Mk 1 Full Brakes - why used?

[johnofwessex]

On 17/01/2020 at 17:43, The Johnster said:

I was told during my time as a freight guard at Canton in the 70s by a bloke who generally knew his stuff that booking offices are instructed to route passengers by the fastest permitted route in order to arrive at the earliest possible time; of course, this varies according to the time of day according to the destination.  And, in days gone by, to the tide...

 

Back in the pre-grouping days, it was alleged, you could book a through ticket from Cardiff to Paris.  The usual route would be London-Dover/Folkestone-Calais/Boulogne-Gare du Nord, but it varied different times of the day and might involve Newhaven-Dieppe, or Southampton-Cherbourg.  There was, though I doubt anybody would have ever had the endurance for it, a possibility at certain times of the day and states of tide, of routing Cardiff (Riverside)-Barry Pier, Barry Rly steamer-Burnham on Sea-(S & DJ)-Bournemouth change LSWR-Poole, steamer-St Malo-Gare du Montparnasse.  2 steamers and 4 trains, at least 3 of them without toilet facilities and stopping everywhere!

 

The more I learn about the Victorians, the madder I realise they were... 

 

It is stated that the Barry Railways PS Barry was built with a view to running a regular service to Burnham on Sea, but while I have seen a photo of one of the bigger Barry steamers moored in the river & passengers being landed by small boat, Barry steamers never ran regularly to Burnham on Sea.

 

Now until the end of P&A Campbell in 1980, there was a railway connection, originally via Barry - they took over the Barry's steamer routes but latterly from Penarth to Ilfracombe in the summer, so there was the possibility of passengers for Ilfracombe completing there journey by paddle steamer not train.

[Rivercider]

21 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

 

It is stated that the Barry Railways PS Barry was built with a view to running a regular service to Burnham on Sea, but while I have seen a photo of one of the bigger Barry steamers moored in the river & passengers being landed by small boat, Barry steamers never ran regularly to Burnham on Sea.

 

Now until the end of P&A Campbell in 1980, there was a railway connection, originally via Barry - they took over the Barry's steamer routes but latterly from Penarth to Ilfracombe in the summer, so there was the possibility of passengers for Ilfracombe completing there journey by paddle steamer not train.

An S&D advert dated April 1865 shows a Cardiff (5 Stuart Street, Bute Docks) to Paris 1st class return via Burnham, Poole, Cherbourg, and Caen was  83s 3d,

 

cheers

Edited March 11, 2021 by Rivercider
Additional info

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Rivercider said:

An S&D advert dated April 1865 shows a Cardiff (5 Stuart Street, Bute Docks) to Paris 1st class return was  83s 3d,

 

Indeed, the grand idea of the S&D was to provide a route from South Wales to Paris and beyond that avoided the sea voyage around Lands End. The S&D lies more or less on a straight line between the two cities.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Compound2632

[The Johnster]

But the problem is that you can't run a regular service from anywhere to anywhere in the Bristol Channel, because of the tides.  Tides progress by an hour every 24 hours, so a port or pier where there was 30' of water on a given Tuesday at 12 noon would be an expanse of drying out mud or sand the following Tuesday at 12 noon, with the nearest water half a mile away.  The Bristol Channel's paddle steamers were therefore mostly used for day trip pleasure cruises, although my Grandfather used to take his family to Ilfracombe with Campbell's from Cardiff every year for their summer holidays.  This is unlike the Clyde, where paddle, screw, and turbine fast passenger steamers ran regular scheduled services 'doon the watter' from Glasgow to piers available even at low tide on both sides of the Firth and the islands; those who could afford fashionable villas a places such as Rothesay or Largs commuted to and from the city on them. 

 

One, only one, pier was available at all states of the tide in the Bristol Channel, and that only after an extension was built; Ilfracombe, which became the favourite destination as a result.  The steamers' schedules had them leaving the up-Channel piers (Newport, Hotwells Bristol, Cardiff Pier Head, Penarth, Barry, and so on) at the top of the tide and run down to Ilfracombe on the ebb, maybe calling at Porthcawl or Minehead on the way or offering a further cruise to Lundy, where passengers were put ashore in small boats,  When the tides were less favourable, shorter up-Channel runs were offered; Cardiff-Penarth-Weston Super Mare, or up the Avon Gorge, or landing on Steep Holm Island.  There were sailings from Swansea as well, often a bit hairy down at that exposed end of the Channel!

