Siphon G - corridor connections

[WillCav]

Hi all,

 

I've been reading the Jack Slinn Siphons book and it's got me thinking about the ends of them.

 

The first Siphons had fixed ends, later ones had vehicle size end doors and lastly, corridor connections. I understand how the large end doors help with flexibility in use - but why corridor connections on Siphon Gs?

 

Would they allow passengers to go through them to get their luggage if used in a passenger train? Was it for staff access in transit? It couldn't have been that useful as later conversions sometimes removed them.  Is there any logical explanation or is it just GWR standardisation gone mad.

 

Last question- should I be putting an end plate on them or were they only used to protect coach ends?  Most photos don't have the right angle to see.

 

Thanks

 

Will

[chrisf]

It's not as simple as that.  The Siphons with end doors had high roofs and end doors [Siphon H].   The Siphons G had gangways because it was often necessary for staff to move between them when trains were on the move.  A case in point was the Paddington - Penzance postal where the Siphons carried mailbags before and after sorting.   The use of end plates was variable: for operational reasons it was sometimes necessary to prevent access between two portions of a train.  The Sjphon G was very much a multi-purpose vehicle and fitting them with gangways made them more versatile.

 

Chris

[WillCav]

Thanks for the quick response Chris.

 

That makes a lot of sense.

 

I'm now thinking to put end plates on some siphon Gs to use between a loco and passenger train or on a milk but leave off on another for a mail or parcels train. Does that ring true? I know it's too much of a generalisation but I don't want to be removing / adding end plates every time I swap consists around.

 

Thanks

 

Will

 

 

[M.I.B]

Check your dates on churn milk traffic and the use of SIPHONs to carry them.  Plentiful in the 20s and  30s, but gone in the 40s. 

 

By then express milk was bulked into 6 wheelers (4 wheelers were also gone in the 40s)

 

Parcels trains would likely have carried end plates, but postals would be open - sorted and un-sorted sacks of letter being moved into and out of the TSOs and TPOs as the letters were  sorted on route.  Parcels all going to one depot were more likely to be sealed into one van and not get sorted on route.

[WillCav]

Thanks M.I.B,

 

I'm modelling 1947 so I have a load of 6w milk tanks - were the churns in Siphons not used at all by then?

 

regards

 

Will

[Dunsignalling]

IIRC, Siphon G vans were also used for newspaper traffic so the gangways were useful for the travelling porters who off-loaded bales of papers in the wee small hours at wayside stations with no night turn staff.

 

Otherwise, there'd have been an awful lot of BGs tied up with the guard's compartment surplus to requirements. 

 

John

[M.I.B]

1 hour ago, WillCav said:

Thanks M.I.B,

 

I'm modelling 1947 so I have a load of 6w milk tanks - were the churns in Siphons not used at all by then?

 

regards

 

Will

 

The six wheelers replaced churn traffic because it saved so much manpower.

 

I'm not going to say "there was not a single churn shifted in 1947" because someone will turn out a picture of one being used in 1956, but in general, churn traffic was dead by then.

 

 

SIPHON Gs also had drop down shelves which make them great for light bulky loads such as trays of flowers or fruit and veg.  That's a typical cargo which din't like being stacked too high, so in a "G" with shelves you almost doubled the amount you could carry.    So in the right season in the right region, you would have had an increase in that sort of traffic.  There's the much quote Cornish broccoli season for example.  Other regions had peaks at other times for other foodstuffs.

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

IIRC, Siphon G vans were also used for newspaper traffic so the gangways were useful for the travelling porters who off-loaded bales of papers in the wee small hours at wayside stations with no night turn staff.

 

Otherwise, there'd have been an awful lot of BGs tied up with the guard's compartment surplus to requirements. 

 

John

The WR 'Papers' were certainly mainly Siphon Gs well into the 1970s; they conveyed sorters, who would make up bundles for the wholesalers at each stop. As the sorting vans had no toilets or other facilities, gangways would be necessary to allow them access to the BSK, which also acted as riding/sleeping space on the way to London. 

