If BR had switched to long wheel base freight wagons earlier.....

montyburns56 · 11 Jun 2020

...would it have helped to retain more traffic or was it a lost cause anyway? I believe that LWB wagons can generally run at a faster speed and presumably have a better cost/capacity ratio than shorter wagons, but would it have made any difference to traffic retention? I believe (possibly incorrectly) that one reason why BR stuck to the short wheel base wagons for so long was because so much of the infrastructure i.e. tipplers, wagon turntables, sharply curved sidings etc couldn't accommodate LWB wagons, but was that really such a big issue that it couldn't have been worked around?

I know that changes in the road freight industry caused BR to lose a lot of traffic from the 50s onwards, so some losses were inevitable, but if BR had switched earlier and also perhaps rationalized the number of yards and been relieved of it's Common Carrier status earlier could it have made a big difference?

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randyrippley · 11 Jun 2020

If BR had switched to long wheel base freight wagons earlier.....

we would have had more Pacers, earlier....

ChiefPlanner · 11 Jun 2020

Challenging question - a genuine air braked fast fitted freight network called Freightiner certainly was a good start in the mid 1960's onwards ,- but the legacy of much of the freight terminal infrastructure was improved to an extent - but was ruthlessly demolished by the motorway network and structural changes in distribution nodes. Look at the iconic BTF film "Fully Fitted Freight" - key long distance consumer goods handled in an open yard (because the train for Leeds had always left from that yard , as opposed to leaving from the commodious , largest covered good terminal in Britain) - Speedlink was too late and frankly not very competitive , losing about a £100m a year in the early 1980's and Freightliner rapidly went European and International.

30907 · 11 Jun 2020

montyburns56 said:
I believe that LWB wagons can generally run at a faster speed and presumably have a better cost/capacity ratio than shorter wagons,...

...if BR had switched earlier and also perhaps rationalized the number of yards and been relieved of it's Common Carrier status earlier could it have made a big difference?

All these points are fair, perhaps especially the last two which you preface with "and also". Without those two, and generally sorting the inefficiencies of the system, the cost would have been enormous, and operating old-style with a mix of SWB and LWB wagons challenging (to put it mildly)
I can understand why BR initially thought continuous brakes on SWB wagons were the way forward - until the switch to block trains and increasingly specialist wagons (weren't LWB 4wheel tanks the first, before MGRs?).

montyburns56 · 12 Jun 2020

randyrippley said:
If BR had switched to long wheel base freight wagons earlier.....

we would have had more Pacers, earlier....

I've often thought that the Pacer concept could have been used to create a system of self propelled wagons that could be used to deliver/shunt the wagons down freight only lines, a bit like those MPV vehicles.

montyburns56 · 12 Jun 2020

ChiefPlanner said:
- Speedlink was too late and frankly not very competitive , losing about a £100m a year in the early 1980's and Freightliner rapidly went European and International.

I started another thread to deal with the issue of reducing Speedlink costs with the idea of using road rail vehicles to trip wagons down freight only lines....

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/using-a-road-rail-vehicle-to-pull-freight-wagons.204986/

ChiefPlanner · 12 Jun 2020

montyburns56 said:
I've often thought that the Pacer concept could have been used to create a system of self propelled wagons that could be used to deliver/shunt the wagons down freight only lines, a bit like those MPV vehicles.

BR Research did consider this ideas back in the 1970's , sort of thing that wold have featured on "Tomorrows World" - came to nothing.

montyburns56 · 12 Jun 2020

30907 said:
All these points are fair, perhaps especially the last two which you preface with "and also". Without those two, and generally sorting the inefficiencies of the system, the cost would have been enormous, and operating old-style with a mix of SWB and LWB wagons challenging (to put it mildly)
I can understand why BR initially thought continuous brakes on SWB wagons were the way forward - until the switch to block trains and increasingly specialist wagons (weren't LWB 4wheel tanks the first, before MGRs?).

