SED Freightman

Balloch - 01/04/1983

Stranraer Harbour - 27/08/1981. Compare with the photo by Poor Old Bruce of the 'modernised' box in 1991 on page 25.

A couple of photos that might be of interest. 14/08/1982 - M55006 waits to return to Stourbridge Junction at the platform constructed after the Branch was shortened to allow construction of a bus station. 04/02/2016 - Parry People Mover 139002 forming the 1250 to Stourbridge Junction waits to depart from the new station on the further shortened Branch

Three Horse Shoes - 20/06/2008

As eastwestdivide and brushman47544 have already pointed out, the pair of 33's are inded working the 6V17 1000 Allington to Westbury which was booked to run TWFSO from 16/03/1983 and EWD from11/07/1983 to 13/05/1984. Interestingly, after a crew stop at Clapham Junction the service returned to Westbury via Barnes, Woking and Salisbury, maybe as a way to stop the WR getting there hands on decent locos !

Thanks, I was trying to remember who took over the private siding agreement, it was Lowfield Distribution.

There was still some traffic passing (ex Trostre ?) around 1980/1 as I had to send the Divisional Terminals Inspector (Basil Wilson) there from time to time to inspect damaged tinplate and provide reports to the BRB Claims Department. I think the buildings were used as distribution depot for Tesco, or one of their haulage contractors, for a while after Metal Box closed down, athough no rail traffic was involved.

Only a rather poor photo to hand at present, showing 34016 Bodmin propelling ECS off the 1Z86 1150 Charter Service ex Victoria back along the Down Loop on 04/04/2001. Generally charter services will arrive from the Ashford direction and after calling at the Down Platform the ECS will draw forward to St Stephens Crossing, then propel onto the Goods Loop, the procedure being reversed prior to departure. If a steam loco is involved, water is usually replenished via hoses from a road tanker parked in the adjacent St Stephens Court, if coal is needed then the ECS remains on the Goods Loop whilst the loco has to shunt to / from the short spur located behind the country end of the Up Platform where road access is available.

Although not obvious, there must surely be something below the chair to spread the load, otherwise I would imagine the track would be very prone to developing twist faults.

I do not think Eurostar should receive any UK taxpayer funding beyond any furlough payments that may be being made to their UK based staff. If the company does enter administration, and I wonder if in particular the French Government via SNCF would actually allow that to happen, I am sure that once there is the prospect of passenger traffic resuming another operator will appear, possibly providing an opening for DB. It would be interesting to know just what assets Eurostar actually have in the UK other than their employees, is Temple Mills Depot leased and are the trains leased as per most UK passenger rolling stock. What has happened to the former staff from Ashford and Ebbsfleet since Eurostar announced they would remain closed until at least 2022 ?

Yes, I overlooked Dollands Moor which has been used for DBC operated charters, however the issues of capacity and facility access charges would arise for any other operators service as with Ramsgate.

I think the nearest fuel point was Chart Leacon or latterly Dover Town.

Unless Southeastern have room and you were prepared to pay their Facility Access Charge, the options are probably either the Down Loop at Canterbury West or the Goods Loop at Sittingbourne - luckily there is no excursion traffic anymore.

Stratford LIFT suffered from the general run down of international freight traffic, but the kiss of death occured when the Government decided to allocate the area for CTRL construction after which BR were only allowed to renew leases on the various warehouses on a short term basis. By mid 1994 the place had a very derelict feel about it and only four of the 10 warehouses still received any rail traffic, all of which passed via the Dover train ferry. At this time the principal traffic was paper in 6 to 8 Cargowaggons daily from Gratkorn, Austria to Jerich in No.7 Shed, whilst Entire Wines in 9 Shed received one or two of wagons of wine ex Italy each week, traffic to the other tenants, DCA UK and Cargotrax was very sporadic.

This sketch map showing the track and signalling arrangements (circa 1980 ?) might be of interest.

The amount of commercial explosive in a wagon could be very small indeed, we used to receive the occasional gunpowder van at Ashford Full Loads Depot (West Yard) from ICI at Penrhyndeudraeth, I do not recall the consignee but it was possibly one of the ragstone quarries near Maidstone. One morning a wagon arrived, the seals were cut, the doors opened, and nothing. Cue panic, until someone climbed into the wagon and noticed a small box that had slid into the corner at one end !

Definately a silo for the storage of dry sand delivered by road tanker, note the excess of sand on the adjacent track where loco sandboxes have been replenished with varying degrees of success.

