Luggage van or milk tanker last on passenger train? (Southern Railway)

[spikey]

Would either a bogie luggage van or a 6-wheel milk tanker be legit after the brake on a Southern passenger train WW2/1946-ish?

[Nearholmer]

I’m pretty sure the answer is: Yes.

 

Bogie and four-wheel NPCS vans were not an uncommon ‘tail end’ on southern trains; I think even the glorious ‘Golden Arrow’ sometimes had vans and the luggage container wagon at the rear in the down direction, to facilitate loading at Victoria.

 

Single milk tanks as tail traffic were a bit of a rarity on the southern I believe, because the big creameries produced enough traffic to merit entire trains of tanks, but there was at least one flow, from a loading point at Waldron in East Sussex, which did produce one or two tanks at a time, which were attached to a passenger train.

 

Worth having a ferret round on ‘disused stations’ website, which is a good resource for train formations as well as the stations themselves, to confirm (or deny) my suspicions. But, your date is a difficult one for photos, because so few seem to have been taken then (were wartime restrictions in place, or was it a shortage of film?), and because so few photos show the whole train - if the vans are up-front, they get snapped with the loco, but if they are at the rear, they dangle out of shot.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Nearholmer

[spikey]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 ... there was at least one flow, from a loading point at Waldron in East Sussex, which did produce one or two tanks at a time, which were attached to a passenger train ...

 

Ah!  So do we reckon that two x 6-wheel milk tankers on the back of a passenger train might have been allowed?

[brossard]

I recall seeing a video some time ago that showed an express blasting through a station with at least two 6 wheeled milk tanks at the end.  I haven't been able to find it again.

 

John

[Rivercider]

I thought I had seen milk tanks on the rear of a passenger train somewhere.

As mentioned the Southern had a lot of milk traffic coming from the West of England,

I believe milk tanks were attached to passenger services in order to connect them into the main milk trains to London.

 

In 'The Southern West of Salisbury' by Terry Gough there is a photo of a King Arthur loco working the 7.51pm Yeovil Junction to Templecombe in 1959, formed of two Maunsell passenger coaches, a LMS and SR passenger brake, and at least two milk tanks rear. The milk tanks will be attached to the milk train at Templecombe.

 

cheers

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Rivercider
date added

[Rivercider]

The 3.13pm Padstow to Exeter Central passenger service consisted of two passenger coaches, but attached tail

traffic. I have seen photos of a SR luggage van, vanfits, and even conflats loaded with containers on the rear. These containers  connected at Exeter into overnight express goods services to London,

 

cheers 

[Nearholmer]

I found one of an SR period train arriving at Padstow: a mogul, two ex-LSWR coaches, and two fitted goods vans at the rear, believed to be for fish traffic (probably loads of empty wooden boxes coming back from London).

 

Another line to look at for van traffic is Reading to Redhill, because it carried a phenomenal amount of Royal Mail traffic.

Frustratingly, a quick search reveals the “can’t see the back of the train in the photo” problem, though, so I can only attest to vans at the front on that line in SR days.

 

Some SR seaside branch lines had a van allocated for carrying prams and bicycles, such was the demand, but I don’t know whether that was a 1950s innovation.

 

On the IoW, they had an ex-LBSCR 8T or 10T van (possibly more than one) brake fitted and allocated to fish traffic, because of problems with fish ‘stinking out’ the guards’ compartments in coaches. I think the IoWSR has one preserved (van, not fish), but whether it is the genuine article or ‘any old van’ mocked-up, I’m not sure.

[IWCR]

I am fairly sure there was a Southern Railway rule that the vehicles after the brake were not to exceed 8 axles.

This would allow 2 bogie vehicles / six wheelers or up to 4 four wheel vans. Obviously these would have to be fitted.

 

Addition:  The preserved van at the IOW steam railway is the correct type of LBSC van but is not an island original  (none left), one side is lettered in the "Fish" livery, the other in the standard goods markings.

 

Pete

Edited May 7, 2021 by IWCR
Addition following further post

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

.......... I think even the glorious ‘Golden Arrow’ sometimes had vans and the luggage container wagon at the rear in the down direction, to facilitate loading at Victoria.

No - the glorious ‘Golden Arrow’ ALWAYS had vans and /or the luggage container wagon at the rear in the down direction, to facilitate loading at Victoria .............. this also put the vans and /or the luggage container wagon alongside the ship when the 'Arrer' was running via Folkestone.

[Oldddudders]

10 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

No - the glorious ‘Golden Arrow’ ALWAYS had vans and /or the luggage container wagon at the rear in the down direction, to facilitate loading at Victoria

So, nearly opposite the OBO - Outward Baggage Office. 

[Wickham Green too]

Similarly the 'Night Ferry' always had the vans at the up end ..................... and they formed a fourgon conclusion to the down working.

 

 

 

 

 

Yep - the old jokes are the best jokes ! .............................................. sometimes

[Nearholmer]

Well, I thought it was ‘always’, but added ‘sometimes’ because a swift Google revealed a couple of instances where that appeared not to be the case. But, it could have been the ‘out of view’ problem again, in that the presence of a van at the head of a down train doesn’t prove the absence of a van at the rear.

 

Maybe one was added at the front for ‘overflow’, but it does seem a long way to schlepp baggage, right to the thin end of the platform at Victoria.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Ah!  So do we reckon that two x 6-wheel milk tankers on the back of a passenger train might have been allowed?

Technically the only limits would be the tonnage and the number of wheels allowed behind the rearmost brakevan in the passenger train concerned (which varied over the years).  However there was also the potential problem - particularly with Class A/Class 1 trains - of the restrictions of speed applicable to miltas (milk tanks), which again varied over the years and getting progressively more restrictive.   So overall a combination of factors which would have to be assessed against any particular date uyou have in mind plus there were possibly variations in practice between the companies/Regions.

[spikey]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

... So overall a combination of factors which would have to be assessed against any particular date uyou have in mind plus there were possibly variations in practice between the companies/Regions.

Thank you, sir.  That, together with the content of earlier posts, has ensured that I can now sleep easy in my bed of a night ...

[The Johnster]

There is also the point that you would not want to marshall miltas at the front of the train, as they stank.

[Nearholmer]

There are probably also shunting considerations.

 

I’m fairly sure that the tanks from Waldron were at the rear of an Up train in both directions, because that made shunting them to/from the milk depot siding simple. They seem to have gone full to London via Eridge, then come back empty to Eastbourne via Plumpton. The journey also involved going from Victoria Chatham Side to Mottingham and back, so they travelled in a lot of different trains, and got shunted about a lot, and went round the sun to meet the moon - no wonder it was an early route to go over to road transport!

[Rivercider]

From the Southern Railway General Appendix March 1934.

 

cheers