"Foreign" wagons - How many would you see?

[Regularity]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Of course for specific localities one has to do specific research. There are rules of thumb and then things one can put one's finger on.

And predictably, two prime examples of specific knowledge come along:

 

2 hours ago, Caledonian said:

My favourite story comes from Alastair Brotchie's book on the Wemyss Private Railway in Fife. It was built to carry coal from the Wemyss pits to the docks and locos and stock were painted accordingly, but there were also some oddities, including periodically a coal wagon from the Hamilton Palace colliery - why? Because although any amount of Wemyss coal could be had for the asking, the Hamilton Palace stuff was better for the blacksmith's shop. 

 

1 hour ago, CKPR said:

That's reminded me that the local coal in West Cumberland was almost all for industrial use or export for the same. As a result, house coal was brought in from the north east for local consumption, hence several M&CR stations had NER-style coal depots and why a station like Mealsgate had a coal merchant, Thomas Blacklock, with his own wagons even though there was a neighouring large colliery.

 

http://www.cumbria-railways.co.uk/mines.html

 

You wait ages for a general rule to come along, and then two specifics turn up instead...

[Compound2632]

@Mikkel has drawn my attention to a website about the Lambourn Valley Railway, which has some fascinating photos from the period 1898-1905 before it was taken over by the Great Western. The LVR had a dozen second-hand wagons from the Metropolitan Railway Carriage & Wagon Co., some of which are seen here, along with half-a-dozen ancient GER round-ended opens, two of which can be seen in this photo, along with the inevitable Midland wagon, a D305 3-plank dropside of the type built in the 1880s (Drg. 213), and, rather more surprisingly, a Hull & Barnsley covered goods wagon. There are a couple of questions to ponder:

• Were the LVR's wagons confined to the home line? (Recalling that @Regularity has mentioned that E&WJR wagons weren't allowed off that line - owing to not participating in the relevant RCH agreement, a point that needs further research in itself.)
• What commodity warranting a covered goods wagon was wanted in Lambourn that was imported through the Port of Hull?

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Recalling that @Regularity has mentioned that E&WJR wagons weren't allowed off that line - owing to not participating in the relevant RCH agreement, a point that needs further research in itself.

To be precise, until the delivery of a large (for them) quantity of wagons from BRCW in 1903/4, which were up to date (steel under frames and everything), their original wagonry was mostly ex-contractor stock, and rather decrepit. After that, the old stock was either rebuilt or used internally for PW purposes.

[phil_sutters]

On 30/11/2020 at 10:34, Nearholmer said:

 

 

The other livery that Triang Hornby put on their wagon was Norstand, which I think might have been a PO for coaling trawlers, but again I was always sceptical. [Wrong. Norstand were a builder/repairer of trawlers]

 

I recently came across a photo of a Norstand 8 plank, or rather part of one, on Highbridge Wharf in 1945. It is about the only PO wagon I have seen on the wharf. There have been all the big four, North Stafford, LNWR, MR, LSWR, LBSCR and I think SECR but few if any POs. I guess at the end of WW2 any wagons could turn up anywhere.

Edited January 17, 2021 by phil_sutters

[Nearholmer]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

What commodity warranting a covered goods wagon was wanted in Lambourn that was imported through the Port of Hull?

You sure that isn’t a secondhand one that the LVR bought?

 

Or, a large order of horse-blankets from a Yorkshire woollen town? Or, were oats imported from Northern Europe?

 

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

You sure that isn’t a secondhand one that the LVR bought?

 

Yes:

• Both the LVR website and the Wikipedia article (assumed to be following the Wild Swan book) agree that the total goods stock was 18 wagons and one brake van, down to 15 wagons and a brake by the time the Great Western took over. The provenance of the brake van is unknown. I am making an assumption that all the ex-GER wagons were of the type seen in the photos, likewise the Met RC&W Co. ones.
• The covered goods wagon is lettered H&BR. Second-hand stock would have all evidence of previous ownership removed, including cast numberplates, and it is clear from the photos of the LVR opens that they were re-painted and re-lettered.
• The H&BR wasn't exactly overflowing with spare goods stock for disposal on the second-hand market at this period - unlike the Midland in the first decade of the 20th century - indeed Tatlow, LNER Wagons Vol. 2, records that many H&BR covered goods wagons of this type were rebuilt with larger bodies between 1902-20. Looking closely, one can see the louvres at the top of the sides and ends, making this a D15 wagon, built in three batches, 1890, 1893, and 1897, so pretty new when the LVR was aquiring its stock in 1898.

