Western Region Fish questions

[Tallpaul69]

Hi All,

I am asking these fishy questions here, so that I can get the input of those of you who do not follow my "Lower Thames Yard" thread:-

These questions are all in the context of the1960/2 timeframe on the Western Region out of Paddington

First Topic:-

Around 0745 a train left Reading for Slough. It was hauled by a 57xx and dropped fish vans at the stations along the way. The train was a class C, so I assume it had a Passenger Brake rather than a Toad?.

If so, what sort of passenger Brake would have been used?

I am not sure if any fish would have been carried, but in some texts the train is referred to as a Fish and parcels train so parcels could have been carried.

 

Second Topic:-

In 1959, before the closure of Reading SR Station, there was a parcels (?) bay at the eastern end of Reading Station.

On page 82 of " Through the Links at Southall and Old Oak Common" there is a picture taken from the approaching 1.15 Paddington to Weston Super Mare (due to pass Reading 1.48) of a Hall (presumably the Reading East End Pilot) on vans ready to pull them out of this bay. The text describes the bay as a Fish Dock and says they were to be attached to the 12.00 Oxford to Paddington Parcels (at Reading 1.36-2.00).

 

My questions:-

1) What traffic was handled in this bay

2) What sort of vans were used?

From what I can see of the vans, which are partly hidden by the Hall, they appear to be BGs?

3) The 12.00 parcels from Oxford was a Hall job? Might the Hall in the pic be the train engine rather than my first idea of the Reading east end pilot?

4) A likely candidate for bringing the vans to Reading is the 06.45 Paddington to Reading parcels, but this arrives at Reading at 10.04, which only allows 2 hours or so for unloading, so is this reasonable?

 

Many thanks for any thoughts?

 

Best regards

Paul 

[The Stationmaster]

The Reading Fish Dock can be seen on the left of the Down Main Line in my 1964 photo below. By then I doubt it was handling anything in the way of fish - it was used by the GPO for loading/unloading mail traffic.

 

 

 

[keefer]

17 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

The train was a class C, so I assume it had a Passenger Brake rather than a Toad?.

If so, what sort of passenger Brake would have been used?

I am not sure if any fish would have been carried, but in some texts the train is referred to as a Fish and parcels train so parcels could have been carried.

Presumably some sort of NPCCS brake coach then? Like a full brake - BG or some pre-nat type (unfamiliar with GW stock but something like the ex-LMS B/BG/BZ brakes which lasted well into BR days)

[Tallpaul69]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The Reading Fish Dock can be seen on the left of the Down Main Line in my 1964 photo below. By then I doubt it was handling anything in the way of fish - it was used by the GPO for loading/unloading mail traffic.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, keefer said:

Presumably some sort of NPCCS brake coach then? Like a full brake - BG or some pre-nat type (unfamiliar with GW stock but something like the ex-LMS B/BG/BZ brakes which lasted well into BR days)

Thanks Guys,

I can now finish off my consists for the morning Fish and the 12.00 Oxford to Paddington Parcels.

 

The Fish will get a BG as its Guards accommodation, and the Parcels will get also get a BG, both in line with my '61 Formation of Local Parcels book!

 

What I now have to do is work out how the Fish BG got back to Reading! (and the fish vans back to Oxford!)

So far I have not located in the Formations of Local Parcels any pick up at Slough of a Brake Van (BG), either towards Reading or Paddinton. Next thing will be to look at the Local Coach and Local Diesel Unit workings to see if any of them picked up the Van?  

 

The fish vans I suspect went on a number of freights as they were dropped off at a number of stations, not just the terminating working at Slough.

Possibly in two stages, firstly to Reading or Didcot and then on to Oxford.

 

Cheers

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

I do wonder just how much fish traffic there still was by then.  I can definitely remember seeing Insixfish running in the early 1960s attached to Class 1 passenger trains in the time before six wheelers were banned from such trains.  But by the time I started in 1966 fish traffic in other than a passenger train brakevan had disappeared from London Division local stations and was pretty rare in any case.  When I was working  in Slough Parcels for a short tiem that year we didn't see any fish invoices at all and fish was still supposed to be invoiced then.

[Fat Controller]

42 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I do wonder just how much fish traffic there still was by then.  I can definitely remember seeing Insixfish running in the early 1960s attached to Class 1 passenger trains in the time before six wheelers were banned from such trains.  But by the time I started in 1966 fish traffic in other than a passenger train brakevan had disappeared from London Division local stations and was pretty rare in any case.  When I was working  in Slough Parcels for a short tiem that year we didn't see any fish invoices at all and fish was still supposed to be invoiced then.

There was a mixed Perishables ,that stopped at Llanelli, which ran until the early 1970s. A Hymek diagram, it usually had at least one Insulfish, along with Conflats carrying Meat containers, and sometimes milk tanks. There was definitely fish on board; the odour remained long after the train had gone. Here is a link to a photo:-

https://www.flickr.com/photos/richard_davies_collection/6530982109/in/album-72157628358611339/

The Insixfishes went to the ScR fairly soon after being built, I believe.

[jonny777]

57 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I do wonder just how much fish traffic there still was by then.  I can definitely remember seeing Insixfish running in the early 1960s attached to Class 1 passenger trains in the time before six wheelers were banned from such trains.  But by the time I started in 1966 fish traffic in other than a passenger train brakevan had disappeared from London Division local stations and was pretty rare in any case.  When I was working  in Slough Parcels for a short tiem that year we didn't see any fish invoices at all and fish was still supposed to be invoiced then.

