Working Unfitted Freight Trains

[roythebus]

Remember too London Transport were running unfitted freight trains to the end of steam in 1971. there was a daily trip from Olympia to Lillie Bridge, and the Neasden-Watford Tip trains were unfitted too. The pannier tanks had vac brakes, the LT stock was air braked!

 

Mixed trains in the UK were virtually unknown as Kevin says above.

[Pennine MC]

OK, let's recap on something please.

 

In 1936, the LMS changed the standard so ALL new contruction & repaints were bauxite, again whether fitted or not. This time fitted wagons were marked with a small XP.

 

The problem with Kevin's statement is that the LMS almost certainly had some fitted wagons with a 9'0 wheelbase, which as Mike's post illustrates, wouldnt be eligible for the XP rating

 

 

Yes, it did change over the years, which is why I made the point earlier about *in LMS days* the fitted wagons being marked as XP.

 

Page 49 & 50 in An Illustated History of LMS wagons Volume 1 ... (snip) ... Railways are an evolving industry, so hardly surprising that there is confusion about details and changing standards. So we ought to be careful when saying some one is wrong.

 

 

The same book (plate 40) shows a post-war repaint of a fitted - but 9'0 wb - banana van, *not* marked XP. There's another late repaint shot below in which the RH side can't be clearly seen but doesnt appear to have the XP, and also a 9'0 wb meat van later in the book, similarly not XP marked but a 1949 repaint, with LMS style typefaces and probably at that date still following LMS practice.

 

So in the interests of accuracy (being quite willing to learn and not having a comprehensive LMS library), is there any evidence (other than perhaps the odd mistake) to suggest that the LMS routinely marked 9'0 wb vehicles with the 'XP' branding?

[The Stationmaster]

 

Page 49 & 50 in An Illustated History of LMS wagons Volume 1 shows the D1978 van built between 1937 and 1939 with 2,000 examples all painted bauxite and all 10ft WB. It lists 1,000 as being handbrake only, of which no. 511840 is shown at the foot of page 50.

Also illustrated are 2 fitted examples (from the remaining 1,000) and marked "XP". These two are labelled as "Egg Van" (511240) & Fruit Van (511246).

They might well not have been fitted - that was not a requirement in order for them to be marked 'XP' as long as they were piped (as already noted)

 

The photos I referred to above are both dated 11.5.1938, so it appears that there is a window in between the changes you mention above & below referring to 1950s which of course is post LMS. Certainly is is not true, the earlier comment that grey meant unfitted, bauxite meant fitted as some one else stated. Railways are an evolving industry, so hardly surprising that there is confusion about details and changing standards. So we ought to be careful when saying some one is wrong.

 

The photos could have course have been taken some time before the change in the Regulations or if the vehicles were not compliant the photos could have been taken before their markings were amended. Such things were not at all uncommon at the time of changes although in this case I would have hoped that any potentially confusing markings on vehicles would have been removed before a change was implemented.

 

 

From what I've read, the use of 'Mixed Trains' was comparatively rare in Britain, mostly on minor railway perhaps? So the brake van would be a dead giveaway, since it would be required. Of course that train could be moving an empty coach in the train too and so not be fitted up.

Regards

Kevin Martin

 

I would not have considered Mixed Trains to be all that rare although they were not usually found on the main, or even secondary, routes. On a number of branch lines which I am aware of almost all trains which conveyed passengers were officially 'Mixed' and such trains survived on some remote lines, e.g. the West Highland Extension into the 1970s although by then branchline closures had led to their general disappearance from the British railway scene.

I'm not sure what your comment about moving an empty coach means as it basically has nothing at all to do with Mixed Trains as far as I'm aware.

