Waverley Route Freight Flows

['CHARD]

Another old print of mine unearthed: I think June 1968.

 

Pair of Claytons near Hawick with 8Z10 heading north one morning.

 

Coyle.jpg

 

Bruce

 

This was the Hawick - Millerhill 'local' or domestic goods, presumably.  Unless the headcode is set wrong, of course.  Unusual in that it's double-headed, and is that a Conflat 'C' after the brake?  The brake's presence is itself curious too, as the top-and-tailing was associated with through freights from Kingmoor.  

 

Regarding location, am I correct in thinking this is away past Burnfoot, towards Coille House (or is that too obvious from the file name 'Coyle.jpg' ?).

[leopardml2341]

This was the Hawick - Millerhill 'local' or domestic goods, presumably.  Unless the headcode is set wrong, of course.  Unusual in that it's double-headed, and is that a Conflat 'C' after the brake?  The brake's presence is itself curious too, as the top-and-tailing was associated with through freights from Kingmoor.  

 

Regarding location, am I correct in thinking this is away past Burnfoot, towards Coille House (or is that too obvious from the file name 'Coyle.jpg' ?).

Do I spy a Coil Wagon in there as well?

['CHARD]

Do I spy a Coil Wagon in there as well?

 

I wondered that too, behind the Conflat?  And then is that a low roofed van like a gunpowder wagon?

[Mad McCann]

Perhaps a re-routed freight from the Caley, given the ASLEF dispute of the period or perhaps an engineering diversion?

 

D.

[62440]

Definitely came from Carlisle as I heard it screeching down past Lochpark and I went out with the camera.  If it's of interest, it was Common Riding Saturday 1968 - so you can work out the date!!!!

[Fat Controller]

I wondered that too, behind the Conflat?  And then is that a low roofed van like a gunpowder wagon?

The Conflat is a Conflat L, I believe; the type used to carry three 4t  containers of lime or similar. Not sure about the wagon behind that- it could be a Medfit. I don't think the van's a Gunpowder van, as it appears to have a ventilator on the end.

['CHARD]

Definitely came from Carlisle as I heard it screeching down past Lochpark and I went out with the camera.  If it's of interest, it was Common Riding Saturday 1968 - so you can work out the date!!!!

 

Saturday 8th June 1968.  A fortnight before the ASLEF work-to-rule.

[Mad McCann]

Maybe an operational diversion due to problems round Gretna Junction then?

[Bill Jamieson]

To my mind it's just an additional working to clear extra traffic. Despite wagonload freight being in decline, such workings were by no means unusual into the 1970s - eg here's a special Carlisle to Millerhill working approaching Strawfrank Junction (as it was then called, not Carstairs South) after closure of the WR.

https://www.railscot.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=40340

 

Bill

[Bill Jamieson]

Just to reinforce what I said previously, on the last Saturday of the WR there was an additional down working  4Z15, hauled by EE Type 4 No D367, which paused briefly at Hawick between 08:55 and 09:01. In this case, the explanation might be that a backlog of traffic for Scotland had built up in Carlisle Yard over the New Year, which was not a public holiday in England at that time.

 

Bill

[62440]

View from the cab of a brake van trip from Millerhill to Hawick at Fountainhall.

 

March 24th 1969.

 

Bruce

 

[Richard Hall]

Here's a very interesting little video clip.  First ten seconds, really terrible quality, claims to have been shot at Heriot but I 'm certain it's the junction at Longtown for the Gretna line.  Looks like a pair of Class 25s on a train of covered grain hoppers: I don't think I have seen any photos of such a working on the WR.

 

 

Richard

['CHARD]

Here's a very interesting little video clip.  First ten seconds, really terrible quality, claims to have been shot at Heriot but I 'm certain it's the junction at Longtown for the Gretna line.  Looks like a pair of Class 25s on a train of covered grain hoppers: I don't think I have seen any photos of such a working on the WR.

 

 

Richard

 

We've had this before some years ago and at the time the jury was out on whether it was the Waverley route I think - but now I'm actually convinced it's Longtown too; it's certainly nowhere near Heriot.  Here's my evidence:

 

Certainly the pylon and large pitch-roofed building look like a credible match from this shot:

 

https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/47/58/

 

And beyond the footbridge, I think the semaphore signal protecting the crossing and junction can be made out here:

 

https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/26/26/

 

 

 

And you're right, Richard - I've never seen any other evidence of anything like this working over the line either.

