'Conditional Train Services'

[johndon]

Can anyone enlighten me as to what is meant by 'Conditional Train Services?  I've found a working timetable for a line I want to model but the document is entitled 'Working Timetable of Conditional Train Services' so would this contain the timings for all trains or is there something special about a Conditional trail Service?

 

Thanks

 

John

[Fat Controller]

Can anyone enlighten me as to what is meant by 'Conditional Train Services?  I've found a working timetable for a line I want to model but the document is entitled 'Working Timetable of Conditional Train Services' so would this contain the timings for all trains or is there something special about a Conditional trail Service?

 

Thanks

 

John

Conditional workings run only when there is traffic available; very common in mining and heavy industrial areas. Your timetable wouldn't have the timings for all trains, only those that didn't always run. A colliery might have conditional paths for half-a-dozen departures, but on a given day, only half of these might run. 

[johndon]

Conditional workings run only when there is traffic available; very common in mining and heavy industrial areas. Your timetable wouldn't have the timings for all trains, only those that didn't always run. A colliery might have conditional paths for half-a-dozen departures, but on a given day, only half of these might run. 

 

Thanks Brian - that would make perfect sense as the timetable is for the line to Consett Steelworks.

 

John

[jonny777]

You will also need the Mandatory WTT for the same line, in order to build up a picture of the complete service.

 

It appears that the WTTs were produced in Passenger and Freight volumes until about 1970, but then changed to Mandatory and Conditional.

[Rivercider]

In the WTTs that I have most of the Conditional trains are COY (Company) freight services which would run as requested by the company.

There are also a number of engineers trips, for spoil to and from spoil tips, or from ballast quarries which would run according to the civil engineers requirements.

There are also some trains used to convey wagons for maintenance as required by the carriage and wagon staff.

There are also a smaller number of 'ordinary' freight services in the conditional WTT. some of which in practice did run every day

 

Most of the regular vacuum braked network freights were in the Mandatory WTT including some that might be very light for traffic,

this would be because they would have to run, even if light diesel because the back working of the loco was an Mandatory train that must run,

 

cheers

[HillsideDepot]

A variation on the theme I have recently come across is a "Manned Conditional Freight Train" coded MC at the head of the column in the WTT. An example from the 1969-70 Bristol Area WTT is 8B48 2200 Severn Tunnel Junction to Bristol West Depot.

 

My guess at this is that whilst the train is "conditional" the likelihood of it running is sufficiently high to roster a crew for it - but I may be miles off!

[Fat Controller]

I should imagine that, at a location like Consett, where virtually all the traffic was for one customer, the majority of trains would have been Conditional Workings. The only non-steelworks traffic in latter days was coal to Blackhill coal depot and scrap from PHP's bearing plant; I wonder if these ran as a separate trip from/to Tyne Yard, or would they be attached to one of the trips serving the steelworks?

['CHARD]

You will also need the Mandatory WTT for the same line, in order to build up a picture of the complete service.

 

It appears that the WTTs were produced in Passenger and Freight volumes until about 1970, but then changed to Mandatory and Conditional.

Reasons to be glad to model DeathSteam, Pt. 3 !

[br2975]

Can anyone enlighten me as to what is meant by 'Conditional Train Services? 

 

Hope this helps.......

.

Extracts from The Working Timetable of (a) mandatory and (b) conditional train services, Cardiff Distric Branch Lines 3rd. May 1976 - 3rd October 1976 / 1st. May 1977.

.

Brian R

[Edwin_m]

You will also need the Mandatory WTT for the same line, in order to build up a picture of the complete service.

 

It appears that the WTTs were produced in Passenger and Freight volumes until about 1970, but then changed to Mandatory and Conditional.

They must have changed back sometime after that, because ever since I've had acquaintance with "current" WTTs (from about 2000 onwards) they have been split into passenger and freight.  The conditional workings are designated by the headnote Q and are often referred to as Q-paths. 

[AberdeenBill]

Q-paths were allocated to boat-train workings between Southampton Docks to Waterloo, which presumably depended on the tides, etc.

 

Bill

[johndon]

Thanks for all the replies, they are appreciated.

 

John

[The Stationmaster]

A variation on the theme I have recently come across is a "Manned Conditional Freight Train" coded MC at the head of the column in the WTT. An example from the 1969-70 Bristol Area WTT is 8B48 2200 Severn Tunnel Junction to Bristol West Depot.

 

My guess at this is that whilst the train is "conditional" the likelihood of it running is sufficiently high to roster a crew for it - but I may be miles off!

Manned Conditional trains were resourced for both men and a loco and effectively were usually 'go anywhere' trains within a certain limit (and often outside it!) but were 'conditional' because they didn't regularly run to the same place.  For example at Radyr in 1973 we had a 'short' (Margam/Severn Tunnel maximum usually) and a 'long' (could be as far as Swindon or even Acton or Hereford or Llanelly) Manned Conditional on each shift, i.e. a total of 6 Manned Conditionals daily Monday - Friday.   The 'long' ones were renowned money earners for the 'Dirty Dozen' - our top link of 12 Drivers about whom many tales can be told.

 

They must have changed back sometime after that, because ever since I've had acquaintance with "current" WTTs (from about 2000 onwards) they have been split into passenger and freight.  The conditional workings are designated by the headnote Q and are often referred to as Q-paths. 

Mandatory and Conditional timetables for freight working were a 'bright idea' of their time which was in reality a total waste of time as it was found that some Conditional trains ran more frequently than some which were supposedly Mandatory (and which provided men and power for Conditional trains when they were cancelled!).

 

Also they were a very bad idea from a train planning process and organisational view as separate freight and passenger books - and planning worked far better.  Hence by the 1980s we were back to separation of freight & passenger although I'm not sure in which year the change had happened.  By then on the freight side we also developed something called 'The Manual of Agreed Parthways' which were basically reasonably workable timetable paths (on most Regions except the LM - see below) which were known as MAP paths; the idea was that having them simplified planning for many of the more regular or frequent specials which nobody was prepared to underwrite resources for on a timetabled basis.  In our final years of the Western region we had c.800 freights/resourced paths in our WTTs and about 500 (although the number varied) MAP paths plus, of course local trip etc workings which weren't in the WTTs.

 

In early Trainload Freight days I compared the Crewe MAP with the Western one and the results were amusing - it contained, in full, about 1200 paths but some were so far out-of-date, even on the WCML that the timings dated from steam days (and they probably hadn't been used since then).