Satan's Goldfish Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 After peoples thoughts, opinions, and preferences to this one and i'll be back in a couple of days to see the results: I have a 'Dutch' 37, I now have a Hornby Shark (what more could you want for valentines day from SWMBO?) and now i need to work out a short but not too unrealistic filling to my 37/Shark sandwich. My initial thinkings were either 4-6 Seacows, or 8 Dogfish. Or would a mixture of both also be a realistic option? I remember as a young'un seeing a rake of Seacows on the Norwich-Gt Yarmouth line with the shark in the middle. So did Seacows on one side of the Shark and Dogfish on the other ever happen? So many ballast train options, but what are your thoughts and favorites? SG Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stuartp Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 You can decide for yourself whether the bogie wagons are Seacows, Sealions or Walruses (they all look the same to me) but this lot was trundling through Penistone in 1988. Sorry for the poor quality. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 I remember as a young'un seeing a rake of Seacows on the Norwich-Gt Yarmouth line with the shark in the middle. So did Seacows on one side of the Shark and Dogfish on the other ever happen? SG To be strictly accurate, as dogfish are vacuum braked, they would have to have been formed with a shark and sealions, which were dual braked. Seacows, when built, were airbrake/vac pipe, so could not have been formed like that without a brake van. Some sharks were vac piped only (ZUP), so that is why they were formed in the middle of a fully fitted train, without a brake van. On trains for unloading on site, dogfish and sealions were generally kept apart, at least on the WR as I recall, though sometimes during busy periods a mixed rake might be seen. On transit moves to and from quarries for loading, or on a transfer move ready for weekend work you could more often have seen a mixed formation. cheers 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jim s-w Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Until the end of their careers dogfish were vac braked. Only being air braked at the end. Seacpws were air braked so in the Dutch 37 era a train would have to be partially fitted so a train of both would be very unlikely (although not unheard of). Sea ions and dogfish would be much more likely Hth Jim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trog Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Although almost anything is possible at the right place and time. I once saw a loco hauling the Royal Train, while propelling three Dogfish. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jim s-w Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 A hell of a lot of people would have been dismissed after though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisf Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 I'd like to ask a supplementary question if I may, harking back to the prehistoriic times of the late 50s/early 60s. I comprehjend that hopper wagons, be they Seacows, Dogfish, Herring, Trout or other aquatic species, were used to bring the ballast from the quarry where the granite had been part of the landscape for aeons before being rudely awakened and fragmented by dynamite. Ballast was also to be found in drop-sided, non-hopper wagons such as Grampus and Tunny. Was it brought from the quarry in these wagons as well as in hoppers or was their purpose merely to take away spent ballast in preference to tipping it down the side of embankments? This is a serious enquiry because having decided to imagine a small off-stage ballast quarry for the layout I need to know more about how ballast was handled between quarry and possession! Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 Thanks for the replies guys, me being ignorant of such things didn't even think of incompatable braking although Sealion/Seacow appear to visually identical. Brilliant info for me to work with there. Cheers for the picture stuartp, always nice to see visual proof and there's definately a Dogfish in 'dutch' there! (and a Peak........hmmmm.....) So expanding the question slightly as pretty much anything seems to go with engineering rakes (brakes pending), which flat side wagon might potentially be seen/compatible with a Sealion - Dogfish - Shark combo? I'd completely forgotten about flat sided wagons, I'm aware they wouldn't discharge and need the shark in the same manner as the hoppers. I'm now thinking: 37 - Dogfish - Dogfish - Dogfish - Dogfish - Sealion - Sealion - Shark With maybe a single flat side thrown in if it would be prototypical. Found the following link with plenty of related pictures on and a healthy dose of 33s if they're you're thing http://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/CROMPTON.htm chrisf, good luck, i'm struggling just trying to wrap my head around 1 engineers train! SG 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rods_of_Revolution Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 How much brakeforce would several loaded Seacows generate? Would it be possible to have, for example; 37 + 6 Secows + Shark + 4 Dogfish (unfitted)? Would the 37, Seacows and Shark generate enough brakeforce to enable the Dogfish to run as "unfitted" at the rear? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
