PO Wagons used with GWR Locos

[VicZA]

Hi All,

 

I currently live in the UK but am not oroginally from here so don't have too much info on the history of the railways in the UK besides what I have read so far. Therefore please could you answer some basic questions:

- are the PO Wagons available from the likes of Bachmann and Hornby based on companies that actually existed and are the liveries genuine?

- did certain POW only run with certain Railways such as the GWR based on their "trade routes"?

- I particularly like the GWR locos so (assuming the above two questions are "yes") - is there a list of POWs somewhere that show the connection? Would like to model one of these GWR trade routes with coal wagons of the period

 

Any tips, links, comments would be greatly appreciated

[Miss Prism]

The PO liveries used by Hornby and Bachmann tend to be reasonably accurate, but are usually applied to bodies that are not accurate in size or correct characteristic. PO liveries tended also to change. In early times, colliery-owned wagons predominated. Then coal factors (like Stephenson Clarke) began to be more prominent. Wagons owned by coal merchants were regarded as good publicity. Colleries, coal factors and merchants went in and out of business. Liveries became less gaudy and simplified over time.  It was an ever- changing situation.

 

PO wagons tended not to stray too far off their usual routes, which for many was colliery to major coal yard and back again. They didn't go 'on tour'.

 

There's loads of book on PO wagons if you're interested in finding out what might have run on GWR metals in a particular period.

 

Powsides are good, and are based on the Slaters kits. We might even see Slaters reintroduce their own range of pre-printed PO wagons some time in the future.

 

 

 

[Nick Holliday]

Apologies for a rambling reply, but this is a complex can of worms, and would really require several volumes to explore completely.

VicZA asked:

- are the PO Wagons available from the likes of Bachmann and Hornby based on companies that actually existed and are the liveries genuine?

- did certain POW only run with certain Railways such as the GWR based on their "trade routes"?

- I particularly like the GWR locos so (assuming the above two questions are "yes") - is there a list of POWs somewhere that show the connection? Would like to model one of these GWR trade routes with coal wagons of the period

As Miss Prism said, the majority of recent Bachmann and Hornby open wagons are based on real liveries, even if the wagons are not quite accurate in many cases.  The limited editions, often from Dapol for retailers and societies are sometimes less realistic, being based, if at all, on adverts or road vehicle liveries.  Avoid vans, unless you can be sure of their provenance, as there were few real life examples.

Miss Prism replied:

PO wagons tended not to stray too far off their usual routes, which for many was colliery to major coal yard and back again. They didn't go 'on tour'.

To a certain extent I have to disagree with this statement.  The only “trade routes” that I can think of would be from colliery to dock, such as in South Wales, where the railways were effectively a conveyor belt from pit to port, or in the North East, where the vast staithes (proper usage of the term) where provided to allow tipping directly into the ships’ holds, and to specific large users, such as City of Birmingham’s power stations or steel works. In terms of tonnage carried, I would agree that a vast proportion of coal was carried this way over short distances, but away from the ports such streams would be rare.

For our typical (if there is such a thing) coal trader, operating on a smaller scale than the big boys, there were three options: order directly from a coal mine, and have it delivered in their wagons, and pay for the hire costs of the wagon, and potential demurrage if it takes too long to unload; order via a coal agent, with similar costs; or order it from the mine and then send his own wagon to be loaded at the pit, saving some costs, but incurring all his on-costs of owning or hiring and maintaining his wagon(s) and the haulage fees from the railways concerned.

Although the bigger companies might consolidate their wagons at points like Toton sidings, as has been discussed regarding companies in East Anglia, and then send several wagons at one time to a pit for loading and return to Toton, they would soon get separated as they made their way back to their various destinations.

It must be remembered that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of types of coal available, from the hardest anthracite to nutty slack, and each pit would only be able to offer a limited range of types, dependent on geology. The Welsh anthracite was usually carried on the pits’ own wagons, and only required in one or two wagon loads, and could appear over a wide area of Britain, including Kent and East Anglia for the horticultural and malting trades. End customers might be quite specific about where they wanted their coal to come from, so a trader might end up sending empty wagons in several different directions. In addition, competition between pits could lead to various bargains becoming available, and the trader would have the benefit of regular trade magazines containing details, or access to the London Coal Exchange, to find the best deals, and the efficient postal system could get his order sorted almost as quickly as today’s internet, and probably more reliably!

