How did Loco coal get to a shed?

[Southernfrance]

I'm modelling the SR in south London in the period 1958-62, and have a largish steam/diesel/electric loco depot as part of this. One thing I've never seen evidence of is how coal and oil was delivered to these depots (no Smart Alec answers like "in wagons" please!). Given that a large steam depot like Stewarts Lane would need a considerable daily volume of coal, would it have been supplied in a complete dedicated train, complete with brake van, on a regular basis or would they be tripped in from a nearby freight depot, with or without brake as needed? I've got all the Bob Essery books on Operation and can't find anything in these, so does anyone know what happened, either on the SR or other areas? The same would apply to oil tanks for the newly introduced diesels.

 

Dave

[number6]

The experts will be along in a minute but this little snippet from this excellent book by Jack Somers shines a light on the loco coal traffic. This example is when he was shedmaster at Sheffield Darnall. Cover picture is the [now] very familiar Peterborough North.

 

"The weather apart, a thorn in my side was the loco call train which would arrive unannounced in the early hours precisely when engines for important passenger trains were getting ready to leave the shed. With the loco coal on the scene the shed was completely tied up and resulted in strong complaints from the operating side about delays due to engines arriving late for their workings. Counter complaints from me that the delay was due to the traffic department blocking the shed with one of their trains – even though it had loco coal on – fell on stony ground and eventually I hatched a plot with my friend in Darnall box, arranging for the loco coal to be held on the mainline until I was ready to accept it. This produced howls of rage from the district control but resulted, eventually, in someone agreeing to hold the train back and not enter the local areas until I has happy for it to enter the shed."

 

 

[Wheatley]

It depends on the shed. Large depots such as Darnall would justify a full train, a small sub-shed perhaps a couple of wagons dropped off the pick up goods a couple of times a week. A lot of Engineers' and other non-revenue traffic went by ordinary goods trains, especially if it was only penny numbers of wagons.  

[Sitham Yard]

2 hours ago, Southernfrance said:

I'm modelling the SR in south London in the period 1958-62, and have a largish steam/diesel/electric loco depot as part of this. One thing I've never seen evidence of is how coal and oil was delivered to these depots (no Smart Alec answers like "in wagons" please!). Given that a large steam depot like Stewarts Lane would need a considerable daily volume of coal, would it have been supplied in a complete dedicated train, complete with brake van, on a regular basis or would they be tripped in from a nearby freight depot, with or without brake as needed? I've got all the Bob Essery books on Operation and can't find anything in these, so does anyone know what happened, either on the SR or other areas? The same would apply to oil tanks for the newly introduced diesels.

 

Dave

I recall a photo of, I think, Mansfield shed with a 4-4-0 and a couple of coal wagons and a brake van. The implication is that for a smaller shed locos coming to or going from shed could work the wagons to/from the local goods yard. 

Andrew

[Aire Head]

Dependant on the size of the shed would depend on the amount. A large shed would warrant a dedicated train however the smaller more typical sheds are more likely to have the loco coal travel to the nearest sorting yard then tripped as a small working to the shed.

[Stoke West]

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

Dependant on the size of the shed would depend on the amount. A large shed would warrant a dedicated train however the smaller more typical sheds are more likely to have the loco coal travel to the nearest sorting yard then tripped as a small working to the shed.

Look at pictures of Bristol Barrow Road  overlooking the yard off a bridge front and rear of depot , giving a good idea of what happens including ash disposal . In the inefficient old railway everything came and went by rail to depots , spares in vans , brake blocks / wheel sets in open wagons , lubricating oil in drums , larger diesel depots in tankers , even the paperwork . In the efficient modern railway nothing goes by rail just creates more traffic on the roads .

[stewartingram]

Which raises an irksome point for me. Often we see otherwise good layouts in the mags, with road vehicles within the shed area of mpds set in the steam era. From memory these mpds were built by railways for rail use, road vehicles were never even thought about and they couldn't gain access.

