“Illiterate “symbols

[Nearholmer]

Yes, we conducted a thought experiment in another thread, asking “What does Sussex need from Norfolk?”  in 1905, and vice-versa, and the answer was “next door to nothing”, because local sources existed for nearly all staples except sugar (which Norfolk wasn’t exporting in great quantities then), coal (a good deal of which came by sea), and iron (Sussex gave up iron smelting before railways arrived).

 

It would be interesting to know what was in the foreign wagons arriving at Sheffield Park.

 

 

 

 

[webbcompound]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

It would be interesting to know what was in the foreign wagons arriving at Sheffield Park.

 

Seasonal local produce such as soft fruit (which as we all know had specific trains and traffic flows) and from the countryside to the towns produce such as fruit and vegetables. The most well known items (to buyers of RTR wagons) of long distance food which you would have thought would be easily produced locally were sausages and biscuits (you know the names). In fact the availability of railway transport encouraged local specialisation and branding of produce which could be distributed to a wider market, which pulled in the opposite direction to self sufficiency. The dairies in Wensleydale being a case in point. the Edwardian period was also the start of some big brands: for example Oxo, Cadburys, Typhoo, Marmite. Unless you lived next door these came from outside your region by rail.

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by webbcompound

[Nearholmer]

But, whole wagonloads arriving at Sheffield Park from foreign places?

Apart from one big, posh house, there is nothing in compass beside a few farms and tiny villages, other than the two outgoing traffic sources, the dairy and the sawmill.
 

I’d imagine that dry goods etc would arrive as what the Americans call ‘less than car load’, so a LBSCR wagon with collated O&S from multiple origins. I don’t think the Brighton called them ‘road trucks’, possibly ‘station trucks’, I’m not sure.

 

I was wondering about specialist machinery, maybe some manufactured ironwork, maybe specialist hard stone that couldn’t be quarried locally, some specialist livestock ....... I’m genuinely struggling a bit to think of things TBH.

 

There were multiple other stations nearby, so the compass of each was pretty small, maybe two three miles radius, so SP wasn’t a railhead for a large hinterland.

[Caley Jim]

20 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

....... maybe specialist hard stone that couldn’t be quarried locally, some specialist livestock .......

When painting this PO wagon from a. HMRS photo I discovered that Plean QQuarry (near Stirling) supplied stone for the Bank of England building in Threadneedle Street.

 

 

Jim

[Ravenser]

On 23/10/2020 at 11:57, Phil Traxson said:

Interesting that nearly 120 years later the road transport businesses operate a very similar "hub" system and yet the complaint with the railway system was that it was not direct door to door because of the multi handling and transfers! 

 

What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve at.

 

Many things are hidden in the decent obscurity of a pallet network. 

 

I own a copy of "British Railway Operation" by T Bernard Hare , Assistant District Superintendent LNER, Hull, with a forward by Sir Ralph Wedgewood, dated 1927 . The principles of operation for general merchandise traffic would be startlingly familiar to the road haulage industry almost a century later

[Compound2632]

That part of Jonathan Abson's Sheffield Park data relating to coal and coke traffic is recycled in Tavender's Coal Trade Wagons, where the points of origin for the railway company coal wagons are given as Toton (Mid), Doncaster (GN), Walsall (LNW), Nottingham (GC), and Stoke (NS); I suppose these were the places at which they were marshalled for the long journey south. It's notable that two-thirds of the open merchandise wagons are Midland. At this date, these will be the standard 5-plank D299 wagon, as, most probably, will be the coal wagons - there could be the odd D351 end-door variant in there, while the coke, if a full load, probably came in a D342 coke wagon. Anyway, this is all further evidence that no goods yard scene at this period can be complete without a D299! Here they account for about a quarter of the foreign wagons. The other foreign open merchandise wagons also come from the industrial north - NER and GCR. Three of the five covered goods wagons come from the SECR - did Sheffield Park serve a brewery? Apart from that solitary Midland coke wagon, coke was sourced locally, those five LBSC wagonloads coming from Tunbridge Wells, Eastbourne, and Portslade, all places with gas works. 

 

Most notable by its absence is the Great Western, despite being one of the pre-grouping "big four" with a wagon fleet nearly as big as the LNWR's. There is one solitary load of South Wales coal; the East Midlands and South Yorkshire dominate, with a small amount from the Cannock Chase and Warwickshire coal fields. I've "spotted" a Pelsall wagon heading up to Willesden behind a LNWR coal engine at Bushey in 1897 and a Talk O' The Hill wagon going down the Midland main line empty at Wellingborough in 1898, so it all hangs together!

