Goods trains. How were exchange sidings worked?

[Penrhos1920]

I’m thinking about exchange sidings or yards that were on the boundary of two railway companies where neither company had running powers beyond the “other end” of the yard.  So a train enters the yard from company A hauled by a loco of company A with a brake van also of company A.  Before it continues, both the locomotive and brake van have to be changed for company B stock.  But how is the dosido performed?  Then company A loco and van swap over to the other side of the yard to attach to a train going in the opposite direction.  Do any operating instructions survive?  If there’s only one crossover at one end of the yard then there could be a lot of back and forth just to get the van off the back of the incoming train and on to back of a train going in the opposite direction.

[Compound2632]

Interesting question - linking nicely with the foreign wagons thread.

 

Here's an example: Bordesley, a major frontier point between the Midland and Great Western. Even Royal Trains were exchanged here (for journeys between Windsor and Rowsley for Chatsworth). The 1903 OS 25" map shows the situation before the GW quadrupling. As I interpret this, there is a ladder of loops and a fan of dead-end sidings, all of which form the GW's marshalling yard, and a set of four loops fanning out from the single-track Midland Bordesley branch, which I assume are the exchange sidings. The Midland Distance Diagram shows the junction of Mid and GW 23 chains from the junction with the Camp Hill line, at a point just before the exchange sidings.

 

Terry Essery, Saltley Firing Days, describes the working in the 1950s, which I think probably saw Midland Division engines straying further onto Wester Region metals than would have been the case 50 years earlier: "We pick up a train ... and work it into Bordesley. Then we shunt it as required, run over to the down sidings, collect another train from there and work it back... ... it involves a lot of waiting around, particularly in Bordesley, where we have to have a good clear path before crossing their main lines."

 

I thin in general exchange sidings were the property of one company or the other, with the other company possibly paying rent. There were some exceptions such as Carlisle where the main marshalling yards were managed by joint committees of the companies using them. 

 

That doesn't really answer the question of how they were actually worked in the pre-grouping era. I would presume that each company's locomotive shunted its proper brake van. 

[Schooner]

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I would presume that each company's locomotive shunted its proper brake van.

Certainly the case in the BR/PLA exchange yards, also in the '50s. Even less relevant, but the only detailed info I've seen.

 

What isn't clear (as memory serves from one quick read of Thomas Peacock's P.L.A Railways, a few months ago, so season to taste) is whether a van would always leave behind the loco it arrived with. If not, then the 

On 29/10/2020 at 21:26, Penrhos1920 said:

dosido

could be somewhat simpler. The dance pivots on a conditional:

On 29/10/2020 at 21:26, Penrhos1920 said:

 If there’s only one crossover at one end of the yard...

 

A common formation?

[Regularity]

I imagine that some form of working agreement would be in place, either formal or informal. 
A train arrives from company A, and as the rear of it is at company A’s end of the yard, then their shunter performs the brake van swap, whilst the train loco is removed and company B’s is put on the head. In reverse, the opposite happens. 
That assumes the yard is busy enough to warrant shunters from each company. If it is busy for A but not for B, then some payment would probably be made. 
If it is just a handover point, then B’s loco will be waiting with its own brake van, ready to perform the swap and once completed, simply run past the consist before backing onto it, whilst A’s loco is removed.

 

A different example.

For a number of years (20 or so) the Midland ran its loaded banana trains from Avonmouth to London via the EWJR (later SMJR). These arrived at Broom Junction, facing north, where an EWJR loco and brake van were ready and waiting. The MR loco would put the EWJR brake onto what was now the rear of the train, and the EWJR loco would remove the MR brake from what had become the front, before taking the train over its own lightly laid system to rejoin the MR Northampton branch at Ravenstone Wood Junction. On arrival at Olney, the EWJR loco was removed, but by a working agreement, the brake van was retained and worked through to London, but with a Midland guard. This led to letters in the Railway Magazine asking who on was the EWJR and what were their brake vans doing at St. Pancras? As the empties returned via Wigston and Birmingham, the brake van was returned as an empty vehicle in normal goods service.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

As the empties returned via Wigston and Birmingham, the brake van was returned as an empty vehicle in normal goods service.