[The Johnster]

The Siphon G, with gangways, is in some ways not a true Siphon in the sense of being a vehicle specifically designed to carry milk churns, but then neither was the Siphon H, which is more like a what other railways would have called a GUV.  Later Siphon designs were general purpose vans used for parcels and mails traffic, and the G's gangways made them suitable for the newspaper traffic.  This, to save time and aid early morning delivery of national papers, was delivered from the various Fleet Street printing shops to Paddington and loaded onto the down paper trains, West Country and South Wales, in bulk and sorted into bundles for the individual newsagents by sorters on the train; these sorters were not railway employees or travelling porters.  As they needed access to toilet facilities in the passenger part of the train, the gangways were essential, and they were steam heated.  Unloading was assisted by the newsagents, who turned up in vans to collect their bundles off the train.  The sorters brought their own refreshments in flasks and sandwich boxes.

 

The bogie Siphons (there was a J as well, without the ventilators) all had fold down shelves attached by chains, and it was these that were used as working surfaces by the paper sorters.  It meant that they were also in demand for other traffic, such as flowers or broccoli from Cornwall or the Channel Islands via Weymouth, bulk live chicks going cheep in cardboard boxes, and pigeon specials.  For this reason, the newspaper vans were branded and RU, but were not modified in any way for the traffic, although the light bulbs were probably changed more often!  They worked a circuit, attached to down overnight passenger trains and being picked up late morning/early afternoon in up parcels trains to work empty back to Paddington for the following night.  The sorters went back home to London on the cushions of ordinary service passenger trains.  Later BR standard GUVs that replaced them had lavatories fitted.

 

The gangwayed Siphons were not AFAIK used as part of TPO formations; in any case TPO vehicles in those days had off centre gangways in the interest of security, so that only the TPO staff could move between them.  They were never used as bag tenders to supply the postal sorters with unsorted bags or to store the sorted bags, and specific TPO vehicles in Royal Mail livery were used for that purpose.  They certainly carried mail, in the same way as any other parcels vehicle may have been used for this purpose, but not TPO traffic.

[Siberian Snooper]

4 hours ago, M.I.B said:

 

The six wheelers replaced churn traffic because it saved so much manpower.

 

I'm not going to say "there was not a single churn shifted in 1947" because someone will turn out a picture of one being used in 1956, but in general, churn traffic was dead by then.

 

 

SIPHON Gs also had drop down shelves which make them great for light bulky loads such as trays of flowers or fruit and veg.  That's a typical cargo which din't like being stacked too high, so in a "G" with shelves you almost doubled the amount you could carry.    So in the right season in the right region, you would have had an increase in that sort of traffic.  There's the much quote Cornish broccoli season for example.  Other regions had peaks at other times for other foodstuffs.

 

 

Strawberries were a seasonal traffic on the Cheddar Valley line,  there are several published photos of them in various books on the line.

 

 

[M.I.B]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

The gangwayed Siphons were not AFAIK used as part of TPO formations; in any case TPO vehicles in those days had off centre gangways in the interest of security, so that only the TPO staff could move between them.  

 

I have read in a couple of books (don't ask where tonight), and more than one place on RM Web that the offset corridors on TPO and TSO/ Supporting full brakes, were the product of spatial design and not security.

 

Having done postal sorting, I can't see a central gangway working: the passageway down the coach would have to be off to one side to allow the sorters to work their pigeon holes whilst "collectors" and " deliverers" moved up and down behind them either taking away full pigeonholes or delivering bundles of unsorted.

 

The film "Night Mail" shows all of this going on.  Youtube has a few copies.

 

Plus the bag mechanisms on the TPO would take up room when being prepared: an off set gangway would allow the business of moving bags into and out of the TPO and sorting to go on.

[WillCav]

Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply to my questions.

 

The amount of info that has been given is amazing and I have plenty of options for my siphons now I know that 1947 is too late for churn traffic.  I might have to get a few more 6 wheel milks though...

 

Thanks again

 

Will

[M.I.B]

Other stereotypical things not generally correct for late GWR include:

 

beige fuel tankers - silver, grey, black or PO colours in the 40s.

