Pre-Grouping train services across the Thames?

[Compound2632]

34 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

One other question - would the 3.30 "London to Heysham" be a passenger or freight working?  It's curious in part for the use of the word London, rather than St Pancras, or Brent, or..  Clearly the sort of vans you referred to would be likely to be NPCS and suitable for adding to a passenger train.

 

I haven't got timetables for that year but reading the small print, I think it's clear that the 3:30pm London to Leeds and 7.55pm Leeds-Heysham are passenger trains. There's mention of passenger rates, the vans are to be conveyed from St Pancras in the rear of the train and any excess vans on the front of the 3.40pm departure - specifying both a limit to the number of vans and their position in the train doesn't sound to me a likely stipulation for marshalling in a goods train.

 

The workings between Brent and Hither Green all seem to be classed as goods trains, though there is clearly a distinction between the special fruit workings and ordinary goods trains, and also the return empty van trains.

 

Which prompts me to say that I had omitted goods stock from my suggestions. Although there were several diagrams of fruit vans in the goods stock, I think only the 50 vehicles to D361 built in 1903/4, which had passenger running gear (3' 7" wheels, J-hangers to the bearing springs, and automatic vacuum brake, would be used in passenger trains. These are the subject of a Slaters kit in 7 mm and 4 mm scale.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Compound2632

[WFPettigrew]

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

On the one hand, the vehicles that are the subject of the Slaters kit are described in the diagram book as fish trucks not as milk vans. On the other hand - or possibly the same hand - they weren't built until 1920 - diagram D1272. Definitely on the other hand, I suppose it's possible that at the peak of the fruit season fish trucks might be pressed into service, after being thoroughly washed out, one hopes. (But what did the fish do then?)

 

 

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Which prompts me to say that I had omitted goods stock from my suggestions. Although there were several diagrams of fruit vans in the goods stock, I think only the 50 vehicles to D361 built in 1903/4, which had passenger running gear (3' 7" wheels, J-hangers to the bearing springs, and automatic vacuum brake, would be used in passenger trains. These are the subject of a Slaters kit in 7 mm and 4 mm scale.

 

Having read this, I then went onto the Slaters site, and am now a bit confused!

 

Slaters doesn't brand their MR wagon kits with diagram numbers in the main product title, but looking at this:

 

https://slatersplastikard.com/assets/instructions/4024FInstructions.pdf

 

I cannot see a reference to a Slaters kit for D1272? 

 

However the fruit van kit I had been thinking about (the one branded MR 10 TON COVERED FRUIT VAN) would appear to be the same as the drawings in these instructions for the D361, as long as it has the larger wheels and is vac fitted?

 

So is there a kit for the later D1272?  And which diagram does the 10T covered fruit van actually apply to?

 

Sorry if I am being thick (again)!

 

Neil 

 

 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

Sorry if I am being thick (again)!

 

No, it's me making assumptions. I started off thinking about passenger stock fruit vans (in part because I'm having a go at lining out my Wizard 4 mm scale D418 one) and so lept to the conclusion that you were referring to the six-wheel van only available in 7 mm scale, kit 7C019, which represents D1272:

 

 

[Embedded link to Slaters website.]

 

I should have realised that you were referring to kit 4024F / 7024F which does indeed represent D361:

 

 

[Embedded link to Slaters website. They use the same photo of the 7 mm version to illustrate both scales.]

 

Incidentally, the Slaters instructions refer to this as a 10 ton van but the diagram says 5 tons. Rather a moot point as the fruit would have to be pretty squashed to get over five tons of it in the space.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Compound2632

[WFPettigrew]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

No, it's me making assumptions. I started off thinking about passenger stock fruit vans (in part because I'm having a go at lining out my Wizard 4 mm scale D418 one) and so lept to the conclusion that you were referring to the six-wheel van only available in 7 mm scale, kit 7C019, which represents D1272:

 

 

[Embedded link to Slaters website.]

 

I should have realised that you were referring to kit 4024F / 7024F which does indeed represent D361:

 

 

[Embedded link to Slaters website. They use the same photo of the 7 mm version to illustrate both scales.]

 

Ah, that makes sense.  What a beast that six wheeler is!

 

Thank you, will add the D361 to my notes of things to get at some point towards the magnum opus layout dream....!

