BR Early Steam Era - Block Trains and Departmental Workings

[Richy59]

Hello,

 

I am working on my Early BR layout and was just looking for some information. I'm aiming for a mid 50s time period, before the switch to the Late BR Crest. 

 

I started buying some 'fitted' BR bauxite stock to put together a block train of 16T mineral wagons. I'm a little confused with the info I can find if 'fitted' and 'unfitted' worked together ofter at that time period?

 

Would a block coal train - for example - of 16T wagons have BR bauxite 'fitted' wagons near the front of the train, and grey 'unfitted' wagons towards the rear of the train alongside the Brake Van? Would the Brake Van be BR bauxite as some of the train is 'fitted' and would a BR grey Brake Van only be used on a fully 'unfitted' train?

 

 

To save me making another thread, anyone have any information on what a Departmental/Permanet Way train would look like in the BR era? I'm really not sure what I am looking for, if there was such a thing?

 

Thanks.

[Cwmtwrch]

5 hours ago, Richy59 said:

I started buying some 'fitted' BR bauxite stock to put together a block train of 16T mineral wagons. I'm a little confused with the info I can find if 'fitted' and 'unfitted' worked together ofter at that time period?

It depends on location, but on the whole the answer is "No". There were only 200 power-brake fitted 16T built before 1956, 100 VB and 100 Westinghouse, and they spent much of the period in trials.

5 hours ago, Richy59 said:

Would a block coal train - for example - of 16T wagons have BR bauxite 'fitted' wagons near the front of the train, and grey 'unfitted' wagons towards the rear of the train alongside the Brake Van?

Yes in some cases, but only very much later (mid-1960s I think), and only on some trains/routes.

5 hours ago, Richy59 said:

Would the Brake Van be BR bauxite as some of the train is 'fitted' and would a BR grey Brake Van only be used on a fully 'unfitted' train?

A bauxite brake van in that era would be fitted or piped, a grey one unfitted. A fully fitted freight required a fitted or piped van; for any other freight it didn't matter which type of brake van was used, as the vacuum wasn't connected to the brake van anyway bcause of unfitted stock between the loco and the van. Even if the train was actually entirely made up of fitted or piped vehicles [improbable but not impossible], it would still run as unfitted if that was what the WTT said it was.

[The Johnster]

16ton minerals, in fact mineral wagons in general, were to all intents and purposes not fitted with vacuum brakes in the mid-50s or for a few years to come,  There were some bauxite liveried examples all the same though, that had retained LMS or Ministry of Supply/Transport livery from before nationalisation.  There were very, very, few fitted brake vans, and those were booked to specificworkings and not 'pool'.  There were 'piped only' brake vans aplenty, in bauxite livery, and these had brake 'setters' (red-painted inlet valves by which the guard could apply the train brakes on fully-fitted trains) and vacuum gauges.  There was of course an (arguably sentient) brake operating system aboard the van anyway in the form of the guard...

 

The replacement of wooden 7-plank XPO minerals was fully underway at that time, and at least half of your mineral train would probably be 7-plankers, in filthy original liveries but with BR 'P prefixed' running numbers.  One or two might be appearing in BR grey livery by that time, but these would be an exception rather than a rule.  The availability of grey liveried XPOs in RTR form suggests that they were much more common than they were in reality, and the bulk of 7-plankers ended their existence in the remnants of their pre-1936 liveries.

 

'Part Fitted' trains, later class 7 and 8, would have any fitted wagons at the head of the train with the brake hoses connected to the loco, and unfitted towards the rear, with a brake van at the back of course. For these trains, it didn't matter if the brake van was piped or not, but of course a piped van was needed on a fully fitted, later class 6, train.  In general but not as a strict rule, the longer wheelbase vans tended to be used on faster goods runs.  The big change to all this was with the Drivers' single manning agreement in 1969 that allowed brake vans to be dispensed with altogether on fully-fitted trains, and the guard rode on the locomotive, but that was a long way in the future at your period.  There were, all the same, instances where 'loose-coupled' unfitted or part-fitted trains were worked over short distances without brake vans by authority of local instructions in the appropriate General Appendix..

