Empty and Full open wagons

[Jimbo1707820979]

I've searched YT for an answer but no luck.

The question : on the real steam and diesel railways did trains ever consist of empty and full open goods wagons being hauled together ?  Or would empty wagons have been shunted off?  Maybe on a branch line there may have been mixed empty and full wagons ?

Would be grateful for advice.

[atom3624]

This is an 'LC' question but I would guess there would be some transit, if excess 'capacity' and transit required of empties to different yards en route, that empties could be tagged on.

 

Al.

[JJ73]

Well I've got on old b/w white photo (can't show you cos I don't have the copy right thingy to put it up on this public forum) any way - it show a picture @ Peak Forest Station View on the 5th September 1966 of a Steam Lco pulling a load / rake of wagons - some full & some empty - so it seems the answer to your question is yes, sometime they would be both empty & full!!!

[LCDR]

The movement of wagons was a commercial consideration, and in an ideal world every wagon when unloaded would be re-loaded to another destination, and no wagon would run about empty.  Unfortunately this rarely happened.

 

Firstly when wagons were owned by lots of different companies as they were before 1923 one company would not re-load another company's wagon unless they were charged a hire fee. Instead they would charge the owning company for sending it back. At the same time there were over half a million privately owned coal wagons (and wagons for other minerals) who had to have their wagons back after they were unloaded and usually they were returned empty, usually to a colliery, to be refilled. 

 

Some of the more progressive companies realised this was a wasteful system, so they entered into an agreement with other companies so that they could re-load a similar type of wagon to another destination, and this could continue until the wagon was sent to a railway who was not part of the pooling arrangement, or there wasn't a suitable load to go onwards.. This was known as a 'Pooling' system. 

 

When the railways were grouped in 1923 pooling was practiced by the big 4 companies, but only for wagons which could be regarded as general types. Such wagons were regarded as 'Common User'. Some wagons not in the pooling system were branded "NOT IN COMMON USE" ,or had a letter "N".painted on.

 

In 1939 the wagon fleet was treated as Common User for the War effort. This included the half million odd Private Owner wagons which were requisitioned for the duration. 

 

This made it easier to re-use wagons and reduce empty mileage. And after the War the wagon fleet remained like this until Nationalisation when all the wagons, with very few exceptions, were taken into national ownership by the Railway Executive and the original owners compensated. A few wagons did remain in private hands, these were wagons for very special traffic which could not be handled in general purpose wagons, and less than 30,000 wagons remained in private ownership. Petroleum tanks had been controlled by the Petroleum board in the War, and were handed back to the Oil companies, so these too remained privately owned.

 

British Railways created a Central Wagon Control Authority who allocated wagons to traffic. This was hoped would reduce empty running, but a suitable load was not always possible so wagons were still moved about empty to a place that needed it. Stations had to declare wagons released empty on a daily report and huge amounts of data passed around the railway overnight to enable the Wagon Control to function.

 

So in short a freight train would almost certainly contain empty wagons. 

 

[LCDR]

To help you decide what wagons carry, think about where it has come from and where it is going. 

 

Before 1965 huge amounts of coal travelled from collieries to station sidings for coal merchants, and to factories for the steam raising plant, and of course engine sheds needed lots of coal for the locomotives. 

 

So trains from the coal mines would be loaded almost entirely, but trains going back to the mines would be empty. 

 

Trains to a iron and steel works would bring iron ore , limestone and coal, but these wagons would go out empty to be reloaded, and bolster wagons carrying steel bar and girders would leave carrying products to be sold or exported. So empty bolster wagons would be taken in. So sometimes the empty bolsters would be marshalled with wagons loaded with limestone and coal  going in , Empty mineral wagons would leave with loaded bolsters. 

 

A sugar factory would have wagons of coal and sugar beet inwards and vans full of bags of sugar going out. 

 

A cement works needs coal, gypsum and chalk inwards, and vans of cement in bags, or in bulk cement wagons outwards. 

 

Think about your layout and what is made and transported.

[The Duke 71000]

Jimbopuff,

Well as LC&DR has explained some of the complexities of freight working, this raises the intriguing question of just how many modellers give this complex question some thought when planning their layouts !

