Guest nzflyer Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Hi all Railcars and various railcar units in all gauges are usually short and great for compact layouts, but was it possible for them to pull trains on British Railways routes in the 1950/1960s? I was thinking of leading a van or two open wagons behind a single unit railcar and wonder if it would be authentic... Once again, I am plagued by the lack of reference material as I am an overseas modeller but I do remember a Thomas the Tank Engine story about the railcar refusing to pull a milk van, and would such a sight be permitted on a rural branch line? Any help welcome at this time! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 I don't think any of the 4-wheel railcars had buffers or conventional drawgear, so they couldn't have done so. However, the conventional single-unit railcars and their multi-vehicle siblings were so equipped, and regularily hauled 'tail traffic'. Examples include the milk tanks from the creamery at Saltash, which were often hauled by the single-unit railcar that worked the Plymouth- Saltash locals. The DMUs that worked from Pembroke Dock or Milford Haven to Swansea would often have a 4-wheel CCT in tow when they passed my old school, just west of Llanelli. There was one very odd working, which was formed Class 37 (or 68er, as we knew them), Swindon 3-car Cross-Country set, CCT; it happened often enough for me to suspect it was diagrammed to work like this, rather than being the result of a failure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 I believe there was a regular DMU+parcels van(s) working from Darlington to Bishop Auckland at one time (60s?70s?) which also involved the DMU running round the vans on arrival at the terminus and shunting them into another platform. I can't now remember where i read about this, probably RM some time in the 1980s, but I'm sure there are others here more qualified to flesh out the details. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
br2975 Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 In mid 60s South Wales Valleys there were only two routes worked by railcars (single car DMU), (i) Penarth - Cadoxton and (ii) Bridgend - Treherbert which was cut back to become Bridgend - Cymmer Afan with the closure of the Rhondda Tunnel. . The Sectional Appendix made reference to tail traffic on the Bridgend-Treherbert route, in particular pigeon traffic in a Siphon 'G'. . However, such were the gradients, one van could only be hauled in a four car train, with at least three power cars - in reality, a single car strengthened with a three car unit - which generally only operated on school trains and on part of a Saturday diagram. . Brian R Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenw Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 If you mean the 4-wheel railcars, as in the Dapol / Heljan models, then no these wouldn't be suitable for this. The DMU type (bogie) sets, including single car car units, were allowed to haul 'tail traffic', however the load would be limited to generally a single vehicle or two and depend on the number of power cars to trailer cars in train and gradients on the route. Details of routes where tail traffic was authorised, and load / train formation restrictions were given in the relevant Sectional Appendix Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold russ p Posted February 3, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 3, 2015 The German built W&M railbuses had buffers and couplings but they were air braked so couldn't haul the vacuum braked stock which was around at the time Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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