SED Freightman

I think the NSE Queen Mary's may have been allocated to the M & EE dept, possibly the Power Supply Section based at Horsham, if so I guess they would have been used for staff transport on engineering trains visiting out of the way sub-stations etc.

In 1988, three QM's hauled by USA Tank 30072 were used to provide rides for the public in Woking Down Yd as part of the Woking 150 event, one of these was ADS56284 which I belive was allocated to NSE.  In 1988 two QM's were used to provide brake force on unfitted trains between Stewarts Lane and Brixton in conjuction with the replacement of the Atlantic Road Bridge, I suspect these would also have been from the NSE allocation.  In 1993, a gauging trip from Eastleigh to Salisbury and back with S15 No.828 was formed with two QM's to convey the large number of essential (?) staff accompanying the movement, these two may well have been from the NSE allocation.

Regarding the non NSE QM's as mentioned above by anroar53, Trainload Construction operated at least one QM for use on Snowdown to Sevington spoil trips and also possibly some Sevington to Shakespeare Cliff trips.  In the mid 1990's RfD used a QM to convey BTP Officers on a few car trains between Dagenham Dock and Garston, unfortunately the Merseyside criminal element got wise to this and set light to the van which was destroyed above the frames.  As late as 2001, ADS56303 was used as a propelling control vehicle on a trial movement of a Redland Self Discharge Train between Wolverton Centre Sdgs and the Works, having travelled with the train from Mountsorrel.

8 hours ago, Simon Lee said:

 

The Palvans in the photo were in the very local flow of imported foam rubber from Belgium.

 

Large sheets of the stuff would arrive via the Ostend steamer as ordinary cargo, and be off loaded by crane and loaded to the Palvans, usually 3 or 4 per day.

The vans were tripped as the last job of the Calais end pilot via Dover town to the Priory goods shed for offloading to road vehicles. IIRC, the ultimate destination was Martin Walter's at Folkestone who, at the time built the Dormobile camper van bodies.

 

The locals who I spoke to remembered about generally 8 / 9 vans for the flow, it been quite renumrative as all the moves were encompassed in existing booked moves. 

 

Thanks for the explanation , a traffic flow that I had never previously heard of.  It must be a prime contender for the shortest revenue freight flow on the SED, if not the SR.  I wonder if the wagons and/or Priory Goods Shed acted as a buffer store for the material prior to delivery to Martin Walker's.

20 hours ago, Artless Bodger said:

The top photo looks very much like Dover Priory goods yard to me, https://www.dover.uk.com/history/1930/dover-priory-station, the 6 legged watertank and the brick base of the old one.

There was, I seem to remember from trips to Margate, a Metal Box factory at Ashford just north of the Ashford bypass with a private siding off the Ashford - Canterbury West line. You could see vans and minerals with shiny tinplate scrap in them from passing trains, so possibly the palvans moved empty cans from there to the Batchelors factories.

The photo certainly looks like Dover Priory, with the derailment on the sidings leading to the goods shed, I wonder what the Batchelors wagons were doing here, I would have thought three wagon loads would be a lot for local distribution.

I cannot find a reference to any Metal Box factory at Ashford, the site you describe was the Batchelors Factory (now Premier Foods), they presumably received empty cans by rail from Metal Box unless there was a can manufacturing operation on site.

1 hour ago, Mark L Horstead said:

Thanks.

 

I meant the specific one in the photograph. I was not sure if it was the Beckenham one or a very similar one. I have memories of it, but not clear enough to pick it out in a line-up.

Ah, I see.  It certainly looks like Beckenham Junction with the the three tracks in front (Platform 1 and two sidings) and the terraced houses on the other side of Rectory Road.

2 hours ago, Mark L Horstead said:

 

Where was that water tower?

 

The water tower is marked as 'Tank' on the plan I posted on 28/4.

New Romney, RH&DR - 29/04/2011

On 30/04/2021 at 17:55, Mark L Horstead said:

I thank you for joining in.

