Fish Trains in the steam era - their make up.

[Guy Rixon]

The make-up of fish trains would have to evolve to meet the new restrictions on running short-wheelbase stock at high speeds. The LNER's first design of fish van had 9' wheelbase. When these were not allowed in the fast trains, one would assume that a lot of non-specialised vans were brought in to cover. 

 

IIRC. the insulated vans were of two kinds. The first were rebuilt from non-insulated fish-vans of 12T capacity on 12' wheelbase, as built by the LNER in the late 1930s. The second was built with insulation on a 15' wheelbase.

[Guy Rixon]

The make-up of fish trains would have to evolve to meet the new restrictions on running short-wheelbase stock at high speeds. The LNER's first design of fish van had 9' wheelbase. When these were not allowed in the fast trains, one would assume that a lot of non-specialised vans were brought in to cover. 

 

IIRC. the insulated vans were of two kinds. The first were rebuilt from non-insulated fish-vans of 12T capacity on 12' wheelbase, as built by the LNER in the late 1930s. The second was built with insulation on a 15' wheelbase.

[ForestPines]

Of the photos in this thread, I suspect the one most likely to be definitely and unarguably fish traffic is the one taken at New Clee (two photos above the bottom one in the original post), as (I think) the wagons are standing on the roads that were used to trip fish traffic and/or empties from Grimsby Fish Docks, where they were loaded, to New Clee yard, where outbound fish trains were assembled; and those lines were pretty much only ever used for fish traffic. The road bridge in the background was (and is) the main road access to the Fish Docks.

Edited January 8, 2019 by ForestPines

[HonestTom]

The District Railway actually had a small amount of fish traffic in their guards' vans, but this was highly unpopular in the already smelly environment of the steam-hauled Underground.

[jonny777]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the "blue spot" was only carried by fish vans which had roller bearings. The later ones (many of which ended up as SPVs) were not introduced until the mid-50s, and so any photos taken prior to that would not have any in the consist. I think construction of the later vehicles spanned 6 or 7 years; but fish traffic was abandoned by BR in the late 60s, and so there is only about a ten year time frame when these would be seen in any numbers performing their original work. 

[Steamysandy]

The Fish train was still running from Aberdeen to London after I started working at BT in 1967 in Edinburgh.

It was booked to leave Waverley behind the North Briton in front of the 17-26 to North Berwick

The closeness of the departures meant that by the time the North Berwick train reached St Germans Level Crossing,it had to be held til the fish train reached Drem.

 

Two memories of that period was seeing it arrive behind a pair of class 47s one of which was a Bristol Bath Road allocated machine.

Another night the train derailed on starting to depart.A batch of Fish Vans were left lying on their sides.

I believe this was due to gauge widening on the loop line on the North side of Waverley.

From an earlier time,I can remember that there were two if not three trains passing Drem in the mid 1950s

[sulzer27jd]

My late father-in-law who was a fireman/driver out of Dundee from the early 40's onwards described the Aberdeen fish trains as the hardest work he ever did. Passenger train timings with none of the breaks, (station stops). 

In the early 50's departures from Aberdeen were at [1953 TT] 12:30 KX, 1:40 KX, 1:55 Law Jcn, 5:50 Edinburgh, 8:55 Manchester and 7:45 Perth. The makeup at that time would be ex LNER/ex LMS vans, mostly in bauxite (so looking like standard vans) with some insulated and increasing numbers of what became known as Blue Spots. Usually hauled by a Pacific or a V2. Very often, in fact, the exact same engines that visitors to Dundee regularly describe in photo captions as "being on standby" when actually they simply worked when the photographer was tucked up in bed.

 

I think nowadays we have very little sense of just how huge this traffic was and what was involved in getting it run without delays.

 

John

Edited January 9, 2019 by sulzer27jd

[ForestPines]

I think nowadays we have very little sense of just how huge this traffic was and what was involved in getting it run without delays.

 

 

I mentioned New Clee yard above.  It had two main purposes - one was marshalling fish trains from Grimsby Fish Docks and the corresponding empty wagons, and the other was delivering coal to trawlers; the third, on summer Saturdays, was acting as overflow carriage sidings for Cleethorpes excursion trains.

 

It's hard to find photos of it online - if you go to http://www.davesrailpics.bravehost.com/JohnWillerton/Cleethorpes2.htm and head down to the bottom, the penultimate picture, taken from Fuller St footbridge, is as good a shot as you are likely to find anywhere.  The sidings to the right of the water column are for coal (with the three coal chutes visible in the distance); the fish sorting sidings are in the distance, but you can hopefully get an idea of their scale.  Looking at an early-60s OS map: there were 23 sorting roads for fish traffic, all about 600yds long, and 18 much shorter roads for coal.

[Caledonian]

When I was a lad back in the 60s, my Dad had a boatyard on the river Dee in Aberdeen and as a sideline caught eels for the London markets. These were loaded live with ice on to flat trays which were in turn layered into wooden crates, with the top tray entirely filled with crushed ice. The crate was then loaded on the infamous "Aberdeen Fish" and more precisely what I now know must have been either a BG or a BSK hung on the end of it.

 

Following on from this I ought to have added that I can recall reading somewhere that a BSK was normally hung on the back of the Aberdeen fish to offer the guard a more comfortable ride because it was a long run at express timings and jolting him around in a standard goods brake would have had the RSPCA complaining.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Caledonian

[Tallpaul69]

On ‎1‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 4:11 PM, tigerburnie said:

Several steam hauled fish trains travelled on the Great Central,I recall the evening trains were hauled to Leicester, the first the Hull to Plymouth would change engines and crew at Leicester, in the summer often a Western region Hall or Grange would take this train on to Banbury. Half an hour later another, the Grimsby to Whitland almost always Britannia hauled, would change crews only at Leicester. Colin Walkers "Mainline Lament" shows photographs of these trains.