 

Departmental trains are a separate and complex subject on their own.  S & T and similar departments in those days used older redacted general purpose opens and vans that had been withdrawn from revenue service, usually as mobile stores, but Per. Way and Civil Engineering had fleets of specialised vehicles designed for their own use.  In 1955 BR standard versions of these were becoming available but regionally approrpriate Big Four and even pre-grouping types were still common. 

[Aire Head]

The majority of goods trains during your period would be Unfitted (Class F,H,J&K) and of those trains most of them would be "mixed goods" trains which would be composed of a mixture of rolling stock. These trains would not have had a "fitted head", it is common to hear people say that it was done for additional braking power but in MOST cases this did NOT happen. Connecting up the vacuum system (correctly known as "bagging up") was dirty, time consuming and most importantly dangerous as it require going between the wagons. People by their nature do not make extra work for themselves especially if it ticks all three of those boxes.

 

Mineral trains in the 1950s were mainly composed of old 13T wooden mineral wagons however as the decade progressed these became less common and the 16T steel mineral took over. The overwhelming majority of the 16T steel wagons were painted grey and were Unfitted, the overwhelming majority of the 13T wagons would be unpainted or carrying fragments of their previous identities becoming increasingly decrepit as the decade progressed.

 

The composition of Departmental or Engineers trains would be dependent on the job being undertaken. Dedicated stock did exist but quite often merchandise and sometimes mineral vehicles wagons would be pressed into service for these too. Photos are always your best reference for these and are elusive.

[Michael Hodgson]

30 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

The majority of goods trains during your period would be Unfitted (Class F,H,J&K) and of those trains most of them would be "mixed goods" trains which would be composed of a mixture of rolling stock.

 

Perhaps worth expanding on this ...

• Class K would be your all stations pickup goods or a branch goods (or a ballast train working in the section)
• Class J would be a mineral or empty wagons.
• Class H would be a through freight (ie NOT stopping at intermediate stations)
• and Class F would be an "Express* Freight"/livestock/perishables train that was not fitted with the automatic brake

*= more urgent

 

For completeness

• Class E would be an express freight with a fitted head of at least 4 vehicles or with a limited load
• Class D would be an express freight with at least a third of the vehicles fitted & connected
• Class C was the same but fully fitted, this same classisifcation but different bell codes also being used for ECS or for parcels etc conforming to coaching stock requirements.
• Classes A&B being passenger workings or snow plough/breakdown train
• Class G was a light engine or engines & brakes

Timetable planners allowed progressively longer for the worst braked/slowest classes to clear each section.

 

In other words, not really block trains but mixed goods.  However if your model is a wayside station on double track line (typical tail chaser layout), classes C to J would generally all run as through trains not stopping at your station unless needing to be shunted to give way for some train of a higher class.

[Richy59]

Thanks a lot for the information everybody. I hadn’t really thought of older 7 plank private wagons still being used but I guess it makes sense to use what they could until new items of rolling stock arrived.

 

My layout has a main through station, as if it were in a mainline, so I would have goods trains passing through. Due to space constraints the goods yard for the main line station is on the ‘other side’ of the station in an area that can’t be seen so any local goods would pass through the main line as well.

 

I do have a smaller branch terminus that will have its own small goods sidings to receive a local mixed goods service. 
 

In a similar vain, would bauxite goods vans be more common place, going by rate availability it seems to be more ‘fitted’ bauxite vans available than the grey ‘unfitted’?

 

I’ll forget about the departmental workings, something I can look into in the future.

 

Thanks for the running classes :) It is very helpful. 

[Cwmtwrch]

52 minutes ago, Richy59 said:

In a similar vain, would bauxite goods vans be more common place, going by rate availability it seems to be more ‘fitted’ bauxite vans available than the grey ‘unfitted’?