 

I've been trying to work out the shunting moves, for whichever way I end up depicting the yard.

 

I see the train arriving and being dropped by the locomotive, which would then cross over just east of the High Street/Southend Road bridge (the crossover no longer exists), run back and take the line to New Beckenham, cross back over just northwest of the signal box (whose windows did not see quite enough use, it would seem), then collect the hoppers, then pull them back towards New Beckenham on the down line.

 

Am I close?

 

Where would the hoppers be dropped?

 

How are they pushed into the yard? I can see no easy route. Eastward towards the northern-most passenger track (Platform 4?), then westward along the lengthy siding (head shunt?) parallel to the New Beckenham route, then back into the yard? It's not easy working through this on a too-small screen...

 

That seems to explain why the train departed back to Bricklayers Arms via New Beckenham.

 

How long did this take? Would regular trains be held back to permit this, or could the moves be squeezed into the normal schedule?

 

And when was the signal box closed and demolished?

I think you are correct regarding the run round and shunt move via platform 4 for the arriving train, this would take around 10-15 minutes from arriving in the Down Platform (No.3) and arriving in the Headshunt, assuming not only a suitable gap in Down trains, but also a gap in traffic on the Up Line for the loco to run round.  Once in the Headshunt, the train could be shunted in and out of the two CCD sidings as required, possibly the first move would be to set back and attach any empties, then place them out of the way in Platform 4 before positioning the loaded wagons as required. The return train could run directly from Platform 4 to the New Beckenham Spur and back to Bricklayers Arms, alternatively it may have been possible to run directly towards Kent House if required. 

22 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Yup - though it was up to the individual coal merchants to organise onward transportation from the yard, not the railway.

 

The CCDs were there to improve railway operations - many coal merchants didn't like them because they put an end to the ability of being able to use the mineral wagons sat in a goods yard as a free storage facility while also making impossible for a particular merchant to guarantee the source of their coal (yes I know coal mines had been nationalised by then but I can well imagine individual merchants would have had their favourites in terms of originating pits).

The introduction of CCD's was also of benefit to the National Coal Board who were able to despatch blocks of wagons to a single location with one customer (latterly Charringtons at Beckenham Jn), rather than having to load single wagons to possibly two or three small merchants located in a traditional goods yard.  Some of the larger CCD's were I think operated by subsiduaries of the NCB such as the Southern Depot Co. and Coal Mechanisation Ltd.  As far as local merchants were concerned they basically had three choices if located in a railway goods yard where wagonload services were to be discontinued, a) relocate to a non railway site and receive coal by road from wherever they liked, b) stay put and receive coal by road from wherever they liked, but pay BR a fee for each ton of fuel received by road, or c) receive coal by road from the nearest CCD, which might be cheaper due to the much larger volumes moved via the CCD or they might receive a rebate per ton to cover the cost of road transport from the CCD.

2 hours ago, hobbyhorse said:

We had a spot of trouble while shunting the coal yard with the train from the brick. Other than us off the road every thing else carried on with lots of laughs from the other drivers.

My photo.

Simon

 

Do you have a date for that little mishap, looks as though the loco has split the points.

10 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I have no recollection of headcode 24 - 70 was the Victoria to Orpington one. And of course Holborn Viaduct trains had odd-numbered headcodes.

 

As a terribly unimportant aside, that edifice poking out of the mist beyond the station in Wickham's picture is 1 Albemarle Road, South Eastern Division HQ from about 1968 until 1984, when BR abolished Divisions. I, and I believe SED Freightman, were wage-slaves there in its final years. The top floor seen here was occupied by the Divisional Civil Engineer and his people. I would spend time up there in the P Way Office discussing track layouts and rationalisations. It was a happy time for me. 

