RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted July 30, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 30, 2012 As an aside could the OP possibly put some tags on this thread please? Among others I think 'XP' and 'tail traffic' might be useful along with 'GWR' and 'BR' Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 Mike, thanks for filling in the GWR details between 1938 and nationalisation. These answer some of the questions I had intended asking. ...Unless bits are missing from my information (which doesn't appear to be the case, but ... ) the earliest GWR operational reference I can find to vehicles marked 'XP' is dated September 1938 and was applicable from the 30th of that month... John Lewis agrees with you on this being the start of the XP branding on the GWR, he quotes the same text in the new edition of GWW (the source of my earlier post). ...The final GWR change came in October 1946 when a general speed limit of 60 mph was imposed on trains composed of coaching stock vehicles if they included and 4'wheeler with a wheelbase of between 10ft and 15ft and the load of such vehicles was also restricted to 6 tons although this latter restriction applied only to vehicles loaded on the GWR... Some GWR horseboxes lost their XP branding at some point in 1946 only to have a boxed XP applied in 1948/9. Bearing in mind that their loads were only four tons, is this a related change or something quite different? Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted July 30, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 30, 2012 Mike, thanks for filling in the GWR details between 1938 and nationalisation. These answer some of the questions I had intended asking. John Lewis agrees with you on this being the start of the XP branding on the GWR, he quotes the same text in the new edition of GWW (the source of my earlier post). Some GWR horseboxes lost their XP branding at some point in 1946 only to have a boxed XP applied in 1948/9. Bearing in mind that their loads were only four tons, is this a related change or something quite different? Nick Nick as far as I can trace (and I think I've got all the operational details) there seems to be no explanation for it. With my 'wondering why?' cap on I do wonder if it was anything to do with misinterpretation, or misunderstanding, of the general application of the 60mph limit and 'someone' thought it meant that vehicles with a wheelbase of lees than 15ft could no longer be branded "XP"? Or there could have been some technical reason why horseboxes were 'demoted' although it does seem very coincidental. Interestingly two amendments were issued in 1946 and the first, in May, said that if vehicles of less than 15ft wheel base were conveyed then speed was not exceed 60mph - and that was it. The second amendment, issued in October that year was more detailed and expansive and started with a very clear repetition of the earlier Instruction making it clear that the "XP' marking applied to vehicles with a wheelbase of 10ft and under 15ft and it went on to refer to all the sort of trains involved including 'horsebox trains'. The only amendments issued between then and May 1950 referred exclusively to milk tanks (the Instructions I am referring to throughout also dealt with milk tanks) and 3 separate amendments relating to them were issued in, variously, July & November of 1949. BTW one thing I should perhaps have made clearer previously is that the May 1950 instruction covered all 4-wheeled vehicles, i.e. it was extended to include vehicles with a wheelbase greater than 15ft. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffalo Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Strange what you find when looking for something quite different. Earlier this evening I was rummaging through some recent GWRJs and came across the introductory part of John Lewis' horsebox series in No 76. This has some interesting background on the 1946 changes. The GWR had three derailments involving 4-wheeled vehicles in 1942, two GWR horseboxes and an LNER fish van. Following these a committee was set up to investigate what could be done to avoid such events. This lead to some extensive theoretical and experimental work on the behaviour of 4-wheeled vehicles, described in some detail in the article. The experiments continued into 1944. The committee's report recommended removing all vehicles of less than 14' wheelbase from the XP category but, realising that this would not be possible, they proposed gradually eliminating short wheelbase vehicles (presumably only in passenger trains). They also proposed extending the wheelbase, stiffer springs and 1:100 wheel coning for "medium-wheelbase 4-wheeled vehicles" running in express trains, and immediately removing horseboxes from the XP category. Lewis concludes that it was this report that lead to the removal of XP markings from horseboxes after the war. Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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