During the 1930s most ordinary vans and opens were built VB, some having been built VB in the 1920s; during and after WW2, up to about 1950, most production was of unfitted vehicles, mostly due to lack of materials. As part of the 1955 modernisation scheme, all of these [in theory, there were a few escapees] were retrofitted with VB. New production from circa 1950 was all VB. For 1955, at a guess, the proportion was probably somewhere around 50/50, but thereafter the proportion of fitted vehicles increased quite rapidly.

[Compound2632]

20 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

During the 1930s most ordinary vans and opens were built VB, some having been built VB in the 1920s; during and after WW2, up to about 1950, most production was of unfitted vehicles, mostly due to lack of materials.

 

There were as many wagons built in the first seven years of grouping than in the 1930s/40s - on the LMS at least, and that was by some way the largest group. Also, about a third of LMS wagons at nationalisation were of pre-grouping origin, most of which were without automatic brakes. So somewhat less than a third - probably no more than a fifth, if that - of LMS wagon stock had automatic brakes at nationalisation.

  

On 26/12/2023 at 11:24, Richy59 said:

I started buying some 'fitted' BR bauxite stock to put together a block train of 16T mineral wagons. I'm a little confused with the info I can find if 'fitted' and 'unfitted' worked together ofter at that time period?

 

So as I think you've gathered, for authentic pre-1957 operation, you want to ditch the bauxite 16-ton minerals and the concept of the block train of uniform vehicles. (Of course there are exceptions which experience shows commentators will rush to mention but remember that they are exceptions, i.e. very far from typical.)

Edited December 28, 2023 by Compound2632

[Michael Hodgson]

18 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

New production from circa 1950 was all VB. For 1955, at a guess, the proportion was probably somewhere around 50/50, but thereafter the proportion of fitted vehicles increased quite rapidly.

I'm not so sure there would be that many fitted wagons in use in the early or mid 50s.   Traffic was already tailing off in favour of road haulage, but the classes of fitted/unfitted through freight trains listed above still applied in 1960 when BR finally got round to issuing a new set of signalling regulations (before that they were still using the big four's books).  Later on however, the makes-up of the various classes of freight changed several times as more wagons were fitted and older wagons scrapped.

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I'm not so sure there would be that many fitted wagons

 

Re-reading @Cwmtwrch's post again, they did say vans and there the balance was distinctly different from opens, the majority of vans in 1955 being of more recent construction than the majority of merchandise opens, let alone mineral wagons which at that date were pretty much all unfitted.

[The Johnster]

The goods rolling stock BR inherited in 1948 was not in good shape on the whole (actually, the railway in general was not in a good shape on the whole!), many older pre-grouping vans and opens were still in service and in poor condition following the war and subsequent deprivations.  An 'Ideal Wagons Committee' was set up to deal with this situation and advise on the new standard designs that would start appearing in 1949.  This authorised a program of examining vehicles and condemning those not up to scratch, about a third of the fleet, and refurbishing the more modern big four designs that were in a better state, providing vacuum brakes where these were not already in place, instanter or screw couplings, and 3-hole disc wheels.  Many were upgraded to 'XP' spec. to be able to run in passenger trains; these had screw couplings.  There were about half a million wooden mineral wagons (the exact number was never established) which were also examined and many were culled.  Yards full of withdrawn wagons awaiting disposal were a common sight in the 50 and 60s, but by the late 60s were being sold off for housing developments. 

 

As the post-war economy was still very much an austerity one and the wartime Ministry of Supply was still controlling production and prioritising many items for export to assist with the dire balance of payments deficit, some items were hard to obtain, including paint.  New unfitted wooden-bodied opens were still being built to big four designs, and would be yet for several years, and these were put into service with the planks unpainted. 

 

The scene in 1955, therefore, was one of proceeding change.  Some pre-grouping stoc was still in service, the proportion of fitted to unfitted stock was increasing, and the new standard designs were beginning to make an impact, new big four designs were still being built, stock could be seen in the later 'small letters' big four liveries or no livery at all, XPO minerals still carried their PO liveries from before 1937 under the muck, and there were still plenty of wagons about with plain 3-link couplings (in fact the XPO minerals retained these until they became extinct in the early 60s); the goods stock scene was 'interesting' and incredibly varied.  Uniformity was rare. 

