Midland and LNWR Traffic Agreement of 1908?

[MR Chuffer]

I popped a single line contribution in the excellent ""Foreign" wagons - How many would you see?" thread I've been closely following when I saw "..inter-company working agreements - notably LNW / Midland of 1908 onwards" referenced but got no response, so is there anyone that can give me an outline of what this entailed?

 

References on Google but only pointing to specialist Journals.

 

Cheers.

[Compound2632]

Sorry, yes, I didn't reply because I knew the information was going to require some digging around to locate. So this is still from what I'm carrying around in my head. It was an agreement aimed at pooling of traffic to eliminated duplication of services and wasteful competition, chiefly on the goods side but also with some consequences on the passenger side. Together with similar agreements between the LNWR and L&YR, resulting in their amalgamation on 1 Jan 1922, a year ahead of the grouping, it meant that in England and Wales, the LMS was from a commercial point of view virtually in existence well before the actual grouping. 

 

From the public's point of view, the most obvious manifestation was joint town offices:

 

Before (St Albans, MR Parcels Office, 24 Feb 1909):

 

 

NRM DY 9114, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

After (St Albans, MR, L&NWR Receiving Office, 28 Feb 1912):

 

 

NRM DY 9117, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence by the National Railway Museum.

 

On the goods side, I believe it involved pooling of goods agents, so that these gentlemen canvassed for traffic not for their employer only but for both companies, offering the most competitive rates. I don't believe it involved pooling of goods stations or rolling stock.

 

On the passenger side, a couple of outcomes I'm aware of:

 

Running of one Midland Scotch express daily via the Lune Valley line and Shap, providing a service between the east Midlands, Leeds, and Penrith.

 

Birmingham, Walsall, and Wolverhampton local services: both companies' trains had to reverse at Walsall, the LNWR coming in and out from the south, the Midland from the north. This was re-arranged so that some Midland services via Water Orton and Sutton Park, ran over the LNWR, serving Darlaston and Willenhall (LNW) and some LNWR services via Great Barr ran over the Midland line, serving North Walsall, Short Heath, Willenhall (Mid), and Wednesfield.

 

Eventually, I'll locate chapter & verse, but it will be in one of those specialist journals you mention. 

 

 

 

[MR Chuffer]

No, Stephen, that's just fine for me; key is your comment "I don't believe it involved pooling of goods stations or rolling stock....". I have a large collection of MR and now significant L&YR goods stock with just a couple of LNWR wagons in my north of England setup, and so it shall remain. Thanks.

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

No, Stephen, that's just fine for me; key is your comment "I don't believe it involved pooling of goods stations or rolling stock....". I have a large collection of MR and now significant L&YR goods stock with just a couple of LNWR wagons in my north of England setup, and so it shall remain. Thanks.

 

 

Well, yes, but. I was puzzled a while ago by a photo of a Midland engine shunting at Cambridge - I can't recall the date but it was into the black goods engine period, so in the period of the agreement. The puzzle was that the wagons being shunted were all LNWR, which I felt to be too much of a coincidence to be just down to general post-war pooling. Both companies had routes to Cambridge, the LNWR from Bletchley and the Midland from Kettering. Was this LNWR traffic from the Midlands being economically worked via Wigston to Cambridge by Midland goods train, rather than going the long way round by Bletchley? The Nuneaton - Wigston line was LNWR but the Midland had long had running powers.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Compound2632

[MR Chuffer]

Interesting, as the rest of the "Foreign Wagons" threads is. Oh for a time machine, but what you say makes a lot of sense in the context of the times and in light of such an agreement.

[Compound2632]

Looking at those St Albans photos again, I've spotted that in the first one, a light-coloured L&NWR sign has appeared in the window - first sign of the traffic agreement, pending the full repaint.

[PenrithBeacon]

I'm wondering if that building still exists

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I'm wondering if that building still exists

 

My Ian Allan reprint of the Midland 1903 timetable book gives the address as 16 High Street, now an artist's showroom:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.7510306,-0.3402966,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sltvwc8B7BXwJlEjKNJQw3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

[MR Chuffer]

Amazing, have you ever thought of taking up detective work?

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, MR Chuffer said:

Amazing, have you ever thought of taking up detective work?