black and decker boy Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 In Dutch livery times, unfitted freights did not run. What do you mean by flat sided wagons? The Dapol grampus would have been compatible as they were vac braked. The clam was also vac braked and ran with the grampus on spoil and ballast workings Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rods_of_Revolution Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 In Dutch livery times, unfitted freights did not run. So if you had a couple of vac braked spoil wagons on a work site and an air braked ballast train, of perhaps 15 Seacows, was departing they'd have run two seperate trains rather than have the couple of spoil wagons effectively running as unfitted on the back of the air braked train? I've seen photographs of Speedlink trains, with one or two vac braked wagons running as unfitted at the rear, I was wondering what the requirements were with regards to brake forced required per unfitted wagon and what the other procedures are when operating a train as such? Kindest Regards, Jack Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 How much brakeforce would several loaded Seacows generate? Would it be possible to have, for example; 37 + 6 Secows + Shark + 4 Dogfish (unfitted)? Would the 37, Seacows and Shark generate enough brakeforce to enable the Dogfish to run as "unfitted" at the rear? In the example you offer the brake force created by the 37 and seacows would be plenty to stop the train under normal circumstances, but in the event of a broken coupling in the dogfish portion there would be nothing to stop the dogfish running away as they would be unbraked. For the train to be correctly formed the last 3 vehicles must have working brakes controllable from the loco, the above formation would be illegal. cheers Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stuartp Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 In Dutch livery times, unfitted freights did not run. There were no revenue unfitted trains on the ER by then but the engineers still ran them. That one was at least partially fitted - here's the sidelamp on the brake van: Here's another one from the same job, side lamps on the BR 20 tonner: They were singling / relaying the Huddersfield - Clayton West Junction line. As for Dogfish/Grampus/Shark in the same train, I'm fairly sure there's another discussion about 1980s engineers' trains either here on on RMweb2. IIRC a typical consist for a weekday 'wet beds' job was given as half a dozen Dogfish (loaded), half a dozen Grampus (empty, for spoil) and a Shark. I can't find the thread though.The job would have been done between trains too, traffic permitting, so you could have it dodging about in between trains doing a couple of hours work at a time and hiding in a siding in between times. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 (edited) So expanding the question slightly as pretty much anything seems to go with engineering rakes (brakes pending), which flat side wagon might potentially be seen/compatible with a Sealion - Dogfish - Shark combo? I'd completely forgotten about flat sided wagons, I'm aware they wouldn't discharge and need the shark in the same manner as the hoppers. I'm now thinking: 37 - Dogfish - Dogfish - Dogfish - Dogfish - Sealion - Sealion - Shark With maybe a single flat side thrown in if it would be prototypical. SG Yes I think that would be a realistic formation, and as Black and Decker Boy suggests, a grampus would go well, also the forthcoming turbot from Dapol would go with it. In the 5th picture of your link of photos at Taunton, there is a mermaid in the formation, so you could include one of them as some were vac fitted. I can't find any pics of mine with sharks, dogfish and sealions in the same train, the best I can offer is a shot from 1982, which is a bit early for you. At Scunthorpe 31181 was hauling 4 sealions, a shark, and sundry open wagons, some of which may be (ex-traffic?) highfits or medfits. You could try running a shortened version of this, may be having just 3 vehicles behind the shark, there is plenty of choice! 31181 at Scunthorpe West Jn, 25/6/82. cheers Edited February 16, 2012 by Rivercider 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted February 17, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) If unfitted vehicles are in a train - front or back, the last vehicle would be a brake van of some sort. If possible, unfitted (or vac fitted in a predominantly airbrake consist, or vice versa), they would be towards the rear of the train , so that the fiited "head" of the train could provide most of the braking effort. Incidentally - what's the TOPS code of your Shark? ZUO? ZUV? Cheers, Mick Edited February 17, 2012 by newbryford Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Lots of replies and lots of ideas, cheers guys. I'll try and get to you all black and decker boy: Yes things like the Grampus, i've also noticed a higher sided wagon very similar to an old mineral wagons with the yellow engineers stripe in my local secondhand box but not sure if that is based on anything in the real world or a fish name for it. Rods_of_revolution, Rivercider, stuartp: all good stuff, I have an old brown Hornby brakevan like one pictured so 'mixing it up' could be an option if i throw that in too. newbryford: The Shark has a ZUA code as far as i can see, so neither! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted February 17, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 17, 2012 I'd like to ask a supplementary question if I may, harking back to the prehistoriic times of the late 50s/early 60s. I comprehjend that hopper wagons, be they Seacows, Dogfish, Herring, Trout or other aquatic species, were used to bring the ballast from the quarry where the granite had been part of the landscape for aeons before being rudely awakened and fragmented by dynamite. Ballast was also to be found in drop-sided, non-hopper wagons such as Grampus and Tunny. Was it brought from the quarry in these wagons as well as in hoppers or was their purpose merely to take away spent ballast in preference to tipping it down the side of embankments? This is a serious enquiry because having decided to imagine a small off-stage ballast quarry for the layout I need to know more about how ballast was handled between quarry and possession! Chris Chris - sorry I missed this when you first posted it, but I'll have a belated go at it now. Flat bottomed wagons - Grampus being the ones I was most familiar with - had several uses. Firstly they were used to bring some material from quarries and although they were sometimes loaded with ballast I'm more familiar with them being loaded with chippings or what was known as 'stone dust' (official description '3/8ths to dust') which was used as a surfacing material on paths etc and increasingly so after ash & clinker ceased to be available in large quantities from loco depots. I think you might have found flat-bottomed wagon being used on site to unload ballast when hoppers were in short supply and they were used in the late '60s (and probably later) when a lot of ballast was required to one side of a line. But generally for relaying work hoppers were used for ballast (and the Western didn't have any bogie hoppers back in the era you mention). The second - and far more common - use for flats such as Grampus was for loading spoil. For instance the Paddington remodelling in 1967 used 4 or 5 'block trains' of Grampus to load spoil away from site and a lot of it went into a large hole on the West Ealing - Greenford branch which was the result of a slip (and reportedly a couple of Grampus went into the hole as well). Several trainloads - well actually more than 'several' - also went into a hole left by a slip just west of Twyford station and I remember one Saturday night during a possession seeing 80 Grampus loads of spoil going into that hole and when teh sun came up you could barely see the difference they had made. Waste material from quarries would also have gone into slip sites and again Grampus were the best wagons or it as the material could be pushed off from the other side using a Traxcavator. So two uses - by the 1970s it was usual to load Grampus at site and despatch them from bigger jobs as trains on their own, on smaller jobs they were often marshalled in the same trains as ballast hoppers. Loaded spoil went to special tips (unless it was needed for repairing slips) and was usually worked in what amounted to block trains by the 1970s (sorry that's a bit late for you) either as the trains came off site or by putting the wagons together from several jobs. Empties then either went back for the next relaying etc job or went to quarries for loading. BTW you could occasionally see Grampus loaded out of quarries with 'boulders' to drop into slip sites. Hope that helps a bit 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 newbryford: The Shark has a ZUA code as far as i can see, so neither! So your plough is airbraked only, this means it would be seen with Sealions and Seacows, and could be marshalled rear of the train. On the WR a standard midweek ballast drop formation would be 10 Sealion/cows and a PV. Other airbraked stock to go with it would include Bass (ex OBA traffic wagons), Coalfish (converted ex HAAs), or an airbraked salmon or two. If you run it with vacuum stock (dogfish, grampus, mermaids) you would then also need your brake van. Partly fitted trains were increasingly rare in the 1980s, but as StuartP shows, in certain areas the engineers dept ran a few. cheers 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) ....... Ballast was also to be found in drop-sided, non-hopper wagons such as Grampus and Tunny. Was it brought from the quarry in these wagons as well as in hoppers or was their purpose merely to take away spent ballast in preference to tipping it down the side of embankments? This is a serious enquiry because having decided to imagine a small off-stage ballast quarry for the layout I need to know more about how ballast was handled between quarry and possession! Chris Grampus (and similar) wagons were used to convey 'blanketing' sand to site. My father, as WR civil engineers wagon inspector, had to occasionally visit Kidderminster and Worcester where grampus were loaded with 'Stourport A' sand, which was then tripped to wherever on the WR it