Edited October 24, 2020 by Compound2632
Jonathan not John

[Ravenser]

44 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

But, whole wagonloads arriving at Sheffield Park from foreign places?

Apart from one big, posh house, there is nothing in compass beside a few farms and tiny villages, other than the two outgoing traffic sources, the dairy and the sawmill.
 

I’d imagine that dry goods etc would arrive as what the Americans call ‘less than car load’, so a LBSCR wagon with collated O&S from multiple origins. I don’t think the Brighton called them ‘road trucks’, possibly ‘station trucks’, I’m not sure.

 

I was wondering about specialist machinery, maybe some manufactured ironwork, maybe specialist hard stone that couldn’t be quarried locally, some specialist livestock ....... I’m genuinely struggling a bit to think of things TBH.

 

There were multiple other stations nearby, so the compass of each was pretty small, maybe two three miles radius, so SP wasn’t a railhead for a large hinterland.

 

The LNER NE Area term - and very probably the general term in the 1920s as the book was an educational manual - was "road wagon" or "road van" 

 

Almost certainly the explanation for the very high proportion of LBSCR wagons is that  almost everything for Sheffield Park was less-than-wagonload bits and pieces  - "smalls" the book calls them - , forwarded in an LBSCR road wagon

 

Hare's comments on the subject in the book are enlightening :

 

Quote

[Side Heading: The Minimum Wagon Load]

We have said that there must be some minimum to justify the provision of a wagon. The question of what that minimum shall be is a very burning one. Some companies say two tonnes others one, and in both cases certain exceptions are made. The average tare weight of a normal type of goods wagon may be taken as about six tons, so that, whatever load the wagon may have, the engine has six tons of non-paying weight to haul in addition to the contents of the wagon, and in many cases for double the distance

 

Modern deep-sea groupage operators impose a minimum of 1 freight tonne (= 1 cubic meter/1000kgs) on charges. I think roadfreight operators tend to have a minimum of one pallet

 

In other words, nothing changes in terms of consignment size. In the 1920s , railway companies were prepared to treat shipments equivalent to 1 pallet as wagonload traffic....

[Compound2632]

@Nick Holliday also posted 1922 data for the Crewe tranship shed. This put me in mind of similar data from an, I think 1920, survey at Bristol. That showed a preponderance of wagons of the local companies - Midland, GW, and LNW (local-ish!) - with wagons from the other companies roughly in proportion to the size of their wagon fleets. Nick suggests that the idea of complete diffusion of pooled wagons doesn't hold up; I'd like to suggest a partial diffusion model: a baseline of home company / companies wagons with a distribution in proportion to size of fleet on top of that. But what is the ratio of the two components?

 

The number of GSWR wagons does seem anomalously high. The traffic agreements between the Midland and LNW had been in force for well over a decade by 1922, so presumably GSWR wagons were being sent south by the most convenient of the two routes, rather than going round by Derby. But why more than Caledonian? Was the Caledonian choosing to send goods to England in LNWR wagons rather than its own or any random wagon?

Edited October 24, 2020 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

@Ravenser, I doubt the "minimum wagonload" concept was around in 1900. Those open wagons of merchandise from the northern lines probably represent single consignments, big enough not to be sent as parcels traffic. They may be bulky low value consignments - lime, bricks, etc. It would be very interesting to examine the documents that Jonathan Abson based his study on in detail, to see if there is any record of the goods actually delivered.

Edited October 24, 2020 by Compound2632
Jonathan not John

[Nearholmer]

I don’t want to hog the thread too much with Sheffield Park specifics, but having grown-up only just over the hill .....

 

No brewery so far as I know, the big one being Harvey’s at Lewes, but those SECR vans might have contained bottled beer from Kent to supplement local supplies. Another possinbility that struck me was flour, because although there are Rail-connected mills only a couple of stations down the line (Barcombe), there might have been a shortfall, because the soil isn’t great for wheat. There was also a chicken boom in the area in the early C20th, so some kind of grain for chicken meal?
 

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

On 18/10/2020 at 13:56, Poggy1165 said:

I just think of these things as logos. You see logos every day - literally - it doesn't mean we're all illiterate.

