A diagram showing freight/goods and van trains on the B.R. (Southern Region) Central Division, 1972-1975.

[C126]

Prompted by many posts here, and a few questions over the last two years, my three weeks' furlough has enabled the completion of the following diagram of Freight and N.P.C.C.S. trains on the B.R. (S.R.) Central Division during the early 1970's.  Unfortunately, I did not have two W.T.T.s that matched dates, but I hope it indicates what services were running (and what has been lost over the last forty-five years!).

 

 

I hope it is of both interest and use.  Apologies for the errors and omissions.  When the curfew is lifted, I will get it scanned professionally, and take four A3 scans at work on a high-definition scanner as P.D.F.s.  Please feel free to use, up-date, amend, and draw your own, for your personal, non-profit, use.

Edited January 17, 2023 by C126
Format correction. Restore wiped images.

[Ben04uk]

excellent work, looks amazing. Any chance you can scan the bottom right hand corner (i.e Eastbourne) in a higher resolution so the text is easier to read?

Thanks for all your hard efforts!

[C126]

Dear @Ben04uk : the least I can do, as your questions inspired the exercise.  I have done the 'bottom right A3' as well, to put it all in context.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope these help.  Do say if any more details would be appreciated.  All best wishes.

Edited January 15, 2023 by C126
Correcting format error. Restore wiped images.

[Oldddudders]

I would certainly be interested in the 'bigger prints' you propose. This is a scholarly works of considerable substance - well done! However, your use of 4-character train numbers, while much more convenient than a full train description, was really not in use on Central in that era. There were no signalboxes with 4-digit describers, still less train berths on a diagram, so I am hoping that other data you have added will enable me to recognise the trains in question. I was Area 4 Controller from 1969-73, that Area being London Bridge to Coulsdon North and Warnham , with branches, so many of these trains passed through. 

[SED Freightman]

What an interesting chart, almost a work of art, thanks for taking the time to produce it and sharing the information. I suspect that comparison with the current level of freight services would be a rather depressing exercise.

Edited April 10, 2020 by SED Freightman
Spelling correction !

[C126]

Thank you all for your kind words.  I am glad it is of interest.  My curiosity was roused to having an illustration of just what the wagon-load network was along the coastway lines, and how these connected further 'inland'.  Then I became interested in 'perishables' so had to include the Chichester 'market gardens' van train, and newspaper trains (as an ex-paperboy), and the whole thing cascaded from there.

 

Were I to do it again, I would start by making a list of the trains, which could then be used to cross-reference the 4-digit reporting no.  I should stress that most of the 'block trains' (not that there were many) were omitted, as are the Reading-Redhill-Tonbridge lines and many inter-regionals, simply because of space.  I did want to include all the latter for Norwood Yards though, as 'the' Central Division Marshalling Yard, but fear I have missed a few.  If anyone knows of a computer programme that can plot such things in smaller but still legible writing, do tell, please!  Some of the arrival and departure times had to be squeezed into gaps very small.

 

Olddudders: if you have the time, I hope I am not alone in desiring to hear how you and your colleagues referred to trains in these times - I thought the 4-digit code was universal - and how you tracked them (wall chart?  pieces of paper?).  Was it as "the 03.27 News to Bexhill", for example?

 

If I can regain the enthusiasm and locate some decent A1 paper upon return to normality, I will try and re-draw it with fewer omissions.  I just wish I had known how much there was then to photograph and had pestered my father to take me out there.  Thanks again to you all; all suggestions gratefully received.

 

[Oldddudders]

I entered Redhill Control in April 1968, and the office moved to Croydon in July 1969. Area Controllers recorded incidents and delays on horizontal format lined sheets. Significant incidents were used by the DCC (Deputy Chief Controller - Shift Supervisor in effect) to compile a typed report of operations on his shift. On handover to the next shift, this was continued, and the final report, including various day statistics was taken away at 07.00 the next day and copy-typed by a senior typist before being reproduced and dispatched about the Division. This was "Control by Exception" in contrast to other parts of BR where omnibus telephone circuits were continuously open, and the Controller compiled a graph of every train's progress, based on reports from each signalbox. Possibly those chaps had fewer trains to report upon. Some signalboxes were supposed to report any late running in one or other or both directions. This was patchily observed - Control was not popular, because it had a duty to dig into incidents and late running and find the cause, which, from time to time, might be a signalman's error. A conspiracy of silence might be broken by a little snippet - like the time the Up Brighton Belle was mis-described and ended up going via Crystal Palace. 

