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Original TOPS issue BR vehicle diagram books for wagons


HGR
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Thank you again.

 

Missing ones could be an indication of all examples of that diagram being withdrawn or converted to something else, and the diagram becoming extinct before 1974, as the codes were originally allocated early around 1970 / 1971. Presumably any extinct diagrams wouldn't be drawn up.

 

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Thank you again. Getting into the weird stuff now. We were used to an eclectic mixture of steel carriers in the N.E. area, but clays and pig irons were more of two parts of the country I didn't get to see much of.

 

Cheers for all your hard work. Much appreciated.

 

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I wonder what diag 13 was mentioned on UC002A and B ? It shows an end door on a relatively (compared to diag 1/051 china clay) high wagon. I don't recognise it at all. Was it simply the wrong wagon to show a diagram for the standard clays equipped with the fixed high bar for ball clay? 

 

Paul

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3 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

I wonder what diag 13 was mentioned on UC002A and B ? It shows an end door on a relatively (compared to diag 1/051 china clay) high wagon. I don't recognise it at all. Was it simply the wrong wagon to show a diagram for the standard clays equipped with the fixed high bar for ball clay? 

 

Paul

When converted from ordinary CLAYs, the CLAYHOODs were allocated diagram BR 1 / 13. However I've never seen a copy of it. The wagon depicted in UC 002 A / B weirdly seems to have gained an extra plank, as CLAYs were five-plank of well and truly GWR origin. Coincidence the GWR ones were diagram O 13 ?

 

Just to add to this, when these were re-coded into the 'O' group in 1983, UC 002 A / B became OO 002 A / B ... fair enough. However, later OO 002 C and OO 002 D were added to cover the ones that had now been fitted with roller bearings (not a good move on something carrying loose powdered stone !) but these two later diagrams show them without hood / support bar but with AARKND of OOV H which would indicate CLAYHOOD. The inside height of these six-plank oddities is same as the original five plank B.R. 1 / 51 CLAY, so methinks a bit of drawing office licence ???

 

 

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Thanks again SED Freightman. Going back into the very dim and distant now.

 

I wonder if the banana van diagram being missing meant that they had all been lost into the general van pool or re-used as barrier wagons by then ? Can remember seeing some of the later corrugated end sort coded RBV. Some still had the BANANA lettering. ISTR some carrying code VVV.

 

 

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Thanks SED Freightman. I'm guessing many of the ones you're missing in the initial issue of Book 320 could well be those that went in the '70s. Where no lot numbers are listed in the index against the diagram it often is for pre-nationalisation types, which could of course be early candidates for withdrawal. For VS 004A/B and VS 005A however these are later B.R. lots than the other SHOCVANs so not sure what would have happened to them ?

 

 

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On 22/11/2020 at 22:43, HGR said:

Thanks SED Freightman. I'm guessing many of the ones you're missing in the initial issue of Book 320 could well be those that went in the '70s. Where no lot numbers are listed in the index against the diagram it often is for pre-nationalisation types, which could of course be early candidates for withdrawal. For VS 004A/B and VS 005A however these are later B.R. lots than the other SHOCVANs so not sure what would have happened to them ?

 

 

My copies of Book 320 indicate that they incorporate the Revision 1 amendments of February 1982, I initialed the amendment sheet but after 38 years I cannot recall the extent of the amendments although no doubt they contained diagrams to be added and other to be removed.  I do have a pile of diagram sheets, which presumably should have been destroyed and which may perhaps contain some of the missing diagrams, I will delve into these once thee inital scanning is complete.

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20 hours ago, SED Freightman said:

My copies of Book 320 indicate that they incorporate the Revision 1 amendments of February 1982, I initialed the amendment sheet but after 38 years I cannot recall the extent of the amendments although no doubt they contained diagrams to be added and other to be removed.  I do have a pile of diagram sheets, which presumably should have been destroyed and which may perhaps contain some of the missing diagrams, I will delve into these once thee inital scanning is complete.

Thank you once more for your continued work with these. It's much appreciated and filling in a fair chunk of missing knowledge in my technical 'library'.

 

For whatever reason, the British Railways (B) books, and copies of various early revisions of Book320 that I have are devoid of the part(s) where the vans lurk. The copies posted by various people on Barrowmore MRG seem to have a similar trait - almost like the old vans were very secretive !

 

Think I mentioned before, my two parts of B.R. Diagram Book (B) only gets you as far as the end of the 'O' OPENs group. Anything after that I'm missing. Back in those days, there weren't revisions as we have now. Instead, the D.O. issued 'Circular Letters' numbered sequentially one upwards as each revision was issued. Each C.L. contained a raft of various amendments to be made by hand to the diagram pages in the books. Mine include Circular Letter No. 3. Dated 14 June 1977. I'm not aware that there were any more C.L.s after that until they went to Book 320. Fortunately whoever updated the (B) books that I have did not remove / destroy the pages for diagrams that were 'cancelled' - they are still in there for historical interest.

