steam banker lights

[trevora]

when banking would it have the rear red only or white head light as well

AS when it dropped back from the train it would need headlight?

Then on the run back down the hill would it stop and swap lights

Or like shunters show red and white at each end

trevora

[Phil Bullock]

There are a few good videos of operations on the Lickey Incline on Youtube - probably the busiest banking operation in the Country in steam days

 

But suspect rules were not universal and even where they applied were not always adhered to!

 

Cheers

 

Phil

[LMS2968]

A lot depended on whether the banker was coupled to the train or not. If it were, it would carry a normal tail lamp only and not a head lamp, nor would there be a tail lamp on the train. These would be added when the train stopped to unhook the banker at the summit signal box.

 

If not coupled and it simply dropped off at the summit, the banker would have both a single head or tail lamp at each end, and the tail lamp would be attached to a passenger train also, but removed from a goods with the guard in rear. The guard would replace the tail lamp just after passing the box and within sight of the bobby. The bobby at the start of the incline would send a special bell code to his mate in advance to warn that there was a banker in rear and that the train's tail lamp did not indicate that the section was clear. Further, the banker was required to drop off close the box and so be within the bobby's sight. In daylight the crew would just leave the lamps as is, but at night would move the red shade from what had been the rear to what had been the front and was about to become the rear for the journey back down.

[LMS2968]

There are a few good videos of operations on the Lickey Incline on Youtube - probably the busiest banking operation in the Country in steam days

 

But suspect rules were not universal and even where they applied were not always adhered to!

 

Cheers

 

Phil

The Lickey isn't a good example as it had its own rules which contravened almost everything in the Rule Book. For instance, the multiple bank engines were never coupled, and each permanently carried both a head and tail lamp throughout the operation. Each one buffered up to the train independently, and each dropped off independently at the summit. When clear to return, the engine at the 'high' end would drop back on to the next, and then the next, and so on until all were buffered up. The 'high' engine would propel the others through the crossover and shut off steam, the 'low' engine controlling the speed of descent. At the bottom, each would separately return to the bank engine siding to await its next duty.

[Phil Bullock]

The Lickey isn't a good example as it had its own rules which contravened almost everything in the Rule Book. For instance, the multiple bank engines were never coupled, and each permanently carried both a head and tail lamp throughout the operation. Each one buffered up to the train independently, and each dropped off independently at the summit. When clear to return, the engine at the 'high' end would drop back on to the next, and then the next, and so on until all were buffered up. The 'high' engine would propel the others through the crossover and shut off steam, the 'low' engine controlling the speed of descent. At the bottom, each would separately return to the bank engine siding to await its next duty.

 

Cheers - as seen in the linked video. Hence my comment about rules not being universal...was there anywhere else that routinely banked with multiple locos?

 

 Life on the Lickey is well worth a read https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Lickey-1943-1986-Pat-Wallace/dp/1858585236

 

Also has a web site http://www.lickeyincline.co.uk/index.html with more suggested reading

 

Phil

Edited August 10, 2018 by Phil Bullock

[Wickham Green]

.........was there anywhere else that routinely banked with multiple locos?

 

 

Phil

Folkestone Harbour - where up to four locos were coupled top-n-tail .......... I'm not sure how Worsborough was operated.

[Phil Bullock]

Of course! Those R1s worked hard - panniers too!

 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/f/folkestone_harbour/index2.shtml

 

Many thanks

 

Phil

[Rivercider]

Cheers - as seen in the linked video. Hence my comment about rules not being universal...was there anywhere else that routinely banked with multiple locos?

 

 Life on the Lickey is well worth a read https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Lickey-1943-1986-Pat-Wallace/dp/1858585236

 

Also has a web site http://www.lickeyincline.co.uk/index.html with more suggested reading

 

Phil

From Exeter St Davids up to Exeter Central some trains required two bankers, and sometimes an assisting engine on the front also.

 

cheers

[The Johnster]

The GW was not consistent in it's methods of assisting trains up banks; the Severn Tunnel and South Devon trains had the bankers coupled at the front inside the train loco, it being the principle that the driver in charge of the train, that of the train locomotive, should be at the head of the train, but Llanvihangel bank, northwards on the North to West out of Abergavenny, used bankers uncoupled in the rear.  An assistant loco coupled inside the train loco at the front carries no lamps at all, it's part of the train in that sense.