 

The Bristol Channel steamers made a lot of their bread and butter earnings in the bar; Wales was dry on Sundays in those days and the bar could be open at any time so long as the ship was under way (same applies to trains) and a regular clientele of dedicated inebriates used the facility.  My mother, who lived in Wattstown in the Rhondda Fach as a child, tells the story of Dai and Ianto, who go with the rest of the workingmen's club on the annual August Bank Holiday Sunday outing to Weston on the paddle steamer; you put 3d a week in a fund.  In Weston, at about the time they were thinking of starting the long walk back down to Birnbeck Pier to come home and having had a boozy sort of day already, the came across Mr Price slumped unconcious in a shop doorway. 

 

'Come on, Mr Price, now, we'll look after you, don't worry, we'll make sure you get home safe' and they picked him up to get him down to Birnbeck.  He mumbled something and tried to resist, but the lads had a firm grip.  At the end of the pier he tried to object again; 'don't worry Mr Price, we'll get you one in the bar on the boat now in a minute' which calmed him down a little, but he was unhappy to be taken off at Cardiff Pier Head and marched up to Bute Road station for the last Ferndale.  He slept on the train, but became quite restive as they manhandled him from the station to his house.  Outside the door, it dawned on them that Mrs Price would not be in a good mood, and, somewhat merry themselves, they'd probably cop the blame, so they did what any self respecting blokes would in the circumstances.  They knocked the door, dropped their cargo, and legged it. 

 

Couple days later they ran into Mrs Price in the village. 'Oh, thank you boys for seeing Meredith home safe on Sunday, there's good of you isn't it look you now'.  'Not a problem at all, Mrs Price, a pleasure to be a help, but he didn't want to come with us'.  'No, I should bloody well think not you stupid pair of t***s.  He only went over there on Saturday for his two weeks holiday'!  Mum had a fund of these sort of stories, and if they weren't true they sort of should have been...

 

You could go to the ticket office and specify the route you wanted from Cardiff to Paris of course, but would only be sold a ticket by default via the Barry Rly./S&DJ route if that was the quickest at the time you bought the ticket and the tide was suitable,  As I say, I doubt if anyone ever actually travelled from Cardiff to Paris by this route; it is a bit of an ordeal even by Victorian standards  Ticket office work involved knowing which routes to sell tickets for at which times of the day, which might be dependent on the timetable of a railway that didn't even connect with a railway that connected with yours. 

[johnofwessex]

1 hour ago, Rivercider said:

An S&D advert dated April 1865 shows a Cardiff (5 Stuart Street, Bute Docks) to Paris 1st class return via Burnham, Poole, Cherbourg, and Caen was  83s 3d,

 

cheers

 

I need to look up the details but that was only when the S&D operated its own passenger steamer the Sherbro

[ardbealach]

Just found the attached image in my pictures collection.  It was taken on 20 May 1967 somewhere between Stanley Junction and Coupar Angus on the now closed Caledonian direct line from Perth to Aberdeen.  A Class 26 with a bit of an assortment of vehicles, particularly the use of two Mark 1s wiith a short full bogie brake, some fitted vans and a brake van bringing up the rear.  Sorry have no more details of what it was or where it was heading, or even the locomotive number - but the locomotive has the tablet catcher recess. [Alisdair]

[Rods_of_Revolution]

Were Mk1 BGs common on the milk trains that came up from Cornwall? Did the requirement for a passenger brake vehicle end along with brake vans no longer being required on Class 4/6 fitted freight trains in '69?

 

Cheers,

 

Jack

[boxbrownie]

On 14/01/2020 at 11:11, johnb said:

Van space could be needed for parcels, packages, post and people tended to have lots of big suitcases on some routes.

And also back in the 50/60’s people travelled with their bikes, a couple of dozen of those will take up a lot of room.

[The Johnster]

I've had all sorts in the luggage compartments; coffins (occupied and otherwise), baskets of chicks going cheep, motorbikes, whole salmon in hessian sacks (from Hereford, freshly caught and on their way to the better hotels and eateries of the West End), Greyhounds being sent to race meetings unaccompanied tied to the grilles (lovely things, always up for a braintickling and keen on biscuits), and, on one occasion, I was handed an elderly Chinese lady.

 

Well, I'm assuming she was elderly, she was one of those tiny shrivelled stooped wrinkly Chinese women that look as though they could be anything between 40 and 600 years old, tough as old boots.  I was given charge of her on platform 6 at Cardiff Central on a Valleys train, and told by the platform chargehand to look after her and that she was to be collected at Treforest.  This made sense, as there was a sizeable Chinese expat community there; prolly still is.  She had a large luggage label around her neck, detailing her full itinerary from her home village in the New Territories via Hong Kong, Kai Tak, Gatport Airwick, Reading, and Cardiff, in English which she had not a word of, written out for her by someone half a world away.  She seemed happy enough to be sat in the van and got out a clay pipe to smoke; a pipe man myself in those days I offered her a fill, which she accepted with obvious delight, chattering happily away in Cantonese.  A couple of lads were waiting for her at Treforest as promised and were profuse in their thanks, and took Granny away grinning cheerfully, still chattering..