4 wheel milks - replaced by 6 wheelers

County Tanks and 4-4-0 County engines

whole trains of GW wagons

Only "local" PO wagons - they were pooled and got everywhere.

Conformity - black engines with green tenders, most trains were made of mismatched stock, in all brown, chocolate and cream, and Austerity Brown, often at the same time. 

Lined Express engines - the only lined Halls now seem to have been the "newfangled improved" ones. (There's a whole thread here just on that)

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

One thing about Siphon G's gangways which is probably not widely known is that the gangways were stronger than the vehicle ends in the later years of the vehicles.  One of my Shunters in one of his dimmer moments was splitting a couple of news vans and forgot to undo the gangway clips.  Hence when he (not exactly officially) loose shunted, rather hard, the uncoupled vehicles something had to give - and it wasn't the gangways because they remained in one piece firmly clipped together while the entire end was pulled out of one of the Siphons.

 

Sorry to tell anybody interested in constructional detail but in those days I didn't take a camera to work so was unable to get a pic of it.

[Siberian Snooper]

Did he enjoy his tea and biscuits?

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

Did he enjoy his tea and biscuits?

 

 

More into curry as it happened.  He didn't think much of the disciplinary hearing but he and his mates were very much into loose shunting coaching stock including one I observed from an unlikely vantage point on Saturday morning giving a restaurant car a very hefty shove to set it in motion on its own,   He had a big surprise about 25 minutes later when I descended on the Shunters' cabin and read his, somewhat dark,  fortune for him. 

[The Johnster]

Might I venture to suggest that this was at a certain large carriage sidings in an area named for an elderly tree on land designated for public use not a million miles from London?

[WillCav]

If I can go a bit off topic (is it off topic if I started the thread?)

 

I have a Lima Siphon G that I am converting to either diag O59 Siphon or M34 parcels (ex ambulance train with 11x shell vents in the roof).

 

I know about the plank width / bogies / underframe issues. I have some donor bogies and I'll make new sides if I decide to make it an M34.

 

What colour should the roof be for 1947ish?  I know white is too early but what shade of grey should I use?

 

Thanks

 

Will

 

[M.I.B]

All depends how "Ex works" it is Will.  It it is going to be very grubby, go the whole hog and go for matt black.

 

Euro Car Parts do a primer that is a lovely shade of very dark grey.  Green tin I think.  It looks great with 2 coats of that and a mist of matt black sprayed on from above from 3 feet.

[melmerby]

Coach roofs from 1947 were officially black, so the chances are so were the "Browns"

[WillCav]

Thanks M.I.B and melmerby,

I'll get a can of the primer and try that out. I might do some black roofs on some of my other stock for variety.

 

Will

[The Johnster]

On 29/09/2019 at 20:06, melmerby said:

Coach roofs from 1947 were officially black, so the chances are so were the "Browns"

This has implications for Cwmdimbath's stock, Kieth; if the roofs were officially black in 1947 they must have remained so until 31/5/48 when the first BR liveries became available.  I have room therefore for ex GW coaching stock in GW livery and black roofs, with both GW and BR numbering...

[chrisf]

On 19/09/2019 at 18:43, The Johnster said:

 

The gangwayed Siphons were not AFAIK used as part of TPO formations; in any case TPO vehicles in those days had off centre gangways in the interest of security, so that only the TPO staff could move between them.  They were never used as bag tenders to supply the postal sorters with unsorted bags or to store the sorted bags, and specific TPO vehicles in Royal Mail livery were used for that purpose.  They certainly carried mail, in the same way as any other parcels vehicle may have been used for this purpose, but not TPO traffic.

 

No fewer than 10 Siphons G were branded "To work only on Down and Up West of England TPO".  One was detached at Exeter and ended up at Torrington.

 

Chris

[Miss Prism]

On 29/09/2019 at 20:06, melmerby said:

Coach roofs from 1947 were officially black, so the chances are so were the "Browns"

 

Is this 'at sometime in 1947' (i.e. GWR) or after 1947? I can't see a mention of black roofs in Great Western Way.

 

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Is this 'at sometime in 1947' (i.e. GWR) or after 1947? I can't see a mention of black roofs in Great Western Way.

 

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