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Intercity Infrastructure Fleet 1990s


125_driver
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Question about the Intercity infrastructure fleet during the early 1990s.

I know IC had locomotives (mainly 37 47 and 31s ) allocated to its sector for infrastructure duties.

 

My question is did IC also have wagons owned  by the IC sector for this work? Or where the wagons owned by the freight sector? 

I'm sure I recall once seeing a wagon or possibly a tamper (?) that had intercity italic wording on it though can't find anything on the net.....

Edited by 125_driver
Grammer
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The Gunnells converted from PGA hoppers had INTERCITY branding in silver on a maroon background, I used to have an unused sticker acquired at an open day, but don't have it any more. Photos of the branding don't come up readily in in-line searches.

 

INTERCITY branding was also applied to some track machines. Going from memory (dangerous!) I think they funded some dynamic track stabilisers which allowed newly re-laid/ballasted track to be handed back at a higher speed limit than was previously possibly by simulating a weeks worth of traffic. I'm not sure that this is a stabiliser, but it has the branding.
https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/tamper/e55814c4c 

Photo by Paul Bartlett 

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3 hours ago, 125_driver said:

Question about the Intercity infrastructure fleet during the early 1990s.

I know IC had locomotives (mainly 37 47 and 31s ) allocated to its sector for infrastructure duties.

 

My question is did IC also have wagons owned  by the IC sector for this work? Or where the wagons owned by the freight sector? 

I'm sure I recall once seeing a wagon or possibly a tamper (?) that had intercity italic wording on it though can't find anything on the net.....

Yes.  when full sectorisation was introduced the Civil Engineer's fleet was split up between the business sectors so that each sector officially had its own resources.

 

(And a former colleague of mine who had centrally managed the Civil Engineer's wagon fleet was made redundant although a little later I arranged his first 'come back 'when I took him on via an agency to help us out.  He was redundant again with the freight sectors' reorganisation in 1994 - and so was I as it happened - but after I'd moved elsewhere I took him on again for his second 'come back' but had to make him redundant a couple of years later when a particular service development was cancelled.  However some time after I'd left - under redundancy - the company I'd last worked for took him on again on a short term contract which made his third 'come back'.   By that time various of us knew him as the 'come back kid' although he'd become an Old Age Pensioner before his second come back.  He made his 4th come back doing various occasional work for his son who had in the meanwhile got a contract doing the trainplanning work for another train operating company)

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2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Yes.  when full sectorisation was introduced the Civil Engineer's fleet was split up between the business sectors so that each sector officially had its own resources.

 

(And a former colleague of mine who had centrally managed the Civil Engineer's wagon fleet was made redundant although a little later I arranged his first 'come back 'when I took him on via an agency to help us out.  He was redundant again with the freight sectors' reorganisation in 1994 - and so was I as it happened - but after I'd moved elsewhere I took him on again for his second 'come back' but had to make him redundant a couple of years later when a particular service development was cancelled.  However some time after I'd left - under redundancy - the company I'd last worked for took him on again on a short term contract which made his third 'come back'.   By that time various of us knew him as the 'come back kid' although he'd become an Old Age Pensioner before his second come back.  He made his 4th come back doing various occasional work for his son who had in the meanwhile got a contract doing the trainplanning work for another train operating company)

Very informative as ever thank you.

I am modelling the era where (as I understand it from previous posts you have made) the crossover from Western region fleet control  to Intercity western region fleet control was occurring.

 

Which depots would these type of wagons be assigned to on the WR at this time? 

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14 hours ago, 125_driver said:

Very informative as ever thank you.

I am modelling the era where (as I understand it from previous posts you have made) the crossover from Western region fleet control  to Intercity western region fleet control was occurring.

 

Which depots would these type of wagons be assigned to on the WR at this time? 

Sorry but I don't really know apart from what others have said.  they definitely needed hoopers for ballast drops, Grampus for spoil clearance and probably Salmons for rail.  

 

I went from the Western Region (where i was redundant when it was abolished) in 1992 on promotion to Trainload Freight then I was redundant there in 1994 when it was split up into the various freight companies and was head-hunted into Regional Railways although I was only there a few weeks before i went to Eurostar on promotion.  Typical railway story I suppose - I was redundant three times in the 1990s - managed to get promoted at two of them and was out of the ex BR part of the industry on the third occasion.

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4 hours ago, 125_driver said:

So depot wise,  would these sorts of wagons be allocated to say Westbury or Cardiff Canton? Maybe even Old Oak?

I don't really know but Westbury was veru definitely not an inter city depot and the yards belonged to the freight sector.  Old Oak was an Intercity depot at one stage and most of the yard also belonged to them but i'm not sure about Canton.  However various sectors dod work for other sectors and let them use their sidings (for a price. om the western we gradually worked in the late 1980s/early '90s to sectorise traincrew depots as far as we could and we moved as much of the manning of engineering train work to freight depots as we possibly could, albeit with some opposition but most of the regular work was a bit thin for route knowledge and handling retention to do otherwise.  That situation continued after 1992 as we had the only depots with the necessary traction knowledge fora lot of the locos used on engineering trains so we manned the trains for the other sectors.

