Working Manual for Rail Staff yellow pages (wagon labelling) 1969 / pre-73 - before TOPS

[HGR]

Does anyone out there happen to have a copy of the B.R. Working Manual for Rail Staff containing the wagon labelling instructions - the yellow pages section, dated before 1973 ?

 

If so, could you scan / copy / post images on here by chance please ?

 

My copy is post-'73 so has the TOPS version of the wagon labels - with the five box TOPS location number for the destination. What I'm looking for is the earlier version that has wagon labels pre-TOPS that have the three boxes for the three-character destination routing code instead. Hopefully it would also list the labels used for the traffics that disappeared off the railways in 1971, and thus didn't make it into the TOPS era wagon labels.

 

Alternatively, if anyone has a pre-TOPS copy of the Wagon Labelling Guide, this could answer my questions ?

 

Any help gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

 

[BR traction instructor]

Yep, I have a copy…I’ll load some scans.

 

BeRTIe

Edited April 4, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

[BR traction instructor]

Yep, I have a copy…I’ll load some scans.

 

BeRTIe

Edited April 4, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[BR traction instructor]

14 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

…in limited quantities and particular categories.

 

It kept the pigeons & chicks warm (joke).

 

BeRTIe

Edited April 4, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

Yup. I recall being tested on that - the 4' rule, with a chalk mark on the brake floor to show where other parcels could safely be left.

[BR traction instructor]

24 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

…in limited quantities and particular categories.

 

BeRTIe

[Ramblin Rich]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

 

1 hour ago, BR traction instructor said:

…in limited quantities and particular categories.

 

It kept the pigeons & chicks warm (joke).

 

BeRTIe

 

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

Yup. I recall being tested on that - the 4' rule, with a chalk mark on the brake floor to show where other parcels could safely be left.

I do know that the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital used to get a particular isotope supply for medical scans, from Birmingham, via Red Star parcels (the symbol seems strangely appropriate!). The department head used to go to collect from the parcels office in his MGB. Not much chance of getting 4' away in that...!

Edited April 4, 2022 by Ramblin Rich

[Simon Lee]

46 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

 

Yes, usually medical Isotopes, before the M62 eastern end opened, we would regularly recieve them via Red Star at Hull Paragon for the Royal Infirmary from the Leeds hospitals. The TransPennines also regularly carried blood for transfusion from the blood bank at Leeds, if per chance both were presented for the same train, then the blood was stowed in the brake where the guard was riding, and the Isotopes in the second brake compartment.

 

 

 

[HGR]

BeRTIe,

 

Thank You for those scans. That answers a few questions ! 

 

Interestingly, some of the specific traffics appear to have already 'gone' by then. For example malt. Clause B1 alludes to a serious bit of culling of the previously extensive variety of pre-printed labels for specific traffics. In later versions of the WM, the wording of cl. B1 was further simplified.

 

As an asside, when the WM was first issued it had a part 4 for loading of B.R. type containers. This was quickly withdrawn (1971 ?) and part 4 was to be re-used for the labelling of defective wagons. I've not seen a WM with a later part 4 though.

 

Cheers.

 

[BR traction instructor]

[BR traction instructor]

[BR traction instructor]

This Nov 71 D notice contains no updates for the WM blue or mauve pages and the blue pages were completely updated in May 75.

 

BeRTIe

[HGR]

Thank You again. That is the original part 4 mauve pages that was withdrawn in Feb. 1972, use of older type containers presumably had ceased by then ?

 

The only CONFLATs I ever saw in traffic never had containers on them ! Only bits of random machinery or redundant / scrap semaphore signalling equipment coming back to the CS&TE sidings. 

 

[BR traction instructor]

In a period of rapid change/technical advances a publication could become obsolete quickly and developments on the network not keep pace. I have no other update or reference to offer I’m afraid.

 

BeRTIe

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

All that lot needs to be a book, form the queue behind me!

 

Mike.

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Fantastic resource, but radioactive materials by passenger train?????!!!!

 

Mike.

Definitely - a lot of radioactive isotopes are used in small quantities in medicine and need sometimes to be quickly got from A to B so passenger train would be ideal and i believe there were some regular flows of such traffic.  Mind you it does get a bit worrying when the hypodermic kit they use to give you an injections is surrounded by a whopping great lump of lead but they reassuringly tell you that the half

-life of the stuff they are injecting is onlya few hours 

Edited April 5, 2022 by The Stationmaster

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Mind you it does get a bit worrying when the hypodermic kit they use to give you an injections is surrounded by a whopping great lump of lead but they reassuringly tell you that the half

-life of the stuff they are injecting is onlya few hours 

It's pretty scary when you have your teeth X-rayed and the dentist runs out of the room while the radioacitvity sign lights up.  As if it wasnt frightening enough just going to the dentists at all. 

[Fat Controller]

14 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It's pretty scary when you have your teeth X-rayed and the dentist runs out of the room while the radioacitvity sign lights up.  As if it wasnt frightening enough just going to the dentists at all. 

I found it quite unnerving when my wife was told not to sit next to anyone for an hour after having a lung scan.

[The Stationmaster]

On 05/04/2022 at 07:42, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

All that lot needs to be a book, form the queue behind me!

 

Mike.

It is in books - if you can find them.  But beware the Regions did things slightly differently.  The WR, ER, and SR did their load tables (and previously their Load Books) in much the same way with Through Loads being quoted for all regular long distance flows/trains and Block Trains and the Local Loads tables were used for everything else, including some shorter distance internal (to the Region) mainline loads.  And they were usually split up in geographic areas to keep down the size of document issued to staff - e.g clearly somebody on South Wales wouldn't be interested in the Brentford branch for example.  The LM did their tables their way while, as usual, the Scots did things in whatever different way they could from everybody else!

 

PS. And of course the method of calculation varied over the years.  The pre-nationalisation companies all used their own method of calculating freight train loads and it wasn't until some time after nationalisation that the first common unit of weight measurement - the Basic Wagon Unit (BWU) - appeared although it had a comparatively short life being succeeded in 1968 by the New Freight Train Loads System which worked on tonnage (expressed as the amount of tons and not as a BWU) and which at last divided each wagon type into various categories depending on the weight of load it was carrying (H for Heavy, E for Empty etc) instead of leaving ground staff and Guards to work it out for themselves.

 

And don't forget - Passenger, Parcels and Milk Train etc loads were dealt with by a completely different system which certainly as far as the GWR was concerned was worked on a tonnage basis from the mid 1920s onwards and no doubt the other Companies did something similar (in some cases from much earlier dates).

Edited April 6, 2022 by The Stationmaster

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

a completely different system which certainly as far as the GWR was concerned

 

Well, who would have thought that!

 

Mike.