HGR

When BR took TOPS it was 'adapted' somewhat to our particular operational needs. The BR usage of some of the data fields / codes sometimes don't correspond to the original American implementation.

The CARKND is the three-letter code generally displayed on the side of a freight vehicle in the data panel along with the vehicle number. The CARKND is made up of two letters that identify the type of vehicle CKINDX (which I seem to recall was short for CARKND INDEX), followed by one letter BRAKTY which identifies the type of train brake. As mentioned earlier up thread, GENKOC is the first letter of the code and gives a rough idea of the grouping of vehicle types. B = Bogie Steel, C = Covered, O = Open, V = Van, etc. Beware that the second letter of the CKINDX only applies within its own GENKOC, so there's no correlation between the usage of A / B / C, and so on in the second character position other than pure coincidence. In some groups, particularly wagons, there was an attempt to carry over some indication of the old telegraphic code for the vehicle type. Hence for example in group B which was bogie bolsters, many of them had the second letter as the TEL CODE suffix : BA = Bogie Bolster A (remember them ?) or more latterly Bogie Steel AB for the more modern air-braked sorts, BD = Bogie Bolster D, and so on.

As there can be many somewhat different designs of vehicle all with the same CKINDX or CARKND, an extra letter is added to make the four-letter AARKND. The meaning of this letter is unique to each CKINDX although there are some common themes albeit not universally applied. The generic 'basic' type is often given a last letter of 'C', with variations following on D, E, and so on. These variations could be different body types, different forms of vacuum brake, different owning or operating department, or many and various other differences. R could signify 'rebodied' as in the case of coal hoppers. 'M' could mean 'Metric' if applied to Bogie Steel AB, or 'Motorail' in the context of carflats, Milk Tanks were mostly 'M', or for MGR hoppers 'M' indicated fitted with canopy.

Around the mid '90s there seemed to be a spate of displaying the AARKND on wagons, usually privately owned, usually as the usual three-letter CARKND with the extra suffix letter tagged on after a dash / hyphen.

The two-letter CKINDX is also the first two characters of the Diagram Index for the vehicle, followed by a three digit number and one more letter. These are the pages in the vehicle diagram books on Barrowmore MRGs web-site. For each CKINDX, the number starts at 001 for revenue vehicles or sometimes 500 for service vehicles / departmentals if it's necessary to make the distinction. The final letter identifies a sub-type of the vehicle or a modification.

The above applies to wagons / freight stock, but for passenger coaching stock there is a further system within TOPS called POIS (Passenger Operations Information System). Coaching stock is given a CKINDX code as with other stock, and has a BRAKTY, accordingly if you wanted to book a passenger coach into a freight train consist you could blast in its CARKND. So NAV would be a gangwayed brake, vac fitted. ABX would get you a dual-braked corridor compartment coach with a guard's brake. Freight train lists will output passenger coaches in this way. Here you're not worried if it's a first class, second / standard, or composite but you are hopefully going to make sure its brake is the right type for the train it's going in. POIS however is interested in the class of passenger accommodation and the type or 'mark' of the vehicle, so you take the CKINDX and add a number to signify class (1 = 1st, 2 = 2nd, 3 = 3rd ... no sorry ... composite !, 4 = unclassified, and 5 = no passenger accommodation = NPCCS), then a number or letter signifying the design 0 = pre-nationalisation, 1 = Mk.1, A = Mk.2A, G = Mk.3, the odd one out being Mk.2 which is weirdly Z, and not 2. So a Mk.2D TSO would be AC2D. This is displayed at the lower left of the end of the coach, or maybe higher up if it has a data panel.

If you could please that would be really helpful, and will be much appreciated. My two (B) stock books look to be reasonably complete up to the end of the 'O' group (but without the re-coded OH steel-bodied HIGHs and OW wooden bodied ones that replaced the original OH types. Barrowmore has book 320 parts 1 / 2 / 3 at issue revision 1, but not part 4 so stops around about the same place.

There was a reasonable proportion of the 'S' group that did a better job of surviving into the '80s than the R / U or vac / unfitted vans. I could do you a list of the missing S diagrams if that would help save you some copying ?

