SR Newspaper trains 1923-1930

[MattR]

As a former newspaper man myself, I thought it would be interesting to put one together. My layout is Southern Railway, 1923-1930 in OO. I can't seem to find much information on newspaper trains in general before the BR days, let alone the SR in the 1920s.

 

My question is which SR locomotives would pull one of the newspaper trains? And which type of rolling stock would they use? I'm guessing that by late 1930 they might be using the GBL vans, but I'm not sure about before that. Thanks!

Edited October 25, 2021 by MattR

[bécasse]

Newspaper trains, almost by definition, ran in the night hours so effectively no photographs exist and it is far too long ago for personal memories. Stock obviously returned during daylight hours but often in several different trains so even where an up service with vans was photographed it is difficult to say categorically that the vans were newspaper traffic ones. That said, in the early Southern period, newspaper trains would inevitably have been made up of pre-grouping vans, probably with bogie stock predominating as many were tightly timed. Locos were probably mainly the same as those used on lighter passenger trains on the same routes, perhaps with 4-4-0s to the fore. Some Southern newspaper trains conveyed limited passenger accommodation.

 

By the time one got to the branches and twigs of the Southern system, most newspapers were conveyed in luggage accommodation of ordinary passenger stock. The Southern became concerned with the cost of conveying newspapers over the further parts of its system and introduced a series of increasingly ingenious measures aimed at passing newspaper trains in the early hours without opening signal boxes, even on single lines.

[Nearholmer]

Question 1: were there dedicated newspaper trains on the southern at the dates under discussion?

 

To me, it’s not a foregone conclusion that there were, and it would really be good to have WTT confirmation.

 

A lot of things that we take as ‘forever’ actually weren’t, and only began after WW2.

 

In my tinplate toy train world, I do run SR newspaper trains, using a combination of pre-grouping 6W vans, and bogie brake thirds with very large ‘van’ section, which seems a likely set-up to me for c1930, assuming they did exist.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Tony Cane]

The book Southern Railway Passenger Vans by D Gouldhas details of two newspaper trains, in 193,  leaving Waterloo at 1:30am and 3:00am. These included the new GBL vans with a van various principle sations, eithe in the Westcountry or the Southampton area.

[MattR]

Thanks for the help! I'll have to see if I can find that book for more information.

[Nick Holliday]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Question 1: were there dedicated newspaper trains on the southern at the dates under discussion?

 

To me, it’s not a foregone conclusion that there were, and it would really be good to have WTT confirmation.

 

A lot of things that we take as ‘forever’ actually weren’t, and only began after WW2.

 

In the sadly missed Railways South East magazine of Summer 1990 there is an excellent article by Alan A Jackson about Holborn Viaduct station, 1874-1990. Ideally placed near Fleet Street, a number of newspaper trains left from there in the early hours, before the main passenger commuting traffic started. It would seem they all were steam hauled, power being shut off until later, using SECR 4-4-0 classes, and probably contained at least one passenger coach, as another article in RSE recounting a night shift at Faversham in the sixties, notes that the Newspaper Train (as it appeared in the WTT) carried staff associated with Dover Docks, and was not to be delayed en-route. 

 

On the neighbouring LBSCR, the following services appear in the 1916 Programme of Formations.  Without seeing the WTT I can't be certain that they are all dedicated newspaper trains, but the make up is certainly suggestive of it, with an overwhelming number of vans, at least when they set off.

It looks as if the First Editions went out around 5 a.m. with Second and perhaps Third Editions following later.  It was probably important  to get the papers to Brighton as soon as possible, so that the travellers up to London would have something to read. The locomotives on these services would presumably be the smaller types, E5 and I3 tanks, and Gladstones, B2X and B4 tender locos.

[MattR]

Nick, that is invaluable. Thank you!

