C&D parcels ... and catalogue shopping parcels

[Magdalia]

I could be getting confused with the abrupt end of the C&D Parcels set up (so abrupt that, if I remember correctly, the news had to be telephoned out to local union reps so that they got it before the public announcement was made).

I've heard of C&D parcels but never been sure what it was or how it worked. I have a few questions, can someone explain please?

• Did C&D parcels have dedicated trains that were withdrawn when C&D parcels ended abruptly?
• Were catalogue shopping parcels part of C&D parcels or handled separately?
• Can someone confirm that C&D parcels did not include Royal Mail parcels?
• Was "Red Star" a replacement for C&D parcels?

 

[Bletchleyite]

What is C&D, please?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

What is C&D, please?

Presumably collection and delivery. Or collected and delivered. Must be some time since such service was last offered on the railway.

 

[Magdalia]

Presumably collection and delivery. Or collected and delivered. Must be some time since such service was last offered on the railway.

That's my guess too, but I'd like someone who knows to confirm, and explain how it worked.

Whatever it was, it was withdrawn in 1981.

 

[pitdiver]

My parents were regular users of these services. If i recall there were three options Convey and Deliver, Collect and Convey and finally Collect Convey and Deliver. The first two were the services my parents would have used. These services would have been for holiday luggage to and from our local station to our holiday destination.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not quite answering the OP's question, but understand that whilst C&D parcels occasionally travelled on the same trains as "Red Star" parcels, they were then handled at various "parcel concentration depots" from which a fleet of vans (branded as "Rail Express Parcels" but actually operated by NCL = National Carriers Ltd) did the rounds. C&D operations ceased in 1981, "Red Star" continued for several years more, moot point as to whether it was effectively a replacement for C&D.

 

[plarailfan]

I worked on the railway station at Huddersfield for a few years, starting from spring 1979. I seem to remember C&D was collection and delivery.
We had many thousands of C&D parcels up until 1981, when BR withdrew themselves from the service, allegedly due to it being loss making !
The fleet of "National carriers" trucks, used to go to Grattan (one of the mail order catalogue firms) in Bradford and Shaw carpets at Darton (Barnsley) among others, to collect loads and bring them in to us at Huddersfield station, although the carpets normally went to Clayton West in time to meet up with the lunch time DMU service and we had to load them into BRUTE's, then later in the day, they went on an early evening train, consisting of around four parcel vans, hauled by a class 31 locomotive, to Wakefield Kirkgate. I guess they were formed into a longer train(s) at Kirkgate, as many of the parcels were bound for London, Wales and Scotland.
Red Star was an express service, where parcels were brought in to us by the customer and their items went on sheduled passenger services under the watchful eye of the guard. One chap brought us a television set, wrapped in a plastic dustbin bag and expected to send it "Red star" to London for him, but we sent him away to package it more securely and we never saw him again ! However many local firms sent machine parts and valves by "Red star" on a regular basis, without problem. Most items went on direct trains, or only had one change en route to their destination.
Another, slower service was "To be called for" TBCF, where people could send less urgent items by passenger train and more changes were allowed on those items, but without the guaranteed arrival time that "Red star" offered.

 

[Gloster]

I have always thought of C&D as Collect & Deliver. Bulk loads of packages, etc., would be collected by BR by road from the factory, taken to sorting depots, sorted, loaded into parcel vans (often in BRUTEs), the vans would be shifted around the country (sometimes there would be intermediate transhipment), unloaded at another depot and then delivered to the addressee by road. BR managed the whole process.

Trains were not dedicated to C&D, but as they made up most of the requirement for van space in many parcels trains, there was no reason to run the trains once C&D had gone. The remaining traffic could often be accommodated on other services.

Catalogue shopping companies were a major customer of C&D and there used to be lots of vans trains to (mostly empty) and from the large depots in places like Oldham, Bradford, Sunderland, etc. It has been suggested that the closure of C&D was finally brought about by the fall in catalogue shopping.

Royal Mail parcels were completely separate from C&D: BR merely carried the traffic for the Royal Mail. But the two might end up on the same train if they were heading in the same direction.

I believe the Red Star had been going for some years before C&D ended. It was a fast, premium, point to point service, rather than the slower C&D one.

 

[Ken H]

Parcels, red star, royal mail and newspapers were given their own sector at sectorisation. Less went by passenger train and more by dedicated parcels services. So costs went up.
I remember travelling on a 'mixed' trains. Travelling Post Office, parcels/newspapers and passenger coaches. But then (1970's) there was no sectorisation so shared use was OK, and probably profitable.

We used Red Star quite a few times. For simple point to point deliveries they were great. Sprinterisation also killed parcels and the classic DMU's had guards vans. Sprinters did not.

 

[Western 52]

After BR ended their collection and delivery service in 1981 Royal Mail Parcels continued on rail until 1986 when lorries took over most long distance traffic between the Parcel Concentration Offices. However some use of Freightliner remained. I remember 30ft red containers operating routes such as Leeds to Cardiff and East London to Cardiff. I'm not sure when this ended as I'd left Royal Mail Parcels by then.

