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Newspaper trains

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johnnychips

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From the Infrastructure thread on Retford:

An interesting use of the Retford-Whiskerhill Junction line was a through Kings Cross - Kiveton Park working in the 1970s - 1D41 I seem to recall. Sunday newspapers down the mainline and worked through to Kiveton Park arriving about 04.30 . That was also the days when there was a through Euston-Lairg working also for Sunday newspapers.

I do remember this was the reason why you could buy next day's paper, especially Sunday ones, at London terminals like Kings X at about 2100 the day before. Are there still any newspaper trains? If not, when did they stop, and how is it done now? Or were they carried in the guard's van of sleeper trains?
 
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transmanche

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Are there still any newspaper trains? If not, when did they stop, and how is it done now?
All carried by road now. IIRC it started when News International moved from Fleet Street to Wapping - changing to road transport to avoid any disruption from the rail unions. Nowadays, the 'London' News International print plant is located close to the M25/A10 junction in Enfield.

Also, some national newspapers are printed in multiple regional sites (using regional papers' facilities); rather than just London, Manchester and Glasgow.
 

johnnychips

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Thanks TM. It always did seem strange, maybe 30 years back, to be on holiday in the west of the Lake District - not that remote - and not to be able to get the previous night's football scores.
 

VauxhallandI

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All carried by road now. IIRC it started when News International moved from Fleet Street to Wapping - changing to road transport to avoid any disruption from the rail unions. Nowadays, the 'London' News International print plant is located close to the M25/A10 junction in Enfield.

Also, some national newspapers are printed in multiple regional sites (using regional papers' facilities); rather than just London, Manchester and Glasgow.

Indeed, nearest stations are Waltham Cross and Theobalds Grove. You'd be lucky to get a copy of the Metro there :D
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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In Manchester, at Manchester Victoria station, newspaper trains of inordinate length were always to be found late at night on the very long platform 11 that conjoined to platform 3 at Manchester Exchange station. The nearby area of Withy Grove was a centre of newspaper printing.
 

jopsuk

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NI have the massive plant by the A10/M25 junction, as noted- as well as a big plant in Glasgow, one in the North West and they use lots of regional printers too- I once went on a tour of the Wapping plant, before it shut, and was shown a control room where the status of every press they used was displayed. This included presses in Spain (year round use) and Turkey (summer months) for expats and tourists- digital composting brought many advantages! Metro is printed, along withe Standard and Mail, as far as I know, at Surrey Quays in south London (as well as other sites). The Guardian, using an odd paper size, is only printed at their two press facility near West Ham and a single press facility in Manchester- Soctland and the West Country consequently only get the early editions. Early editions are certainly availabel, at least for Sunday papers (earlier printing), at some london terminals before midnight.
 

CarltonA

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I don't know if that was tongue in cheek or not jopsuk but it is compositing that they do at the printers. My Grandfather did the job, in fact he printed off the declaration of war against the Germans in 1939. Off topic.....;)
 
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merlodlliw

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In Manchester, at Manchester Victoria station, newspaper trains of inordinate length were always to be found late at night on the very long platform 11 that conjoined to platform 3 at Manchester Exchange station. The nearby area of Withy Grove was a centre of newspaper printing.

I worked in the trade, and it was as you say Paul at Victoria & before that at Exchange. Withy Grove, now known as the Print Works, was at one time the largest print centre in Europe, printing multiple titles. It was the home of the Empire News ,a Sunday paper sold all over the North West/North Wales & North Midlands, the sale at all areas was not before 7.00p.m. Saturday. I handled the paper at Rhyl arriving off the 5.35p.m. from Man Vic, The Empire News Saturday sale was 80% of its Sunday sale,the soccer results were on the back page in what was called the Fudge or stop press.
When the News Of The World lost its print centre in Manchester using the News Chronicle presses, it bought up the Empire News to hire its presses and that was the end of Saturday night/Sunday Papers up here.
 

jopsuk

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typo! The Wapping plant was spectacular- it was mid afternoon though when I saw it, only a couple of presses running. I'd love to have seen it at 1am in full production.

