Gunpowder?

[Oldddudders]

As far as nuclear flasks are concerned, i recall that the occasional derailment of one on the  Chatham Dockyard branch invariably triggered a particularly rapid response among those needed to rerail it........ 

[The Stationmaster]

Just now, Oldddudders said:

As far as nuclear flasks are concerned, i recall that the occasional derailment of one on the  Chatham Dockyard branch invariably triggered a particularly rapid response among those needed to rerail it........ 

If you were at all familiar with the behaviour of the Railway Employment Inspectors during their fairly brief reign they were as nothing compared with the Nuclear Inspectorate when it x came down to detail.  Having had a rather 'interesting' visit from an REI at Bridgwater he siad taht while he wished to come back and check our Refgister of Loos Lifting Tackle would I object if he brought along a colleague from the Nuclear Inspectorate - I could of course hardly say 'no'.  Especially after so after a rather embarrassing discussion with the REI about a spreader beam that was used for lifting the flasks which seemingly belonged to either noc x dy or everybody involved - i.e. Hinkley point, BRS (the haulier to Bridgwater) or BR who loaded the things onto wagons.

 

Anyway a few weeks later said REI returned with thre nuclear chap - who turned out to be a very pleasant fellow but massively into detail.  He was happy with everything (phew!) and I'd got that spreader beam firmly off my plate onto someone else - probably BNFL.  Anyway the nuclear chap asked f he culd speak t mty staff so I said that he could and it the descended into near pantomime.  The only one about was the Senior Railman who among other things did the slinging when flasks were being lifted.  After a chat the Inspector asked my man where he washed his hands after working with the flasks.  This produced an outburst of 'we've been told these things are safe, are you telling me they aren't?   Inspector immediately confirms the flasks are completely safe - they've been washed down twice before leaving the site at Hinkley Point and most of the stuff that is transported in them isn't radioactive anyway.  He then went on to say to my man 'but surely you wash your hands anyway before eating your food?' - and gt the reply 'Why" followed by another round of 'we;ve been told these things are safe'.

 

Change of tack by the Inspector to 'Surely asa matter of hygiene t you wash your hands before eating your food'.  'But I wear gloves' - and you can guess what w else came with that statement.   Inspector obviously decides discretion is the better part of valour and asks to see the staff messing facilities - i.e. the Shunter's cabin in the yard.  So of we go and he asks me why there is only one washbasin - 'because so few people work here.  I then get a 'Well I do think it sensible to provide a separate washbasin for use after men have been involved in handling the flasks and i recommend that you do that.'  The Senior railman was well out of earshot and i decide not to ask why and go through it all once again.

 

Now for anybody used to BR you'd know that the first battle was to get a Minor Works Order authorised and the seconf d battle was to get the work done if you didn;t have any local engineering (various) folk to call on - which I didn't.  But the second basin was installed within two weeks, I explained to the staff why it had been installed but said they could use it whenever they wished to wash their hands.  In the rest of my time in teh area it was never used.

[rogerzilla]

Presumably it was felt that transporting explosives long distances by rail was a lot safer from a theft point of view than doing so by road?  It's easier to steal a lorry, roads aren't fenced off from the public, and lorries stop a lot.

 

Depending on the era, it could be the Fenians, the Nazis, the IRA, or al-Qaeda who fancied a few free tons of bangy stuff!

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, rogerzilla said:

Presumably it was felt that transporting explosives long distances by rail was a lot safer from a theft point of view than doing so by road?

 

Like any traffic, it went by rail in the 19th century because that was the only efficient means of transport and continued to go by rail in the 20th century until it ceased to be economic.

[The Stationmaster]

On 11/04/2023 at 16:56, rogerzilla said:

Presumably it was felt that transporting explosives long distances by rail was a lot safer from a theft point of view than doing so by road?  It's easier to steal a lorry, roads aren't fenced off from the public, and lorries stop a lot.

 

Depending on the era, it could be the Fenians, the Nazis, the IRA, or al-Qaeda who fancied a few free tons of bangy stuff!

I don't know what happened in the 1930s when the Irsh l fellahs were ina habit of trying to blow up things in England but post war all the restrictions and regulations regarding moving stuff that went bang were wholly about safety, the only real security element was the way van doors were secured.  But that change quite a lot in the 1970s when the Irish fellahs got going again at te trying to bomb things, and people,

 

in England and all sorts of real security measures were introduced.  Military explosives in particular were subject to various special arrangements and most lpcations were banned from holding loaded wagons overnight.  That could be a right pain if the army couldn't be bothered to come and unload stuff as we. were allowed to hold military explosives and it was a bit of a nuisance where i was as we regularly received wagon loads of artillery shells and small arms ammo.   Civilian stuff was a bit different but again it ceased to be a practice of leaving wagons at unstaffed locations but in any case the main target  of those who wanted the stuff was to break into rurally situated magazines where stocks were held for quarries etc.