 

Unfortunately the Avonmouth banana traffic is a few years after my c. 1902/3 target date, otherwise an EWJR brake van returning by goods train through Brum would be very tempting. But I'd also need the banana vans to go with it...

 

My impression of exchange sidings is that they were often double-ended - a set of three or more sidings with access to one company's lines at one end and the other company's at the other. Sticking with Birmingham, west end of the LNWR / Midland exchange sidings can be seen on the OS 25" map here, on the opposite side of the LNWR man line from Lawley Street goods station, and the east end here, at Gloucester Junction (an OS redundancy; by 1903 there was no longer a true junction here). The east end is Midland only; the west end has connections to both.

[Regularity]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Unfortunately the Avonmouth banana traffic is a few years after my c. 1902/3 target date, otherwise an EWJR brake van returning by goods train through Brum would be very tempting. But I'd also need the banana vans to go with it...

The MR used this route from 1892-1912, but a returning brakevan would have gone via Bedford and Olney: can’t imagine Birmingham being involved.

And the decrepit nature of their revenue stock meant that EWJR wagons were banned from interchange by the RCH, until they bought a large (for them) number in 1903/4.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Regularity said:

The MR used this route from 1892-1912, but a returning brakevan would have gone via Bedford and Olney: can’t imagine Birmingham being involved.

 

OK I see. The Midland banana vans went back via Brum but the EWJR brake was put off at Bedford.

[bbishop]

 I'm trying to get my head around this!  Would a company would hang on to its loaded wagon for as far as possible, to maximise its own revenue, so exchange points could be random?  But were there fixed locations at which companies exchanged empty wagons?

 

Then brake vans.  I believe these stayed with the locomotive in most circumstances.  Certainly no LSWR guard would ever take over a Toad from a certain other company; ineffective brake and one had to go outside to apply it.  No LSWR van, no departure.  In later days the SR pillbox was popular with foreign guards because of its brake, but unpopular because it was overcrowded with the stove, the guard and his overcoat.  Bill

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

 I'm trying to get my head around this!  Would a company would hang on to its loaded wagon for as far as possible, to maximise its own revenue, so exchange points could be random?  But were there fixed locations at which companies exchanged empty wagons?

The company's local goods agent would no doubt be canvassing for traffic to be sent by the route most advantageous to the company but that would depend, I suppose, on his ability to offer the most competitive rate. Taking the exchange of traffic between the Midland and Great Western at Bordesley for example, wagon labels have a tale to tell. The Midland Railway Study Centre has a collection of such things, including a batch for traffic consigned to Princes End, a Great Western station on the OW&W line between Dudley and Wolverhampton. The nearest point on the Midland was Wolverhampton and there was also a Midland goods station at Dudley, reached by running powers over the LNWR line from Walsall. However, traffic was routinely exchanged at Bordesley - here's at typical example, MRSC Item 14092. The only exception I can find is a wagon from Eardisley on the Midland's Hereford Hay & Brecon line, which was exchanged at Hereford, MRSC Item 14075. Even traffic for the Great Western's Redcliffe Wharf goods yard at Bristol was exchanged at Bordesley - e.g. from Stanton Colliery, Derbyshire, in the heart of Midland territory, MRSC Item 14469 - when one might have expected it to travel to the Midland yard at Bristol St Philips and be tripped from there. (The Midland had running powers beyond the Joint Station to Pyle Hill goods station but not elsewhere over the Great Western in Bristol, joint lines excepted.)