 

These trains often split. For instance there were fish trains formed out of these from Oxford to both the south coast via Basingstoke and  Slough via Reading, dropping wagons at stations along the way!

 

[DCB]

On 1/26/2019 at 4:06 PM, Caledonian said:

 

Following on from this I ought to have added that I can recall reading somewhere that a BSK was normally hung on the back of the Aberdeen fish to offer the guard a more comfortable ride because it was a long run at express timings and jolting him around in a standard goods brake would have had the RSPCA complaining.

The Aberdeen Fish were not only hauled at express train speed they were the fastest timings of the day at certain periods.    Double headed by NE Atlantics at some periods, 20s /30s.  There are tales of the Fish departing leaving fish on the dock, and being loaded three vans wide with planks between vans. This was a serious business.  I understand  the "Grimsby Fish" to the south west changed engines at Marsden Sidings Swindon from an NE loco, the WR worked to Leicester  to equalise mileage to avoid engine changing at Banbury or Oxford.    I have seen a photo of an ex LMS 8F on the Fish Sountbound south of Exeter so the GW couldn't have been very interested in hurrying..

 

For every Fish there had to be a Fish empties, a Grimsby to London could conceivably manage with one set of stock but I can't see them doing a round trip to be back in Aberdeen for the next day, does anyone know?

 

  A lot of early 4-6-0s were regarded as failures through being "Demoted" to fast freight duties where the truth was the turns were harder than the contemporary express passenger turns being  heavier and the timings similar. 

I understand the derailments due to the bad riding of short wheelbase 4 wheelers only really became a problem with Continuously Welded rails largely after the steam era ended.    There are tales of short wheelbase wagons running at 90mph plus with no repercussions.  (Firing Days at Saltley has one)

[johnofwessex]

2 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

T..........    I have seen a photo of an ex LMS 8F on the Fish Sountbound south of Exeter so the GW couldn't have been very interested in hurrying..

 

 

 

Some were balanced for 60mph running & I imagine could keep up that sort of speed uphill without any difficulty

[RLBH]

5 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

For every Fish there had to be a Fish empties, a Grimsby to London could conceivably manage with one set of stock but I can't see them doing a round trip to be back in Aberdeen for the next day, does anyone know?

Three sets for Aberdeen I believe - one set on the way down, one set on the way back up, and the third set being prepared for the next day's run.

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

The Aberdeen Fish were not only hauled at express train speed they were the fastest timings of the day at certain periods.    Double headed by NE Atlantics at some periods, 20s /30s.  There are tales of the Fish departing leaving fish on the dock, and being loaded three vans wide with planks between vans. This was a serious business.  I understand  the "Grimsby Fish" to the south west changed engines at Marsden Sidings Swindon from an NE loco, the WR worked to Leicester  to equalise mileage to avoid engine changing at Banbury or Oxford.    I have seen a photo of an ex LMS 8F on the Fish Sountbound south of Exeter so the GW couldn't have been very interested in hurrying..

 

For every Fish there had to be a Fish empties, a Grimsby to London could conceivably manage with one set of stock but I can't see them doing a round trip to be back in Aberdeen for the next day, does anyone know?

 

  A lot of early 4-6-0s were regarded as failures through being "Demoted" to fast freight duties where the truth was the turns were harder than the contemporary express passenger turns being  heavier and the timings similar. 

I understand the derailments due to the bad riding of short wheelbase 4 wheelers only really became a problem with Continuously Welded rails largely after the steam era ended.    There are tales of short wheelbase wagons running at 90mph plus with no repercussions.  (Firing Days at Saltley has one)

The Grimsby fish definitely worked at Marston Yard (not 'Marsden') at one time and LNER engines worked through to there although the working did change over the years.  Presumably the engine went to Swindon for coal and to turn so would have been part of the regular pattern of  GC, then LNER, then ER engines working through to Swindon off the GC mainline.

 

4 wheel wagon derailments were definitely on the increase before cwr  had become widespread and it was generally put down to faster acceleration and more running at sustained high speeds that had been the case with steam.  I wouldn't be surprised too if other changes hadn't played a part.  Interestingly of course the most significant set of trials into derailments of 4 wheel wagons at speed were carried out on a route which had little or no cwr!  Interestingly there appear to have been no general restrictions on the speed of short wheelbase (less than 15 feet) wagons until 1946 when a maximum of 60mph was imposed and no general restrictions on the speed of freight vehicles in freight trains until 1958 when a similar maximum was allowed for Class C trains (all other freight trains were restricted to lower speeds).

 

as for interesting working of vehicles v carrying fish George Heiron captured a superb picture in 1963 of a D10XX passing through Badminton with an Insixfish immediately behind the loco and on the next vehicle an A container loaded on what appears to be a Scorpion long wheelbase carriage truck (or possibly a six wheeled vehicle?) - definitely the way to shift fish at speed on a passenger train.

[BMacdermott]

Hello Mike

 

Looking at the Oxford Station Platform Workings books, the fish trains have varied over the years. In Summer 1959, the loco off the 6.45pm from Hull - the only noted fish train - went back to Leicester Light Engine (LE), booked passing north at 6.35am.

 

I gather that a regular turn for empties was for an ex-Swindon Works loco on the 3.35pm Fish Empties for Woodford and Hull/Grimsby. That was booked to pick up a Shunter in the station then pick up further empties at the North Junction. How far the loco went north is not stated.

 

I'd love to see a model of Oxford Station in steam days - plenty of action!

 

Brian

[Clagmeister]

This is a rather interesting piece on the subject.

https://www.bloodandcustard.net/bluespot.html