 

The GCR did not just paint its five pointed star on wagons. It was part of the house flag on its ships, for example, and it was used on certain posters, which implies it meant something to Joe Public. The McDonald arches are better known, as a result of modern communication techniques, but they do a very similar job.

 

That reminds me of another wagon logo - the Birmingham RC&W Co.'s pentangle, which as well as appearing on its maker's pates:

 

 

was painted on wagons that were in its hire fleet:

 

 

[Warwickshire Railways]

 

... and not only on wagons lettered as above but also on wagons lettered fore the hirer, including, I believe, the Great Western.

 

 

[Nick Holliday]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The number of GSWR wagons does seem anomalously high. The traffic agreements between the Midland and LNW had been in force for well over a decade by 1922, so presumably GSWR wagons were being sent south by the most convenient of the two routes, rather than going round by Derby. But why more than Caledonian? Was the Caledonian choosing to send goods to England in LNWR wagons rather than its own or any random wagon?

There's no need for any speculation re the GSWR.  Entirely my fault for entering the wrong figure - not 188 but a more understandable 18! Sorry. I've changed the table on my original post.

[kevinlms]

On 23/10/2020 at 20:08, Compound2632 said:

 

OK, some photos from goods yards in Birmingham. First the LNWR Windsor Street goods station, here and here; the captions identify the wagons in view - there are a handful of foreigners, but most are LNWR. Second the Midland's Central goods station, mid-1890s, here and here. Only three non-Midland wagons, the van with the X framing on the left edge of the first photo, the sheeted LNWR 1-plank wagon on the left of the second photo, and another X-framed van further down the line of opens.

 

Another source of information is the Railway Inspectorate accident reports. I've analysed all of those I could find that had any Midland goods wagon interest in the period 1880-1910 and discussed several in my wagon building topic. A good example is the collision between GSWR and Caledonian goods trains at Gretna in 1901. Much stock was damaged and hence listed in the report. The vehicles listed from the GSWR train were exclusively GSWR (11) and Midland (6) - this was a train from Carlisle to Glasgow, so the presence of the Midland vehicles can be accounted for by English imports to Scotland. In Caledonian train, coming from Glasgow to Carlisle, the damaged wagons included Caledonian (11), NER (5), LNWR (6), L&YR (5), GWR (1), and NSR (1). Most of the foreign wagons will have been working back empty, although the West Coast partners may have had a mutual back-loading agreement (that's my speculation only). The Caledonian was at this period busy working with the NER to divert traffic away from the latter's East Coast partner, the NBR. These two trains are at the extreme of through-working of wagons, as Anglo-Scottish traffic was necessarily inter-company traffic; nevertheless, the foreign wagons are exclusively from companies in each Scottish company's network of English allies.

 

Another example is the accident to a MR Birmingham - Manchester at Whitacre in 1903; of the damaged goods wagons listed, 11 are Midland, with two Cheshire Lines and one L&YR. Again I think we can presume that these three foreigners were working back empty having been forwarded loaded from Lancashire stations. I could multiply examples indefinitely. 

 

I would suggest that the evidence points to there being a limited amount of through working of foreign wagons. I'm very conscious of this in my c. 1902 wagon modelling. I conceive my location as a Midland line in the Birmingham area over which both the LNWR and GWR have running powers for goods trains, so I have plenty of wagons from those three companies, but I have built quite a number of wagons from other companies - each one needs a back-story to justify its presence.

 

 

The LNWR Crewe transhipment shed was for transferring goods from one LNWR wagon to another, the idea being that rather than each station sending out several partly-loaded wagons to different destinations, they would send one fully loaded wagon to Crewe; that load would be split up and redistributed so that a full wagon-load could be sent out to each destination station. There's a superb contemporary description by Fred W. West, the Crewe Goods Agent, reproduced from The Railway Magazine, 1907, in E. Talbot, The LNWR Recalled (OPC, 1987). I suppose this system worked well on a railway such as the LNWR, with its own goods service reaching most parts of the country. The only other railway "such as the LNWR" was the Midland, with equally national reach; the Midland had a tranship shed at Derby St Marys; I'm afraid I don't know anything of its history or method of operation. 

 

 

If these are pre-Great War layouts, then I'm afraid you become the object of my amusement. Martin Nield's Ecclestone in the current issue of MRJ has it right - L&YR set in 1910; most of the non-PO wagons in view are L&YR with a fair smattering of LNWR, a couple of Midland, and one each from the GWR and NER.

