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"Foreign" wagons - How many would you see?


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9 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

The GN and GW did not enjoy their own metals in the area. GN trains came in by both MR and GC routes.

With which latter two the GN was involved jointly in the Cheshire Lines Committee, which means they had access to Manchester directly themselves, although I think via the GCR to get to the CLC.

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7 hours ago, Regularity said:

With which latter two the GN was involved jointly in the Cheshire Lines Committee, which means they had access to Manchester directly themselves, although I think via the GCR to get to the CLC.

 

I need to re-read Ahrons because as I said above I'm sure he says the GN used the Dore & Totley route once that was open - whether out of umbrage against the GC for the London Extension or simply to avoid Woodhead he doesn't say. Either way, over the CLC to their Deansgate goods station next door to Central passenger station. I've seen a photo of a Stirling saddle tank at work there. I suppose their engines must have been fed and watered at Trafford Park CLC shed?

Edited by Compound2632
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The GN had running powers over the GC from Retford, dating from the 1860s, when the CLC was created. Presumably this was a quid pro quo for effectively helping the MSLR to bail itself out of its overcommitments?

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22 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

I remember reading that the LNWR sent a "demurrage" train from Manchester up to Carlisle each day and it was vital it was in Carlisle for a certain time. I expect these would be mainly Scottish wagons - with perhaps the odd M&C one?

 Perhaps a little late and not quite on topic but I have read that this was a common practice on US railroads.

Wagon demurrage payments were based on how many days a "foreign" wagon spent on the property.

It became common to perform a "midnight shunt" to ensure that as many wagons as possible were transferred into exchange sidings and were therefore on another railway's property when the daily census was taken.

 

Ian T

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The GN certainly had a one third share in the CLC, but, unlike the Midland and GC, did not operate its own trains over it. (With the pedantic exception below.) It had, of course, a one third interest in CLC goods profits, and I think it's reasonable to assume a fair bit of traffic was exchanged with CLC. It did shed some shunters at Trafford Park for its huge Goods Warehouse which was adjacent to Central and naturally stood on a twig of its own metals.

 

It reached Manchester (for goods purposes) over both GC and Midland routes, a practice which continued into the Grouping era - perhaps surprisingly. Again, it had engines lodged at Trafford Park for these trains, and indeed for the passenger trains which it continued to work (via the GC route) for some time. (These passenger trains eventually faded away.)

 

The use of the Midland may have been prompted by traffic congestion over Woodhead. 

 

To be pedantic, I think the only GNR trains to run over the CLC were between Manchester and Chorlton Junction, and the light engines between Trafford Park and Manchester. So you could argue that the GN came into Manchester on its own (joint) metals, but only for the last few miles after quite a way over foreign rails. 

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Just to throw some more information into the fire, I have tried to compile the wagon statistics for most pre-grouping companies as of grouping. The information has been taken from a variety of sources, mostly the OPC, Lightmoor and Wild Swan company wagon books, with supplementary data from David Jenkinson's British Railway Carriages (I have appended coaching stock figures for comparison purposes). I had only three figures to play with concerning the Glasgow & South Western, (if anyone can supply more accurate data I would be grateful) and there is considerable variety in the way various companies compiled their statistics. For a few companies there was enough data to compare their fleets over time.

773414450_overallfigures.png.1e2ee327d4bac26682f63a26af95fde8.png

 

 

Edited by Nick Holliday
H&BR figures updated from North Eastern Record 2
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Inverness 1927

One of the key articles regarding pooled wagons was Peter Tatlow's masterful analysis of the wagons visible in a couple of H C Casserley photographs taken at Inverness in 1927, which appeared in the March 1975 issue of Model Railways. This work has occasionally resurfaced, but I thought it would be informative to include a summary of it here.

609810125_Inverness1927.png.f63204f3ee736ff20eed0da625ed6de1.png

After detailed examination and discussion with other experts, he prepared a table showing the proportion of each grouping companies' wagons, as Table 1 below, together with an overall view of wagons fleets during the grouping period, Table 2.

