Brakevans.

[Fazy]

I think it's about time we had a topic for the humble Breakvans.

A very important and much over looked wagon of any Railway.  We are always wanting a nice new shiny locomotives but tend to over look the Breakvan to go with it. 

 

So what wagons do you want?

And do you think extra work should be put into a Breakvan. We want supper detailed locos at one end of a train so should we have a super detailed Van at the other end? Maybe better detail sprung buffers maybe a light inside or working lamps.  And obviously a how new range of wagons for all the railway company's Hornby make locomotives for.

[2e0dtoeric]

I don't want any vans that break. I think perhaps you meant brake-vans!  😛

[Fazy]

I flipping hate predictive text!

 

Can admin please do some thing to put it right

[malB]

I was thinking are these some sort of mobile mess/canteen van 😮! Quite agree mind you about predictive text and the amount of gibberish you end up sending as a result....... Though you can disable/switch it off.

[2e0dtoeric]

Reading what you wrote BEFORE you post it - helps! 😛

[LCDR]

 Now, now, lets talk about this topic rather than hold a spelling contest!

Just for the record The term Brake Van, was also written Break Van by old pre-Grouping railway companies so there was nothing at all wrong with the use of that spelling in the original post.

 

The guards van, break van or brake van at the back of a goods train is as distinctive as the loco on the front and certainly deserves a lot more attentiion than it is usually given. It is the workplace for the guard, with a stove to keep him warm in winter. He keeps his equipment in there,and usually has a desk so he can write in his journal or log book the actual train times, the  train load and any unusual occurences.  It is designed so that he can keep observation of his train as it goes along, and also to watch for signals and receive messages as he passes stations or signal boxes.

 

All the pre-grouping companies had their own distinctive designs. Some were 4 wheelers, others ran on 6 wheels and a few had eight. There could be an open section at one end or at both, and always windows to look out forwards and back. Some railways provided a raised lookout (popular in the USA, but also used in the UK in early days.), and some had side lookouts, often called Duckets (possibly derived as a corruption of the word Dovecot).

 

The most important feature of the brake van was of course the brake.  In the days before goods trains had continuous automatic brakes the train was brought to a stop only by a combination of the brakes on the locomotive, and the brake operated by the guard in his van. The brake was also used to keep the couplings tight to avoid shocks to fragile loads.

 

Going down hill was a tricky exercise in the days before automatic brake fitted wagons. The trains known as 'unfitted' trains needed the skill and experience of both the guard and driver to prevent a runaway.  On very steep hills the guard would not only use his brake in the van, but also apply some of the handbrakes of the wagons, pinning the lever down keep them applied. Special signs were erected at the top of such gradients and displayed the words "Goods Trains Stop Here to Pin Down Brakes".

 

If a train needed to reverse the guards van was a good place from which to display hand signals to the driver to tell him if it was safe to 'set back' or not.  The guard also used his pocket whistle to warn anyone on the line that the train was backing towards them.

 

Today of course freight trains are fitted with automatic air brakes throughout and guards no longer travel with the train.The driver is usually all on his own. However in one or two places where propelling is still needed there are a few guards vans kept, specially adapted so that the automatic brake can be applied from the van, and many also having air operated warning horns too,

 

Guards vans ARE a neglected area of model railways and more variety is sorely needed.

[96RAF]

Break/brake - there/their - here/hear - yours/your's - do I need to go on...

Some can be attributed to predictive text/spell checkers and some can be attributed to duff schooling these days.

To say nothing about textspeak corruption of the once aspired to English language.

[RB51]

Thank you LC&DR. Great insight for a non-railway person such as me. Your posts are always a good read. R-

[LCDR]

 Thank you Roger, in this age of high speed diesel and electric trains and fully computerised Route Operating Centres the railway has become a very different place. Even modern day railwaymen are no longer familiar with the ways of the steam era. The old dinosaurs like me just about remember it, I joined BR 4 years before the end of steam. The heritage railways do capture some of it but it is a bit like comparing a Zoo and a Jungle, the beasts are tamed.

[37lover]

LC&DR,

Love that analogy. Great informative post, as usual.

[ModelerXYZ]

In which are the beasts tamed? The jungle?