Dragging slightly back on topic, whilst it is a bit sad they don't use trains, it allows them to be much more flexible. Withlorry deliveries they can print more editions- very much helped by the printing "stones" being very quick to produce and there being several needed even for a single edition. The plants are spread out too- when it was all in and around Fleet Street the entire industry's output could be easily loaded onto the same trains.

Off topic again: the guy that showed me around Wapping (I was there for work, i was involved with inks at the time) had been at the time of the Battle of Wapping a print union chapel head at the Express. he fought on the front line against murdoch. By the time I met him, he was plant manager for Murdoch...
 

transmanche

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Early editions are certainly availabel, at least for Sunday papers (earlier printing), at some london terminals before midnight.
Just a few years ago, early editions of Sunday papers were available in central London from around 8pm Saturday evening - that's how early they are printed nowadays!

That may no longer be the case, now that print sites have moved further away from central London.
 

jopsuk

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the bits without "news" are printed during the week- travel supplements, music/literature/film review sections, magazines etc.
 

Butts

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Thanks TM. It always did seem strange, maybe 30 years back, to be on holiday in the west of the Lake District - not that remote - and not to be able to get the previous night's football scores.

Never mind thirty years ago......if you are an Independent reader like me in Scotland this still happens today :oops:

Although most editions for Scotland are printed in Glasgow during the week, at weekends they come up from Manchester by road. The ones printed in Manchester often don't have the previous nights sports results particulary if it is a late match ie 8pm kick off or goes to extra time.

I can remember in the seventies up in Banff "The English Papers" as they called them ie The Sun did not arrive until the afternoon.
 

transmanche

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Although most editions for Scotland are printed in Glasgow during the week, at weekends they come up from Manchester by road. The ones printed in Manchester often don't have the previous nights sports results particulary if it is a late match ie 8pm kick off or goes to extra time.
This also happens in the Metro in Newcastle upon Tyne... all the time!
 

Butts

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This also happens in the Metro in Newcastle upon Tyne... all the time!

Talking of Metro the Edinburgh/Falkirk edition has removed the TV Guide last time I read it. It has programme highlights but not proper detailed listings.

Is The Newcastle version or any other editions now missing a proper TV Guide?
 

Ploughman

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I think it was in 1974 that I had a part time job for a newspaper wholesaler in Southport.
We used to collect the papers from the train every morning except Sundays when they came by lorry.
Generally 3 vans (2 x VW and a Bedford CF) haring through the gate onto the platform then a handbrake turn on the platform.

Loco was normally a 40 with a couple of vans.
Arrival into Southport was about 5.00 as we normally started delivering to the shops about 5.30.
 

burneside

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Talking of Metro the Edinburgh/Falkirk edition has removed the TV Guide last time I read it. It has programme highlights but not proper detailed listings.

Is The Newcastle version or any other editions now missing a proper TV Guide?

Looks like they have dropped the full TV guide across all editions, we no longer get in the London paper. A shame really as I used to plan my evening's viewing while on the train going to work.
 

dvboy

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Talking of Metro the Edinburgh/Falkirk edition has removed the TV Guide last time I read it. It has programme highlights but not proper detailed listings.

Is The Newcastle version or any other editions now missing a proper TV Guide?

I don't think any edition has a full TV guide now.

I believe each edition of Metro in England is exactly the same, except for local advertising pages which are managed by the local newspaper company who then prints it (for example in Birmingham this Trinity Mirror).

The Scotland edition is still different in news content, only the other day I saw the Scottish edition on a Scotland-Birmingham Virgin Voyager with a different front page headline to the copy I'd picked up in Wolverhampton.
 

Butts

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Looks like they have dropped the full TV guide across all editions, we no longer get in the London paper. A shame really as I used to plan my evening's viewing while on the train going to work.

It must be a cost factor, as even in this day and age The TV Guide must be one of the most read sections of any newspaper.

