BR Brutes (are there any left?)

[t_star2001uk]

Whatever happened to all of the BRUTEs after privatisation and the demise or Red Star. There used to be thousands of these things around the network. The last 2 that i have seen are at Chatham. Are there any more left?

 

[lincolnshire]

Whatever happened to all of the BRUTEs after privatisation and the demise or Red Star. There used to be thousands of these things around the network. The last 2 that i have seen are at Chatham. Are there any more left?

Some in Railway Museum at York in the warehouse section all loaded up with other items.

 

[talltim]

I use to love the trains of them driving around

 

[Carlisle]

They always used to say the trolleys themselves were heavier than their maximum payload ,maybe that contributed to their demise

 

[t_star2001uk]

They always used to say the trolleys themselves were heavier than their maximum payload ,maybe that contributed to their demise

God yes they did feel like they weighed a ton. They certainly were substantial bits of kit.....

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The manufacter of them were done to give BR workshops some work in the 1960's. Awful things.

 

[t_star2001uk]

The manufacter of them were done to give BR workshops some work in the 1960's. Awful things.

They may have been awful, heavy and difficult to move by hand, but they were a piece of the railway that seems to have been almost forgotten.

For those who read this thread and wonder what we are talking about, here are 2 that are still at Chatham station to this day

 

[Train wasp]

Hello,

I was wondering if there are still any old BR brutes still out there in dark corners of railway stations. Sometimes you see odd bits of equipment left to one side on platforms that are now out of use.


thanks

 

[StephenHunter]

Hello,

I was wondering if there are still any old BR brutes still out there in dark corners of railway stations. Sometimes you see odd bits of equipment left to one side on platforms that are now out of use.


thanks

There is still a brute related sign at Paddington.

 

[Ashley Hill]

There used to be some in Newton Abbot market. I haven’t been for a while so may still be in use.
It’s strange how quickly Brutes disappeared from stations without really being missed until they were gone. Are any preserved on heritage lines?

 

[renegademaster]

Hello,

I was wondering if there are still any old BR brutes still out there in dark corners of railway stations. Sometimes you see odd bits of equipment left to one side on platforms that are now out of use.


thanks

Redhill has a bunch of royal mail crates dumped on the fenced off former parcel bay next to platform 3

 

[Rescars]

IIRC "BRUTE" was an acronym. Can anyone remember what it stood for?

 

[Gloster]

IIRC "BRUTE" was an acronym. Can anyone remember what it stood for?

I am fairly sure it was British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment. I once read that that the E was not there when they first appeared but was soon added (officially) as Brute is easier to say than Brut (which was Our ‘enry’s deodorant, I think). Brute is an accurate opinion of them by someone who once cauht his foot under one.

 

[Rescars]

I am fairly sure it was British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment. I once read that that the E was not there when they first appeared but was soon added (officially) as Brute is easier to say than Brut (which was Our ‘enry’s deodorant, I think). Brute is an accurate opinion of them by someone who once cauht his foot under one.

Ah, thank you. Brute indeed! One caught my foot too!

 

[Sun Chariot]

On the plus side, they were a handy refuge for my 1980s teen self, armed with camera bag, food and various contingency clothing.

 

[stuving]

I am fairly sure it was British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment. I once read that that the E was not there when they first appeared but was soon added (officially) as Brute is easier to say than Brut (which was Our ‘enry’s deodorant, I think). Brute is an accurate opinion of them by someone who once cauht his foot under one.

That's confirmed by several news reports of the time, starting in late 1964, though I think they were not introduced until 1965. Weighing 4 cwt, two years to design and produce, costing £50-60 each, apparently.

 

[David57]

There used to be some in Newton Abbot market. I haven’t been for a while so may still be in use.
It’s strange how quickly Brutes disappeared from stations without really being missed until they were gone. Are any preserved on heritage lines?

Another shout for Newton Abbot market, last went there about ten years ago, saw about ten in all.

 

[deltic14]

I seem to recall seeing one in the transport museum at Bo'ness last time I was there.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

They may have been awful, heavy and difficult to move by hand, but they were a piece of the railway that seems to have been almost forgotten.

For those who read this thread and wonder what we are talking about, here are 2 that are still at Chatham station to this day

The picture doesn't work...?

 

[deltic14]

Actually the museum at Bo'ness has two. I saw them in April 2022.