 

In 1981 there was a big project started in the D.M.& E.E. which produced the 'REVISED VEHICLE DIAGRAM BOOK NUMBERING SYSTEM' so that the various TOPS diagram books all now lived in one big series. Locos used to be in the MT specification section, as were cranes / tracklayers. Wagons were pulled from the B.R. (B) and P.O. (P) books. Coaches, which hadn't been tackled so far under TOPS, had to be done afresh, notwithstanding that despite NPCCS being the first coaching stock to go onto TOPS, was the last book to make it out of the D.O. ... not appearing until 1986 !

 

Now revisions came out under cover of a 'Revision Letter', again numbered in sequence from 1 upwards in order of appearance. So, to move the freight stock (B) books into Book 320 in the new series, Revision Letter No.1 dated February 1982 provided the new covers and a selection of updated and new diagrams to incorporate.

 

Seem to remember Revision 4 was the outcome of the big 1983 - 85 re-coding (and vehicle renumbering) exercise in order to allow all of the coaching stock to be accommodated by TOPS without the poor computer getting confused by owner / prefix or number 'vehicle origin' suffix letters. In the case of wagons, it cleared out the 'J', 'K', 'X' groups etc. for re-use elsewhere.  

 

Revision 9, out in 1990 was the last Revision I received, which lasted till the 'end-of-days' (or privatisation as the Government called it). After that, Railfreight Distribution (RfD) continued the tradition. 

 

One of the sets of Book 320 parts that I managed to acquire had weirdly been rearranged to have Vac Brake and Unfitted (in Part 1 and Part 2 covers), getting as far as 'OU' codes, and Air Brake and Air Pipe No 2 (in Part 4 cover), starting with 'OA'. Probably better suited the way they worked for preparing consists. So I'm guessing the missing Part 3 cover would have been Air Brake and Air Pipe No 1, and held the rest of the vac / unfitted - including the runner wagons, 2-axle (or more accurately, rigid) steel carriers, uncovered and vans, and then the bogie steel AB, Freightliners, MGR / domestic coal hoppers, minerals and so on. So yet again, none of the older vans that I'm interested in !

 

This particular set of Book 320 parts seems to be a revision 1 plus two distinct but very late sets of updates inserted. How bizarre ?

 

To try to make some sense of the various revisions of diagrams, I'm putting together an index so I know which book to look in, or on Barrowmore, or these posted by SED Freightman. On the subject of issue numbers on diagram book pages, beware that these don't directly relate to the TOPS design code that they appear on. Instead they relate to the underlying engineering drawing that forms the diagram book page. So for example the drawing for COIL K which started out as TOPS design code JK 001A was revised to ISSUE 1 with the design code amended to BN 001A when the remaining vehicles in the 'J' group were re-coded into 'B' group etc. So if you're looking for the predecessor of an issue revision, never assume it was the same design code.

 

SED Freightman : I know you're probably not going to want me to say this, but your pile of removed diagram pages may well be worth a scour for the ones that got blitzed during (B) book period / pre or early Book 320. There are lots of diagrams struck out in the first issue of the (B) book index, but I'm not sure if these reflect types that were around in 1970 when the TOPS codes were first allocated, but didn't last long enough (till 1973) to actually make it on to TOPS, or ones cancelled due to becoming extinct after that.

 

Anyway, a big thank you for your perseverance with the scanning.

 

 

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1 hour ago, HGR said:

 

 

To try to make some sense of the various revisions of diagrams, I'm putting together an index so I know which book to look in, or on Barrowmore, or these posted by SED Freightman. 

 

 

 

That would be a very useful resource, perhaps you could post it here for others to reference.

 

Thanks,

 

Jon

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13 hours ago, jonhall said:

 

That would be a very useful resource, perhaps you could post it here for others to reference.

 

Thanks,

 

Jon

It's a MS Excel file, but noticed that the file attach on these posts includes them, so should be OK. Might do a 'print' of it as well as PDF in case there are people who don't have (or dislike) MS Excel.

 

What it does do is highlight some of the anomalies in the diagrams - see for example VV 009C ... AARKND is VVVV (not VVVC as you might expect given the type of vac brake fitted). This may well be a typo, as there was no VVV-V on the RSL vehicle type lists as far as I'm aware ?

 

I'm trying to get it up to the codes around in the '90s, which is about where my involvement in these sorts of things got to. Once it's pretty much done I'll post it.

 

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