 

[Pennine MC]

 

6 Vanfits=60 tons, 1 DMU power car may indeed struggle with that load as a DMU trailer car is about 30 tons!

 

Vanfit tare weights typically 7 - 8 tons, 12T load rating, say potentially 6 x 20T gross loaded = 120 tons. Does seem a lot, especially on steep grades. I know there'll have been local arrangements and exceptions but I always understood the 'rule of thumb' for DMU tail traffic was a 4W van for a power/trailer set or a bogie van for a power twin, triple or quad. I also understood the limitations were due to frame strength as well as haulage power

['CHARD]

On a number of branch lines which I am aware of almost all trains which conveyed passengers were officially 'Mixed' and such trains survived on some remote lines, e.g. the West Highland Extension into the 1970s although by then branchline closures had led to their general disappearance from the British railway scene.

Indeed they did. In fact, the Far North still boasted such a creature as late as 1984. Somewhere I have photos of one of the large logo IS centre-panel gang 37260/ 261/ 262 etc, arriving at Dingwall with a Class 2 including a Freightliner flat in the consist, which was how the line's residual freight was handled at that time.

[The Stationmaster]

 

Vanfit tare weights typically 7 - 8 tons, 12T load rating, say potentially 6 x 20T gross loaded = 120 tons. Does seem a lot, especially on steep grades. I know there'll have been local arrangements and exceptions but I always understood the 'rule of thumb' for DMU tail traffic was a 4W van for a power/trailer set or a bogie van for a power twin, triple or quad. I also understood the limitations were due to frame strength as well as haulage power

 

 

 

The 'rule of thumb' figure you quote is certainly the one I have always understood but I have also checked the official Western Region Instruction which says '… the total weight of the non-powered vehicles must not exceed the total weight of the power cars …' (apart from saying tail traffic could only be taken where authorised etc). A quick look though an old ABC suggests that a power-twin dmu would gross at around 60-70 tons, say 100 tons for a set with three powered cars and no trailers so 6 Vanfits does indeed seem a lot. (of course things did vary between Regions although physics was fairly constant, even on the Western). Perhaps there is slightly more to this than the initial comment suggests and the figure of 6 was a limit which applied with something else - possibly the traffic concerned was very light ?

[kevinlms]

 

I'm not sure what your comment about moving an empty coach means as it basically has nothing at all to do with Mixed Trains as far as I'm aware.

 

 

That's easy. If you saw a photo of a train that included an empty coach at the front, you could easily come to the conclusion that it was a Mixed Train, whereas it is actually a goods train with a passenger car added to it. Not saying it happened very often, but I don't recall reading anything that suggested that ECS couldn't be added to a goods train.

 

Kevin Martin

[kevinlms]

OK, let's recap on something please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The same book (plate 40) shows a post-war repaint of a fitted - but 9'0 wb - banana van, *not* marked XP. There's another late repaint shot below in which the RH side can't be clearly seen but doesnt appear to have the XP, and also a 9'0 wb meat van later in the book, similarly not XP marked but a 1949 repaint, with LMS style typefaces and probably at that date still following LMS practice.

 

So in the interests of accuracy (being quite willing to learn and not having a comprehensive LMS library), is there any evidence (other than perhaps the odd mistake) to suggest that the LMS routinely marked 9'0 wb vehicles with the 'XP' branding?

 

No, I don't believe the LMS did so. All the photos of LMS fitted 9'0 wb vans in the book are in grey livery and have the X. Nowhere does it mention what happened to the 9'0 wb ones once painted in bauxite livery.

 

In The LMS Wagon, the earlier volume with Ken Morgan, it states on page 22.

 

 

"... the X was later replaced by the marking XP; this was 4in in height, the standard position being above the wheelbase markings at the right hand end of the body."

 

 

The newer book says nothing on this.

 

 

The photos of all XP marked wagons in bauxite are of 10'0 wb. So I conclude that there is not really enough information to determine whether or not the LMS routinely marked 9'0 wb vehicles with the 'XP' branding, once painted grey? So on balance they didn't, the XP markings not appearing on 9'0 wb versions.

 

Kevin Martin

[Fat Controller]

Coaching stock to and from works was transferred by normal freight services, though I believe the movements had to be checked with the Gauging and Movements Inspector, and travel with 'X' train description.

