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BDA wagons. Timber loading possibly?


BR37414
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Hey lads,

 

Is there a possibility that BDA wagons where used for timber traffic?

 

I know some Bolster Ds were fitted with new bogies and called BSWs, but was wondering if BDAs were ever used in Timber flows or was it steel flows only?

 

Thanks,

 

Alex

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6 hours ago, BR37414 said:

Hey lads,

 

Is there a possibility that BDA wagons where used for timber traffic?

 

I know some Bolster Ds were fitted with new bogies and called BSWs, but was wondering if BDAs were ever used in Timber flows or was it steel flows only?

 

Thanks,

 

Alex

After the storm of 1987, all sorts of wagons, in all sorts of locations, were involved in the clean-up. When things settled down, BDAs and derivatives were to be found in flows of soft-wood to Hereford and other locations around the Marches. This wasn't for pulping, but for making pallets and garden furniture.

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6 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

There was a small number of BDAs were fitted with tall stanchions and coded BTA.

 

Thanks Mark! I will search up BTAs and do some research on that.

 

6 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

BSWs were just BDVs fitted with through air pipes and new stanchions but no other modifications 

 

Thanks for that correction, I must have gotten confused where I read the bogie swap.

 

6 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

After the storm of 1987, all sorts of wagons, in all sorts of locations, were involved in the clean-up. When things settled down, BDAs and derivatives were to be found in flows of soft-wood to Hereford and other locations around the Marches. This wasn't for pulping, but for making pallets and garden furniture.

 

Thanks FC, I will do a Flickr search and see if I can find some photos of that. Do you happen to know where the flows to Hereford orginated from?

 

Alex

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1 hour ago, BR37414 said:

 

Thanks Mark! I will search up BTAs and do some research on that.

 

 

Thanks for that correction, I must have gotten confused where I read the bogie swap.

 

 

Thanks FC, I will do a Flickr search and see if I can find some photos of that. Do you happen to know where the flows to Hereford orginated from?

 

Alex

Looking at 'Freight Train Formations' by David Ratcliffe:-

27/06/1988  7V93 4 BSW from Taynuilt (Oban line) to Hereford for Pontilas sawmills

26/07/1988  7V93 1 YAA (CCE-owned BDA), 7 OBA and 3 OTA  from Crianlarich to Hereford for Western Softwoods.

He only gives two formations for this traffic; however, there is a photo of 3 BSWs at Hereford. Livery grey sides and  'Freight Red' ends

 

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18 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

27/06/1988  7V93 4 BSW from Taynuilt (Oban line) to Hereford for Pontilas sawmills

26/07/1988  7V93 1 YAA (CCE-owned BDA), 7 OBA and 3 OTA  from Crianlarich to Hereford for Western Softwoods.

He only gives two formations for this traffic; however, there is a photo of 3 BSWs at Hereford. Livery grey sides and  'Freight Red' ends

 

Thanks again FC. I purchased the Rail Express Formations Handbook last year and it shows BSWs in several of the formations but only says Lower Crianlarich/Fort William to Mossend with a date. Thats very helpful to know they were most likely going to Hereford.

 

Cheers!

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2 hours ago, BR37414 said:

 

 

 

 

Thanks FC, I will do a Flickr search and see if I can find some photos of that. Do you happen to know where the flows to Hereford orginated from?

 

Alex

The flow to Hereford came down from various locations in Scotland in almost anything that was capable of carrying logs, but mostly BSW,s, OBA'a and very occasionally the odd OAA, OCA or OTA, See photos below. Traffic used to come down overnight from Warrington and get put off in Hereford station, in a siding known as "Under the wall" by the island platform. It came down in dribs and drabs, as and when, and on occasions it would accumulate in Warrington to such an extent that we would send one of the locos off the evening Padd-Herefords up to Warrington to clear the yard. I did it at least once, unfortunately with a 47, not a 50, with strict instrunction, "on no account was I to leave the loco, and bring it back to Hereford at all cost". Interesting times for freight at Hereford, now sadly all gone.

A lone OCA carrying timber in the yard at Hereford.

110552 OBA & 112212 OCA [CBR8-001]

 

The Hereford- STJcn pickup including OBA, BSW and a lone OTA wagon.

09-87-030

 

 

Paul J.

