Yellow triangle on black wagon

[Michael Delamar]

Im wondering what the wagon is in this shot and the significane of the yellow triangle on it please.

The only ones I knew of where the 21.5t mineral.

 

050 Stanier 8F propelling up grid by edgehillsignalman, on Flickr

 

 

thanks in advance for time and advice.

 

Mike

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi Michael

 

The wagon is a departmental wagon and the yellow triangle would be the marking for owning district or even engineers yard. Various colours were used as well as other shapes, like diamonds. I do not know what district or yard the yellow triangle belongs to.

[Fat Controller]

The wagon looks like a 13t steel-bodied Medium open wagon (available from Parkside). This sort of marking was quite common on Departmental opens, both purpose built and ex-traffic stock. Variations I've seen include green triangles, blue and red squares (the square divided diagonally) and red triangles.

Here's a Grampus with a yellow triangle:- http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/grampuszbo/h34568111#h34568111

And a green one:- http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/grampuszbo/h34568111#h17cdeb3c

It's an allocation code of some sort, but I've never seen it set out anywhere.

[Clive Mortimore]

A yellow diamond http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brlamprey/h29564c9a#h29564c9a

A white triangle http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brlamprey/h3879a4c6#h3879a4c6

Red and white rectangles http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brmackerelzmv/h2e351504#h2e351504

A yellow rectangle http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brmackerelzmv/h2e351504#h259622f1

A red and blue square and a green triangle http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/troutzfo/hba30fde#hba30fde

 

There are quite a few more on Paul's site

[Michael Delamar]

thanks everyone, it would be nice if we could find out the allocation codes

[Guest Max Stafford]

I know the Medfits were transferred to engineers' use very early but I didn't know any received black livery.

Intriguing; Engineers' Medfits are currently of great interest to me.

 

Dave.

[hmrspaul]

thanks everyone, it would be nice if we could find out the allocation codes

Yes, often discussed on wagon sites, but no one has come up with a list. It looks like Hornby are using one of the Scots ones on a forthcoming Trout.

 

Paul Bartlett

[Michael Delamar]

might be worth looking at pics of the various pw yards to see if a pattern emerges.

 

how many pway yards arount the country roughly would there have been?

[Fat Controller]

Yes, often discussed on wagon sites, but no one has come up with a list. It looks like Hornby are using one of the Scots ones on a forthcoming Trout.

 

Paul Bartlett

When I saw that one, I thought it had been commandeered by the Army- was it the Royal Tank Regiment that had similar insignia?

['CHARD]

When I saw that one, I thought it had been commandeered by the Army- was it the Royal Tank Regiment that had similar insignia?

 

I mistook it for something of LoadHaul or other phoney-Privatization provenance.

[Daniel W]

According to David Larkin in Civil Engineers vol 1, the Green triangle is for Lincoln, but he doesn't go any further in explaining the significance of these markings. Although its possible that he may explain them in volume two, which I unfortunately do not own.

[TheSignalEngineer]

From Paul Bartlett's pictures I would guess that they were used on ex-LNER lines and offer Red over White Rectangles as Kings Cross DCE.

[Clive Mortimore]

In the 70s I use to travel through woking quite frequently and many of the open wagons in the engineers yard had a green triangle in the top corner. Sorry I cannot rember if it was the right or left but something like in my sketch.

[hmrspaul]

From Paul Bartlett's pictures I would guess that they were used on ex-LNER lines and offer Red over White Rectangles as Kings Cross DCE.

As I have said, we don't know these officially and the new Hornby Trout https://www.Hornby.com/shop/2013-range/wagons/r6622-zfozfp-trout-ballast-hopper/  DB992185 appears to be http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/troutzfo/eba30fde

 

Dave L gives some infor on these in Volume 2 - on page 84. He doesn't know much about them and only allocates to regions, certainly not to depot. This one he says is LMR. This is the same as BRHSG suggested back in 1979. The CO on WR wagons appears to have a similar function.

 

Paul Bartlett

Edited February 16, 2013 by hmrspaul

[hmrspaul]

In the 70s I use to travel through woking quite frequently and many of the open wagons in the engineers yard had a green triangle in the top corner. Sorry I cannot rember if it was the right or left but something like in my sketch.

Woking wagon.png

Yes. Common on SR, especially on ex revenue wagons transferred to the Civils. But, seen all over when the SR went continous brake and their unfitted departmental stock was sent north.

 

Paul Bartlett

[The Stationmaster]

I think the 'CO' on WR wagons pre-dates the use of these various colour markings, perhaps your pics could (or could not) confirm that?

 

I also heard a long time back that some of these colour markings were used to identify wagons which had been allocated for use on various major schemes the idea being that they were a sort of 'return to' code.  That suggests to me that they might also have carried Darvic labels because otherwise people out of area would not have known what the colour codes meant - again is there any indication of this in any of your pics Paul?

[Fat Controller]

I think the 'CO' on WR wagons pre-dates the use of these various colour markings, perhaps your pics could (or could not) confirm that?

 

I also heard a long time back that some of these colour markings were used to identify wagons which had been allocated for use on various major schemes the idea being that they were a sort of 'return to' code.  That suggests to me that they might also have carried Darvic labels because otherwise people out of area would not have known what the colour codes meant - again is there any indication of this in any of your pics Paul?

'CO' predates BR days- I've seen photos of it on Mermaids and other opens in GWR days (the Mermaid shot was pre-war, I believe). I believe it stood for 'COnstruction', as opposed to those vehicles allocated to Signals and Telegraphs or Chief Mechanical Engineer.

[Clive Mortimore]

Yes. Common on SR, especially on ex revenue wagons transferred to the Civils. But, seen all over when the SR went continous brake and their unfitted departmental stock was sent north.

 

Paul Bartlett

 Hi Paul

 

I have had a quick look in David Larkin's books and the green triangle was in the other corner to how I have sketched it.

Now the right way round.

 

And they do seem to be all over the SR.

[hmrspaul]

I think the 'CO' on WR wagons pre-dates the use of these various colour markings, perhaps your pics could (or could not) confirm that?

 

I also heard a long time back that some of these colour markings were used to identify wagons which had been allocated for use on various major schemes the idea being that they were a sort of 'return to' code.  That suggests to me that they might also have carried Darvic labels because otherwise people out of area would not have known what the colour codes meant - again is there any indication of this in any of your pics Paul?

Yes of course CO  goes back a century, What I wrote was "The CO on WR wagons appears to have a similar function" because it continued and no colour coding is known for the WR.

All of this  has been discussed in detail before, but I cannot find the topic. There are numerous examples in my collections, but as mine (and DLs) are mostly from the 1970s onwards they had got quite mixed up by then. They don't appear in the official documents that explain brandings on wagons - whereas, as an example, the use of similar visual signals for mineral wagon sizes is in the documents.

 

I hadn't heard any association with specific jobs and they are not limited to any particular type of engineers or ex revenue wagons.

 

Paul Bartlett

[Michael Delamar]

Couple of Grampus at Huskisson CLC goods yard Liverpool in the late 60s. One with triangle, presuming it’d be yellow.

 

[hmrspaul]

There were many motifs on engineers wagons, apparently for different districts. But we've never found details of them. There are hundreds illustrated on my site. Many colours, many designs.

 

Paul