 

On the other hand, if you're looking at post-Great War layouts, then I'm with you rolling in the aisles (or at least rolling my eyes). But up to 1940, PO wagons still need to be appropriate to the traffic of the locality and nature of the industry - no anthracite colliery wagons in the gas works siding, please!

 

 

There was a topic discussing this point not so long ago. I think if one maintains that GW brakes always ran verandah trailing, one has to provide evidence of the infrastructure to turn them. These are long wheelbase vehicles that would not fit on an ordinary wagon turntable, so what are the alternatives? Send brakes for turning at the nearest loco shed, or turn them on a convenient triangle? 

 

 

I'm inclined to agree; but what is a logo but a symbol to assist in rapid identification?

So basically you're hinting that in the earliest days at least, the concept of 'pooling' of wagons was virtually pointless?

 

Most wagons built from 1887 onwards conformed to the RCH 1887 standards (yes I'm aware the the standards were PRIMARILY intended for P.O. operators, so that such vehicles could travel, without inspection, more or less anywhere on the network), but railway owned vehicles also conformed to these standards, with possibly some variations.

 

So by 1916 ( when the GE, GN and GC railways first agreed on 'pooling' wagons), the majority of their fleets would have been built new or upgraded (but not all), over the intervening 29 years, the wagons would therefore be largely similar. So not much to be lost by pooling or more accurately sharing.

 

For the reasons Nearholmer pointed out, there would be no sudden surge of foreign wagons with whole loads, to turn up at obscure locations. The part wagon load goods would be transferred into wagons going to that location and these would be more likely to be 'home' railway owned.

 

The concept of pooling wagons, was to reduce the effect of sending away empty foreign wagons, while waiting (probably not long, but a wait nevertheless) for an almost identical wagon to arrive, except that it had your own lettering on it.

 

In a hypothetical situation, a GWR yard needed 8 wagons to take away the goods collected on a day, to go to other GWR destinations. In the yard he has 10 empty wagons , 7 GWR and 3 foreign. Pre pooling he could fill the 7 GWR and then what? He would have to wait for another GWR wagon to be sent to him, as the other 3 would be required under the rules to be sent back to the owning company empty, unless there was a suitable load.

 

Under pooling what would he do? He could fill the 7 GWR wagons and one of the 3 foreign wagons and send the remaining pair back empty. But of course, there was other choices available to him. As an alternative he could choose to fill any 8, GWR or not, depending on whichever was the most convenient - perhaps selecting the 8 which required the least amount of shunting around. After all shunting around takes extra time and effort.

 

I have not suggested that come pooling, the entire wagon fleet could be seen literally anywhere, but it's a gradual spread of wagons around. Of course old habits die hard and certainly some railway staff, would always prefer to keep their home railway wagons on their system, but increasingly that ideology would naturally be undermined and so by the late 1930s, the wagon fleet would be far more dispersed that it was earlier.

 

I do accept that the period of your lists of vehicles involved in collision (pre WW1), would mostly be home or bordering company stock, but not true of a later period. The railways, as ever, were evolving.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

So basically you're hinting that in the earliest days at least, the concept of 'pooling' of wagons was virtually pointless?

 

By the earliest days, you mean the first eight decades or so of the railway network's existence. Railway company wagon pooling was only in effect for the comparatively brief period of three decades or so up to nationalisation, for only two decades or so of which could conditions be described as normal. 

 

But yes, what it boils down to is that one company was not permitted to use another company's property for its own profit, except be special agreement. Foreign wagons and sheets had to be returned to their owners without delay to avoid charges. This is something I want to find out more about. The Midland Railway Study Centre has some material - mostly instructions in Superintendent of the Line's notices - that I want to get a look at once the collection is again accessible. For the moment, here's an example of a Midland "foreign wagon empty home" label, MRSC Item 14194, for a Great Western wagon at Walsall on 8 March 1906, to be returned via Wednesford - i.e. for hand-over to the GW at Wolverhampton before 8 am the following day. Note the small print: "When Foreign Wagons which have to pass over Intermediate Companies' lines to reach home, are returned empty, they must be labelled by exactly the same route (naming all junctions) as received on the journey from the Owner's line." The consignee had paid for their goods to be sent by a certain route; in the setting the scale of charges, the empty wagon home would be an element of the cost. It would increase the work of the RCH clerks if they had to do two calculations to apportion the income between the various companies involved in the journey, if the route home was different.

