Did racks privateer wagons have tail lights?

[Rob H]

I’m re-working some seven plank wagons to reflect the long closed collieries which used to exist in the Forest of Dean. I was wondering if racks would of had a tail light at the end or if they’d have used a guards van? I’ve tried googling images but so far i’ve not found any images which show the end of a rake.

[Mark Saunders]

The fitting of lamp bracelets on wagons at that time was restricted to passenger rated fitted vehicles with other trains reliant on the lamp being carried on the brake van, if not it would be hung on the drawbar hook.

 

Mark Saunders

[jim.snowdon]

It is more likely that the need for a brake van on goods trains was discovered quite early on, as a vehicle for assisting in the management of such trains whilst in motion, rather than as a vehicle for carrying lamps. The need for lamps at the rear of any train took on a definite purpose with the progressive adoption of absolute block working, as the tail lamp (which only has to be carried on the last vehicle) took on significance as the evidence that the train was in fact complete when it passed out of each block section. That the functions of the brake van (or as some companies called in the pre-group era, the break van) can really only be carried out if it is the last vehicle rather determines that it is the vehicle that will be carrying the tail lamp.

 

As the last vehicle of the train, the brake van also carried two other lamps, neither of which is of any specific interest to the signalman. They served two purposes, one by having a forward facing aspect that allowed the locomotive crew to observe that their train was in fact complete, the other by having a rearward facing aspect that allowed the drivers of other trains approaching from the rear on parallel running lines to confirm that (in theory) the train in front of them was on a parallel line, and not about to be run into!

 

Passenger trains carried side and tail lamps as well, and non-passenger vehicles equipped to run in such trains were normally also fitted with side and tail lamps brackets for use when they, and not the passenger brake van were at the rear of the train. The need for side lamps on passenger trains passed with the requirement for all such trains to have automatic brakes, and their use died out in the 1920s. At the same time, the growing number of goods vehicles that could be attached to passenger trains were still fitted with tail lamp brackets.

 

All of this applies only to lines used for passenger traffic. Purely goods lines were not covered by the requirements of the 1889 Regulation of Railways Act in relation to interlocking, block working and brakes. Trains on a colliery railway could run as just a set of wagons with a loco; no brake van or tail lamp, with operation being on line of sight.

 

Jim

[Rob H]

Thank you for your detailed replies it’s really given me a lot to think about.