Wagon destination cards.

[Gordon A]

I am trying to find a source of information on W.R. wagon destination cards that used to be clipped in the card holders on wagons post 1948.

Can anyone point me in the direction of any useful information?

 

Gordon A

[The Stationmaster]

What you want to know about them and what time period are you interested in (as 'Post 1948' covers over 40 years and there were big changes made in 1968).

[Gordon A]

Hello Mike,

 

The main dimensions and colours please.

I am looking at a period around the fifties.

Was a different colour used for different types of loads: perishables, minerals, empties etc.

 

Gordon

[96701]

There is an old topic here  that may be useful. Also a search for ""not to go" cards on wagons" may well give you an idea of dimensions.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, Gordon A said:

Hello Mike,

 

The main dimensions and colours please.

I am looking at a period around the fifties.

Was a different colour used for different types of loads: perishables, minerals, empties etc.

 

Gordon

Standard wagon labels were a sort of buff colour with black print but the layout changed a bit of the years due to different types of information being included at various times - the only colour difference for traffic labels that I'm aware o was the use of small added stickers for Green Arrow consigned traffic and sometime s for shipment traffic going through major marshalling yards enroute then into and dock complexes. 

 

I'm not sure when marshi alling codes were introduced but they are not mentioned in early BR WR marshalling books so I presume they were introduced - they were 3 digit (alpha/numerical codes enclosed within a box just above the vertical middle of the label.  definitely in use in teh 1960s.

 

Alas my collection does not include a standard wagon label but I do have a plastic 'Darvic' label - these were fixed inside the standard label clip in order to direct empty wagons involved in circuit working back to their loading point and the thin card traffic label went on top of them.  The Darvic label is 4" wide, slightly narrower than the standard wagon label and 3.5" high (at the centre) which was at least c.1.5 - 2" shorter than a standard j label.  So in 4mm scale for a standard you are talking about something less than 2mm wide by c. 2mm high at the most.

 

The example below is NOT a standard wagon label  but shows a reasonable approximation to the colour of a wagon label - they were very slightly lighter in colour than this GWR empty Brake Van label which is just over 4.25" wide

 

[Gordon A]

Thanks 96701. However, I did not see any actual card dimensions mentioned?

[Gordon A]

Thanks Mike that is most useful. Now to see if anyone produces any in 4mm scale.

 

Gordon A

[Wickham Green too]

2 hours ago, Gordon A said:

...I did not see any actual card dimensions mentioned?

4'' x 5''

 

 

[Pinza-C55]

Big 4 wagon labels were used well after 1948. I remember walking around the windowless booking office in derelict St Johns Chapel (NER) station in about 1974 and it was strewn with unused LNER wagon labels although the station finally closed to goods in 1968.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Pinza-C55 said:

Big 4 wagon labels were used well after 1948. I remember walking around the windowless booking office in derelict St Johns Chapel (NER) station in about 1974 and it was strewn with unused LNER wagon labels although the station finally closed to goods in 1968.

The St. Blazey label shown above was the official layout from the main introduction of TOPS as it includes the 5 digit Stanox location code.  So c.1974/75 as the main introduction schemes for TOPS got underway.

[VIA185]

Here are a couple I picked up off the floor at Three Cocks Junction in the mid-1960s when it was derelict. I think it was probably road surfacing tar to a council depot. (CJL)

[Wickham Green too]

B130922 was a bog-standard diagram 1/108 mineral wagon - not what you'd expect to be used for tar ( presumably in barrels ).

[Trestrol]

We're they actually a RCH specified design which railway companies could add their own name on? This would mean they were easily recognised by all staff no matter which railway company the worked for. 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Trestrol

[The Johnster]

In the UK the wagons were labelled from A to B.  This turned out to have an unexpected benefit in 1945 when there was a mass breakout of high-security Nazi prisoners of war from the Island Farm prison camp at Bridgend; these guys were dangerous SS types that had been transferred to Bridgend for causing trouble, and in some cases murders, at other camps.  A couple of these characters made their way to Bridgend Station, where an up goods was being held at signals.  One of them was from a railway family in Germany, where labels are labelled with the destination first and the originating point second, in the larger letters.  Seeing a wagon labelled for Swansea docks, they crawled in under the tarp, hoping to jump a ship to a neutral port from which they might be able to get home, only to find themselves at Bordesley Junction, where they were cold and hungry enough to have had enough and handed themselves in.

 

None of the escapees made a home run, but my favourite story is that of a pair of full-on Master Race types who hid in the woods near the camp waiting for the heat to die down, except that the heat was typical cool and damp South Wales weather, and after 36 hours and  2 nights in the trees they'd had enough of it, so they handed themselves in, as per SS standing orders, to an official uniformed authority, a group of local Brownies who were camping out and cooking bacon for breakfast...

 

Brown Owl duly accepted the surrender, sent one of the kids up the road to a nearby farm with a phone where the police were called, and the Brownies proceeded to give the Master Race breakfast and hot tea while they were waiting.  Welsh weather & small Welsh girls 1, Master Race 0, don't mess with the Brownies, they'll give you tea and bacon sarnies!

 

Escapees were suspected of involvement in the rape and murder of a local young woman, but a Bridgend Detective Inspector was unconvinced and a Canadian serviceman was arrested for the crime, found guity, and hanged.