[Nearholmer]

It very much is, and it cheers me up a lot, because my logical deduction based timetable (a.k.a. educated guesswork) for my tin railway when in East Sussex c1930 mode has the newspaper and parcels train coming down within those time windows, to get the papers out to my little lead citizens before the start of the business day, and before the delivery boys have to be at school.

 

My surmise is that these trains did indeed carry railway parcels as well as newspapers, and possibly Royal Mail too. Does anyone know facts that might confirm or deny that surmise?

[watfordtmc]

This is less an answer and more some keyboard observations which may or may not be useful.

 

Two provisos however: firstly I have not done any original research but relied on the works of the late Gordon Weddell, also David Gould (referenced by @Tony Cane above) and Mike King.  These authors were concerned with coaching stock though, and they offer no detail of motive power and very little in terms of train working.  Further, such mentions of train working as there are refer either mostly to the 19th century (Weddell) or post 1930.

 

Secondly, the Southern was a game of three halves – the SEC section, the LBSC section and the LSW section.  Although I’ve read and re-read your original post, I cannot determine which section is your area of interest.

In the era you’re interested in this has particularly implications on the stock and motive power used.

 

Only one train on the Southern – the 1.30 am Waterloo – West of England seems to have been specifically identified as a ‘Paper’ train, but there were other late evening/early morning services which would have conveyed newspaper traffic as well.

 

Gould gives examples of services departing Waterloo including a 3.00 am ‘Vans’ that conveyed vans for Portsmouth & Southsea, Poole, Southampton Terminus, Southampton West (Central) and Bournemouth West along with other departures at 3.20 am and 3.45 am (Ref 1).

He also notes, albeit post-war, early morning departures from Holborn Viaduct for Ramsgate (via Ashford), London Bridge to Hastings, which detached a van for Dover at Tonbridge and Victoria for Ramsgate via Chatham.  This last also had passenger accommodation (Ref 1).  I would expect equivalent trains to have operated before the war (i.e. World War 2), especially as Holborn Viaduct was the nearest station for Fleet Street.

 

I get a sense though, that even specific trains for vans only were uncommon on the Southern, where the preference was to move passenger rated traffic largely by scheduled passenger trains.

Weddell gives an example (from 1896 though) of a cavalcade that departed the old Waterloo station at 5.50 am, but included specifically identified vans for newspapers for Bournemouth West, Dorchester, Plymouth and Portsmouth.  The vans for Plymouth and Portsmouth must have been detached en-route and then attached to other trains to get to their destinations (Ref 2).

By 1911 the 5.50 am included a bogie news van (and 4-coach set) for Weymouth, along with a ‘news’ van (no. of wheels not specified) for Dorchester via Wimbourne, presumably detached at Brockenhurst and forwarded on a Wimbourne road service.  In the same year the 5.35 am from Waterloo to Southampton also included a bogie news van and 4-coach set (Ref 3).

 

This does provide one answer to your query about motive power – whatever was pulling the passenger train!

 

On the motive power front, the default offering would be a 4-4-0 and not necessarily the biggest and/or newest either.

 

By the twenties I would expect a 4-6-0 for the 1.30 – a King Arthur rather than a Nelson, and a 4-6-0 for the Bournemouth line would seem feasible.  There’s always a chance the 4-6-0 might be one the surviving Drummond engines.

West of Exeter could only be a 4-4-0 until the later twenties when a 2-6-0 might be possible, at least to Barnstaple or Plymouth.

Once available 2-6-0’s might also be a possibility for Portsmouth trains.

For the secondary services, 4-4-0’s would hold sway, including the surviving Adams classes, along with his 0-4-2.

 

I know very little of the Brighton section, so @Nick Holliday's response has increased my knowledge significantly!

 

For the Eastern section, only 4-4-0’s were permitted over Blackfriars Bridge to Holborn Viaduct and I believe even the D1/E1 rebuilds were not permitted there until the mid-twenties.  4-4-0’s would also be the only motive power for the Hastings train.

