Coal for brake van stoves

[sf315]

After reading another thread on here regarding using a brake van at either end of the train. Some replies mentioned the stove and coal supplies for the vans. 

How was coal for brake vans issued and where from?Did yards have the supply delivered from a local merchant. I suspect in steam days they had some off the loco but how did they go on after steam finished?

Ive seen on some layouts a 16 Ton mineral wagon body with brake van coal written on it was this typical of many yards where the guards could replenish there stocks for the journey. 

Can anybody enlighten me. 

Thanks Steve. 

[Caledonian]

I'll cheerfully confess my ignorance on this one, but can recall as a kid being sent out to pillage the trackbed of the the old Ballater line for lumps of coal. There was a surprising amount of it, but it wasn't very good on an ordinary domestic fire. It was fine if added to an already roaring hot one, but very reluctant to light on its own. I'd suspect therefore that there were indeed dedicated stores of "small coals" for stoves, rather than nicking it off the tender

[Mark Saunders]

In the mining areas it was picked up freely off the ground in yards. At Cambois Depot I can only recall it being purchased was during the Pit Strike when the local staff cleaned it up for home use helped by the local population!

[The Johnster]

It varied from yard to yard, but at most places there was a small coal store shed somewhere in the vicinity of the staff cabins and the guard or train preparer took it to the van in a bucket.  Firewood was usually available from the same source, and guards took yesterday's newspaper with them in order to lay the fire, bundled up into balls of about half a page.

 

Train preparation varied from yard to yard as well; some places had the stove fire already laid and all the work done for you, others you had to fend for yourself a bit more.

 

A standard piece of van equipment was a milk bottle filled about half full with paraffin, ostensibly for the lamps but a splash or two on the paper and wood had the stove blazing away as if you'd flicked a switch.  It was advisable, however, to wait until the train was in motion, even slowly, to put the match to it (matches, kept dry inside tobacco tins, were another vital piece of guard's equipment even if you didn't smoke) as this guaranteed a draw at the top of the stove pipe.

 

At Long Dyke, Cardiff, you borrowed the bucket from the shunters' cabin but had to root around for coal which was laying about at the buffer end of the sidings.  You chucked the bucket out as you passed the cabin as you departed.

 

Margam was a bit of a problem for coal as because, as it was a modern hump yard, all the staff facilities were heated with electric fires, so coal for brake vans had to be purloined from wagons, although you didn't have to look far to fine a full coal wagon!

 

The stoves were very effective heating despite the vans being congenitally draughty and even in very cold weather.  Most had a sort of wrinkle towards the bottom where the cast iron had become white hot and had softened and 'settled' under it's own weight.  You could regulate the draw on them by opening the door, which slowed down the miniature blast furnace impression, but ruined your night vision.  The tops had a rim into which the standard enamel tea can would fit if you wanted to boil water, and the coal lived in a steel area around the stove in the corner.  A rail with hooks was fitted to the inside of the van roof above the stove that you could hang wet coats on to dry out.  

 

If you ran out of coal en route, a manual signal box was a pretty safe bet for replenishment, but in MAS areas you needed to find a yard.  In steam days, of course, you could always pinch some from the loco.  Running out was rare in my experience, though.  It was considered very bad form to had the van over to a guard who was relieving you without a good supply and the fire in good order.

 

I worked as a guard at Canton, so most of the coal I used was pretty good quality South Wales stuff that burned clean and hot.

[sf315]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

It varied from yard to yard, but at most places there was a small coal store shed somewhere in the vicinity of the staff cabins and the guard or train preparer took it to the van in a bucket.  Firewood was usually available from the same source, and guards took yesterday's newspaper with them in order to lay the fire, bundled up into balls of about half a page.

 

Train preparation varied from yard to yard as well; some places had the stove fire already laid and all the work done for you, others you had to fend for yourself a bit more.

 

A standard piece of van equipment was a milk bottle filled about half full with paraffin, ostensibly for the lamps but a splash or two on the paper and wood had the stove blazing away as if you'd flicked a switch.  It was advisable, however, to wait until the train was in motion, even slowly, to put the match to it (matches, kept dry inside tobacco tins, were another vital piece of guard's equipment even if you didn't smoke) as this guaranteed a draw at the top of the stove pipe.

 

At Long Dyke, Cardiff, you borrowed the bucket from the shunters' cabin but had to root around for coal which was laying about at the buffer end of the sidings.  You chucked the bucket out as you passed the cabin as you departed.