 

As I mentioned in the foreign wagons topic, foreign wagons had to be sent home empty by the exact same route as on their outward journey, as made explicit on this foreign wagon home empty label, MRSC Item 14194. (This is, I think, an example of a wagon being exchanged at Wolverhampton, since the Wednesfield routing means the Midland's Walsall & Wolverhampton line.)

 

I suspect that agreements made between the companies though the RCH may have been behind this; another factor might be the operational and clerical convenience of concentrating exchange traffic at as few points as possible. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Compound2632

[DCB]

There were also smaller exchange sidings     The MSWJR and  GW had exchange sidings, at Savernake and Andoversford where the pick up goods' did their own shunting.  The GWR would drop off a few dozen wagons and the MSWJR  would collect them and maybe leave a few for the GWR.

Otherwise a joint yard operated by two companies each with their own shunting loco was a very rare beast in  12" to a ft.  More likely each railway would have their own yard and trip wagons between the two with a shunting loco and their own brake van. 

So you would see the Owning Company's locos coming from one way and a mix of owning co's locos and the other co's trip freight locos coming from the other.  Sometimes the two companies co operated, others they didn't...

The Fast through Freight concept really snowballed around 1900,  and companies struggled to find locos capable of running vacuum fitted  heavy goods at 50 mph, The big wheeled 4-4-0s lacked pulling power and the small wheeled 0-6-0s rode badly and knocked themselves to pieces.  What they needed was the "Mixed traffic" 5ft 8 wheeled loco. Like the GWR Bulldog and 43XX.

The GW, LNWR, GC, Caley,  etc built suitable locos, pre WW1 and the Midland etc didn't.

Edited November 3, 2020 by DavidCBroad

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

Through freights changing company were a minority,  Lots of exchange sidings were for exchanging wagons not complete trains.   The GWR would drop off a few dozen wagons and the MR  would collect them and maybe leave a few for the GWR.   

 

Yes, taking Bordesley again, the Midland would deliver a trip freight of wagons from Washwood Heath marshalling yard, all labelled for the GW route via Bordesley. A GW engine would draw these out of the exchange sidings and set to work shunting them into the appropriate trains in the Bordesley marshalling yard. Likewise, the return working would be made up of a mixed bag of wagons off the GW for Midland destinations (and of course Midland wagons returned empty) which would be re-marshalled at Washwood Heath.

 

6 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

Otherwise a joint yard operated by two companies each with their own shunting loco was a very rare beast in  12" to a ft.  More likely each railway would have their own yard and trip wagons between the two with a shunting loco and their own brake van. 

So you would see the Owning Company's locos coming from one way and a mix of owning co's locos and the other co's trip freight locos coming from the other.  Sometimes the two companies co operated, others they didn't...

 

Indeed, Carlisle is the best example I know of. Otherwise one has to distinguish between goods stations and marshalling yards, which were exclusive to the owning company, and exchange sidings, which were, I think, the only places where one would normally see the engines and brakes of both companies.

 

8 minutes ago, DavidCBroad said:

The Fast through Freight concept really snowballed around 1900,  and companies struggled to find locos capable of running vacuum fitted  heavy goods at 50 mph, The big wheeled 4-4-0s lacked pulling power and the small wheeled 0-6-0s rode badly and knocked themselves to pieces.  What they needed was the "Mixed traffic" 5ft 8 wheeled loco. Like the GWR Bulldog and 43XX.

The GW, LNWR, GC, Caley,  etc built suitable locos, pre WW1 and the Midland etc didn't.

 

The Midland 4-4-0s were perfectly able to work fitted express goods trains at 50 mph+. Such trains ran at night, improving the utilisation of locomotives working express passenger trains by day.

[Western Star]

1 hour ago, DavidCBroad said:

There were also smaller exchange sidings     The MSWJR and  GW had exchange sidings, at Savernake and Andoversford where the pick up goods' did their own shunting.

Where was the exchange made at Savernake?

[richbrummitt]

44 minutes ago, Western Star said:

Where was the exchange made at Savernake?