 

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Most wagons built from 1887 onwards conformed to the RCH 1887 standards (yes I'm aware the the standards were PRIMARILY intended for P.O. operators, so that such vehicles could travel, without inspection, more or less anywhere on the network), but railway owned vehicles also conformed to these standards, with possibly some variations.

 

It was not until the RCH 1923 specification that components became standardised. The RCH 1887 specification laid down the minimum requirements to be met for a new PO wagon to be registered by one of the railway companies, after inspection by their representative; there was litigation between the wagon builders and the railway companies as the builders claimed they were being required to meet a more stringent specification than that met by many of the wagons the railway companies were operating. If you were a PO wagon operator, you generally had a repair contract with the builder from whom you had hired or purchased your wagons. The builders each maintained their own network of repair stations, a situation which was not rationalised until after the Great War with the formation of Wagon Repairs Ltd. 

 

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

So by 1916 ( when the GE, GN and GC railways first agreed on 'pooling' wagons), the majority of their fleets would have been built new or upgraded (but not all), over the intervening 29 years, the wagons would therefore be largely similar. So not much to be lost by pooling or more accurately sharing.

 

I don't think they were sufficiently similar that one company's wagon repair station could repair another company's wagon from its own stock of standard parts. Wagons had been built to meet the same specification, not to use the same components.

 

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

For the reasons Nearholmer pointed out, there would be no sudden surge of foreign wagons with whole loads, to turn up at obscure locations. The part wagon load goods would be transferred into wagons going to that location and these would be more likely to be 'home' railway owned.

 

There is plenty of evidence that a very high proportion of merchandise wagons were running with part loads and not just when "going foreign". What I'm not clear about is the extent of transhipment at points of exchange; I have to say I'm very doubtful that it was widespread, as I see no sign of the necessary facilities at such places. Here's the 1903 25" map showing Bordesley exchange sidings, a major point of exchange between two of the four largest railway companies in the country - where is the tranship shed?

 

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

I have not suggested that come pooling, the entire wagon fleet could be seen literally anywhere, but it's a gradual spread of wagons around. Of course old habits die hard and certainly some railway staff, would always prefer to keep their home railway wagons on their system, but increasingly that ideology would naturally be undermined and so by the late 1930s, the wagon fleet would be far more dispersed that it was earlier.

 

I do accept that the period of your lists of vehicles involved in collision (pre WW1), would mostly be home or bordering company stock, but not true of a later period. The railways, as ever, were evolving.

 

There were, from a modern perspective, enormous inefficiencies in the way goods traffic was worked in the period before the Great War. In the 19th century, the railways had been able to pass on the costs of those inefficiencies to their customers. With the stagnation in railway business in the early 20th century, the companies were forced to start to look at working agreements - I think I'm right in saying the first major such was between the LNWR and Midland in 1908 - but it took wartime control by the REC to force wagon pooling. Even with pooling, maintenance remained the responsibility of the owning company, which was, I suspect, one incentive for loading wagons back in the general direction of their owning companies and keeping one's own company wagons on one's own system. 

 

But to go back to the topic, these developments were yet to come at the period when some companies' wagons bore the so-called illiterate symbols, which is the period I'm interested in modelling. 

[sulzer27jd]

Quote

But to go back to the topic, these developments were yet to come at the period when some companies' wagons bore the so-called illiterate symbols, which is the period I'm interested in modelling.

In our modelling we look to strike the right balance of home and 'foreign' wagons and that will of course vary dependent on a range of factors including where we are modelling and the time period involved. It may be that a chosen location will have more wagons of a particular type because of a local industry and that will skew the visual representation. What this conversation has highlighted is that in the period prior to WW1 the number of empty wagons is also a significant factor that we should be taking into account. It is certainly something that I am giving  thought to as the number of sheeted wagons and therefore the number of empty wagons will be of particular interest and may require a fleet of more or less equal split.

 

I currently manage coal loads with removable foam blocks so allow full and empty movements, own company opens can be sheeted in two directions but I will need to give further thought as to representing incoming loaded and outgoing empty 'foreign' wagons. I could simply replace them between operating sessions as I think having removable sheeting would be tricky!

