NER: What freight wagons would be seen?

[65447]

Bill Hudson's Private Owner Wagons Volume 2, original OPC, revised and published by Headstock 1988:

- Bell Bothers, Port Clarence, 15T iron ore hopper, registered NER 1911. Bell Brothers became part of Dorman Long mid-1920s;
- ICI, Billingham, 10T rectangular tank wagon (for synthetic ammonia and nitrates), registered 1930s LNER;
- Newcastle & Gateshead Gas Co., 20T cylindrical tank wagon, registered LMS 1927;
- Sadler & Co., Middlesborough, 12T cylindrical tank wagon, registered 1910 ? and 8 plank mineral wagon side doors only, registered 1928 ? No indication is given as to the business Sadler & Co. were engaged in;
- Arthur H. Stabler, Darlington, 10T coke wagon, registered 1907 ? Used to bring coke from Staveley Coal and Iron Co. amongst others but nature of business not known. Renamed W. Stabler & Co., by 1926 and defunct by 1933;
Tarslag (1923) Ltd., Stockton-on-Tees, 4 plank mineral with side doors only, registered 1924 LNER and carried slag to another works near Woverhampton.

[65447]

Bill Hudson's Private Owner Wagons Volume 4, Headstock 1987:

- Backworth Collieries Ltd., Northumberland, 15T hopper wagon, built 1938. Used mainly on the company's private railway system which ran from the cluster of pits it owned to Percy Main on the River Tyne for shipment;
- Consett Iron Co., Co. Durham, 12T hopper wagon, built 1907. Fitted with NER style brake lever across end and extended end stanchions for buffing chaldron wagons. This company owned Garesfield Colliery at High Spen, along its private line from Derwenthaugh on the River Tyne, various collieries around Consett for which it had running powers over certain NER lines, and Langley Park and Westmead collieries near Durham from whence coal traffic was hauled by the NER;
- East Walbottle Coal Co. Ltd., Newcastle, 8T four plank mineral wagon, rebuilt 1911 to sprung (from dumb) buffers by owner The Lincoln Wagon & Engine Co., registered by GCR and on hire. This company owned pits near Callerton on the Ponteland branch and primarily supplied house coal to Newcastle and surrounding area to the north;
- The Weardale Steel, Coke and Coal Co. Ltd., Darlington, 8T four plank mineral wagon side doors only, registered 1910 GCR, and 10T six plank mineral wagon side, end and bottom doors, no other details.

The existence of private lines and running powers further explains the peculiar situation appertaining in the North East of England.

[Katier]

So to keep it plausible I'd be better off moving it, maybe between Doncaster and Shildon/Durham?

[Solario]

I don't think that the NER had much penetration into the West Yorkshire pits, most of that traffic was taken by L&Y, GNR and MR.

Although the NER did not have the same penetration into the West Yorkshire pits as some of the other companies, it certainly handled a considerable amount of coal traffic through its Gascoigne Wood marshalling yard opened in the early years of the 20th century. Gascoigne Wood was situated a few miles west of Selby on the Leeds line. I think that much of the coal traffic from Gascoigne was forwarded to Hull for export, ships bunkering and local use.
Although I cannot name any pits served by the NER, Castleford was in NER territory & as I think that someone else has mentioned, the South Yorkshire Joint (part NER) passed through one of the Yorkshire coalfields.

[Greedy Boards]

My thanks to Solario for his timely intervention about Yorkshire collieries using NER lines. It would seem that some readers may not be aware of the full extent of the North Eastern Region, which stretched from the Tweed, down to Doncaster, with its southern most tip being the branchline to Thorne Colliery near Doncaster, which was sunk by Pease & Partners of Darlington, and many iron & steel, coal, coking plants, limestone quarries & brickworks in Durham & Yorkshire, with part shares in others. Joint lines also ran further south as far as Dinnington, Bolton on Dearne & Lofthouse on the Methley Joint Railway (GN/NE/L&Y). In addition, the NER network stretched from Carlisle, Tebay, Otley, Leeds & Castleford in the west, to the East Coast, making this the largest of the pre-Grouping networks within the LNER.

I can also confirm that many mining villages around the east of Leeds were located in North Eastern territory, as I have worked in both housing & education in these areas; my son now plays rugby league against many of their sides; and I can confirm that a previous Pro-Vice Chancellor at The University of Leeds, started life in a mining family at Fryston Colliery near Castleford, which duly became part of Airedale Collieries. Besides having an obvious interest in the NER, I also live and work in the area, and I know a little bit more than what can be read in Bill Hudson's volumes.

