"Foreign" wagons - How many would you see?

[Nick Holliday]

In another thread:

17 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Reviving the cattle wagon question, an article by Brian Janes in the Autumn 2020 issue of "The Colonel" (Colonel Stephens Society bulletin) mentions the 1935 revival of the Biddenden (Kent) Cattle Fair.  The Kent & East Sussex Railway station received 90 empty cattle wagons from Headcorn Junction - 42 LMS, 24 LNER and 24 Southern - which had to be loaded and despatched.  "The wagons left for destinations that bore no apparent regard to the ownership of the individual wagon.  Southern wagons were dispatched to Lavenham, Essex, and Diss, Suffolk, and LNER wagons to Sandwich, Kent.  Sixty wagons were destined for Kent stations, mostly east and north, but one to only four stations away, Paddock Wood.  The remainder were more widely travelled; Rugby, Rainham (Essex), Reading, Bracknell, Chelmsford, Peterborough and Tempsford being representative sample destinations.  Perhaps the most interesting was 'Waddesdon Manor' (actually 'Waddesdon') on the Metropolitan's distant Brill branch.  Perchance it was the last wagon to arrive there for that line was to close for ever a mere 24 days later."
The K&ESR did have a couple of cattle wagons of their own, but they were not used for through traffic to or from the main line, and were pretty decrepit by the 1930s.

Interesting figures, certainly showing how the Common User agreement might work in 1935.  GWR noticeable by its absence - I think they had opted out a couple of years earlier. Thanks to Tom for passing on that nugget.

 

 

[Poggy1165]

Just a bit of completely random data.

I looking at a photo of Barnby Dun, near Doncaster,dated 1912. There is a line of wagons shown, the only definitely identifiable one is a LBSC round ended open. A few wagons down is another round  ended open, which is not identifiable, but which I suspect to be SECR. It is certainly from one of  the southern companies.

Now, if I was modellling Barnby Dun in 1912 I don't think a LBSC or SECR wagon would be my first priority. But there you are. 

It would be interesting to know what traffic they carried to this area (the LBSC wagon is empty and may be going home) but I don't suppose we shall ever know.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Poggy1165

[Nearholmer]

One cargo that the southern lines sent northward was flint pebbles, especially a kind called "blue boulders", which are actually white on the outside, but have a very dark blue-black interior, like glass. They were used in ball mills to grind glaze in the pottery industry. Rye Harbour (SECR) and Newhaven (LBSCR) were particular places for this, although other beaches too.

 

Not, I suspect, what had been in wagons that were at Doncaster, but an example of a weird cargo of old that took wagons miles off-company.

 

PS: calcined flint, powdered, is also used to make the clay used for pottery have greater strength when not yet fired, which allows finer sections, to make more delicate things.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Ravenser]

8 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

 

A little note on the working of the Norwood train, which touches on a topic being discussed elsewhere, re Road Vans - "On Week-days when more than 25 Vehicles from Streatham Common, will call at Streatham to leave Road Box Goods only, when this is done the Streatham Trucks will be taken there specially by 6.18 a.m. Norwood Junction to Battersea Wharf." Sadly, I cannot find any reference to "Road Box Goods" in the Appendix to the Service Timetable that explains their usage.

As an aside, regarding marshalling Midland and Great Northern wagons - "The wagons put off Trains at Norwood Junction must be marshalled (Midland and Great Northern Wagons together) at that Station before being despatched to Battersea Yard."

 

I would very strongly suspect that "Road Box Goods" is LBSC-speak for a road van , (is "Box Goods" attested as an LBSC term for a  goods van?) and "the Streatham Trucks" are full wagonload consignments.

