Wartime traffic, Petrol, Oil and Bombs

[Guest Mikado]

To mount an RAF Thousand bomber raid during the last European unpleasantness consumed an conservative estimate  total of - 2 million Gallons of Petrol, 150,000 Gallons of Lubricants and 10,000 Tons of Bombs.

 

That seems to equate to 900 10 ton tank wagons for petrol, 67 tank wagons for lubricants and let me guess at 2,000 Open Wagons for Bombs.

 

This is a staggering amount of freight how on earth was it handled by the railway and how then moved from the nearest railway station to the fuel and bomb dumps at the airfield and repeated on a near weekly basis?

 

Discuss please?

 

[Richard E]

Fuel was supplied by a pipeline network, not via rail. System is called GPSS and was 1500 miles of underground pipeline much of which is still used today. Bit more info here - http://www.secret-bases.co.uk/secret3.htm#GPSS

[Mark Saunders]

Do not forget that there was a major build programme of rail tanks for the Air Ministry during the war!

 

Mark Saunders

[grandadbob]

I think you've miscalculated the bomb tonnage - possibly by about 495000 tons?

[Guest Mikado]

Fuel was supplied by a pipeline network, not via rail. System is called GPSS and was 1500 miles of underground pipeline much of which is still used today. Bit more info here - http://www.secret-bases.co.uk/secret3.htm#GPSS

This is a dangerously interesting website, I expect a knock on the door any time just for looking

[TheSignalEngineer]

There is a book containing an article about this titled "It Can Now Be Revealed" published by the British Railways Press Office in 1945 Several copies available on a well known auction site. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IT-CAN-NOW-BE-REVEALED-British-Railways-in-Peace-and-War-1945-/141123546022?pt=Antiquarian_Books_UK&hash=item20db9e6ba6

pp 31-37 refer.

 

Not all bomber bases were served by the pipelines, and some pipeline terminals were used as railheads to serve other locations. In the 3 months following D-Day there were 1,132 petrol trains carrying 100 million gallons to East Anglian bases alone.

 

The peak quantity of bombs unloaded at stations was 5,000 tons in one day, which would represent about 625 wagon loads 

 

A typical American "Thousand Bomber Raid" of 500 Fortresses and 500 Liberators would consume about 650 tank wagons of fuel delivered in 28 trainloads. It needed 2,900 tons of bombs delivered in 8 trains totalling 362 wagons.

 

All figures from British Railways propaganda.

[LNERGE]

One thing i did find surprising was the train involved in the Soham accident originated from Immingham. Were our east coast ports that safe by May/June 1944 that large ships could deliver significant quantities of bombs?

[TheSignalEngineer]

One thing i did find surprising was the train involved in the Soham accident originated from Immingham. Were our east coast ports that safe by May/June 1944 that large ships could deliver significant quantities of bombs?

British coastal waters were not that badly hit by U-boats, they tended to concentrate in the mid-Atlantic and closer to the American side where there was less air cover for the convoys. See http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/losses_year.html. There was probably more danger of being bombed over here.

 

The Americans also like to ship stuff as close to the user point as possible, which is allegedly why they attacked at the western end of Normandy so they had the shortest resupply route from home.

 

According to the article I mentioned earlier, in the two years prior to August 1944 about 300,000 tons of bombs were transported from ports by the LMS for delivery to bases served by the LNER.

[Bon Accord]

Quite a few ports around the UK were used for munitions and there was the occasional incident. A Brocklebank ship in Liverpool was hit during an air raid and went up like the proverbial roman candle, it's still there, just buried (along with LOTS of ordnance) amongst the rubble and infill from bombsites in Liverpool.

[Clive Mortimore]

British coastal waters were not that badly hit by U-boats, they tended to concentrate in the mid-Atlantic and closer to the American side where there was less air cover for the convoys. See http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/losses_year.html. There was probably more danger of being bombed over here.

 

The Americans also like to ship stuff as close to the user point as possible, which is allegedly why they attacked at the western end of Normandy so they had the shortest resupply route from home.