 

Overall there was an awful of cross sector work of various kinds going on and not just traincrew but clerical work, supervision and so on and some sectors were very bright when it came to managing their costs.

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5 hours ago, 125_driver said:

So depot wise,  would these sorts of wagons be allocated to say Westbury or Cardiff Canton? Maybe even Old Oak?

Did wagons get allocated to a depot in that era?

They don't now, they'll be in a pool, which may geographically limit their movements, but infrastructure wagons are pretty much go anywhere, as required, via the network trips.

So for example, Carlisle need 20 seacows for a job at the weekend, Westbury have 20 on Monday. Across the week they'll be plotted via various trips (eg Westbury - Bescot - Crewe - Carlisle) to get them in position for the weekend.  They might take the long way round too if there's more capacity on those trips.

 

Jo

Edited by Steadfast
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8 minutes ago, Steadfast said:

Did wagons get allocated to a depot in that era?

They don't now, they'll be in a pool, which may geographically limit their movements, but infrastructure wagons are pretty much go anywhere, as required, via the network trips.

So for example, Carlisle need 20 seacows for a job at the weekend, Westbury have 20 on Monday. Across the week they'll be plotted via various trips (eg Westbury - Bescot - Crewe - Carlisle) to get them in position for the weekend.  They might take the long way round too if there's more capacity on those trips.

 

Jo

Interesting I had made the assumption that everything on the railway has a home, but that would make sense frankly for wagons not too. Many thanks.

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20 minutes ago, Steadfast said:

Did wagons get allocated to a depot in that era?

They don't now, they'll be in a pool, which may geographically limit their movements, but infrastructure wagons are pretty much go anywhere, as required, via the network trips.

So for example, Carlisle need 20 seacows for a job at the weekend, Westbury have 20 on Monday. Across the week they'll be plotted via various trips (eg Westbury - Bescot - Crewe - Carlisle) to get them in position for the weekend.  They might take the long way round too if there's more capacity on those trips.

 

Jo

But what happened at full sectorisation was that the various Pools were either reallocated or part allocated to the various business sectors because their previous  'ownerships' of the fleet ceased to exist and everything was reallocated to sector ownership.  And it happened to people and organisations as well so for example prior to 1992 I worked for the Wester Region but from a date in 1992 I worked for Trainload Freight doing what most of what I had been doing previously on the now vanished Western Region but also taking over the similar work which had been done on the now vanished Southern Region.    

 

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1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

But what happened at full sectorisation was that the various Pools were either reallocated or part allocated to the various business sectors because their previous  'ownerships' of the fleet ceased to exist and everything was reallocated to sector ownership

That's interesting. How did this affect wagon movements? Presumably it meant wagons still moved around as required, but within their business sector's locations, rather than nationwide?

Paperwork always seems to complicate the railway!

 

Jo

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5 hours ago, Steadfast said:

Did wagons get allocated to a depot in that era?

They don't now, they'll be in a pool, which may geographically limit their movements, but infrastructure wagons are pretty much go anywhere, as required, via the network trips.

So for example, Carlisle need 20 seacows for a job at the weekend, Westbury have 20 on Monday. Across the week they'll be plotted via various trips (eg Westbury - Bescot - Crewe - Carlisle) to get them in position for the weekend.  They might take the long way round too if there's more capacity on those trips.

 

Jo

Are there still seacows about ?

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6 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Are there still seacows about ?

Not on the national network as far as I'm aware, unless there are some hidden away for special jobs? The last ones in our area I know of were the four that got sold to Mendip Rail for internal use.

 

Going back to the Intercity ones, here's a pic from Flickr of the Intercity Swallow one at on my local line, seems sat at Bitton. It seems to usually be at Avon Riverside when it's not in use.

SEACOW 982984

Intercity logo is left hand end, just above the oval hole in the body side

 

Jo

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16 hours ago, Steadfast said:

That's interesting. How did this affect wagon movements? Presumably it meant wagons still moved around as required, but within their business sector's locations, rather than nationwide?

Paperwork always seems to complicate the railway!

 

Jo

I suspect that in practice little changed except when wagons were needed for a big job sponsored by a particular sector and they would then stand on their dignity nad demand that 'their' wagons be made available if  there was a shortage.  I doubt in the limited life of full sectorisation - which didn't start until 1992 and then privatisation began in 1994 and a wagons then went to different owners - that much developed in the way of accounting for cross loan/hire and getting costs back although that would surely have been the intention as it was with everything else but I doubt taht it ever had time to develop for departmental wagons..

 

Thus I got rid of the costs of sidings that were only really needed for engineering purposes and they always went to the sector which wned the route and I only took onbaord/kept the freight infrastructure when we were going through teh meetongs to divide up everything.  Similarly we bought-in managerial and clerical work from other sectors (or sold work to them) and concentrating on those costs enabled a lot of savings to be made while improving efficiency in terns of getting the work done because we got it under direct control.  And the same was done with locos with cross hire between sectors although that rarely involved any transfer of mpney because it tended to balance out, but after privatisation I, for my company, and a chap working for another company, very quickly got into hiring out traincrew and locos and charging for it.  I also had some very specialised vehicles which I had a small hire market for.   

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