 

All the best

 

Neil 

[WFPettigrew]

Further to all this, I have been having some doubts.

 

The fruit destined for Belfast clearly needed to be dispatched with great urgency.  Being perishable probably also means it is delicate (e.g strawberries) and would not take kindly to repeated handling.

 

Plus, this traffic originated in Kent. 

 

So - would the correct vehicles not be NPCS from the SECR?  It was the SECR's traffic, and transhipping to MR vehicles at Brent or St Pancras would add time and handling. 

 

Against this would be if this traffic was not considered to be a wagonload or indeed a vanload, but was individual crates that happened to fill not one but several vans, in which case it would be more likely to be transhipped perhaps? 

 

Thoughts?

[Nearholmer]

We went into strawberry traffic at great depth in another thread and identified that the northern railways sent empty vans down into Hampshire to collect. We found some superb pictures of LNWR vans being loaded for instance. We did find at least one Kent strawberry special photo too, but I can’t recall whose vans were shown.

 

If the originating railways had to service all this traffic with their own vans, they would have needed absolutely zillions of them to meet the peaks. As it was they struggled, with the LSWR making basic conversions of redundant 6W passenger stock by fitting racks in place of seats, and painting the windows over.

 

From what I can work out, there were multiple strands to “fruit and vegetable logistics” with strawberries, other fast-perishing soft fruit, watercress and some other salad crops needing very special provision. Strawberries and currants are very troublesome because they will go mouldy at the slightest provocation (the weather on the day they are picked can make all the difference) and because they become ready for picking “all of a sudden” …… the railways must have had their telegraph wires humming with requests for vans and special trains at a days notice, and the cost to the end consumer must have been impressive.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Andy Hayter]

The one that I remember was an NBR cask wagon - supposedly only ever used for shipping empty sherry/port casks from the Fife port to the distilleries - in the background of a train being loaded with strawberries somewhere in the south - and presumably on similar duty.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Andy Hayter

[WFPettigrew]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

We went into strawberry traffic at great depth in another thread and identified that the northern railways sent empty vans down into Hampshire to collect.

Thank you for this detailed explanation which makes perfect sense. And if a northern company were to send empties down, it would make perfect sense too that those were used on a train back to that railway's territory. 

 

So yay, as we were...!

 

[Compound2632]

Reverting from northbound fruit to southbound coal, Midland Railway Traffic Committee minute No. 32595 of 2 May 1902:

 

Coal from Midland Collieries to certain stations South of the Thames, via Peterboro’ and Spitalfields.

                              Resolved that coal from Midland Collieries to stations on the L.B.& S.C. and S.E. & C. Railways may be sent via Peterboro’, Midland, and over the Great Eastern Railway via Spitalfields and the East London Line when specially consigned by that route, at the through rates in operation for the time being.

 

Presumably this routing would take pressure off the Midland main line and, perhaps more critically, the Widened Lines. 

[Nearholmer]

It was a truly rubbish route, very constrained in capacity, because everything had to come down from GE to ELL level in wagon hoists, with the yard at the bottom being all poky and awkward. Going via The Widened Lines must have been pretty annoying what with tight limits on train length and challenges finding paths, but I reckon this must have been more so.

 

To me, it reads more like a concession on rates in order to avoid penalising (and thereby maybe losing) a few very specific flows that happened to work best via Spitalfields, rather than an attempt to relieve other routes. The Spitalfields joists were built in 1900 I think, so this may even be a bit of sorting out to deciding what should be charged for that fairly new route.

 

But, I may be wrong.

 

PS: we discussed Spitalfields in here 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Nick Holliday]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It was a truly rubbish route, very constrained in capacity, because everything had to come down from GE to ELL level in wagon hoists, with the yard at the bottom being all poky and awkward. Going via The Widened Lines must have been pretty annoying what with tight limits on train length and challenges finding paths, but I reckon this must have been more so.

 

To me, it reads more like a concession on rates in order to avoid penalising (and thereby maybe losing) a few very specific flows that happened to work best via Spitalfields, rather than an attempt to relieve other routes. The Spitalfields hoists were built in 1900 I think, so this may even be a bit of sorting out to deciding what should be charged for that fairly new route.

 

But, I may be wrong.

