Cornish China Clay Branch Traffic

[iarnrod]

I am from Ireland, and have always had an interest in Cornish railways based on their similarities to Irish railways, in that most of the original infrastructure as in buildings, signalling etc is still in use. The same was the case in Ireland up until a few years ago.

 

I am currently thinking of building a Cornish China Clay themed layout and have a few questions.

 

What loco's were used from 1990's to date on China Clay trains?

 

What wagons were used from 1990's to date on China Clay trains?

 

What DMU's were used on branch lines in the China Clay areas from 1990's to date?

 

Was there other traffic on these branch lines e.g. cement?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies. No doubt I may have a few more questions.

 

 

[Rods_of_Revolution]

The cement you're thinking of was probably from Moorswater, it was converted from a China Clay facility to a Cement distribution terminal in 1998/9. First trains in 1999 I think?

 

Generally the wagons mentioned by Mickey were the most common, along with the Polybulks.

 

In the early 1990s other wagons still ran on Speedlink services, such as VDAs, VGAs, Cargowaggons etc. Other vehicles remained for Slurry such as the Crossfield TCAs and the "Blue Bullets" similar(but different) wagons to the Silver Bullets but painted ECC Blue. The Long Rock depot fuel train would run with TTAs.

 

Later ECC became Imerys and the wagons changed from the Tiger hoppers to the new Imerys Nacco JIA wagons for powdered clay and new TEA vehicles for slurry. This era was almost exclusively Class 66s though the odd Class 60 may have made an appearance. Scrap trains were run from St Blazey using MBA Monster Boxes and this scrap I think was combined with the TTAs from Long Rock.

 

Freight would be Class 37, Class 47 and Class 60 up until the Class 66s in 1999, then just Class 66s with the odd Class 60 and Class 37. Class 08s have always been in Cornwall. Passenger-wise you'd have HSTs, Class 153s, Class 150s and Voyagers. Class 57s on the sleepers in the later 2000s, earlier on in the 1990s Class 47s on Cross Country services.

 

I'm sure I've missed some stuff and got a few bits wrong, but my era of interest is the 1980s! :-)

 

Cheers,

 

Jack

[Tim H]

Calcified seaweed traffic lasted right through to the end of the 1990s; in latter days it was a rake of EWS livery CEAs. At the beginning ot the decade all sorts of wagon types were used; HEAs were common, also saw POA box wagons, and Tiger bogie hoppers. Even Yeoman livery PGAs at one point.

[Fat Controller]

Other traffic that comes to mind were contaminated shot (from shot-blasting) from Falmouth to somewhere in the Manchester area, and a load of sand/ore from Truro (was it perhaps Ilmenite?), put on to rail after the vessel carrying it ran into difficulties.

[iarnrod]

Thanks for the replies guys. I've been researching books that cover the area in terms of railway traffic. It seems there are many books have been published, but which books would people recommend that best cover freight and passenger traffic in Cornwall?

[Tim H]

Couple of other traffic flows at the beginning of the 90s.  Newquay Steam Beer from Truro, and electrical goods from Fitzgerald Lighting in Bodmin. Both used VGAs. The latter was tripped down the Bodmin and Wenford by a preserved diesel.

 

The beer traffic ended with Speedlink in 1991, have a feeling the Bodmin flow lasted a little longer.

[Fat Controller]

Couple of other traffic flows at the beginning of the 90s.  Newquay Steam Beer from Truro, and electrical goods from Fitzgerald Lighting in Bodmin. Both used VGAs. The latter was tripped down the Bodmin and Wenford by a preserved diesel.

 

The beer traffic ended with Speedlink in 1991, have a feeling the Bodmin flow lasted a little longer.

The Fitzgerald traffic went over to Tiger Rail for their brief existence; not sure what happened then.

[TomJ]

I can't recall exact dates but I think there were two phases to the Bodmin lighting traffic. The first was roughly late 80s to early 90s - ended with Speedlink. The second was mid 1990s to early 2000s on the EWS Enterprise.

 

The cement to Moorswater never overlapped with the clay - the cement distribution took over the old clay works for delivery. But a simple use of rule 1 I think. There was also domestic coal to Drinnick Mill in the mid 80s and I think a trial of containerised coal to Falmouth docks in the 90s

[Tim H]

There was another short-lived scrap flow from St Erth in the late 90s, using Sheerness Steel PXAs. Not sure it lasted beyond a couple of trial runs.

 

Another feature of Cornish freight operations was combininng engineers and revenue-earning traffic in the same train. For example the afternoon Speedlink out of St Blazey in 1990 consisting of a handful of clay wagons plus a tail of opens and bogie bolsters.

[TomJ]

Reading this makes me realise there was actually quite a lot and variety of non clay traffic in Cornwall in the 80s and 90s. Not all at the same time or place of course but quite a scope for plausible what if.