 

This also introduces the question of Logisitcs, and have your freight yards been given a suitable track plan to cope with the various types of freight that might be seen on your layout ?

 

 

Many types of freight were also related to their geographical location, so a heck of a lot of coal traffic would be the norm if your layout is supposed to be near a coal field such as South Wales. Or if your layout is set in the area of the Cotswolds you would expect a considerable amount of Horse Box traffic, and Hornby have certainly made some nice models of such vehicles !  

 

My exhibition layout as an example, being based on the main line between London & Basingstoke and beyond, saw a lot of imported banana traffic coming in through Southampton Docks & heading for Nine Elms fruit market in London. So I have a couple of long rakes of banana vans for this important perishables traffic which were normally run as express freights, and some nice Hornby S15 4-6-0 fast freight locos to haul this traffic.

 

 

There was also a large amount of express Milk traffic between London Vauxhall and the West Country, so a nice rake of 6 wheel milk tanks and a Hornby Southern "BY" van means another express freight train, along with a Hornby H15 to haul that. What not heard of a Hornby H15 ? (Pictures of this model shortly).

 

 

But probably the most famous freight that began passing Basingstoke after the closure of the Didcot Newbury & Southampton line, was the then heaviest freight in Britain. The Daily Esso Oil tank train between Fawley refinery near Southampton & Bromford Bridge in the Midlands. This train being initially formed of 56 x 44 ton tank cars and hauled by a BR standard 9F 2-10-0. When the Class 33 diesels took over they had to run the train in two halves as the diesels couldn't cope with such a heavy 2000ton + train. So 28 wagon trains became the norm. Just as well as all those Heljan model wagons become rather expensive !  

 

Freight trains even on a smallish layout, present all sorts of operational interest. Trying to get the various types of wagons into the correct sidings where they can be loaded or unloaded correctly. So a tank wagon full of Molasses are going to taste awful if you shunt them under the bulk Cement loading gantry. Or the local butcher is going to be most upset if he gets lumps of coal instead of beef steaks because you shunted a wagon full of coal into the cattle dock !!!  

 

The Duke 71000    

[LCDR]

From a modellers point of view closed vehicles (e.g. Vans and tank wagons) are much easier to deal with because unless you can see how much the suspension springs are deflected, or the fact that a label bearing the letters H, M or L is attached to the label clip there is very litttle to indicate whether a wagon is empty or loaded. 

 

However if one is modelling the traditional period for freight (1825 down to 1980) a huge proportion of traffic was moved in open wagons, and most of it was coal. 

 

Here are a few statistics for 1938

 

Class of traffic                      Tons forwarded                    Wagons forwarded

 

COAL & COKE                                 166 million    (65%)         16 million

 

MINERALS  & HEAVY GOODS (1 -6)  46 million   (18%)         4 million

 

MERCHANDISE (7 - 21)                     42 million     (17%)         14 million

 

So two thirds of traffic was coal and over three quarters was traffic which might be in open wagons of one kind or another.

 

Most Merchandise traffic needed to be protected so it was carried in a van, or  in an open wagon covered by a tarpaulin sheet. (How many model railways have open wagons with tarpaulin sheets running on them?)  

 

The BTF archive of publicity films is a great source of visual information on what a goods train looked like, and many of these can be found on YouTube. 

 

Going back tio the 1938 statistics the wagon fleet consisted of the following types.

 

Mineral Wagons (Railway owned)                           146,826 (12%)

 

MINERAL WAGONS (Privately owned)                   583,789 (50%)

 

Open Wagons (Railway owned)                              122,418  (10%)

 

Vans                                                                          324,952 (28%)

 

I also did some analysis of train composition taken from published statistics. (Danger with statistics is that they are a blanket survey and cannot truely represent what occured on the day, but it does give a general overview)

 

Train composition (1938)

 

Wagon type                  Loaded                            Empty                   Total

 

VAN                                  6                                        2                        8

 

OPEN                               2                                         1                       3

 

MINERAL (R/O)                2                                         1                       3

 

MINERAL (PO)                   12                                     7                       19

 

TOTAL                                22                                      11                       33

 

 The proportion of vans to open merchandise wagons  changed over time. In 1900s most merchandise moved in open wagos covered with tarpaulins, but the railway companies built more vans to give better protection to the load, and the risks attendant with loose wagon sheets. Vans can offer better protection to meat, fish, fruit and other perishable goods.