 

The trends were towards a higher proportion of vans over opens, fitted over unfitted, increasing numbers of the new standard designs, and pre-grouping stock on it's way out.  For minerals the trend was towards all-steel 16tonners over 7-plankers, but there were a lot of 7-plankers.  There is good provision to model this in RTR, and it is improving with the release over the last few years of more pre-grouping stock, and the pool arrangements mean that any pool wagon could and did turn up anywhere and everywhere; there is no reason not to have an SECR open in late SR livery or BR grey on a layout set in the far north of Scotland... but about half of your goods stock should be LMS designs, as this company was by far the largest contributor to BR's inherited fleet in 1948, and production of it's designs continued into the early 50s. 

 

It is a pity that there are no RTR attempts in 4mm to represent the unpainted unfitted wooden opens, a common feature of the period.  I'll mention the Southern's 'Ashford' vans, also still in production in the early 50s, as the '2+2' planking, originated on the SECR and a means of getting more planks out of a tree trunk, was toted as the Ministry of Supply's reason for specifying this design as the wartime standard, and Ashfords were built in large numbers for the LMS, and in smaller but not inconsiderable numbers for the LNER and the GW.  These were unfitted, but by 1955 the IWC had refurbished many of them, so they could be seen in their Big 4 liveries, BR unfitted grey, and BR fitted bauxite; there were also 'regular planked' and plywood versions, all available in RTR form.

[The Johnster]

Of course, there were block trains as well, how else do you think blocks were delivered...

 

A block train one running between an originating point such as a factory, mine, petrochemichal refinery, quarry, or port, as a single load, destinations being factory, oil storage facility, power station, port, or similar.  It will consist of the same type of vehicle and carry the same cargo throughout the delivery journey and return empty, the wagon being in a 'circuit' diagram and not available for normal goods or mineral traffic.  The bulk of present-day goods and mineral workings are of this sort.

 

In 1955, most goods and mineral traffic was in single vehicle loads or part loads, and would be worked from it's point of origin to it's destination in a variety of pickup, transfer, and longer distance goods workings, being shunted into new consists at each stage.  In the case of mineral working, household coal was transported in this way to individual coal merchants.  But block working had been introduced many years before, an was increasing in the mid 50s.  Power station coal, petrochemicals in tank wagons, iron ore from port to steelwork, steel billets from steelworks to strip mills for coil or rod production, bricks, cars from factory to distribution depots, stone and cement from quarries to distribuition depots, china clay; with the exceptions of cars and power station coal, these products still travel in this way.  Dr Beeching identified this as the most profitable traffic and determined that the railway should focus on it, which it did, along with making wagonload/part load traffic more like it in operation by concentrating goods handling on a few large depot 'hubs' and running express goods trains between them, and by increasing the use of containerisation, especially since the introduction of the standard ISO box containers. 

 

As you are going to be modelling a passing station on a main line, some block trains should feature.  Getting back to your original questions, coal trains very often ran as entire loads that looked to all intents and purposes like block workings, along with coal trains that were block workings in every sense of the word.  Your coal wagons can also run in part-fitted Class D and E trains as well, behind the 'fitted head'.  Oil and other tank wagons can be treated in the same way, but these were (still are) private-owner and will normally appear as a rake of identically liveried wagons. 

 

There is other traffic that looks like block workings in that an entire train consists of the same type or similar types of vehicle; special cattle wagon train were run between the Irish ferry ports and London or the big inland cities, and between stock markets and the abbatoirs serving Smithfield, and the East Anglian sugar beet & Cornish broccili specials were similar.  Milk traffic looked like block as well, but was anything but in the way that tanks were collected en route and dropped off on the return journey.  Road salt was taken in single trainloads from the mines in Cheshire to stategic yards for use by local councils, again these were special workings using wooden floored opens.

[Aire Head]

11 hours ago, Richy59 said:

In a similar vain, would bauxite goods vans be more common place, going by rate availability it seems to be more ‘fitted’ bauxite vans available than the grey ‘unfitted’?

