Illiterate symbols on wagons.

[Quarryscapes]

The Festiniog Railway used colour coded bars on the sides of it's slate wagons to denote which quarry it should be sent to and the Nantlle tramway used symbols, those lasted into the 60s and the very end of the tramway (although by then there was only the one user so they were superfluous!)

[Fat Controller]

The Festiniog Railway used colour coded bars on the sides of it's slate wagons to denote which quarry it should be sent to and the Nantlle tramway used symbols, those lasted into the 60s and the very end of the tramway (although by then there was only the one user so they were superfluous!)

BR used colour-coded triangles (yellow) to distinguish the larger-capacity (24½t) minerals and hoppers

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brmineralmeo/h2a23c318#h2a23c318is one example. 

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brhopperhuo/h18f65e9d#h18f65e9dis another where it was deemed appropriate to repaint the triangles as late as 1977,despite TOPS being in use.

Coloured triangles were also used on various BR engineers' wagons, but no-one has yet found the Rosetta Stone that's required to interpret them.

One tends to think of illiteracy being something that disappeared many years ago; my old boss told me of an occasion in the 1980s when he had to fill a post in BR's Tonbridge area. He received several letters expressing interest in the post, and duly selected several candidates for interview. When one filed into his office, he had a particularly worried expression on his face. As Tony asked him to perform some simple written tests, he blurted out that he couldn't read and write, and it was his sister who had filled in the application.

[Poggy1165]

As pointed out above, I think these things should be thought of as logos rather than illiteracy symbols. There are plenty of logos around today, aren't there? The GC used a white five pointed star, which had its origin as part of the coat of arms of the borough of Ashton-under-Lyne. (And ultimately in the arms of Assheton family). The GC started off as the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway. I strongly suspect that it was a lot easier to paint the white star on a wagon than the complex coat of arms, which originally incorporated the arms of those three places.

 

The white star appeared on wagon solebars. But it also appeared on the house flag of GC ships, which demonstrates it was not primarily an illiteracy mark. Some refrigerator vans had a very large white star that practically covered the van side, and was clearly intended for publicity as much as anything. I have even seen the star used as part of a poster - a sort of subliminal advertising.

 

I have often thought it would be fun to produce a modern GC livery for a diesel - a great big white star with 'Great Central' written across it would look rather cool.

[Derekl]

The data page linked to above suggests male literacy rates in the UK of around 60% and steadily increasing from the advent of the railway age. Given that a proportion of the 40% and decreasing were not likely to be looking for railway employment, it was probably not beyond the ability of railway employers to find those with a modicum of literacy for the jobs requiring it.

 

That said, I suppose that those that were literate in reading and writing were probably on the look out for the cushier* type of clerical employment that did not involve trundling around a dark and wet goods yard with a shunter's pole.

 

Which may well have something to do with it: identifying a small symbol with the add of the poor lighting available in the early days of the railway may well have been a lot easier than identifying the letters.

 

* Not that much of any employment was "cushy" in the Victorian period.

[billbedford]

As pointed out above, I think these things should be thought of as logos rather than illiteracy symbols. There are plenty of logos around today, aren't there? The GC used a white five pointed star, which had its origin as part of the coat of arms of the borough of Ashton-under-Lyne. (And ultimately in the arms of Assheton family). 

 

 

At least one GC loco had a five-pointed star embellishing its valve chest cover. This was class 11B number 1023.

[rockershovel]

BR used colour-coded triangles (yellow) to distinguish wagons...

One tends to think of illiteracy being something that disappeared many years ago; my old boss told me of an occasion in the 1980s when he had to fill a post in BR's Tonbridge area. He received several letters expressing interest in the post, and duly selected several candidates for interview. When one filed into his office, he had a particularly worried expression on his face. As Tony asked him to perform some simple written tests, he blurted out that he couldn't read and write, and it was his sister who had filled in the application.

I don't do much work in UK these days, but when I do its agency work in the construction industry. Functional illiteracy is common among construction workers, although sometimes it may be a case of inability to speak or read English. It goes hand-in-hand with the "Zero Hours Contract" employment model and gang labour.

 

Inability to express coherently or understand written instructions is also a related, but separate problem and distressingly frequent among English speakers.

 

The oil industry uses a lot of international agency personnel and cvs and/or qualifications written by third parties are common among some categories of applicant. It's unwise to assume that an applicant can speak the languages his cv appears in. This doesn't always matter, an applicant only has to work with their workmates but it can mean their cv is false as well; the deck foremans eagle eye rarely misses THIS!