 

Another development which grew in the 1930s was the use of demountable container on a flat truck. which reduced damage and pilferage as it could be transhipped to a road delivery vehicle  in a locked body rather than handled manually at the goods depot.

 

Tank wagons were always a small part of the total fleet, most were lumped in with the privately owned mineral wagons, and rarely exceeded 22,000 in number, so in truth were rarely seen in typical goods trains. The Second World War boosted theitr use delivering fuel to airfields, and post War the rise of the internal combustion engine acccellerated their use. 

 

Make of this what you will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[96RAF]

Very interesting insight LC.

 

The logistics of the war years must have taken some organising, with troop movements as well as freight supplies and of course endless trains of fuel to the several hundreds of airfields, in East Anglia we seem to have had one near every other village.

 

Nowadays of course most airfields are supplied with fuel by underground pipeline, whereas road vehicle fuel has to be transported by lorries due to the scattered location of garages.

 

No computers in those days - everything done using well tried and tested manual systems.

[LCDR]

Yes telephones were essential for rapid communication, and there was the telegraph system so that messages could be sent as telegrams. But only principal stations were connected by teleprinter. Morse code was still used in the more remote areas. 

 

We tend to take instantaneous communication foir granted but it is only since the 1980s have we had the internet.

 

Many railway telephones were 'omnibus lines' which connected all the phones on a line of route and you called whoever you wanted by a series of code rings (e.g. 1 long 2 short) to get them to pick up. Anyone else could pick up and listen or talk if they wanted to. The possibility of misunderstanding was rife. You had to listen before calling in case someone else was using the line.

 

Telegrams were not rapid, it was limited to the speed that the inputter could type and the printer could print out the tape. To save time code words were used and the Railway Clearing House / British Railways issued a booklet of code words so that -

 

SNUFF meant -  "Cannot supply truck ordered. Can you manage with any other type; if so, give particulars."

 

TRIM meant - "Loaded to you; release all speed and send empty to __________________"

 

STOUR meant - "Following is state of our yard at _________________" to be followed by a list of quantities of trucks on hand. A later TOPS enquiry was CAB STOUR  which returned a total of brake vans (CABS) at a specified location.

 

RASH meant - "Horse box with racehorse, horse for breeding purposes or show traffic"

 

There were approximately 850 different code words.

 

There were some funny ones  FLEA - "Wire how you stand or what you are doing respecting _______________"   for example.

 

Some entered railway vernacular FURNO - " Until further notice" was used regularly in speech!

 

Railway work was interesting and could be great fun!

[Jimbo1707820979]

Thank you all for the very splendid information.  It seems that an apparently simple question generated a huge load of facts.

I presume that owners of private wagons had to register their contents beforehand. Much like a ship's manifest. And there would be special provision for hazardous cargo  -- but not in open wagons ! 😛 

[LCDR]

Jimbo

 

Each wagon had to be accounted for, and weighed, before it could be put in to a train. This generated a consignment note or its equivalent. Everywhere there were weighbridges and this kept firms like Pooley and Avery in good business. Most significant station goods yards had one and private siding t oo. Goods were charged for by weight, and also by class. There were at one time 21 classes and depending upon the vulnerability of goods the charges for each class increased. So coal was charged less per ton than say eggs.

 

Remember all transactions were on paper so there were tens of thousands of documents passing around the railway every day, no internet in those days! For wagons that passed from one company to another these passed through a company in Eversholt Street, Euston called the Railway Clearing House who sorted out who paid what to whom. So each company got paid for the tons, miles and vulnerability of traffic passing over its system. 

 

Armies of clerks sitting at desks wrote out hundereds of documents. Mind boggling!

[2e0dtoeric]

Although totally irrelevant to the topic, our model flying club field has an avjet pipeline running below it, going from Stanlowe refinery to the tank farm at Manchester International.