The (B) series books came about with the initial introduction of TOPS in 1974. Locos received the same treatment, given numbers in the MT series (MT/25, MT/26 and MT/27). There was some reallocation of TOPS codes as the system started to get used. For example, ironstone hoppers recoded from HI to HJ. Then others to make better distinction between types - such as all open HIGHs started as OH, but later split to put the wooden bodied ones into OW and tidy up the remaining steel bodied examples in OH. Incidentally, if you wonder why brake vans were in group C, consider that they started as TOPS code CAB (= American caboose). When they settled on including the brake type letter this odd-one-out three letter TOPS code was changed to CA to make room for the brake type letter (O/P/V, etc.). The only other three letter TOPS codes were ROP = ropes and RSH = sheets. These were ignored when the R group used for running department vehicles - which is where you would have expected brake vans to reside.

In 1981 a project was instigated in the D.M.&E.E. Drawing Office, to bring the rest of the stock into TOPS, hauled coaches and multiple units, etc. Part of this was the 'Revised Vehicle Diagram Book Numbering System' with all books now in one series of numbers. Presumably by then the (B) series books had grown to four parts cf. the original three, with the groups re-split accordingly. Some of the Book 320 Part 1 to 4 were newly printed ready-to-go, containing just those diagrams extant at 1981. There were also update kits to as you describe, change the covers of the corresponding (B) part to Book 320. At this point the stuff that expired during the '70s would be expunged. Hence no more Horse Boxes, Banana Vans, Cattle Vans (or re-use for Ale), Fruit, Meat, Fish, or Parcels Vans (that were ex fish vans). Also a lot of 12T ventilated vans. This is what I'm trying to fill in the missing blanks in groups R to V. 

A further project erupted in 1983 when the coaches were put onto TOPS 'properly'. In amongst this, a fair bit of recoding went on. Oh, what fun that set in motion. There was a further reprinting exercise thereafter to clean up the books for new issues. It was about this time my involvement in TOPS starts, so I've missed out on the earlier stuff.

It appears that they never plucked up enough courage to document the Q or Z groups properly. I only ever remember the Q series having cross-references to drawings that were presumably general arrangement drawings, rather than the usual diagram book format. Fair enough there were hundreds of these but with only one or very few vehicle(s) of each diagram. The drawing office at Derby probably struggled to keep up. The departmental stock book 350 only seems to have got as far as the Y group bogie vehicles. At the start, all departmentals started out in group Z, but this was split up fairly early on to use Q for ex-coaching stock, and Y for bogie vehicles, leaving just the 4-wheel (or more accurately - rigid framed) in group Z. Not seen a book for these - no part 2 for book 350 ?

TOPS 'hours' were based on engine hours but with an applied conversion (fudge) factor, that varied over the years between 1.6 times to 1.8 times, reflecting experience gained at estimating the maintenance need compared to deterioration of equipment / component parts to achieve the desired reliability / availability figures.

The exam schedule with 55 'hour' baseline applied to the general common-or-garden mainline diesel loco classes. There were some exceptions where intensive use or arduous service conditions mandated a schedule with a shorter baseline. I seem to remember it was 39 hours for Deltics ?

Doesn't apply to AC electrics as these had their own schedule based on 'balanced work'. This has the content of the 'A' exam that must be done every time round, and a proportion of the work content of each of the other levels of exam. That way, each visit to the shops was expected to be of similar duration barring work arising, such as unplanned or unexpected defects being found. This strategy tended to be adopted for multiple units on intensive services.

When you look at diesel shunters, in the same way as wagons, these we considered worked to a calendar, not service hours. That being, days / weeks / months.

Simon : I do hope that means there's a Peak book in the pipeline to look forward to ?

SED Freightman : Thank You for those. Much appreciated.

Yes, agree also. There seem to be a few different strategies to implementing the updates that were distributed from 'Central' :

1, Follow the instructions on the notification letter, to remove and destroy the old / withdrawn pages and insert the newly issued pages. That's the intended way that the books were kept up-to-date. When these appear on the likes of eBay you get a snapshot of the issue state when the book was last updated.

2, Stuff the updates in the back of the book exactly as received, and put it back on the shelf to gather more dust.