 

[Ken H]

After BR ended their collection and delivery service in 1981 Royal Mail Parcels continued on rail until 1986 when lorries took over most long distance traffic between the Parcel Concentration Offices. However some use of Freightliner remained. I remember 30ft red containers operating routes such as Leeds to Cardiff and East London to Cardiff. I'm not sure when this ended as I'd left Royal Mail Parcels by then.

and of course there are the Cl 325 royal mail EMU's still in use. Operated by DB Shencker.

 

[Magdalia]

Thanks for all of the helpful replies.

Catalogue shopping companies were a major customer of C&D and there used to be lots of vans trains to (mostly empty) and from the large depots in places like Oldham, Bradford, Sunderland, etc. It has been suggested that the closure of C&D was finally brought about by the fall in catalogue shopping.

Sunderland was Bryan Mills and Bradford was Grattan. Both had a lot of parcels trains. I think Oldham was Littlewoods (though I would have expected that to be in Liverpool)? Freemans was at Peterborough and I think had a conveyor over the ECML into the parcels depot at New England. Does anyone know the locations of any other catalogue warehouses (what today would be called fulfilment centres)?

I worked on the railway station at Huddersfield for a few years, starting from spring 1979. I seem to remember C&D was collection and delivery.
We had many thousands of C&D parcels up until 1981, when BR withdrew themselves from the service, allegedly due to it being loss making !
The fleet of "National carriers" trucks, used to go to Grattan (one of the mail order catalogue firms) in Bradford.

I had forgotten about "National Carriers", or NCL. Their most famous big yellow warehouse sign was on what is now known as the Granary at Kings Cross. It appears in the background of many pictures:

BR Class 55 55002, Kings Cross

Deltic 55002 at Kings Cross, 30th. April 1974.

flickr.com

In my family my Grandmother was the queen of catalogue shopping, and was a Grattans agent. I don't know how the orders arrived at her house: it seems from the above that the parcels probably came by train from Bradford or Huddersfield to a local NCL depot then delivered by a "National Carriers" van?

 

[Ken H]

...


Sunderland was Bryan Mills and Bradford was Grattan. Both had a lot of parcels trains. I think Oldham was Littlewoods (though I would have expected that to be in Liverpool)? Freemans was at Peterborough and I think had a conveyor over the ECML into the parcels depot at New England. Does anyone know the locations of any other catalogue warehouses (what today would be called fulfilment centres)?


...

Great Universal had facilities in Worcester (Kay and co) and Newtown in mid Wales (Pryce-Jones).

 

[Western 52]

Book Club Associates at Swindon was another prolific parcel poster. When I worked in Cardiff in the 1980s we had thousands per day for delivery from them.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Guessing that the Rail Express Parcel vans would have looked something like this c. 1969 version, and doubt that all that many (if any) ever got preserved.



Black & White photograph of Rail Express Parcels van in distinctive Royal Blue and White livery. (Source: Online).

 

[Ken H]

@Mcr Warrior There were the scammel scarab articulated trucks. Pic here. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/78/50/66/78506677b398aafc6041ff116d743e6e.jpg

 

[Jim Jehosofat]

When I started as a booking clerk at Erith in 1973 we had an afternoon collection by a three wheeled lorry and trailer. Parcels from Woolwich Arsenal and other local stations were sent by train to Erith and the lorry would collect them all and take them to the parcels depot at Bricklayers Arms. I'm sure that the lorry collected from other designated points, probably Dartford, Sidcup, Eltham (Well Hall), and maybe a couple of others. Most of the parcels were catalogue returns to the likes of Freemans etc.

 

[Gloster]

Where I worked at the end of the 1970s there were more trailers than tractor units. It was the practice with most regular customers for the unit to take a trailer out to them, shunt around so that it was left there and then the tractor returned to the station with the trailer that had been left the previous day. This trailer would be left at the parcels depot, another trailer would be collected and taken to a second customer and so on. Once the first arrival at the depot was unloaded, it would be available to go out to another customer. The last tractor and trailer returned to the station around 15.00, so that we could sort and load the parcels before finishing at 17.30. (In practice, I never missed the 17.15 train home.)

Despite the trailers being the smaller sized ones (15’ or so in length), only one customer used to ever provide anything more than well under half a trailer load. Many came in with only one or two pallet-sized cages, which, even with small items, can’t have been that profitable.

 

[6Gman]

My parents were regular users of these services. If i recall there were three options Convey and Deliver, Collect and Convey and finally Collect Convey and Deliver. The first two were the services my parents would have used. These services would have been for holiday luggage to and from our local station to our holiday destination.

There was a separate facility of PLA (Passengers' Luggage in Advance) which, I believe, was at a slightly discounted rate to reflect the fact that passenger tickets had also been purchased.

I used it once, in 1976 I think, for a suitcase from Cardiff to Crewe. Handed it in at Cardiff parcels depot, collected it the following day at Crewe parcels depot. By which time it had a big hole in it! Patched it up and the insurance meant I effectively had a free suitcase!

