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Diagrams of Freight Stock Books.


ClikC
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Morning All,

 

Advanced apologies if this is the wrong section. Yesterday, I had one of those conversations with a colleague, which lead to the reveal of my interest in railways, prompting the reveal that said colleagues father used to work at Derby, and at some point during the 1970's rescued a load of documents being thrown in a skip.

 

This morning, I've arrived to find one such example on my desk (images attached), apparently the worst condition of the lot (it's missing a back cover). It's a little out of my experience field and general areas of interest (the not so modern image of LMR circa 1974), but with a bit of cross over. I note that the document has a number of 'manual insertions', including the prototype 'Liner' vehicles (Later to be the FGA/FFA Freightliner container flats).

 

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me about the document, how it was used? I assume as a record of 'wagon types', as drawings are all of a General Arrangement type, rather than more detailed works drawings (which I'm always on the lookout for). Said colleague has also asked the inevitable question over any apparent 'monetary worth' of the book.

 

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Regards

Edited by ClikC
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Hi Matt,

 

Over the past years I have been doing a lot of research into British Railways / British Rail rolling stock and have built up a collection of various diagram books to go with the ones that I had been issued in the '80s. I'm always on the lookout for them coming up on eBay etc. as often you find that they can include random pages that don't always appear, or variations / amended diagrams. I am aiming to get PDFs of mine over to Barrowmore MRG at some stage, but working from home is seriously affecting my access to a scanner with auto sheet feeder - my own scanner is one page at a time flatbed. Good quality scans, not many pages per minute though.

 

If possible, could I ask for a list of what you have please, to see if I can fill any missing 'holes' ? As my knowledge is more 80s - 90s I have been trying to research the transition between the B.R. diagrams (the book you have depicted, where the diagrams have page numbers), and the initial issue of TOPS diagrams (where the pages are now Design Codes associated with the TOPS codes such as FFA / FGA etc.). Reason of my interest is I remember many and interesting vehicles floating around in the 70s particularly unfitted or vac braked, and by the time I got into the industry everything was going air brake and mass withdrawals of the older stock.

 

Regards,

Martyn

 

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Hi Martyn,

 

It's just the one book he's brought in to show me so far, he has promised to have a dig and bring in some more. Obviously, being inherited from my colleagues late father there is a certain amount of sentiment connected to them. However, having had a chat with him explaining some of the responses so far, I think it would be possible to obtain scans of the document, which as you say may be of interest to the wider community.

 

I'll update this thread as an when, and be in touch once i have a firmer understanding of what documents he has.

 

Regards

 

Matt

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  • ClikC changed the title to Diagrams of Freight Stock Books.

Morning all,

 

Colleague has bought in two additional freight stock books today, one dating from 1923 (pictures below). Again, I would be grateful if anyone could explain how these were used, assuming they had a use outside of records.

 

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Regards

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These were distributed fairly widely by all the big 4 and continued under BR. Big locations that dealt with freight wagons would have a copy of the diagram books, not every goods shed, but offices that planned train movements. I imagine they were used if you had a new freight flow and you wanted to work out what would be suitable to use - how much would a wagon hold, how long a train of 10 would be, would it fit into sidings, under loading gantries, be long enough to take whatever long thing you needed to send.

 

The books were periodically updated with circular letters sent out to add new diagrams for new wagons, instructions to delete wagons as they were withdrawn, or add additional restrictions - I have an LMS special wagons book with a note written in red pencil instructing that a wagon type MUST NOT be worked round some specific siding - you can only imagine how they came to discover that! 

 

In practice some offices were much better at keeping their books up to date, I suspect if you were in an office that deal with coal wagons, your coal wagon section was kept well, but the other sections dealing with traffic you never saw, were a bit neglected.

 

You have 'book 1' in the first photo on this page, all the diagrams would be 1/xxx. I've been buying copies of this book for many years and then when I find a diagram that isn't present in my master copy, adding it - I've had to get longer bolts to fit all the pages a couple of times! I must get around to selling off the remainders.

 

How much are they worth depends on what two people are prepared to pay, about £30 seems typical, I have paid 3 figures for a book I (and a rival bidder) REALLY wanted, but these days that would have to be a SFV or 'C' series ferry wagon book that I thought was pretty complete!

 

Jon

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Jon

 

Thanks for your detailed information and reply, I've much clearer picture now as to how they were used. My working knowledge of freight is particularly woeful, as my areas of interest are generally Coaching stock and NPCCS.

 

Regards

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The other book in the photos is B.R. Book 6. These are not too common, so well worth looking after (and scanning).

 

The diagram books were intended for the users of the vehicles such as control, planners, area freight offices, agents and so on to show dimensions, weights and other operating characteristics. In the case of freight stock, it allowed you to select the right / appropriate vehicle for the load that you had in mind, and be suitable for the route it was intended to take / what class of train it would have to go in. Before computers (that being, pre TOPS / 1973), the diagram books were mainly all you had to go by. You might expect that the onset of TOPS would reduce the need for printed diagram books, but bear in mind that the 'magic box' was nowhere near as accessible and not everyone had one, until TOPS 2000 came about and you could run it on just about anything with MS Windows and a VPN connection. Although all of the vehicle information / data is in TOPS, the computer terminal is text-only ... it doesn't do pictures.

 

Although they only normally depict the left or 'A' side and one end ... the 'A' or no.1 end of the vehicle in the case of B.R. diagrams (or TOPS ones copied therefrom), or the opposite end in the case of freshly drawn TOPS diagrams (reason being to do with changes in drawing office practice over the years, first / third angle projection), the dimensions can be useful for modelling, but beware - there are errors ranging from the obvious to some very subtle, inconsistencies and cases of draughtsman's licence applied in good measure so you can't beat photographic comparison, or better still the real thing. Nonetheless it's a very useful starting point.

 

By way of example, look carefully at the NPCCS diagrams. In the TOPS book 240 some drawing office staff hadn't realised that BGs are handed !

 

Braking / running gear is often lacking in detail on B.R. diagrams and does not usually warrant the issuing of a new diagram until you start getting into the 1970s, but is more detailed and accurate on TOPS ones and variants of braking, suspension, buffers etc. will always raise a new diagram / design code.

 

 

 

 

 

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