There were mixed-train movements (not vans as tail traffic) in Scotland into the 1980s;

Fuel oil to both Oban and Mallaig ran on the back of the passenger trains until the service went over to DMUs.

On the Far North line, there were Freightliner movements to either Wick or Thurso- these used BOTH air and vacuum-brake; the former for the Freightliner wagon, and the latter for the coaching stock.

In West Wales, one of the Fishguard Harbour trains ran with a five-wagon Freightliner set attached at the beginning of the 1970s.

[Boris]

As I said, that is what is printed in the sectional appendix however unlikely it may seem! I've always suspected it is a misprint, and various people who were working Whitby at the time have concurred, however, one ex-signalman did point out that he wondered if it referred to the later days where a dmu was used to shunt the yard at Whitby (Tuesdays and Thursdays?) and perhaps that was what they were officially allowed to move? However there is some quite good archive footage of a single car unit being used as station pilot at Darlington moving sets of coaches around - so anything is possible!

 

As to shortened instanters to buck-eye stock, no self respecting railwayman would do it, but then again no self respecting railwayman would buck-eye two coaches together with the buffers in the long position but I've still known it happen.

[keefer]

a bit on railcar.co.uk about DMU tail loads:

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20070118160432/www.railcar.co.uk/features/tail.htm

 

(accessed through the wayback machine, as the railcar site is down for maintenance)

[Chris116]

As to shortened instanters to buck-eye stock, no self respecting railwayman would do it, but then again no self respecting railwayman would buck-eye two coaches together with the buffers in the long position but I've still known it happen.

Just visit the National Railroad Museum at Green Bay, Wisconsin to see two LNER coaches and an A4 coupled up using the buckeye and the buffers in the long position! The buffer heads are now about four inches above where they should be as the whole thing is twisted by the forces involved!

 

Chris

[The Stationmaster]

That's easy. If you saw a photo of a train that included an empty coach at the front, you could easily come to the conclusion that it was a Mixed Train, whereas it is actually a goods train with a passenger car added to it. Not saying it happened very often, but I don't recall reading anything that suggested that ECS couldn't be added to a goods train.

 

Kevin Martin

 

 

'Yes', and 'no'. If there isn't a passenger brake vehicle at the front of the train - ahead of the freight portion, then the train is obviously a freight train; if the passenger vehicle(s) are marshalled at the rear, immediately ahead of the brake van then it equally obviously isn't a Mixed Train (not that at least one light Railway was inclined to marshal its Mixed Trains in that (illegal) manner. The rest of it, i.e. at least a passenger brake vehicle marshalled front, then depends very much on visually assessing the train to see what the freight component is before concluding that it is a MIxed Train.

And of course even if there are people riding in the passenger vehicle it could still be a freight train.

[roythebus]

As I said, that is what is printed in the sectional appendix however unlikely it may seem! I've always suspected it is a misprint, and various people who were working Whitby at the time have concurred, however, one ex-signalman did point out that he wondered if it referred to the later days where a dmu was used to shunt the yard at Whitby (Tuesdays and Thursdays?) and perhaps that was what they were officially allowed to move? However there is some quite good archive footage of a single car unit being used as station pilot at Darlington moving sets of coaches around - so anything is possible!

 

As to shortened instanters to buck-eye stock, no self respecting railwayman would do it, but then again no self respecting railwayman would buck-eye two coaches together with the buffers in the long position but I've still known it happen.

As they say, excrement happens, like the self-respecting railwayman on the KESR who marshalled a passenger set using the buckeyes and forgot to undo the French pins, the pins which lock the corridor doors from the outside! the guard wasn't happy at having to split the train 3 times to allow passenger access through the train.

 

tum te tum te tum.....

[Pennine MC]

a bit on railcar.co.uk about DMU tail loads:

 

http://web.archive.o...atures/tail.htm

 

(accessed through the wayback machine, as the railcar site is down for maintenance)

 

It's back up, which is good as Boris reminded me of this bit about shunting with a DMU by one Phil Bartlett

[Guest Phil]

It's back up, which is good as Boris reminded me of this bit about shunting with a DMU by one Phil Bartlett

 

 

Why - I thank you [bows]

 

Passenger vehicles in freight trains hmm.