3, Put the updated pages in the appropriate places but leave the superseded pages in.

Either of the latter two techniques produce overly bloated books that still hold a wealth of interesting historical info. Maybe not how the modern TOPS AFC was meant to operate, but good for those of us interested in technical history / modelling the past. It's this first-issue diagrams that I'm interested in. I managed to get hold of Book 1 (groups B - F) and Book 2 (H - O), that are of the method 3 above, but still quite early issues. Not managed to get my hands on an early Book 3 (groups R - V) though, hence my request.

Enterprisingwestern :

If you're talking of the TOPS guide - a pocket sized blue book handed out to freight staff, it was revised a number of times. I've got a 'pre-TOPS' version that lists the codes that were intended for the introduction of TOPS. By 1973 some of these had already been changed when the go-live date came. These books give the three-letter CARKND codes that are shown on the wagon data panel next to the vehicle number.

The codes I'm looking for are the design codes that appear in the big A4 format diagram books (see Barrowmore MRG). The design code is for example SP005A which is the diagram page in the book. As you can see from SED Freightman's list the good old B.R. plate wagon evolved into a few different flavours of plates and runners in TOPS days.

SED Freightman :

Yes, thanks - that's the books. I've got Part 1 covering groups B - F, and Part 2 with groups H - O. The private owners in the P and T groups have their own books (orange covers). Part 3 of the B.R. vehicles should be groups R, S, U, V so copies of any of the diagrams in those four groups will be appreciated. It appears that TOPS didn't catch up with the specially constructed vehicles in group X or the service vehicles in Y or Z till much later.

FC, already aware of those thanks. They are the pre-TOPS B.R. diagrams. What I'm trying to do is see what the early TOPS diagrams were that superseded these in around 1974. The TOPS diagrams are more detailed from a technical content, whereas the earlier diagrams were more aimed at loading / gauging dimensions.

It's not an exact one-to-one match as TOPS makes more of a distinction between brake types, suspension  and other details that the earlier diagram book didn't so much worry about. Hence a number of different TOPS design codes will result from variants of the same original diagram. Also, the TOPS design codes include pre-nationalisation stock that remained extant at the introduction of TOPS.

Does anyone happen to have a copy of the British Railways Diagrams of Freight Stock (B) Part 3 ?

Ideally an electronic scan / PDF that they could PM to me ?

This is the version that was issued in the mid '70s when the wagons were first put on TOPS.

Part 3 covers vehicle groups R onwards, including the vans in the V group.

I'm looking for the diagrams that pre-date the recoding that was done in the '80s, so for example the multitude of obscure runners and such as cattle vans, the early 12T ventilated vans and vanwides. All the good old stuff that disappeared from BR in the '70s that I can just about remember !

Barrowmore has diagram books for the private owner (P) fleet of that vintage but not the corresponding B.R. stock (B) books, only later versions.
 

On 09/07/2011 at 15:55, Pennine MC said:

 

It's in the Minutes of the Wagon Standards Subcommittee Paul, minute 5821 dated 28.2.63, and now I have it here it specifically says 'This code figure would supersede existing "XP" and "Star" markings. It goes on to list specific vehicle types/classes. It has a handwritten note, 'Amended - See Minute 5851', which I dont think I have any notes of, but as it's clearly only a proposal, that might refer to its non-adoption.

 

If you need anything more, get one of my friends to let you have my email addy (as you can't PM me), or if you find it it, would you report back on whether 5851 adds anything?

Sorry to jump back a long way, but this relates to a query I posted recently about the 1964 speed classification box. Has anyone got a copy of the list in the above mentioned minute please ?

Thanks for that.

The speed classification number I seem to remember also could be above the otherwise empty box, instead of within.

Still intrigued what the box with diagonal line indicates ?

XP rated vehicles had the XP brand moved to a box to the right of the vehicle number. Some other wagons had just the empty box - example many coal hoppers and mineral wagons. Others had no box at all. Some oddities were the BOILER EB set and COIL T wagons that had the box with a diagonal line. What was the significance of the diagonal line, the empty box or no box ?

There was some sort of short lived use of numbers in these boxes as a train classification system. Does anyone have any details please ?