NER Pre-Grouping Operations Questions

[MarshLane]

I am currently playing around with ideas for a pre-grouping layout, loosely based around the Thornaby/Middlesbrough area - so North Eastern Railway around 1920/1921.

 

I know the NER had pushed many collieries into using their own P7/P8 wooden hoppers by this time to improve tonnages carried etc.  So a couple of questions arise - I dont currently have many NER area books (I am looking for and acquiring them where I can!) - so any help or pointers in the right direction on these would be welcomed.

 

- Were coal workings entirely NER owned hopper wagons, or would private owner vehicles still have been seen (I am assuming things like the 1907 RCH designs)?  If both, would they have been mixed within consists or, I suspect more likely, separate trains that originated out of the NER area?

 

- Would the NER P7/P8 style hoppers have been used for industrial supply, as well as export?  I am thinking the various iron works around Middlesborough/Newport etc..

 

- Presumably, given then number of local station coal drops, some of these NER hoppers would have made it into wagonload goods and pick-up freights for delivery/collection to local stations?

 

- Does anyone know if any passenger or freight timetables from this early 1920s period around Darlington/Thornaby/Middlesbrough still survive, or carriage working books? I know the NERA has some carriage working books for main stations (York/Newcastle) etc, but I am not sure about this area.

 

I used to be a member of the NER Association a while back, but didn't really feel that I got as much from it as I had hoped.  Although that was probably my fault for not exploring the study centre (I am not local to the North East) and the latter part of my membership was during the Covid lockdowns.

 

Thanks in advance, to anyone who can throw any light on the above (or related NER activities!)

 

Rich

Edited July 18, 2023 by MarshLane
Clarified post title.

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, MarshLane said:

I know the NER had pushed many collieries into using their own P7/P8 wooden hoppers by this time to improve tonnages carried etc. 

 

Not really an answer to your question but my understanding is that the NER providing mineral wagons goes much further back, the 20 ton wagons being simply the culmination of a policy of many years duration, possibly continuously back to the second half of the 1840s, when James Allport was General Manager of the York, Newcastle & Berwick. It's notable that PO wagons were very rare on the Northern and Central (ex-S&D) Divisions, but on the Southern Division - the ex-York & North Midland and Leeds Northern areas - and especially the Yorkshire coalfield, which was also served by the L&Y, GN, and Midland, colliery PO wagons were common enough.

 

So the dominance of the company's own mineral wagons in the Northern and Central Division was, I think, not directly down to a question of larger capacity wagons, nor to the widespread use of coal drops, but a matter of historic policy.

[MarshLane]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for that background, it’s partially answered one question, that private owner wagons from collieries were rare in the central (ex S&D) region. Fascinating.

 

Thank you

Rich