My guess would be the loop on the down side. It’s not long enough for much. 

[Compound2632]

I struggle to see any opportunity for exchange at Savernake - the OS 25" map tells me there was no physical connection between the two railways.

 

Apologies, found the junction (but isn't that more properly Grafton?) - but still no sign of exchange facilities. But I can't imagine there would have been much exchange of traffic - bearing in mind that the M&SWJR did exactly what it said on the tin: provided the Midland with a route to Southampton, or the LSW with a route to the Midlands, depending on your point of view; I'm sure ways would have been found of keeping traffic out of Great Western hands (and vice-versa).

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Compound2632

[Caley Jim]

On the subject of wagon labels.   While on a brake van trip to Brechin in the early '60's  two of us were rummaging in a desk in the old goods shed office and came across a number of CR wagon labels.  One was printed 'Live Stock traffic/Brechin To Bellgrove NB'.  It took me some time to work out why there would be pre-printed labels for live stock going from Brechin to a North British station in Glasgow on the Queen Street low level lines.  Then the penny dropped.   Up until the later part of the 1900's the Glasgow City Abattoir was  adjacent to  Bellgrove station and there were extensive cattle dock sidings there.  Where the exchange of that traffic took place I couldn't say, but my guess would be either Greenhill, where the WCML crossed the E&G, or perhaps they went all the way to Buchanan St goods by Caley and were tripped from there.

 

Jim

[Western Star]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I struggle to see any opportunity for exchange at Savernake...

Exactly - Savernake GWR is in a cutting and Savernake MSWJR is on higher ground about 200 yards to the north-east of the GW station.

 

To the east of both stations lies Wolfhall Junction and Grafton Junction (plus one other and I have forgotten the name of that one).  The "Swindon's Other Railway" web site has appropriate photos and there are no obvious sidings, suitbale for exchange use, at any of the junctions.

 

regards, Graham

[NCB]

Looking at the 1924 1:2500 maps on the NLS web site, the western link between between the MSWJR and the GWR shows a through road in the up direction, but a through road, loop and headshunt in the down direction which could have been used to exchange traffic, also there were further sidings where the link meets the MSWJR.

 

Nigel

[Poggy1165]

On 03/11/2020 at 11:03, bbishop said:

 I'm trying to get my head around this!  Would a company would hang on to its loaded wagon for as far as possible, to maximise its own revenue, so exchange points could be random?  But were there fixed locations at which companies exchanged empty wagons?

 

Then brake vans.  I believe these stayed with the locomotive in most circumstances.  Certainly no LSWR guard would ever take over a Toad from a certain other company; ineffective brake and one had to go outside to apply it.  No LSWR van, no departure.  In later days the SR pillbox was popular with foreign guards because of its brake, but unpopular because it was overcrowded with the stove, the guard and his overcoat.  Bill

 

I can give you a specific example. The GCR lost a case against the L&Y. It wanted to exchange Yorkshire coal traffic at Philips Park (Manchester) but the court ruled the traffic had to be exchanged at either Penistone or Barnsley.

 

The GCR got its thinking cap on. It put in a western spur from the O&AGBJ at Ashton Moss making a connection to the L&Y, and a set of exchange sidings were provided. Henceforward (this was 1911) the traffic was exchanged at Ashton Moss and this continued certainly up to the electrified era, as the OA&GB was electrified that far. The traffic concerned was pretty considerable, Yorkshire coal to an array of L&Y and LNWR stations to the west and north of Manchester.

 

So yes, a company would try to keep traffic on its own line for as long as possible, and legal disputes on where traffic could be exchanged were not unknown. As an aside, I do not understand why Philips Park was a problem as the GCR exchanged other traffic there and indeed operated pilot engines (as they were called) to that point. But there must have been a reason sufficient to persuade a learned judge.

 

[ianathompson]

3 hours ago, Poggy1165 said:

So yes, a company would try to keep traffic on its own line for as long as possible, and legal disputes on where traffic could be exchanged were not unknown.