 

According to the article I mentioned earlier, in the two years prior to August 1944 about 300,000 tons of bombs were transported from ports by the LMS for delivery to bases served by the LNER.

Hi Signal Engineer

 

The biggest risk to coastal shipping were the German mine laying bombers. These would come over in ones and twos and lay a few mines in shipping lanes.  

[TheSignalEngineer]

Yes, I would think that over here far more ships hit mines than were torpedoed. You didn't put an asset like a U-boat in a position where it could be spotted by the dozens of planes flying around near East Anglia. North of the Cherbourg Peninsula seemed to be a favourite location for enemy action.

[yorkie_pudd]

Harrogate in North Yorkshire pre-war had a Shell storage site till the early 80`s. At first used for supplying garages through out the north east. The Harrogate, Ripon, Starbeck rail triangle you see in the Google earth pic was expanded with underground storage tanks.  To give the scope using google earth.

 

yellow ring  =  Harrogate station

 

red ring  = old shell rail tank discharge point, now Belzona plastics company.

 

blue ring =  is whats left of the underground storage site.

 

 

In the next pic by google earth

 

red = land saved and returned to farm use.

 

yellow line =  Bogs lane roadway.

 

blue ring = contaminated land never to be used, if you walk down Bogs lane there is the old garage building and site entrance.  Not seen in G/earth but as you look across the site you can still see the ground humps covering the old underground tanks, and the odd old pipe sticking about. As there was a lot of RAF stations around the Harrogate, York and Thirsk area this was a major supply point during the war. As many other sites around the country etc.

 

 

 

[class"66"]

Very interesting read and pictures...

[yorkie_pudd]

Yes, I would think that over here far more ships hit mines than were torpedoed. You didn't put an asset like a U-boat in a position where it could be spotted by the dozens of planes flying around near East Anglia. North of the Cherbourg Peninsula seemed to be a favourite location for enemy action.

 

A bit off topic and during one of the worst times in Human History, the one thing you have to admire the Germans for is their craft in building structures. The U-boat station built into the cliffs below Cherbourg, the Channel coast defence line And in Jersey the underground Hospital. All recommended views to see around Europe travels, but at the same time the efforts done here in the UK for underground storage of food, fuel and weapons.

 

The amazing thing on all sides is a smaller population with less mechanical machinery built such impressive structures and supply lines in the six short years of the war.  If they had to do it today how much planning, men, machines with modern technology would they be able to do the job just as well ?

[Pacific231G]

A bit off topic and during one of the worst times in Human History, the one thing you have to admire the Germans for is their craft in building structures. The U-boat station built into the cliffs below Cherbourg, the Channel coast defence line And in Jersey the underground Hospital. All recommended views to see around Europe travels, but at the same time the efforts done here in the UK for underground storage of food, fuel and weapons.

I don't have to admire the Gemans for using slave and forced labour to build their ultimately futile concrete monstrosities. 

 

"Very little distinction seems to have been made by the Germans between Russian war prisoners and forced labour mobilised in the towns and in the villages from the civil population in occupied territory. They have all been treated with the same brutality, undernourished, a very large proportion worked to death and many beaten to death."

MI19 (RPS) report 2292 on 'Forced Labour Prison Atrocities' dated 25 July 1944.

 

In the end the much vaunted Atlantic Wall, that so many tens of thousands of people were murdered to construct, was breached in just a few hours on 6th June 1944. It was a folly in more than one sense. Not least because as soon as you base your strategy on fixed defences as the French did with the Maginot Line (though that wasn't what it was supposed to be) breaching them becomes essentially a problem in military engineering.

[yorkie_pudd]

I don't have to admire the Gemans for using slave and forced labour to build their ultimately futile concrete monstrosities. 

 

"Very little distinction seems to have been made by the Germans between Russian war prisoners and forced labour mobilised in the towns and in the villages from the civil population in occupied territory. They have all been treated with the same brutality, undernourished, a very large proportion worked to death and many beaten to death."