 

Margam was a bit of a problem for coal as because, as it was a modern hump yard, all the staff facilities were heated with electric fires, so coal for brake vans had to be purloined from wagons, although you didn't have to look far to fine a full coal wagon!

 

The stoves were very effective heating despite the vans being congenitally draughty and even in very cold weather.  Most had a sort of wrinkle towards the bottom where the cast iron had become white hot and had softened and 'settled' under it's own weight.  You could regulate the draw on them by opening the door, which slowed down the miniature blast furnace impression, but ruined your night vision.  The tops had a rim into which the standard enamel tea can would fit if you wanted to boil water, and the coal lived in a steel area around the stove in the corner.  A rail with hooks was fitted to the inside of the van roof above the stove that you could hang wet coats on to dry out.  

 

If you ran out of coal en route, a manual signal box was a pretty safe bet for replenishment, but in MAS areas you needed to find a yard.  In steam days, of course, you could always pinch some from the loco.  Running out was rare in my experience, though.  It was considered very bad form to had the van over to a guard who was relieving you without a good supply and the fire in good order.

 

I worked as a guard at Canton, so most of the coal I used was pretty good quality South Wales stuff that burned clean and hot.

A great reply thanks for the insight. I 

did wonder if you handed over and left the fire in good order for the next guard. 

Thanks Steve. 

[18B]

Even at Tinsley, where a "Brake Kip" siding was purposefully built, it including a coal bins at the side, presumably replenished periodically from a  16 tonner? 

[Nearholmer]

This could become a mega-sore topic when engineers' trains were stabled/prepared in places that didn't usually have to "prep" stoves and the train was to be worked by a loco with only one cab (no nice cosy "back cab" for the guard), or the train was to be "screwed down" in an isolated place with no loco for part of the job.

 

If it was cold weather, and/or the guard was looking for an excuse to fail the train even when the weather was warm (yes, some did), it could mean scouring the vicinity for combustible material, coal having ceased to be a common commodity that could be found lying about everywhere by the late-1970s, especially at the dead of night, miles from anywhere!

 

I know; I've done the scouring, in order to keep jobs that I was overseeing as engineer going. Smashed-up old sleepers, battens from cable drums, loose bits of wood from the van itself, anything that would burn!

 

Then there were vans with stoves that refused to 'draw' unless the train was moving at a fair pace, causing the fire to go out as soon as the train was stationary........

[The Johnster]

Poor stove performance was usually due to collapse or blockage in the airway beneath the stove rather than in the pipe. and dusty coal, an increasing problem was usually to blame.  For this reason I preferred in some cases to prep my own van so that I could make sure everything was cleared out under there first; I kept a small plastic Woolworth's hand brush in my satchel for this sort of thing.  It was much harder to deal with once the fire was lit, as everything was now too hot.

[RLWP]

15 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 guards took yesterday's newspaper with them

 

So, that's the answer to the Rolling Stone's question

[sf315]

It looks like a guards bag was full of all sorts of things to help him through the day in his brake van.

thanks for the replies 

Steve. 

[cobbler]

Rugby yard had a grounded 16 tonner with the drop doors removed, it had "brake van coal, P-way keep out" painted on the side, I have modelled it in 00 gauge using an old Airfix kit, I think it was topped up by rail in the 1970,s, derelict in the 1980,s

 

Northampton used bags of coal, stored in a Internal User 12 ton van, presume the coal was delivered by Road using a local merchant or BR staff

 

Bletchley had a store of coal in plastic sacks stored behind the Staff Amentity Block next to the carriage sidings, not sure how it was delivered, I don't remember any coming in by rail in stores van, presume it was delivered by Road either direct from a merchant or by BR staff

 

 

Richard

[Trog]

On ‎06‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 19:50, cobbler said:

Rugby yard had a grounded 16 tonner with the drop doors removed, it had "brake van coal, P-way keep out" painted on the side,

 

Richard

 

Presumably less effort than writing "Brake Van coal also available for P-Way use if you need a nice fire while shooting a speed etc." on the wagon."

[The Johnster]

On 06/03/2019 at 19:02, sf315 said:

It looks like a guards bag was full of all sorts of things to help him through the day in his brake van.

thanks for the replies 

Steve. 

It was.  There was, IIRC, a compartment in the end for your detonators, a small one at t'other end for the flags (you carried green and red), and big longitudinal dividers, but I can't recall now if there was/were one or two of these.  One compartment was used for books (General and Sectional Appendices, WTTs, and the like, and the aforementioned yesterday's newspaper, and the other for your tea can, teabags, sugar, milk, and whatever food you'd brought in your sandwich box; this had space in it for sundries such as a tobacco tin to keep a box of matches dry in, and the plastic brush.  It all mounted up to a weighty lump to carry around, and swung problematically off your shoulder when you trying to climb aboard something awkward, like a Western (these seemed to be purposely designed to be as inaccessible as possible).