With the demise of the C&D parcels business I transferred from the Terminals & Cartage Section on the 3rd floor overlooking the green, to the much better positioned Freight Section on the 1st floor (both in the Western Block) which overlooked the railway.  As Oldddudders might just recall, the window sills were quite high and it was necessary to stand up to observe passing trains, which were generally nothing more than a distant rumble.  Trains that did warrant a look were the loco off the coal train which would stop directly opposite, but below, the office, while shunting via the crossover.  Also, the late running Night Ferry for which we would get a tip off from Control along with the occasional diverted or special freight, the latter generally conveying ferry vans from Dover to Willesden.  Yes, happy days indeed.

2 hours ago, Mark L Horstead said:

 

Roger Class 33s - more potential variety (and expense, but probably a trivial amount overall) and the shunting potential. The location of the switch to diesel power gives me a good idea of the end point for third-rail service into the yard - none at all.

 

I had found one or two photographs of the coal concentration depot, but do not remember it from any of my trips back. Nor do I remember seeing any hoppers, ever. My memory of mineral wagons is most likely pre-emigration (1965). I'm not sure at all what I'll do about the yard. I may just base it on whatever photographs I might find (no luck so far, but I found a shot of the north side of the signal box online last night). It may have to be largely fictional. I like mineral wagons.

 

Certainly no 3rd rail in the yard and probably not in the headshunt, the coal concentration depot had one siding which ran parallel to the platform 4 line, about 1/3rd of the way along it passed over the discharge hopper and then split into two short sidings, each of which would hold about 10 wagons.  The may have also been a short cripple siding branching off near the yard entrance, but as yet I cannot locate a plan of the CCD (coal concentration depot).  Certainly there would have been no hopper wagons (TOPS type HTV) prior to the CCD opening in 1966 and you can never have too many mineral wagons.  The old goods yard would certainly provide a greater variety of wagons and traffic, but model wise would require much more space, a plan showing the pre CCD yard layout is appended below.

30 minutes ago, Mark L Horstead said:

Most helpful, and appreciated, that.

 

I'd guessed that a Class 73 would be the most suitable, and presume that there was no third rail service in the yard itself.

 

"SLU" - Standard Length Unit?

 

I bought The Railways of Beckenham a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Although booked for a class 73, class 33's could turn up from time to time.  The yard was not electrified, although the 73 was usually switched to diesel power whilst being uncoupled in the Down Platform prior to running round.

Sorry, yes SLU = Standard Length Unit = 21 feet or in simple terms the length of a two axle mineral wagon.

The coal depot was equipped with a discharge hopper and also lifting sections of rail to discharge mineral wagons through their end doors into the pit.  Over the years, the coal traffic would have mainly arrived in 21T hoppers although even in the early 1980's there was still the odd mineral wagon.

The WTT of Mandatory Train Services, Section M (Freight), commencing 01/05/1972, shows that the only regular freight at Beckenham Jn was the daily service, detailed below, serving the coal concentration depot in the former goods yard.  Any services seen passing through on the main line at this time would have probably have been diversions due to engineering work etc. or specials.

8K80 1050 (SX) Bricklayers Arms to Beckenham Junction arr.1110 - Worked by class 73, headcode 1E.

8K86 1205 (SX) Beckenham Junction to Bricklayers Arms arr.1232 - Worked by class 73, headcode 1E.

The inward service (8K80) was restricted to a maximum length of 26 SLU's as it ran round in the Down Platform with the loco shunting via the mainline crossover at the Shortlands end, before hauling the train back towards New Beckenham, prior to shunting the coal depot sidings.

An interesting book to look out for, if not already in your collection, is The Railways of Beckenham by Andrew Hajducki, published by The Ardgour Press, this contains photos, plans and details of goods and other traffic through the years.

16 hours ago, Trog said:

I was aware of several arched bridges that had one to two inch deep notches worn into the brickwork of the underside of the arch where the upper cess side corner of passing containers was rubbing on the bridge. One particularly stands out in my mind as the sleepers under the bridge which was then subject to a 5MPH CoT (Condition of track) speed due to a slip lifting the track just beyond the bridge had been marked out by the local maintenance gang for lifting and packing.

