Milk and parcels traffic at Marylebone: How was it handled?

[Karhedron]

Can anyone shed any light on how the milk and parcels sidings at Marylebone were operated? There was an island platform built for this traffic serving the IMS bottling plant just north of Rossmore Road bridge. It can be seen at the bottom of this signalling diagram.

 

 

I was wondering how it was operated in steam days. The sidings have no run around loop. Would incoming milk have used the wall-side siding adjacent to platform 1? I am interested in whether these services ran directly into the station or wether they were shunted beyond the station throat? Did the train engine handle this or would a pilot have shunted them?

 

If anyone can shed any light on how this part of the station was operated, I would love to know.

[andye]

the milk dock was on the depot, the northern side of the rossmore road bridge, effectively next to the depot.

[bennyboy]

I should imagine that the Up Loop was used for non-passenger traffic.

[Karhedron]

The Up loop is a possibility but that would mean the train loco would need to run around using the Up Fast if it then propelled the tanks or vans into the dock.

 

I still think it would be more likely that the run around loop by platform 1 is more likely with the train then backing into the up loop like a headshunt before propelling into the dock. Then again, perhaps it was timetabled such that the Up Loop and Up Fast could be used as a run around loop.

 

This is why I am hoping that someone who remembers might drop by. There seems to be more than one viable option but I do not know which was used in practice.

[Brian Kirby]

I reckon into the Up Loop for incoming tanks/vans is the best bet, what else was it for? Train loco would come off the front and might "W" shunt across to the loco sidings, if only to turn on the table, station pilot could then propel tanks, etc. into the milk bay. I doubt milk trains would enter the station proper just for shunting with only four platforms available, unless as odd tail traffic, although parcel and newspaper trains did load here, as well as outside the station. As far as i know, Marylebone retained a station pilot right up until 1966, by then a Fairburn Tank, to release incoming passenger locos. Besides the station pilot, on the west side there probably would have been at least one goods yard pilot, perhaps more than one in earlier years, although the yard was fairly quiet by the 1960s, so maybe the station pilot latterly covered here too? After 1966, milk traffic would have already finished, remaining parcel traffic would be brought in by Type 2 diesels, which would probably run-round and shunt themselves, or did perhaps Marylebone DMU Depot have it's own 350hp shunter for shunting dead DMU cars? The odd Type 2 still turned up daily until the early 1970s.

 

                                                                          Cheers, Brian.

[30851]

Don't know if you are aware of this but there is a chapter in "The Great Central in LNER days volume 2" called Milk for Marylebone - this goes into some details of the working of the milk trains pre-war. It does state that "the procedure for deal with milk arrivals at Marylebone was always the same" - as soon as the train came to rest in the platform the pilot came onto the rear to shunt the wagons onto the dock. However this bit of text is after talking about all milk wagons were received at the end of passenger trains. It then talks about the dedicated milk train that started in 1937 so I don't know if the bit about how they were handled still applies. It is interesting to read that the dedicated train from Marylebone to Banbury ran via Woodford (reversing there) and not direct - just so the LNER could get more money from the train. This was one of the first things that got changed after BR was formed.

 

On the topic of the up loop - according to the diagram for Marylebone Goods Yard in the Swift books you could not run directly into the up loop from the North, you had to shunt to get in to it. It should be noted that this isn't one of the best of the diagrams in the Swift books and could be wrong - but from what few  pictures I can find the bits I could see seems to match.

 

Rob

[Fat Controller]

Were the milk tanks unloaded at the 'Milk Dock', or was that a relic from the days of milk vans attached to passenger trains? It could be that the advent of tanks meant that they were dealt with somewhere else.

The dedicated milk train (was it from somewhere called Donnington in Shropshire?) apparently used to run up the GWR route from Birmingham to Banbury; from there, it would be sent over the link to the former GCR route at Woodford Halse, where it would reverse again to travel down the GCR to Marylebone.

[salop89a]

Were the milk tanks unloaded at the 'Milk Dock', or was that a relic from the days of milk vans attached to passenger trains? It could be that the advent of tanks meant that they were dealt with somewhere else.

