This timber bogie is the last survivor of several hundred built for use in Hull’s docks between 1870 and 1939. By the 1950s they were concentrated at Victoria Dock, the centre of the city’s timber trade.
The bogies were designed to carry 7 tons of timber each, stacked on three cross-members and roped down to the hooks on either side. The iron-bound dumb buffers are not normal railway standard height or width. To assist in moving the bogies around around small shunting locomtives were fitted with additional dead buffers or deeper buffer beams. The London & North Eastern Railway later introduced road tractors fitted with steel buffer beams and chain links at either end.
The timber bogie is now on loan to the Streetlife transport museum in Hull, where it is on display.