In the early 1980's similar notching was found in the tunnels between Charlton and Woolwich Arsenal, thought to have been possibly caused by the raves of MGR wagons on diverted Northfleet services.  This was around the time that the standard freight loading gauge had been increased from W5A to W6, net result was a general ban on W6 gauge wagons between Angerstein Jn and the north end of Plumstead Station with the exception of those specifically authorised in the Sectional Appendix, primarily aggregate wagons passing to / from Angerstein Wharf.

21 hours ago, Trog said:

 

That makes me wonder as I can remember as a humble Area Civil Engineers STO (Senior Technical Officer, basically one of the local Area Civil Engineers minions) climbing all over a rather large 360' excavator we wanted to use on relaying sites , that was sat on a bogie flatrol with a tape measure to determine if it was within gauge. More immense care than knowledge as I was signing the wagon labels, sometimes referred to as, 'Get into goal free cards' myself. 

Interesting, I guess that within the civil engineers organisation assistance could be obtained from their own gauging section staff if necessary although our Traffic Dept inspectors certainly got involved with the more unusual movements involving bridge sections and the like.  P Way depots would certainly have had staff competent in loading and securing the various types of excavators and bulldozers that appeared on ballast trains in the past, and presumably also at relaying sites when the machines were reloaded after use.

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

Where loads went into vans, of course, the issue was pre-determined, but I would have thought that open or flat ISO containers might have posed a risk, loaded by untrained staff at sites remote from the depot.

 

At the few container terminals I had dealings with, there were overheight detectors on the exit line, these shone an infra-red beam across the track, set at the appropriate height for containers loaded on standard flats, an alarm would be triggered if the beam was broken.

The last traditional loading gauge on the South Eastern Division was installed at Queenborough around 1980ish for checking the height of cars loaded on the top deck of Autic and Cartic wagons.  As mentioned by The Stationmaster, any unusual loads sizewise would attract the attention of the Divisional or Regional Loads Inspectors, people of immense knowledge who were skilled at both securing and positioning loads to gain an extra inch or two of clearance where necessary.  In more recent times all traffic is supposed to have a loading plan, which if followed correctly by the loading staff, should ensure that there are no gauge infringements and therefore no physical loading gauge is needed.  On the very rare occasions that a one off oversized load requires movement these days it would still be carefully examined and measured by someone competent in loading and gauging matters, however such people must now be very few in number.

One thing to consider with positioning of a loading gauge on a model is that they were (generally) installed on a section of straight and level track, with the straight section extending a wagon length either side of the gauge.

Tallington, BR, seen on 18/01/2010

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Was that the Unigate dairy at Wood Lane? It was one of the main destinations of the WR milk trains and was refurbished in the mid 80s. IIRC Princess Diana reopened it in 1987.

Now you mention Wood Lane and Unigate, yes I am pretty sure that Wood Lane was the destination with a new siding/s to be constructed adjacent to the WLL.  It sounds as though the rail proposal may have formed part of the dairy refurbishment scheme.

On 05/03/2021 at 17:01, Nearholmer said:

 

The MMB clearly thought milk by rail had some potential quite late in the game, because they funded (part-funded?) the rebuilding of a fleet of tank wagons that barely got used.

Thinking back a bit, in around the mid 1980's the long term freight planners at Waterloo did look at a scheme to move milk in block trains to a proposed new terminal on the West London Line (near White City ?), possibly from Chard.  The proposal came to nought as BR was then unable to guarantee provision of the service which was required to operate daily, excluding Chrismas Day.

On 27/02/2021 at 09:24, paulcornish said:

In the meantime I've recently found an old photo of a 33 at Sheerness station showing the headcode of C9, any ideas?