The dedicated milk train (was it from somewhere called Donnington in Shropshire?) apparently used to run up the GWR route from Birmingham to Banbury; from there, it would be sent over the link to the former GCR route at Woodford Halse, where it would reverse again to travel down the GCR to Marylebone.

Milk trains ran from Dorrington, Shropshire on the Shrewsbury to Hereford line.

 

Donnington, Shropshire is further east near Telford and the site of a MOD depot.

[30851]

Were the milk tanks unloaded at the 'Milk Dock', or was that a relic from the days of milk vans attached to passenger trains? It could be that the advent of tanks meant that they were dealt with somewhere else.

The dedicated milk train (was it from somewhere called Donnington in Shropshire?) apparently used to run up the GWR route from Birmingham to Banbury; from there, it would be sent over the link to the former GCR route at Woodford Halse, where it would reverse again to travel down the GCR to Marylebone.

 

The milk tanks were unloaded at the 'Milk Dock'.

 

Rob

[Karhedron]

Were the milk tanks unloaded at the 'Milk Dock', or was that a relic from the days of milk vans attached to passenger trains? It could be that the advent of tanks meant that they were dealt with somewhere else.

Tanks were handled at the milk dock. In fact, the IMS plant on Rossmore road was one of the last and most modern to be constructed in central London. It was designed to handle only tanker traffic from new and did not take churns as far as I am aware. Plenty of shots of tankers in the dock in post-nationalization days.

 

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2498878

 

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2650927

[LNERGE]

The diagram for next door if it helps..

 

 

[30851]

The diagram for next door if it helps..

 

Marylebone goods Yard pt1a.jpg

 

Marylebone Goods Yard pt2a.jpg

 

So the Swift diagram is correct - you could not run directly into what is called the 'Carriage Siding' here. So I think I would be safe to guess that that line was for shunting carriages between the station and the carriage sidings - plus any milk tanks.

 

Rob

[Brian Kirby]

I seem to recall reading somewhere, that many pre-group companies, but especially the safety conscious Great Central, avoided using facing points wherever possible, forcing all freights to reverse into goods loops. Obviously this was a time-consuming procedure, and hardly efficient, so most loops had locked facing points added later. Perhaps this Up Loop at Marylebone with no direct access, was a lasting legacy of such practice? Paradoxically, there is direct access from the running lines into the goods yard. The goods yard has always remained an enigma, photos are thin on the ground, we know the track layout as built, but the large goods shed suffered severe damage during WW2 and was patched up. Coal was still handled at the north end until the late 60s, partly for the power station, but i'm not sure if the yard handled general merchandise after the early 60s? Instead the yard was converted and concentrated on parcels traffic, with sidings removed from the central section of the enormous goods shed, services from here were mostly to relieve Euston and the WCML during electrification. There were/are a couple of videos of the yard on YouTube, one was concerning a NCB exhibition in b/w, the other was the International Railway Exhibition in colour. The fact that exhibitions could be held here, suggests that the yard was not working to capacity, most of it closed in the late 60s, the power station siding connection was the last area of use. All was later swept away to build a large council estate, save for odd sections of perimeter wall and the bridge over the western extension. The only thing that now survives from within the yard, is the LT Bakerloo/now Jubilee ventilation shaft, right in the middle, and now a far taller and bigger structure.     BK

Edited February 4, 2015 by Brian Kirby

[Karhedron]

So the Swift diagram is correct - you could not run directly into what is called the 'Carriage Siding' here. So I think I would be safe to guess that that line was for shunting carriages between the station and the carriage sidings - plus any milk tanks.

Looks like you are right, more of a headshunt than a loop.

 

Based on that (and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary), I suspect that arriving milk trains probably arrived at either Platform 1 or Wall-Side siding. From there I guess that the station pilot would have shunted them onto the Up loop and then back into the milk dock. Either that or the train engine ran around and did the same job. I have read that Wall-Side was frequently used for coach storage during the day so perhaps the pilot was needed.

[danstercivicman]

The diagram for next door if it helps..