 

The implication is that if the load on the 3.50 am would exceed 25 vehicles from Streatham Common, the train is reduced by switching the inbound Streatham wagonload traffic to the later 6.18am train. The road van would be unloading at all stations called, by definition , so could not be dispensed with, and therefore the 3.50am would only call at Streatham to unload from the road van. If that meant shunting a van into the goods shed, then extracting it and remarshalling it into the train, then it becomes fairly obvious why the 3.50 would reach Tulse Hill well after the 3.55am

 

 

[bbishop]

The LSWR called them Road Vans, which were combined box van and guards van, and they dealt with "small" goods.  The SECR called them Roader Vans which were just a box van.  My late mother lived in Lyminge on the Elham Line and the station building had been sympathetically converted into the village library. The roader corridor was still obvious with double doors on the platform and to the front of the building.  So the roader traffic was handled on the station platform and this may have been typical of all three "southern" companies.  Bill

[Poggy1165]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

One cargo that the southern lines sent northward was flint pebbles, especially a kind called "blue boulders", which are actually white on the outside, but have a very dark blue-black interior, like glass. They were used in ball mills to grind glaze in the pottery industry. Rye Harbour (SECR) and Newhaven (LBSCR) were particular places for this, although other beaches too.

 

Not, I suspect, what had been in wagons that were at Doncaster, but an example of a weird cargo of old that took wagons miles off-company.

 

PS: calcined flint, powdered, is also used to make the clay used for pottery have greater strength when not yet fired, which allows finer sections, to make more delicate things.

 

The other traffic that occurred to me was hops. Breweries need hops and Kent and Sussex are/were principal sources. Any town with a brewery (and they used to be legion) would need hops - I think they grow in Hereford/Worcestershire but most came from the south.

[Nearholmer]

19 minutes ago, bbishop said:

So the roader traffic was handled on the station platform and this may have been typical of all three "southern" companies. 

 

It was certainly common at small wayside stations, although in some such places the "lock up", to/from which smalls would be loaded was on a siding, rather than either part of the passenger station or adjacent to it on the passenger platform.

 

There seem to have been examples of the "lock-up on the passenger platform" on both the GWR and the GER too.

 

Just out of interest, I've been trying to understand how the LNWR handled this, because I've got interested in one small station near to where I live (Padbury station, near Buckingham), which had one siding, effectively in the station forecourt, used for coal, straw, manure etc., and one modest station building. I can only conclude that smalls were handled on the station platform, via the station office, but whether the LNWR had vans set aside for this sort of thing, I know not.

[webbcompound]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Just out of interest, I've been trying to understand how the LNWR handled this, because I've got interested in one small station near to where I live (Padbury station, near Buckingham), which had one siding, effectively in the station forecourt, used for coal, straw, manure etc., and one modest station building. I can only conclude that smalls were handled on the station platform, via the station office, but whether the LNWR had vans set aside for this sort of thing, I know not.

Being a sensible railway the LNWR had break vans for guards on goods trains, and other vans for smalls. Much of the smalls traffic would appear to be carried in passenger break and luggage vans and compartments, of which there were quite a lot, or in (D60) 7ton tranship vans of which 348 were built from 1862 onwards, with some of the earlier ones being renewed on the same number. Some of the tranship vans had screw couplings and some were equipped with vacuum brakes, so these latter were clearly intended to run on passenger trains (as there would be little point putting them on express goods trains). Vans would appear to be assigned to specific routes. the last vans were built in 1893 and the last replacement in 1901.  The tranship process was radically altered when the Crew tranship shed was built and from that point they gradually disappeared into the general wagon stock, or were converted to tool vans.

Edited November 24, 2020 by webbcompound

[Nearholmer]

So how did the LNWR discriminate between "smalls" (consigned at goods rates) and "parcels" (consigned at parcel rate), or didn't it? And if it didn't, why did anyone bother to pay parcel rates (insurance maybe)?

 

And, surely mixing things up in the vans on passenger trains made life unduly complex or time-consuming - a roll of 6ft high chicken-wire, and a couple of those 6ft long by 2ft 6in tall galvanised-iron pig-feeders on wheels, to manhandle during a station stop, for instance?