I suppose a 4-6-0 could have been used for the Victoria service, although in the twenties a 2-6-0 seems plausible.  But a 4-4-0 would be equally likely in my opinion.

 

As for stock – well in the twenties very little of it would be the ‘Southern’ vans we all know so well.  On the Brighton and Eastern sections not much of it would be bogie stock either.

 

On the South Western section a 44’ bogie Passenger Guard Van is likely; indeed two such were reserved for newspaper traffic.  The Southern renumbered 161 of the 44’ vehicles (Ref 2).

However, the most typical passenger van on the LSW was the 24’ PLV.  A small number of these had been equipped with gas lighting, instead of oil, and were specifically reserved for newspaper traffic.  The Southern renumbered 378 24’ PLV’s and only 30 of them had been withdrawn by 1930 (Ref 3).  The other plausible candidate would be the 30’ 6-wheel Passenger Brake Van of which 86 received Southern numbers (Ref 2).

 

The Brighton passed on 21 bogie vans to the Southern, of which one was allocated to the Newhaven Boat train (Ref 4).  Far more typical of the Brighton section in the twenties was a 6-wheel van.  If I’ve totted up the numbers correctly from King, there were around 160 6-wheel Passenger Brake Vans, along with 70 odd 6-wheel Passenger Luggage Vans and 50 or so 6-wheel Covered Carriage Trucks which could also have been used for newspaper traffic I would think (Ref 5).

 

If the Brighton didn’t hand over many bogie vans to the Southern, the SEC did even less well – eight bogie vans in total.  Far more common were 6-wheel Passenger Brake Vans of which some 200 plus, of several different types and origins, received Southern numbers (Refs 5 & 6).  There were also around 80 Luggage Vans that had been converted from former SER 4-wheel Passenger Brakes (Ref 6), but I know nothing of other SEC passenger vans, except…

 

The SEC did of course have its 45 ‘Cavell’ vans, the prototypes for the Southern van ‘family’.  A proportion of these seem to have been reserved for Continental Boat train traffic, but the others would have been available for newspapers amongst other traffics (Ref 7).

 

The ‘Cavell’ vans were the only ‘Southern’ vans in service until 1928 when 50 of the Covcar variant were delivered.  A further 30 Covcars followed in 1929, and in 1930 the first 50 GBL’s, the D3100 variety, went into traffic (Ref 7).  All other Southern vans are however, beyond your time frame.

 

All in all you’ve set yourself a tricky modelling proposition; it’s a very interesting period to model, but one that is very poorly served by the trade in either ready-to-run or kit form.

 

 

References

1. Southern Railway Passenger Vans, Gould D, Oakwood Press (Headington) 1992.  See pp 21, 23, 66 & 78 for brief examples of Southern van workings.
2. LSWR Carriages Volume 1 1838-1900, Weddell G, Wild Swan (Didcot) 1992.  See pp 191 for 1896 5.50 service, pp 180-181, 183 & 231-233 for 44’ PGV’s, pp118-120 & 222 for 30’ PBV’s
3. LSWR Carriages Volume 3 Non-Passenger Carriage Stock, Weddell G, Kestral Railway Books 2005.  See pp 35 for 5.35 and 5.50 services, pp 11-15, 27-30 & Appendix 1 for 24’ PLV’s.
4. Bogie Carriages of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, Gould D, Oakwood Press (Headington) 1995.  See pp 191-195 for discussion on bogie passenger vans.
5. Southern Coaches Survey Pre-Grouping and BR Mk 1 Stock, King M, Crecy Publishing 2005.  See pp 134-148 for discussion on LBSC 6-wheel passenger vans, pp 84-89 for discussion on SEC 6-wheel PBV’s and pp 117-119 for discussion on LCD 6-wheel PBV’s.
6. Carriage Stock of the S.E.& C.R., Gould D, Oakwood Press (Tarrant Hinton) 1976.  See pp 130-138 for discussion on SE/LCD/SEC Passenger Brake Vans.
7. An Illustrated History of Southern Coaches, King M, Oxford Publishing Co (Hersham) 2003.  See pp 183-194 for discussion on Southern luggage vans.