 

Marylebone goods Yard pt1a.jpg

 

This is brilliant and has asmswered a question I had for my next layout

Marylebone Goods Yard pt2a.jpg

[D854_Tiger]

I used to know someone who had used the GC regularly before it closed, very informative as well for someone like myself always fascinated to learn as much as I could about those routes that had closed well before my chance came to explore wider.

 

He recalled that even after the service had been reduced to just three semi-fast workings each way, as far as Nottingham, there was a late evening parcels, or it could have been newspapers, that still went all the way to Sheffield and Manchester.

 

Although, unadvertised in the timetable, apparently the train carried a couple of mk1s for passenger use, and operated quite close up until complete closure.

 

Unfortunately, in everything I've read, I've never found any reference to this working to be able to confirm it existed.

[tynewydd]

Some words on the Dorrington train at Banbury which add some detail on locomotives and composition - from the Banbury museum website -
 

Quote

After nationalisation the Bicester cut-off was used by the Dorrington--Marylebone (sometimes called the Dorrington—Banbury) milk train, a working that had an air of mystery about it largely because at Banbury it could be observed in daylight after the Second World War only at the height of summer. From their beginnings main line railways carried milk into cities. From the 1850s it was carried in 'churns' (not the original meaning of the word). Railway wagons carrying glass-lined milk tanks holding 3,000 gallons were introduced by the four railway companies in Britain in 1927-28, under agreements by which they owned the chassis, originally with four wheels but with six from 1933, and the dairy companies whom they served owned the tanks. The Dorrington milk train ran between a creamery alongside the Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway, six miles south of Shrewsbury, and a depot owned by Independent Milk Supplies in Rossmore Road, London, between the Marylebone passenger terminus, then part of the London & North Eastern Railway, and the carriage shed. The Dorrington Creamery was established by Midland Farmers Ltd in 1921 and originally sent milk in churns to London and Birmingham Independent Milk Supplies. This, a much smaller concern than the giants of the London milk trade, Express Dairies and United Dairies, was established in 1928 in Holloway in north London and moved to the site in Rossmore Road in 1934. In the summer of 1935 it began to supply the Marylebone depot with milk in tanks brought via Bletchley and Calvert from Sanquhar in Dumfriesshire. After taking over the Dorrington creamery in December 1935 the company began to send milk to Marylebone in churns. In June 1936 it purchased ten 6-wheel tanks built by the GWR at Swindon and shortly afterwards began to work them to Marylebone. A Great Western locomotive collected the tanks at Dorrington and took them north to Shrewsbury where they were held for a time in carriage sidings at Abbey Foregate, giving the working another of its names, the 'Abbey Foregate milk'. In 1937 any scheduled delay at Shrewsbury was minimal, and the tanks arrived in Banbury in time to be taken to Woodford on the 20.12 passenger train reaching Woodford at 20.34. They were speedily attached to the 20.50 local train to Marylebone which was reached at 23.11. By the summer of 1937 the LNER conveyed the milk tanks on a separate train, the empties departing Marylebone at 14.09 reaching Banbury at 16.50, and the full tanks arriving at Marylebone at 20.20. After the disappearance of the 'big four' companies it was logical to work the tanks directly between Banbury and Marylebone. Enthusiasts would await the arrival from the south at about 21.30 of a Neasden locomotive which would place the tanks in the down bay platform. It was usually a 2-6-4T, an ex-LNER L1 in the early 1950s, then an ex-LMS Fairburn engine, and subsequently a British Railways standard machine of similar type, but sometimes tender engines were used. The locomotive then went to the up side of the station to await the arrival of the train conveying the full tanks at 23.00. In the mid-1950s Councillor Harry Price of Banbury Town Council, himself a railwayman, persuaded the management to attach a pair of passenger coaches to the up milk train at Birmingham (Snow Hill), which, departing at 22.00, carried passengers to Leamington and Banbury. Passengers could travel further south by waiting for just over an hour until the arrival of the overnight train from York to Swindon two minutes after midnight. The Dorrington train was still running in the summer of 1965 but ceased soon afterwards.