A notable type of coal was the renowned Welsh Steam Coal, which was highly prized for bunkerage purposes, hence the vast quantities taken straight to port, either for fuelling or for export. The GWR, I believe, designed their locos to make best use of this type of coal, which was rather soft, whereas the LMS and LNER, I think, preferred, or had to, make use of harder Yorkshire steam coal, with different combustion characteristics.

This website has a lot of useful information on goods traffic in general https://www.igg.org.uk/rail/7-fops/007-index.htm and is worth a look.

It should be remembered that the Great Western served a large number of coalfields directly, from Pembrokeshire, South Wales, Forest of Dean, North Wales, Bristol, Somerset, Warwick and several areas to the west of Birmingham, and, via Market Drayton and Crewe, to the North Staffordshire and Cannock Chase.  So it would be quite possible to have loaded wagons heading in both directions on the same line. In addition, as far as the GWR was concerned, there was a substantial coastal trade in coal being sent from Wales, around the Bristol Channel area to various ports, such as Penzance, Kingswear and Southampton, and not just coal for their locos, where the ships would be unloaded and taken by rail into the immediate hinterland.

I suppose this extensive coverage could mean that, as your original question, some wagons only ever travelled over GWR metals, for many this wouldn’t be the case, especially in pre-grouping days, when a wagon might travel over half a dozen different lines on its journey between pit and customer.

There's loads of book on PO wagons if you're interested in finding out what might have run on GWR metals in a particular period.

A useful source if study is this index covering the 20 Lightmoor books, 5 Hudson and several others, plenty to read and consider. http://lightmoor.co.uk/BDLpdf_files/Private_Owner_Wagons_Index.pdf

Another point to remember is that wagon building firms often sent newly-built wagons, on behalf of the new customer, to a nearby colliery for sending forward to the client. This was particularly noticeable for the Gloucester works, who would often send wagons intended for a London or South East customer to a colliery in the Midlands, thus reducing the amount of empty running mileage that would be required sending them directly eastwards. Also there are plausible reasons why wagons might appear in unexpected places, such as wagons being used to carry manufactured goods or building materials during slack summer periods when the coal traffic was minimal, or those of fishing companies being re-directed to follow the fish.

You haven’t specified your period.  During the two wars, conditions meant that shipping was rather restricted, and a lot more coal had to be taken by rail, including the Jellicoe Specials, taking Welsh Steam coal to the Highlands of Scotland for the fleet at Scapa Flow.  During the second conflict all PO coal wagons were pooled, and, as a result wagons could end up anywhere there were connected standard gauge tracks, hence Scottish PO wagons, which hardly ever appeared south of the border during peace time, turned up in London, and a Sussex wagon arrived in Plymouth.

 

 

[TheQ]

if you look on here http://www.users.waitrose.com/~21oldway/ you'll see many commissioned wagons, some you will see are semi fictional  but most are real, they state which ones are which are authentic..

including the Rawlings and sons wagon of my family..

 

There are regional books about PO wagons and the Keith Turton series of about 15 books

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=private+owner+wagons+turton&hvadid=80745417095680&hvbmt=bb&hvdev=c&hvqmt=b&tag=mh0a9-21&ref=pd_sl_9lawjkhcqk_b 

well illustrated and with historical details..

Edited April 2, 2019 by TheQ

[Fat Controller]

Anything with 'Anthracite' in the name might be seen anywhere in the UK. Coming from the western edge of the South Wales coalfield, its low odour when burning made it popular for maltsters, brewers, market gardeners and so on.

Another PO name you would see heading east was Stephenson Clarke (Usually rendered as SC on wagons) a very large coal factors who, apart from supplying industry and merchants, also transported a lot of steam coal for the Southern Railway.

[VicZA]

Thanks for the responses everyone ... very insightful and useful ... now to get reading

[eastglosmog]

A non-coal GWR flow (c 1919 to 1939) was Baldwin's traffic from the Oxfordshire Ironstone pits near Wroxton to the blast furnaces in South Wales.  There is a picture of a train of Baldwin wagons in Jenkins et al The Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway (can't find a copy of the photo on line, I'm afraid).

[O-Gauge-Phil]

On 01/04/2019 at 17:41, Miss Prism said:

 

Powsides are good, and are based on the Slaters kits. We might even see Slaters reintroduce their own range of pre-printed PO wagons some time in the future.

 

 

 

I believe Slaters have just bought a new super duper printing machine and are re-introducing their PO wagons.  They can also do custom work and they told me that they would very much like to recoup some of the huge amount of money spent on it.

Phil