 

The family kindly wrote to everybody who had been concerned with this delivery, as from the outset the old lady had made friends and been treated to tobacco, chocolates, sweets, and generally looked after for 8,000 miles by bus drivers, airport porters, customs and immigration, security, the lot, down to me, and hugely enjoyed herself.  It was something of a relief to have this explained to me when I was called into the TCM's office (here we go, what have I done now).  A life affirming thing of great joy.

[balders]

36 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I've had all sorts in the luggage compartments; coffins (occupied and otherwise), baskets of chicks going cheep, motorbikes, whole salmon in hessian sacks (from Hereford, freshly caught and on their way to the better hotels and eateries of the West End), Greyhounds being sent to race meetings unaccompanied tied to the grilles (lovely things, always up for a braintickling and keen on biscuits), and, on one occasion, I was handed an elderly Chinese lady.

 

Well, I'm assuming she was elderly, she was one of those tiny shrivelled stooped wrinkly Chinese women that look as though they could be anything between 40 and 600 years old, tough as old boots.  I was given charge of her on platform 6 at Cardiff Central on a Valleys train, and told by the platform chargehand to look after her and that she was to be collected at Treforest.  This made sense, as there was a sizeable Chinese expat community there; prolly still is.  She had a large luggage label around her neck, detailing her full itinerary from her home village in the New Territories via Hong Kong, Kai Tak, Gatport Airwick, Reading, and Cardiff, in English which she had not a word of, written out for her by someone half a world away.  She seemed happy enough to be sat in the van and got out a clay pipe to smoke; a pipe man myself in those days I offered her a fill, which she accepted with obvious delight, chattering happily away in Cantonese.  A couple of lads were waiting for her at Treforest as promised and were profuse in their thanks, and took Granny away grinning cheerfully, still chattering..

 

The family kindly wrote to everybody who had been concerned with this delivery, as from the outset the old lady had made friends and been treated to tobacco, chocolates, sweets, and generally looked after for 8,000 miles by bus drivers, airport porters, customs and immigration, security, the lot, down to me, and hugely enjoyed herself.  It was something of a relief to have this explained to me when I was called into the TCM's office (here we go, what have I done now).  A life affirming thing of great joy.

 

This made me smile I must admit! I've forwarded it to Mrs. B who is encountering many Human Challenges in her role as a new senior conductor :) 

 

Thanks Johnster! 

 

Regards 

 

Guy

[HillsideDepot]

Not so much "why used" but a "how used" to add to the thread.

In my on-going studies of 1970's Western Passenger Train Marshalling books, in preparation for a new layout, I note the instruction that: 

Quote

When BG's are formed as part of sets they should be marshalled with the small van space leading from Paddington

 

[Wheatley]

4 hours ago, ardbealach said:

Sorry have no more details of what it was or where it was heading, or even the locomotive number - but the locomotive has the tablet catcher recess. [Alisdair]

Whatever it us, it's carrying a Class 3 headcode - parcels or ECS - so the coaches are empties. 

[D826]

18 hours ago, Rods_of_Revolution said:

Were Mk1 BGs common on the milk trains that came up from Cornwall? Did the requirement for a passenger brake vehicle end along with brake vans no longer being required on Class 4/6 fitted freight trains in '69?

 

Cheers,

 

Jack

Not that I remember, though that's the 70s. Sometimes had a parcel van or Siphon G or two on (dont know what was in the Siphons).- There's a picture of one, 50 010 Monarch in 1978 in John Vaughans Power of the 50s, published in 79. Refers to a parcel van or 2.

 

Best regards

 

Matt W

Edited March 13, 2021 by D826
Context

[Karhedron]

On 12/03/2021 at 16:57, Rods_of_Revolution said:

Were Mk1 BGs common on the milk trains that came up from Cornwall? Did the requirement for a passenger brake vehicle end along with brake vans no longer being required on Class 4/6 fitted freight trains in '69?

 

No, the BGs used on milk trains were almost always pre-nationalisation patterns. I have only seen a Mk1 BG on a milk train in one photo on the GER so it could happen but very rarely.

 

Yes, the requirement for a brake van did end in 1969 (although technically, milk trains were non passenger carrying coaching stock rather than freight trains). Brake vehicles on milk trains could occasionally be seen after this date if the loco did not have a rear cab. For example, the milk trains to Vauxhall were often shunted by the Waterloo station pilot (normally a class 09 shunter in the 1970s). Since this had no rear cab for the guard, a Stove-R was normallt attached in a echo of steam-era working.