Detatching vehicles from through trains

[DavidBird]

When detatching vehicles, such as parcels vans, from a through train, was it normal practice to detach vans and leave them to be collected by a shunting loco after the main train had departed, or to detach vans and shunt them away before the train departed?
I'm thinking BR/LMR (ex-Midland) around 1970s if that is relevant.
Thanks.

[jim.snowdon]

It will depend on the nature of the station, its layout and which end of the train the van (or other vehicle) is coupled. Only the more major stations had the luxury of a pilot locomotive to do the fetching and shunting. Parcels vans didn't generally get detached from passenger trains and left at the more wayside stations, although they might be dropped of by parcels trains. The obvious approach would be for the van to be coupled behind the locomotive, so that the shunt was done by the train locomotive, leaving the rest of the train temporarily parked, with the hand brake(s) applied, in the platform. That practice was also applied, as far as I have gathered, to the collection and delivery of milk tank wagons to wayside creameries.

[DavidBird]

Thanks Jim.  That is almost what I expected, "it depends"

I was thinking of a large-ish station in a fair sized town with it's own GPO sorting depot adjacent to the station.

In the absence of an "approved" method of working, I'll have a look at the layout of the ststion and see what works best.

[Compound2632]

44 minutes ago, DavidBird said:

Thanks Jim.  That is almost what I expected, "it depends"

I was thinking of a large-ish station in a fair sized town with it's own GPO sorting depot adjacent to the station.

In the absence of an "approved" method of working, I'll have a look at the layout of the ststion and see what works best.

 

It's quite likely that rather than a van being detached, a van was unloaded / loaded at the platform while the train was in the station. Station stops of five minutes or more were quite common, especially where such traffic was involved. Trains were on the whole less frequent than nowadays, so occupying the platform wasn't a problem.

 

I appreciate that that doesn't make for such interesting model railway operation, unless you can animate the doors opening and the porters or GPO staff busy at work! 

[Will Crompton]

This is something I've often wondered about but more with reference to parcels trains as opposed to passenger trains with one or two parcels vans in the rake. That being said you might be interested in Leicester station which had a parcels facility to one side. There are some interesting 70s pictures here.

 

http://www.nigeltout.com/html/around-leicester-1970s.html

 

I'm not sure if it was general parcels only or if post office traffic was also handled here. I have a long term layout project in mind involving a 1970s general parcels handling dock and the Leicester example has provided quite a lot of inspiration. On the basis of the pictures I've seen there seems to have been a bit of shuffling of parcels stock brought in by mainline locos by an 08. Given it's nature as a through station I wonder if parcels stock was taken out of trains here that then travelled further. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable could shed light on operations here. I think Hitchin also had a dedicated parcels dock in the 70s, rather smaller than the Leicester one. No doubt there are a number of other through station examples.

 

A Flickr search for Leicester also brings ups some useful pictures eg this one from Nigel Walls photostream (albeit from the 60s).

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Will Crompton
Flickr credit added

[2E Sub Shed]

Late 1960's I remember sitting on Northampton (Castle)  Station and on several occasions observed Northbound parcels trains which  would pull into the riverside platform and vans would be unloaded during an extended station stop.  The other platform face of this island platform was used for Northbound Passenger trains.

 

GPO traffic came out of Passenger train (EMU's) guards compartments and was met by GPO staff, the Sorting Office being remote in the Town Centre.

 

However there was a large amount of outgoing traffic and the former Northbound bay platforms would both contain parcel stock, being filled with amongst other items, large quantities of inflated footballs in large paper sacks from Mettoy. 

 

Do not remember any detaching of vehicles. 

[Michael Hodgson]

34 minutes ago, Will Crompton said:

 I think Hitchin also had a dedicated parcels dock in the 70s, rather smaller than the Leicester one. No doubt there are a number of other through station examples.

I started commuting from Hitchin in 1979, when parcels were handled on the Down platform.  If memory serves there was a Red Star office on that platform.  There was a barrow crossing at the north end of the station, with a white light on each side of the line when no trains were approaching.  These replaced giant block indicators for each of the four running lines to tell you whether any trains were signalled until colour light signalling was introduced in the mid 1970s.  The subway between the platforms was also provided with goods lifts, though I never saw them in use until they were replaced with passenger lifts to meet disability access needs.  The subway had superseded a footbridge early in Victorian times.

