East Gloucestershire Railway - Local Goods and Working Patterns

[mpeffers]

Hi all,

 

I feel it's probably long overdue that I started a thread for my own freelance pre-grouping project - the East Gloucestershire Railway.

 

I've done lots of armchair (and some physical) modelling and I'll try and get these thoughts and experiences down in here in time, but to take a bit of pressure off this first post, I'm just going to sketch out the basics for now.

 

So here is the route map, with a few relevant neighbors (EGR in blue; MSWJR in purple; MR, GWR, LNWR and LSWR should be fairly identifiable):

The core of the route follows the proposed 1860s EGR (a scheme that planned to link Cheltenham and Oxford, but ultimately only extended the Witney Railway into a longer branchline to Fairford). Similar proposals had been made over the preceding decades, and I see my EGR as commencing a little earlier (circa 1850s).

 

As well as the Cheltenham to Oxford route, four short branchlines were also constructed to Northleach, Cirencester*, Faringdon and Burford.

*I waver on the Cirencester branch. Certainly, the EGR would have met the SMAR/M&SWJR there in the 1880s, but Cirencester was already on the rail map as early as 1841 and I'm not sure it was a significant enough destination for a second branchline circa 1860. I do like the idea of the M&SWJR trains initially having to reverse at Fairford to reach Cheltenham, frustrating them into still building the expensive line through Chedworth. This sort of helps preserve the Gloucestershire railway ecosystem a bit better too?

 

The EGR's objective was always to link Cheltenham and London. Initially, this was anticipated to be achieved through the OW&WR - who had their own London ambitions - but closening ties between the OWWR/WMR and the EGR-hostile GWR closed that avenue. Arrangements to reach London via Bletchley and the LNWR (adopted from the OWWR/WMR) were unsatisfactory and an ambitious London extension was pursued instead. This was formed of an extension of the Faringdon branch, running via Abingdon, Wallingford, Henley and Maidenhead to Datchet on the LSWR's Windsor branch. Bitterly opposed by the GWR for obvious reasons, the extension required significant political and financial support from the MR (who were keen to gain another route to South London). With significant engineering work involved - particularly crossing the Chilterns - the extension wasn't completed until circa 1890.

 

Thanks,

mpeffers

[mpeffers]

As mentioned, I've been doing more research and computer-based work on this project recently. In particular, developing a working timetable and locomotive rosters (to help develop rolling stock requirements).

 

This has raised a couple of big gaps in my knowledge and I was wondering if members on here have any information to share or recommendations for books or other reading.

 

The first is around local/'pick-up' goods services. I find these are often referred to, but I haven't been able to find out much about how these trains were composed and worked. It seems as though they generally were worked in one direction only (and then returned non-stop to point of origin later...?) but this seems as though it would generate a big disparity in mileage and time taken to deliver goods, depending whether or not it was moving with or against the direction worked. I'm also interested to know whether the composition of the trains themselves were re-organised at all en route. They were presumably a mix of loaded and empty wagons, both to be delivered or collected. Would time be set aside, at major stations say, to make the next few stops on the line more efficient to shunt or was that not really required?

 

The other constraint is working patterns. I gather by the BR era, train crews would hand locomotives over at certain points and long turns (I think I've seen one that was over 20 hours) and balancing turns on locomotive rosters over a couple of days were not uncommon. However, I believe the LBSCR assigned individual locomotives to particular drivers and firemen, to the extent that their names were painted in the cabs. For locomotive rostering circa 1900, would it be more common that the turn would start and end at the same place, reasonably within a maximum shift length (say 12 hours?) so that the turn would be worked by a single crew, who would end up back home at the end of it?

 

Thanks for any help in advance,

mpeffers

[ChrisN]

I can only say what I know about the Cambrian Coast line in 1895.  There were a couple of freights either way from Machynthlleth to Pwllheli, plus two from either end that only went half way.  They each had an extended time at the stations.  I have assumed, on evidence that I do not remember, that one that went the full distance was a pick up freight, and the other was unloading of vans/ wagons.  (This I have assumed as they were mixed trains with passengers as well.)  They did take a long time.  The morning one from Machynthlleth left at 6:25am and got to Phwllheli at 2:05pm, passenger train, 8:40 am to 11:30am, and from Pwllheli, 1:20pm to 6:20pm.

 

I assume, with no real basis, that the Cambrian would not do lodging turns, so the crews would work one way on a passenger train, and the other on a goods.  

 

I think every branch and company might be different, so as it is your company, I would read what others did and then make up something believable.

[Michael Hodgson]

There's a recent thread about pick-up goods and how they were made up.

 

Most wayside stations are much more easily shunted in one direction or the other.  There's no reason why that would be the same direcion for every station on a given line though.  So you'd shunt some stations on the way out and the others on the way back.  The wagons to be detached at any particular station would generally be marshalled together to minimise work at each station.  The sequence of such blocks of wagons would generally be fixed too, although not necessarily in the order station 1, station 2, etc.

 

Pick-up goods generally ran in daylight.  I don't think they would ever have been lodging turns, that was something more for long-distance services. 

 

In an area with as many lines as your hypothetical map there would be commercial considerations between competing companies and agreements between companies.  Each company originating traffic would (within reason) seek to optimise their portion of the total revenue by doing as much of the mileage as possible on their own metals, which meant routes might always be the most obvious.  Before pooling of wagons the empties from other companies would be returned  empty unless you were able to use them for a return load.  Empties from your own company would be sent on to somewhere on your system that needed them.