MI19 (RPS) report 2292 on 'Forced Labour Prison Atrocities' dated 25 July 1944.

 

In the end the much vaunted Atlantic Wall, that so many tens of thousands of people were murdered to construct, was breached in just a few hours on 6th June 1944. It was a folly in more than one sense. Not least because as soon as you base your strategy on fixed defences as the French did with the Maginot Line (though that wasn't what it was supposed to be) breaching them becomes essentially a problem in military engineering.

 

I agree with you on the sinister side that millions suffered and died by cruelty etc, I apologise for not making it clear on the research and invention side I was on about, how construction, engineering and technology burst all types of bubbles that were thought as impossible beforehand Etc. Aircraft were by-wing until R.J. Mitchel designed the single wing Supermarine Schneider trophy winning plane which became the spitfire fighter. Frank whittle and the jet engine which the uk war office was not impressed by and ignored, but the info was gained by the German`s and who had various protype jet fighters in 1944/45.  The electronics leap forward with the enigma machine, sonar, radar and Bletchley Park and the worlds first super computer to science and the Atomic bomb.

 

we all know how history has gone and were we stand today with mobile fones that can do what pc`s did 15 years ago. so leading back on to the OP`s original posting and also thinking what if the war had been diverted and not happened. Would all the inventions above happened in the same time frame, would the fuel depot in Harrogate I said about been expanded for war effort, or the places others have mentioned been used, expanded or even built etc. As the OP said a thousand bomber raid and the movements to keep them armed and fuelled, if the war had never happened would the Lancaster bomber or the American Fortress bombers and aircraft carriers ever been thought of or even built ? 

[Pacific231G]

I agree with you on the sinister side that millions suffered and died by cruelty etc, I apologise for not making it clear on the research and invention side I was on about, how construction, engineering and technology burst all types of bubbles that were thought as impossible beforehand Etc. Aircraft were by-wing until R.J. Mitchel designed the single wing Supermarine Schneider trophy winning plane which became the spitfire fighter. Frank whittle and the jet engine which the uk war office was not impressed by and ignored, but the info was gained by the German`s and who had various protype jet fighters in 1944/45.  The electronics leap forward with the enigma machine, sonar, radar and Bletchley Park and the worlds first super computer to science and the Atomic bomb.

 

I'm glad to note that most of the developments from the second world war that have had a positive benefit to mankind came from the allied side. Arguably that's partly because all our best brains, and quite a lot that would have been theirs if they hadn't driven them out, were put to work on defeating Hitler while a lot of their best brains were locked up or murdered.

 

I'm not sure how much of a leap in electronics was produced by things like breaking Enigma or radar. The bombes were electromechanical and Tommy Flowers had already been working for the Post Office on the electronic valve based logic circuits that enabled Colossus before the war. One reason why we developed radar so quickly may have been because the civilian development of electronic television by EMI meant that a lot more engineers were around in Britain who understood the underlying technologies of displays and signal handling.

 

It's difficult to know what the changing time frame of invention would have been without the world wars and cold war.

Hans von Ohain who developed the jet engine in Germany at around the same time as Whittle was apparently unaware of his work at least at first. Whittle's engine as used in the Gloster Meteor had a centrifugal compressor while Ohain's used an axial compressor like all modern gas turbine engjnes but the metallurgy was a bit marginal until some years later.

[PhilJ W]

Quite a few ports around the UK were used for munitions and there was the occasional incident. A Brocklebank ship in Liverpool was hit during an air raid and went up like the proverbial roman candle, it's still there, just buried (along with LOTS of ordnance) amongst the rubble and infill from bombsites in Liverpool.

If this goes up its goodby Southend and Sheerness >>

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

[Edwin_m]

Don't forget the Germans had radar too...

 

One reason why we developed radar so quickly may have been because the civilian development of electronic television by EMI meant that a lot more engineers were around in Britain who understood the underlying technologies of displays and signal handling.

[Clive Mortimore]

Don't forget the Germans had radar too...