[Fat Controller]

I can't recall exact dates but I think there were two phases to the Bodmin lighting traffic. The first was roughly late 80s to early 90s - ended with Speedlink. The second was mid 1990s to early 2000s on the EWS Enterprise.

 

The cement to Moorswater never overlapped with the clay - the cement distribution took over the old clay works for delivery. But a simple use of rule 1 I think. There was also domestic coal to Drinnick Mill in the mid 80s and I think a trial of containerised coal to Falmouth docks in the 90s

There was a wagonload flow of pre-packed, palletised, coal from Tower Colliery to Cornwall at some point during the period in question.

[edcayton]

Lots of bottled water shipped in for the Solar eclipse, can't remember the date but my Dad was still alive.

 

Ed

[southern42]

Preserved 37521 'English China Clays' at Barrow Hill Roundhouse. Photo taken in 2013.

 

The Bachmann 33-381R one is a Kernow Limited Edition of 512 Pieces.

Class 37/5 Diesel Locomotive, 37521 - in EWS LIvery (Factory Weathered)

http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/product/28314/32381R_Bachmann_Class_37_Diesel_Locomotive_number_37_521

 

This one's mine.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Polly

 

[Irishswissernie]

Check out my Flickr WEstern Region collection, there are 5 Sets totaling over 1000 images of the Cornish China Clay area, Liskeard, St Blazey, Par, Burngullow & Lostwithiel from the 1990's

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/collections/72157626619390732/

 

Ernie

[Irishswissernie]

A bit more info on the Moorswater cement, I think it began in 1999, ran twice a week tuesday & thursday and the train was split before entering Cornwall (possibly at Exeter) to keep the weight of the train down either because of the steep Devon banks or because of a limit on the Royal Albert Bridge. When I saw it each portion was 3 bogie Cargowagons and 10 PCA's. At first the Class 66's weren't allowed down to Moorswater from Liskeard so a Class 37 had to await the train and take it down from the main line. The second portion was stabled at Lostwithiel whilst the first was unloaded and then tripped from Moorswater to Lostwithiel and the 2 portions swopped over. The 37 then worked all the empties in due course to St Blazey.

The first portion arrived between 6 and 8am at Liskeard usually after the Down sleeper and a set of empty Mail vans being worked to St Blazey (usually doubleheaded)

In May 2000 I videoe'd the first portion which had failed west of Plymouth. Mainline blue liveried 37216 was hurriedly despatched working wrong line to rescue it (66131) and after about 30 minutes returned hauling the train which it had to run round and then take down the branch, leaving 66131 in the yard.

37216 was also used on the  Fitzgerald Lighting vans from Bodmin. When these were picked up they had to then come from Parkway to Liskeard to run round before returning back past Bodmin Parkway to St Blazey. Not exactly economical!

 

ernie

[D820]

The containerised coal traffic to Falmouth in the mid nineties was from Coed Bach in South Wales.  The trains used Cawoods containers on four wheel flats and ran after the last passenger service, there being no loop at Penryn back then.  The coal was then transported by road to a local coal merchant at Penmarth.  One interesting working on 18th July 1996 was a test train to Falmouth Docks consisting of a PBA clay wagon and a KFA flat.  The only time I can think of that clay wagons worked on the mainline west of Burngullow Junction, 37699 was in charge.

[Glorious NSE]

Scrap from Bz was a more mid 2000s thing, when the price started to rocket....

 

It had a bit of a resurgence later, it's just ceased again though unfortunately (the 5 wagon set of MBA's that had been dedicated to the flow was moved to Cardiff when the line at Dawlish was reopened - not sure whether the loss was a consequence of the Dawlish blockage or whether it had been inactive before that though...)

 

The very early 00s was a pretty good time to model Cornwall IMHO, a reasonable amount of wagon variety with some transitioning between 80s and 00s types going on, most of which you can at least represent easily, a lot of variety in traction (a lot more than in the late 80s crazily enough) - some great liveries, and reasonably high long distance freight traffic levels meaning the local wagonload scene was quite interesting.

 

Believe it or not this was taken as late as 2004, with 37047/37308 teaming up on the Enterprise, this one with 3x JIA, an IMA (Italian reg cargowaggon) and depot fuel TTAs - that might not have been the norm, but it wasn't as unusual as having a Western on CDA's, which happenned in 2002! 

 

[Tim H]

2004?  Didn't realise pairs of 37s were running that late.  My visits around that time it was all 66s or 60s.

[Glorious NSE]

I was fully expecting something more mainstream!

[Tim H]

When did the 60s stop running in Cornwall?

[Glorious NSE]

When did the 60s stop running in Cornwall?

 

Not sure...I have a shot of one on clay in 2001, by 2004 my recollection is that 66s were very dominant on clay.