 

The barrow crossing was removed and for a while the Post Office transhipped mail to/from TPO using a new purpose-built windowless brick building with roller shutters towards the south end of the Up platform (where the steam shed was), but that has been abandoned left locked up for many years and post is now sorted at Stevenage since they closed our main post office followed a few years later by the sorting office.

[Steven B]

There are plenty of examples in the working time-tables of parcels or motorail vas being attached and removed en-route. 

 

Certainly by the 1980s vans would be dropped off at either end of the train - when removed from the front there was often a loco change (diesel <-> electric).

 

Where trains were split to multiple destinations (e.g. WCML to Glasgow & Edinburgh) you'd see one portion left in the platform with a new loco being coupled on when the first portion leaves. I'm less sure about re-joining portions for the return journey - there must have been shunting with passengers on boards, but potentially this was minimised if the platforms involved had a release crossing half-way along.

 

Steven B

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, Steven B said:

There are plenty of examples in the working time-tables of parcels or motorail vas being attached and removed en-route. 

 

But were there actually that many places where it was done?

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But were there actually that many places where it was done?

I would hazard a guess it was done at Stafford.

 

There was a parcels bay on the Southbound Lichfield platform, would usually be occupied by a couple of BGs or GUVs and an 08.

[Steven B]

4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But were there actually that many places where it was done?

 

Looking at the BR(M) Passenger Train Marshalling books for the mid 1980s you'd find passenger trains splitting and joining at the likes of Wolverhampton, Stafford and Carstairs.

 

NPCCS were regularly added and removed at Stafford, Preston, Crewe & Carlisle, although mostly on over-night trains. Some places such as Barrow and Holyhead had sleepers detached from the overnight train, allowing the train to make a return trip during the day-time without it. The sleepers were serviced and attached to a different train set later in the day.

 

I can't imagine BR(M) in the 1970s having fewer vans added and removed from passenger trains.

 

 

Steven B.

 

[Compound2632]

In other words, by the 1980s, at least on the WCML, at a handful of the larger stations. A far cry from the late Victorian / Edwardian heyday of the through carriage! But to be strictly on-topic, in that period there was very much more attaching and detaching of NPCS, even at wayside stations - notably horseboxes but also carriage trucks, open or covered.

 

Thinking back to the late 80s, when I did a great deal of travelling on the Oxford - Birmingham - Manchester / Leeds routes, the only trains I was aware of that would be dividing or combining were the Wessex Scot and the Sussex Scot, though I don't think I was ever on either train as far north as Carstairs. Even as far south as Oxford, the Edinburgh portion of the train was to be preferred for a more salubrious passenger experience - or, should I say, experiencing more salubrious fellow-passengers.

 

But for real re-marshalling en route one had to be on the train from Frankfurt-am-Main at Wroclaw, c. 1993. This train had Warsaw and Krakow portions - each with a PKP couchette carriage (Warsaw also had a PKP sleeper) and three or four standard DB carriages. The train was split, the Krakow (leading) portion being shunted into another platform, backing down on a rake of PKP carriages, whilst another rake of PKP carriages was added to the Warsaw portion, then both trains were away, heading out of the station in opposite directions.  

[DY444]

It used to happen at Derby regularly.  One train I remember clearly in the 1970s was the 1900-ish St Pancras to Sheffield which had a BG on the rear that was detached there.  One of the Derby 08s invariably dropped onto the BG very quickly after the train had come to a stand. 

[Will Crompton]

5 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I started commuting from Hitchin in 1979, when parcels were handled on the Down platform.  If memory serves there was a Red Star office on that platform.  There was a barrow crossing at the north end of the station, with a white light on each side of the line when no trains were approaching.  These replaced giant block indicators for each of the four running lines to tell you whether any trains were signalled until colour light signalling was introduced in the mid 1970s.  The subway between the platforms was also provided with goods lifts, though I never saw them in use until they were replaced with passenger lifts to meet disability access needs.  The subway had superseded a footbridge early in Victorian times.