 

[Spartacus]

Some in Railway Museum at York in the warehouse section all loaded up with other items.

Before that side closed they had one or two strategically positioned near the buffers in front of 87001, which gave a very good impression of WCML travel during the BR Blue era, but sadly, and sadly typically, there was zero information for the casual observer, so many would have just thought they'd been lazily dumped there.

 

[Ghostbus]

You'd never get these past a risk assessment today.

Back injuries, trips and falls, trap/pinch/crush injuries, damaged goods. The two piece fabric gate is one of those classic things that looks excellent on a drawing board and even a prototype, but causes more problems than it solves in the real world.

The museum presentation feels realistic tbh. A heavy trunk, a few sacks and a bike. ~60% of the load space and >90% of the load weight, wasted. If the traffic was any higher, you'd certainly need to get creative, and extremely sweaty. So I doubt it was.

Right idea. Moving stuff between platform and handing areas on trolleys, not loading individual items onto or out of trains. Just entirely wrong implementation. Unthinkable waste for a private company. Job creation scheme and sort of kind of modernisation for a nationalised railway.

Not that you'd get much job satisfaction building these if you'd previously been making steam locomotives I would have thought. But if you've put down roots in Swindon, or are a third generation railway man, I guess you just knuckled down.

Surely it was only the pay and perks that kept the handlers interested, given there would have been plenty of opportunities opening up in the road haulage and warehousing sector even back then. Or maybe not. Sick man of Europe and all that.

 

[Gloster]

You'd never get these past a risk assessment today.

Back injuries, trips and falls, trap/pinch/crush injuries, damaged goods. The two piece fabric gate is one of those classic things that looks excellent on a drawing board and even a prototype, but causes more problems than it solves in the real world.

The museum presentation feels realistic tbh. A heavy trunk, a few sacks and a bike. ~60% of the load space and >90% of the load weight, wasted. If the traffic was any higher, you'd certainly need to get creative, and extremely sweaty. So I doubt it was.

Right idea. Moving stuff between platform and handing areas on trolleys, not loading individual items onto or out of trains. Just entirely wrong implementation. Unthinkable waste for a private company. Job creation scheme and sort of kind of modernisation for a nationalised railway.

Not that you'd get much job satisfaction building these if you'd previously been making steam locomotives I would have thought. But if you've put down roots in Swindon, or are a third generation railway man, I guess you just knuckled down.

Surely it was only the pay and perks that kept the handlers interested, given there would have been plenty of opportunities opening up in the road haulage and warehousing sector even back then. Or maybe not. Sick man of Europe and all that.

But remember that when the BRUTE were designed and ordered BR was looking at streamlining its parcel services. No longer would a cheery guard hand a couple of parcels out to a smiling porter at every stop, but larger volumes would be carried between more important centres and then distributed by road. BRUTEs allowed the parcels for each centre to be concentrated in one trolley and moved by one person in far larger volumes than before: this allowed parcels to be quickly moved from one train to another at the major interchange points.

The problem is that BR still saw itself as a service (*), including providing one for parcels, rather than being there just to make money. It realised that the existing system just couldn’t continue, but wanted to keep the basics. Nobody foresaw how much the motorway network was to change the face of sundries transport.

I don’t entirely agree that the trolleys were badly designed. They were quite adequate for larger or stackable items, but a bit of a pain for small stuff. Unfortunately, the later gradually became a larger and larger part of the traffic.

* - Yes, that horrible, old-fashioned word ‘service’. Thank God we have abandoned it for the new God: profit.

 

[Spartacus]

But remember that when the BRUTE were designed and ordered BR was looking at streamlining its parcel services. No longer would a cheery guard hand a couple of parcels out to a smiling porter at every stop, but larger volumes would be carried between more important centres and then distributed by road. BRUTEs allowed the parcels for each centre to be concentrated in one trolley and moved by one person in far larger volumes than before: this allowed parcels to be quickly moved from one train to another at the major interchange points.

The problem is that BR still saw itself as a service (*), including providing one for parcels, rather than being there just to make money. It realised that the existing system just couldn’t continue, but wanted to keep the basics. Nobody foresaw how much the motorway network was to change the face of sundries transport.

I don’t entirely agree that the trolleys were badly designed. They were quite adequate for larger or stackable items, but a bit of a pain for small stuff. Unfortunately, the later gradually became a larger and larger part of the traffic.

