GVT timber trains

[mike morley]

The excellent Milner/Williams work on the Glyn Valley states that timber traffic was coupled behind  the guards van without offering any explanation why.

Has anyone any ideas on the subject?

[Nearholmer]

Was it carried “disconnected”, i.e. tree trunks carried on two short bolster wagons, not coupled together?

 

If it was, they may have felt it best not to take the traction and braking forces through the logs, especially if the bolsters were tall, although TBH plenty of other NG rail operations involved doing exactly that.

 

The other possibility, although it’s more an industrial railway than a public railway thing, is that they felt that if a coupling parted it was better not to have the guard involved in the ensuing crash and pile-up. Where crew/shunter vans go in trains on things like logging railways, they go directly behind the loco for this reason, and having seen what happens when a coupling parts on a long train of loaded bogie peat wagons, I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a little hut on wheels at the back!

[mike morley]

The GVT had timber wagons semi-permanently coupled in rakes of four, with only the outer two having bolsters.

The Welshpool and Llanfair used only pairs of well-spaced bolster wagons at each end of the load they were carrying, with just a chain connecting them, but they worked them with a guards van at each end.

 

Your suggestion about wanting to keep the guard away from any mayhem in the event of a mishap sounds very plausible.  Thanks

[Nearholmer]

Just struck me that it would also permit “over dangle” at the outer end, which might be useful if the distance between bolsters was fixed by the intermediate wagons.