 

For assisting between Aberbeeg and Ebbw Vale, very heavy work loaded iron ore trains, the loco was coupled in the rear, but became the train loco on the return run down the bank, the brake van now being 'part of the train' and braking in the real being provided by the steam brake of the original train loco, now carrying the tail lamp of course.  It and the van were run around at Aberbeeg and then proceeded in more normal fashion down the valley. 

 

Iron ore trains to Dowlais Cae Harris, up a very steeply graded valley, might be double headed and double banked by 56xx, 20MT power rated (!); I do not know what was coupled and what wasn't here.  

[Wickham Green]

The GW was not consistent in it's methods of assisting trains up banks; the Severn Tunnel and South Devon trains had the bankers coupled at the front inside the train loco, it being the principle that the driver in charge of the train, that of the train locomotive, should be at the head of the train, but Llanvihangel bank, northwards on the North to West out of Abergavenny, used bankers uncoupled in the rear.  An assistant loco coupled inside the train loco at the front carries no lamps at all, it's part of the train in that sense.

 

For assisting between Aberbeeg and Ebbw Vale, very heavy work loaded iron ore trains, the loco was coupled in the rear, but became the train loco on the return run down the bank, the brake van now being 'part of the train' and braking in the real being provided by the steam brake of the original train loco, now carrying the tail lamp of course.  It and the van were run around at Aberbeeg and then proceeded in more normal fashion down the valley. 

 

Iron ore trains to Dowlais Cae Harris, up a very steeply graded valley, might be double headed and double banked by 56xx, 20MT power rated (!); I do not know what was coupled and what wasn't here.  

Coupling an assisting loco inside the original train loco was, I believe, peculiar to the Western - and I've heard it said that this was to avoid the risk of buffer lock because of the overhang at the front of their 4-6-0s and ( originally, at least ) use of small buffer heads. 'Inside' assistance from diesels resulted in wrecked air filters so was soon abandoned !

[pH]

Coupling an assisting loco inside the original train loco was, I believe, peculiar to the Western ...

Not unique - the North British Railway, in general, would couple an assistant engine inside the train engine.

[jim.snowdon]

The GW was not consistent in it's methods of assisting trains up banks; the Severn Tunnel and South Devon trains had the bankers coupled at the front inside the train loco, it being the principle that the driver in charge of the train, that of the train locomotive, should be at the head of the train, but Llanvihangel bank, northwards on the North to West out of Abergavenny, used bankers uncoupled in the rear.  An assistant loco coupled inside the train loco at the front carries no lamps at all, it's part of the train in that sense.

 

For assisting between Aberbeeg and Ebbw Vale, very heavy work loaded iron ore trains, the loco was coupled in the rear, but became the train loco on the return run down the bank, the brake van now being 'part of the train' and braking in the real being provided by the steam brake of the original train loco, now carrying the tail lamp of course.  It and the van were run around at Aberbeeg and then proceeded in more normal fashion down the valley. 

 

Iron ore trains to Dowlais Cae Harris, up a very steeply graded valley, might be double headed and double banked by 56xx, 20MT power rated (!); I do not know what was coupled and what wasn't here.  

Is that not the difference between double-heading, which may be for a significant distance, and banking, which is generally for quite short distances and where it is convenient for the assisting engine to be able to drop off the train without it stopping?

 

It is also worth remembering that in the context of banking, as in assisting from the rear, there is a sizeable reduction in the drawbar forces being taken by the leading wagons in the train, which is potentially beneficial in avoiding excessive strain upon the couplings. This is most obvious in heavy-haul practice elsewhere in the world, where rather than just couple yet more locomotives on the front end, the assisting locomotives are distributed over the length of the train.

 

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

Coupling an assisting loco inside the original train loco was, I believe, peculiar to the Western - and I've heard it said that this was to avoid the risk of buffer lock because of the overhang at the front of their 4-6-0s and ( originally, at least ) use of small buffer heads. 'Inside' assistance from diesels resulted in wrecked air filters so was soon abandoned !

