Big four era - moving wagons from other companies

[Nearholmer]

4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

But thanks for pointing out the LNWR / SECR workings via Reading (the western limit of the SER) which is of local interest to me. I wonder if these workings did only start during the Great War?

 

I'm still a bit baffled by this one, but I wonder whether it was specifically routed to avoid congesting the London-fringe marshalling yards and London network during heavy wartime demand. Does anyone know whether it came off the LNWR at Oxford having come from Bletchley?

[laurenceb]

I have LMS at War and By Rail to Victory (LNER) and was wondering if the other two had done the same to complete the set. LMS at War is not hard to come by, my friend Chris currently has 3 copies in stock

[hmrspaul]

On 29/12/2021 at 07:16, Compound2632 said:

 

, which states that O22 included both fitted and unfitted wagons. (Why weren't they on different diagrams, as they're operationally different?) Was it only the fitted examples that were NCU?

I doubt anyone that studies wagons pre TOPS understands how wagons were allocated to diagrams by any of the companies. The tiniest changes in dimension could result in a new diagram but major changes such as power brake, piped or unbraked goes unnoticed by many. And the GWR diagrams are about the only ones that are suitable for modellers as they tend to be mini GA drawings unlike any of the other post Grouping companies. As to before the Grouping, or BR, Total mess. 

 

Paul

[Nearholmer]

11 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

was wondering if the other two had done the same to complete the set.

The SR book was called ‘War on the Line’, pub 1946.

 

I think you might need five books, in that I strongly suspect that LT published one too. Yes, imaginatively titled ‘London Transport at War’.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

I doubt anyone that studies wagons pre TOPS understands how wagons were allocated to diagrams by any of the companies. The tiniest changes in dimension could result in a new diagram but major changes such as power brake, piped or unbraked goes unnoticed by many. And the GWR diagrams are about the only ones that are suitable for modellers as they tend to be mini GA drawings unlike any of the other post Grouping companies. As to before the Grouping, or BR, Total mess. 

 

Undue negativity, I feel. I was a bit surprised by O22 covering both fitted and unfitted types, as the distinction was bade for O2 / O10, otherwise identical. But Midland diagrams - at least for covered goods wagons which represented the bulk of fitted stock - do not distinguish, simply listing the nominal tares for unfitted, piped, and fitted versions on the same diagram. From an operating department point of view, it's the dimensions that matter, so a new diagram for new dimensions is perfectly intelligible.

 

Diagrams have utility for modellers as a means of classification and also as giving basic dimensions but I agree they're far from ideal as the starting point for a model. But at a pinch, if sufficient details are known from drawings of similar types and from photographs, they'll do in the absence of better information.

 

I certainly wouldn't say that the situation pre-BR was a total mess, far from it. But for the pre-grouping companies, I think it does need to be borne in mind that diagram books were an early 20th century invention, as far as I can make out; certainly on the Great Western and the Midland, so in many cases are a retrospective system of classification. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Compound2632

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I'm still a bit baffled by this one, but I wonder whether it was specifically routed to avoid congesting the London-fringe marshalling yards and London network during heavy wartime demand. Does anyone know whether it came off the LNWR at Oxford having come from Bletchley?

The normal routes for exchange of traffic between the GWR and SECR were via Reading Low Level (served by timetabled trips from Reading West Junction yard as far as the GWR was concerned and Reading junction as far as the SECR was concerned) and 'Old Oak X Common' (although where the RCH numbertaking took place I'm not sure.  In a 1901 GWR STT coal for the SECR is shown as passing on a Swindon to Old Oak Common train while there were two goods trains (one of which started from Cardiff so probably wouldn't have conveyed much in the way of coal) and the other was definitely goods.  At that time the vast majority of GWR coal traffic moving towards the London area appears to have commenced its main line journey at Pontypool Road then running either northwards via Worcester and Oxford or southwards via Severn Tunnel Jcn and Gloucester.

 

Exchange between the GWR and LNWR at Oxford was via the Exchange Sdg at Oxford North Signal Box although the RCH diagrams show what amounts to a scissors crossover between the GWR and LNWR at roughly that location which doesn't agree with other information which dates the running junction at Oxford North Junction as being installed in November 1940 - the relevant notice referring to it as ' a new direct connection' between the GWR and LMS.  As late as 1939 the GWR end of the Exchange Sdg was being shunted 7 times on one of the shifts (which doesn't surprise me because having walked the length of the siding in the late 1960s I doubt if it could hold even 20 wagons let alone a train.

 

Prior to the 1940 connection at Oxford Nth Jcn the only way of exchanging a train between the GWR and LNWR was by reversing it at Yarnton Jcn but the connection between the GWR and SECR at Reading Main Line East, via the steep gradient, which allowed through train running and easier exchange of passenger stock had been commissioned some years prior 1914 (I can't immediately find the actual date).

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I thought the direct connection at Oxford was WW2, rather than WW1, so either lots of shuffling at Oxford, or at Banbury I suppose.

[jim.snowdon]

On 29/12/2021 at 07:16, Compound2632 said:

 

I think I've since seen sufficient evidence of GWR wagons with sheet rails in coal traffic well off the GWR to make me doubt my earlier statement.

 

However, fitted wagons generally were excluded from the pool until 1936 and even then did not include GW opens or vans or SR opens [See tables in Atkins et al., GWR Goods Wagons (3rd edition) and Tatlow, LNER Wagons Vol. 4A]. Without Atkins to hand, I'm relying on the caption to this photo, which states that O22 included both fitted and unfitted wagons. (Why weren't they on different diagrams, as they're operationally different?) Was it only the fitted examples that were NCU?

The caption is correct. The Swindon Diagram shows a vacuum braked wagon, but has a footnote that the Diagram included both fitted wagons (with Instanter couplings) and unfitted wagons (with three-link couplings). There are no special notes attached to the Lot as it is written in the Lot Register (I have a hand transcribed copy of the original), but my suspicion would be that the Lot was ordered as vacuum braked, but that a quantity at the end of the run were built without the vacuum gear, either for reasons of economy or as a result of a changed requirement from the Goods Manager's Department. What I don't know, but could be the case, is whether they were fitted with all the miscellaneous fittings and just needed the cylinder and pipes fitting.

 

[57xx]

On 29/12/2021 at 03:46, Craigw said:

 

I have not read through all the posts, so maybe someone has noted this in the mean time.  In the early 192os at least the GWR had excluded vacuum fitted vans and Tarpaulin bar fitted opens from the common user pool and these carried the GWR "Not Common User" markings.  Page 289 of GWR Goods wagons (The big volume!) has photos of new O22 wagons from 1924-1925 carrying this. Not real easy to find photos of older wagons in the 1919-1925 period so hard to tell if they made a concerted effort to apply to all so fitted wagons.

 

I was under the impression that tarp bar wagons were generally in the pool, the exceptions being when they were vac fitted wagons, hence the stories of the GWR removing the bars as they were fed up of other companies excessively hanging on to those wagons.

Plate 373 in your reference refutes what I thought, but then on the previous page there are two photos showing tarp bar wagons without the NCU plates.