Refering back to my previous list of eighty PO wagons, these do cover the full North Eastern Region, but I only thought to mention those appropriate for the York, Northallerton & Leeds area. In regards to the lack of knowledge mentioned by one of the readers about Colonel Sir Samuel Alexander Sadler's company, it owned coal mines in the areas of Lanchester, Bishop Auckland & Durham, which despatched their coal to the company's chemical works on the south side of the Tees, in the Cargo Fleet area of Middlesbrough. Here, tar bi-products were combined with the extensive salt deposits in the area, to produce chemicals. The company operated in this Middlesbrough district from the late 1880s, through nationalisation of the coal mines in 1949, and I believe that the chemical part of the organisation was still going in the 1950s/60s. The works duly closed, but its site is close to the modern day Middlesbrough Football Club, based at its Riverside Stadium. Sir Samuel Sadler was a Fellow of the Chemical Society of London, and a Council Member for the Society of the Chemical Industry, born in 1842, he died at Yarm in 1911, and was succeeded by family members on the board.

Regards

Greedy Boards

Born in Middlesbrough, living in York, working in West Yorkshire, and the old footbridges on the line to Leeds are all NER designed!

[Caledonian]

Bill Hudson's Private Owner Wagons Volume 2, original OPC, revised and published by Headstock 1988:
- Newcastle & Gateshead Gas Co., 20T cylindrical tank wagon, registered LMS 1927;

Here's a curiosity (sorry to go off topic)and presumably the original for one of Dapol's finest - why was it registered with the LMS?

[65447]

Bill Hudson's Private Owner Wagons Volume 2, original OPC, revised and published by Headstock 1988:
- Newcastle & Gateshead Gas Co., 20T cylindrical tank wagon, registered LMS 1927;

Here's a curiosity (sorry to go off topic)and presumably the original for one of Dapol's finest - why was it registered with the LMS?

Dunno mate, and neither does Bill Hudson for he notes "and registered, strangely, by the LMS". Built by Charles Roberts, with no indication that it was part of an order for another customer but sold on. Maybe it was part of a larger batch of tank wagons being constructed at the time and an inspector from the LMS happened to be on hand - who knows? It does support my previous remark that it's impossible to tell from registration details alone what actually ran on which lines.

[Greedy Boards]

Dear All

I think that the query about North Eastern PO wagons registered with other companies, has already been answered in this thread, in that the registration doesn't reflect the area of operation, but the location of manufacture.

Charles Roberts Wagon Works was located in Horbury near Wakefield, and the wagons were therefore registered under the LMS, and its appropriate predecessor. I have also come across Dorman Long wagons built for work at Port Clarence on the Tees, that were built by Hurst Nelson & Co, and so registered with NBR; and Weardale Steel, Coke and Coal Co Ltd wagons built by Lincoln Wagon & Engine Co, and duly registered with the GCR.

Consequently what ran on local lines isn't determined by the registration, but the company that owned the wagons, and you will find that there were enough around to offer variation from the NER/LNER standard wagons. Certainly, photographs exist of iron & steel works around Middlesbrough, that indicate PO wagons for Bell Brothers, Bernard Samuelson, Bolckow & Vaughan, Dorman Long, South Durham Steel, and Weardale Steel, Coke and Coal Co Ltd, who owned Cargo Fleet Iron & Steel Works.

Regards

Greedy Boards

[Dixie]

I cannot add much to what has already been said. However don't forget that there would have been a considerable movement of iron and steel products such as billets, rolled steel and finished goods. The NER had a large number and variety of vehicles engaged in this business. There was also a significant amount of timber business. This ranged from the basic tree trunk, often loaded at a wayside station, to finished and sawn timber. Bolster wagons, which came in many sizes, were a frequent feature of goods trains particularly the more long distance ones.

[Graeme Leary]

After asking questions under a separate heading have just come across this series of postings when searching around for correct names for the handful (6) of coke wagons I want to rename as correctly as possibly for my spin on a coalmine somewhere in (probably) West Yorkshire and definitely with LNER as the emphasis.

All 6 - and I may get more - are Hornby (I think); 3 named Pease Colliery Company Limited, Bannockburn; 2 with N.E.R. and 1 named Arthur H.Stabler, Darlington. From Greedy Boards postings in 2011 it would seem that 'Olympia Oil & Coke Co Ltd., Selby could be a name that might be correct (appropriate??) but I also note Arthur H Stabler appearing on one of his postings. However, from memory, it was in a different centre than my 'Darlington' and from a more prosaic perspective, the Arthur H Stabler, Darlington I already have has all the white lettering 'shaded' off to the right in black, a transfer style (from Fox Transfers) I don't happen to have. (Another aspect may be that the 2 N.E.R. are painted in a darkish green/grey and I'm wondering if this was manufacturer's - ie the model maker - license, plus were there N.E.R named coke wagons or, as I have been told, more likely to have been private owners?)

If Olympia Oil & Coke should be the 'way to go' any photos of their coke wagon stock would be helpful as we're somewhat limited out here for source material plus any other clarification would be very welcome (and I must comment how much I picked up from other matter, particularly concerning locos on this series of postings).