I get that there would be an awkward stage when there would be a mix of both types of wagons, but if they had dropped the common carrier status a bit earlier they could have abandoned a lot of the non-block trains that still used SWB wagons and unconcentrated on the Speedlink type trains. One thing that amazes me when browsing Flickr is that how many old fashion SWB mixed goods trains there still were well into the late 70s such as these....

40145_1977_07_Doncaster

40145 has just crossed over from the Up Fast to the Up Slow as it ambles south through Doncaster with a mixed class 9 freight, 30th July 1977. Locomotive History Originally D345 it was built by English Electric at the Vulcan Foundry, Newton le Willows, entering service on 17th May 1961. D345...

flic.kr

23/06/1976 - Dringhouses, York.

Best viewed Original size. ETH-fitted 47436 with what appears to be a vacuum-fitted freight, heads south from Dringhouses Yard - 23/06/1976.

flic.kr

montyburns56 · 12 Jun 2020

ChiefPlanner said:
BR Research did consider this ideas back in the 1970's , sort of thing that wold have featured on "Tomorrows World" - came to nothing.

Right, to honest I did have an inkling that someone might have already thought of the concept, but I just wasn't sure.

furnessvale · 12 Jun 2020

ChiefPlanner said:
BR Research did consider this ideas back in the 1970's , sort of thing that wold have featured on "Tomorrows World" - came to nothing.

Ir didfeature on Tomorrows World at the time.

The "prototype" was a Lowmac carrying a 20ft container that drifted quietly past the camera into a siding. What you didn't see was the 350 shunter just out of sight round the bend that had just given it a shove!

36270k · 12 Jun 2020

BR built 1000's of unfitted SWB wagons in the 1950's to replace wagons worn out from WW2
BR was still building SWB wagons into the 1960's
There were many reasons for freight moving to road transport in the 50/60's including, theft and damage to goods in transit, slow journey times when going via several marshalling yards and union disruption.
5-plank open wagons were often used for ballast spoil when no longer required for traffic use.

Dr Hoo · 12 Jun 2020

I don't think that longer wheelbase wagons would have made any difference in themselves. The running speed of trunk trains between numerous intermediate yards was only a very small factor in the overall transit when put alongside lengthy waits to be shunted, the 'next trip' and antediluvian loading and unloading methods (often by the shovelful or sack-load).

It was impossible to replace hundreds of thousands of short wagons quickly so trains would always be slowed to the pace of the shortest remaining wagon unless a completely duplicated network of long wheelbase services was operated. This was sort of what happened with liner trains and Speedlink anyway but couldn't really have been done more quickly given the need to switch to air braking as well.

This Forum regularly seems to suggest the Common Carrier Obligation as some sort of legal millstone that single-handedly doomed the 1955 Modernisation Plan to failure, forced the un-necessary building of 'white elephant' marshalling yards and the construction of large numbers of unsuitable low-powered diesels. And yet if you read serious business histories of BR the Obligation hardly rates a mention. Yes, its effects were 'tidied away' in the 1962 Transport Act I think but I have never seen a convincing description of its effects in addition to the other obvious industrial, highway and economic changes of the post-war years.

Spartacus · 12 Jun 2020

Having known someone who was involved with the finances of BR around that time I’ve learnt that the common carrier obligation was in some ways overwhelming to the extent that it was felt as inevitable as the gauge or rail material, with no general interest in the costs involved in it, as they were seen as unavoidable, so nobody was attempting to make savings, even when in hindsight they would have been possible. It’s impossible to detail it’s effects now as they were unknown then. There’s simply little to nothing to write about. It was only when external studies were done that it was realised so many freight services that had been assumed to be making money due to essentially ignoring short term fixed costs had, when all costs were calculated, been losing increasing amounts of money for decades.

Lucan · 13 Jun 2020

Spartacus said:
the common carrier obligation was in some ways overwhelming to the extent that it was felt as inevitable as the gauge or rail material, with no general interest in the costs involved...... It’s impossible to detail it’s effects now as they were unknown then. There’s simply little to nothing to write about.