* - Yes, that horrible, old-fashioned word ‘service’. Thank God we have abandoned it for the new God: profit.

Seconded. The BRUTE was conceived in the early 60s when manhandling was huge, and even semi automated systems usually involved a hell of a lot of manhandling by today's standards. A standardised trolley with easy access, but which things wouldn't fall out of, could be coupled together and pulled by mechanical means when necessary or put in a parcels van, was a huge difference to constantly moving things around, going backwards and forwards with each item, wasting time, increasing risk of damage to both parcels and staff; yes, BR did care about the backs of it's employees, even then. There's a couple of BTF films that illustrate it all well. Far from job creation, they'd have allowed a huge number of porters to be made redundant.

And this was a time when most things being moved by this means WERE big, anything small went by Royal Mail or a fledgling courier service.

Even the maligned fabric gate was designed so it could be used in places with little or no room to swing a cat, as many parcels offices were small, let alone swing open a large gate.

 

[Ghostbus]

I get the concept. I'm just dubious this was the best solution. It seems highly unlikely these things could be loaded quickly or with efficient use of the available volume, without injury, accident or damage. But I can certainly see it might have been just good enough over what came before it.

 

[Gloster]

I get the concept. I'm just dubious this was the best solution. It seems highly unlikely these things could be loaded quickly or with efficient use of the available volume, without injury, accident or damage. But I can certainly see it might have been just good enough over what came before it.

In some ways the important word was Universal: you could replace all sorts of bits and pieces with one standard design that was able to carry just about everything. It might not have been the best use of the volume, but it was good enough for just about everything and it was to hand: no searching around for a Mark 9 trolley for one load and a Mark 17 for another.

As long as the brakes and curtains were looked after the trolleys were surprisingly good at carrying stuff safely. Yes, there could be problems if loaded stupidly, but this was likely to be as much a result of poor staff wages leading to poor quality staff in an era where wages were increasing far faster outside the railway than in, so this problem would exist with any trolley. (Most of the staff doing the work were Railman, the lowest grade, and often on a flat week: this is not a job likely to be sought by the most dedicated and enthusiastic.)

 

[Ashley Hill]

They were a good design for moving large amounts of parcel traffic around large stations when hauled by a tug. Manhandling them by themselves could be cumbersome when loaded.
There were 3 designs that I remember. One that was a cage requiring a carriage key to open it,another was the flatbed and finally the standard one caged on three sides with either blue curtains with heavy Velcro or large curtains that hooked on.

 

[Ghostbus]

It certainly feels like someone thought these things would be loaded properly (securely, and if necessary with maximum use of available volume) and their size and construction was dictated by the largest heaviest expected item (a piano by the looks of it!).

Probably a mistake, leading to the anecdote that it could still crush your toes in the very necessary manual handling on tight depots or on/off trains. All while carrying its typical load, something weighing far less than even the trolley itself. On a second look those wheels seem almost perfectly placed to crush toes.

 

[Spartacus]

It certainly feels like someone thought these things would be loaded properly (securely, and if necessary with maximum use of available volume) and their size and construction was dictated by the largest heaviest expected item (a piano by the looks of it!).

Probably a mistake, leading to the anecdote that it could still crush your toes in the very necessary manual handling on tight depots or on/off trains. All while carrying its typical load, something weighing far less than even the trolley itself. On a second look those wheels seem almost perfectly placed to crush toes.

Again though, compare it to what was before, and unbraked Victorian open trolley made of cast iron and oak which probably DID weight more than most things you could put on it

 

[Gloster]

It certainly feels like someone thought these things would be loaded properly (securely, and if necessary with maximum use of available volume) and their size and construction was dictated by the largest heaviest expected item (a piano by the looks of it!).

Probably a mistake, leading to the anecdote that it could still crush your toes in the very necessary manual handling on tight depots or on/off trains. All while carrying its typical load, something weighing far less than even the trolley itself. On a second look those wheels seem almost perfectly placed to crush toes.

Which is why we were strictly instructed to push them using the two vertical bars in the small box on the ends. If you hurt yourself when doing it any other way it was your own silly fault, as I found out… Just about anything can cause injury if not used sensibly. Should the wheels have been moved so that they you didn’t run a risk of them running over people’s feet, even if that reduced the suitability of the trolley?

I still think that for the early 1960s it was a pretty well thought-out design that lasted. It was very much a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none solution to a problem, but it worked for twenty years.