• There is a more recent four volume survey of LBSC carriages, which I do not have copies of.  Could @Nick Holliday comment on the content of these?
• I’m not confident I have been able to reconcile the numbers of LCD/SE/SEC PBV’s between Ref’s 5 & 6.  But I feel the numbers quoted are in the right order of magnitude.

 

Regards

TMc

31/10/2021

 

[Nick Holliday]

10 hours ago, watfordtmc said:

1.  

• There is a more recent four volume survey of LBSC carriages, which I do not have copies of.  Could @Nick Holliday comment on the content of these?

Thanks for that!  The four volume survey, from Ian White, et al, concentrates mainly on the situation up to Grouping, so doesn't really impact on this discussion. My interpretation of Mike King's figures suggests there were 170 30' PBV's and a further 30 Stroudley 26' PBV's.  It is difficult to know whether it is safe to  include the ventilated fish and meat vans in with the PLV total, so I would say only 50 or so would have been suitable for newspaper traffic. What the Ian White books make clear is that at around the turn of the century there were over 320 longer PBV's in service, and many trains were topped and tailed by at least one, as, until then, no bogie coaches had any significant guard or luggage provision. Hence almost every train would have had a substantial volume for accepting goods, and it might not have been necessary to consider providing many dedicated newspaper trains, as the output from each papers' presses could be loaded on to the next suitable passenger train.  From around 1906 a substantial proportion of the six-wheeled stock was rebuilt onto bogie frames, often splicing together parts from two different vehicles.  Around half of the PBV's were used in this project, which meant that the carriages thus created often had substantial room for luggage and goods, and these brake vehicles were usually formed into three coach sets, with a composite between, again meaning that any passenger train would have had plenty of room for newspapers, especially that, at the time of the morning distribution at least, there would have been few items of luggage to get in the way.

It may be pertinent to note that both the LBSCR and LSWR continued to show passenger services throughout the night, at least from London, as there were, presumably, many workers, or revellers, who needed to travel home in the early hours of the morning.  It was also a useful and economic way to return the stock of late-night trains to an outlying station, ready for the busy commuting period.

[Nearholmer]

Mine line of thinking too - I’ve no proof, but logic suggests to me that late-Brighton and early-Southern would have seen the ‘big van’ brake thirds used for this sort of traffic.
 

The other candidates are 6W milk vans, some of which were repurposed as what amounted to GUVs, some even fitted for inclusion in motor trains, but what I don’t know is what was done to the vents, if anything. I’m just wondering how newspapers would have got on in a damp draught, but then it used to be common to drop off bundles from a road vehicle at shops, tucking them in doorways with barely any cover, so maybe not an issue.

[MattR]

Thank you for the comprehensive information, gentlemen!

 

My layout is a non-specific part of the SR (Rule 1 and all that), so all of your information is of excellent use to me! Although it seems like the southwestern portion may be the most simplest to obtain OO models for (I already have an N15).

 

It is an odd time period to model, I admit, but it was done intentionally to allow me to have locomotives and stock of the three SR pre-Grouping railways that have not yet been given their SR livery. 1930 as an ending date means letter prefixes were still in use and (mostly) no smoke deflectors. Plus, it lets me squeeze in the Schools class as well as preventing me from buying a bunch of the later SR locomotives!

[The Stationmaster]

There was a London Bridge - Reading (Southern) 'paper train which ran I understand well into the 1950s and I presume had also run Pre-war.  It left London Bridge c.01.30-45 (I have heard various different times over the years but all in that vicinity) and in view of their appearance at Reading well into the 1950s  it would have been worked by an ex-SECR 4-4-0.