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Or, a large order of horse-blankets from a Yorkshire woollen town? Or, were oats imported from Northern Europe?

 

I like this thinking! But the fact that it's a ventilated van makes me think of Danish bacon and butter...

[Compound2632]

There was an accident at Swinton in the small hours of 24 September 1884, when an up mail train from Leeds ran into a derailed wagon of a down Sheffield-Carnforth goods train, an axle of the wagon having broken. In the collision, vehicles of both trains were derailed but only a few wagons were broken up beyond repair; fortunately there were only three passengers in the mail train and the only minor injury was to the guard in the rear van of that train. Maj. Marindin's report gives details of the damaged stock. The goods train was made up of 33 loaded and 10 empty wagons, of which 19 are listed. Of those, 13 were Midland - at this date almost certainly all low-sided (3-plank dropside) wagons of the general type that many years later would be assigned D305 in the diagram book. One, numbered 68445, could be a bought-up private owner wagon (but this is a goods train) or an early high-sided wagon (the future D299)*. There were three Furness Railway wagons, listed as empty**; it was one of these that had the broken axle. The presence of these is intelligible - wagons being returned home via Carnforth; likewise empty Lancashire & Yorkshire and North British wagons - probably to be detached at Hellifield. More head-scratching is induced by a loaded North Eastern wagon; clearly a foreign wagon for which a return load has been found - possibly quite a common arrangement with the North Eastern. But why put it an a train for Carnforth? Surely from Sheffield there would be an overnight goods specifically to Leeds or to York via the Swinton & Knottingley? (The train was not booked to stop at Swinton and was running through at about 20 mph when the accident happened.) Maybe it was for a station on the Wensleydale line, routed via Hawes Junction, or in the Eden valley, via Appleby?

 

Anyway, the point is, here we have a long-distance goods train in which nearly a third of the wagons (from the sample available) were foreigners, mostly returning home empty. The conclusion I am coming to from reading accident reports is that one is more likely to encounter foreigners in long-distance goods trains than in local goods trains. There has to be a reason for their presence, such as a point of exchange en route, and they'll generally be from a "friendly" line - one does not find Caledonian wagons in Midland trains.

 

*This high number suggests that >30000 private owner wagons had been bought up in the first two years of the Midland's scheme - nearly half the total acquired. But caution is needed - there are occasionally detectable errors in running numbers in these reports.

 

**The train is stated to have included 10 empty wagons but are 13 wagons listed; possibly three of the damaged wagons had shed their loads.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Compound2632
Forgot footnotes.

[Brassey]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

one is more likely to encounter foreigners in long-distance goods trains than in local goods trains.

 

I am not too sure about this conclusion.  Last night I dragged myself through the schedules of the 4 local goods trains in the 1912 Working Timetable for the line I model.  Quite a few stations were listed as CR (call as required) or to pick up "foreign" wagons.  If the local goods did not collect them (or deliver them) the long-distance goods trains couldn't as they were not scheduled to stop there.  So the likelihood of foreign wagons in local goods trains is probably equal.

 

In addition, the fast overnight fitted long-distance goods trains, I would have thought, were unlikely to have a lot of empty unfitted wagons in their consist.  But no photos exist to prove either way.

 

PS: for interest, a number of stations were listed as ST (for Station Truck purposes only)

Edited February 14, 2021 by Brassey
PS added

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, Brassey said:

In addition, the fast overnight fitted long-distance goods trains, I would have thought, were unlikely to have a lot of empty unfitted wagons in their consist.  