[TheQ]

There were two explosions at the Savernake forest military sidings.

The first in mid 1945 killed one America service man and injured 4 locals.

 

The second on 2nd January 1946 killed, 8 British and seriously injured 6.

Two GMs and 5 BEMs were awarded to the soldiers trying to move loaded wagons away from the explosions. An estimated 200 tons exploded before the fires were put out.

 

Twenty years later and 12 miles further south I was living by the same line, most of the military traffic was then in vans, very few opens. Though a large proportion of them would have been medical supplies, some will have likely been rounds for the tank ranges and similar military weaponry..

Edited April 12, 2023 by TheQ

[Compound2632]

Midland Railway Traffic Committee Minute 10,822 of 20 August 1861:

 

Conveyance of Ammunition.

                              A circular from the War Office offering terms for the conveyance of ammunition and other combustible stores was submitted, and

                              Resolved, that the rate offered, of 4d per ton, per mile, for combustible stores not explosive, and 6d per ton per mile for combustible stores, explosive, be approved; and that the General Manager be instructed to carry out the necessary arrangements.

 

[KeithMacdonald]

5 hours ago, TheQ said:

explosions at the Savernake forest military sidings.

 

More

https://web.archive.org/web/20160917145403/http://services.english-heritage.org.uk/ResearchReportsPdfs/029_2009_WEB.pdf

 

[Oldddudders]

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, one would occasionally read circular reports of wagons "away in error" with a request to make a thorough search of sidings etc. On at least one occasion it was clear that military traffic was involved.....

[Compound2632]

25 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

On at least one occasion it was clear that military traffic was involved.....

 

I'll bet that resulted in a very thorough search!

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'll bet that resulted in a very thorough search!

I wonder?  In yards with 100s of wagons in them you were really relying on Shunters to remember what they'd done with wagons without labels or with odd route codes on the labels.  and if course there were two weekly lists - one of missing wagons and the other of wagons on hand without labels  (and occasionally a wagon would appear in the same circular in both lists!).   But folk normally knew whrere then bangers were in their yard and would be quickly asking questions if one was without labels.

 

As for searcg hing for them I again wonder.  In 1973 I was managing a relatively small yard with no more than 40 roads holding at any one time around 800-900 wagons and shunting around 2,000+ a week.   Easy to not bother with certain roads because you knew what was in them and it rarely changed as the wagons were waiting being called forward for repairs but just think of the time it would take somebody to go round the lot.  On top of that we had an assessment yard which normally had about 500-600 wagons in it although in some cases their numbers were listed as they were held waiting changes to monetary limits on repair costs.   Now scale that up to yards containing several thousand wagons ....

[bécasse]

And don't forget that prior TOPS there were more than a few wagons circulating in the system which bore different numbers on each side.

[Rivercider]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'll bet that resulted in a very thorough search!

My dad was the WR civil engineers wagon supervisor in the 1970s and 1980s, much of his job

entailed visiting yards and depots to chase up delayed, detained, or mis-appropriated engineers wagons.

He got to know many of the yard supervisors, shunters, and TOPS clerks quite well. Sometimes if

he was doing a full check of a yard he would ask for a TOPS X3 yard enquiry, or if TOPS yard files

were in use he would ask for a yard 'Stour' (yard list), which he would check as he walked around.

Occasionally the supervisor or TOPS clerk would give him some lost (non engineering ) wagons to look out for

which he was always happy to do in exchange for a cup of tea, quite often he would find the missing wagon(s)

buried deep in the back of the yard somewhere - though I don't remember him mentioning explosives.

 

cheers 

[Fat Controller]

7 minutes ago, bécasse said:

And don't forget that prior TOPS there were more than a few wagons circulating in the system which bore different numbers on each side.

Or on the cast plate and the painted identity...I used to do a daily wagon census at a small British Steel plant, as part of a summer job. I'd normally find a couple of anomalies each day, such as mineral wagons with NPCCS labelling/

[The Stationmaster]

33 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

Or on the cast plate and the painted identity...I used to do a daily wagon census at a small British Steel plant, as part of a summer job. I'd normally find a couple of anomalies each day, such as mineral wagons with NPCCS labelling/

Different painted numbers were not unusual and quite a lot came to light when TOPS initial surveys were carried out in order to enter wagon date. The rarer ones were the ones with 4 different numbers - two different painted numbers and two different numbers on the cast plates.