2041912239_PeterTatlowTables.png.109d165e3f67be0cbf3481559657e9b5.png

Using the figures which exclude the service vehicles, the proportions of Southern and Great Western are similar to the overall figure, but the LMS/LNER ratios are different, suggesting that the local company still prevails, even after a decade of pooling.

What is significant is the variety of pre-grouping companies present, and the number still in their original liveries, four and a half years after grouping.

Peter identified wagons from GWR, LNWR, NER, MR, NBR, GCR, LB&SCR, GER, LSWR, L&YR and GNR, in addition to the native HR and LMS-built wagons. Pre-grouping liveries include LB&SCR, LNWR, GCR, MR, NBR and possibly NER and GWR.

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Nick, magisterial! 

 

In so far as post grouping percentages are concerned, I simplify to:  LMS 44%; LNER 33%; SR 6%; certain other railway 17%.

 

Your table is a superb piece of work.  I'm sure the so-called experts will poke holes in it.  I fear that I'm one of them.  Some 1500 LSWR open wagons had eight planks, so I would be inclined to categorise them as high wagons.  Bill

 

 

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Yes, but that's 1927, over four years into the Grouping era, and 9 years after the major upheavals of WWI which saw rapid expansion of the common user pool of standard unbaked general merchandise wagons.

 

It's an interesting photo, and other than the LNER percentages seeming to be a bit low compared to the railway owned wagon stock, it shows that generally a large regional centre gets more or less a similar proportion of different companies appearing, but it doesn't compare like with like.

 

1) This is an LMS station, so there will be more LMS stock, if only because their non-pool wagons will be mostly on their system.

2) The percentages of railway owned stock are for total stocks, so will include non-pool numbers.

 

It's an interesting photo and great analysis for anyone modelling the railway system in the 1920s, but it is hardly relevant to most of the pre-grouping era.

 

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4 minutes ago, bbishop said:

I'm sure the so-called experts will poke holes in it.

If you mean by "expert" someone who has professional skills in the area of statistics and interpretation of data, then yes, I did.

 

Nick's post is a classic example of interesting and useful information that appears to answer the question, but which in fact answers a different question. The only question it answers is, "What proportion of wagons belonging to different companies appear in this photo taken in Inverness in 1927." Nothing else. We can reasonably generalise and extrapolate some information from it and apply it to the period say 1919-1939, but it doesn't work before then due to periods of government control of the railways during war time. Pooling was only partially implemented prior to WWI, but became complete during WWII, and continued so afterwards, leading up to nationalisation.

 

No disrespect to Nick intended: it was and is a fascinating photo and analysis, but the conclusions it draws are slightly erroneous.

 

Before anyone trots out, "You can prove anything with statistics," I will say that no, you can only prove what is there, by understanding the limitations of your data and not going too far beyond them: that is precisely what I am demonstrating.

 

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2 hours ago, bbishop said:

Nick, magisterial! 

 

In so far as post grouping percentages are concerned, I simplify to:  LMS 44%; LNER 33%; SR 6%; certain other railway 17%.

 

Your table is a superb piece of work.  I'm sure the so-called experts will poke holes in it.  I fear that I'm one of them.  Some 1500 LSWR open wagons had eight planks, so I would be inclined to categorise them as high wagons.  Bill

 

 

Not quite sure where your percentages came from, I made it more LMS 43%, LNER 40%, SR 5%, the rest 11%!

As for your comment re LSWR wagons, the split between high and low depended upon the information in the tables provided, and many companies lumped all opens and all vans together. Similarly, the info. regarding service stock varied considerably. I don't think that really impacts upon the general gist of the exercise.

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2 hours ago, Regularity said:

unbaked general merchandise wagons.

 

:D

 

3 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

Inverness 1927

What is significant is the variety of pre-grouping companies present, and the number still in their original liveries, four and a half years after grouping.

Peter identified wagons from GWR, LNWR, NER, MR, NBR, GCR, LB&SCR, GER, LSWR, L&YR and GNR, in addition to the native HR and LMS-built wagons. Pre-grouping liveries include LB&SCR, LNWR, GCR, MR, NBR and possibly NER and GWR.