 

To bring us back to the wagon symbols, we have - at least so far - not seen any evidence that the purpose of these markings was in any way related to illiteracy. What we have seen in fact leads us away from that purpose, as much of what has been put before us indicates that the railways of the day required a reasonable degree of literacy from its employees. We can get distracted by individual examples or arguments around terminology but the facts - and I repeat, so far - bear out the reality that the railway functioned with people of all grades reading instructions. That might be as simple as a shunter setting a wagon into a train that will take it back home. The shunter determining that the wagon with the CR on its side had to go north and the one with LSWR had to go south but none the less that is probably easier that trying to remember that the one with a diamond goes west and the one with the clover thing goes east. 

 

More complicated was the distribution of coal wagons. In his book, Operating the Caledonian Railway Vol 1, Jim Summers has included an image showing the list of junctions at which wagons coming from the north for the various collieries had to be left off. The list has 6 yards serving 115 collieries. Making sure that wagons got to the right destination was clearly not a simple task. The same process would be repeated throughout many railways in many locations. In the days before the pooling of wagons the specific instructions for the return of empties, often written on the wagon body, would need to be followed or a cost would be incurred. I remain unconvinced that the symbols painted by some companies on their wagons were meant to serve the purpose of assisting illiterate shunters. The NB actually painted the quatrefoil between its letters anyway. 

 

Hopefully someone can access a contemporary record which will shed some light on this question as without it I suspect we will simply continue going round in a circular fashion. 

 

John

 

[Compound2632]

20 minutes ago, sulzer27jd said:

We can get distracted by individual examples or arguments around terminology but the facts - and I repeat, so far - bear out the reality that the railway functioned with people of all grades reading instructions. That might be as simple as a shunter setting a wagon into a train that will take it back home. The shunter determining that the wagon with the CR on its side had to go north and the one with LSWR had to go south but none the less that is probably easier that trying to remember that the one with a diamond goes west and the one with the clover thing goes east. 

 

The shunter would be following the routing instructions on the wagon label, which had been made out by a goods clerk. The latter definitely had to be literate. For the shunter, the label would be more important than the lettering on the side of the wagon.

 

Another important but often overlooked role is that of the RCH number-taker, whose records assisted the RCH clerks in apportioning revenue. He had to note the owning company and wagon number - information which was all on the solebar plate (nearly always), conveniently at about eye level for a man standing on the ground. Again, lettering on the side of the wagon mattered little to him! 

 

27 minutes ago, sulzer27jd said:

I remain unconvinced that the symbols painted by some companies on their wagons were meant to serve the purpose of assisting illiterate shunters.

 

So I agree. But then who were any of these markings, symbols or letters, for? Still an unanswered question...

 

28 minutes ago, sulzer27jd said:

The NB actually painted the quatrefoil between its letters anyway. 

 

It would be truer to say that the NB painted the letters either side of the quatrefoil, since the latter was in use for many years before the letters started to be used, c. 1892. The same goes for the LNWR diamonds (lettering introduced 1908, diamonds discontinued 1912) and NSR (large NS introduced when? replacing the early style of 6" N.S.R [knot] 6" number).

[kevinlms]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I don't think they were sufficiently similar that one company's wagon repair station could repair another company's wagon from its own stock of standard parts. Wagons had been built to meet the same specification, not to use the same components.

 

 

Well that raises more questions. What sort of 'repairs' were expected to be carried out? There is obviously a huge range of possible repairs that needed to be considered. Did railways for instance top up axle box lubricants for foreign railways - probably if it was low. What about a missing bolt in part of the the brake gear, making it unfit for traffic. Could it be replaced and the owning company billed for it?

 

Replacing specific shaped brake levers and similar parts, almost certainly not and so would require either sending them off empty, or for unfit for traffic vehicles, contacting the owners to deal with it. How would the owning company deal with an unfit for traffic wagon, if they were 10 miles from their nearest interchange point? Send a wagon repair crew to the nearest station, or use a horse and cart containing a range of spares?

 

Then of course there is the case of wagons badly damaged in accidents/derailments, which I assume would get dismantled by the owners of the length of track, where the incident took place and the remains sent back to the owners.

 

All supposition of course, but the railways must have had some sort of general agreement in place, for what was almost certainly daily events.

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Well that raises more questions. What sort of 'repairs' were expected to be carried out? There is obviously a huge range of possible repairs that needed to be considered. Did railways for instance top up axle box lubricants for foreign railways - probably if it was low. What about a missing bolt in part of the the brake gear, making it unfit for traffic. Could it be replaced and the owning company billed for it?