 

The general lumpiness was further enhanced by the Bardic handlamp, which either had either the shoulder strap or one of the top closing ones through the handle.  The Bardic was a superb piece of equipment; I dropped one off a 47 at 60 mph and it survived in perfect working order, but was very heavily built, and the battery was a bit of a lump as well.  Some guards carried their tea cans in this way as well, but I reckoned this was a sure fire way to lose the enamel cup.

 

They were made of thick leather and were a quality item, fairly heavy in themselves.  We were keen to gt them as mucky as possible on the outside when they were issued new, as they were quite a light tan colour which stood out like a sore thumb; luckily railways are a fairly mucky environment and this didn't take long...

[br2975]

Slightly off topic, but I thought this may be of interest, in fact Johnster may recall the chap in question ?

.

 I was once told of a Radyr guard who used to swap for the brake van prep job. It seems  the late Johnny Wilkins was  known far and wide as " Johnny Chopsticks ".

Apparently "........he used to go up the woods and cut firewood for the vans and  used to clean them thoroughly. He’d spend hours sorting the lamps out replacing wicks and burners,topping paraffin and cleaning lenses. He was an eccentric........."

.

One former colleague recalled...." .........sitting in the messroom with John "waiting orders" and he was talking about his earlier working life. He was a Wessex man and was brought up on a farm, moving to Cardiff to start a job as a conductor with Cardiiff Corporation buses and progressing to driver on the trolleybuses. Apparently he was featured in  the South Wales Echo during October 1966 a photograph showing him at the wheel of a trolleybus outside Cardiff General railway station. He once dropped his wallet behind the hand dryer in the depot train crew toilet, I found it, it had about £300 in it, a lot of money then and I passed it on to the duty train crew supervisor Alan (Crazy Horse) Lewis for safe keeping. John thanked me later and I asked him why he wanted to carry that much cash ...he said that he had never trusted banks ! Many years later I heard that he had died and when his next door neighbour and the Police went into his flat they found over £10k in suitcases under his bed........."

.

Edited March 8, 2019 by br2975

[Mike Storey]

This is a fascinating thread. Something I had not really thought about before, as we only had BV's on engineering trains (bar a few condemned wagon moves and the nuclear flask trains) by the time I had an active role in operations and engineering works on the Southern in the 1980's.

 

The only source of coal by then, if the P/Way yard at Tonbridge, usually, had not sufficiently stocked the BV (often the case with an overrun in the Winter, and the loco crew had screwed down as the driver was over his booked time), were the signal boxes. They had regular deliveries of domestic smokeless, as few had been converted to gas by then. So if the Guard was freezing, and did not have the comfort of the back of a 33 or the nearest box (many signalmen down there would not entertain sharing their box with interlopers, except for signing the register etc), I, as OS, had to go scrounge half a sack from the nearest box, and guarantee replacement later that week. Fine if we were on the Kent coast from Margate, round to Sandwich, or up the Canterbury lines at the time. But what do you do at Ashford, Sittingbourne, Rainham or out on Sheppey? Fortunately (for me) we had very resourceful Engineering Supervisors, who had been there, done that, compared to my greenhorn stupidity, and they always managed to find a supply from somewhere, that I was not privileged to be part of. They always made sure I owed them one, in circumstances like that!

 

Having a coal fire at home at the time (and having grown up with them), I also had to show a few "younger" guards (I was only in my late 20's at the time!!), just how to get their fire going, if it had gone out. Strange how we took such things for granted then.

 

[sf315]

2 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

This is a fascinating thread. Something I had not really thought about before, as we only had BV's on engineering trains (bar a few condemned wagon moves and the nuclear flask trains) by the time I had an active role in operations and engineering works on the Southern in the 1980's.

 

 

 

Glad people are enjoying this thread and thanks to those who have contributed. 

Its just something that was required years ago day in day out just a cog in keeping the railway moving. 

 

If the engineers train had an engineers mess van in the consist would the guard of sat in there for a warm or were they just for the preserve of the engineering staff.

 

Keep the stories and memories coming. It’s nice to read about other people’s memories. 

On the new O Gauge layout I’ve got a concrete store that is for brake van coal. 