 

Trains were simply referred to by time, origin, destination. So 12.28 Vic - Brighton, say. This occasionally led to crossed wires, it's true. For example, when the on-call officer was told that the morning service was at risk because the 6.12 Norwood to Brighton was derailed at Copyhold Junction, his immediate response was to "knock it down the bank", so he was a trifle nonplussed when told it was a 4-VEP passenger service!

 

Numerous abbreviations were in common use, many dating back to LBSCR days, when messages were sent by single-needle telegraph. So Brighton was IG, Three Bridges was XV and East Croydon was YO. Also in use were many abbreviations from the official railway Telegram List. This had been developed to enable terse but succinct messages to be sent at minimum cost - fewer words meant cheaper telegrams on the GPO. Thus acronyms like BYRAG - meaning a freight yard was in difficulties and could only accept booked trains by agreement - were common. 

 

Having left Control in1973, my memory for detail is now very patchy indeed. I hope this has given a clue as to the nature of its modus operandi. 

[C126]

Dear Oldddudders, Many thanks for these reminiscences.  It is detail such as this I think so valuable to record, so we may understand how the railways worked, within my life-time, let alone for 'youngsters' for whom rail-blue is just a set of photographs.  I always wondered who/what/where "Control" was.  My late train driver chum mentioned it in passing, but it was yet another thing I never got chance to interrogate my older friends and acquiantances about before they 'went to that great railway in the sky'.  Thanks again and all good wishes in La Belle France.  I raise a glass of diabolamenthe (?sp) to you.

[C126]

Apologies for blatantly 'bumping' this, but I got to play on the flat-bed scanner at work at last to-day, and took these 600 d.p.i. A3 JPEGS.  I hope the improved quality is of use.  If another format (TIFF?) would be preferred, do let me know and I will try and re-scan them.

 

 

 

[C126]

[C126]

[C126]

[Fat Controller]

That's a cracking bit of research you've done, and well presented as well.

[Lacathedrale]

Wonderful stuff!!

 

Thank you for the link to this thread, I hope it's not too much trouble to ask how I might find out more about the train diagram numbers and blind headcodes? Is there a comprehensive list of them somewhere? My google-fu has failed me. The SREMG has EMU/DMU headcodes and steam headcodes, but not diesel.

 

 

 

[Covkid]

On 11/04/2020 at 13:45, Oldddudders said:

Numerous abbreviations were in common use, many dating back to LBSCR days, when messages were sent by single-needle telegraph. So Brighton was IG, Three Bridges was XV and East Croydon was YO. Also in use were many abbreviations from the official railway Telegram List. This had been developed to enable terse but succinct messages to be sent at minimum cost - fewer words meant cheaper telegrams on the GPO. Thus acronyms like BYRAG - meaning a freight yard was in difficulties and could only accept booked trains by agreement - were common. 

BYRAG and GOSLING.  Two good telegraph codes which were often used by us at Bescot in the very early 1980s whe nwe had inbound freights and trips occupying most loops on the way in. From teatime onwards there was often a lot of traffic to connect into the evening Speedlink departures. But there was also considerable vacuum braked wagonload traffic to squeeze onto the six downside receptions,since the upside was run down.  

[C126]

On 25/08/2021 at 15:51, Lacathedrale said:

Wonderful stuff!!

 

Thank you for the link to this thread, I hope it's not too much trouble to ask how I might find out more about the train diagram numbers and blind headcodes? Is there a comprehensive list of them somewhere? My google-fu has failed me. The SREMG has EMU/DMU headcodes and steam headcodes, but not diesel.

 

Dear @Lacathedrale , just trying to restore the missing images for this thread, and seen the recent (2021) additions.  Sorry, I must have missed the notifications.  Did you find the head-codes?  If not, I can scan some W.T.T.s; please let me know what time/areas are your interest.

[C126]

Please find below the restored scans, with a few corrections.  I could not up-load them at 600 D.P.I., so these are next-best at 400.  I hope they are still of occasional interest, and might be of continued use over the coming years to all.  It has certainly given me ideas for other diagrams; I just need copies of the relevant W.T.T.s!

 

 

 

[C126]

 

[C126]

 

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[C126]

Sorry to keep 'picking' at this thread, but as you can see, I have embedded three of the four scans from my photo album.  However, if this means one can not 'zoom in' on the full scan, do say - I am not sure I can, but this could be my ignorance of settings, etc. - and I will re-post them directly.

 

Enough!