Pill-Box Brake vans - how quickly were they withdrawn?

[Alex TM]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been looking through a few books on the southern region in the late 50s through early 60s; these have mostly been on the Hayling Island branch.  One thing that I have noticed is that none of the freight services shown have ex-Southern pill-box type brake vans.  Mostly the vans are BR standard types, though I am sure that there is an early LMS type (diag. 1657?) there too.  This lead me to a question: were the ex-Southern vans withdrawn early?  if so, roughly when?

 

Thanks in advance for any help?

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

[The Johnster]

There were a few pillboxes still in revenue service in the early 70s; I rode in one from  Cardiff Long Dyke as far as Hereford, probably 8M01 01.55 Croes Newydd in 73.  Itwas in very poor condition and Hereford was far enough!  I saw one or two after that but never worked one again. 

[Steamport Southport]

I think they were amongst the last to go. Apart from BR ones and a few LMS/LNER. Still some in departmental use until the mid 1990s.

 

There wasn't very many of them built. Don't forget the SR didn't have much in the way of freight traffic compared to the others. The SR still had a lot of pre grouping brake vans such as the LSWR type recently made by Hornby, which I assume were the ones replaced by BR ones.

 

Photo here of a few in Tonbridge 1970s.

 

https://sremg.org.uk/vandw/brakevans02.html

 

And the obligatory Paul Bartlett page.

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/srbrakevan

 

 

 

Jason

[Wheatley]

For some reason at least two ended up in SW Scotland by the early 60s. There's a Derek Cross photo of one at Barassie in Engineers' service and some fantastic cine film on one of the B&R videos of one being propelled by a Black 5 at what looks like close to line speed on an Ayrshire colliery trip. 

 

Maybe they just wandered off in BR days once they became common user ? 

[hmrspaul]

Discussed before on here. They spread across the system and show up occasionally in photos a long way from the SR. And long lived despite their unsuitability as discussed by Johnster recently in another topic. 

I've a couple of 1991 ones  https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/srbrakevan/e2c9379ba  https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/srbrakevan/e2ebfa2ad

but never managed to photograph the Mainline blue one which hung around in Peterborough area into the new Millenium. 

 

Paul

[Aire Head]

They just seems to have wandered off when they became cook user.

 

Here is one late 1960s on the exGNR line in Bradford from Shipley to Laisterdyke

[bécasse]

They were popular for pick-up goods workings in colder areas - it was easy to keep the small van warm.

[Alex TM]

Hi again everyone,

 

Thanks for all your input.  The question was prompted, as suggested in the OP, by the fact that the books covering the Hayling Island branch don't seem to show a single ex-SR brake post nationalisation.  It looked like, post-1948, the SR vans had disappeared.  Thanks to your responses I now see that they became somewhat scattered.  The furthest away from the SR that I ever saw one was on the Peterborough-Ely line.

 

Again, thanks for the replies.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

[TheSignalEngineer]

We had all sortf pre-nationalisation brake vans in the West Midlands in the late 1950s / early 1960s. 

A Pillbox was photographed at Stechford in 1959, ironically coupled to a Brighton built 8F. There is also a picture of Water Orton showing an SECR design Dancehall. I never saw a Quenn Mary in the West Midlands untilthe 1980s, but The furthest from the Southern I saw any of their brakes was a Queen Mary in departmental use at Crainlarich in the 1980s.

[Wickham Green too]

Probably this one : - 

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

The very one.

[Nearholmer]

The army had two (I think) batches of pillbox brakes built for them by the SR during WW2, for use on various military railways, where they became The Standard Brake Van for both goods and passenger trains. Some of those were definitely still in use in the 1980s, possibly even the 1990s, for their original purpose, and at least two that are preserved in SR livery are in fact army surplus ones.

 

Here is the Bluebell one http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/wagon/49018.html the other one I'm thinking of is at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.

 

I think the double vacuum cylinders on the verandah are are an "army van spotting feature", although I confess to not being totally sure. And, I don't think they originally had sand-boxes at the vac cylinder end, although again I'm not sure. [EDIT: checking photos they did have sand boxes at the vac cylinder end originally, but later photos show some without, so they must have been removed, unless there was a difference between batches.]

Edited September 28, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

Twenty were built for the MoS. I think there was at least one in Longmoor blue.