Thanks Steve. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by sf315

[Pandora]

Reading the accounts of the brake van coal shows how the railway had a momentum of its own, in my railway job today  that momentum is lost,  our  depot   diesel fuelling point ran dry one weekend because although the office staff ( run as a telesales  call centre)  logged all fuel dispensed no-one had the sense to oredr in fuel.

in BR days  the breakdown crane was in constant readiness,  every day fresh bacon and bread supplies would be delivered , and a job perk was to take it home .

 

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

This is a fascinating thread. Something I had not really thought about before, as we only had BV's on engineering trains (bar a few condemned wagon moves and the nuclear flask trains) by the time I had an active role in operations and engineering works on the Southern in the 1980's.

 

The only source of coal by then, if the P/Way yard at Tonbridge, usually, had not sufficiently stocked the BV (often the case with an overrun in the Winter, and the loco crew had screwed down as the driver was over his booked time), were the signal boxes. They had regular deliveries of domestic smokeless, as few had been converted to gas by then. So if the Guard was freezing, and did not have the comfort of the back of a 33 or the nearest box (many signalmen down there would not entertain sharing their box with interlopers, except for signing the register etc), I, as OS, had to go scrounge half a sack from the nearest box, and guarantee replacement later that week. Fine if we were on the Kent coast from Margate, round to Sandwich, or up the Canterbury lines at the time. But what do you do at Ashford, Sittingbourne, Rainham or out on Sheppey? Fortunately (for me) we had very resourceful Engineering Supervisors, who had been there, done that, compared to my greenhorn stupidity, and they always managed to find a supply from somewhere, that I was not privileged to be part of. They always made sure I owed them one, in circumstances like that!

 

Having a coal fire at home at the time (and having grown up with them), I also had to show a few "younger" guards (I was only in my late 20's at the time!!), just how to get their fire going, if it had gone out. Strange how we took such things for granted then.

 

 

A decade earlier at Canton we were beginning to have new guard intakes on younger blokes (my age then), who, unlike me, had grown up with central or other heating.  Council housing stopped being built with coal fires in the late 50s I believe, and it was a bit of a culture shock to what was a very small c conservative railway to have to show people how to light coal fires!  I was brought up with them, perhaps one of the last generations to be able to claim this, in fact during my early teens my daily household job was to clean the previous day's fire and lay that day's for father to come and put a match to, then claim he'd lit it...

 

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, sf315 said:

Glad people are enjoying this thread and thanks to those who have contributed. 

Its just something that was required years ago day in day out just a cog in keeping the railway moving. 

 

If the engineers train had an engineers mess van in the consist would the guard of sat in there for a warm or were they just for the preserve of the engineering staff.

 

Keep the stories and memories coming. It’s nice to read about other people’s memories. 

On the new O Gauge layout I’ve got a concrete store that is for brake van coal. 

Thanks Steve. 

I am most certainly enjoying it!  Re engineer's mess vans, it would depend on the exact train you were talking about in the 70s.  Many engineers jobs involving cranes or similar equipment were not vacuum braked and used normal 'pool' brake vans, which were supplied with coal and where the guard (and the loco crew if they'd screwed down and shut the engine off) kept warm.  Ballasting job featured 'Shark' vans. 

 

The Canton big breakdown crane had a dedicated van which was always kept stocked with coal and ready to go at a moment's notice; thankfully I never rode on it 'in anger' to the sort of incident that needed that kind of train, but did go out twice with it on civil engineering jobs.  The Canton breakdown vans, OTOH, a separate 2 coach train of mess and tool vans, converted mk1 BSKs in my day but older photos show Colletts, retained the brake compartment in the mess van and this is where the guard rode.  As this was the mess van, bottled gas was used for the heating and cooking facilities.  A trip on this was much more common, usually to some minor shunting incident on Cardiff Docks.  

 

But we had the contract to re-rail in the Tremorfa steel plant, using the vans, as well, and this was always a good day out because of their free, and excellent, canteen!

[manna]

G'day Folks

 

Eastleigh wasn't known for being a coal hot spot, so when booking on one night to work a class 6/7 goods to Willesden, I had to have a wander around to find a bit of coal/wood for the brakevan, wasn't to bad to Willesden, and the van was warm by the time I got there, but I didn't get the same van back, so at 0130, I was scrabbling around on the deck with my 'Bardic' trying to find 'Anything' I would have had more luck getting water in the Sahara, I found about a bucketful of whatever, but it wasn't enough, and the van was surely getting cold by Basingstoke, ever so glad to get back to Eastleigh.