 

The whole of Victorian and Edwardian logistics is fascinating? (Sad statement, eh?)

[ChrisN]

Fascinating.  So if there was no pooling prior to 1912, how many D299s would I expect to see at Traeth Mawr in 1895 given that there were two pick up goods each way, (i.e. four stops at Traeth Mawr), that ran the whole length of the Coast Line.  Connecting points with the outside world were Afon Wen, (LNWR), Dolgelley, (GWR), Welshpool/Oswestry, (GWR/LNWR).

 

 

[Compound2632]

32 minutes ago, ChrisN said:

Fascinating.  So if there was no pooling prior to 1912, how many D299s would I expect to see at Traeth Mawr in 1895 given that there were two pick up goods each way, (i.e. four stops at Traeth Mawr), that ran the whole length of the Coast Line.  Connecting points with the outside world were Afon Wen, (LNWR), Dolgelley, (GWR), Welshpool/Oswestry, (GWR/LNWR).

 

Referring back to the Sheffield Park data, it's clear that home company wagons, i.e. Cambrian, are going to dominate. From Mike Lloyd's Private Owners on the Cambrian it would appear that the principal mineral flow onto the Cambrian was from the North Staffordshire coalfield, with the Cannock Chase coalfield as a secondary source, along with some from Flintshire but hardly any from South Wales. That ties in with the generally north-easterly pointing orientation of the Cambrian's main line into England.

 

For Sheffield Park, it looked as though a good deal of the traffic arriving in Midland opens was beer from Burton. So how does Burton ale get to Traeth Mawr? The LNWR's access to Burton was via the South Staffordshire line, so a route via Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, and Welshpool is plausible. However, the NSR was also well-placed for this traffic, via Crewe and the LNWR. The Midland doesn't seem to be in contention. 

 

So, for the two largest-scale imports to Traeth Mawr, coal and beer, we're looking at LNWR and NSR wagons, along with PO wagons from areas served by those two companies - the Midland isn't in the picture. Lime is available locally - more POs, from the New Radnor or Lilleshall companies? Other manufactured goods might come in from time to time; here again I think LNWR wagons are the most likely, bringing manufactured goods from the industrial areas of Lancashire and the Black Country. I'm afraid I have to admit that the probability of a D299 is slim - one would need some specific justification. 

 

I'm not too sure there would be much in the way of Great Western wagons either, despite the interwining of the GW's North Wales lines with the Cambrian system - one has to pose @Nearholmer's question: "What does Sussex want of Norfolk"? What product is there from Great Western territory that could not be obtained locally?

 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Compound2632

[webbcompound]

The coal, wherever it came from is unlikely to be in Railway Company wagons. My own (admittedly limited) look at Connah's Quay suggests that coal would mostly arrive in Colliery wagons, or in coal merchant wagons (the latter can be misleading as some merchants were not just local single wagon operations but could rival the biggest collieries in wagion fleet size). Interestingly the contracts held by these merchants could lead to coal from strange (to us) sources, probably as a result of either competitive bidding, or of surpluses in an existing contract..

[Poggy1165]

1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

The coal, wherever it came from is unlikely to be in Railway Company wagons. My own (admittedly limited) look at Connah's Quay suggests that coal would mostly arrive in Colliery wagons, or in coal merchant wagons (the latter can be misleading as some merchants were not just local single wagon operations but could rival the biggest collieries in wagion fleet size). Interestingly the contracts held by these merchants could lead to coal from strange (to us) sources, probably as a result of either competitive bidding, or of surpluses in an existing contract..

 

I agree, most coal came in PO wagons. Some railway companies had few coal wagons, and  in some cases these were mainly for loco coal. The GW is a good example.