 

The barrow crossing was removed and for a while the Post Office transhipped mail to/from TPO using a new purpose-built windowless brick building with roller shutters towards the south end of the Up platform (where the steam shed was), but that has been abandoned left locked up for many years and post is now sorted at Stevenage since they closed our main post office followed a few years later by the sorting office.

 

Blimey. I would have been nervous pushing a barrow across track frequented by Deltics white light or not! Searching Flickr I managed to find the picture of the parcels dock at Hitchin ( circa 1971) taken by the late Roy Dixon and posted by Kevin Lane.

 

 

 

[DavidBird]

7 hours ago, DY444 said:

It used to happen at Derby regularly.  One train I remember clearly in the 1970s was the 1900-ish St Pancras to Sheffield which had a BG on the rear that was detached there.  One of the Derby 08s invariably dropped onto the BG very quickly after the train had come to a stand. 

 

Thanks very much, just the sort of anecdote I was looking for. When I was watching trains in the mid 70s and later, it was all about what was on the front, never what was happening at the back.

 

As a further question, did TPO trains ever drop off vehicles at intermediate stations on their routes?

 

[roythebus1]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But were there actually that many places where it was done?

No.

[roythebus1]

When I was secondman at Rugby in 1975 we had an evening parcels train to Willesden. we used to pick up or drop off a couple of the Insulfish/parcel vans at Hemel Hempstead using the train engine, usually an electric loco.

 

And the first job I had was an evening parcel train to Crewe, an SR utiltiy van and an electric loco.

[DCB]

 Not quite sure the idea of a GPO depot by the station works for 1970s, Cheltenham had two new ones one upside and one down in the 1990s and the train would block the main for 15 minutes or more loading and unloading.    The setting down depends on whether the movement is to a facing bay, in which case a shunter is obligatory and in mechanical signalling days would follow the train and couple and be ready to move off with the tail traffic as soon as the stock was uncoupled and re coupled.  Power boxes made everything far more time consuming  but the practice had pretty much died with the end of semaphores.  Most model stations are huge things, scenic fiddle yards, with four or more through platforms, that.s as big as Swindon, bigger than Carlisle WCML.

At the other extreme places like Cheltenham Lansdown with two through platforms and a bay habitually exchanged coaches between MSWJR and Midland main line,  The northbound MSWJR stopped in the Up platform a hunter pulled off the through portion from back into a trailing siding, the rest  headed for the carriage sidings,   and when the Northbound main line train arrived it shoved the through portion on the back of it.

Southbound left the through carriages in the platform  and the MSWJ like train pulled ahead from the bay and set back onto it.  but that station was purpose  built for that modus operandi 

[Rivercider]

My memory is that in the 1970s there was still a significant amount of parcel train services.

As mentioned above some intermediate locations were served by a platform call only with no attaching

or detaching, but a number of locations did receive or dispatch vans.

I was a TOPS clerk in Bristol from 1978 and remember processing parcel van releases to various location,

including Swindon, Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham New St, Manchester (Mayfield and Piccadilly), Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Peterborough etc.

From Bristol the weekly Observer colour supplement was also loaded at Pylle Hill, this would be one GUV or BG a week to a number of destinations. Also remember there was Readers Digest traffic in SPVs from Aylesbury still passing in the 1970s.

What overnight Newsvan services ran on the Midland? On the WR where were a number of services from Paddington, some of them detached a van (or two) at locations along the way.

 

I believe it was 1980 when BR made a significant reduction in the parcel train network, this resulted in a major cull of pre-nationalisation stock, and also 4-wheeled stock,

 

cheers 

[DY444]

7 hours ago, DavidBird said:

 

Thanks very much, just the sort of anecdote I was looking for. When I was watching trains in the mid 70s and later, it was all about what was on the front, never what was happening at the back.

 

As a further question, did TPO trains ever drop off vehicles at intermediate stations on their routes?

 

 

That happened at Derby too both in the 1970s and later when it became one of the centres of the TPO universe.  I recall in the 1970s during the day there was frequently a TPO coach coupled to other vans stabled in the sidings between P6 and the goods lines.

