GWR Cordons in BR service

[lather]

I know that at least some of the GWR Cordons made it into BR service, but just how long did they last? I've seen an undated picture of one in a station, where you can also see part of the front of a Warship, but that doesn't help with actual dates.

 

So can anyone come up with a date for when they were finally withdrawn? And, after withdrawal from their intended use, did any of them find a new life doing other things in Departmental service?

 

Also, how widely did they roam in BR use? Did they stay in former GW territory, or did they stray elsewhere?

[Mike_Walker]

I have a picture of W53W (Diagram DD4) taken at Marlow in 1958.

[Wickham Green too]

2 hours ago, lather said:

Also, how widely did they roam in BR use? Did they stay in former GW territory, or did they stray elsewhere?

Assuming the hose connections were standardised, they could, theoretically, have been used country-wide ...... but gas for carriage lighting was pretty well obsolete by that date and there were probably more than enough mobile gas tanks to cater for those Kitchen Cars ( etc ) that still needed gassing.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Wickham Green too

[Steamport Southport]

1960s at Machynlleth. Presumably for the Cambrian Coast Express and other trains needing a refill.

 

https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/paulbartlettsrailwaywagonphotographs/e1176cade

 

I very much doubt they travelled out of their area as they were built for a specific purpose.

 

 

 

Jason

Edited November 1, 2021 by Steamport Southport

[br2975]

Into the 60s, for example one worked to Glyncorrwg (and stabled) to charge the miners train that worked from Glyncorrwg (originally Cymmer Corrwg) to North Rhondda Colliery 

and South Pit

[br2975]

During 1958/1959 it appears Cordon tanks still served the following locations South West of Cheltenham/Gloucester.

No doubt there were other locations being served, in other operational districts.

Cheltenham

Bristol

Gloucester

Pontypridd

Cardiff (Queen Street)

Caerphilly Works

Aberavon Town

Glyncorrwg

Newport

Hereford

Pontypool Road

Neyland

Whitland

Llanelly

Tondu

Fishguard Harbour

Carmarthen

Neath (General)

Neath Jcn.

Swansea (High Street)

[Miss Prism]

Seems like they are servicing the last gaslit autocoaches and gas-fired catering vehicles.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

There was still one at Birmingham Snow Hill to the late 1950s at least, but it had gone in the early 1960s.

Edited November 1, 2021 by TheSignalEngineer

[Nearholmer]

I’m sure I read somewhere that a lot of old horse boxes remained gas-lit well into the 1950s (maybe until they were scrapped?) and that cordons were sent to stations hosting large numbers of such boxes for race meetings, or when trainers sent out large numbers of horses from one place. I seem to recall that Lambourne was a place mentioned as receiving cordons for certain events (trainers’ sales maybe).

 

The Cheltenham allocation may have had something to do with horse boxes.

 

Anyway, false memory or not, I use that pretext to run a tinplate Hornby one to service tinplate horse boxes on my retr-0 layout.

 

I think that BR Mk1 horse boxes were electrically lit, but it must have been a nightmare keeping the batteries in good condition on vehicles that were used so sporadically.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Siberian Snooper]

I wonder if the final nail in the coffin for Cordons, would be the introduction of natural gas, as opposed to town gas.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Was it Town (coal) gas they carried? I know a lot of train lighting was done with Pintsch’s (oil) gas, to give whiter light and a more stable burn when vibrated.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Was it Town (coal) gas they carried? I know a lot of train lighting was done with Pintsch’s (oil) gas, to give whiter light and a more stable burn when vibrated.

 

The gas being produced at small facilities adjacent to major carriage sidings, at least on the Midland. The Great Western seems to have been unusual (fancy that) in having such a large fleet of vehicles for the distribution of carriage lighting gas. I wonder whether this reflects centralised gas production or whether it's a consequence of many far-flung branch lines with sets of carriages that rarely visited a major traffic centre with carriage sidings.

 

1 hour ago, Siberian Snooper said:

I wonder if the final nail in the coffin for Cordons, would be the introduction of natural gas, as opposed to town gas.

 

So yes, not town gas. But in any case I think the switch to natural gas came some years after the final demise of gas lit carriages - I remember it happening in Shrewsbury: a gas fitter visited to do something to the cooker, I was probably five or six at the time, so c. 1970.