 

You may know that traditional diesel and electric locos were fitted with two different braking timing settings "Pass" and "goods", which meant that a dual braked loco would have four settings - two for air brake and two for vac brake. Coaching stock has always had braking systems designed to operate at "pass" timings, whilst freight stock was / is a minefield.

 

A large number of freight vehicles were built with P(ass) / G(oods) changeover levers on or below the solebar. Theoretically, if all the freight wagons could be switched to "P" and the coach(es) piped up, and the loco(s) switched into "P" then the train could run fully fitted to passenger brake timings. This means that the brake performs quicker and is easier to handle by the driver.

 

More commonly though the braking systems were incompatible - goods only timed wagons, or a mix of air and vac, or unfitted. This meant that the passenger vehicles were not allowed to marshalled in the fitted head of a partially fitted freight, so would be marshalled in the "loose" (unbraked) portion of such trains.

 

Fat Controller mentioned freightliner flats on the Far North line - needing a bit of amplification IMHO.

 

BR techies realised that freightliner flats were air braked but the passenger services were formed of steam heat / vac braked passenger stock hauled by steam heated diesel locos. to provide service to some freight customers a small number of single unit freightliner flats were fitted with vac and steam pipes and a special monitoring valve on the vacuum pipe. A number of trains had special dispensation to run formed of loco, flat(s) stock.

 

The diesel provided steam and vacuum brakes to the coaches via the through pipes, as well as supplying main reservoir air to the flat(s). When the vacuum was created in the trainpipe, the air brake was released on the flats, charged by the res' from the loco. Conversely, when the vac in the train pipe reduced, this applied the air brakes on the flat(s).

 

This was obviously only a temporary system because loco hauled rural trains would be replaced by the sprinter revolution anyway, and I really don't know how long this method of working applied for in Scotland. This was one of a number of revolutionary schemes to emanate from the RTC at Derby, and I'm pretty sure I read about it first at a railway event at Kensington Olympia in the early 1980s.

[D826]

Remember too London Transport were running unfitted freight trains to the end of steam in 1971. there was a daily trip from Olympia to Lillie Bridge, and the Neasden-Watford Tip trains were unfitted too. The pannier tanks had vac brakes, the LT stock was air braked!

 

Mixed trains in the UK were virtually unknown as Kevin says above.

 

Indeed they did Roy, my old man, Ray Wood, was one of the drivers at Neasden, seen here (if the link below works) taking water in an excellent pic from Geoff Plumb's equally excellent website.

 

Dad used to enjoy loose shunting, banging up the wagons in a most unsympathetic manner, though I suppose they were just filled with spent ballast etc. There's a cracking picture in Red Panniers (Lightmoor Press) of a tip train with its load well alight, being taken up to the water tower for dousing !

 

Also recall him telling me that it was only the actions of a very alert signaller at Baker Street that prevented an accident with a 'P Way train' as he used to call them, when things were getting a little difficult in the stopping department !

 

Regards

 

Matt Wood

 

http://geoff-plumb.fotopic.net/p34621614.html

[Edwin_m]

This report is a collision of an unfitted LT P-way train at Neasden.

[big jim]

Just to add to all the above threads. There could be a sign at the top of the gradient displaying AWB which of course stood for "Apply Wagon Brakes".

 

Pete

 

its surprising how many of those signs are still about, all new retro reflective ones too!!

 

3 that immediatly spring to mind on routes i sign/have signed are:

 

buckley on the wrexham to bidston line, top of hawarden bank

 

wrexham, rhosrobin area, top of gresford bank

 

stoke to derby line, near bramshall crossing heading towards uttoxetter

 

as for sleeping i can sleep anywhere, class 66 floors are surprisingly comfy if you put your coat down and use a bag as a pillow!

[D826]

This report is a collision of an unfitted LT P-way train at Neasden.