And so did the Americans, the Japanese, the French and the Dutch all before the war. in fact the Royal Navy used the Dutch Hazemeyer radar system mounted on their Bofors guns. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_4cm-56_mk12_pics.htm just over halfway down is a photo of this system.

[The Stationmaster]

Don't forget the Germans had radar too...

 

And what is more they carried out what was believed to be the first electronic intelligence gathering mission by flying a zeppelin around the coast of Britain listening fro radar signals.  They heard nothing so assumed that Britain did not have an air defence radar.  Alas their error was not to look on the comparatively  long wavelengths which were used by the British Chain Home radar network - which in the meantime gained excellent practice and useful calibration information from using the zeppelin as a target.

[chris p bacon]

Between Sandy and Potton on the Bedford to Cambridge line is the Sandy Heath petrol dump, this was opened 06th Sept 1943. capacity was 40,000Tons but it was later enlarged. when it was built it was served by pipelines from Ellesmere port and Avonmouth.

There was standing for 175 tank cars with deliveries destined for Claydon, Hethersett, Massingham, Mountnessing, Saffron Walden and Thetford at the rate of 71 trains a week (8-11 trains a day, 7 days a week) between sept 43a nd Aug 44 dispatches totalled 54,791 tank cars.

The "Dump" is still there and used although everything is piped in and out. Sadly the Bedford-Cambridge has long gone.

 

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Sandy&hl=en&ll=52.12212,-0.245883&spn=0.008893,0.022724&sll=51.998,-0.423069&sspn=0.570717,1.454315&oq=sandy&t=h&hnear=Sandy,+Central+Bedfordshire,+United+Kingdom&z=16

[Bon Accord]

If this goes up its goodby Southend and Sheerness >>

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

 

The various authorities have a rather curious attitude to that ship. They don't want to remove the explosives at the moment because they're potentially unstable and the wreck itself is deteriorating to the point of being dangerous, yet at the same time they say that as the years go on the likelihood of the wreck collapsing with the subsequent dispersal of these dangerous 'items' (all sorts of nasties down there!) is looking ever more likely, and once this stuff starts being washed up on the beach/disturbed by fishermen etc then we'll have a real problem. Naturally the attitude of officialdom is to do nothing, for the moment.

Just to really cheer up the good folk of Sarf'end, the Isle of Grain LNG terminal sees regular imports of LNG by ships which have to pass within a couple of hundred metres of the wreck!

[phil gollin]

Fuel was supplied by a pipeline network, not via rail. System is called GPSS and was 1500 miles of underground pipeline much of which is still used today. Bit more info here - http://www.secret-bases.co.uk/secret3.htm#GPSS

.

 

It is still around and very powerful.

 

I worked on the construction of the CTRL and as we were authorised by Act of Parliament we had a huge range of rights and powers (but also a requirement to act "reasonably") which meant that councils and utilities , basically, had to do what we wanted as long as we paid them.

 

That was fine until we tried it on with the pipeline "wayleave" and then WE got the snotty letter saying "forget it, WE will tell YOU what YOU are going to do"  -  very interesting when that letter landed on our lawyer's desk  -  we couldn't do enough for them.

 

Strangely enough I also came across one of their "wayleaves" in the late 70s - and again it was obvious who was jumping to whose tune.

 

.

[62613]

The various authorities have a rather curious attitude to that ship. They don't want to remove the explosives at the moment because they're potentially unstable and the wreck itself is deteriorating to the point of being dangerous, yet at the same time they say that as the years go on the likelihood of the wreck collapsing with the subsequent dispersal of these dangerous 'items' (all sorts of nasties down there!) is looking ever more likely, and once this stuff starts being washed up on the beach/disturbed by fishermen etc then we'll have a real problem. Naturally the attitude of officialdom is to do nothing, for the moment.

Just to really cheer up the good folk of Sarf'end, the Isle of Grain LNG terminal sees regular imports of LNG by ships which have to pass within a couple of hundred metres of the wreck!

Bin there, done that! On several occasions.