GWR 517 and goods workings

[Aire Head]

On 25/05/2022 at 11:56, The Stationmaster said:

Incidentally on a point of pedantry it was at one time permissible to attach rear of a passenger train a single unfitted vehicle as tail traffic provided it met certain other requirements regarding the construction etc of said vehicle

 

Excerpt from 1940 supplement to 1937 LMS Midland Division sectional appendix doesn't provide a great deal of requirements for the aforementioned wagon surprisingly!

 

It seems the only requirement was that a screw coupling was used. Perhaps a wartime only measure?

[Cwmtwrch]

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

Perhaps a wartime only measure?

A similar wording is in the 1936 GWR General Appendix, the only significant difference being the caveat "where necessary to avoid delay".

[Aire Head]

23 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

A similar wording is in the 1936 GWR General Appendix, the only significant difference being the caveat "where necessary to avoid delay".

It's completely absent in the LMS 1937 Midland Division one.

[The Stationmaster]

The Instruction was repeated  in a May 1950 amendment to the GWR General Appendix (which was a national decision so didn't just apply to the WR).    But one important addition to the wording was 'where authorised'.  I can't trace any amendment between then and the issue of the 1960 General Appendix although that effectively banned this arrangement by requiring the last vehicle in a passenger train to be fitted with a continuous brake.  

 

So no doubt what actually happened from 1950 onwards (if not earlier?) was that the situations where authority had been given to attach an unfitted vehicle on the rear of a passenger train were gradually (or maybe rapidly) reduced until the Instruction fell into disuse.  I have so far in a GWR 1946 Sectional Appendix found one section of line where authority was given to attach an unfitted vehicle on the rear of passenger train which suggests that the situation on the might already have been regulated by an Appendix entry.

[bécasse]

I couldn't help wondering whether the "easement" largely existed to permit the conveyance of odd (loaded) cattle wagons by passenger trains.

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, bécasse said:

I couldn't help wondering whether the "easement" largely existed to permit the conveyance of odd (loaded) cattle wagons by passenger trains.

I think it was probably most likely there because of the relatively limited number of fitted vehicles of various types but particularly vans.  I doubt there was my call for cattle wagons between Nantyglo and Brynmawr where  a non-fitted vehicle was permitted on the rear of a passenger train in either direction in either direction.  (An oddity there was that up to three vehicles were permitted but two of them had to be fitted when three were attached to the rear of a train.)