How far did Brake Vans travel?

[drmditch]

I was wondering how often pre-grouping vans wandered into LNE areas other than their area of origin?
Were there special arrangements to return them?

Also (might as well ask as well) were vans from others of the 'big four' changed 'at the border', or were they sent home on a return working.

All of my model Brake Vans are of NER or later LNER design, and I thought some variety might be interesting.

[jwealleans]

My understanding is that they'd go as far as the next exchange point, much like the loco hauling the train and return in the same manner. So an NB van might work to, say, Tyneside and then return, but equally one van might work Aberdeen to London and return. Presumably these would have been pregrouping vans before the LNER standard designs became common.

[65447]

Goods Brake Vans were not pooled until 1942 so would not normally work off the owning system, unless traversing a route over which there were running powers.

Most companies assigned their brake vans to specific workings, locations or stretches of line, especially so since several types were built for particular purposes or had the necessary tonnage for braking heavier trains.

The LNER Toad D - the long wheelbase express goods brake van - was originally allocated to specific workings or routes, being specifically designed for fast goods traffic uses. Had those allocations survived until WW2 they would not have lasted much longer, once all stock was pressed into any service that required it.

Even then, and with the GWR and later GW Region in particular which continued to assign brake vans even in BR days, there was inherent resistance to allowing 'own' brake vans to leave the system or even stray beyond the area to which they were assigned.

More than any other reason, if a company did not keep control of its own goods brake vans then it was at serious risk of not having any to attach to its trains.

[john coffin]

One other important thing to remember is that brake vans were not a revenue item, they were really only a safety device, hence there
was no value in sending them off to other areas, since they could not charge, except maybe demmurage.

Mind you a fitted train that travelled from Aberdeen to London might be different. There is no research to show that there were joint stock
brake vehicles before grouping.

Another possibly interesting divertisment for some one.

Paul

[Hatfield Shed]

I have had the impressions from the very few guard's memoirs that I have read, that as a group they were rather possessive of 'their' vans; quite understandable in terms of having all the required equipment and supplies, and in a clean and tidy state.

One funny story from an elderly fellow I know who had regularly to accompany rail borne goods shipments on behalf of his employer (not on the LNER/BR(ER)). There were only two guards that he saw regularly: one of them always had his own coir doormat on the veranda, and woe betide you if your shoe soles brought dirt into his cabin.

[Mickey]

Good post Hatfield Shed.

As far as i'm concerned a 'good' goods guard in days of old was a respected railwayman (like locomen & signalmen) cos it was a skilled job being in his van at the rear of a train of loose coupled wagons being 'banged about' and trying to brake a train without 'breaking the train' into two parts and not only that a goods guard had to be fairly adept at shunting wagons as well plus it was also a potentially dangerious job cos from reading various accident reports starting from the dawn of railways through to the 1980s quite a few goods guards especially back in steam days were either killed or seriously injured when a following train 'went into the back of there trains' smashing there brake van(s) to fire wood!!.

Anyway for a brief moment in time it did cross my mind to maybe become a 'goods guard' (not a passenger guard) back around 1974/75 when I use to go out and about with the GN Electrification train as a secondman on the trains loco (Brush type 2) along the Kings Cross Inner suburban routes cos it looked like a interesting and good railway job with the guard standing on the brake vans veranda 'taking the sun' daily during those two hot summers but even at that time loose coupled goods trains were few and far between.

I must admit I always had a liking for the LMS brake vans.

Mickey

[giner]

Interesting, that, Mickey. I'd never thought about it before, and I imagine it was the case, but were 'goods' guards and 'passenger' guards two solitudes?

You know, when 'efficiencies' were being done to death, I wondered if duties were ever interchanged. I don't imagine they could be, but thought I'd ask. Probably a dumb question.

[Mickey]

Interesting, that, Mickey. I'd never thought about it before, and I imagine it was the case, but were 'goods' guards and 'passenger' guards two solitudes?.