 

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m sure I read somewhere that a lot of old horse boxes remained gas-lit well into the 1950s (maybe until they were scrapped?)

 

I think that BR Mk1 horse boxes were electrically lit, but it must have been a nightmare keeping the batteries in good condition on vehicles that were used so sporadically.

 

Fitting of gas lighting equipment for a single lamp sounds about as much faff as fitting a dynamo and battery, if not more! A previous generation of horseboxes retained their oil lamps (or at least the hole in the roof for one) well after oil lighting had fallen out of use for carriages. Likewise milk vans etc. On a dual-fitted 16 ft or 20 ft 4-wheeler, there's not much space left between the frames for a gas cylinder or battery box!

 

13 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

Seems like they are servicing the last gaslit autocoaches and gas-fired catering vehicles.

 

Was there a reason for autocoaches remaining gas-lit? When was the last Great Western general-service gas-lit stock built?

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, br2975 said:

During 1958/1959 it appears Cordon tanks still served the following locations South West of Cheltenham/Gloucester.

No doubt there were other locations being served, in other operational districts.

Cheltenham

Bristol

Gloucester

Pontypridd

Cardiff (Queen Street)

Caerphilly Works

Aberavon Town

Glyncorrwg

Newport

Hereford

Pontypool Road

Neyland

Whitland

Llanelly

Tondu

Fishguard Harbour

Carmarthen

Neath (General)

Neath Jcn.

Swansea (High Street)

I can remember one being stood in the Up Relief Siding at the west end of Reading station which would probably have been about that time.

 

There is a brief Instruction in respect of travelling gas tanks in the WR 1960 Regional Appendix which implies that they were still around then (but take it as no more than a possible implication).     That Instruction had been deleted by 1966 and while I have the reference for the deletion I regrettably can't date it but the numbering of the reference suggests to me that it was probably in the very early 1960s but a while after the item had been published in the Appendix.

[Miss Prism]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Was there a reason for autocoaches remaining gas-lit?

 

They weren't quite bust, but there wasn't much point in spending money on them.

 

 

Quote

When was the last Great Western general-service gas-lit stock built?

 

Mid-Toplight era.

 

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Fitting of gas lighting equipment for a single lamp sounds about as much faff as fitting a dynamo and battery, if not more!

Agreed, but where it had been done, I think it was retained because gas didn’t ‘go flat’ in five minutes, and the kit didn’t deteriorate with neglect and damp, which a Dynamo and batteries do, very quickly.

 

Even on sets of loco-hauled carriages used at peak-hours only, the batteries were a constant source of grief. In the summer the electrolyte used to evaporate very quickly, in winter the resistance would go up and they’d get sulky about accepting charge, and the kit had many other bad habits too, belts going out of tension, Dynamo windings getting shorted turns, regulators not regulating etc.

[Wickham Green too]

4 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

I wonder if the final nail in the coffin for Cordons, would be the introduction of natural gas, as opposed to town gas.

As has been pointed out above, the Railways produced their own gas rather than plugging into the town mains - which wouldn't have required Cordons .... but the advent of bottled gas saw off any need for 'bulk' transport of the stuff for whatever catering vehicles still needed it.

 

A Wikipedia snippet about the Culm Valley branch might answer a question or two : "... in 1950 the two ancient passenger coaches were replaced by two bogie coaches from the former Barry Railway. The slow speed on the line was inadequate to re-charge the lighting batteries on the coaches, so they were converted from electric to gas lighting, and were the last gas-lit coaching vehicles on British Railways." ............. presumably they mean passenger-carrying - and I can only guess that they used oil gas rather than bottled at that date.

[Compound2632]

36 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

The slow speed on the line was inadequate to re-charge the lighting batteries on the coaches, 

 

That perhaps explains those autocoaches, too?

[Nearholmer]

Baffling that nobody thought of putting different belt-pulley ratios on stock that went slowly. Maybe they did, and that the issue was the primitive nature of voltage regulators, which couldn’t cope with very wide variations, so that a high ratio set for a branch line would have caused “overdrive” if it was then tripped along the main at a decent pace.

 

Similar issues apply if you try to charge your ‘phone from a bicycle Dynamo, very wide voltage variation and constant frequency variability, so you have to buy or make a fancy regulator if you want to do it.