 

One of the beter known examples of this was the dispute between the Highland Railway and the Great North of Scotland Railway.

The Inverness to Aberdeen traffic was originally exchanged at Keith because that was as far as the GNoSR had gone towards Inverness when the Highland arrived. 

The GNoSR then extended its line to Elgin via Dufftown and Rothes.

It then tried to insist that Elgin was the interchange point.

The Highland, not surprisingly, insisted that the exchange took place at Keith.

 

At certain stages of the, quite long running. dispute the GNoSR handed traffic over at Elgin whilst the Highland handed it over at Keith!

The RCH was called in to arbitrate but I cannot, at the moment, remember their decision.

 

If anyone wishes to know the outcome of the saga I could look it up in one of the "Line Histories".

 

Ian T

 

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, ianathompson said:

At certain stages of the, quite long running. dispute the GNoSR handed traffic over at Elgin whilst the Highland handed it over at Keith!

The RCH was called in to arbitrate but I cannot, at the moment, remember their decision.

 

Since wagons returned empty would have to go back by the outbound route, that was probably a draw.

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, ianathompson said:

 

One of the beter known examples of this was the dispute between the Highland Railway and the Great North of Scotland Railway.

The Highland and the GNoS were constantly in dispute.  You would almost think that they had a non-co-operation agreement!

 

At Elgin, trains were timed to almost connect, but not quite.  I've heard it said that the guard of one company would blow his whistle for departure as the train of the other company was drawing into the station.

 

Jim

[webbcompound]

Much of this discussion concerns routing and choice of exchange points, but in the case of smaller companies there would be little choice, and it looks likely that the senior partner in the exchange would decide how it would work. The WM&CQR carried a fair amount of brickworks traffic in LNWR wagons. The wagons would arrive empty at Connah's Quay, and were loaded at the various brickworks on the Buckley branch. There were in principle two exchange posibilities. The WMCQR had a series of loops behind the LNWR Connah's Quay passenger station which were accessed from the main line going towards Holyhead.  The LNWR had a handfull of sidings linked to the WCQR and accessed from the main line going towards Chester. In addition the LNWR goods facility for Connah's Quay was further back along the line towards Chester, but accessed from the line going towards Holyhead.

 

Exchanging wagons behind the station would have been fairly simple. The WMCQR engine could draw the wagons in, then run back round a loop to pick up the brake van. Alternatively for empties inbound it could run a brake van into a loop, run back to draw out the empties and then back them onto the brake van. The LNWR would simply need to have the empties at the front of a pick up goods heading towards Holyhead. The engine would halt the train, move forwards with the empties and then reverse them into the WMCQR loop. There would be no need for engines of either company to move off their own rails.

 

The sidings on the Chester direction line appear to have had little use for exchange purposes, and this was probably because the layout would have required more movements, and engines from the WMCQR would have had to enter LNWR rails.

[ianathompson]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

At Elgin, trains were timed to almost connect, but not quite.  I've heard it said that the guard of one company would blow his whistle for departure as the train of the other company was drawing into the station.

 Haven't come across that story but well aware of the antics at Waterloo (Aberdeen) but we are dfirting away from the thread subject manner!

 

Ian T

[Paul Cram]

Hawes was an end on junction between the NER and Midland although both companies had running powers beyond Hawes this was only exercised by the NER for passenger workings through to Garsdale. Both had a daily goods train to Hawes and both shunted the yard with goods going in both directions. Presumably empy wagons could also be exchanged here.

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Paul Cram said:

Presumably empty wagons could also be exchanged here.

 

Yes, here's a "foreign wagon homeward" label from March 1900 showing NER wagon No. 7722 with sheet No. 22892* being returned from Ribblehead via Hawes within four days of being received: MRSC Item 14192.

 

*I wonder if those numbers have been entered in the wrong fields? 

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Compound2632