The LNER Encyclopedia

Can anyone provide any additional information about this label?
It is fitted to a Dual Braked Sealion 40t Ballast Hopper DB982595 which we have just acquired on the NYMR.
We also have another 4 of these hoppers arrived this week but only this one has the ticket.

As far as I can make out it is issued
From Area Civil Engineer Kings Cross
To work between Hitchin XXX Signal and XXX Signal at Nuneaton.

Looks like a fairly permanent label would this have been for a Merry Go Round type Ballast run from Quarry to Stockpile?
Any other sort of working would have had the usual paper ticket. Just a bit unusual to find a plastic label screwed to the block.

I'd suggest that this was a form of circuit working in the days pre - TOPS.

They were referred to as "Darvic labelled"; Darvic was a trade name for a particular kind of plastic.

I'm not sure what you mean by "stockpile"; in those days ballast went in the same wagon from quarry to relaying site; "virtual quarries", i.e. large capacity wagons quarry to intermediate location, stone unloaded then reloaded into wagons to relaying site, was a later introduction - possibly late '80's.

Once TOPS took over, wagons could be pre-programmed to head back to a chosen location when empty.

Thanks for the reply.

You mention Circuit Working.
That is what I meant by Merry Go round just could not think of the term.
But that would mean the wagon was on a regular route rather than being used to deliver ballast to a site.
In which case the usual paper ticket would be used. Hence my mention of Stockpile.
Or could it be that the Darvic label was used for the circuit working portion of the route.
Yard - Quarry - Yard and a paper ticket then used for Yard - Site - Yard?

I have worked on track around these wagons for over 20 years now and have never noticed them before.
Could it be a practice only carried out in certain areas? Like Kings Cross district.

"just acquired on the NYMR": This didn't go down the A58 just north of Leeds 2-3 days ago by any chance?

It is a Civils circuit working label from the TOPS era. The full Hitchin code should be 53212, if my memory is correct for the Stockyard. I will have to try and find an old TOPS list to confirm.

I don't know where the Civils got their Darvic labels from but us KX M&EE depots got them (for all kinds of purposes) from Leyton S&T. We used to have road vans regularly going either to Stratford or nearby Dowding & Mills (for motor rewinds or pump repairs) and they used to call in and collect the orders.

richard wrote:"just acquired on the NYMR": This didn't go down the A58 just north of Leeds 2-3 days ago by any chance?

Unlikely as the Hoppers were travelling from Stockton on Tees to Pickering.
So route would probably be A1 South to A64 near Tadcaster then to Malton for A169 to Pickering.
Unless they cut the corner near Harrogate and used the A59 to York.

4 Hoppers acquired from Thompsons last week (Wednesday and Thursday) making a fleet of 5 in all.
2 x Walrus ballast hoppers have been sold to Thompsons of Stockton as scrap

This was the A58 nr Leeds - a sealion was spotted just north of the Ring Road.
I guess if there was a problem exiting the A1 for the A64, they could have taken the A58 at Wetherby and then out on the A64.

Andy W wrote:It is a Civils circuit working label from the TOPS era. The full Hitchin code should be 53212, if my memory is correct for the Stockyard. I will have to try and find an old TOPS list to confirm.

I don't know where the Civils got their Darvic labels from but us KX M&EE depots got them (for all kinds of purposes) from Leyton S&T. We used to have road vans regularly going either to Stratford or nearby Dowding & Mills (for motor rewinds or pump repairs) and they used to call in and collect the orders.

I think there were several codes starting in 532 for Hitchin. 53212 sounds right for the Stockyard.

Sorry my memory was not accurate; but it was 40 years ago since I was briefly in divisional FRS control....
However (and maybe my recollection is again imperfect) I recollect some sort of a structure for TOPS numbers. Possibly first digit region, 2nd division and 3rd area, and so consignment to an area only would be, for example, 532???
It's surprising how much everyday, day in day routines you forget.
It's also surprising (to me at least) that the old time railway magazines have loads of articles by footplate staff (interesting), spotters (not so interesting; and how can they remember what sort of sandwich they bought on their way to Aberdare shed in 1959??); and nothing from controllers, engine arrangers, and certainly not the sort of jobs I did. And so much is now lost and forgotten.

If I remember on Friday when I am next at Newbridge I will try and scrape a bit more paint off and reveal the full number.

Excellent for scraping ice off windscreens!

The TOPS reporting areas (TRA's) were done on a rough north to south grid. Scotland was 0xxxx and the far Southern was 89xxx. For example. on the southern part of ER, Peterborough was 45xxx, March/Whitemoor 46xxx, Cambridge 47xxx, Norwich 48xxx, Ipswich 49xxx, Stratford 52xxx, Hitchin 53xxx, KX 54xxx. Each two number code related to (intially) one TRA with a main TOPS office.

Certain codes you can remember long after you used them regularly - 54101 Bounds Green, 54208 HX EMU, 54209 Ferme Park Down CS, 54235 Finsbury Park TMD, 45108 P'Boro Crescent Shops, 23419 Doncaster Works, 13240 Gateshead TMD (and so on through the M&EE list!) for me.

I suspect the precise numbering sequence may have had more than a nod to the "Field" territories that were supposed to supercede the regions in the 1970's.

http://files.limitofshunt.org.uk.s3.ama ... k-1991.pdf any use?

R. pike wrote:

Andy W wrote:It is a Civils circuit working label from the TOPS era. The full Hitchin code should be 53212, if my memory is correct for the Stockyard. I will have to try and find an old TOPS list to confirm.

I don't know where the Civils got their Darvic labels from but us KX M&EE depots got them (for all kinds of purposes) from Leyton S&T. We used to have road vans regularly going either to Stratford or nearby Dowding & Mills (for motor rewinds or pump repairs) and they used to call in and collect the orders.

I think there were several codes starting in 532 for Hitchin. 53212 sounds right for the Stockyard.

Apparently TOPS Stanox 53212 is still listed, with Location name of "Hitchin Engineers Yard", which IIRC, was the official name of 'the Stockyard'.

StevieG wrote:

R. pike wrote:

Andy W wrote:It is a Civils circuit working label from the TOPS era. The full Hitchin code should be 53212, if my memory is correct for the Stockyard. I will have to try and find an old TOPS list to confirm.

I don't know where the Civils got their Darvic labels from but us KX M&EE depots got them (for all kinds of purposes) from Leyton S&T. We used to have road vans regularly going either to Stratford or nearby Dowding & Mills (for motor rewinds or pump repairs) and they used to call in and collect the orders.

I think there were several codes starting in 532 for Hitchin. 53212 sounds right for the Stockyard.

Apparently TOPS Stanox 53212 is still listed, with Location name of "Hitchin Engineers Yard", which IIRC, was the official name of 'the Stockyard'.

The Farm was another name used for this location. The Stockyard was an official name for sure this Shark has it written on the side..

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/sharkz ... #h2b3c91f8