The LNER Encyclopedia

Are any experts out there able to advise me why (despite GCR publicity photos) the above vans never appeared to run in trains? I have never seen a photo of a train of such in service. There seemed to be a preference for long trains of 4 wheelers. (See below 1959 photo).

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... ksbank.jpg

John

They must have run in fish service (remember that many such workings were at odd hours and photographers didn't look on them as enthusiastically as passenger trains), but the difficulty would be finding fish merchants generating enough traffic to fill one. Human nature would suggest that given the option of a van to themselves or sharing with maybe several others, people will go for their own vehicle. That said, the LNER converted half to parcels traffic, but only half, suggesting that there was sufficient work for the others.

The only pictures I have seen of them in service are in parcels traffic. There was one published in the Gresley Observer last year, I believe.

Memory insists that there is a model of one in a train that operates on Pendon, and that train formation was based on a photograph.
Ignore the above sentence, memory malfunction.

Are you sure it's a GC one? I built an NER G7 van for Pendon, although that was deduced from a train consist Roye England had written up rather than a photograph.

jwealleans wrote: ↑Thu May 20, 2021 12:54 pm Are you sure it's a GC one? I built an NER G7 van for Pendon, although that was deduced from a train consist Roye England had written up rather than a photograph.

Ahh, we'll put that down as a memory malfunction on my part.

There were a few good reasons why there were few photos of fish trains.

Most left Grimsby and Hull in the late afternoon and were combined and re-marshalled at Marshgate.

Markets opened at 5 am so incoming vans would have to be emptied and the contents dispersed, and presumably marshalled in return workings, before that time.

There were no markets on a Sunday, so no fish trains on a Saturday.

To reinforce the last point some trains were sent to Nunnery Sidings in Sheffield on Saturdays for cleaning. I've heard that this job was favoured by some as it gave a source of maggots that could be sold on to anglers.

Almost all amateur railway photos, even as late as the 50s, were taken on summer Saturdays, usually in the afternoon as many people worked Saturday mornings.

There are four photos of Fish Trains in the Mainline Lament book taken by Colin Walker, not dated, but they look like early 1960's.

The last bogie fish vans were scrapped in the early fifties.

Many thanks to all who responded to my question. John

In George Dow's "Great Central Album" there is a GC period photograph showing a class 8 (Fish Engine) on a set of GC fish vans of mixed styles, mostly short four wheelers but well back in the train there is clearly one of the bogie fish vans, riding noticeably higher than the four wheelers. No location is given by Dow but the same picture appears in David Jackson's "J. G Robinson, a Lifetime's Work" and the train is stated to be passing Neasden sidings.

Mr Banks has recently updated his selection of photos on his site - as mentioned below the bogie vans only seem to run as individual vehicles.