 

The GC is an example of a company with a good stock of coal wagons (including some on hire) so this is not quite an absolute rule. Even so their total was dwarfed by the number of PO wagons on its lines. The NER was. of course, exceptional in conveying most coal traffic in its own wagons, but the NER was very rich and could afford the capital costs involved in providing wagons for a vast traffic.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, webbcompound said:

The coal, wherever it came from is unlikely to be in Railway Company wagons. 

 

16 minutes ago, Poggy1165 said:

I agree, most coal came in PO wagons. Some railway companies had few coal wagons, and  in some cases these were mainly for loco coal. The GW is a good example.

 

The GC is an example of a company with a good stock of coal wagons (including some on hire) so this is not quite an absolute rule. Even so their total was dwarfed by the number of PO wagons on its lines. 

 

Indeed, a blanket statement is unwise here. The Midland was at one extreme with a large proportion of its own wagons in mineral traffic (but also a very large number of PO wagons on its system) - I would estimate at least 40,000 out of a total fleet of around 120,000 by the early 20th century. The Great Western is at the other extreme, with very few non-loco coal mineral wagons until the experiments of the 1920s and 30s, although like the Great Central, hiring some in. Other lines stand somewhere between the two: the LNWR had around 7,000 wagons specifically for coal traffic (lettered as such) by the early 20th century - around 8% of total wagon stock. The Great Northern and Great Eastern also had fleets of coal wagons running to the many thousands. It was, to use an old-fashioned term, a "mixed economy".

 

28 minutes ago, Poggy1165 said:

The NER was. of course, exceptional in conveying most coal traffic in its own wagons, but the NER was very rich and could afford the capital costs involved in providing wagons for a vast traffic.

 

Not so much due to the North Eastern's wealth as to the pattern of its coal traffic flows, from pit to local port, in contrast to the longer-distance London-centric coal traffic of the more southerley main lines. Therein lay the North Eastern's wealth - effect not cause.

 

But it's interesting to compare the North Eastern's approach with that of the the other major short-distance pit-to-port traffic, in South Wales, which was almost entirely reliant on PO wagons. In that case, the traffic was divided among several small companies in cut-throat competition, in contrast to the North Eastern's near monopoly. The North Eastern could dictate terms to the coal owners.

[Quarryscapes]

All been seen before I'm sure....

 

Not exactly an everyday occurrence of course, but all these foreign wagons found themselves sat at Barmouth Junction. Photos is generally accepted as being c.1920, and despite the fact that it was apparently taken from the roof of my house, I can't be more exact than that. 

 

There are 3 lines in the foreground filled, the loading dock in the station is filled and beyond it the headshunt is also filled! 

[Compound2632]

But, @Quarryscapes, that's 1920, so well into the pooling period. A photograph taken ten or twenty years early would show almost entirely Cambrian wagons, with maybe a LNWR wagon or two. 

 

The early 1920s is a period with obvious appeal to the wagon-modeller; the pre-Great War period requires more self-discipline!

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Quarryscapes said:

There are 3 lines in the foreground filled, the loading dock in the station is filled and beyond it the headshunt is also filled! 

 

These seem to all be empties. Why are they here?

[Schooner]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm afraid I have to admit that the probability of a D299 is slim

 

Good Lord. It's one thing having the world turned topsy-turvy by the Parish Council, but this really is too far! 

 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

These seem to all be empties. Why are they here?

As I have often said to myself on a Sunday morning, as I view the devastation from Saturday night...

[webbcompound]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Indeed, a blanket statement is unwise here. ....... the LNWR had around 7,000 wagons specifically for coal traffic (lettered as such) by the early 20th century - around 8% of total wagon stock.

 

Agree that a blanket statement is unwise. I would be surprised however if coal was travelling beyond the LNWR system in LNWR wagons at this point simply because of the way coal was ordered and purchased, either direct from the colliery, or through a merchant. The use of an LNWR wagon would to me imply coal bought to be delivered within the LNWR system, which could easily soak far more than 7000 wagons.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

I would be surprised however if coal was travelling beyond the LNWR system in LNWR wagons at this point simply because of the way coal was ordered and purchased, either direct from the colliery, or through a merchant. The use of an LNWR wagon would to me imply coal bought to be delivered within the LNWR system, which could easily soak far more than 7000 wagons.