[Steamport Southport]

Don't forget those ancient gas lit coaches were replaced by Thompson coaches. You just needed to give them a run on the mainline.  Don't forget the ER had loads of slow sleepy branchlines as well. 

 

It was more the length problem rather than their lighting as to why they used the Barry stock.

 

 

Jason

[Danemouth]

My granparents lived in Railway Street Cardiff and their house backed onto the reception line for Roath Sidings. I have a memory of seeing a Cordon on the sidings in the 1950;s and asking what it was - I was told "Cordon".

 

Dave

[The Johnster]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I remember it happening in Shrewsbury: a gas fitter visited to do something to the cooker, I was probably five or six at the time, so c. 1970.

 

My mate Andrew, who lives in Sheffield, was converted to North Sea gas by Joe Cocker, no less.  They spent a pleasant enough afternoon playing his records and talking about music.

 

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Was there a reason for autocoaches remaining gas-lit? When was the last Great Western general-service gas-lit stock built?

 

According to John Hodge and Stuart Davies in their 'Railways and Industry in the Tondu Valleys' books, gas lit autocoaches were transferred to Tondu for the start of the autumn timetable of 1953, when the South Wales Valleys regular interval services were introduced and auto working considerably extended across the area. because of the low speeds of the passenger services involved particularly the Porthcawl branch.  Diagram N. A10, and a gangwayed pair of Cardiff Railway trailers were featured, as well as the last surviving Clifton Downs compartment driving trailer W 3338.  The gangwayed trailers were nominally for use on the Porthcawl service, which had a line speed of no more than 15mph and was restricted to 5 mph through one particularly wiggly section (it was an upgraded tramway).

 

The Cardiff Railway set was rapidly replaced by a TVR gangwayed set, of which there were 3 remaining, all of which saw out their lives in turn on the Porthcawl branch and the last of which went in 1958.  W 3338 had had an interesting recent history, being withdrawn in 1948 and reinstated in 1949 for service in South Wales, repainted in an odd lined version of BR crimson livery which was, TTBOMK, unique to this coach.  It was scrapped in early 1954.

 

These trailers were, by about 1957, being replaced by electrically lit A28s and A30s. and compartment A43 and A44 'Cyclops' trailers.  The A28s and A30s were replaced in about 1960 by A38 Hawksworth BR built trailers, which along with the Cyclops lasted until the closure of te Porthcawl branch in 1964.  The Abergwynfi branch had been re-routed to Blaengwyfi in 1960, and also closed in 1964, and the Nantymoel branch went in 1958.  I am not aware of any problems arising from the use of electrically lit trailers at Tondu, even on Porthcawl trains.

 

The Tondu Cordon was presumably to supply the original allocation of gas lit trailers in 1953, and TTBOMK the Glyncorrwg Cordon for the workmen's came via Port Talbot, as did the Dyffryn Yard loco for that branch, though after the closure of the Rhondda & Swansea Bay line south of Cwmmer Afan, 1960, the traffic was 'exchanged' to the ex GW at Cwmmer and worked by Tondu locomotives.  At the very end of the Glyncorrwg branch's life, after the workmen's had been replaced by a bus (1962) and the closure of both Tondu and Dyffryn Yard sheds, the traffic was worked by D95xx from the new Margam diesel depot via Tondu.

 

 

[Andy Kirkham]

The Hemyock branch still had a gas-lit ex-Barry coach well into BR days because speeds on the branch were insufficient to charge batteries. Was this the last gas-lit carriage in service?

[Hal Nail]

On 02/11/2021 at 22:55, Andy Kirkham said:

Was this the last gas-lit carriage in service?

The pair were replaced by a pair of ex LNER later on. Not sure whether these two were also gas lit or adjusted to work at slow speed but I'd always thought the former.

[Steamport Southport]

Almost new Thompsons as I posted above. Surplus to the GE section due to electrification and arrival of DMUs, most went to Scotland I believe.

 

They just ran them on the mainline for a couple of miles to recharge the batteries. The restriction wasn't just on the lighting but the length as they were 51 footers. 

 

 

 

Jason

[Hal Nail]

26 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Almost new Thompsons as I posted above.

Sorry, completely missed that!