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Devon Diesel Era Photo Record


Garry Morris
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It's the view  from the over bridge on the Newton Abbot to Kingsteignton road looking towards the Heathfield direction.

The 1977 TOPS Location handbook shows it as

83619 - Teignbridge Siding - customer Watts Blake Bearne

 

cheers

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Teignbridge Siding - customer Watts Blake Bearne

 

Interestingly there was a slight frisson of excitement a few years ago, when there was a vague hint (no more) that the connection may have needed to be retained. Sadly this did not come to anything.

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Paignton - down market?  Surely not!  Although it caters more to the bucket and spade and kiss me quick brigade with its arcades and snack bars, a lot of Paigntonions (?)  might disagree.  Its once snobby neighbour, Torquay, now has its share of 'down market' visitors nowadays.

 

Brian.

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While in the area. how did the coal from Kingswear get to the gasworks between regular passenger services?  It must have been a slow trip through Greenaway tunnel and up the hill to Churston.

 

Brian.

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Possibly the six carriages are to be tacked on another up country train after the window washer is through.

 

Brian.

It looks as though the six coaches are part of the same rake as the ones on the adjacent siding with the Warship at the head, the sidings not being long enough to take all the vehicles on one track.

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It looks as though the six coaches are part of the same rake as the ones on the adjacent siding with the Warship at the head, the sidings not being long enough to take all the vehicles on one track.

 

I would agree with this as it looks like there is only a single brake coach in those six, which would have been unusual at the time. 

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It looks as though the six coaches are part of the same rake as the ones on the adjacent siding with the Warship at the head, the sidings not being long enough to take all the vehicles on one track.

 

Wasn't 2C90 the headcode for Kingswear - Newton Abbot locals, which would be more consistent with a short rake?

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Motorail

Devon was quite a hotspot for Motorail trains in the 60's and 70's. They sometimes originated from locations that no other trains came from like Sutton Coldfield, Kensington Olympia, Stirling and Inverness. Loadings could be up to 20 bogies by far the heaviest passenger trains to regularly enter Devon. Newton Abbot was the main destination in Devon but there was also a small somewhat makeshift terminal at Totnes which required loading from the actual platform. Not sure of the origin of this picture or why everyone drove a white mini! Glorious Devon with our own special 'Liquid Sunshine'!

 

post-12275-0-79714700-1433088129_thumb.jpg

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Motorail

Devon was quite a hotspot for Motorail trains in the 60's and 70's. They sometimes originated from locations that no other trains came from like Sutton Coldfield, Kensington Olympia, Stirling and Inverness. Loadings could be up to 20 bogies by far the heaviest passenger trains to regularly enter Devon. Newton Abbot was the main destination in Devon but there was also a small somewhat makeshift terminal at Totnes which required loading from the actual platform. Not sure of the origin of this picture or why everyone drove a white mini! Glorious Devon with our own special 'Liquid Sunshine'!

Marvellous!

 

I wonder if we are seeing three minis in a row as they have been deliberately loaded together, would you get five of them on a motorail wagon?

That might be important if the train was fully booked, it would help to make use of all available space.

 

cheers

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Marvellous!

 

I wonder if we are seeing three minis in a row as they have been deliberately loaded together, would you get five of them on a motorail wagon?

That might be important if the train was fully booked, it would help to make use of all available space.

 

cheers

Given the Mini was about 10' long, a careful loader might get six, if the wagon was one of the 64'6" ones..In the days when I worked on the trains at Eurotunnel, I wondered why I had trouble closing the rear fire-barriers on a wagon; when I counted, I'd already got six Mini-sized cars on board, and was trying to load a seventh. The wagons were meant to carry five..

That's the first time I've seen loading via the sides on that type of wagon; what would the ramp have been like, and how would it have been manoeuvred? It looks as though it would be quite substantial.

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Side loading when on at a number of WR Motorail stations and was quite an interesting process.  At Reading a converted Plate wagon was used to attach the ramp - very interesting when loading a Triumph 2000!

 

I think the ramps were 'man portable' - but it took several men to move them.

Edited by The Stationmaster
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To continue the theme (sorry no diesel again!), more WR Motorail taken from the back window of the train? Source unknown; maybe the owner  of the 'Singer' took it! Humber Singer? The Dawlish outer home signal in the background means it must be the last of the shorter tunnels in the Down direction. Fully booked!

post-12275-0-06892700-1433166645_thumb.jpg

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To continue the theme (sorry no diesel again!), more WR Motorail taken from the back window of the train? Source unknown; maybe the owner  of the 'Singer' took it! Humber Singer? The Dawlish outer home signal in the background means it must be the last of the shorter tunnels in the Down direction. Fully booked!

Looking at some of those cars, you can see the attraction of taking the train down; you'd spend the first two days of your holiday sitting on rubber rings...

That first car is a Singer Gazelle, I believe; unlike the African beast it was named for, however, it was neither light nor fast. We had one in the mid 1980s, with the special 'rust-lightened' bodywork, which probably gave us an extra 5mph; the whole car was a crumple zone.