I remember reading a quote from Dr Beeching (can't find a link now) that road hauliers were taking bulk package freight from London to Exeter (for example), and then dumping it all at the Exeter railway goods office, leaving the railway the unprofitable job of distributing the individual packages all around the towns and villages of Devon. As he said, it was the inverse of what would have been sensible.

Helvellyn · 15 Jun 2020

What about MGR traffic? BR mass produced the SWB HAA hopper wagon for this traffic but would LWB hoppers have been feasible. They were eventually introduced first by National Power for their Class 59/2 hauled services then in mass by EWS.

ChiefPlanner · 15 Jun 2020

Helvellyn said:
What about MGR traffic? BR mass produced the SWB HAA hopper wagon for this traffic but would LWB hoppers have been feasible. They were eventually introduced first by National Power for their Class 59/2 hauled services then in mass by EWS.

The LMS introduced a fleet of bogie coal hoppers for power station coal in Nottingham to Stonebridge Park / Willesden in the 1930's , but this was almost a on off.

It took BR into the 1960's to get some efficiency out of the power station coal supply , as the NCB refused to pay for major alterations to the myriads of colliery loading points they then had in service, some of them unchanged since they day thee were opened. They saw it as "no our problem"

MGR was a game changer , the idea of RT Munns supposedly , also claimed by Gerry Fiennes !

furnessvale · 15 Jun 2020

Helvellyn said:
What about MGR traffic? BR mass produced the SWB HAA hopper wagon for this traffic but would LWB hoppers have been feasible. They were eventually introduced first by National Power for their Class 59/2 hauled services then in mass by EWS.

There is very little difference between a single 100t bogie wagon and 2 x 50t two axle wagons. A loco simply hauls twice as many 2 axle wagons as opposed to bogie wagons.

In rail terms there isn't the same imperative that road has to maximise unit size because of one driver one unit. What does matter to rail as well as road is tare/payload ratio and modern 2 axle wagons can virtually match their bogied equivalents.

montyburns56 · 15 Jun 2020

Helvellyn said:
What about MGR traffic? BR mass produced the SWB HAA hopper wagon for this traffic but would LWB hoppers have been feasible. They were eventually introduced first by National Power for their Class 59/2 hauled services then in mass by EWS.

To be honest I would say that the HAA wagons were actually LWB. To me anything significantly longer than a 10' wheelbase is a LWB wagon. And the shift towards bogie wagons is another issue which has only come about fairly recently in the UK.

Ploughman · 15 Jun 2020

So the numerous bogie wagons built by the North Eastern Railway around the turn of the century (1900) can be classed as a recent development then?
1903 built 40 ton coal hoppers looking very similar to the later built Seacow ballast hoppers is one example.

montyburns56 · 15 Jun 2020

Ploughman said:
So the numerous bogie wagons built by the North Eastern Railway around the turn of the century (1900) can be classed as a recent development then?
1903 built 40 ton coal hoppers looking very similar to the later built Seacow ballast hoppers is one example.

I was originally going to say the recent adoption of bogie wagons en masse, but then I thought that people would understand what I meant, but hey pedantry....

Merle Haggard · 15 Jun 2020

Lucan said:
I remember reading a quote from Dr Beeching (can't find a link now) that road hauliers were taking bulk package freight from London to Exeter (for example), and then dumping it all at the Exeter railway goods office, leaving the railway the unprofitable job of distributing the individual packages all around the towns and villages of Devon. As he said, it was the inverse of what would have been sensible.

Certainly what happened was that road parcels carriers made offers to their customers to deliver parcels anywhere at a flat rate. Their lorries than set out radially, delivering in built up areas until they reached a point when only a small number of parcels were left, whereupon the lorry took those remaining to a railway station parcels depot for delivery. These were, of course, the ones that were expensive to deliver being to more remote areas but, because BR was a 'common carrier' these had to be accepted and charged at the standard per mile rate; obviously a money-loser for the railway, but a bargain for the road haulier.

Ploughman · 15 Jun 2020

montyburns56 said:
I was originally going to say the recent adoption of bogie wagons en masse, but then I thought that people would understand what I meant, but hey pedantry....