[Bill Jamieson]

For a better view of the down home signal protecting the single line to Mossband Junction, see the upper photograph on page 14 of the Railway World Waverley Route Special authored by Neil Caplan (Ian Allan, 1985). WJV Anderson's shot of a down ordinary passenger train taken from the box clearly shows the signal with its calling-on arm not far below the main arm and I think leaves little doubt that the film clip was taken at Longtown. This map link shows the long building in the background but at 1:25,000 scale there is no indication what function it served - http://maps.nls.uk/view/91628904

 

Bill

 

PS Photographic evidence of covered grain hoppers on the Waverley Route is hard to find, but I've found one shot, taken by Derek Cross in July 1965, of a Black 5 hauled class 8 freight departing from Millerhill Yard. This is on page 35 of the same Railway World Special I mentioned previously, and there look to be about nine vehicles (of the unfitted CGO version) in two groups at the back of the train. I'm fairly certain I've photographed grain hoppers being tripped off of the Leith branch and I wonder if there might have been an occasional flow from Leith to Carr's at Carlisle. The biscuit company appears to have been based on the use of Canadian wheat imported through Silloth docks but the Silloth branch had closed completely in 1964. I suspect that the grain traffic had gone over to road haulage long before the branch closed anyway, but I would conjecture that on occasion wheat for Carr's was landed elsewhere than at Silloth. See here - http://maps.nls.uk/view/121141052 - for map of rail system within Carr's factory.

 

PPS I went to Carlisle on the bus yesterday (Tuesday 29th August) and there's still a building (used as a garage premises) in the same position at Longtown.

[Richard Hall]

Leith?  There's a well-known photo which I have seen in a couple of books, of a D30 headed south on the outskirts of Edinburgh in 1956 with a short WR freight which includes several old wooden-bodied grain wagons from Leith General Warehousing (LGW).  Longtown doesn't seem to have been a magnet for photographers, but there's another good view of the South junction and signal here.

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/longtown/index7.shtml

 

Richard

[Bill Jamieson]

The LGW wagons survived long enough to be hauled by diesel power (usually Claytons) on trip workings within Edinburgh - there are a number of my own shots on the Railscot site of a regular afternoon working between Leith and the North British distillery at Gorgie.

 

Bill

[Richard Hall]

The LGW wagons survived long enough to be hauled by diesel power (usually Claytons) on trip workings within Edinburgh - there are a number of my own shots on the Railscot site of a regular afternoon working between Leith and the North British distillery at Gorgie.

 

Bill

That's what I had read, these wagons seem to have been confined to short trips around Edinburgh which makes it a bit puzzling that some of them turned up in a Hawick-bound freight (unless the caption is wrong).  "Last Years of the Waverley Route" (Cross) p.17 or "Waverley" (Siviter) pl.179, take your pick. Given the location and looking at a map of the area it might actually be a Leith-Gorgie trip working taking a circular route to avoid Waverley station, and not headed for Hawick at all.

 

Richard

[Bill Jamieson]

That's what I had read, these wagons seem to have been confined to short trips around Edinburgh which makes it a bit puzzling that some of them turned up in a Hawick-bound freight (unless the caption is wrong).  "Last Years of the Waverley Route" (Cross) p.17 or "Waverley" (Siviter) pl.179, take your pick. Given the location and looking at a map of the area it might actually be a Leith-Gorgie trip working taking a circular route to avoid Waverley station, and not headed for Hawick at all.

 

Richard

 

Richard,

 

I would agree with you that the D30 hauled freight is an Edinburgh area  trip working. The Siviter book doesn't actually state the freight is bound for Hawick, but it wouldn't surprise me if the the David Cross book does - I never bought it because of the number of errors in it.

 

Bill

[Bill Jamieson]

Here's a very interesting little video clip.  First ten seconds, really terrible quality, claims to have been shot at Heriot but I 'm certain it's the junction at Longtown for the Gretna line.  Looks like a pair of Class 25s on a train of covered grain hoppers: I don't think I have seen any photos of such a working on the WR.

 

 

Richard

 

I was in Langholm last Wednesday and had a closer look at the area to the south of the A7 near the station site . Although it's now very difficult to say exactly where the railway ran, I'm inclined to say that the garage building I mentioned earlier is actually built where the railway embankment used to be, so that cannot be what is visible behind the pair of class 25s in the film clip. However there's another building beyond that belonging to the auction mart, and I would think that is old enough to be the one; its position in relation to the closest electricity pylon seems to fit.

 

Bill

['CHARD]

Never seen this combination of head end power on the carflats before....

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/38193992014/in/album-72157689871212964/

['CHARD]

Look what she's been up to!!

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p766079789/h9F2841E#hb1f248d8

['CHARD]

Cartrain on Shap

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p766079789/h9F2841E#h4e48b258

['CHARD]

Bathgate back-working at Lady Vic

 

https://railphotoprints.uk/p692212777/h21E9DEFA#h58b201bb

['CHARD]

We may have had this already - at Ninestane Rigg:

 

https://railphotoprints.uk/p692212777/h21E9DEFA#h2b1890c5

[37175]

We may have had this already - at Ninestane Rigg:

 

https://railphotoprints.uk/p692212777/h21E9DEFA#h2b1890c5

 

 

We did at some point .. and JC still hasn't updated the description of it.