 

Not a lot, is the polite answer to how much fish traffic there was after 1964. 

 

BR seemed to be losing the traffic hand over fist, and the 9 daily departures from Grimsby in 1958/9 were reduced to 2 by the end of 1964. I presume there was an equivalent reduction from Hull and NE Scotland. 

 

The idea was to concentrate services into a small number of long distance trains; but road traffic had the upper hand by then and any local services must have been quite rare. 

[Tallpaul69]

Thanks for your inputs Guys,

but I feel I must point out that, perhaps because a 1964 pic was posted by Mike (only to illustrate the Reading Fish Dock!), the thread has lost sight that I am modelling in the 1960/2 period!

My earlier questions quoted a 1959 picture, and its caption.

In 1961 WR London Division WTTs there were a number of dedicated Fish trains although a couple were labeled "Q"!

 

So while taking the point that later in the 60s the fish by rail traffic was lost, in 1960/2 it was alive and well, at least sufficient for my portrayal of the Morning Reading to Slough Fish train to be realistic.

I may put the odd fish van in perishables trains (other than the returning fish vans off the above train) but that is all.

 

Take care

Keep smiling

Regards

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Thanks for your inputs Guys,

but I feel I must point out that, perhaps because a 1964 pic was posted by Mike (only to illustrate the Reading Fish Dock!), the thread has lost sight that I am modelling in the 1960/2 period!

My earlier questions quoted a 1959 picture, and its caption.

In 1961 WR London Division WTTs there were a number of dedicated Fish trains although a couple were labeled "Q"!

 

So while taking the point that later in the 60s the fish by rail traffic was lost, in 1960/2 it was alive and well, at least sufficient for my portrayal of the Morning Reading to Slough Fish train to be realistic.

I may put the odd fish van in perishables trains (other than the returning fish vans off the above train) but that is all.

 

Take care

Keep smiling

Regards

Paul

One thing Paul - never be misled by what was shown in the timetable being an indication that non-passenger trains actually ran and that they conveyed the traffic described at the head of the timetable column.  If the column had said 'milk' then you can lay good money that it was a milk train and nothing else although it's no guarantee that it actually ran everyday it was supposed to run.  If it said parcels then it most likely always ran but fish trains - if they were only conveying fish - depended very much on what was being landed and on how much of teh traffic rail still retained, even in 1960/61.

 

SAAnd don't forget that trains like that, even when there were Q workings shown as well, often tended to languish in the timetable for a long while after they ceased to be regular runners back in those days - more in hope than anticipation.

[Tallpaul69]

Fair comment Mike,

 

My basis for running this train under Rule 1 is that on the layout it provides variety in the trains run and in real life was fed by two trains from Hull and Grimsby, which were important fish landing areas, via Banbury to Oxford, and on to Swindon, Plymouth and Whitland.

 

It will only be 4/5 vans - one for Maidenhead, one for Taplow and 2/3 for Slough.

The WTT shows fish flows from Milford Haven, and (I guess!) from Lowestoft via NLR and Acton. So my rule 1 argument is that the only one left on rail was the flow from the North East and that was because of the distances involved!

 

But what I do have to do is work up a story for how the Fish vans got back to Reading, as there is little in the WTTs, Parcel Train Formations, or Marshalling Instructions to help.

 

Cheers

Paul

[keefer]

Mention of the 6-wheel fish vans reminded me of an entry in the passenger book while researching the Aberdeen-Glasgow trains in the days of the 3-hr expresses.

One train (not one of the 3-hr trains) had an 'XFISH' which IIRC was detached at Perth (or was it Stirling), to be worked south on a later service.

[The Johnster]

10 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

There was a mixed Perishables ,that stopped at Llanelli, which ran until the early 1970s. A Hymek diagram, it usually had at least one Insulfish, along with Conflats carrying Meat containers, and sometimes milk tanks. There was definitely fish on board; the odour remained long after the train had gone. Here is a link to a photo:-

https://www.flickr.com/photos/richard_davies_collection/6530982109/in/album-72157628358611339/

The Insixfishes went to the ScR fairly soon after being built, I believe.

6A15 was the Milford Haven-Paddington 'fish', which changed locos at Canton Goods in the 70s, and, I was told, for many years before that.  It was one of those trains that had run to the same timings since the Silurian era.  I don't think it was particularly a Hymek job, and I remember 47s and Westerns on it as well.  In steam days it was a Castle turn.  Vans were detached and picked up at Canton Goods (the signalling centre occupies the site now), the fresh loco doing the work while the loco that had brought the train up from Milford Haven went on shed at Canton.  I can confirm that it had Insulfish vans, and conflats with both meat and fish containers, along with a rag-bag of 4 wheeled NPCCS.  By the 70s there was no need for a brake van as the guard rode in the rear cab of the loco.  it carried fish all right, the smell was pervasive.  It got to Canton about 19.30, and left about half an hour later.  It ran via the Swansea District line, and one of my link workings was a Swansea High St Goods (NCL)-Cardiff Long Dyke class 6 (this was an exclusively Hymek job) which was, if everything was running to time, always held on the up main at Briton Ferry for 6A15 to be let out in front of us.  This would ensure a clear run to Cardiff, as everything else made way for the fish and we were up it's ....

Edited March 29, 2020 by The Johnster