Edited December 19, 2023 by stewartingram

[Steamport Southport]

Article here on GWR Loco Coal workings. I assume the other companies did very similar.

 

https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/492/going-loco-january-2022

 

 

 

Jason

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, stewartingram said:

... these mpds were built by railways for rail use, road vehicles were never even thought about ...

Moreover, there weren't an awful lot of road vehicles on the roads anyway !

[Steamport Southport]

Are you sure?

 

The railway companies alone had thousands of the things.

 

 

 

Jason

[Stoke West]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Are you sure?

 

The railway companies alone had thousands of the things.

 

 

 

Jason

C&D road motor vehicles 

[Forward!]

19 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Which raises an irksome point for me. Often we see otherwise good layouts in the mags, with road vehicles within the shed area of mpds set in the steam era. From memory these mpds were built by railways for rail use, road vehicles were never even thought about and they couldn't gain access.

 

Indeed. Here's Old Oak Common in 1949. I challenge you to find a single motor vehicle anywhere on railway owned land!

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW022468

 

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Forward! said:

 

Indeed. Here's Old Oak Common in 1949. I challenge you to find a single motor vehicle anywhere on railway owned land!

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW022468

 

That was taken in the days before the Shedmaster had a car (mid/late 1950s so I was told).

[Wickham Green too]

20 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

... The railway companies alone had thousands of the things. 

In the absence of any Collection & Delivery service I'd GUESS that the current fleet owned by the railway companies is probably in the same sort of ball park .............. but those thousands are insignificant compared to the many millions of other vehicles which were nothing like as numerous back in 'steam' days.

[The Stationmaster]

36 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

In the absence of any Collection & Delivery service I'd GUESS that the current fleet owned by the railway companies is probably in the same sort of ball park .............. but those thousands are insignificant compared to the many millions of other vehicles which were nothing like as numerous back in 'steam' days.

I doubt if they own many vehicles at all compared with what they once owned.  In the mid 1960s BR owned the largest road haulage fleet in Britain - and largest by a very sunbstantial margin.  the whole lot was transferred to NCL/the national Freight Corporation.

[Dunalastair]

23 hours ago, stewartingram said:

 Often we see otherwise good layouts in the mags, with road vehicles within the shed area of mpds set in the steam era. From memory these mpds were built by railways for rail use, road vehicles were never even thought about and they couldn't gain access.

 

I plead guilty m'lud when it comes to my N gauge model of 63B around 1970.

 

In mitigation, I have a number of downloaded photos of the area around the turntable at The Fort which show motor vehicles, and I have tried to match to those - see for example https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/4/48/. Also

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145335090853?hash=item21d6a57ea5:g:F9kAAOSwCY5dDDrB&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4BTfpbKlxXCXQ8FDiIO7OdKhK5MNzl5PFR%2Fsr8v3oVrOzQA4VohLX1IDDu7UEripG4MEkYs%2F8IoVuyh7xTm1hgnpMmHMn56p%2BFj%2BnlRrIINTGRamdw58qhGCv5H2gZu%2BCZGv1XzpNDNgVBgJSS3AHQiyd8YtiYC4A6RlhgL%2Foo1VPRlTJL%2BH8dbwNhp67ge4vQziABZwa2G4C%2Bxr5q%2BEKFhtzD0yhXwbxQNogSTzCd6b7ItZhOV5cmt44djLxigZwdjQ5nNBg9l361hCkCEvWstyRfhyYuOGXr6zVWe8iRWt|tkp%3ABk9SR-SPz4mRYw

 

Perhaps this is the exception that proves the rule?

 

At the original Fort William facility, the goods yard was next to the shed (built on the site of the original Hanoverian fort) so it would presumably be straightforward to shunt wagons across as needed and push them up the bank.

 

[Wickham Green too]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I doubt if they own many vehicles at all compared with what they once owned. ...

The Operators probably don't own a lot but I'm thinking of the current railway as a whole - including Network rail ( think Mobile Operations Managers ) and all it's contractors ........... though each road-rail vehicle only scores a half point, of course.

