Pinch bar

For reasons that will be explained another day, I recently had to help move a railway van without the aid of a locomotive, or even a horse. Fortunately, it rolled pretty easily for most of the 20 feet or so we had to move it, but for the last few inches, a pinch bar was required. 

I've never properly looked at one of these before, and it's not quite the same as the one in the old Cooper Craft plastic kit. Theirs is a very simple affair, but here, we had something with a clever ratchet attachment at the end. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge so you can have a proper look. 

Using one is simple enough, if very time-consuming, very, very time-consuming if you let the wagon roll back again...

This video comes from the excellent Barrow Hill "Tools of the Trade" web page.