 

There was also a lightweight 15 Ton version. Cambrian do a kit of this one as well as the normal 25 Ton.

 

Also be careful if you are modelling a specific prototype as they are handed. The kit has both left and right bodies. It also has the different planking types.

 

https://www.cambrianmodelrail.co.uk/store/SR-c25434052

 

 

 

Jason

[Nearholmer]

15 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Twenty were built for the MoS.

 

The Bluebell item that I linked to says 40, in two batches, not that it matters I guess, unless you want a lot of brake vans on a layout.

 

This one on the KESR is from the first batch, I think. http://www.ws.rhrp.org.uk/ws/WagonInfo.asp?Ref=9288

 

This one is on the SVR, where they clearly aren't short of red paint https://svrwiki.com/WD_55577_Brake_Van_(fictitious_number)

Edited September 28, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

I was going from the Cambrian instructions.

 

One was at hand. Maybe the other batch isn't modellable from the kit.

 

 

 

Jason

[Right Away]

Here’s one in ‘62 at Kemp Town,

 

[DOCJACOB]

Submitted image by yours truly on another thread of a L handed version at Kyle of Lochalsh mid 1981 in Engineer use 

 

L handed ducket version significantly less common with circa 50 built. 

 

Oddly exactly the same brake van is pictured on Paul Bartlett site 9 months earlier in the London area.      

[russ p]

I mentioned in another topic last night,  there is still one in the disconnected down refuge at Manea in camb

[Wickham Green too]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

........  Here is the Bluebell one http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/wagon/49018.html ....... 

It's a shame this van is masquerading as a Southern one as it could legitimately carry British Railways livery ! .... it was one of a pair of Army vans acquired by B.R. and numbered ( like a number of other oddball vehicles ) in the M3?????? series - in this case M360328.

 

Apart from the - somewhat obvious - vac cylinders on one platform, the Army vans are instantly recognisable by the trimmed-back roof edge ......... I don't know whether this is an original feature nor why it was done - the Southern and B.R. obviously didn't see any need !

[Nearholmer]

Its a bit difficult to piece together, but I think two military ones on the Shropshire & Montgomery Railway somehow came to belong (or go on loan to?) BR either when that railway was nationalised or a decade later was closed. Whether the Bluebell van was one of those, I'm not sure.

 

The line had been operated by the military on lease from its actual owners, and the military operated the public goods trains on contract first for the S&M company then, after nationalisation, for BR.

 

A couple of other observations from photos of the S&M: the initial 'livery' of some of these vans seems to have been dark ironwork and light-coloured woodwork, which I surmise may be black or iron-oxide for the ironwork, and completely unpainted for the timber; and, on some, but not all, the foot-board and hand-hold arrangement looks slightly different from the SR version, with a place mid-way along for a shunter to ride standing on the footboard.

 

The cut-back roof-edge does seem to be original, presumably to give a couple of inches room on some very tight structures somewhere.

 

Having just got a WD-livery Austerity tank in 0-scale, I'm definitely interested in creating the military variant in original condition. Who makes a 7mm kit?

Edited September 29, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

Parkside.

 

https://peco-uk.com/products/southern-railway-25ton-goods-brake-van

 

 

Jason

[Wickham Green too]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

....... The cut-back roof-edge does seem to be original, presumably to give a couple of inches room on some very tight structures somewhere. ......

VERY tight structures - at a height above the ducket ......... but with adequate headroom for the chimney : could be an interesting loading gauge profile ! 

[Nearholmer]

I don’t differ from you on that.

 

I couldn’t think of another reason at the time but thinking further, would timber have been in such short supply that such a cheese-paring economy would have been worthwhile?

[Alex TM]

20 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

be careful if you are modelling a specific prototype as they are handed

Hi Jason,

 

Have you read the story behind how that happened?  If the OPC book on Southern wagons is to be believed then it is truly bonkers.  (According to the book the door on the original batch swung into the guard's seating area; rather than re-hang the doors to swing the opposite way they mirrored the body instead.)

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I don’t differ from you on that.

 

I couldn’t think of another reason at the time but thinking further, would timber have been in such short supply that such a cheese-paring economy would have been worthwhile?

Knowing how cheese-paringly tight the Southern were I'd have expected them to adopt the idea too - but they didn't .................. maybe something to do with avoiding damage when craning the vans on and off ships ????