 

The fast overnight fitted long-distance goods train didn't really start to take off until the 20th century, so isn't really germane to the pre-pooling period, or at least not to the date of the Swinton accident. (The up mail train was not a TPO: in addition to three bogie carriages and two 4-wheel passenger brake vans, it conveyed a Midland fish van - possibly AVB but maybe only piped - and one NBR and two NER fish trucks numbered in those companies' goods wagon series - maybe not even piped. This is before the 1889 Act, of course.) 

 

However, thinking about the fitted or partially-fitted express goods trains of the Edwardian period, fitted vehicles were a very low proportion of stock so at a premium - there may have been a considerable incentive to work empty vehicles back during the day for the following night's train, though perhaps not at express speed. I'm thinking of traffic requiring specialised vehicles where there would be no balancing working, such as meat or bananas up to London.

 

42 minutes ago, Brassey said:

But no photos exist to prove either way.

 

One of the early railway photographers photographed engines by moonlight but stationary and with long exposure time! Goods trains by moonlight weren't a popular subject! So one has to rely on other evidence: the accident reports are a goldmine, since they give snapshots of what actually happened.

 

44 minutes ago, Brassey said:

I am not too sure about this conclusion.  Last night I dragged myself through the schedules of the 4 local goods trains in the 1912 Working Timetable for the line I model.  Quite a few stations were listed as CR (call as required) or to pick up "foreign" wagons.  If the local goods did not collect them (or deliver them) the long-distance goods trains couldn't as they were not scheduled to stop there.  So the likelihood of foreign wagons in local goods trains is probably equal.

 

Which is also good evidence although what it doesn't indicate is how frequently this was actually required. 

 

As I recall, it's the LNWR/GWR Joint Line you're modelling? Were the local goods trains all in the hands of one of the two companies?

[Brassey]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

As I recall, it's the LNWR/GWR Joint Line you're modelling? Were the local goods trains all in the hands of one of the two companies?

 

Yes it is the LNWR/GWR Joint Line.  There were 4 local goods, one up and one down for each of the two companies.  A quirk of the timetable had the Down L&NWR local goods arriving within 14 minutes of the Up departing Berrington & Eye.  One arrived at Woofferton, he next station, as the other was leaving at 12:05.  The Down LNWR was CR (call as required) at Berrington and Eye.  So B&E only got 3 stopping goods trains a day.  Only the GWR trains were allowed enough in the time table to shunt.

 

The Down GWR local goods left Shrewsbury at 07:20 and was not scheduled to arrive at Hereford until gone 5pm almost 10 hours later.  That's an average of 5mph.  There was a lot of shunting out of the way for other trains on route but not all the local goods stopped at every station in every direction.  In fact the LNWR Up local goods ran as Express from Craven Arms to Shrewsbury only stopping at Church Stretton and missing all intermediate stations.  On checking, the requirement to pick up foreign wagons was only in the notes for the GWR Up service. 

 

For interest, in the Joint timetable notes, ST (station truck) is used on the GWR services whereas Tranship is used on the LNWR.

 

There were also faster goods services that only stopped at the larger stations and some traffic destined for the branches such as the Tenbury branch goods.  This ran in a triangle between Stourbridge Junction, Ludlow and Hereford and another train on the opposite circuit.  There were also long-distance express goods services such as Manchester to South Wales.  The majority of trains on the line in 1912 were goods.

 

 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Brassey said:

Yes it is the LNWR/GWR Joint Line.  

 

There's a much-lauded model of a fictional station on that line, set in a rather elastic time-frame including your 1912 date, that could benefit from the fruit of your research. 

[Brassey]

44 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

There's a much-lauded model of a fictional station on that line, set in a rather elastic time-frame including your 1912 date, that could benefit from the fruit of your research. 

 

I have supplied information in that direction previously though one being a club layout I am led to believe that the members wish to run their stock whether appropriate or not.  Bucks Hill is another that springs to mind which, whilst superb, also has a lot of guest appearances. 

 

Too much of a purist, I am probably quite rare in my adherence to a strict time frame though Martin Finney's Semley is also set in 1912 (July).  I did point out to him once at Scaleforum that August 1912 was and still is the wettest, coldest and dullest August on record so would need to be modelled in the rain.  

