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Departmental/engineers rolling stock


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Hi, 

 

i am very new to scene and have acquired some rolling stock in the plain grey departmental and 'Dutch' livery.

 

However I am a little confused by some terminology. I see items termed 'departmental' or 'engineers', is this actually the same thing or are they completely different departments with different roles?

 

Your help would be much appreciated.

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'Departmental' covered a whole range of uses and reflects the 'D' prefix to many vehicle numbers e.g DB 999950 for the HSTRC  TRC%201998.jpg ; 'engineers' was a slightly smaller subset. However, most references to 'engineers' seem to be related to track engineering, measuring, renewing, disposing of rail, sleepers ballast.   This is as it should be as Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic and Signalling Engineers are only just Engineers :o; of course Structural engineers are at the peek but we had limited departmental rolling stock e.g. Viaduct and Tunnel Inspection trains

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All engineers wagons are departmental wagons, but not all departmental wagons are engineers wagons.

 

Barrier wagons, depot test trains etc would be classed as departmental stock - i.e. stock that is non-revenue earning, but wouldn't be used by the engineers responsible for maintaining and building the permenent way.

 

Steven B.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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As a general rule, P-Way and Civil Engineers Dept wagons were given ‘fishkind’ names and numbers often prefixed DB. A lot of ex revenue stock used for other duties such as RTC would be ADB. Locomotives would be Class 97 with a /power rating such as 97/2 for Type 2’s i.e. class 24 97201 and class 46 97403. 

Edited by Baby Deltic
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20 hours ago, Bomag said:

'Departmental' covered a whole range of uses and reflects the 'D' prefix to many vehicle numbers e.g DB 999950 for the HSTRC  TRC%201998.jpg ; 'engineers' was a slightly smaller subset. However, most references to 'engineers' seem to be related to track engineering, measuring, renewing, disposing of rail, sleepers ballast.   This is as it should be as Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic and Signalling Engineers are only just Engineers :o; of course Structural engineers are at the peek but we had limited departmental rolling stock e.g. Viaduct and Tunnel Inspection trains

Said structural engineers though would struggle to get a peek at all their viaducts and tunnels without the ME&SE sorting out all the complicated stuff so that they could get their inspection train on-site....

 

Departmental also includes track circuit runners for SWB shunters, Enparts wagons, cranes, carriage pre-heating stock, and breakdown trains to name a few more.

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Engineers trains and the stock used on them in all its various forms were simply that, trains used by engineers to do works,..

A spoil train is an engineers train, so is a train load of ballast in ballast laying hoppers like the Seacow.

 

Not all the departmental trains and stock were used in engineering works. Track inspection trains, rolling workshops, test trains etc etc.

 

A train used to test the OHLE is departmental, while the train used to put the wire up is an engineers train.

 

The weedkiller train is departmental as there is no actual engineering works

A tamper is a departmental train used in engineering works so its an engineers train.

 

Or a train or hoppers that is loaded full of ballast and delivers that ballast to the storage yard at Crewe is a departmental train, when that exact same train (same loco same wagons) is loaded up at the same storage yard and takes the ballast to a rail relay job and delivers it to the track is then called an engineers train.

Edited by ElectroSoldier
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If you are wondering what your departmental liveried 08 can haul, then virtually anything will work as the sectors loaned and borrowed all sorts of locos (though the actual 97 numbered ones were less often lent).

 

Is it painted grey? If yes, haul anything with a leaning towards air braked stock.:D

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  • 7 months later...
On ‎30‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 21:58, ElectroSoldier said:

...................,., so is a train load of ballast in ballast laying hoppers like the Seacow.

.......................

 

Would that have been train made up of Sealions and Stingrays?

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Sealion = earlier bogie hoppers, vac-braked

Seacow = air/dual barked version of Sealion

Stingray = Seacow with generator for providing power for lighting

 

There was also a Walrus which was built for BR(S) and is similar to Sealion (differences to account for thrid rail?), and the Whale, which had a larger capacity.

 

Steven B

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On 30/09/2019 at 13:01, Steven B said:

 departmental stock - i.e. stock that is non-revenue earning.

This is the nub of it - anything which isn't revenue earning is departmental. The 1980s / early 90s was a fascinating period for this as there was a huge variety of purpose-built departmental stock, some of it quite old, rubbing shoulders with a lot of ex-traffic wagons, some dating back to the Big 4. There was also the '97xxx' series of locos, retained for special or large projects. 

 

All sorts of manky old tat could turn up on occasions, it depends what the job was. The Eastern Region even managed to retain unfitted vehicles into the 1990s (just). 

Edited by Wheatley
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2 hours ago, Steven B said:

Sealion = earlier bogie hoppers, vac-braked

Seacow = air/dual barked version of Sealion

Stingray = Seacow with generator for providing power for lighting

 

There was also a Walrus which was built for BR(S) and is similar to Sealion (differences to account for thrid rail?), and the Whale, which had a larger capacity.

 

Steven B

The Walrus is a design which dates back to the L&SWR, back at the beginning of the 20th century; the company had only one source of decent ballast, at Meldon in Devon. Thus it needed large ballast wagons, capable of (relatively) high speeds, because of the distances involved; the wagons  predated third-rail.

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On ‎29‎/‎05‎/‎2020 at 13:36, Steven B said:

Sealion = earlier bogie hoppers, vac-braked

Seacow = air/dual barked version of Sealion

Stingray = Seacow with generator for providing power for lighting

 

 

To be pedantic, Sealion is the term for a dual-braked one, Seacow is for air-braked only with or without a vacuum pipe. Walrus were vac-braked only amongst other differences.

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6 minutes ago, Simon Bendall said:

 

To be pedantic, Sealion is the term for a dual-braked one, Seacow is for air-braked only with or without a vacuum pipe. Walrus were vac-braked only amongst other differences.

so were seacows vac through piped only?

I did not know that...

I take it whales were vac only?

 

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4 hours ago, ElectroSoldier said:

The era you choose to model would dictate that, I just used the Seacow as an example

 

I was joking quoting the wagons that were most like a Seacow.

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1 hour ago, pheaton said:

so were seacows vac through piped only?

I take it whales were vac only?

 

 

Yes, a Seacow, be it the 1980s welded ones or the small batch of 1970s riveted ones, were built with air brakes and vac pipes only. Sealion were built with both air brakes and AFI vacuum brakes. If you really want confusion when Sealion lost their vacuum brakes in the 1990s they became Seacow.

 

Whales were built new with air brakes and stayed that way.

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The Whales suffered with bogie spring and frame problems on the Meldon runs and were transferred away in due course but the vast majority made it into privatisation so not withdrawn early per se. Similarly, the BR Walrus had the same spring trouble, both types having the plateback bogies, they too were moved to other flows eventually.

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