North Sunderland Railway stock

[Caledonian]

Quick but perhaps daft question.

Did it run to a brake van?

I've seen mention of the coaching stock and I understand that latterly it used or borrowed goods stock from outside. I've just seen a useful photo of Seahouses with what I take to be NER/LNER fish vans and some 5 plank opens including one clearly marked LMS.

But nowhere have I heard of or seen any photos of brake vans.

As the line was only 4 miles long was it treated as a long shunt - or was there indeed a brake van?

[52D]

They had an ex NER birdcage brake and a lot of trains ran as Mixed.

[Caledonian]

Ah, splendid and better still Slaters do a kit.

[50A]

Hi Stuart
There is a photo in the Oakwood book (IIRC) of the line - showing a North British brake van in one of the sidings.
Hope this helps

Andy

[60041]

The NSR was notoriously cavalier about trivial things such as brakes and operational matters. They were often investigated by the Board of Trade for contrvening regulations; in the 1930's it was discovered that they were running passenger trains with unbraked stock, and in coaches that had been marshalled behind unfitted wagons. It was also found that the Westinghouse pump on the Loco did not work and that much of the braking equipment had either been removed or had been blanked off. The regulations allowed for a single unbraked van to be attached to the rear of Seahouses bound trains only, but in practise, they often had 6 or more in either direction.
They did own brake vans; they had an ex NER 4 wheel Birdcage brake third, built to diagram x, which was used for many years. When it was scrapped, the hand brake was removed and fitted to their saloon coach, but there was never any evidence that it ever worked properly. In Alan Wright's Oakwood book, there is a drawing of an ex NBR 10t goods brake that was owned by the company, but unfortunately there is not any photo of it. The only pictures I can find are of a mainline train at Chathill with the birdcage visible in the background, and another of the prototype Armstrong diesel with the brake, again at Chathill.

[Caledonian]

The NSR was notoriously cavalier about trivial things such as brakes and operational matters. They were often investigated by the Board of Trade for contrvening regulations; in the 1930's it was discovered that they were running passenger trains with unbraked stock, and in coaches that had been marshalled behind unfitted wagons. It was also found that the Westinghouse pump on the Loco did not work and that much of the braking equipment had either been removed or had been blanked off. The regulations allowed for a single unbraked van to be attached to the rear of Seahouses bound trains only, but in practise, they often had 6 or more in either direction.

Ah, better and better, sounds like my kind of railway.