Not sure if this comment is with regard to the soft fruit or coal traffic.  There was a route that did not require the use of the wagon hoist, using one of Liverpool Street's platform lines.  This was the route used by passenger excursion trains, often quite long, with no height or width restrictions, as well as the lengthy horse box trains from Newmarket, whose "passengers" would not really want to be shunted/hoisted/shunted in the goods yard.  The LBSCR certainly continued to be part of a goods service to Liverpool Street, at least until the 1918 working timetable.  The Goods Working Book notes:

"Working of Goods traffic between LBSC and Midland Railway (LT&S Section) - The GER will, when required, on week-days, run the following service (marked by B) to New Cross and back with traffic to and from the LT&S Line.  It is very important that the train from New Cross to Liverpool Street should run punctually, and special attention should be given to the working.  If there is not sufficient Tilbury Line traffic to make a full load, wagons from the GE Line may be attached."

The WTT shows that a train from LS to NX left LS at 2.37pm Monday to Friday, and 10.33pm on Saturday, both Q paths, with a return trip at 7.05pm Monday to Saturday (not a provisional path!) and a Q path available at 12.15am on Saturday. On Sunday it would seem that Whitechapel goods was partially closed, as there Q paths at 2.15am and 4.30am southbound and 1.00am, 3.07am and 5.45am northbound, with one definite service at 5.50pm to LS.

[Compound2632]

35 minutes ago, Nick Holliday said:

Not sure if this comment is with regard to the soft fruit or coal traffic. 

 

I understood @Nearholmer to be replying to my post about coal traffic via the Great Eastern route. I had had a look at the 25" map and noted the Liverpool Street connection (unfortunately this straddles the join of two map sheets) but the Midland minute does specifically say via Spitalfields. I suppose coal traffic by the Great Eastern route (from Yorkshire via the GE & GN Joint Line) would also have been worked this way, painful though it seems. I wonder how the throughput - wagons per hour - of the hoist worked continuously compared with that of the Widened Lines, counting both Midland and Great Northern coal trains. The gradients limited the length of these and they had to fit in between the intensive passenger service. (There seem to have been collisions a-plenty, at least in the early days.)

 

For reference, here is the relevant RCH Junction Diagram, 1906 edition:

 

 

[Embedded link to Wikimedia Commons.]

[Nearholmer]

My comment was about coal traffic via the hoist, although it would apply to anything sent that way, and I was aware of the “via Liverpool Street” route, which again was limited in practical capacity. Somewhere, maybe in that strand thread, we did touch on the capacity of the hoist route (I’m sure I’ve seen figures for it), but it’s worth considering that the hoist itself may not have been the bottleneck, the yard at the foot f it was very tight, and clearing trains to and from it can’t have been easy given the frequency of the passenger services in the ELL.

 

In a way it all demonstrates how pressed for capacity the goods systems around London were in the few decades between demand rising as the city “exploded” and alternatives (road transport; different ways of meeting energy needs) emerging. I still find the whole retro-logistics thing fascinating!

Edited January 26, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

I have been browsing some Widened Lines accident reports from the mid 1870s to the early 1890s. These emphasise the limited capacity and expense of working of that route - trains of no more than about twenty wagons and always with two brake vans.

[Lacathedrale]

I understand the WTT for the LCDR pre-1900 suggests cattle traffic from the GER were also sent onwards to Hither Green, to be collected and marshalled for some bizarre reason at Holborn Viaduct - quite why, I'm not sure? Maybe just tacking a few cattle vans onto a diagrammed train would be easier than sending them across country? 

 

On 14/01/2023 at 01:43, pH said:

A couple of relevant articles:

 

- Trains Annual 1965. “From S.E.C.R. to G.N.R. - a cross-London journey of 1906”. A detailed description, with historical information, of a journey from Woolwich Arsenal to Wood Green on a through SECR suburban train.

 

I bought this annual for this purpose and can provide photographs, scans if required.

[Compound2632]

17 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

I understand the WTT for the LCDR pre-1900 suggests cattle traffic from the GER were also sent onwards to Hither Green, to be collected and marshalled for some bizarre reason at Holborn Viaduct - quite why, I'm not sure?