[ModelerXYZ]

I know the range of brake vans is abysmal. we need some break vans to drive around while we are drinking our cups of tea.

[ModelerXYZ]

In which are the beasts tamed? The jungle?

[LCDR]

 There are so many things amout railways that were once taken for granted that are nowadays forgotten.

 

Along all railway routes were avenues of poles carrying telephone and telegraph wires. As the train travelled along the wires dipped and rose rythmically. Added to this the clickety-clack of the wheels, the gentle creak and roll of the wooden bodied carriage, and the chuff of the locomotive, created a ballet of movement and sound that was romantic and restful.  This worked best at about 40 miles an hour, a good speed for train on a a secondary route.

 

Nowadays we are sealed into a steel tube where the noise such as it is is persistent and unfriendly.  You are forced to listen to other persons inane telephone conversations or the hiss of their MP3 player. The occasional interuptions to persuade us to buy high priced inedible food, and not to leave our luggage behind does little to humanise the modern train journey. OK it is fast, but definately no longer fun. You have to be lucky to sit somewhere you can even look out of the window, and even if you could the poorly managed lineside vegetation results in a solid green wall alongside every railway line.

 

[LCDR]

/media/tinymce_upload/0eed78cf058a02ac14c44195460daa29.JPG

 

10 ton South Eastern Railway 6 wheel guards van

/media/tinymce_upload/21e5fe70ea769c95c447a4419195277f.JPG 

 

South Eastern and Chatham Railway 25 ton 'Dance Hall' guards brakevan.

 

A couple of my attempts to increase the variety of guards vans on my layout.

[Fazy]

L&Y 20t 6 Wheeler would be a nice start  and a MR 10t 4 Wheeler

[2e0dtoeric]

Would a Kit-kat van be a break van?  😛

[LCDR]

/media/tinymce_upload/e6437853c0819d2b4a86bf3523dc67f7.jpg 

 

This would be a great addition to the Hornby range. It is a London & South Western Railway (SR diagram 1545) 20 ton Roader Brake Van dating from 1906. Specially constructed to carry small packages securly in the van under the supervision of the guard on goods trains, 35 entered service. It was adopted as a War Department standard in 1917 and many were built for military use at home and abroad. Twenty ex WD vans were purchased back in 1924 by the Southern Railway after grouping which added to the 35 ex LSWR  ones. Because the WD vans were 2 inches narrower over the duckets they were given diagram number 1549, but apart from slightly narrower planks being used on the end of the veranda they were identical.

 

250 of the War Department vans returning to Britain after the War were allocated to home railways. Therefore the following railways operated these vans.

Caledonian, Great Central, Great Eastern, Great North of Scotland, London & North Western, Metropolitan, North Eastern, North British, and of course the London & South Western.

[LCDR]

/media/tinymce_upload/cdbed2be35f0420d6d3e651d9be657d9.jpg  

 

Here is one of the old WD / LSWR Road Vans which passed to the Great Eastern and seen here in LNER days.

[LCDR]

/media/tinymce_upload/ba86fa1e02d8b8fcae66fcd54d01b37a.jpg 

 

And here is one on the Metropolitan Railway.

[2e0dtoeric]

Interesting to see that the NE van has it's left-hand buffers bent down, and the right-hand ones are higher than the four-wheeler's next to it, so they barely meet!

[LCDR]

 A wood underframe and headstock suffering a rough shunt I suspect!

[RDS]

Thanks LC&DR.  I have just read your post from the 7th.  Very interesting.

[Tony57]

 Hi

Intresting thread, I quess the question is is how many brakevans should you have on a layout?

As I run anything and everything I currently have 20 brakevans of different liveries and types in my collection as well as 14 caboose for my transcontinental good trains. I think enough to cover the goods trains I run.

[LCDR]

 

 I quess the question is is how many brakevans should you have on a layout?

 

The answer is probably, how many freight trains do you want to run? Then take that figure, double it and add one.  Why? Well you want one each on the train as it goes along, and another at the opposite end of the journey for the return working. Then you need a spare while the others are being overhauled or out of use because of a defect.  Sometimes you may need two (or more) brakevans in a train, especially if the train reverses en-route.