On a more general theme even in the days of "Newspaper Trains" the final part of the journey to the distributor must have been made by road. Or were there any that had their own rail terminal ?
 

the sniper

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On a more general theme even in the days of "Newspaper Trains" the final part of the journey to the distributor must have been made by road. Or were there any that had their own rail terminal ?

I'm pretty sure, in major cities at least, they were just distributed straight from the station they were dropped off at.
 

Weary Walker

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On a more general theme even in the days of "Newspaper Trains" the final part of the journey to the distributor must have been made by road. Or were there any that had their own rail terminal ?

A fair number were on or adjacent to stations. Platform 5 at Three Bridges, one of the two buildings was WHSmiths News - and I think it had access to the platform.
The depots in Wigan & Hereford remain very close to the stations.

At least one of the managers I've worked for remembers sorting out the newspapers into customer bundles while on the train (as an employee of the wholesaler not of the railways).
 

tony6499

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London Bridge used to be the hub for the newspaper trains to the South Coast, one would depart to Eastbourne calling at Three Bridges and Lewes and the rear van would be detached at Eastbourne to go to Bexhill.

Another would run down to Brighton where a van would be detached to run to Worthing.

Both trains had the sorters on working through the journey so when the papers were unloaded they were already sorted for the wholesalers and their deliveries to the shops.
 

merlodlliw

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London Bridge used to be the hub for the newspaper trains to the South Coast, one would depart to Eastbourne calling at Three Bridges and Lewes and the rear van would be detached at Eastbourne to go to Bexhill.

Another would run down to Brighton where a van would be detached to run to Worthing.

Both trains had the sorters on working through the journey so when the papers were unloaded they were already sorted for the wholesalers and their deliveries to the shops.

A few years ago a newspaper train left Paddington around 11pm with sorters on board (like a TPO). It ran to Swansea with sorted agents drops en route. Shrewsbury was the main station for Mid Wales newspapers.
 

ChiefPlanner

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There is an uncharted history to be written on the newspaper trains ...some of them were really short distance like the 03xx Waterloo to Guildford. Bundles of "Evening Standards" and "Evening News" (remember that) used to be conveyed on suburban trains !....the South Wales paper train (via Bristol) had a half passenger compartment coach attached - and the guards (after checking tickets) could often provide a range of free newspapers as rail staff had a free quota.Happy days indeed - but the economics must have been sketchy. Paddington used to rely on late turn rail staff doing some overtime to assist on loading - and it was a scene of some great activity as the paper vans screeched onto the platforms via the old taxi entrance to load directly from Fleet St hot bundles of newsprint after 2300 - to 0200 or so.
 

jopsuk

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I can remember in the seventies up in Banff "The English Papers" as they called them ie The Sun did not arrive until the afternoon.

Ah, back when the primary source of news int hat area would have been the P&J...
 

ChiefPlanner

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Is that the paper (off topic) - which reported the Titanic Disaster as "Local man lost at sea" ?
 

6Gman

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In Manchester, at Manchester Victoria station, newspaper trains of inordinate length were always to be found late at night on the very long platform 11 that conjoined to platform 3 at Manchester Exchange station. The nearby area of Withy Grove was a centre of newspaper printing.

I have a dim recollection of actually being able to see the printing presses rolling from outside the building in Manchester (early 60s?).

As well as the News trains there were also empties the following day - often of great length and weirdness. [There was a Perth - Red Bank {Manchester} which ran as a passenger train as far as Motherwell! Used it once; Class 26 to Mossend, then an 85 to Motherwell where I alighted. God knows what happened to anyone who had nodded off!]
 

Deerfold

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I don't think any edition has a full TV guide now.

I believe each edition of Metro in England is exactly the same, except for local advertising pages which are managed by the local newspaper company who then prints it (for example in Birmingham this Trinity Mirror).

The Scotland edition is still different in news content, only the other day I saw the Scottish edition on a Scotland-Birmingham Virgin Voyager with a different front page headline to the copy I'd picked up in Wolverhampton.

When I pick one up in Leeds they also have different reviews and sometimes a different 15-minute interview from the London edition.
 
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