[Stoke West]

On 19/12/2023 at 16:50, Stoke West said:

Look at pictures of Bristol Barrow Road  overlooking the yard off a bridge front and rear of depot , giving a good idea of what happens including ash disposal . In the inefficient old railway everything came and went by rail to depots , spares in vans , brake blocks / wheel sets in open wagons , lubricating oil in drums , larger diesel depots in tankers , even the paperwork . In the efficient modern railway nothing goes by rail just creates more traffic on the roads .

Bristol Bath Road had no road access , a new road was constructed opposite the main entrance about 1970 off the A4 , which dropped down and curved to the left and pass under the A4 and alongside the singled St Philips Marsh avoiding line . This i believe was needed due to fire regulations . Then deliveries by road started , due to restricted space vehicles were turned on the 70 foot turntable to exit . One of the few diesel depots that had turntables , this one giving an 90° additional entrance/exit onto the avoiding line

[Stoke West]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I doubt if they own many vehicles at all compared with what they once owned.  In the mid 1960s BR owned the largest road haulage fleet in Britain - and largest by a very sunbstantial margin.  the whole lot was transferred to NCL/the national Freight Corporation.

On monday i was at Abergavenny  looking at the road motor garage still there having had a new roof and still servicing road motor vehicles with the brick hard standing where the fuel pumps were

[Steamport Southport]

16 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

In the absence of any Collection & Delivery service I'd GUESS that the current fleet owned by the railway companies is probably in the same sort of ball park .............. but those thousands are insignificant compared to the many millions of other vehicles which were nothing like as numerous back in 'steam' days.

 

You said roads though. 

 

On 19/12/2023 at 20:40, Wickham Green too said:

Moreover, there weren't an awful lot of road vehicles on the roads anyway !

 

Worth bearing in mind that Ford Motor Company built over a million Model T Ford motor cars at Trafford Park. Considering the population was a lot less than it is now that meant that about 1 in 20 families owned a car. And I'm talking 1920s not 1950s where the percentage would be much higher.

 

Can't we dispel this myth that nobody had cars and other road vehicles? There was millions of the things.

 

 

Jason

[Reorte]

11 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Worth bearing in mind that Ford Motor Company built over a million Model T Ford motor cars at Trafford Park. Considering the population was a lot less than it is now that meant that about 1 in 20 families owned a car. And I'm talking 1920s not 1950s where the percentage would be much higher.

 

Can't we dispel this myth that nobody had cars and other road vehicles? There was millions of the things.

Going no further than the first thing Google's thrown back at me gives:

 

"...from 187,000 private cars in 1920 to 1,523,000 by the outbreak of the Second World War..."

[ELTEL]

On a small micro layout I built during covid which is a small sub shed based about the time of the end of steam I have as one of the stock movements one or two loaded coal wagons arrive which are stabled next to the engine shed.

 

(while no one’s looking I remove the coal load) and send the empty wagons away.

 

Looks ok to me

 

Terry 

 

 

 

[Twentieth-Bagginess]

9 minutes ago, ELTEL said:

On a small micro layout I built during covid which is a small sub shed based about the time of the end of steam I have as one of the stock movements one or two loaded coal wagons arrive which are stabled next to the engine shed.

 

(while no one’s looking I remove the coal load) and send the empty wagons away.

 

Looks ok to me

 

Terry 

 

 

 

Sorry if this is a silly question, but how many stock movements do you have? 

[Steamport Southport]

9 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Going no further than the first thing Google's thrown back at me gives:

 

"...from 187,000 private cars in 1920 to 1,523,000 by the outbreak of the Second World War..."

 

Yes and then post war they had all those people who had learnt to drive in the forces and a lot of cheap ex military vehicles appearing on the market.

 

I am a little baffled why the subject even came up.

 

 

Jason

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Yes and then post war they had all those people who had learnt to drive in the forces and a lot of cheap ex military vehicles appearing on the market.

 

I am a little baffled why the subject even came up.

 

Really going off on a tangent here but the link I got the above numbers from also had this video in it: