Inter regional fish traffic

[Morello Cherry]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, the route to Cheltenham and Bath would be Midland; Exeter possibly a Midland fish van working through. One has to look at the costs involved in terms of vehicle hire - from Hull or Grimbsy to any point west of Bristol, the greatest proportion of the mileage would be over the Midland.

 

I'm going to say that the evidence from the article makes this less clear cut.

 

i) We have the NER salesman travelling all over the country and clearly outside NER territory and on the territory of other railway companies. So the question is if he strikes a deal outside of NER territory how does the fish get there? Would the NER really want it to go in the van of another railway? It seems unlikely that other companies would not be searching out this traffic as well.

 

ii) We can see that the main driver for this traffic is the search for profits. The point is made about the use of the telegraph after 1880 to locate where prices are high for fish. This links into a second theme of the quotes - namely complaints about the rates being charged by companies. What merchants are interested in are the rates/speed to get the most profit. It seems to me that a city such as Bristol, Bath or Exeter could have fish arrive from different companies, especially after alternative routings became available ie GCR/GWR via Banbury would give you Cheltenham, Bath and Exeter.

 

iii) On the other hand, we have the fish merchant from Plymouth complaining about the GWR constantly raising the rates which makes me wonder why he did not switch to the LSWR, which makes me wonder how much moving between companies there was?

 

iv) Whether there was any transferring of the cargo between companies. In the 1860s Exeter would have been broad gauge no? So it would have to be transferred?

 

iiv) I am still at a loss to work out how fish to say Maynooth (or anywhere in Ireland) from Hull brokered by the NER salesman would have got there though.

[Compound2632]

  

13 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

iv) Whether there was any transferring of the cargo between companies. In the 1860s Exeter would have been broad gauge no? So it would have to be transferred?

 

The break of gauge was initially at Gloucester but from 1854 at Bristol. The Bristol & Exeter laid the third rail to accommodate the standard gauge in 1875, in response to the opening of the Somerset & Dorset's Bath branch, which created a rival all-standard gauge route to from the Midlands to Exeter.

  

13 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

i) We have the NER salesman travelling all over the country and clearly outside NER territory and on the territory of other railway companies. So the question is if he strikes a deal outside of NER territory how does the fish get there? Would the NER really want it to go in the van of another railway? It seems unlikely that other companies would not be searching out this traffic as well.

 

Which company's van is used depends on a fine balance of cost vs. income. Whichever company the vehicle belonged to, the income from carrying the consignment would be divided between the companies over whose line the van passed, on a mileage basis. I think (I'm not entirely sure on this) that the companies whose van it wasn't had to pay a hire charge, again on a mileage basis, and demurrage if the vehicle wasn't returned within a certain period. The company owning the van was of course also paying for the van through the standing charge to the renewal account placed on revenue (i.e. a depreciation fund). All this kept not only the companies' clerks busy but also those of the Railway Clearing House. This all avoided transhipment at frontier stations.

 

For a regular traffic, agreements might be entered into that eliminated some of this work.

Edited July 16, 2022 by Compound2632