was required. cheers Edited February 17, 2012 by Rivercider 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted February 17, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 17, 2012 If it's a ZUA, then a suitable formation would be to have it in the middle of sealion/seacows. ISTR that there was some regulation that determined that it wasn't to be at the back - something to do with the plough digging in and the possibility of it derailing. Wagons either side of it would keep it "weighed down" for want of a better description. Cheers, Mick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Ok so if i've got this right, it needs to be worked with Sealions/Seacows but not at the very rear of the train. Any extra unfitted wagons like Dogfish or Grampus would need to be after the fitted Hoppers and Shark and would need an additional Brake Van at the very rear of the train....... so, working from what newbryford put, would the shark be able to run after all of the Sealions/Seacows if there was also an unfitted portion of wagons or would it still need to be in the middle of the Sealions/Seacows? (How do people work all this out for a living and not confuse themselves?!) Cheers again SG Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stuartp Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 In strict rules and regs terms, on a partially fitted train your basic minimum formation is: Loco - wagons with same braking system as loco - other wagons - brake van. The Shark was a brake van in its own right so could go right at the end, and in the early days dis exactly that. However, by the 1980s the tendency was to put the Shark where it was operationally convenient and use a normal brake van on the end if one was required. If you look at my first pic it's at the front because the train had actually tipped on the way from Huddersfield (left to right in that pic) and the pic was taken after they had run round at my box and were on the way back to Healey Mills. The pic is misleading - it looks as though it's arriving from Barnsley because having run round they then had to propel out onto the single line and come back through the correct side of the loop, otherwise the single line controls didn't work. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 ........ (How do people work all this out for a living and not confuse themselves?!) Cheers again SG Once the TOPS system was introduced it would spot many (but not all) irregular formations by issuing warnings or rejections when you tried to print a train list. cheers Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satan's Goldfish Posted February 18, 2012 Author Share Posted February 18, 2012 In strict rules and regs terms, on a partially fitted train your basic minimum formation is: Loco - wagons with same braking system as loco - other wagons - brake van. The Shark was a brake van in its own right so could go right at the end, and in the early days dis exactly that. However, by the 1980s the tendency was to put the Shark where it was operationally convenient and use a normal brake van on the end if one was required. If you look at my first pic it's at the front because the train had actually tipped on the way from Huddersfield (left to right in that pic) and the pic was taken after they had run round at my box and were on the way back to Healey Mills. The pic is misleading - it looks as though it's arriving from Barnsley because having run round they then had to propel out onto the single line and come back through the correct side of the loop, otherwise the single line controls didn't work. It is a good pic with all the gantries rusting away, thanks for sharing that one. Time to start smiling nicely at people for wagons for birthday me thinks. Once the TOPS system was introduced it would spot many (but not all) irregular formations by issuing warnings or rejections when you tried to print a train list. cheers Computers to the rescue! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
black and decker boy Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 If it was kept simple and was all of one type for the 1990s If vacuum braked, the common types of wagon could be (The Shark can easily be recoded to vac or dual braked, there were many of each type) Dogfish, Catfish (kit only), Sealion, Grampus, Clam and Tope (as done by Hornby) and there were also ex-mineral wagons used for spoil - some with holes cut in side (ex-16T) and some ex 21T(?), Turbot. Air braked common wagons were: Sealion, Seacow, some Grampus, Rudd (as Hornby), Sea Urchin (some ex SPA and OCA with welded up doors as done by Bachmann, some with new rigid bodies which are kit only), ZCA ex OBA. Later types such as the ZKA limpet can also be mixed in. Here are a few old pics I have found in my collection 1 ZKV 386282 Bescot tmd 04 SEPTEMBER 1999 - this is one of the ex-21T (?) mineral wagons used mainly for spoil traffic. 2 Didcot yard 10 AUGUST 1996 - a mix of ex-mineral wagons and dogfish in arake (note the tail light) 3 37068 Tyne Yard 20 MAY 1994 - mix of grampus (note new ballast) and empty turbots 4 37174 Warrington Arpley 17 APRIL 1997 - mix of TOPE and Dogfish wagons 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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