[Caley Jim]

I recall this subject being covered in an article in the HMRS Journal some years ago. The conclusion in that was that these marks were what we would today call 'Trade Marks' and traced their origin back to pre-railway times when merchants put such marks on sacks, barrels etc. to indicate ownership. Not all railway companies used them, so the notion of them being 'illiteracy symbols' is a modellers myth.

Jim

[Ozexpatriate]

Heraldry (including Corporate heraldry) is an interesting topic.

 

Clearly, in the beginning, when a company owned the line and no other company's vehicles could appear on it no marks of ownership were required.

 

I wonder if the LBSCR needed some kind of ownership marks on freight stock if they needed to identify them to get them back from wherever they might be sent in shipping goods to far away (from Brighton) places (like say Bournemouth ).

 

The evolution of the whole 'branding' thing is interesting. Certainly 19th US century passenger stock began to be 'branded' with the company name for publicity purposes, as were the coaches of the Pullman Company. It seems likely that marks of ownership, be they 'trade marks' or 'hall marks' or whatever would explain this.

 

In the US the traditional term for what we today would call a logo* is 'herald' though totem is also used.

 

EDIT

* Used for branding on railroad equipment

[Ian Smeeton]

OTT, I know, but

 

In the Brewing industry, each brewer has his own colours on  his casks so that they can be easily identified by the draymen, (whether literate or not, it is much quicker than trying to read an ownership plate on the cask)

 

In my last pub, which  had once belonged to Phipps NBC, I  have been told of delivery notes which apart from containing the details of Pub name and address, also had a photo of the pub attached, so that the draymen knew that they were at the right pub.

 

This may have been due to the level of literacy, but might also have been due to the practise of giving the draymen a pint at each of the pubs they delivered to. 18 pubs down the round, reading the type on the delivery note would be beyond most, I think.

 

Regards

 

 

Ian

[Ozexpatriate]

This may have been due to the level of literacy, but might also have been due to the practise of giving the draymen a pint at each of the pubs they delivered to. 18 pubs down the round, reading the type on the delivery note would be beyond most, I think.

By that point I presume the drayman's horse knew the route.

[PhilJ W]

That is really (!) one reason why when my mother was a child the still used horses  

 

 A lot of the push for "literacy" in the later 1800s came from the military, Particularly after the bloodbath /debacle that was the War between the States in the former Colonies - it would have been better if some of the combatants could have read the manuals, or at least read the words under the pictures.

Actually it was the Crimean war of a decade earlier that pushed the education improvements in the UK.

[Roger.s]

Clearly, in the beginning, when a company owned the line and no other company's vehicles could appear on it no marks of ownership were required.

In the beginning It was not unknown to have private trains running on a railway. The expectation was to use the railway in the same way that canals and turnpike roads were used. These and, of course, private owner wagons would have necessitated some way of determining ownership from the start.

 

Roger

[rockershovel]

Regarding sacks and barrels, the modern world has quite lost sight of the value of containers of all sorts.

 

Sacks, barrels and boxes were valuable. Quite apart from the issue of identifying a given shipment, the boxes etc woukd be chargeable if not returned, or written off by the supplier and thereby the property of the customer, who might very well dispose of them in some sort of trade. I had an uncle who was a coal delivery man, working for a merchant who operated out of a yard by the station. He was always careful to keep track of the sacks, and reject any in unserviceable condition as any not returned were chargeable to him.

 

Barrels were the property of the brewery. We sold soft drinks in our shop - Tizer, anyone? - and the bottles were the property of the company, and we handled the empty bottles (and the crates they came in) as part of our routine business. We paid the 2d or whatever it was on the "empty" and received a credit for the return of bottles and crates.

 

Working in Third World countries now, there is a well-known trade in sacks of all sorts, especially those from foreign aid programmes which are widely regarded as superior in some way. I worked on a barge in West Africa a few years ago and local vegetables often came aboard in paper sacks clearly marked as foreign aid originally donated to a completely different country.