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32 minutes ago, Swindon 123 said:

The flow to Hereford came down from various locations in Scotland in almost anything that was capable of carrying logs, but mostly BSW,s, OBA'a and very occasionally the odd OAA, OCA or OTA, See photos below. Traffic used to come down overnight from Warrington and get put off in Hereford station, in a siding known as "Under the wall" by the island platform. It came down in dribs and drabs, as and when, and on occasions it would accumulate in Warrington to such an extent that we would send one of the locos off the evening Padd-Herefords up to Warrington to clear the yard. I did it at least once, unfortunately with a 47, not a 50, with strict instrunction, "on no account was I to leave the loco, and bring it back to Hereford at all cost". Interesting times for freight at Hereford, now sadly all gone.

A lone OCA carrying timber in the yard at Hereford.

 

Thank you for sharing those photos and info Paul. 

 

I shall have to get some OBAs now to also mix with my BDAs and OTAs. 

 

Would you be loco only from Hereford to Warrington to collect the wagons? I'm assuming so.

 

Cheers!

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6 hours ago, BR37414 said:

 

Thank you for sharing those photos and info Paul. 

 

I shall have to get some OBAs now to also mix with my BDAs and OTAs. 

 

Would you be loco only from Hereford to Warrington to collect the wagons? I'm assuming so.

 

Cheers!

Yes BR37414, LE Hereford to Warrington, via Crewe Depot for fuel, and pick up a conductor as I didn't sign north of Crewe to Warrington at that time, and was instructed in no uncertain terms, I was not to leave the loco for any reason. Looking through my diaries it would appear that the date was 26th November 1987.

 

Paul J.

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1 hour ago, Swindon 123 said:

Yes BR37414, LE Hereford to Warrington, via Crewe Depot for fuel, and pick up a conductor as I didn't sign north of Crewe to Warrington at that time, and was instructed in no uncertain terms, I was not to leave the loco for any reason. Looking through my diaries it would appear that the date was 26th November 1987.

 

Thats really interesting Paul. 

 

How long would that trip take? Please forgive me, I live in Canada and google maps can only provide so much info regarding distances, etc.

 

Could you explain your work rules a bit, such as how many hours you could work, etc? 

 

Cheers!

 

Alex

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6 hours ago, BR37414 said:

 

Thats really interesting Paul. 

 

How long would that trip take? Please forgive me, I live in Canada and google maps can only provide so much info regarding distances, etc.

 

Could you explain your work rules a bit, such as how many hours you could work, etc? 

 

Cheers!

 

Alex

Hello Alex.

 

At that time we worked under the "Flexible Rostering" system, which meant that you could be rostered a turn between 7 to 9 hours long, with a maximum of 39 hours worked in a week in theory, although in practice you worked around an 8 week roster with a total number of hours for that cycle being no more than 312 hours. For example the week I went to Warrington my turns were 7 hours long on the Monday and Tuesday, I was 8 hour spare turns on the Wednesday and Thursday (the day I went to Warrington) and another 7 hour turn on the Friday, a total of 37 hours.  The week before I had 5 turns of 8h 06m, making a total of 40hours 30 mins for the week, and so it went on over an 8 week cycle, with the total number of hours worked being 312 hours. If you worked over the rostered hours for a week, you got paid overtime for those hours. It was a very complicated system, and  whole topic could be taken up trying to explain the complexities of how it worked.

 

With regards to how long the trip took. A light engine move from Hereford to Crewe depot could be done in around 1 hour 15 mins with a straight run, but the line to Crewe was worked by Signal Boxes under Absolute Block Regulations, and with some long distances between boxes, so depending on how many other trains were trying to get to Crewe as well, it might be up to 2 hours. Crewe to Warrington was 45 mins tops, but yet again how many other trains were about could extend this. On the day in question, with a call at Crewe depot for fuel, i would have expected the run to Warrington to have taken 3h 30mins. I would have had a 30 minute break at Warrington, once the loco was hooked up to the train and I knew no one could pinch it, then it would be a relatively easy run back to Hereford in around 3-4 hours, probably following the 4V63 freightliner from Crewe as a class 6 train, 60MPH max speed, although the number of piped BSW's in the train might have affected that, but I don't think it did, although my memory might be lacking as it was 32 years ago.

 

Hope that helps set the scene a bit Alex.

 

Paul J.

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7 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Looking at Ratcliffe, it seems that the two trains he mentions ran as Class 7 rather than Class 6 on the dates in question.