Edited August 2, 2023 by DY444

[Jeremy Cumberland]

There was quite a lot of joining and dividing of overnight parcels trains. Mostly this seems to have been at a few big stations (Preston had lots of shunting between trains), but it happened at smaller places too. Stalybridge, for example, had vans dropped off the York-Aberystwyth for Manchester Victoria (and possibly Liverpool as well). I am not sure, but I think the return working added the vans at Huddersfield rather than Stalybridge. Stalybridge wasn't well laid out for shunting, and I have always assumed that the vans for Manchester were dropped off the back and left in the platform for a light engine to collect.

 

Huddersfield also had one of those odd passenger carriage shunts, where on Summer Saturdays (was it only Saturdays?), coaches from Sheffield were added (using an 08) to the back of a York - Llandudno service. I have no idea how the return working was arranged.

[caradoc]

5 hours ago, Rivercider said:

I believe it was 1980 when BR made a significant reduction in the parcel train network

 

Yes, BR withdrew from the C&D (Collection and Delivery) parcels business then. 

 

From 1978 to 1980 I worked at Harlow Town, a station with two island platforms served by the main lines and Up and Down passenger loops. We were a PCD (Parcels Concentration Depot), ie where parcels were transferred from trains for delivery in the surrounding area by van. Our parcels, in Brutes, the BR trolleys, were unloaded while the train stood in the Up Loop. There was also however a short siding off the Up Loop, and a van (usually IIRC a GUV) was detached there each evening for the Royal Mail to load from their road vehicles, being attached to a later train.

 

[Rivercider]

By the mid 1970s how many stations still had a station pilot loco?

 

I have found the Inter City Railway Society 'Shunter Duties' booklets to be a good guide based on the listings for

the WR compared to my recollections and WR publications I hold.

 

For the LMR the 1979 Shunter Duties booklet shows the following specifically mentioned station or parcels pilots:-

Liverpool Lime St, Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Parcels, Rugby, Bedford Midland Rd, Bletchley, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Crewe upside, Crewe Downside (3), St Pancras, Derby(2), Holyhead, Carlisle (2), Manchester Mayfield, Leicester, Oldham Clegg St, Preston, Wigan North Western, Birmingham New St, Curzon St Parcels (2), Nottingham Parcels (2), 

Note some of these are listed to also trip and shunt elsewhere, while other duties are shown to be based elsewhere but spend evenings or nights shunting at other stations,

 

 

I have a complete set of Local Trip booklets for the West of England Division of the WR dating to May 1975.

A few station pilots were available and manned 24 hours a day excepting weekends, while others were present

only a few hours a day, often evening and night time.

The following West of England stations had a station pilot duty in May 1975 (* limited hours only)

Swindon 1*, Bristol Temple Meads (2), Exeter St David's 1, Newton Abbot 1, (plus one *), Plymouth 1, Penzance 1, Gloucester 1, Worcester 1 (plus 1*), Taunton 1*,

 

cheers  

Edited August 2, 2023 by Rivercider
tidying up.

[2E Sub Shed]

I was at college in Bournemouth in 1979 / 1980 and have memories of an 08 and a parcels van in the bay at Bournemouth Central (opposite end, same side to that used by stopping services).  Never saw the 08 in action at anytime.

Edited August 2, 2023 by 2E Sub Shed
Add missed text

[The Stationmaster]

On 01/08/2023 at 10:27, DavidBird said:

Thanks Jim.  That is almost what I expected, "it depends"

I was thinking of a large-ish station in a fair sized town with it's own GPO sorting depot adjacent to the station.

In the absence of an "approved" method of working, I'll have a look at the layout of the ststion and see what works best.

Basically if you cou;dd think of a logical way of doing it then that would have applied.  Thus train engine detaching vehicles (or attaching them) front.  Local station pilot engine detaching or attaching vehicles rear.  Vehicle detached rear for subsequent shunt by a station pilot after the detaching train had departed. In some cases with parcels and empty van trains both endss would be worked at once - train engine doing the front and pilot at the rear.  Also change train engine and the engine coming off detachs vehicles from that end while the new engine might attach some. 

 

But as 'River Cider' has noted how much of thos was still going on in the 1970s?  Definitely the case at stations which had become important for mail traffic although pilot engones were an increasing rarity even at those.  and by then lots of parcels work had moved to concentraion depots so teh activity n longer took place at a station.