[Compound2632]

29 minutes ago, Brassey said:

Too much of a purist, I am probably quite rare in my adherence to a strict time frame though Martin Finney's Semley is also set in 1912 (July).  I did point out to him once at Scaleforum that August 1912 was and still is the wettest, coldest and dullest August on record so would need to be modelled in the rain.  

 

Hum. Scale weather. It would seem 1902 wasn't much better: http://www.london-weather.eu/article.42.html

1903 was just as miserable: http://www.london-weather.eu/article.43.html

1901 had been a bit better: http://www.london-weather.eu/article.41.html

In fact there were no decent summers during Edward VII's reign One has to go forward to the Coronation year: http://www.london-weather.eu/article.51.html - but there are other aspects I can't be doing with.

Thos pages only go back to 1900. What was 1898 like? 

 

 

 

[Brassey]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

fact there were no decent summers

IIRC there was a severe drought in 1911

[ChrisN]

As you were talking about weather, here is a Met Office link that has the daily records of weather throughout Britain, well, England mostly.  A very interesting read if you have nothing else to do.

[Tom Burnham]

2 hours ago, Brassey said:

For interest, in the Joint timetable notes, ST (station truck) is used on the GWR services whereas Tranship is used on the LNWR.

Is that what other companies would have described as a Road Van or Roader?

[Brassey]

14 minutes ago, Tom Burnham said:

Is that what other companies would have described as a Road Van or Roader?

 

That I do not know but possibly.  Both these vehicles were used to carry small consignments that had been transferred (transhipped) in large depots.  The most famous was the LNWR tranship shed at Crewe

[Compound2632]

Road vans on the LSWR and, under its influence, on the S&DJR. The Midland called them tariff vans. Basically, small consignments - parcels - set a the goods rate rather than at the passenger train rate. On the LNWR, at least from 1901, they were tranship vans because distribution network was based on the transhipment depot at Crewe. The Midland had a similar system based on a transhipment depo at Derby St Marys but not as fully developed, as far as I can work out. There's less information: the Crew tranship shed was the subject of a description in the popular railway press at the time, reproduced in E. Talbot, The LNWR Recalled (OPC,1987).

[ianathompson]

6 hours ago, Brassey said:

Only the GWR trains were allowed enough in the time table to shunt.

 

I find the whole question of shunting time allowances to be interesting.

My Great North of Scotland Railway facsimilie WTT for summer 1911 appears to make no provision for shunting  at all.

Looking at the Macduff branch, as my imagined lines branch off at Turriff, the goods train gets roughly the same timings as a passenger train.

The lack of shunting time seems to have been quite a commom practice in the pre Grouping WTTs that I have seen (mainly published in line histories).

 

I assume that the timings were advisory and that the trains did not keep to them, nor were they expected to.

By implication the timings shown were the very earliest time that a goods train could possible reach a given station.

The relevant staff, including signalmen and  PW track walkers, would presumably know to keep an eye out for its imminent passing once this time had gone by.

I also assume that the goods trains went forward to the next station when it was convenient, provided that they did not delay passenger trains.

 

Reverting to my main interest, the AFK, which may not be strictly relevant here, I run freight trains on the model on the basis outlined in the second paragraph.

Trains are, however, booked a reasonable time for station work but if traffic is light they run early.

If there is a lot of traffic to be dealt with they run late and keep out of the way of more important trains.

 

Ian T

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, ianathompson said:

My Great North of Scotland Railway facsimilie WTT for summer 1911 appears to make no provision for shunting  at all.

Looking at the Macduff branch, as my imagined lines branch off at Turriff, the goods train gets roughly the same timings as a passenger train.

 

But passenger timings were never exactly brisk on the Great North, were they? Probably not in 1911 but twenty years and more earlier the passenger trains might well have been mixed, the WTT may have not caught up with any change?

 

I've been reading through reports on accidents on the Highland, on Railways Archive. There's a run of accidents in the mid 1880s practically every one of which features a mixed train. These were marshalled with the goods wagons leading - as many as two dozen or more in some cases - with a first, a third, and a brake at the rear. Convenient for shunting, no doubt, but not good from the point of view of braking, as HMRI were quick to point out.  