 

Only to solve Edwardian crimes.

[PenrithBeacon]

Not Henry's then

[Nick Holliday]

On 29/10/2020 at 17:29, Compound2632 said:

Sorry, yes, I didn't reply because I knew the information was going to require some digging around to locate. So this is still from what I'm carrying around in my head. It was an agreement aimed at pooling of traffic to eliminated duplication of services and wasteful competition, chiefly on the goods side but also with some consequences on the passenger side. Together with similar agreements between the LNWR and L&YR, resulting in their amalgamation on 1 Jan 1922, a year ahead of the grouping, it meant that in England and Wales, the LMS was from a commercial point of view virtually in existence well before the actual grouping. 

 

On the goods side, I believe it involved pooling of goods agents, so that these gentlemen canvassed for traffic not for their employer only but for both companies, offering the most competitive rates. I don't believe it involved pooling of goods stations or rolling stock.

As confirmation, this comment appeared in the 1921 book British Railways and the Great War: -

 

"It was further significant of the difficulties in the way of applying the common-user principle that no provision for it had been included in the
working agreement made between the London and North Western and the Midland Companies in 1908, and extended to the Lancashire and
Yorkshire in the following year."

 

Obviously in the too-hard tray, and only implementable under wartime conditions.

[Compound2632]

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

 

Item Number: 21127

Category: Goods Department Document

Duplicated circular letter from District Goods Manager Derby dated 16 December 1909 regarding correspondence and clerical work; wrong sending and diversion of traffic; monthly return of special facilities rendered; goods received unentered; washing of drays; frost studs (for horses); traffic for Manchester Ship Canal; caretakers in charge of heavy machinery; LNW, L&Y and Midland working agreement - continental traffic via Grimsby; G.C., G.E., & G.N. working agreement; road motor competition; manure sales; loading of wagons; sheets in empty wagons and wagons under load to be released promptly.

 

Item Number: 21135

Category: Goods Department Document

Duplicated circular letter from District Goods Manager Derby dated 21 April 1911 regarding LNW, L&Y and Midland working agreement; improper use of refrigerator and meat vans; loading of banana vans; sheets in empty wagons; retrospective claims for cartage rebate and under and overcharges. This copy addressed to Mr Sadd, Burton.

[Poggy1165]

There seem to have been cases where passenger receipts were pooled. For example, if you had a ticket from Manchester to Stalybridge issued by the LNWR, L&Y or GC, you could return by either route. This strongly implies to me that the receipts for this traffic must have been pooled in some agreed ratio. The same was true of the GC and L&Y routes to Oldham. Similarly, if you had a ticket from Manchester to Stockport (Tiviot Dale) you could return by a GC train to London Road or a Midland train to Central. (Source 1903 GCR timetable note.)

 

OTOH right up until Grouping the GN would quote freight rates to Bury and Bolton using the canals for the final stretch. (There was a canal wharf right under their big warehouse in Manchester.) Grouping seems to have done away with a lot of competition, but there were certainly steps in that direction prior to 1923.

[PGN]

On 30/10/2020 at 15:23, Compound2632 said:

 

Only to solve Edwardian crimes.

 

 

Well ... this may be a joke to you, but ... 

 

... my brother's a history professor, and he was always bemused by some documents he had referred to, suggesting that one of the subjects had literally got away with murder, but he could not figure out how.

 

Eventually he decided to go to the actual location (in rural France) and have a good look around, to see if he could reconcile the documentary accounts with the actual physical geography; and when he did this, all became clear to him, Not, however, before the good citizens of this sleepy French town had become thoroughly suspicious of this stranger in their midst, poking around in all the back alleys, and confronted him demanding to know what he was up to.

 

His answer - "I'm investigating a murder" - had them all very excited indeed ... until he went on to explain that it had been committed in 1795!

[Compound2632]

38 minutes ago, PGN said:

His answer - "I'm investigating a murder" - had them all very excited indeed ... until he went on to explain that it had been committed in 1795!

 

But did he solve the crime?

[PGN]

Oh ... the documentary evidence was pretty explicit about who had committed it and how ... he just didn't understand how it had been possible to do that and escape undetected.

 

Once he'd visited the locus in quo, he understood ...