1970s depot reallocations

[AberdeenBill]

Hi all,

 

One interesting feature from my spotting days in the 1970s was the incessant reallocation of locomotives between deopts, as read in Railway Magazine a few months after the event, so that ones "Locoshed" book could be laboriously updated in pen...    Let's imagine that a new traffic flow at Immingham needed two class 47s.   How was it decided if they should be transferred from (say) Stratford, Toton or Canton?    Were there any differences for shunters?  

 

Thanks,

Bill

 

 

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Lots of variables Bill.

 

 

For your IM example.....

Passenger or freight flow?

Were the required locos to have train heating - ETH or steam heat?

Air brakes or vac?

Condition of loco - how long ex-works?

Surplus capacity at one depot vs another

Supplied from a region's own resources or inter-regional?

One class vs another - driver/maintenance staff knowledge

Route availability

Flow to or from IM - which depot to work?

[Xerces Fobe2]

I used to follow the transfers and then look out for the new arrivals on the London WR mainline - The immaculate Green FYE Class 31's (D)5818  etc trnasferred from the Sheffield area to Ola Oak Commom were amongst my favorites.  These days who really cares which shed a shed is allocated to?

 

XF

[Enterprisingwestern]

Quite a few re-allocations in the 60's/70's were geared around works visits, a degree of cascading of loco's to and from depots which had loco's due for shopping, that's why there were some seemingly off the wall movements from region to region. Also there were a lot of "paper transfers" which used to take us by surprise in the pre mobile pre internet days.

 

Mike.

[Rivercider]

While agreeing with all of the above in the complicated area of allocation of resources

I would imagine many of the transfers were driven by reduction of traffic not additional traffic.

As freight traffic particularly declined there was a power surplus, so loco numbers were reduced.

Non standard classes including the hydraulics went early, so other locos had to be transferred in to fill the void.

Next would be the removal of the class 24s for example, again other locos would be shuffled to fill the gaps.

Then there was the programme to move to airbraked freight, new class 56s would see other locos cascaded

and result in more older vac only locos going for scrap.

A time of great change.

 

cheers