 

The wagons in those trains are mostly Highland, with a smattering of North British and Caledonian and the odd LNWR - the only English company represented. I haven't worked through the Great North reports yet. I was really looking for Midland / MSJS through carriages and found one at Aviemore in July 1887 - a 12-wheeler sandwiched between WCJS and ECJS 6-wheelers.

 

Much to its credit, the Highland had no accident warranting investigation by HMRI after 1900, apart from the viaduct wash-out at Carr Bridge in 1914.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Compound2632

[Brassey]

8 hours ago, ianathompson said:

I assume that the timings were advisory and that the trains did not keep to them, nor were they expected to.

By implication the timings shown were the very earliest time that a goods train could possible reach a given station.

The relevant staff, including signalmen and  PW track walkers, would presumably know to keep an eye out for its imminent passing once this time had gone by.

I also assume that the goods trains went forward to the next station when it was convenient, provided that they did not delay passenger trains.

 

Thanks for that and this may be true of other lines but I have no knowledge of them.  However, the WTT of the Joint Line is quite specific in the notes for such goods trains as to which trains (every train was numbered) they are to shunt out of the way of and that was built into the timings. They were also allowed considerable time at some of the larger stations for work.  For example the GW down local goods was allowed an hour and ten minutes at Leominster.

 

This was a main line though, far from busy, they could not hold up traffic.  So the instructions stated that if the work at a station would delay the train on its progress, for example, they should not marshall the stock but do that at a later station or they should leave it for a following train.  

 

Clearly local goods had to move out of the way of passenger expresses but some goods trains had priority too.

 

Last night I managed to get to the end of the WTT and started on the appendix to the WTT (I only have a copy of the year 1917 and a much later LMS reprint) which runs to about 300 pages!  I discovered that some up LNWR goods trains from Abergavenny Junction could run out of course and drop off wagons at Berrington & Eye and Woofferton but they had to inform various yard masters and signalmen in advance.  There was a certain amount of sugar beet traffic from B&E for which a farmer would have to order a wagon in advance.  If that was an LNWR wagon then I guess it would have to have come from Abergavenny. I had assumed that such wagons would have been left at Hereford for the local to drop off.  So that does improve the operational possibilities a bit.

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, ianathompson said:

I assume that the timings were advisory and that the trains did not keep to them, nor were they expected to.

By implication the timings shown were the very earliest time that a goods train could possible reach a given station.

The relevant staff, including signalmen and  PW track walkers, would presumably know to keep an eye out for its imminent passing once this time had gone by.

I also assume that the goods trains went forward to the next station when it was convenient, provided that they did not delay passenger trains.

 

Assumptions without evidence are dangerous. I will however offer a counter-assumption: that railwaymen were in no hurry and that there was no point in getting ahead of time.

 

However, since we generally don't operate our model railways to real time, it doesn't matter too much.

[Brassey]

On re-reading the appendix I was reminded that guards had to keep journals and record every train.  That included foreign wagons both loaded and empty.  If such a journal still exists then that would be a precise record of what actually happened.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Brassey said:

If such a journal still exists then that would be a precise record of what actually happened.

 

The Midland Railway Study Centre catalogue returns four items for a search on "guard's journal". One is passenger, unknown date. The other three are goods, one from December 1901 and two from March 1916. 

 

All three are for snow plough movements on the southern end of the Settle & Carlisle section!

Edited February 15, 2021 by Compound2632

[ianathompson]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Assumptions without evidence are dangerous.

 

Yes. A railway safety briefing I once attended hammered home the point that ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and ME.

That is why my assumptions are highlighted in bold and italics.

 

However if we do not assume this he evidence shows that the Macduff goods train from Inveramsay never shunted intermediate stations.

As all the goods timings shown in the table follow the same convention.

Are we to assume that the wayside stations were never shunted?

That is the only other explanation, which seems rather unlikely.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

there was no point in getting ahead of time.

 

Having worked in signal boxes in the later part of my working life I would not necessarily agree with this!

A lot of my colleagues, and I myself, ran trains, or made shunts, before the specified times provided that it did not cause trouble elsewhere.

The reason, of course, was for personal convenience and to make for an easier life.

 

Ian T