Graeme Leary
New Zealand
I

[60117 Bois Roussel]

strang steel wrote:
If you assume a local cattle market maybe once a week or fortnight, then you could have the stopping goods trains dropping off and picking up cattle wagons. Farmers would take delivery of machinery now and again, and an old-style tractor or baler on a low loader would appear at times.

Livestock, such as cattle, and perishables, such as fish, would not be marshalled in stopping goods trains but either conveyed in express goods workings or attached to passenger trains. There was an obvious need to ensure that transit was as fast as reasonably possible and to assist this the majority of these vehicles were fitted with automatic brakes and generally marshalled next to the locomotive.

I think this response by 65447 serves nobody very well. The query was about freight stock at a late NER-period medium size town somewhere between York and Hull/Tyneside. Which is an excellent example of how to set a question and pooh-poohing the reply from Strang Steel is a poor do and much is incorrect. Here’s how this traffic was handled:

Cattle - a medium size town may or may not have had a cattle market. If it did, then cattle pens would have been provided on the station. Most of the cattle traffic revolved around the markets with immature cattle bought at distant markets being delivered - by cattle special or by through goods to the nearest marshalling yard, from there by p/u goods or by passenger train. Outgoing cattle to market, or from sale at market, went by the reverse of the above. There may also have been cattle market to abattoir cattle specials. And there was traffic for breeding purposes.

I would be inclined to do some checking of the agricultural focus in your chosen area. A quick check (based on the 1920s) shows that it lies between arable, beef and dairy farming so there's actually a wide choice of traffic. A key point here is that it helps to know about operating practices on both sides of the railway fence.

As Strang Steel says, empty cattle trucks were provided in advance by the p/u goods. I might add that, if empty, they did not have to be behind the loco and could be marshalled anywhere in the train. Also, at the time the majority of these trucks were not fitted with AVB but manual brake, increasingly with through pipe. Photographs confirm all this.

Fish - no Seasonal Working of fish traffic off the NE has yet been found nor any pictures of fish specials, so nobody knows the score on that one. However, I have a seasonal fish working from the SW and as that got into the NE, the fish trucks were being dispersed by, it seems, and it’s confirmed by many train photographs, attachment to Ordinary Passenger trains. That was certainly the case from Hull. In the chosen period, open fish trucks were fading away and the best photo I have is NER period with a Tennant 2-4-0 near Low Fell hauling an OP bogie 5-set with three of these fish trucks behind the tender. With the chosen location not far from several ports, such traffic was feasible. Either way, a medium size town not far from the coast would have had significant fish traffic, from local ports, and from further away: fishmongers, after all, thrived on variety and some species were localised regionally and came from a distance. This also means that incoming fish would have come from both directions. Depending on the size of the town and traffic, it's possible that a fish truck may have been detached at the station, and returned later, which could give operating interest, shunted by the train loco.

Fish trucks were fitted with automatic brake so that they could be placed on the rear of a passenger train and there were regular workings like this.

Milk traffic - was another agricultural item, collected each morning in milk vans (actually NPCS) attached to an OP, to the local cities. City dairies touted for this business and I suspect the best one may have cornered the market with milk vans travelling in the same direction. Even in a town, farmers brought chums in on their milk floats to serve a city further away. By your period milk coolers had been installed and collection was once-daily in the morning. The chosen period predates take-over by lorries, which in such a flat area, would have been rapid.

A key point is that many farmers practised "mixed farming" because the variety gave a better cash flow, and we are talking about the days before farming got industrialised. Some years ago I looked at the agricultural traffic from a station on the GC London Extension in the Midlands and the variety was huge, despatches of things like sugar beet and potatoes being in sacks in open trucks under canvas, something that's not seen on layouts enough, methinks. Soft fruit and veg was taken away by ventilated vans. A useful variable that you can play around with is that when a crop was harvested, for a while, there was a glut, which called for extra wagons of the same type. In short, the composition of p/u goods in an area like this varied on a daily, weekly and seasonal basis. You can get a lot of pleasure from ringing the changes. It also broadens your kit-building horizons.

Open vs covered vans - in the chosen period open trucks were in the vast majority with covered vans making up only about 10% of the company owned wagon fleets (and only 5% of the global fleet if you add the PO mineral trucks). This was a far cry from the scene in BR days when it became the exact opposite.

Mix of types - this is often overlooked and it applies to all types with manual brake where common user agreements were already in force so that goods stock would have averaged, all pre-Grouping, of course (the figures are for 1923):
43% LMS
40% LNER
12% GWR
5% SR
A superb article "Keeping the Balance" some years ago covered this really well, by Peter Tatlow or Don Rowland? I have had my copy out to copy for a friend and it is now AWOL. Anyway, as the saying goes, food for thought?