 

This is not borne out by the evidence. Going back to the Sheffield Park data with which we opened, of the 54 wagons of coal received during that four month period in the winter of 1899/1900, just under half (25) were PO wagons, 11 were Midland, 9 were LNWR, 6 were GNR, there was one each from the NSR and the GCR, and there was one LBSCR wagon. I rest my case!

 

Earlier I linked to a phot of a LBSCR goods train with Great Northern mineral wagons leading:

 

[Poggy1165]

I suppose a lot would depend on individual decisions:

1. You could have the coal delivered in your own wagon. (Whether owned or hired matters little to a modeller.)

2. You could have the coal delivered in a wagon owned by your coal factor/wholesaler.

3. You could have the coal delivered in a colliery wagon.

4. You could have the coal delivered in a railway wagon - although in that case the choice might not be yours but the suppliers.

5. You could have the coal delivered in a wagon on short-term hire from a wagon owner. (As 4.)

Cost would be one factor and wagon availability another. I dare say even coal factors and collieries had to hire in wagons when short of their own. You wouldn't want to turn a customer away because you were short of your own wagons, surely?

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Poggy1165 said:

I suppose a lot would depend on individual decisions:

 

Or a combination of the above - as here. (Photo is 1890s not c. 1920 as captioned.) Coal delivery to an industrial user. Fourteen wagons:

• 6 the firm's own wagons
• 3 a national (well, South of England) coal factor (Stephenson Clarke)
• 1 a Birmingham coal factor
• 3 railway company (Midland)
• 1 PO unidentified

The railway company wagons are "foreigners" having travelled from their home rails via Bordesley (presumably) and the Great Western to Reading. 

 

Have all these wagons originated from the same colliery? To answer that, one needs also ask, does the customer's industrial process require only one type of coal, or several different? Biscuit baking was the firm's core business, requiring coal with a low arsenic content; I have seen coal from Birch Coppice Colliery, in the North Warwickshire coalfield and served by the Midland's Kingsbury branch, described as ideal for biscuit making, so it's tempting (to me) to join the dots... But the firm also had a considerable business in making biscuit tins from tinplate: that might require a different grade of coal (or, could get by with a cheaper grade); likewise the office fires.

[bbishop]

On 28/11/2020 at 17:34, webbcompound said:

The coal, wherever it came from is unlikely to be in Railway Company wagons. My own (admittedly limited) look at Connah's Quay suggests that coal would mostly arrive in Colliery wagons, or in coal merchant wagons (the latter can be misleading as some merchants were not just local single wagon operations but could rival the biggest collieries in wagion fleet size). Interestingly the contracts held by these merchants could lead to coal from strange (to us) sources, probably as a result of either competitive bidding, or of surpluses in an existing contract..

 

We have to be careful with numbering systems.  So Marlborough College wagon no. 64 wasn't their 64th mineral wagon but probably the 64th entry in the asset register.  Likewise Thomas Styles of Long Ditton numbered a wagon 1901 because it was supplied in April of that year.

 

It would be cheapest for a merchant to provide his own wagon.  An alternative would be for the colliery to supply the coal (paying for supply but avoiding lease charges).  Of course, if he had "forgotten" to pay previous invoices, he would get a factor (eg. Stephenson Clarke) to supply.  Bill

[richbrummitt]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Or a combination of the above - as here. (Photo is 1890s not c. 1920 as captioned.)

Oh look: The verandah is towards the engines!

 

(I’ve had a look through some other books since reading your comment in response to someone suggesting the verandah should always face out. Sorry I cannot remember exactly where now. Many photos simply do not include the van, such is the importance of the engine. In those that do there are plenty of examples of the verandah inwards i.e. towards the engine.)