I forgot to add a smilie in my post if that helps.

Dr Hoo · 15 Jun 2020

Merle Haggard said:
Certainly what happened was that road parcels carriers made offers to their customers to deliver parcels anywhere at a flat rate. Their lorries than set out radially, delivering in built up areas until they reached a point when only a small number of parcels were left, whereupon the lorry took those remaining to a railway station parcels depot for delivery. These were, of course, the ones that were expensive to deliver being to more remote areas but, because BR was a 'common carrier' these had to be accepted and charged at the standard per mile rate; obviously a money-loser for the railway, but a bargain for the road haulier.

In the context of the original post the above comment seems to be more about 'coaching class' traffic (parcels by passenger train-compatible vehicles or even in passenger brake vans on smaller branches, with local delivery by van) rather than 'goods', typically conveyed in speed-restricted short-wheelbase vans.

6Gman · 15 Jun 2020

Dr Hoo said:
This Forum regularly seems to suggest the Common Carrier Obligation as some sort of legal millstone that single-handedly doomed the 1955 Modernisation Plan to failure, forced the un-necessary building of 'white elephant' marshalling yards and the construction of large numbers of unsuitable low-powered diesels. And yet if you read serious business histories of BR the Obligation hardly rates a mention. Yes, its effects were 'tidied away' in the 1962 Transport Act I think but I have never seen a convincing description of its effects in addition to the other obvious industrial, highway and economic changes of the post-war years.

I was reading about the Grimsby fish traffic in the 1950s.

It was a big operation ranging from several well-loaded wagons to the likes of Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham and the like. And wagons carrying a few boxes to the likes of Haltwhistle, Droitwich Spa or Caernarfon.

Then the big fish agents invested in lorries which they used for the Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham runs. And left the railway (under cc obligation) to take odd boxes to Haltwhistle, Droitwich Spa and Caernarfon.

Merle Haggard · 16 Jun 2020

Dr Hoo said:
In the context of the original post the above comment seems to be more about 'coaching class' traffic (parcels by passenger train-compatible vehicles or even in passenger brake vans on smaller branches, with local delivery by van) rather than 'goods', typically conveyed in speed-restricted short-wheelbase vans.

I accept that my post was off-topic, but it was intended to amplify the post quoted. The obligation of BR to convey traffic at published scales related solely to distance was a handicap particularly to the Parcels business because of the ease of entry for road competitors.

Although I never worked on the parcels side in my station days, where I worked did have large volumes of parcels traffic from a then well-known manufacturer of plastic footballs. In the context of short wheelbase wagons it might be worth mentioning that, because of shortages of NPCCS, Vanfits were used extensively, particularly but not exclusively in the run-up to Christmas - when shortage was exacerbated by the GPO's peak.

In the WTTs of the day, many parcels trains seem to have been timed (?60 mph) to convey (10' WB) vanfits, because there was a special symbol ( a 'spade', as found on playing cards) to indicate "4 wheel vehicles with a wheelbase of less than 15' must not be conveyed on this train" and this did not appear above every Class 3. However, I have been waiting at a foot crossing when an electric-hauled train with Vanfits in the consist passed at around 60 and it was a little frightening.

Dr Hoo · 17 Jun 2020

Ah! Happy days.

By the time I was working on the railway (well after the Common Carrier period) large parcels customers like Mettoy at Northampton often had an 'Agreed Flat Rate' per package rather than a published scale, based on sampling of their despatches. Six footballs in a paper sack weighed hardly anything.

And I recall the 'spade' symbol. Still remember dealing with a high speed derailment one night where a driver and guard were apparently completely unaware of the train formation and took a couple of short wheelbase vans up to 60mph. The Area Civil Engineer turned out and commented that he had been over the line in the track recording coach the previous day. We found the witness marks where the flanges had climbed the railhead on a curve. The ACE touched a spot of yellow paint thrown out by the track recorder. It was still wet! I was most impressed with the engineering. Less so with the operating department.

If BR had switched to long wheel base freight wagons earlier.....

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