 

Replacing specific shaped brake levers and similar parts, almost certainly not and so would require either sending them off empty, or for unfit for traffic vehicles, contacting the owners to deal with it. How would the owning company deal with an unfit for traffic wagon, if they were 10 miles from their nearest interchange point? Send a wagon repair crew to the nearest station, or use a horse and cart containing a range of spares?

 

Then of course there is the case of wagons badly damaged in accidents/derailments, which I assume would get dismantled by the owners of the length of track, where the incident took place and the remains sent back to the owners.

 

All supposition of course, but the railways must have had some sort of general agreement in place, for what was almost certainly daily events.

 

Indeed. I'd love to know the answers to these questions. There's a MR official photo of Wigston, DY 2810, taken on 20 March 1905, showing the Midland's wagon repair shop and a number of wagon company repair stations, all in a row. These don't show up very well in the linked image but in the better view in Essery's Midland Wagons, plate 60, these repair stations are basically van-sized huts, each with company name on a sign running above the ridge of the hut roof. The major companies are represented: S.J. Clay, Gloster [sic], Hurst Nelson, and at least another couple more not quite legible. They're evidently small-scale operations, working on wagons in the open - two or three wagon fitters I suppose. I imagine they might have a small stock of their firm's standard components, of the sort most likely to fail - buffer and drawbar springs, axlebox brasses, brake blocks?

 

See also:

 

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Compound2632

[kevinlms]

17 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Indeed. I'd love to know the answers to these questions. There's a MR official photo of Wigston, DY 2810, taken on 20 March 1905, showing the Midland's wagon repair shop and a number of wagon company repair stations, all in a row. These don't show up very well in the linked image but in the better view in Essery's Midland Wagons, plate 60, these repair stations are basically van-sized huts, each with company name on a sign running above the ridge of the hut roof. The major companies are represented: S.J. Clay, Gloster [sic], Hurst Nelson, and at least another couple more not quite legible. They're evidently small-scale operations, working on wagons in the open - two or three wagon fitters I suppose. I imagine they might have a small stock of their firm's standard components, of the sort most likely to fail - buffer and drawbar springs, axlebox brasses, brake blocks?

 

See also:

 

 

Thanks for that, I just took a look in my copy and that covers the large P.O. wagon companies, but what about say LNWR wagons? That company presumably had a lot of wagons go through Wigston.

[Penlan]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Another important but often overlooked role is that of the RCH number-taker, whose records assisted the RCH clerks in apportioning revenue. He had to note the owning company and wagon number - information which was all on the solebar plate (nearly always), conveniently at about eye level for a man standing on the ground. Again, lettering on the side of the wagon mattered little to him! 

I was waiting for somebody to mention the RCH involvements.
RCH was established in the 1830's, agreements arranged between different companies for working traffic etc., and thus fee's. Basically, every Junction where traffic stopped had RCH number takers, so the charges on other companies tracks could be charged, etc, plus demurrage, and so it goes on.
Plenty of reading on the subject in 'The Railway Clearing House' by Philip Bagwell.
As an aside, I can't see any reference in the book to illiterate symbols 
 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Thanks for that, I just took a look in my copy and that covers the large P.O. wagon companies, but what about say LNWR wagons? That company presumably had a lot of wagons go through Wigston.

 

Indeed!

[Nick Holliday]

 

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Well that raises more questions. What sort of 'repairs' were expected to be carried out? There is obviously a huge range of possible repairs that needed to be considered. Did railways for instance top up axle box lubricants for foreign railways - probably if it was low. What about a missing bolt in part of the the brake gear, making it unfit for traffic. Could it be replaced and the owning company billed for it?

 

Replacing specific shaped brake levers and similar parts, almost certainly not and so would require either sending them off empty, or for unfit for traffic vehicles, contacting the owners to deal with it. How would the owning company deal with an unfit for traffic wagon, if they were 10 miles from their nearest interchange point? Send a wagon repair crew to the nearest station, or use a horse and cart containing a range of spares?

 

Then of course there is the case of wagons badly damaged in accidents/derailments, which I assume would get dismantled by the owners of the length of track, where the incident took place and the remains sent back to the owners.

 

All supposition of course, but the railways must have had some sort of general agreement in place, for what was almost certainly daily events.