 

In 1956 roughly  2/3rd of goods vans were fitted. Merchandise opens 5/6 plank and smaller outnumbered goods vans by around 2/1. Around 1/3rd of merchandise opens were fitted. Big four era stock dominated with a rough ratio of 8 LMS, 7 LNER, 2 GWR to 1 SR wagon.

 

So in short get building open wagons mainly LMS and LNER types and mainly unfitted!

Edited December 28, 2023 by Aire Head

[Michael Hodgson]

11 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

 

In 1956 roughly  2/3rd of goods vans were fitted. Merchandise opens 5/6 plank and smaller outnumbered goods vans by around 2/1. Around 1/3rd of merchandise opens were fitted. Big four era stock dominated with a rough ratio of 8 LMS, 7 LNER, 2 GWR to 1 SR wagon.

 

So in short get building open wagons mainly LMS and LNER types and mainly unfitted!

These vans and open 5/6 plank wagons were used for general merchandise; the 16T steel minerals the OP is talking about were used mainly for coal.

[Aire Head]

4 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

These vans and open 5/6 plank wagons were used for general merchandise; the 16T steel minerals the OP is talking about were used mainly for coal.

I was responding to his subsequent question regarding vans. I don't want them to get trapped in the misapprehension that "Vans and Minerals" are the only option when the 1950s freight scene relied on a lot of open wagons. Something underrepresented by the majority of modellers.

[Richy59]

10 hours ago, Aire Head said:

I was responding to his subsequent question regarding vans. I don't want them to get trapped in the misapprehension that "Vans and Minerals" are the only option when the 1950s freight scene relied on a lot of open wagons. Something underrepresented by the majority of modellers.

This is something I was looking at certainly for mixed trains, I’ve seen open wagons with various loads and having tarps fitted over the top to keep them some what waterproof.

[Aire Head]

2 hours ago, Richy59 said:

This is something I was looking at certainly for mixed trains, I’ve seen open wagons with various loads and having tarps fitted over the top to keep them some what waterproof.

 

Sheeted opens were really common and are quite fun to model. I make mine using Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Wrappers as shown in this thread.

 

The other thing I'd strongly advise you to invest in is getting a lot of diversity, this means different diagrams of vans and opens from different companies. This does mean a lot of kitbuilding and research and becomes a whole rabbit-warren dive in and of itself!

[Cwmtwrch]

12 hours ago, Aire Head said:

I was responding to his subsequent question regarding vans. I don't want them to get trapped in the misapprehension that "Vans and Minerals" are the only option when the 1950s freight scene relied on a lot of open wagons

Yes, my subsequent comment was also intended as a response to that question, and the figures were intended to exclude mineral wagons. I should have made that clearer.

 

Traffic opens were used for carrying all sorts of things, including cable drums, containers of all sorts, timber, packing cases, bricks, slates, oil drums, oddly shaped bits of manufactured metal of unknown purpose [but not scrap, which was usually in mineral wagons, 13T, 16T, even 21T], farm equipment [which sometimes required a crane], all sorts of unknown and sometimes oddly shaped loads hidden under sheets. Generally, by the mid-1950s, if it was vulnerable to the weather then it went in a van if possible, otherwise in a sheeted open. Traffic opens were even loaded with coal on occasion. After all, one unfitted 13T wagon was as good as another; not only unfitted ones either, Highfits were so used as well, albeit rarely, mostly steel bodied ones.

 

Coal trains were not a separate category, they were just another class 8 [later H], so there was no particular reason why a 40+ wagon coal train could not have a single vanfit, or any other wagon, somewhere in the middle of it if it was going in the same direction and the specific rules about hazardous loads were met.

 

 

[Aire Head]

34 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Yes, my subsequent comment was also intended as a response to that question, and the figures were intended to exclude mineral wagons. I should have made that clearer.

