Just what year in the 1970's did B.R. Southern Region's freight go 'fully fitted'?

[C126]

Has anyone a reliable (i.e., supported by printed sources) date for when the Southern Region's freight trains' un-fitted wagons were eliminated, please?  I might well have missed it, but having searched Moody's 'Southern electric 1909-1979', 5th ed., 1979, Hymans's 'Southern region through the 1970s : year by year', 2018, and a couple of more photographic volumes, I can find no mention of a specific date or even year.  Presumably the divisions declared their own dates, but if anyone knows (particularly the Central Div.), I would be most grateful.  My goods yard looks very 'monochrome' in its wagon-load guise, and I would like an excuse to sneak in a grey wagon 'un-fitted' wagon to break the bauxite monotony.  Thanks and best wishes as always.

[Aire Head]

Depending on how large your goods yard is you could have some old unfitted wagons laying around as internal user vehicles.

[bécasse]

I suggest that a more pertinent question might be what was the last year in which Southern Region goods yards had any ordinary traffic wagons in them? 

[Fat Controller]

There were some re-bodied fitted hoppers that were painted in grey. One example I found was B416480, taken at Strood in August 1979 by David Larkin. The photo's on P29 of 'Wagons of the Early British Rail Era'

[Rivercider]

I have no documentation to back it up but a Facebook Group thread a contributor mentions 1977 as the year that domestic coal traffic from South Wales to the Southern Region and Scottish Region became fully fitted. As I recall the SR was already fully fitted when I joined the Bristol Area Freight Centre in October 1978.

 

cheers 

[Rivercider]

If you have access to any WTTs of the period they will show when the SR Central section went fully fitted, sadly I thinned out my WTT collection many years ago.

The headcode categories changed meaning more than once over the years, but in the mid/late 1970s I believe class 6 trains were fully fitted (up to 75MPH). Class 7 and 8 trains were partly fitted, the difference that class 7 freights required a greater percentage of braking power, or larger fitted head and could therefore run faster. Class 9 trains were unfitted.

The closest relevant WTTs I can still find are a couple from October 1976 to May 1977, including Section PF for Conditional Train Services in the London Division of the WR. Included in PF are a number of WR/SR inter-regional trains, including some to the Central Section:-

8O86 23.32 SX Toton to Eastleigh 

8V18 09.00 SX Wimbledon to Acton coal empties.

8V31 13.12 SX Norwood to Acton coal empties.

8V25 14.45 SX Hoo Jn to Acton

8V28 19.00 SX Wimbledon to Acton coal empties.

7V90 22.12 SX Norwood to Acton 

 

8O35 00.02 MX Acton to Crawley

8O07 04.05 MFX  Acton to Strood or Plumstead 'Y'. (A 'Y' pathway means either/or)

8O17 10.57 SX Acton to Norwood.

7O27 15.52 TTHO North Acton to Sheerness.

8O85 17.50 SX Acton to Chessington South (coal)

8O27 18.48 SX Acton to Strood.

8O52 19.00 SX Acton to Purley.

8O93 20.55 SX Acton to Wimbledon 'Y' (no other 'Y' option shown - perhaps it was discontinued?)

8O30 22.27 SX Acton to Bricklayers Arms, 

 

Note how many of these services run very early, or very late, to avoid the rush hours. No wonder there are not many photos of them. I am assuming that the May or October 1977 timetable changes were when the Southern went fully fitted.,

 

cheers

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Rivercider
grammar.

[C126]

23 minutes ago, Rivercider said:

... WTTs of the period ...

 

Dear Rivercider, Thanks for going to so much trouble.  Probably just as well for the state of my (over-loaded) book-shelves, but 1970's Southern Region W.T.T.s appear difficult to obtain from the couple of old railway-bumf traders on the www of which I know.  This is a help though.  I could run an inter-regional partially-fitted aggregates train to my minerals sidings with some grey wagons at the back.  If you know of any such W.T.T.s for the Central Div. going for sale, do please let me know.  I wonder what the 'internal' freight formations were at these dates.  Many thanks again.

[Rivercider]

7 hours ago, C126 said:

 

Dear Rivercider, Thanks for going to so much trouble.  Probably just as well for the state of my (over-loaded) book-shelves, but 1970's Southern Region W.T.T.s appear difficult to obtain from the couple of old railway-bumf traders on the www of which I know.  This is a help though.  I could run an inter-regional partially-fitted aggregates train to my minerals sidings with some grey wagons at the back.  If you know of any such W.T.T.s for the Central Div. going for sale, do please let me know.  I wonder what the 'internal' freight formations were at these dates.  Many thanks again.

Sorry, I worked on the WR my whole career, so never saw any SR WTTs,

 

Out of curiosity I had a look on Flickr using a combination of search terms ( eg Acton Norwood, or Acton Wimbledon) theses do bring up some photos from the 1970s among the hundreds of modern digital views. There were class 52 Western on wagon load freight workings to Norwood Yard for one example, also some inter-regioinal stone might have brought Westerns over. I also see diesel brake tenders in quite a few of the coal train shots, sometimes with a class 73.

 

cheers

Kevin

Edited May 3, 2022 by Rivercider

[C126]

Thanks again, Kevin.  I have seen photos of the handsome 'Westerns' on the ex-Coal Concentration Depot hopper stone trains (to Gatwick?), but assumed they were all fully-fitted 'block'/COY trains.  Thanks also for the "Y" gen.; I did not know this.  Hope this ramble is of use to others as well one day!

[Titan]

Just wondering how freight with through piped wagons was classified - the brake pipe would be continuous throughout the train, but it would be effectively only partly fitted.  There was quite a spectacular accident due to the guard informing the driver that his train was fully fitted as the brake pipe was connected throughout, but more than half the wagons were just through piped and the driver neglected to do a proper running brake check, resulting in a catastrophic SPAD.

[C126]

1 minute ago, Titan said:

Just wondering how freight with through piped wagons was classified ...

 

My understanding is that this would be classed as partially-fitted, the 'active' part (e.g., vacuum-braked) at the front of the train, and a through-piped wagon (e.g., air-braked ferry vans) put at the back, preferably before the 'O'-suffixed wagons (un-fitted).  In later years, vacuum- and air-braked parts were revered with respect to the loco.  But I am happy to be proved wrong.

[The Stationmaster]

4 minutes ago, Titan said:

Just wondering how freight with through piped wagons was classified - the brake pipe would be continuous throughout the train, but it would be effectively only partly fitted.  There was quite a spectacular accident due to the guard informing the driver that his train was fully fitted as the brake pipe was connected throughout, but more than half the wagons were just through piped and the driver neglected to do a proper running brake check, resulting in a catastrophic SPAD.

Regarded as fitted for the purposes of the Regulations BUT there was a requirement to ensure ample Brake Force and that would have been shown on the Driver's Slip (assuming the Guard could accurately count and add-up bedore such things were generated by TOPS).  Buyt in any case the move was increasing;y to convcentrate on fitted rather than piped vehicles wherever possible

 

One big effect of the gradual in troduction of the fully fitted railway was on the fleet of Civil Engineer's vehicles as both the WR and SR (the first two Regions to go fully fitted) had a massive shortage of fitted vehicles, especially for spoil loading.   There thus a lot of inter-Regional transfers with fitted vehicles coming to, especially, the WR in exchange for unfitted vehicles which went mainly to the LMR.  The WR fully fitted programme operated in much the same way as the dieselisation plan starting in the far west and gradually moving eastwards and finally into South Wales.

[Fat Controller]

52 minutes ago, Titan said:

Just wondering how freight with through piped wagons was classified - the brake pipe would be continuous throughout the train, but it would be effectively only partly fitted.  There was quite a spectacular accident due to the guard informing the driver that his train was fully fitted as the brake pipe was connected throughout, but more than half the wagons were just through piped and the driver neglected to do a proper running brake check, resulting in a catastrophic SPAD.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was a Ravenscraig- Trostre loaded steel coil train, composed of SAB air-braked, through vac-piped, flats. Whoever coupled the wagons up connected the vac pipes throughout, rather than the air-brakes, and did the brake test accordingly. The driver didn't discover his error until he started to descend Beattock bank.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Fat Controller

[Titan]

52 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was a Ravenscraig- Trostre loaded steel coil train, composed of SAB air-braked, through vac-piped, flats. Whoever coupled the wagons up connected the vac pipes throughout, rather than the air-brakes, and did the brake test accordingly. The driver didn't discover his error until he started to descend Beattock bank.

There were probably a few, the one I was thinking of was a tanker train comprising of 20 four wheelers, 12 were air braked and through piped for vacuum, 8 were vacuum only. On approaching a protecting signal on a down grade, the driver realised he had insufficient brake force way too late, ran through the signal and side swiped a freightliner.

[Titan]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Regarded as fitted for the purposes of the Regulations BUT there was a requirement to ensure ample Brake Force and that would have been shown on the Driver's Slip (assuming the Guard could accurately count and add-up bedore such things were generated by TOPS).  Buyt in any case the move was increasing;y to convcentrate on fitted rather than piped vehicles wherever possible

In the particular case I was thinking of the requirement was for a minimum of eight wagons out of twenty with operating brakes, and that the last three vehicles had to have working brakes with the remainder anywhere within the train.  Seems a bit surprising that such a train could be described as fully fitted.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Titan

[Oldddudders]

But such a train would, in case of coupling failure, not be the cause of a wrong-direction runaway, and I felt at the time the big prize was doing away with catch-points etc on a railway that was heavily skewed towards passenger operations. My own experience of trying to close a pair of catchpoints in order to permit a wrong-direction move was that they were simply immovable, due to lack of maintenance. I had chest pains for days afterwards due to the effort of trying to get them over. 

[BR traction instructor]

Looking out period Working Manual pages for the early eighties, there is some relevant information here re the discussion above. Table E2 applicable to all partially & unfitted freights is not applied on the Southern region…suggesting that they are a thing of the past at that time.

 

As an aside I’ve consulted a 1977/78 SR freight WTT and class 7 & 8 freights, not fully fitted at that time, are still included. An early 80s date for the cessation of non fully fitted freights looks accurate, as suggested in the WM pages below.

 

There was a later amendment to the instructions re piped only wagons in a fully fitted train too…ISTR a maximum of 5 such wagons in one train subject to the additional restriction of how many could be marshalled together.

 

The image shows a 1984 Northwich to Warrington trip with a ferry van used to separate the piped only anti knock tanks and thus comply with the period WM instructions.

 

BeRTIe

Edited May 3, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Rivercider]

6 hours ago, Titan said:

Just wondering how freight with through piped wagons was classified - the brake pipe would be continuous throughout the train, but it would be effectively only partly fitted.  There was quite a spectacular accident due to the guard informing the driver that his train was fully fitted as the brake pipe was connected throughout, but more than half the wagons were just through piped and the driver neglected to do a proper running brake check, resulting in a catastrophic SPAD.

There was a crash at Weaver Junction on 6th August 1975, it was an incident where the train contained more piped only vehicles than fitted ones, and the driver was given incorrect information about the brake force.

 

Edit - I would point out that since the TOPS system was introduced the freight train classification system has changed, and the way a TOPS Trainlist is printed has also changed.

In the early days TOPS would print each line and tally up the weight, POTENTIAL brake force (my bold), and length. On the drivers slip at the bottom the weight and length were printed, but the guard or train preparer had to fill in the actual available brake force by hand. This was because in a partly fitted train not all wagons might be piped up.

 

When I started in the AFC in 1978 the ruling on piped vehicles in a fully fitted train was that a maximium of five piped vehicles were permitted to be marshalled together with a minimum of two fitted vehicles (with brakes in working order) on the rear. At some time around 1980 the ruling was changed to a maximum of three piped vehicles marshalled together, with a minimum of three fitted vehicles (with brakes in working order) on the rear of a fully fitted train.

 

cheers

Edited May 3, 2022 by Rivercider
Additional info about TOPS trainlists.

[BR traction instructor]

Here is the 1975 WM piped only instruction for fully fitted freights.

 

BeRTIe

[Rivercider]

3 hours ago, C126 said:

Thanks again, Kevin.  I have seen photos of the handsome 'Westerns' on the ex-Coal Concentration Depot hopper stone trains (to Gatwick?), but assumed they were all fully-fitted 'block'/COY trains.  Thanks also for the "Y" gen.; I did not know this.  Hope this ramble is of use to others as well one day!

Back in the early 1970s when the aggregates traffic from the Mendips, and elsewhere, was started to dramatically increase there was a shortage of suitable fitted wagons. For a few years there was some creative marshalling of train required to get an appropriate amount of brake force, made even more complicated by the need for some trains to reverse en-route.

The 1975 Westbury trip booklet gives examples of marshalling.

 

Acton stone terminal for example was served by trains of former iron ore tipplers. (F = fitted, UF = unfitted)

A class 47 could haul 9F, 23UF, BV = 1163t trailing.

 

Trains to Basingstoke also used tipplers, but the train reversed so brake force was required at each end.

A class 47 could haul Piped BV, 5F, 15UF, 5F, Piped BV = 930t trailing.

 

The 1975 trip booklet does list three SR destinations where a permitted load for class 52 Western is shown, to Basingstoke, Botley, and Fareham, all presumably places where the WR traincrew could work out and back so as to simplify traction knowledge requirements.

On this basis you could justify an aggregates working formed of a mix of fitted and unfitted tipplers to your yard in the mid 1970s.

 

cheers

 

cheers  

Edited May 3, 2022 by Rivercider
Additional info

[Fat Controller]

10 minutes ago, Rivercider said:

Back in the early 1970s when the aggregates traffic from the Mendips, and elsewhere, was started to dramatically increase there was a shortage of suitable fitted wagons. For a few years there was some creative marshalling of train required to get an appropriate amount of brake force, made even more complicated by the need for some trains to reverse en-route.

The 1975 Westbury trip booklet gives examples of marshalling.

 

Acton stone terminal for example was served by trains of former iron ore tipplers. (F = fitted, UF = unfitted)

A class 47 could haul 9F, 23UF, BV = 1163t trailing.

 

Trains to Basingstoke also used tipplers, but the train reversed so brake force was required at each end.

A class 47 could haul Piped BV, 5F, 15UF, 5F, Piped BV = 930t trailing.

 

On this basis you could justify an aggregates working formed of a mix of fitted and unfitted tipplers to your yard in the mid 1970s.

 

cheers

 

cheers  

Weren't there some workings (Fareham?) formed with a 'mixed' fitted head of 16 and 21t Minfits and 26t fitted Tipplers bracketing a number of MSO?

[BR traction instructor]

There are various Merehead/Whatley stone consists of the early 70s in this excellent book. A good 1970 example with a Western for power and brake vans fore & aft does apparently show 6 minfits (fitted head) & 34-38 unfitted tipplers.

 

BeRTIe

Edited May 3, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[SED Freightman]

Looking at the SR Freight WTT (Section M) for Mandatory Train Services commencing 01/05/1972, there are no Class 9 services, however there are a few where the marshalling instructions permitted the conveyance of unfitted wagons.  On the Central Division they were listed as follows :-

 

8Y45 2140 SX Eastleigh to Norwood - Formation : Norwood (Vacuum Fitted), Chichester (Vacuum Fitted), Chichester (non Vacuum Fitted), Norwood (non Vacuum Fitted), brake van.

 

8Y40 0200 MX Hither Green to Norwood - Norwood portion to be marshalled with appropriate fitted head and tail and brake van each end.

 

8Y41 1012 SX Hither Green to Norwood - Formation : Bricklayers Arms (Vacuum Fitted), Brake van, Norwood (non Vacuum Fitted), Norwood (Vacuum Fitted), brake van. Norwood portion not to exceed 74 SLU's, 700 tons.

 

8G75 0130 MX Norwood to Eastbourne - Formation - Eastbourne (Vacuum Fitted), Eastbourne (non Vacuum Fitted), brake van, Galley Hill and ST Leonards WM  (non Vacuum Fitted), Galley Hill ad St Leonards WM (Vacuum Fitted), Three Bridges, brake Van. Length Limit 56 SLU's arriving at Eastbourne.

 

Strangely no instructions are shewn for the return services although at this time it was clearly still possible to despatch unfitted wagons to a range of destinations on the Central Division.

 

 

[SED Freightman]

Although the general movement of unfitted wagons on the SR ceased in the 1970's, it was still possible to operate such trains by special arrangement and with suitable instructions issued to signalling staff.  On the SED for example there were two trains per day Acton - Hither Green - Ashford commencing 01/06/1981, although this reduced to a daily service from 03/08/1981 until the service ended on 04/09/1981.  These services conveyed unfitted wagons for scrapping at Ashford Works in an effort to keep the staff there occupied as the Works were run down.  Somewhat later, two unfitted specials were operated in late 1989 (?) from Stewarts Lane to Brixton, conveying large girders for the replacement Atlantic Road Bridge.

[C126]

On 02/05/2022 at 13:20, Fat Controller said:

There were some re-bodied fitted hoppers that were painted in grey. One example I found was B416480, taken at Strood in August 1979 by David Larkin. The photo's on P29 of 'Wagons of the Early British Rail Era'

 

Copy duly borrowed, and I see I shall need to buy a new wagon kit.  Many thanks for this.  There are also examples of HTOs in freight brown.