Kevin, many thanks for posting your South Wales photos and to everyone else who have provided additional comments and explanations, my old Rail Atlas (3rd edition) has also been of great assistance. It is many years since I have travelled beyond Cardiff although I did manage to travel on all the passenger lines then open in the late 70's / early 80's so your photos have reminded me of what were then simply fleeting glimpses of the sidings, factories and mines that were still active at that time. I think I sampled my first pint of Brains Dark in the BRSA Club at Barry after my only visit to Barry Island and Woodhams Scrapyard in the late 70's, like others I wish I had taken more photos at the time. South Wales was not a place I subsequently had cause to visit for work other than one meeting with Ford Motor Co reps which included visits to their Swansea and Bridgend plants, but mainly consisted of a lengthy lunch in a pub near Bridgend station ! Strangely, in much more recent times, work did require regular visits to the Celsa Tremorfa and Castle Works by which time sadly freight traffic and facilities in the area were just a shadow of what had existed previously. I found the views showing former the complex of yards and sidings around Long Dyke particularly interesting having walked the Long Dyke Jn to Castle Works section a few times.

The D of M&EE, BRB issued Revision Letter No.12 (dated Novemeber 1988) to Vehicle Diagram Book No.120 which included a new diagram 08-9dA which was stated to be for locos 08462 and 08687 with height reduced to work BPGV line. Copy of diagram below.

Belated thanks for posting your London Division photos, I had cause to visit some of the locations for work during the 1990's so it has been interesting to see photos of them taken a decade earlier. I read the comments about propelling from Didcot North Jn to Foxcote Jn with interest as I once travelled on an 08 (08904 I think) propelling a Cargowaggon along this route, whilst proceeding from Didcot Yard to Milton Freight Terminal for a gauging trial. With regard to your query concerning headcode KI, it applied to SR services between Acton Yard and New Cross Gate via the West London Line and Crystal Palace. The train in your photo is 6O67 1315 (MWFO) Acton Yard to New Cross Gate, which was the return working of 6V18 1120 New Cross Gate to Acton Yard.

Would scalpings and MoT Type 1 be one and the same, they certainly looked similar ? As a slight digression, Tarmac supplied the Redland Terminal at Bat & Ball with trainloads of scalpings from the ARC Whatley Quarry, the first few trains were formed of HTV's and during transit the material tended to solidfy. When the bottom doors were opened not a lot happened, cue Redlands staff bashing the wagon sides with 4 foot lengths of scaffold pole - happy days !

Thanks for posting your photos, they bring back lots of happy memories from days out travelling around on priv tickets and also many work related trips to strange places far from the SED. I remember the tunnel at Stratford and the attempt to smarten it up by boarding out the sides, you could then hear the rats scurrying about behind the boards as you walked through while hoping there were no gaps in the boarding !

Thanks to everyone for your further thoughts and comments. Just to clarify, the traffic I was hoping to identify was unloaded in the former goods yard at Dunton Green in the mid 1960's, it was the last freight traffic at the location which was re-opened specially for the short term flow of construction traffic. Sometimes the consignee provides a clue as to the forwarding location, ie. traffic for Yeomans would normally originate from their quarry, however at Dunton Green the unloading activities were carried out by Cementation Ltd, who were a main contractor for the A21 Sevenoaks Bypass construction. The two photos I have seen of the unloading show a very light coloured material (like that in the wagons at Croes Newydd) being grabbed out of MDV's, unfortunately I cannot post copies of these due to copyright considerations. Although the material may have been used as a sub-base most of the fill came from a large cutting excavated through the greensand ridge. If the traffic was limestone it may have been used for the production of ashphalt / tarmac as there was a temporary coating plant associated with the road project, I'm not sure if steelworks slag would have been suitable for this purpose. Apart from Allington Sdgs (ARC), the temporary terminals at Bat & Ball (Redland) and Tonbridge (Yeoman) came along much later, albeit they were also primarily to supply material for road projects, namely the M25 and A21 Tonbridge Bypass. Thanks to nigb55009 it does seem as though my original photo may be a train of limestone for Brymbo rather than Dunton Green, so maybe the local paper had excercised a bit of journalistic license to fill out their photo feature. On the other hand if there was a quarry in the area loading limestone into MDV's perhaps some did head a long way south.

Having now found Croes Newydd and had a look at the track layout, I wonder if the stone train is reversing into the yard rather than departing, possibly having originated from Blodwell Quarry or some other nearer loading point ?

Alas no, the 37's only appeared after the traffic source had switched from Grain to Thameshaven but I will look out for any mention of them while looking for more SED 47's. We have previously had 47353 :- 1834 (47353) noted on an engineers train at London Bridge on 17/02/1973.