From wot I can remember giner there was passenger guards that worked passenger diagrams and there was goods guards that worked goods/freight diagrams and those blokes usually kept to there respective work passenger or freight trains but I think a few guards mite have worked both passenger & freight diagrams but there wasn't that many that did the only guard that I vaguely recall working both passenger and freight trains was a Hitchin guard that I recall seeing him working as a passenger guard on either the x4 or x6 car Cravens units working between Kings Cross, Hitchin, Royston or Cambridge on a number of occasions back in the early 1970s and I also recall seeing him working as a goods guard on several loose coupled goods trains on a few occasions around the same time as well.

I always use to like being part of the 'train crew' the driver was always 'the guvnor' the guard always had his 'traps bag' slung over his shoulder with his red & green flags and bardic lamp and very much 'done his own thing' and the secondman was 'the secondman' with the tea-can a 'three man army' out and about on the railway, you felt like the 3 of you could take on the world!!. lol ha ha ha...

Mickey

[giner]

Thanks for that Mickey. Yes, as I wondered, then, not too many 'dual' guards about.

That last paragraph - I can see you loved your game.

[StevieG]

I can say that, during my '74 -'77 period in CONtrol, guards in the London area were based (passenger) at King's Cross station, and (goods/freight) in KX Freight Terminal, though I think I recall that some freight guards, if spare for long enough, were able to fill-in on suburban turns; probably ECS, but possibly passenger as well I suppose.
Sorry that I was never on the Crew Controller's desk, so can't remember any more detail.

[manna]

G'day Gents

In my time as a Guard at Eastleigh, we did both, one day you could be working Bournemouth-Waterloo fast trains the next, class 7/8's to Willesden, with a brakevan, there were jobs to Portsmouth Harbor (passenger) and jobs to Oxford (Butane tanks) so never a dull moment, I even worked trains to Ferme Park, Ripple Lane and Temple Mills.

manna

[Mickey]

From my personal memory and experience was when I did my short stints as a secondman (twice) at Kings Cross 1974-75 and at Stratford 1979 usually whenever I was rostered with my driver on a freight diagram (usually either on a freightliner or a parcel working but on some loose-coupled goods trains as well) most if not all the times it was a 'dedicated freight guard' (the same faces usually) who would be working the same freight diagram and who was either sitting in the back cab of the train loco or who was riding in the brake van at the rear of the train I don't think those bloke's worked passenger workings though?.

Mickey

[bw1165]

I have a GC document which really surprised me. In reference to a particular train, it stated that the brake van worked through from Manchester to a location on the GE. (Sorry, said document not immediately to hand, but it was a GE location)

So either a GC van worked over the GE or a GE van worked over the GC, or both.

I would have bet a lot of money against this, but I have it in black and white. The GC certainly did not have RP, so I imagine it was a GE engine beyond Lincoln. Had it been a GC engine working through (that is exercising RP for the whole train) I would have expected the van to work through too.

[65447]

I have a GC document which really surprised me. In reference to a particular train, it stated that the brake van worked through from Manchester to a location on the GE. (Sorry, said document not immediately to hand, but it was a GE location)

So either a GC van worked over the GE or a GE van worked over the GC, or both.

I would have bet a lot of money against this, but I have it in black and white. The GC certainly did not have RP, so I imagine it was a GE engine beyond Lincoln. Had it been a GC engine working through (that is exercising RP for the whole train) I would have expected the van to work through too.

The subject is a Goods Brake Van I take it? I ask because GE Passenger Brake Vans regularly worked through with the 'North Country Continental' and certain other services.

Manchester was an interesting location in that it not only served the CLC lines but a number of companies had depot facilities there.

And it would have been either the LD&ECR or MS&L that it worked over and there may be historic running powers or working arrangements. I have an early LNER publication listing all of them but I cannot lay my hands on it right now.

[jwealleans]

One GC van ended up on the GE as the Framlingham branch brake van - admittedly after the extraordinary circumstances of wartime, but clearly there was traffic between the two so maybe less unusual than we might have supposed.