I found this in a book "British Railways and the Great War": -

Repairs of Wagons.
Another phase of the organisation involved in the adoption of the scheme related to the repairs of common-user wagons. Under the conditions agreed to, only repairs of a simple character were to be undertaken off the owning company's line. Wagons requiring extensive repairs were to be sent home, as usual. This question of repairs had been complicated by certain considerations which suggested possible difficulties.
Wagons hitherto used for the conveyance of such traffic as agricultural produce would be liable to more wear and tear if, as the result of a system of indiscriminate user, they were employed for the transport of, say, bricks, iron, coal, or the heavier classes of traffic for munitions, ship-building, etc., and they would thus be in more frequent need of attention. Owing, however, to the lack of standardisation of railway-owned, no less than of privately-owned, wagons, the necessary parts or materials might not always be available at the place where the repairs would otherwise be done. There was, again, an impression that a company not the actual owner of a wagon in need of slight repairs might be less attentive than the owning company itself in seeing that they were done. Omission to carry out repairs promptly would be the more serious inasmuch as a common-user wagon might be away from the owning company for weeks or even months together. 

In effect, considerable difficulties did arise ; but they were met to a certain extent, at least, by the necessary parts being dispatched, on requisition, to the places where they were wanted.

I realise that doesn't fully answer the question, since the "conditions agreed to" are not stated, but it throws a little light on the process.

[kevinlms]

40 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

 

I found this in a book "British Railways and the Great War": -

Repairs of Wagons.
Another phase of the organisation involved in the adoption of the scheme related to the repairs of common-user wagons. Under the conditions agreed to, only repairs of a simple character were to be undertaken off the owning company's line. Wagons requiring extensive repairs were to be sent home, as usual. This question of repairs had been complicated by certain considerations which suggested possible difficulties.
Wagons hitherto used for the conveyance of such traffic as agricultural produce would be liable to more wear and tear if, as the result of a system of indiscriminate user, they were employed for the transport of, say, bricks, iron, coal, or the heavier classes of traffic for munitions, ship-building, etc., and they would thus be in more frequent need of attention. Owing, however, to the lack of standardisation of railway-owned, no less than of privately-owned, wagons, the necessary parts or materials might not always be available at the place where the repairs would otherwise be done. There was, again, an impression that a company not the actual owner of a wagon in need of slight repairs might be less attentive than the owning company itself in seeing that they were done. Omission to carry out repairs promptly would be the more serious inasmuch as a common-user wagon might be away from the owning company for weeks or even months together. 

In effect, considerable difficulties did arise ; but they were met to a certain extent, at least, by the necessary parts being dispatched, on requisition, to the places where they were wanted.

I realise that doesn't fully answer the question, since the "conditions agreed to" are not stated, but it throws a little light on the process.

Perhaps it doesn't complete the story, but it is a good insight into what occurred and is pretty close to what I expected. 

It didn't sound right the idea that it's not one of ours, so we'll just send it back. It would be mutually advantageous to all companies to endeavour to make basic repairs and send it on its way. Especially if the wagon was loaded. Not always possible or practical of course. 

 

Thanks for posting. 

Edited October 27, 2020 by kevinlms

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Then of course there is the case of wagons badly damaged in accidents/derailments, which I assume would get dismantled by the owners of the length of track, where the incident took place and the remains sent back to the owners.

 

 

Why would Private Owners want the bits of smashed up wagon after an accident?  The load perhaps if it was fit to salvage.  As regards the wagon surely what they would want is compensation for what they would perceive to be negligence on the part of the railway company.  I would have though the railway would use/sell the wreckage for firewood?  Iron & steel could go to the company's furnace.

[Andy Hayter]

We might expect "instant" mixing of wagon fleets once pooling commenced.  I rather think that was far from the case.

 

Although military goods might travel long distances, general trade would continue to have been largely "local" within one company or perhaps from the company next door.

 

As an example of how slow mixing is, when the euro became public currency in 2002, I bought an album to collect an example of each coin from each of the original euro members.  18 years on and I am still missing examples - the 1c and 2c Finnish coins are not surprising because while they have been produced and can be obtained from a Finnish bank if you buy a full roll of coins, they are not in common usage in Finland where prices are in 5c steps.   Other national coins are also however missing from the collection. 

You would think by now all of the different nations currencies would be well mixed but when I use coinage or folding stuff, the change is almost always either French or the immediate adjoining national coins.  Only rarely do other counties coins turn up and as for the later joiners to the Euro, their coins are found by exception only.

 

If this were typical of pre-grouping wagons after common user came into place, we would expect the majority to remain home company and most of the rest to be the adjoining companies unless there was a specific traffic.