 

Perhaps because that was the only location with any space at all before turning onto the Met? The RCH Junction Diagram shows a link from the Met onto the Great Eastern at Liverpool Street - something I had not been aware of. The junction seems to have been one of those characteristic Met holes in the ground, bounded on one side by a Provident Institution and on the other by an Improvident Institution or Public House: 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201565.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

The Met-GE connection (into P1&2 @ Liverpool St iirc) went OOU quite early, although I can’t quickly find an exact date. It’s ghost survived in various uses until <10 years ago, latterly containing a telecoms hub which had to be moved to allow a big ‘ole to be dug for Crossrail.

 

I read LaCat to be saying that the poor beasts came off the GE via the ELL to HG, then had a trip back up to HV, before being ferried to pastures new by passenger train. Probably the least slow way of doing it.

 

I’ve seen a photo of a horse-race special, lots of horse boxes, coming via Liverpool Street and the ELL from Newmarket to one of the Sussex courses.

[Tom Burnham]

As it happens I was reading an article about the connection between the Met and the GE at Liverpool Street just yesterday (in a 2021 London Railway Record).  The conclusion was that the connection was laid in but never properly signalled or regularly used.

With regard to cattle traffic I suppose one consideration was that there were fairly strict regulations on how often cattle had to be inspected and/or watered during transit.

[Lacathedrale]

The latest issue of Invicta (101) details an interesting tidbit about the connecting spur between the SER at 'New Waterloo' (i.e. Waterloo East) and LSWR 'Waterloo': apparently one of the uses of that route was a  short lived joint LSWR/LNWR service from Euston to London Bridge via Kensington and Waterloo!

[Nearholmer]

I thought that service went to Holborn Viaduct or St Paul’s or somewhere there; I didn’t know it went to LB.

[Lacathedrale]

This was 1864-69? Or something along those lines - VERY short lived and quickly diverted elsewhere. When I get home I'll try to scan the relevant paragraph.

[bbishop]

On 31/08/2023 at 16:21, Nearholmer said:

I thought that service went to Holborn Viaduct or St Paul’s or somewhere there; I didn’t know it went to LB.

The LSWR had two routes to Ludgate Hill.  The "Wimbledon" service ran through Tulse Hill and Herne Hill and is extant as part of Thameslink.  The "Richmond" service ran through Addison Road and Factory Junction with various bits used by London Overground and the District line.  The South Western sidings stlll exist near Farringdon.

 

However there was a proposal to extend through Waterloo to Blackfriars.  It would have used the site of the South station at Waterloo, run beside the SER line but gaining height and, about the site of the TfL building, swinging across the SER line to join the LBSC line.   Bill

[phil_sutters]

This shot shows what the LU map identifies as the Farringdon City Sidings, in the 2023 map layer. https://www.theundergroundmap.com/article.html?id=398&zoom=16&annum=2023 . My starting point has been Peckham Rye, near where I used to live, so the link will probably open there. Just head north and a bit west!

In the 1900 layer they seem to be part of the LC&DR line. The layers use different maps at different magnifications. The initial layer doesn't have as much detail, but if you zoom in to enlarge the view it changes to a much more detailed map.

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by phil_sutters

[Nearholmer]

56 minutes ago, bbishop said:

The LSWR had two routes to Ludgate Hill

 

Yes, I recognise those as what became the established service pattern. It was the early, and brief, service across the link to what we now know as Waterloo East that I was musing about …… I’m sure I’ve seen reference somewhere to it going to other than London Bridge.

 

I didn’t know about the proposal you mention, which I’m glad didn’t happen. I know the area it would have run through pretty well, and it’s a real gem of a place, one of a very tiny few parts of inner London  where modest-sized houses have survived in good condition, entire streets, from early Victorian times. https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/roupell-street-conservation-area.htm

 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Nearholmer

[woko]

On 30/11/2021 at 18:50, Compound2632 said:

Re-reading posts from the summer of 2020, I see I was being a bit cagey about the map showing Midland goods and mineral routes to points south of the river. At that time the map in question was on the Members' Area of the Midland Railway Study Centre website but it is now freely available for inspection; I've been posting snippets of it elsewhere. The map in question is the panel at the right-hand end:

 

 

[Embedded link to Midland Railway Study Centre Item 20628.]

 

This is fantastic, thanks for posting I haven't ever come across this map before it is hugely helpful :)