I worked on the railway station at Huddersfield for a few years, starting from spring 1979. I seem to remember C&D was collection and delivery.
We had many thousands of C&D parcels up until 1981, when BR withdrew themselves from the service, allegedly due to it being loss making !
The fleet of "National carriers" trucks, used to go to Grattan (one of the mail order catalogue firms) in Bradford and Shaw carpets at Darton (Barnsley) among others, to collect loads and bring them in to us at Huddersfield station, although the carpets normally went to Clayton West in time to meet up with the lunch time DMU service and we had to load them into BRUTE's, then later in the day, they went on an early evening train, consisting of around four parcel vans, hauled by a class 31 locomotive, to Wakefield Kirkgate. I guess they were formed into a longer train(s) at Kirkgate, as many of the parcels were bound for London, Wales and Scotland.

In (I think) 1973/74 I visited Manchester Mayfield as part of a course. It was still busy but it was explained to us that most of the catalogue firms now used their own fleets of vehicles for outward traffic (which was bulk and more likely to be profitable) but still used the railway for returns (which were random, lighter in volume and less likely to be profitable). There was a clear view that the traffic couldn't be sustained for long.

(Something similar happened to fish traffic. The fish merchants used their own road fleet for the bulk flows to cities but still expected the railway to pick up the odd boxes Grimsby to Westbury, Fleetwood to Walsall, or Aberdeen to Dingwall which cost a fortune to move.)

 

[Ken H]

Pic of a scammell scarab taken today at Keighley Bus Museum open day. Not my pic. Owner says share.

 

[Magdalia]

There was a separate facility of PLA (Passengers' Luggage in Advance) which, I believe, was at a slightly discounted rate to reflect the fact that passenger tickets had also been purchased.

I used it once, in 1976 I think, for a suitcase from Cardiff to Crewe. Handed it in at Cardiff parcels depot, collected it the following day at Crewe parcels depot. By which time it had a big hole in it! Patched it up and the insurance meant I effectively had a free suitcase!

I thought that had to be different from C&D. It sounds like something out of Agatha Christie or PG Wodehouse. I can imagine Jeeves arranging it for Wooster.

 

[Pigeon]

I thought that had to be different from C&D. It sounds like something out of Agatha Christie or PG Wodehouse. I can imagine Jeeves arranging it for Wooster.

Imagine my parents using C&D to get my school trunk home at the end of the summer term (where "school" = "misery on stilts training camp for young fascists to learn how to despise the working classes").

Only did it the once. The trunk just didn't turn up, and didn't turn up. My parents chased it repeatedly but nobody ever seemed to know what was happening with it. Eventually it materialised one week before the holidays were due to end.

 

[Gloster]

My school trunk used to be sent home by rail, probably by C&D as most of the school used hired coaches to a number of destinations after it was decided to stop using the train shortly after I started. We had to finish packing the trunks a day or two before the end of term and then a BR or NCL lorry (probably more than one vehicle or trip) would collect them. At the other end they would be delivered to our homes a few days later (end of term was normally at the end of the week); in my case it was by van.

On one occasion I had to carry the trunk home myself: on and off the coach to the nearest station and then three changes of train, two involving carrying it up and down stairs (and I had my overnight bag as well). My parents had forgotten to put enough money in my school expenses account to pay the C&D fee and my own fares home, and not being one of the favoured boys the solution was: “Tough!”

 

[Jim Jehosofat]

Pic of a scammell scarab taken today at Keighley Bus Museum open day. Not my pic. Owner says share.

That's the one, except it was banana yellow!

 

[Revaulx]

@Magdalia Littlewoods were indeed Liverpool based, but they also operated out of a trio of former cotton mills in Shaw. They only closed last year, but I don’t think they became operational until the mid-70s, i.e. too late to generate large amounts of rail traffic.

 

[Ken H]

@Magdalia Littlewoods were indeed Liverpool based, but they also operated out of a trio of former cotton mills in Shaw. They only closed last year, but I don’t think they became operational until the mid-70s, i.e. too late to generate large amounts of rail traffic.

Is that where Yodel are now?

 

[Trainfan2019]

Hadn't realised the old mail order catalogues would ship parcels by rail. Did any of them have their own sidings for train access? Wasn't White Arrow the road courier for some of the catalogue companies?

 

[alistairlees]

Hadn't realised the old mail order catalogues would ship parcels by rail. Did any of them have their own sidings for train access? Wasn't White Arrow the road courier for some of the catalogue companies?

I think a place in Sunderland had its own siding(s). I can't remember the name. Grattans in Bradford shipped out via the immediately adjacent Forster Square station I think, at least in later years.

 

[Gloster]

I think a place in Sunderland had its own siding(s). I can't remember the name. Grattans in Bradford shipped out via the immediately adjacent Forster Square station I think, at least in later years.

Sunderland was Brian Mills, Burlington, Janet Frazer, and (possibly) Peter Craig. All seem to have been part of the Littlewoods/Moores family empire.

 

[TheSeeker]

Wasn't White Arrow the road courier for some of the catalogue companies?

Was just about to mention The "White Arrow man". My mother would leave a white arrow card in the front window of our house when we wanted something returned.