 

Traffic opens were used for carrying all sorts of things, including cable drums, containers of all sorts, timber, packing cases, bricks, slates, oil drums, oddly shaped bits of manufactured metal of unknown purpose [but not scrap, which was usually in mineral wagons, 13T, 16T, even 21T], farm equipment [which sometimes required a crane], all sorts of unknown and sometimes oddly shaped loads hidden under sheets. Generally, by the mid-1950s, if it was vulnerable to the weather then it went in a van if possible, otherwise in a sheeted open. Traffic opens were even loaded with coal on occasion. After all, one unfitted 13T wagon was as good as another; not only unfitted ones either, Highfits were so used as well, albeit rarely, mostly steel bodied ones.

 

Coal trains were not a separate category, they were just another class 8 [later H], so there was no particular reason why a 40+ wagon coal train could not have a single vanfit, or any other wagon, somewhere in the middle of it if it was going in the same direction and the specific rules about hazardous loads were met.

 

 

Class J also covers Mineral Trains in addition to "empty wagon trains" which confusingly enough these are often seen with loaded wagons in despite their name 😅

[Richy59]

So, if I was putting together a mineral train I would have a variety of these types of 7 plank wagons in ex-grouping (heavy weathered) and early grey br liveries and some of these newer 16t wagons?

 

 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Richy59 said:

So, if I was putting together a mineral train I would have a variety of these types of 7 plank wagons in ex-grouping (heavy weathered) and early grey br liveries and some of these newer 16t wagons?

 

Glossing over the hideous deficiencies of the first two, I would say what you really want are a lot of ex-private owner wagons - like your third wagon but in much drabber condition, with remains of their private owner livery still showing between unpainted replacement planks.

 

Some time browsing https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/index.htm should provide inspiration!

[Cwmtwrch]

Unpainted ex-PO RCH 13T, grey painted (outside only) RCH 13T mineral [officially not done, but some ex-PO were painted, and ex-big four 13T were probably still being painted as part of their normal works overhaul practice, so unlikely still to be in pre-nationalisation livery in the mid-1950s] and any diagram of unfitted 16T are all possible. Any random selection of these would be quite credible. However, the two 16T you show are really from rather later, I suggest. The first 16T minerals dated from lateish WW2, but they were still being built in the mid-1950s, and BR's normal maintenance regime at that time involved repaints every five years, so they didn't really get too rusty in that era [it didn't last, it was 7 years by the end of the decade and in the early 60s ceased altogether], so brand new ones or recently repainted ones are also options.

 

Both wagons, incidentally, are repainted [prototype not model]; you can tell as the load and number are on one large patch. When new the load and the running number were on smaller separate patches. B8708 was built between 1944 and 1947, probably in the latter year, so a repaint in 1952/3 say is quite credible. B247055 was built in 1954, though, so would still be as built, with some probably relatively minor degradation from the 18 months or so it had been in use. It depends how far you want to take such matters, but the weathering would be noticeably less severe than that applied by Bachmann.

 

The brake gear on the LNER/SR wagons should be the same as P58699.

[Aire Head]

Form modelling a mineral train here are a few examples of models done by me to show what kind of stock would be used.

 

 

First up is a couple of RCH mineral wagons in typical 1950s condition. The first one is heavily weathered unpainted wood and the second is the same with fragments of its old PO livery showing through. Until the late 50s wooden bodies wagons were the most common type of mineral wagon. These are both examples of the 1923 types but the earlier 1907 types was still very common and examples of earlier minerals were still present.

 

 

Steel mineral wagons were the next most common type in the early to late 1950s, mainly 16T wagons, these would be at most slightly battered in the 1950s which a very sizeable portion being barely weathered at all as most would be brand new. These were overwhelmingly grey however some exLMS and MWT/MOT would be in weathered Bauxite and some of the earlier types may even have the remains of private owner livery.

 

 

Sometimes merchandise opens were also pressed into service for mineral trains. I have included this model of an LNER D3 open as it shows a wagon which has had extensive replacement of planks mixed in with a few remaining older planks.

 

BR officially didn't repaint wagons with wooden underframes except for lettering and by the 1950s a lot of these wagons would be a mish-mash of dirty weathered wood and newer fresher timbers for giving them an almost kaleidoscopic finish. Some wagons were repainted despite the official instructions but most would be increasingly decrepit.