 

If one assumes a 7-year painting interval for goods wagons, in June 1927 one would expect around a third of wagons still to be in pre-grouping livery. If one assumes a 30 year service life for goods wagons, then one would 85% to be pre-grouping. But thos are both highly hand-waving assumptions - I'd suspect they're underestimates, pushing the pre-grouping proportion higher.

 

2 hours ago, Regularity said:

1) This is an LMS station, so there will be more LMS stock, if only because their non-pool wagons will be mostly on their system.

2) The percentages of railway owned stock are for total stocks, so will include non-pool numbers.

 

At a cursory inspection, the only non-pool wagons in view are the LMS service wagons, already accounted for.

 

From Tatlow's LNER Wagons Vol. 1, the proportions in the pool at 1923 were: LMS 45%, LNER 35%, GWR 14%, SR 6%.

 

I think the agreement between the ratios seen at Inverness and the ratios of total or pooled stock is a fluke. Discounting the LMS service vehicles, the sample size is 43, so the uncertainty is the square root of that, 6.5.

 

If we use the pooling ratios (since I can see them without having to scroll up the page), the expected numbers are in the ranges:

LMS 13 - 26

LNER 8 - 22

GWR 0 - 13

SR 0 - 9

where I've rounded to the nearest whole wagon in every case!

 

BTW which are the LMS service wagons?

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2 hours ago, Regularity said:

If you mean by "expert" someone who has professional skills in the area of statistics and interpretation of data, then yes, I did.

 

Nick's post is a classic example of interesting and useful information that appears to answer the question, but which in fact answers a different question. The only question it answers is, "What proportion of wagons belonging to different companies appear in this photo taken in Inverness in 1927." Nothing else. We can reasonably generalise and extrapolate some information from it and apply it to the period say 1919-1939, but it doesn't work before then due to periods of government control of the railways during war time. Pooling was only partially implemented prior to WWI, but became complete during WWII, and continued so afterwards, leading up to nationalisation.

 

No disrespect to Nick intended: it was and is a fascinating photo and analysis, but the conclusions it draws are slightly erroneous.

 

Before anyone trots out, "You can prove anything with statistics," I will say that no, you can only prove what is there, by understanding the limitations of your data and not going too far beyond them: that is precisely what I am demonstrating.

 

I thought I'd made it clear that we are, unfortunately, only working with disjointed snapshots, and only a few of them to boot. I am not sure that Tatlow actually drew any "conclusions" from his exhaustive analysis, and was putting his results in the public domain for others to consider. What the photo did demonstrate was that, within reason, it is not unreasonable to use wagons from any railway company on your layout, if based post-1918, given the clear evidence of the Brighton wagon several hundred miles from home, and other evidence suggests that this also occurred pre-pooling.

Of course it is not directly relevant to the pre-grouping era, dating as it does from 1927, but perhaps it demonstrates, loosely, one step in the progression from the minimal diffusion of wagons that might be inferred from information and photos from around 1900, via the gradual process of implementation of common-user agreements, which only came into being, in stages, at least a year after the start of the Great War, and which ultimately achieved almost completion at the start of the Second World War.

 

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22 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

Of course it is not directly relevant to the pre-grouping era, 

 

Part of the semantic difficulty here is that in this context, "pre-Grouping" isn't really a helpful term. It's much more useful to think in terms of pre- and post-Great War, as the period of REC control is where the significant step-change occurred.

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8 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

Just to throw some more information into the fire, I have tried to compile the wagon statistics for most pre-grouping companies as of grouping. The information has been taken from a variety of sources, mostly the OPC, Lightmoor and Wild Swan company wagon books, with supplementary data from David Jenkinson's British Railway Carriages (I have appended coaching stock figures for comparison purposes). I had only three figures to play with concerning the Glasgow & South Western, (if anyone can supply more accurate data I would be grateful) and there is considerable variety in the way various companies compiled their statistics. For a few companies there was enough data to compare their fleets over time.

773414450_overallfigures.png.1e2ee327d4bac26682f63a26af95fde8.png

 

 

 

Hmm, apropos high, non-mineral opens, what happened to the GER's 1,350 diagram 48 7 -planks built 1903-1908?!? 

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On 31/10/2020 at 21:44, Compound2632 said:

Some Goods Department documents to look up once the Midland Railway Study Centre is accessible:

 

Item Number: 17760

Category: Goods Department Document

An unnumbered Midland Railway Goods Manager's circular dated 14 April 1903 regarding the loading of NER goods wagons home with light loads and arrangements for goods traffic to Darlington.
Print Ref: G 32-1,200-4/03.

 

Item Number: 17764

Category: Goods Manager's Circular (Numbered)

Circular No:- 2178
Date:- NOVEMBER 28TH, 1903.
Title:- LOADING OF FOREIGN WAGONS HOME WITH LIGHT LOADS.

 

Item Number: 17778

Category: Goods Manager's Circular (Numbered)

Circular No:- 2256
Date:- JULY 7TH, 1905.
Title:- LOADING OF GOODS TRAFFIC, IN LOTS OF LESS THAN A TON, TO NORTH EASTERN STATIONS.

 

Item Number: 17800

Category: Goods Manager's Circular (Numbered)

Circular No:- 2430
Date:- MARCH 29TH, 1909.
Title:- TRAFFIC FOR CAMBRIDGE, AND LOADING OF GOODS TRAFFIC, IN LOTS OF LESS THAN A TON, TO NORTH EASTERN STATIONS.

 

 

Someone in the Illiteracy Symbols thread queried my report from a 1927 source about a minimum load to provide a wagon , and suggested it would have been a late development  . Here we have report of two MR circulars of 1905 and 1909 for "LOADING OF GOODS TRAFFIC, IN LOTS OF LESS THAN A TON, TO NORTH EASTERN STATIONS" .

 

i.e. the Midland was applying a minimum of 1 ton for wagonload shipments as early as 1905, and  these are the MR routing instructions for handling less-than-wagonload shipments consigned to the NER. Road wagon and transhipment routings.

 

Now the Midland, I know was being very progressive with freight traffic in the Edwardian period , and introducing things like Control centres. But still, as a freight operator this is such a basic issue, I feel the practice of a minimum shipment to provide a wagon probably goes back  at least to the 1860s

 

My earlier post below:

 

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 tons 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

Unquote

 

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....

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On 31/10/2020 at 22:22, Compound2632 said:

Or how about these:

 

Item Number: 28951

Category: Goods Department Document

Large ledger form No. G.B.39 size 13½"x8½" bound in black cloth with tan coloured cloth spine, entitled 'M.R. Tranship Goods' believed to be from Skipton station. Lists originating and destination stations, description of goods and consignee's name. An example is two barrels of stout from Dublin to Colne. Dates from 21st May 1898 to 2nd July 1898.

 

Item Number: 28953

Category: Goods Department Document

Large ledger form No. G.B.39 size 13½"x9" bound in light brown cloth entitled 'M.R. Tranship Goods'. Used at Skipton. Lists originating and destination stations, description of goods and consignee's name. Entries date from 12th July 1895 to 28th August 1895.

 

I'm getting the itch...

 

 

So we now know Skipton was an MR transhipment point for less-than-wagonload traffic between wagons . Two barrels of stout would no doubt have been well under a ton, and that will presumably have been transhipped via an Irish company .

 

Since it's for Colne, via the Midland , I'm guessing Irish railway to DunLeorie , ferry to Holyhead LNWR, transfer to the Midland at ? Manchester .

 

At a later date I would have suspected GNRI to Belfast, NCC to Liverpool or Heysham then MR 

 

(Actually Morecambe/Heysham might account for this getting to Skipton and not falling into the hands of the L&Y)

 

The final leg will have been a road wagon Skipton/Colne

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7 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

Not quite sure where your percentages came from, I made it more LMS 43%, LNER 40%, SR 5%, the rest 11%!

As for your comment re LSWR wagons, the split between high and low depended upon the information in the tables provided, and many companies lumped all opens and all vans together. Similarly, the info. regarding service stock varied considerably. I don't think that really impacts upon the general gist of the exercise.