 

TOPS made a massive difference - almost unbelievable if you were used to the way things had been done previously and the missing wagons list suddenly shrank - but took a while to vanish completely

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Different painted numbers were not unusual and quite a lot came to light when TOPS initial surveys were carried out in order to enter wagon date. The rarer ones were the ones with 4 different numbers - two different painted numbers and two different numbers on the cast plates.

 

TOPS made a massive difference - almost unbelievable if you were used to the way things had been done previously and the missing wagons list suddenly shrank - but took a while to vanish completely

So part of the process of adding vehicles to the TOPS list involved checking both sides of a wagon for discrepancies?

[Aire Head]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'll bet that resulted in a very thorough search!

 

You'd think so but over the years dealing with military surplus stuff I've come across stuff that definitely shouldn't be getting to civilians!

[bécasse]

7 hours ago, kevinlms said:

So part of the process of adding vehicles to the TOPS list involved checking both sides of a wagon for discrepancies?

Basically, yes.

 

One of the TOPS implementation team for wagons was an old friend of mine. He told me at the time that the team came to the conclusion that on a number of occasions painted numbers were added to a rake of newly painted wagons by a signwriter who had been given a list of the numbers to be applied. These were diligently applied starting from the top of the list and one end of the rake, whereupon he walked round the end of the rake and diligently repeated precisely the same process - think about it!

[Fat Controller]

8 minutes ago, bécasse said:

Basically, yes.

 

One of the TOPS implementation team for wagons was an old friend of mine. He told me at the time that the team came to the conclusion that on a number of occasions painted numbers were added to a rake of newly painted wagons by a signwriter who had been given a list of the numbers to be applied. These were diligently applied starting from the top of the list and one end of the rake, whereupon he walked round the end of the rake and diligently repeated precisely the same process - think about it!

SPA s at Shildon, I recollect being told.

[bécasse]

1 minute ago, Fat Controller said:

SPA s at Shildon, I recollect being told.

And apparently lots more besides. It seems that mismatches could be categorised as figures mistaken (eg 8 instead of 5) or transposed (eg 18 instead of 81), as the batch error that I have already mentioned, and as a flight of fantasy (ie the numbers on the two sides bore little or no relation to each other). Of these, the batch error was by far the most common but could easily have been the result of erroneous practice by just a handful of people - and poor management since even the odd random check would have uncovered the problem.

[PerthBox]

14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, one would occasionally read circular reports of wagons "away in error" with a request to make a thorough search of sidings etc. On at least one occasion it was clear that military traffic was involved.....

It happened at Leuchars during the Gulf War. BR 'mislaid' a wagon full of RAF munitions which was meant to be tripped to Leuchars for onward transport. It eventually turned up in Fort William. The signalmen and traffic inspectors were interviewed by Special Branch about it.

Edited April 13, 2023 by PerthBox

[Oldddudders]

10 hours ago, PerthBox said:

It happened at Leuchars during the Gulf War. 

Frightening, given TOPS was fully mature by then. 

 

My recollection of MOD wagons away in error was about Bramley, 'twixt Reading & Basingstoke. This would be mid-70s, I think. 

[KeithMacdonald]

22 hours ago, Aire Head said:

You'd think so but over the years dealing with military surplus stuff I've come across stuff that definitely shouldn't be getting to civilians!

 

CPO Pertwee is often spotted on my railway out of HMS Hades.

[Rivercider]

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Frightening, given TOPS was fully mature by then. 

 

My recollection of MOD wagons away in error was about Bramley, 'twixt Reading & Basingstoke. This would be mid-70s, I think. 

 

I am thinking a possible explanation, a block of say five identical VEAs of MOD stores arrive at Mossend,

three for Leuchars, two for Fort William. The shunter mistakenly splits them in the wrong place (2 and 3),

thus attaching one of the Leuchars vans into the Fort William traffic. When the TOPS trainlists for 

the onward trains to Fort WIlliam and Leuchars are run off neither train preparer or guard notices

that their train is one over/one short, and the errant wagon goes the wrong way.

Later that day Leuchars realise they are one short, and Fort William find they are one over.

 

A less likely explanation is that the TOPS release information was wrongly given, or wrongly input at origin.

The originating and receiving TOPS offices, as well as any intermediate yards where the traffic was shunted, should have received the special movements wire with the relevant CS number. This would say something like 'CS1234 - wagon 230001 plus two others MODtown to Leuchars per the following services....' We used to pay quite a lot of attention to these in the TOPS office I worked, and would like to think we would have spotted any error,

 

cheers

 

cheers

[Artless Bodger]

On 08/04/2023 at 13:56, Rivercider said:

a tank of something particularly nasty from Terneutzen in Holland

Would that have been carbon disuphide? I've a vague recollection from student days that it is shock sensitive (as well as flammable, toxic etc).