty’s pleasure
SERVING prisoners are turning into wagon restorers to bring a First World War ammunition truck back to life.
Inmates at Category B HMP Dovegate, near Uttoxeter, are being given the chance to develop skills in large scale woodwork, metalwork, painting, heritage restoration and project management in the prison workshops this year under the initiative launched by the Foxfield Railway’s Knotty Coach Trust.
The focus of the scheme will be a sixton five-plank wagon built in Derby Works by the Midland Railway and converted by the War Department in 1917 to transport ammunition and all sorts of essential supplies and materials from the factories on the British mainland to the trenches of the Western Front in France and Belgium.
Later numbered 46370, it was used at an Army depot, and ended up in a quarry in North Wales from where it was rescued from scrapping in 1987 by a member of the Foxfield Railway Society.
Now in the ownership of the Knotty Coach Trust, which has restored the acclaimed Victorian ‘Knotty Heritage Train’ of wooden-bodied coaches, it had deteriorated through storage in the open for the previous 30 years.
Restoration plan
The major iron and steel components will be restored at the prison and the superstructure rebuilt using new timber, to match the original drawings. Special air-dried oak will be used for the main frames, all worked by hand using traditional wagon-building techniques, and painted in the Admiralty grey colour it carried in 1917-18. Once completed and moved back to the Foxfield Railway, the wagon will be displayed with examples of some of the goods it used to carry and an explanation about the ‘Munitionettes’– the women who made them – and the‘tommies’– the men who used them.
It will be fully operational and demonstrated behind steam locomotives on selected dates in 2021, and is the first wooden Victorian-style wagon to be restored on the line for many years, being typical of the freight rolling stock on a former colliery railway.
The project will cost nearly £20,000 and is grant aided by the National Lottery Heritage Fund through its First World War: Then and Now programme, the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Trusthouse Charitable Foundation along with donations from supporters in memory of a British soldier who died in 1918.
HMP Dovegate, a private prison opened in 2001, is operated by the Serco Group under a 25-year design, build and management contract. It houses more than 1000 long-term prisoners, as well as having a local remand function.
Around 20 prisoners will work six hours per day for a five-day week on the project, enabling them to learn and develop skills that will be valuable on their release, not only for heritage restoration, but also for building, decorating and landscape gardening.
Training will be led by SERCO’S tutor Kim Brassington, who has visited the carriage and wagon workshop at the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley to see a similar project. Some of the external grant funding is being used to equip the prison workshop, and fund experienced heritage restoration experts to visit the prison and share their knowledge of traditional techniques.
Prisoners will also learn about the history of the wagon and help to build some of the educational displays, led by the Knotty Coach Trust’s chairman and project manager Mark Smith. He said: “The trust would like to thank the team at Dovegate Prison for approaching the Foxfield Railway to take on an ambitious project such as this.”
Women’s vital role
The project highlights the role of women in the conflict, who worked long hours under very hazardous conditions to produce rifle bullets and shells for the large guns overseas.
Foxfield chairman Ron Whalley said: “The Knotty Coach Trust has already achieved the thorough restoration of three Victorian carriages which bring delight to our passengers every year. The Foxfield Railway Society has a long-held ambition to restore its collection of traditional wooden wagons from a century ago, and this ammunition wagon represents the first step in achieving that ambition.”
John Hewitson, Serco contract director at HMP Dovegate, said: “Our prison workshops have already produced some very useful timber components for carriage restoration at Foxfield Railway, so we are very pleased to take this collaboration to the next level and rebuild a complete railway wagon in-house.
“The range of opportunities for skills training are tremendous. All the prisoners who work on the wagon can feel justifiably proud of their achievement when we roll it out finished later this year. They are learning skills that will help them gain employment on their release back into society, breaking the cycle of crime and reoffending.”
A granddaughter of the late Private Jo Wilson (who died of wounds from the second battle of Cambrai, on October 8, 1918) who contributed a significant anonymous donation towards the costs of the project, said: “It is poignant to remember the sacrifice of so many young men, such as my grandfather, who gave their lives in the trenches – and to link them back to so many women who suffered long-term health issues as a result of the work they did in the munitions factories to supply them with the equipment for war.”