BR Mk.1 GUV on branch/suburban line?

[philsandy]

Question is in the title really.

Would GUV's have been used for parcels, newspapers etc. on a branch line, or were they oniy used on express/mainlines?

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi

 

Most branch line parcels would be unloaded at the junction station and reloaded in the van portion of the Motor Brake Second of the DMU.

 

Very few branches would have justified a parcels van of any type unless there was an industry along the branch that shipped its goods as parcels traffic, not sundries in freight vans.

 

For non "Modern Image" modellers the van portion of the brake coach.

[Gwiwer]

In general I have to agree with Clive's response though I suspect there will be a plethora of exceptions!  Some branches might have had sufficient traffic to justify a van attached to the train which was then shunted off at the junction for onward transit on the main line. I beleive as an example this happened on the Helston branch with a parcel van used for general merchandise (of which there was sometimes quite a lot out of Nancegollan yard) which was added to a main line train at Gwinear Road.  Use of a van all day on a quiet branch line would be unusual however.

[br2975]

During the late 1960s early 1970s one of the early morning Cardiff - Rhymney DMU services carried a tail load of a 'van' to cater for such traffic.

.

There was also a SuO Cardiff - Treherbert parcels and news working that conveyed a BCK (which worked up from Swansea) and one or two GUV vans off the 00:50 ex Paddington.

.

The BCK was a SuO diagram, but the vans worked all week.

.

In addition there was a daily Cardiff - Pontypridd parcels which arrived at Ponty about midday, usually with a Cl.37, sometimes Cl.35 and a tail load of one GUV, maybe two this time of year.

.

Unfortunately Cardiff - Pontypridd and Cardiff - Rhymney may not be everyones idea of a branch line.

.

As recorded elsewhere, pigeon services also ran occasionally (sometimes tagged onto DMU sets) - but tended to use more specialist vans.

 

Brian R

[Gwiwer]

If we are delving into the realms of "tail traffic" then it's worth remembering that many DMU-worked services notably on the ER / NER secondary routes conveyed vans as tail traffic in the 1950s and 1960s with such use diminishing significantly and ending in the early 1970s.

 

Many of those routes were not strictly branch lines being connected at both ends and / or being parts of former main lines but as cuts were made so some such as Mablethorpe became a dead-end branch.  The tail-load van had either to be shunted at the terminus or a run-round performed.  I'm not familiar with a DMU having run round a van anywhere but perhaps our experts know better.  

[Fat Controller]

It depends on the 'branch'. Milford Haven had tail traffic on the DMUs into the 1970s (usually a CCT, but sometimes a GUV). Barnstaple had regular van traffic in Fruit Ds, GUVs and Siphons until the late 1970s. Aylesbury had a lot of van traffic, due to the presence of one of Robert Maxwell's presses.

[chrisf]

The branch from West Drayton to Uxbridge Vine Street, closed in 1962, might well have been regarded as a suburban branch.  The first train in the morning [5.10 am] ran through from Paddington and in the 1950s comprised an auto train, a GWR railcar or a bubble car and driving trailer.  Whatever it was had a Siphon G tacked on the back.  Had the branch lasted a bit longer the van would have been a GUV.

 

It does all depend on the branch and its traffic!

 

Chris

[Eggesford box]

Hi,

the Barnstaple branch had an 0300 from Exeter which conveyed six vans of parcels and mails plus two coaches returning as a mixed train as the 0713 from Barnstaple to Exeter conveying the same stock plus 'overflow' freight stock as required (cue discussions/arguments as to what actually constituted a 'mixed' train!). The next train,the 0405 from Exeter DMU, conveyed a bogie van containing newspapers (which where sorted on their way down the branch). This van returned from Barnstaple on the 1535 DMU departure conveying mails and parcels. The DMU service arriving at Barnstaple around 1000 conveyed a four wheeled van which returned on the 2050 service from Barnstaple (another DMU) conveying mails. Since there was not normally any other trains at Barnstaple when this service was about, the DMU (complete with passengers)had to run around the parcel van via the Torrington line and run past the van on the other platform line to get past the van. The van was later removed by the returning freight from Torrington/Meeth/Marland. If the freight was late then by a gang of men armed with a pinch bar!These workings lasted until at least 1979 (the times of the trains varied a little over the years but where basically the same services). This was in addition to a healthy mail and parcels traffic carried in the guards compartments of the DMUs and engine and stock.

