PO wagons in NCB use .

[A1X]

Hi all

So I've a small shunting layout still  work in progress and i have an assortment of private owner wagons , coal  merchants and collieries mostly from the midlands .

 

i understand that during the war the wagons were pooled but what happened to them after 1945 ?

 

Did they all return to the owners or did that get taken over by the ncb in 1947 and if so does this mean that i could run a collection of ex PO wagons as  NCB ?

 

many thanks for your help .

Edited October 22, 2021 by A1X
Added pictures

[Barclay]

Hi the wartime pooling meant that over time wagons would stray further and further from their intended routes. As their liveries slowly disappeared under dirt and unpainted replacement planks many had their previous owner's name painted on in small lettering at the lower left side. However, they were never returned to their owners, just running on and looking rougher and dirtier as the years went by. They did not go to the NCB but to British Railways, receiving P prefix numbers. Many were never repainted but some did receive pale grey unfitted livery. Getting rarer by the early 60's. The NCB did end up owning many but these would be internal use only at collieries and such like.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Barclay

[A1X]

34 minutes ago, Barclay said:

Hi the wartime pooling meant that over time wagons would stray further and further from their intended routes. As their liveries slowly disappeared under dirt and unpainted replacement planks many had their previous owner's name painted on in small lettering at the lower left side. However, they were never returned to their owners, just running on and looking rougher and dirtier as the years went by. They did not go to the NCB but to British Railways, receiving P prefix numbers. Many were never repainted but some did receive pale grey unfitted livery. Getting rarer by the early 60's. The NCB did end up owning many but these would be internal use only at collieries and such like.

thanks for that Stuart , i had thought that most if not all went to br ownership , ahh ok so i shall have to invest in some more parkside kits for my wagons to model early ncb .

[doilum]

In 1945 the collieries were still in private hands even if nationalisation was inevitable. Before the war the large collieries had fleets of their own wagons which were requisioned into the pool on the outbreak of hostilities. Were these wagons returned, replaced in kind, or did the owners gladly take a cash compensation for them?

The collieries must have retained their internal fleet for the duration of the war but I suspect that these were quickly repainted red or black as a statement of intent by the newly nationalised industry.

Perhaps this is really a question for the prototype thread?

[Ian Blenk]

Exchange traffic often had ex-PO wagons in the consist

 

[Michael Hodgson]

On 22/10/2021 at 07:54, A1X said:

i understand that during the war the wagons were pooled but what happened to them after 1945 ?

 

Did they all return to the owners or did that get taken over by the ncb in 1947 and if so does this mean that i could run a collection of ex PO wagons as  NCB ?

 

Does it really make any difference?  

 

In the immediate post-war period everything would carry on as it was during the war.  The clapped out wagons would carry on moving coal but nobody really cared who owned them.  The colliery companies probably wanted compensation for the wear and tear on "their" wagons, but they wouldn't have got very far as the general reaction to anybody's grumbles for the last few years had been "Don't you know there's a war on?"

 

When Labour won the election everybody knew both the railways and the pits were to be nationalised.  Ownership was only every going to be a book-keeping matter of which public body dealt with them, and they probably fitted more logically under BR than NCB.

[doilum]

Nationalisation wasn't a Soviet style land grab. Colliery owners were compensated for not only the mine but all the equipment too. Beatrice (now at Embsay) was bought new Iñ 1945 but was, according to legend, used very sparingly to ensure maximum compensation when the mine was nationalised.

In the early years of the NCB some of the BR wagons would still be showing the remnants of their PO livery but you would need to take your weathering to 11.

How these wooden wagons were culled in the post war years is itself a topic of interest. For example: how late could you find open mineral wagons with split spoke wheels in main line use?  The NCB certainly acquired many such wagons and they remained in internal service until the early 1980s, although by then the subject of " Trigger's Broom" maintainance.

[Peter Eaton]

1 hour ago, doilum said:

" Trigger's Broom" maintainance.

 

I like it !

[Fat Controller]

Even relatively small collieries had staff dedicated to repairing and repainting stock. A schoolfriend's father was the wagon painter at Morlais colliery, between Llangennech and Pontardulais, which only had a handful of internal users. Any internal users I saw had received a full repaint- in the 1960s, my father's firm did a lot of work on colliery screens in the area west of the Neath, so most of my school holidays were spent in exotic places like Onllwyn and Abernant, helping measure things.

[Ian Blenk]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/38133300731/in/album-72157665810570739/

 

ex PO wagon behind upper left at Hallbankgate 1951(?)