SCOTCH GOODS

[silverlink]

A friend of mine is trying to model the 'Scotch Goods' in 'N' gauge form & is doing really well however, when looking at photographs of the train most are front 3/4 shots. On close inspection he says on many of the photos in the middle of the train there is an unusual looking wagon which he can't make out what it is. Does anyone have or know where I can get information on this train & in particular what this wagon is?
Someone did say it was a bullion van but then others have said there would not but bullion on this train.
Thanks
Ian H

[jwealleans]

The 'Scotch Goods' was just the KX-Niddrie down goods service; it happened to be quite fast and became well known. I'm not aware of any regular wagons working within it, it would be made up of whatever traffic had been presented on the day.

Can you point us to the photograph(s) your friend is using and we might have more chance of identifying the wagon(s) in question?

[silverlink]

I will have a word with my friend and see if I can find photos,
I understand the workings of the train and wagons it was made up of but this one wagon was totally different to any of the others and always seemed to be roughly in the same place in the middle of the train.

[jwealleans]

I have raised before the question of why the container traffic (if any) always seems to be at the head of the consist. It may be it had to be there to be in the right place at Niddrie, or that it was the first/last part of the consist to be shunted into the departure road. If we assume consistent working patterns (shunt 'to go' wagons from different parts of the yard in the same order) then it makes sense that a wagon or wagons on a regular circuit working would appear in roughly the same place in the final train each time it went out.

I'm interested to see what it is now.

[Mickey]

I have raised before the question of why the container traffic (if any) always seems to be at the head of the consist.

Yes Mr.wealleans i noticed before that you have raised this question about the consist of this train about 6 months ago when someone posted a very good picture of a V2 hauled 'Scotch Goods' photographed approaching Finsbury Park.

I have a feeling not many people saw that photograph?.

[jwealleans]

I can't find it now either. What struck me was how often the containers were at the head - once or twice might have been for publicity purposes, but they do seem to be there in most of the photos from 1930 onwards.

I may yet get an answer, it's a question I've posed in a few places.

[john coffin]

being more of a carriage man than a wagon one, I am not sure how much I can add, but looking at the Geoff Goslin Book Goods Traffic of the LNER, it seems obvious that No 1 goods trains, which I assume are express goods trains All seemed to have vans directly behind the tender.

In doing work on tenders earlier, I noticed that this often happened in pre grouping times also so I wonder if it was just a tradition to have closed vans near the loco, and later as they became vac braked, more of them helped with the braking effort for the whole train. Also you can often see that some of the front vans are for perishables so maybe that is part of it too. Often the early container rail traffic was for expensive goods that needed delivery very quickly, so might well have been shunted at the front of the train.

Unless we get some WTT's with notes, it will I think be difficult to really discern the real reasons.

Paul

[Mickey]

Following on from Paul's previous post i noticed up to the mid-1980s when unfitted & partially-fitted goods trains with brake van(s) in the rear of the train were fazed out on British Rail in favour of fully-fitted freight trains ONLY that when unfitted & partially-fitted goods trains were running they were usually marshalled with any box vans behind the loco followed by any mineral or coal wagons and flat bogie bolster wagons usually being marshalled behind any box vans further to the rear of the train.

One of the last unfitted mixed goods trains that i recall seeing around my area in north London was a daily Mon-Fri class 8 goods from Temple Mills yard (east London) to Toton yard on the London Midland region goods train around 1985/86 which was usually marshalled with behind the loco (class 31) about a dozen or more box vans followed by a dozen or so mineral wagons followed by 4 or 5 flat bogie bolster wagons with a brake van in the rear.

I don't think i ever recall seeing a unfitted or partially-fitted goods train running with any flat bogie bolster wagons and mineral or coal wagons behind the loco followed by any box vans towards the rear of the train next to the brake van?.

The box vans were usually 'piped up' anyway were as not all the mineral or coal wagons were i presume?.

[D2100]

I don't think i ever recall seeing a unfitted or partially-fitted goods train running with any flat bogie bolster wagons and mineral or coal wagons behind the loco followed by any box vans towards the rear of the train next to the brake van?.

The box vans were usually 'piped up' anyway were as not all the mineral or coal wagons were i presume?.

You're on the right lines there, and the significance is in the class of traffic the wagon was designed for, a basic distinction that modellers often dont grasp. From the '30s, merchandise wagons, and particularly vans, were increasingly produced with fast running in mind, to the point where by 1960, virtually all vans and the vast majority of open goods wagons were fitted. By contrast, coal-class wagons and steel carriers were in traffics that were less time sensitive and more likely to run in block/bulk, until the 1955 Modernisation Plan promoted the notion of vac braking all wagons. Even then, fitted minerals and bolsters would remain proportionately less common for a long time.

I believe it would have been the National Freight Train Plans of the later 1960s that promoted the principle of merchandise traffic (which was by then largely but not exclusively carried in vans) being used as a substantial fitted head for through freight trains.

[Bryan]

Some piped only wagons survived until the mid 2000s at least possibly even upto 2010.
Some engineers trains required the use of these vehicles to get machinery to site, unfortunately this required the use of "Brake Force" vehicles behind them usually 3 RUDD Wagons or similar.
The problem was that the unbraked vehicles were needed to be the end vehicles on site so the BV wagons had to be lost somewhere without getting in the way.

A typical example would be the use of the Donelli Gantry which was carried on a specially converted Lowmac.
See photo from On Track Plant website.
http://www.ontrackplant.com/assets/imag ... nt.com.png

[strang steel]

I remember a goods service known as E67 which used to run in the mid 60s as (if my memory has not deserted me) the 2330 Edge Hill to Whitemoor.

It would be 5E67 one day and 6E67 the next time I saw it, and occasionally 7E67. I presume this was due to the number of fitted or piped vans that were booked to go to Whitemoor on any particular day, and their percentage of the rest of the train?

[Mickey]

When i was at Welwyn Garden City s/box in the early 1970s there was still the old afternoon ''Scotch Goods'' run every weekday afternoon which i think use to leave Kings Cross Goods yard around 2:00pm (not 3:00pm by the early 1970s) hauled by an English Electric type 4 (or a 2000 to the rest of us on here).

In those far off days the train was usually made up of a long'ish rake of fully fitted box vans and would be routed down the 'main line' from Holloway south Down all the way down road through Hatfield, Hitchin and beyond northwards, nodoubt if that train was running today it would be routed 'slow road' all the way from 'the Goods yard' to Digswell then a quick run over Welwyn viaduct and back in slow road at Woolmer Green?.

[JASd17]

Gentlemen,

I hope the following extract from the GN Section WTT for the summer of 1937, in the LNER Society archive, is of some use.

John

[silverlink]

The 'Scotch Goods' was just the KX-Niddrie down goods service; it happened to be quite fast and became well known. I'm not aware of any regular wagons working within it, it would be made up of whatever traffic had been presented on the day.

Can you point us to the photograph(s) your friend is using and we might have more chance of identifying the wagon(s) in question?

The book is 'The power of the V2s'
The best photo is inside the front cover on the header page and shows Green Arrow on the pre-war Scotch goods. After all the conflats and a couple of other wagons there is a large van with a very high pitched round roof and the body width seems almost out of gauge (optical illusion). It is in several other photos as well and is usually around the tenth to fifteenth wagon behind the tender.
Ian

[Iron Duke]

Plates 77 & 78 in the Power of the A4's (Brian Morrison OPC) show a couple of interesting pictures.
Credits:- plate 77 Rev. Arthur Cawston, plate 78 Tom Williams.