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Freight In The Diesel Era 

There is a diesel in this picture but it is attached to a  lorry! Sorry to the loco followers out there but I found this shot of a minor clay siding of WBB and went back to check the scene last year and began to doubt  that I was in the same location! I As I remember the lorry proceeded to load the hopper shortly after I took the shot by tipping it's load from above the wagon. Somewhat quaint in today's world of bulk! There looks to be a clay slurry tanker (Crossfield?) behind the hopper. Taken 22.3.84. Definitely a victory for nature!

The hopper looks like one of the unique batch of wagons built by Standard in 1971 introduced for BP salt traffic which then went into various traffics as PG002D. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/bpchemicalpga

 

Paul

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I believe that the clay from Newton Abbot is known as Ball Clay as opposed to China Clay. Perhaps this necessitated a different kind of wagon. I would be surprised if it was being used for salt. I must admit I thought that it was a standard clay wagon but on closer inspection it definitely looks different. Thanks for posting the link.

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The Ball Clay Heritage Society has some interesting info on their website. Ball clays are finer grains than china clay and better for pottery / ceramic products as they are 'plastic' - easily shaped. The usual method of processing & shipping is in shredded form which is about 15-20% moisture, with about 10% of production as dried powder and 15% refined (mixed) slurry. I presume the slurry version would go in tanks (the traffic  from Quidhampton in Dorset went in 'silver buillets' until relatively recently I believe) so the Crossfield tank in the photo would have been for slurry; presumably the hopper would be for 'shredded' lumps. The dried powder product was usually bagged & palletised. I've seen photos of air & vaccum braked vans at Heathfield which might have been for that traffic - having looked, one of the photos also shows the same sort of hopper as Paul's link above.

Interestingly there's a photo on 'Cyberheritage' North Devon site of HAA and HBA hoppers at Barnstaple in 1977 for trial on clay traffic (from Meeth) - that obviously didn't go ahead & the Meeth line eventually closed in 1982, but it's interesting that some more modern hoppers did get into clay use in south Devon.

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The Ball Clay Heritage Society has some interesting info on their website. Ball clays are finer grains than china clay and better for pottery / ceramic products as they are 'plastic' - easily shaped. The usual method of processing & shipping is in shredded form which is about 15-20% moisture, with about 10% of production as dried powder and 15% refined (mixed) slurry. I presume the slurry version would go in tanks (the traffic  from Quidhampton in Dorset went in 'silver buillets' until relatively recently I believe) so the Crossfield tank in the photo would have been for slurry; presumably the hopper would be for 'shredded' lumps. The dried powder product was usually bagged & palletised. I've seen photos of air & vaccum braked vans at Heathfield which might have been for that traffic - having looked, one of the photos also shows the same sort of hopper as Paul's link above.

Interestingly there's a photo on 'Cyberheritage' North Devon site of HAA and HBA hoppers at Barnstaple in 1977 for trial on clay traffic (from Meeth) - that obviously didn't go ahead & the Meeth line eventually closed in 1982, but it's interesting that some more modern hoppers did get into clay use in south Devon.

Quidhampton produced calcium carbonate (chalk) slurry, rather than ball clay; like china-clay slurry, it was used as a 'filler' in paper and board manufacture.

Outside of the Devon exposures, the other main source of ball clays was in Dorset, at Furzebrook on the Swanage branch. This sent clay to the Potteries in 'Tiger Rail' hoppers until the 1990s. Ball clay is used for the 'body' of earthenware and other ceramics; kaolin is used for the finer ware, and for glazes. 

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The hopper looks like one of the unique batch of wagons built by Standard in 1971 introduced for BP salt traffic which then went into various traffics as PG002D. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/bpchemicalpga

 

Paul

Good spot Paul, among your photos PR8212 and PR8245 are taken at Mossend and your caption states they were working Newton Abbot - Mossend.

 

Paul Shannons book 'Rail freight since 1968 - Wagonload' has lists of Speedlink traffic in 1990-91 which includes Newton Abbot - Mossend, and Warrington (possibly Crosfields?)

 

edit - and in 'The Freight only Yearbook' No.1 by Rhodes and Shannon there is a photo taken at Teignbridge in 1989,

37670 hauls a PBA for Mossend, two empty PGAs to detach at Teignbridge and a ferry van for Dover,

 

cheers

Edited by Rivercider
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Combining the theme of Motorail and freight! 45020 (D26) 3rd April 1984 near Stoneycombe with a trip working. One  Motorail flat along with three Bitumen tanks? I would imagine heading for Exmouth Junction repair shops eventually as it seems an eclectic mix which I would like to run on my model railway if only someone would make the Motorail flats! The 45 has come a long way from heading up 'The Thames Clyde Express' which was in it's heyday.Thanks for all the comeback on the Heathfield wagon, fascinating what stories lie within old pictures, Just found the thread on the Barnstaple line under the 'Prototype' section of RMweb. It brought back a lot of memories as I used to Secondman on the Barnstaple line in the seventies. I remember well the early morning papers turn up to Barnstaple and working out to Meeth. Never shunted Lapford though.  

post-12275-0-93062200-1433254921_thumb.jpg

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Combining the theme of Motorail and freight! 45020 (D26) 3rd April 1984 near Stoneycombe with a trip working. One  Motorail flat along with three Bitumen tanks?

 

When I started reading your post, I was half expecting you to suggest refueling the cars on route...

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