[David C]

There are pics in whichever GWRJ covered the Uxbridge branch (I'll look it up later) with at least 3 vans on the departure platform, not all of which were ex GWR. Other branches which saw tail traffic were

 

1) Kingsbridge with regular workings of an ex LNER van and the ubiquitous SR utilities, which seemed to get everywhere (there's a photo of the terminus with at least 2 of them visible). These carried seafood and rabbits.

2) Cardigan (a siphon G on the 11.00 am approx mixed train)

3) Bude, with 2 vans brought in on the first arrival of the day with newspapers and parcels

4) Calne with siphons going all over the country with Harris's meat pies

 

There were surely others. It all depends on what industry(ies) your line serves - milk is an obvious traffic for a rural area.

 

Hope this helps.

 

David C

 

 

 

[TomJ]

There are plenty of pictures of the Barnstaple branch in the mid 80s with a blue GUV attached to a loco hauled passenger train, for newspapers.

 

Although the TPOs might only have existed in my 2mm version!!!

[JohnR]

There's a bit of me that wants to say that the Barnstaple line is not a branch!

[Gwiwer]

There's a bit of me that wants to say that the Barnstaple line is not a branch!

 

There's a lot of me that wishes it wasn't.  But since 1982 that is what it has been.  

 

If traffic levels today could have been predicted 30 - 50 years ago we might still have it as the focus of routes from Tiverton and Exeter going forward to Ilfracombe and Torrington.  But not Halwill - that was never a viable proposition

[caradoc]

Issue 88, Autumn 2013, of the Great Western Journal (Wild Swan) has an article on freight traffic at Witney. This states that from 1958 the Up platform was used only for parcels traffic, and contains numbers of vehicles used for such traffic, one of which was GUV S86829 on 9th Sep 1963.

[Eggesford box]

Having happily written a spiel on the Barnstaple branch it has occured to me what era is the original poster interested in?

 

The situation with Barnstaple was that it ended up serving a very large hinterland and the roads leading to civilisation where pretty poor before the building of the north Devon link road. Not that that road is brilliant but it is a vast improvement over the Exeter and Taunton roads (says the man who once put a car over a six foot bank on the Taunton road and discovered the aerodynamic properties of a Metro left something to be desired as it somersaulted two or three times across a field!).

 

Hence a good GPO traffic. Before BR dropped out of the collection and delivery parcel service Barnstaple was a parcels centralisation depot (PCD) with six vans and an arctic going out daily and delivering along the coast from Lynton and Lynmouth to nearly Bude and inland from South Molton to Torrington. The vast majority of the traffic being from the mail order clubs. By the late seventies the Fruit Ds had been bumped from the 0300 mails service, this normally using the BR design two axled vans. The Fruit Ds soldiered on carrying traffic from Toyworks (later Leisure Industries) near Bideford who manufactured things such as pool tables and blackboards (Pot Black being very popular on the TV at the time). This traffic went out on the daily freight. The 1000 arrival could either be one of the BR vans or the Southern design.

 

Hope the above is of some use to the original poster and not totally irrelevant. I suppose you could imagine your urban branch had ended up as the main parcel depot for the area.

[Innerhome]

Ian Coleby - "The Minehead Branch" - mentions that the points at the end of the main run round at Minehead were moved back to allow a 3 car DMU to run round a van which had been attached as tail traffic. I've never seen a photograph of a DMU on the line with a van attached - do others know if this ever happened ?   

[asmay2002]

There are 2 nice pictures in the December 2013 British Railways Illustrated of an N class 2-6-0 + SR CCT/PMV? (4 wheel) + BR GUV (Bogie) + 2 Bulleid coaches on the North Cornwall line in 1964 and another picture of a 3MT 2-6-2T with a BR GUV as the leading vehicle latre the same year.

[Gwiwer]

Minehead received a substantial amount of Passenger's Luggage In Advance traffic thanks largely to the adjacent Butlins camp.

 

While I've not seen pictures it would be reasonable to assume that some of this was DMU tail traffic after steam operation ceased.  

 

Minehead retained some loco-hauled services but the majority went over to DMU with ample opportunity to shunt vans at Taunton as well.