[Nick Holliday]

One thing that intrigues me about these symbols, whatever they might be called, is their positioning on the side of wagons.  Many of them, in particular the elaborate LBSC ring and shield mark, were located high on the side of the wagon.  In service, most open wagons were usually sheeted over, to protect the merchandise within, and the tarpaulin would obscure the mark, making it useless for identification.  I wonder if this was partly the reason for them in the first place - the sheet partially obscuring the lettering, so that an intelligent guess may be required to differentiate, say, a covered LSWR wagon from an LNWR example - but I would have thought the best position would have been  on the lowest plank of a wagon, not the highest!

[Penlan]

......  Many of them, in particular the elaborate LBSC ring and shield mark, were located high on the side of the wagon.  In service, most open wagons were usually sheeted over, to protect the merchandise within, and the tarpaulin would obscure the mark, making it useless for identification. ......

 

TiC - Which is why they had number/letter identification plates on the solebars....

 

Of course all sheets and ropes had identification marks on them, the sheets with lettering and sign(s), the ropes had end ferrules marked with a number and owning company initials and different coloured threads through them, much like maritime ropes do today (threads, not ferrules).

[pete_mcfarlane]

Surely from a railway admin point of view, who owns a wagon tends not to matter so much when it's full? It's when it's empty and needs returning that you need to work out who owns it and where to send it back to. 

[The Stationmaster]

Surely from a railway admin point of view, who owns a wagon tends not to matter so much when it's full? It's when it's empty and needs returning that you need to work out who owns it and where to send it back to. 

Who owns it can (could) be important from a charging viewpoint and it's also essential from a records viewpoint.  A loaded wagon going off Railway A onto Railway B automatically became one which was 'owed' back to A and it ceased to be 'owed' when it arrived back.  Recording and reconciling details of all inter-company movements was part of the function of the Railway Clearing House and of course it could well involve money if a wagon 'went foreign' and took an undue time to return

[Penlan]

There were weekly notices sent out by the LNWR for 'missing' wagons etc., listing the individual wagons numbers.  

Some had been 'lost' for months.
 

[pete_mcfarlane]

There were weekly notices sent out by the LNWR for 'missing' wagons etc., listing the individual wagons numbers.  

Some had been 'lost' for months.

 

That's interesting. There are various 'famous' lost wagons dotted around the current system (the Manea and Ancaster brake vans, the OBA at Welwyn Garden City). So would there have been similar examples in pre-grouping days of wagons with defects sitting in sidings for years?

[The Stationmaster]

That's interesting. There are various 'famous' lost wagons dotted around the current system (the Manea and Ancaster brake vans, the OBA at Welwyn Garden City). So would there have been similar examples in pre-grouping days of wagons with defects sitting in sidings for years?

They were common enough in the 1960s - the notice used to list two categories, viz 'Lost wagons' and 'wagons on hand underload without labels'.  Both of these lists effectively ceased once TOPS was nationwide as it was then very difficult to 'lose' a wagon - it could at least be traced to 'somewhere' (although it might no longer be there so then it did have to be found).

 

Today's lost wagons are not really anything of the sort but far more a case of 'forgotten' wagons in which anybody ceased to take an interest - I bet the owners would do something if they got a bill for siding rent

[Penlan]

- I bet the owners would do something if they got a bill for siding rent

Very much with a smile >> aka. as 'demurrage charges'.

[The Stationmaster]

Very much with a smile >> aka. as 'demurrage charges'.

The biggest demurrage bill I ever heard of was presented in 1973 to a company in South Wales - for £56,000.  I believe they contested it!

[PhilJ W]

I'm wondering if there is any record of wagons disappearing without trace.

[Poggy1165]

I think it was far from unknown for wagons to vanish without trace. Turton's multi-volume work on PO wagons mentions this happening. And all railway companies regularly circulated the numbers of 'missing' wagons - it seems likely that at least a proportion never were recovered.

 

Where they went - who knows? They were certainly useful as portable stores and there was a tempting amount of scrap metal included in the least of them.

[PhilJ W]

I think it was far from unknown for wagons to vanish without trace. Turton's multi-volume work on PO wagons mentions this happening. And all railway companies regularly circulated the numbers of 'missing' wagons - it seems likely that at least a proportion never were recovered.

 

Where they went - who knows? They were certainly useful as portable stores and there was a tempting amount of scrap metal included in the least of them.

The remains of several wagons have been found near to incline plains could be some of these missing wagons. Perhaps if the supervisor was absent and there was a runaway could the facts (and the remains of the wagon) be hidden? There are also some well recorded incidents of wagons having the same number, some of the 'missing' wagons must be numbered amongst them (pun intended).