"Agreed Junction" What is it?

[melmerby]

Hi all

 

Back in the days of several real railway companies, junctions between two companies' lines had both "actual" junctions and "agreed" junctions which weren't in the same place.

 

What is (was?) the difference.

 

Cheers

 

keith

[corneliuslundie]

Not certain but i think agreed junctions were for freight charging purposes. Mileage would be calculated to/from those points and the income distributed accordingly. But I suppose they might indicate points where responsibility for maintenance changed, though that doesn't seem right.

Others may tell me that I am up the creek.

Jonathan

[Zomboid]

Could it refer to infrastructure responsibly boundaries? I guess someone had look after the S&C and so on, wouldn't have been both companies.

[melmerby]

The situation that caught my eye was at Peterborough where four railway companies and one joint enterprise met.

South of the River Nene the LNW had an end on junction with the GE

The Midland had a junction with the GE to the east of that, however there is an "agreed " junction between the GN & the LNW where the Midland and GN join north of the Nene!

There is also an "agreed" junction between the Midland and the GN on the Midland tracks west of the main station.

 

Keith

[The Stationmaster]

Looking at the RCH maps the 'agreed junctions' (although not named as such) were simply boundaries between companies - they seem to have been particularly used where what would normally be called a running junction (between parallel sets of running lines) existed, the Longhedge area is a good example as were a couple at Peterborough.

 

The reason for making a boundary clear of the physical junction (and the vast majority weren't clear of the physical junction) was no doubt to simplify accountancy for all sorts of things - from maintenance to mileage charging for exchanged traffic (both freight and passenger).  There seems to be no reference to the term 'agreed junction' in the RCH Junction Diagrams book so it might well have been a term in vernacular use as the normal, and well understood, term always appears to have been simply 'junction'

[jim.snowdon]

Not so. The RCH diagrams show any number of end on junctions between companies, and, occasionally, these "agreed" junctions, marked as such. Sticking to the Peterborough example, there are straightforward end-on junctions marked for L&NW/GE and MR/GE on the east-west line, and in the middle of the long crossover between the Midland and the GNR at Westwood Junction, north of Peterborough. The puzzles are the two "agreed" junctions - one is marked as the GN/L&NW (Agreed) junction but is at the GN/MR boundary on the link line between Nene Junction, on the MR, and Crescent Juunction, on the GN. The other is the GN/MR (Agreed) Junction that is on the MR line abreast of the GNR station. At least the first example is at a boundary between companies, but not the same companies as meet at the juunction. The second is more of a paradox, in that the "agreed" junction is simply a point on the Midalnd Railway's line that is neither an ownership boundary nor a point to which any GN trains can be directly routed.

 

Peterborough is not the only example of "agreed" junctions, but from a quick look at some of the more complex areas in the RCH book, they are rare beasts.

 

Jim

[DaveF]

I've had a look for "agreed junction" in the Railway Magazne Archive.

 

The only reference I can find is from the February 1917 issue, in an article about the changes introduced in January 1917 by the Railway Executive Committee.

 

A short section is copied below. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if this makes it any clearer.

David

[enz]

The situation that caught my eye was at Peterborough where four railway companies and one joint enterprise met.

South of the River Nene the LNW had an end on junction with the GE

The Midland had a junction with the GE to the east of that, however there is an "agreed " junction between the GN & the LNW where the Midland and GN join north of the Nene!

There is also an "agreed" junction between the Midland and the GN on the Midland tracks west of the main station.

 

Keith

Hello

 

I wonder if the "agreed junction" may have come about if the LNW had some sort of running powers over the Midland line from Stamford. Noting (from Rail Map Online) that the LNW had a line to Luffenham. Wikipedia (I know...) identifies this as part of the Rugby and Stamford Railway, shared with the Midland from Luffenham to Stamford. If the LNW had powers to continue into Peterborough along that line, you'd need some administrative point to say when you were entering Great Northern territory.

 

Just a suggestion.

 

Regards - E.

[gismorail]

What an interesting question you have proposed Keith. I wonder if it goes back to the times when railway companies were involved in 'pooling' where basically an objective to saving expenditure in the operation of certain branches of railway activities in which two or more companies were mutually interested, and where by pooling their resources, economy would be achieved. The main sources of economy were centred in the pooling of cartage establishments involving clerical staff and maintenance grades resulting in the reduction of freight train mileage benefiting both railway companies involved. 

[melmerby]

Taking "enz"  suggestion above.

For passenger services the LNW did have running rights over the MR to Stamford but possibly no further as they had rights to use the GE station in Peterborough via their own line (now the Nene Valley) from Seaton Junction which was more direct than via Stamford & the Midland

As well as the LNW the Midland also had running rights into the GE station, however the GN station was shown as only being used by the Mid, MGN & GE, not the LNW

 

I suppose the main problem for us today is that we don't know about all the various (and complex!) operating arrangements for goods traffic and hence where transfer of wagons would "notionally" take place between two railway companies.

 

Keith

[The Stationmaster]

Taking "enz"  suggestion above.

For passenger services the LNW did have running rights over the MR to Stamford but possibly no further as they had rights to use the GE station in Peterborough via their own line (now the Nene Valley) from Seaton Junction which was more direct than via Stamford & the Midland

As well as the LNW the Midland also had running rights into the GE station, however the GN station was shown as only being used by the Mid, MGN & GE, not the LNW

 

I suppose the main problem for us today is that we don't know about all the various (and complex!) operating arrangements for goods traffic and hence where transfer of wagons would "notionally" take place between two railway companies.

 

Keith

 

Wagons had to be recorded in detail at boundaries - by owner and number until common user arrangements came in.  Thus they would usually be dealt with in a transfer siding or sidings where an RCH Number Taker would record the details.  If the layout allowed such an arrangement was relatively simple - for example Oxford had an exchange siding between the LNWR and GWR - but if the transfer was an end-on boundary on plain line the recording would be done at the first available place one side or other of the boundary.

 

Simplistically with common user all that mattered was getting as accurate as possible a record of totals on hand on each Railway in order to work out who owed who what in terms of total numbers of wagons of particular types.