We occasionally have silly discussions on a method of tapping into it for free clubhouse heating, or fuel for the model turbines!   😛

[LCDR]

I wonder what the 'gusher' would be like when you actually hit the pipe! 😆

 

One of the wonders of WW2 was PLUTO, the fuel pipe laid under the channel for supplying the D Day landings, It was laid from a huge floating drum which was towed across from England to France.

 

The story is here https://www.combinedops.com/pluto.htm and it appears that it connected to a network of inland pipelines in the UK connecting various refineries, so the idea of inland fuel pipelines is not all that new,

[atom3624]

This is a perfect example of why I like to frequent this forum - the diversity of experience the various contributors have.

 

It makes perfect sense, but I'd never heard of Project Pluto before.  Fascinating.

 

Al.

[LCDR]

A few words about railway communications before the age of the computer (I posted something similar last week but the profanity filter got me, for WHAT I cannot say!)

 

Railways were an early user of telegraph the earliest experiment was on the Camden incline London and Birmingham Railway in 1837.The system developed from there and was eventually used to keep trains apart (Block Telegraph) and for sending messages between stations. We are concerned here with the "Speaking Telegraph" which I shall now describe.

 

The original speaking telegraph used a row of five needles which turned left or right or stayed upright, and the needles pointed along a grid of diagonal lines which had a different letter at the intersection. Where two of the needles intersected that was was the letter to be written down. It was by modern standards slow and tedious but it was a wonder of the age at the time it was introduced. It was provided progressively at main line stations, and little stations would receive hand written notes from the telegraph station by the next train.

 

To save time therefore a system of codewords were introduced to reduce the number of letters and each had a very specific meaning.

 

Here are a few taken from the last issue of the code book in 1958. (The final speaking telegraph was withdrawn in 1976!!)

CAPE - Undermentioned train will not run. Advise all concerned ________________

 

REDE - Arrange and advise all concerned.

 

NOTCH - Cannot accept owing to ________________________

 

EBB - Press consignee to accept. If he still refuses give him written notice of immediate sale in the interest of all concerned.

 

COLOC - Private locomotive cold weight _______ tons travelling on own wheels from ____________ to _________ due _________________ per ________________. Arrange forward working.

 

CIRCLE - Individual numbers as yesterday.

 

VIPER - Following vehicle is now ready for use.

 

There were over 850 different code words, covering a wide range of subjects.

 

In the late 19th Century a device for inputting text, and printing it out on paper tape was developed and used on the natrional telegraph system used by the GPO. The railways started to adopt it in the early 20th Century. It was known as a teleprinter. Its use was gradually extended to principal stations, replacing the speaking telegraph but little wayside stations and branch lines still had to rely on notes passed on trains , or on the telephone.

 

Now a few words about telephones. Alongside the telegraph from 1878 the Midland Railway installed telephones at stations and other railway offices, and very quickly these were to be found all over the railway system. These were still primitive type where all instruments were connected on a line of route, known as the Omnibus circuit. All instruments were connected and you had to listen before using it in case someone was already on. Then you had to send the code ring to attract the attention of the user you wanted. Code rings consisted of a series of short and long rings seperated by pauses. The system was not private, anyone could listen in. 

 

Railway telephone exchanges and trunk lines appeared during the 20th Century, but progress was slow and it wasn't until the 1970s that all railway locations had telephones you could dial from. 

 

The introduction of the TOPS compoterised system in the 1970s revolutionised railway communication, but that is another story.

[LCDR]

This latest post of mine is out of sequence locked down for an alledged obscenity, cannot see why? Can you?

[Chrissaf]

One possibility could be the word SxxxF at the start of the 5th para. There was a time where SxxxF Movies were alledegly made that were of course highly illegal. These movies originated I beleve in the USA, which where the source of the filter database comes from.

[LCDR]

Oh the corruption of the English language. A pinch of ground up tobacco used to be every high born English Gentleman's vice. They even had little silver boxes to keep it in. I despair!  ☹️

[Chrissaf]

Possibly 'brxxding' in the RASH line..........who knows.