Interesting Edwin - I think that accidents while shunting were more common than some realise and, if they didn't involve injury, would not necessarily be reported.

 

regards

 

Matt W

[TheSignalEngineer]

Interesting Edwin - I think that accidents while shunting were more common than some realise and, if they didn't involve injury, would not necessarily be reported.

 

regards

 

Matt W

 

During my training I spent 3 months working around Washwood Heath in late steam days. In that time we attended derailments on a daily basis to check for damage to signalling equipment or possible causes. Only a couple were train movements on running lines, the rest were shunting accidents in sidings. Most of them were rerailed with the ramps and a few bits of timber, and nothing more was said if the C&W Examiner was happy to let them run.

[The Stationmaster]

Interesting Edwin - I think that accidents while shunting were more common than some realise and, if they didn't involve injury, would not necessarily be reported.

regards

Matt W

 

The one in the report is, of course, a 'train accident' and was the subject of an HMRI Inquiry as it involved a fatality plus potentially dangerous operational shortcomings.

 

As far as shunting was concerned the official position was that all derailments and collisions were supposed to be reported if they occurred on railway property although as far as the Western Region was concerned the reporting was simplified in 1974 and if they didn't involve staff injury or damage to locos they were then only reported on the 'Monthly Return of Shunting Mishaps' unless they occurred on a running line.

 

I'm fairly sure however that any minor derailment which could be 'put back together' before any sort of officialdom became aware would most likely not have been reported (as all sorts of other things never were unless someone was hurt and lost time at work). Staff and public injuries were all fully reportable back then (although the picture is now slightly different) and, fortunately, very occasionally that could be the biggest part of the report production for an incident - I once had to deal with one in which the incident report was basically extremely simple as I only had to describe what had happened and, for once, not why it had happened; completing the injury forms was a different matter as it involved 11 immediate fatalities plus a number of people taken to hospital. Compared with that resolving the average shunting derailment was a doddle.

[roythebus]

To answer Phil's point, the pass/goods selector switch on locos altered the blend between the train brake, whether vac or air, and the speed of application of the loco's straight air brake. In the goods position, there was a delay in the loco brakes applying, allowing for the train brakes (if any) to apply and buffer up the wagons before the loco did. It was the prevent the whole train pushing the loco too much whilst the train buffered up.

 

Pass/goods selectors on wagons would affect the speed of release of the air brakes; this depended on whether the wagos were fitted with triple valves or distributors. Most modern a/b stock has distributors; early a/b stock such as Southern EMUs and steam loco stock had triple valves, which gave only 3 brake applications before the air in the brake reservoir ran out and you have no brakes. They took some skill to drive.

 

As for the mixed frightliner idea, how did they get air from the loco's main res supply to the freightliners? This must have meant fitting the coaches with a main res air pipe or using dual braked passenger stock. there was some around, but not very much!

 

D826, I think we've met on the District Dave site where you mentioned your father's exploits on the Met steam.

[D826]

Roy,

 

yes, that's right. The Old man started at Neasden circa '48 and I have a CRL Coles piccie of him driving a Met F class 0-6-2 near Amersham in about 1956. He loved the panniers, not keen on battery locos, and quite liked the Rolls Royce Sentinel 0-6-0's at Neasden in the mid 70's. As well as P way trains, when the coal fired power station at Neasden was still extant, he used to pick up strings of coal wagons [from Swanbourne Sidings on the Oxford to Bletchley line I think], to take down to Neasden. I imagine these were unfitted.

 

Interesting point you make about air brakes and the number of applications before losing them - the old man (a dyed in the wool traditionalist), always used to extol the virtues of vac brakes.

 

all the best,

 

Matt Wood

[Pennine MC]

 

As for the mixed frightliner idea, how did they get air from the loco's main res supply to the freightliners? This must have meant fitting the coaches with a main res air pipe or using dual braked passenger stock. there was some around, but not very much!

.

 

I think the Freightliners were at front, and through vac piped for the Mk1s - does that make sense?