 

Regrettably this hoary old chestnut has surfaced once again.

 

The position of the assistant engine in relation to the train engine on Western (both Railway & Region) passenger trains depended on a number of factors relating principally to the size of driving wheels, the relative wheel arrangements of the train engine and assistant engine, and in some cases the relative size of the engines involved as well as the gradient.  Plus it varied in some places according to local conditions and it changed over the years, generally with various past restrictions being relaxed.  What was not consistent was any sort of blanket requirement to place the assistant engine on a passenger train inside the train engine - and anyone who repeats that is simply repeating a fallacy (not that your post did that anyway).

 

Having gone through it all on several previous threads (which I can't immediately link regrettably) I'm not particularly inclined to go through it all again in this thread but I will no doubt do so for at least part of it.  Some interesting points worth remembering from the 1930s (and still applicable until 1960) but note there were different Instructions in respect of assisting 'Kings'.

 

On a rising gradient (only) any engine with driving wheels greater than 4 feet in diameter could assist a passenger train front (i.e in front of the train engine).  Assistance rear of passenger trains was only permitted where authorised and normally only over consistently rising gradients.

 

If assistance was to continue or take place over level track or a falling gradient as well as a rising gradient any 4-6-0 or 4-4-0 could assist front.  Except where specially authorised, but only until October 1948, any other engine had to go inside the train engine when assisting - the exceptions were basically 2-6-0s and 2-6-2Ts with 5ft 8" driving wheels which were permitted to be couple front over a number of nominated sections of route.  Examples were the Severn Tunnel 9as far as Badminton in the Up direction and initially only as far as Severn Tunnel Jcn in the Down direction until the mid-late 1950s when the authority was extended through to Pontypool Road and between Newton abbot & Brent in the Down direction and Totnes and Newton Abbot in the Up direction.  The relaxation also applied between Kemble and brimscombe for the 2-6-2Ts only but in the Up direction between Stroud & Sapperton Siding it also applied to the 2-6-0s.  Similarly only the 2-6-0s were permitted to assist front between either of the main Plymouth stations and Hemerdon.

 

But a lot changed in October 1948 when a revision required engines with leading pony trucks to be coupled front and the 4-6-0/4-4-0 Instruction was clarified to putting the most powerful engine on the front - be it train engine or assistant engine (a superbly ambiguous clause as it happened as in one part it then read that a 4-6-0 or 4-4-0 assistant engine could be marshalled front while a later clause said the most powerful engine had to be marshalled front - there are of course plenty of pictures around of 'Manors' marshalled front of 'Castles' in South Devon!

 

Assistance of freight trains was rather different - on rising gradients again any engine with coupled wheels not less than 4ft in diameter but the position in relation to the train depended entirely on location specific Instruction.  On level and falling gradients the same ruling about 4-6-0s and 4-4-0s applied and again if neither of those or not of the same type as the train engine then it had to go inside.  Generally assistance was prohibited for Partly Vacuum Fitted Freights except on rising gradients.

 

Just for information the 1922 Instructions were a bit different.  More or less the same Instruction in respect of rising gradients but on level or falling sections the assistant engine could go front if it was the same type as the train engine or more powerful than the train engine otherwise it went inside.  it was however compulsory to marshal the following types of tank engine inside the train engine if the latter was a tender engine - 0-6-0, 2-4-0, 0-4-2.

[The Stationmaster]

Is that not the difference between double-heading, which may be for a significant distance, and banking, which is generally for quite short distances and where it is convenient for the assisting engine to be able to drop off the train without it stopping?

 

It is also worth remembering that in the context of banking, as in assisting from the rear, there is a sizeable reduction in the drawbar forces being taken by the leading wagons in the train, which is potentially beneficial in avoiding excessive strain upon the couplings. This is most obvious in heavy-haul practice elsewhere in the world, where rather than just couple yet more locomotives on the front end, the assisting locomotives are distributed over the length of the train.

 

Jim

Absolutely - in most cases assisting freight trains at the rear was as much about stopping the train dividing as it was about giving it a bit of extra shove up the bank.  and even in teh 1990s some of teh really heavy freight trains had to be carefully marshalled according to the type of coupling on individual wagons for exactly the same reason.