 

My target ratios (for the purpose of my Boxfile wagon fleet, which is absurdly large)

 

8 LMS

7 LNER 

2 GWR

1 SR

 

Top up with BR wagons as appropriate for postwar (say 10 BR wagons = 4 "rounds" of 7 wagons apiece , that being the requirement for an operating session)

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11 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

Since it's for Colne, via the Midland , I'm guessing Irish railway to DunLeorie , ferry to Holyhead LNWR, transfer to the Midland at ? Manchester .

 

At a later date I would have suspected GNRI to Belfast, NCC to Liverpool or Heysham then MR 

 

(Actually Morecambe/Heysham might account for this getting to Skipton and not falling into the hands of the L&Y)

 

The final leg will have been a road wagon Skipton/Colne

 

Could have been via Barrow before the opening of Heysham harbour in 1904. The Midland's Heysham project is speculated to have been a response to its failure to take over the Furness Railway.

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14 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Hmm, apropos high, non-mineral opens, what happened to the GER's 1,350 diagram 48 7 -planks built 1903-1908?!? 

Don't blame me, it's the fault of some clerk in Stratford at the time of grouping! Nothing happened to these opens, they are patently included in the overall figure for open wagons - I didn't think it necessary to point out that a blank space in my table didn't indicate a zero, just the absence of specific information. I took the figures from a very useful table in Volume 3 of Tatlow's books, which summarised the totals for each LNER constituent company, and the detail provided in each category depended upon the information supplied at the time. 

For all the non-LNER companies, I had taken the info from relevant dedicated wagon books, adding up the totals for each category myself.  I started then with the NER, Tatlow V2, to be confronted by a baffling lack of 1922 figures, making it impossible to carry out the same task, before discovering the overall table in the next volume, which stopped me wasting any more time. There is a problem anyway with the definition of "Low" and "High".  The Midland, for example, seemed to classify anything five or more planks high as "High", and the L&YR had used the term "Half" Box to describe larger capacity opens, and I used 10T capacity as an approximate criteria if nothing else noted. 

I hardly think the provision of any further breakdown is relevant to the overall picture; anyone interested enough will have the necessary books and can do the work themselves.

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17 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Part of the semantic difficulty here is that in this context, "pre-Grouping" isn't really a helpful term. It's much more useful to think in terms of pre- and post-Great War, as the period of REC control is where the significant step-change occurred.

I posted this topic in the "Pre-Grouping" section because I thought that it was the best place for it, with its intelligent and lively clientele. The presence of foreign wagons is more clearly flagged by their liveries, making it easier to see, whereas in the grouping era identification, beyond the simple four companies, requires considerably more effort.

I think step-change is over-stating it a bit, the various common-user agreements came in several steps, and there were always exceptions, with the rules changing several times before it all settled down, only to change again in 1939.

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21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Part of the semantic difficulty here is that in this context, "pre-Grouping" isn't really a helpful term. It's much more useful to think in terms of pre- and post-Great War, as the period of REC control is where the significant step-change occurred.

Somewhat arbitrary, referring to just the last few years of a period which we might argue started in 1804, and stretched to 31 December 1922 (plus or minus a bit in a few cases). We have had powered mobile railway engines in this country for 216 years, but 118 of them fall under the term “pre-grouping”, and 96 of them were 19th Century!

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19 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Hmm, apropos high, non-mineral opens, what happened to the GER's 1,350 diagram 48 7 -planks built 1903-1908?!? 

 

4 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

Don't blame me, it's the fault of some clerk in Stratford at the time of grouping!

 

Nah, it was due to protestors gathering at Stratford to insist they stopped counting.

 

Oddly, at the same time,  like-minded crowd besieged the L&YR offices insisting that they carried on counting, convinced that they must be some bolster wagons.

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16 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

Nah, it was due to protestors gathering at Stratford to insist they stopped counting.

 

Oddly, at the same time,  like-minded crowd besieged the L&YR offices insisting that they carried on counting, convinced that they must be some bolster wagons.

And then in the end the Midland won, despite some saying its locos were too small, and others that its carriages were too luxurious

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