 

manna

[Mike Storey]

8 hours ago, sf315 said:

Glad people are enjoying this thread and thanks to those who have contributed. 

Its just something that was required years ago day in day out just a cog in keeping the railway moving. 

 

If the engineers train had an engineers mess van in the consist would the guard of sat in there for a warm or were they just for the preserve of the engineering staff.

 

Keep the stories and memories coming. It’s nice to read about other people’s memories. 

On the new O Gauge layout I’ve got a concrete store that is for brake van coal. 

Thanks Steve. 

 

Good point about the engineers' mess van, but on the SR this was usually a road van or two, as each train was not supposed to stick around for long (these were almost always re-laying or re-railing jobs).  There were rarely nearby sidings to put an engineer's train, so the whole process was more like a conveyor belt, hence the need for someone like me on site. If the road van was near enough, I guess a lonely guard would be entertained in extremis, but often the guard's problem would be up to a mile away from that, and we did not want to spend another hour finding him (always him in those days) when a new driver turned up! I had use of a Sherpa van to shuttle as near as I could get, with whatever I could scrounge.

 

 

[sf315]

6 hours ago, manna said:

G'day Folks

 

Eastleigh wasn't known for being a coal hot spot, so when booking on one night to work a class 6/7 goods to Willesden, I had to have a wander around to find a bit of coal/wood for the brakevan, wasn't to bad to Willesden, and the van was warm by the time I got there, but I didn't get the same van back, so at 0130, I was scrabbling around on the deck with my 'Bardic' trying to find 'Anything' I would have had more luck getting water in the Sahara, I found about a bucketful of whatever, but it wasn't enough, and the van was surely getting cold by Basingstoke, ever so glad to get back to Eastleigh.

 

manna

Did anybody do the unthinkable and bring coal from home I wonder just to be warm if you knew you were on a certain job. 

[Nearholmer]

And, on M&E engineerstrains, until about 1985, we only had a mess and tool van if there was a crane in the train, which in 80% of cases there wasn’t. Sounds Victorian, but the crew used to ride from the nearest station in the open wagons or on the cable layers.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Nearholmer

[SED Freightman]

By the early 1990's I think the only regular South Eastern services with brake vans were the Dungeness flask train and a Dover Town - Willesden - Dover Town service when required to convey certain dangerous goods traffic for the train ferry.  On at least one occasion an emergency supply of coal was obtained by sending staff to a petrol filling station to purchase plastic bags of domestic coal, presumably the vans were normally topped up with coal at Willesden.  My last mainline trip in a brake van with a working stove was on a 'gauging trip' from Eastleigh to Salisbury and back on 23/02/93, hauled by S15 Class No.828.  On a slight tangent but in a similar vein was the problem of obtaining gas cylinders for heating the MoD Escort Coaches (MODA99150/1) on the occasion of flask movements from Chatham Dockyard, at one time the C&W were able to obtain supplies from Clapham Yard, but once the SR lost its allocation of gas fired catering coaches it became necessary to obtain supplies from Old Oak Common Depot. 

[Mike Storey]

21 minutes ago, SED Freightman said:

By the early 1990's I think the only regular South Eastern services with brake vans were the Dungeness flask train and a Dover Town - Willesden - Dover Town service when required to convey certain dangerous goods traffic for the train ferry.  On at least one occasion an emergency supply of coal was obtained by sending staff to a petrol filling station to purchase plastic bags of domestic coal, presumably the vans were normally topped up with coal at Willesden.  My last mainline trip in a brake van with a working stove was on a 'gauging trip' from Eastleigh to Salisbury and back on 23/02/93, hauled by S15 Class No.828.  On a slight tangent but in a similar vein was the problem of obtaining gas cylinders for heating the MoD Escort Coaches (MODA99150/1) on the occasion of flask movements from Chatham Dockyard, at one time the C&W were able to obtain supplies from Clapham Yard, but once the SR lost its allocation of gas fired catering coaches it became necessary to obtain supplies from Old Oak Common Depot. 

 

I did not know about flask movements from Chatham dockyard - when were these? was it when the subs were still maintained there?

 

There was (and I think they continued, and may even still run, for all I know, because the plant is still in operation, although apparently mostly ship-served now, from my links with a Sheppey History site) a fairly regular movement of condemned stock to Queenborough Shipbreakers (under another name now), and many of these wagons and occasionally old EMU's and odd stock, were unbraked (even if they had fitted brakes in service). In the 1980's, they all needed CAB's (BV's) which piled up at Queenborough Yard until a special move to rid us of them. Did these not continue after that?