The train the BSW's arrived at Hereford on was always a Class 6, which is why the BSW's especially, came down as and when they could fit them into the formation, as of course they were air piped. I believe that was why OBA's and later the odd OTA's were preferred for the traffic, although not always available, and also why the BSW's especially used to clog up Warrington yard every now and then, as they couldn't get them to Hereford, hence the odd trip with a light engine to go get them.

 

Paul J.

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OPne thing I forgot about regarding timber unloading at Hereford, was that before the wagons returned to Scotland (all the timber unloaded from Hereford came from Scotland), the wagons had to be swept clean of all bark and wood chippings, so that any infestations of beetles didn't get back to Scotland.

 

Paul J.

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Thanks for all that insight Paul, it all plants seeds for more questions.

 

If your willing, I certainly like to hear more on the hours/rules if you wouldn't mind. In a PM would work too. 

 

Who would do the sweeping off the wagons?

 

Would they be done before being moved from Hereford?

 

Once empty, would they be collected into a complete rake before being moved to Scotland or would it be done as they were emptied a wagon or two at a time?

 

Cheers!

 

Alex

 

 

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On 06/12/2019 at 01:53, BR37414 said:

Thanks for all that insight Paul, it all plants seeds for more questions.

 

If your willing, I certainly like to hear more on the hours/rules if you wouldn't mind. In a PM would work too. 

 

Who would do the sweeping off the wagons?

 

Would they be done before being moved from Hereford?

 

Once empty, would they be collected into a complete rake before being moved to Scotland or would it be done as they were emptied a wagon or two at a time?

 

Cheers!

 

Alex

 

 

Hello again Alex, finally found time to getting around to answering your queries.

The wagons were swept off in Hereford yard by the shunters/yard staff with the drivers help sometimes, if he wanted to get an earlier finish. As and when they were empty, the wagons were sent down in the midday pickup service to Severn Tunnel  Junction, later East Usk Yard then even later still, Tidal Sidings, before being sent on whatever north bound service that was able to take them. At the very end of the traffic they sometimes added the empty wagons directly to northbound trains at Hereford, if there was space, but in general they were sent south first.

 

Any number of BSW's could be sent from Hereford, as in general the pickup ran more often as not as a class 9 service, but this was not always the case in later years, so they could cause complications in their marshalling. Empty wagons were got rid of the as quickly as possible, as in the mid 80's Hereford yard was quite busy, and if there was a heavy engineers program on, space was at a premium.

 

With regards to the flexible hours/rules, there isn't much extra I can add. To my knowlage the links at all depots were drawn up by the depot LDC's (ie the ASLEF or NUR drivers reps), I was part of the LDC that made up the rosters at Hereford for a number of years. The work content at the depot dictated how the weeks work, and therefore the links were structured. As long as the basic rules of each 8 week link must have 312 hours rostered work in it, and include 9 rostered Rest Days, Sundays were not in the working week, but were put into the links as a matter of course, with 12 hours rest between the end of one turn and the start of the next driving turn, this was increased to 32 hours if my memory is right, for a turn finishing on a Saturday and the next Monday turn, unless there was a Sunday turn rostered in which the 12 hour rule applied between each turn. What diagrammed work was allocated to a depot really dictated the link structure that the LDC could come up with, and was individual to each depot. The diagrams came from the area/regional diagram office, who worked out how each train to be run was going to be worked by the various depots in their area, and that was a black art in itself. Hereford had some interesting issues sometimes when making up the links, as quite a bit of its work in later years was only running two or three days a week, and a lot of it either very early morning or late at night, making fitting in other turn difficult at best. We tried not to put Rest Days in the middle of the week on very early morning or late night turns, but on a couple of turns that started at 00.05 in the morning, I remember ringing up the diagram office to ask if they could add 6 mins to the diagram so that it booked on at 23.59 the night before, so that we could fit it in the link better.

 

Drawing up the links at Hereford could take a week, sometimes more, if it was a big timetable/diagram change, made worse sometimes by having to get the diagram altered if it didn't actually work, usually due to PNB times, or a driver not actually being in the right place at the right time, I kid you not. Hereford was a small depot with regards to the number of drivers, so it was a major task to make up the links at some of the big depots. 

 

I hope this gives you some insight Alex, as to how complicated it could be. The rules were quite simple in reality, it was the diagrams, and trying to make them all fit into the links that was the hard part.

 

Paul J.

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