Freight Timetable for late 1970's

[Richard Pike]

Hi Guys

 

In conjunction with my new layout, Shirebrook, I am looking for a Freight timetable, specifically Coal flows from the North Notts / Derbys pits that may have run through Shirebrook in the late 1970's.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

 

[jonny777]

I think that for the most reliable information, you are going to need to purchase a couple of relevant Working Timetables (WTT).

 

Most second hand booksellers will have them, see (for example)...

 

 

http://britishrailwaybooks.co.uk/wtt/eregion/eregionindex.php

 

http://britishrailwaybooks.co.uk/wtt/lmregion/lmregionindex.php

 

And they are often for sale on society stands at preserved railways, and other rail-related events.

 

There are also a large number on Ebay at any one time, but you will have to search on the precise year and region to narrow down the ones you are looking for.

[stovepipe]

I think if will be quite difficult to get hold of reliable timetable information for regular MGR flows between local pits and presumably Cottam and High Marnham power stations. I believe the coal requirements were agreed typically a week or two in advance, with the trains planned once pit output forecasts had been declared. Even if the path was in the timetable there was no guarantee of it being used especially in the summer months when demand is low.

 

Also with no timetabled passenger service to worry about back then, only the longer distance or through freight would have needed to be timetabled off and onto the mainlines. It might be more useful to get hold of the Shirebrook loco diagrams, if they still exist, to see when locos went on and off shed.

 

I found a good series of recollections online which were later published in a book called Life on the Leicester Line. The author goes into quite a lot of detail about working the MGR traffic on the Coalville line which might be worth picking up to get a flavour of how things ran in the 1970-80s.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Leicester-Line-Progress-Driver/dp/0954358600

[Gwiwer]

I agree that many of the workings would be "Q-trains", with the letter Q atop the timing column in the WTT meaning Runs When Required.

 

In conjunction with actual locomotive diagrams it may be possible to piece together a typical day's or week's operation but with output and traffic requirements changing daily you could probably create your own base timetable quite easily from a WTT and run what you wished from it.

[keefer]

Might be in a 'Conditional' WTT - I had a 70s one for ScR (east region I think) and it had the main Seafield/ Westfield-Longannet MGRs (timings and loads).

IIRC there wasn't much else in it!

[The Stationmaster]

I think if will be quite difficult to get hold of reliable timetable information for regular MGR flows between local pits and presumably Cottam and High Marnham power stations. I believe the coal requirements were agreed typically a week or two in advance, with the trains planned once pit output forecasts had been declared. Even if the path was in the timetable there was no guarantee of it being used especially in the summer months when demand is low.

 

Also with no timetabled passenger service to worry about back then, only the longer distance or through freight would have needed to be timetabled off and onto the mainlines. It might be more useful to get hold of the Shirebrook loco diagrams, if they still exist, to see when locos went on and off shed.

 

I found a good series of recollections online which were later published in a book called Life on the Leicester Line. The author goes into quite a lot of detail about working the MGR traffic on the Coalville line which might be worth picking up to get a flavour of how things ran in the 1970-80s.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Leicester-Line-Progress-Driver/dp/0954358600

 

 

Might be in a 'Conditional' WTT - I had a 70s one for ScR (east region I think) and it had the main Seafield/ Westfield-Longannet MGRs (timings and loads).

IIRC there wasn't much else in it!

All depends.  The basic situation, as stated by 'Stovepipe' was that all the power stations worked on weekly programmes which were agreed between CEGB, NCB, and BR (plus any import terminals etc) in the week prior to that in which they ran and were then published on Freight Train Notices as, normally, a weekly programme.  Different Regions had slightly different ways of doing things and these varied from fully resourced WTT paths (which would be shown on the Notice to either run or be cancelled); while some would be run as specials and resourced from cancelled WTT trains or any spare resources; some would be run on local plans that weren't even in the WTT; while some, particularly on the WR, would run in Manual of Agreed Pathway (MAP) paths which either had resources available on a 'Y' basis or were resourced from either cancelled WT trains or as specials.  And of course there was a period when Conditional timetables were used - but again simply run or cancelled each week according to the CEGB programme.

 

I'm not sure to what extent anybody was using Q paths back in the 1970s but on the Western we got rid of them completely in the 1980s and used MAP paths instead or trains rain on local plans using, generally WTT paths activated or cancelled as needed for the weekly plan.  I was very strongly against Q paths as they tended to be a waste of time but was a firm believer in MAP paths which need only be outline timed unless they had been 'demoted' from the WTT but that was WR from late 1980s when I made a  number of changes including abolishing supplements to the freight WTTs and changing to a system where we simply issued a new WTT every 8 weeks - the others were some long way behind such radical ideas and still printing freight WTTs which were often works of fiction for much of the time.