 

Although probably somewhat later than the photo, SR WTT Section WD, commencing 02/05/1977, shows headcode C9 as applicable to locomotive hauled trains over routes not covered by a multiple unit headcode between Clapham Junction (W) and Ramsgate via Herne Hill & Chatham.  The train in the photo might perhaps have been ECS starting from Clapham Yard or Stewarts Lane.

On 27/12/2020 at 09:56, paulcornish said:

I've just bought a Heljan Class 33 D6504. It's showing head codes of H1 and 4A and I would like to know which route(s)/area these refer to. Records show that it entered service in March 1960 allocated to Hither Green depot and I am trying to establish what numbers it would have been displaying when working the Sheerness/Sittingbourne areas of the network. Thanks.

 

Paul C.

 

As far as the SED were concerned, WTT Section A, commencing 03/05/1971, shows headcode H1 as being applicable to locomotive hauled trains over routes not covered by a multiple unit headcode between Clapham Junction (W) and Dover Marine via Herne Hill, Maidstone East & Sandling.  Meanwhile the SR WTT of Conditional Train Services commencing 06/05/1974, shows headcode 4A to be applicable to Freight Trains and Light Locomotives between Dover Town and Hither Green Sidings via Tonbridge, between Hoo Junction and Richborough via Gillingham & Margate, and also between Lydd and Chislehurst via Ashford, Sevenoaks & Swanley.

Holt, North Norfolk Railway - 12/10/2018, formerly Upper Portland Sidings, Midland Railway.

5 hours ago, C126 said:

I hope I will be forgiven for posting this question here, instead of a new thread, but could someone please tell me the names of staff in the local goods yards?  I am more interested in the 1970's-1980's, but all information gratefully received.

 

Inspired by @Rivercider 's B.F.I. T.O.P.S. film (above), I have composed a list of figures to buy for my goods yard, and am not sure how many staff to allocate and what they would be called.  "Yard Master" was for marshalling yards, I think; what was the manager in charge of a goods yard called?   Would he stay in the office and have a Clerk to supervise the wagons?  What are the names of the men un-/loading wagons ("Stevedore", but this is for docks)?

 

I am modelling a little yard of four sidings, including a coal-merchant and an agricultural warehouse, but two for 'general merchandise', with the steam-age goods shed demolished.  Thanks as always for giving this your consideration.

A small yard as you describe is very unlikely to have had its own manager by the early 1980's, on the South Eastern Division I think only Bricklayers Arms and Hither Green Continental Depot had dedicated managers, all other freight depots and sidings came under the control of the local Station Manager, although at the busier locations they may have had an Assistant Station Manager or Freight Assistant with specific responsibilty for keeping an eye on things. A handful of locations employed a Freight Clerk or two (eg.Plumstead, Rochester, Ashford, Dover) who would deal with the paperwork for their own yard and other local sidings or unstaffed yards.  Any railway staff  dealing with loading and unloading would be in the grades of Railman or Leading Railman, they could also undertake shunting duties and may be trained (and sometimes very skilled) in the loading and securing of particular types of traffic.  Any unusual loads to be handled would probably see a visit from either the Divisional Loading Inspector or Terminals Inspector to provide guidance and assistance whilst the SED also had a couple of Mobile Freight Gangs who could be called upon to assist with short term or ad-hoc movements from locations that were normally unstaffed, eg. loading nuclear flasks at Dungeness or occasional invalid carriages at Tonbridge.

The term Yard Master sounds like an Americanism, so probably arrived with the advent of EWS.

18 hours ago, Davexoc said:

 

A bit OT really, but AFAIK Chinnor was driver, secondman and guard in a brake van, because the crossing(s) were train crew operated. The loop was short so the trailing load limited and once run round and put away, the empties were collected from the remnants of the branch, having got there via the tippler and moved by gravity.

OT but still interesting, particularly the TMO Crossing(s), the trains from Halling certainly had no brakevan so perhaps a WR guard was picked up to ride in the rear cab from Acton ML, I guess we are unlikely to find out at this late stage.