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Does your layout run a fish train?

Sun Chariot

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Good stuff @xotGD The photos I found of those diagram 801 trains, were monsters. 50 vans length not uncommon on the Aberdeen to Kings Cross Fish.
Blue Spot marked vans were fitted with roller bearing axle boxes, non-Spot (or spotless!) ones had oil lubed axle boxes.

Brixham which is a lot further SW had fish traffic (and still is an important port for fish), but even that wasn't enough to save the Brixham-Churston branch.
A lot of traffic-loss was due to how British Railways changed their pricing model for the conveyance of fish.
At Nationalisation, BR perpetuated a "consignment" pricing. Essentially, if you wanted BR to move your fish by rail, your fee was based on the size/weight of what you were sending. If a van only contained one consignment, that van would be running to its destination near-empty and at a loss.

In 1964, BR amended the model, from "per consignment" to "per vanload". Suddenly, the cost to the fish vendors jumped - paying for van's "full load equivalent" irrespective of how little fish was being carried in it.
That pricing policy change - coupled with the improvements to Britain's trunk roads and road haulage timings - meant the majority of the fish traffic moved to road transport; removing BR's loss-making business and also creating more flexibility for fish vendors.
BR's fish business declined rapidly and it was all but gone in 1968.
 
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xotGD

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BR's fish business declined rapidly and it was all but gone in 1968
Some of those blue spot vans must have had a very short life in service then.

Or were they just used for other goods?
 

Gloster

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With the loss of Fish traffic in 1968, many of these vans entered use as TOPs code SPV for Express Parcels use.
Others saw departmental usage, as tools / stores vans.

SPV was their pre-TOPS telegraph code: it stood for Special Parcels Van. The TOPS code was NRV.
 

xotGD

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Interesting that the fish vans were classified as coaching stock rather than freight wagons.
 

Sun Chariot

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Interesting that the fish vans were classified as coaching stock rather than freight wagons.
Yes and the Steve Banks' article I linked in post #1 has super photos of fish vans in passenger workings (pre Grouping and Big Four eras).
Some railway companies painted their fish vans' livery akin to passenger stock. For example, LMS used a crimson lake.
 
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Gloster

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Interesting that the fish vans were classified as coaching stock rather than freight wagons.

The fish needed to be transported rapidly to get to the markets while it was still fresh, so the vans needed to be to passenger standards so that they could be attached to passenger trains when need be, such as when there is only the odd wagon being sent down a side-line. Once they are built to passenger standards, they will be classified as passenger vehicles.
 

Gloster

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Off hand there were some Fruit Vans, Special Cattle Vans, Calf Boxes, Milk Vans (although they became six-wheel or bogie) and some vans for meat traffic (Harris of Calne, Palethorpes and probably others). Also some of the earlier Motor Car Vans. (Passenger vehicles are not my area, so I will search and ruminate further.)
 

BrianW

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I can recall seeing (and smelling!) a fish train in Kings Cross behind a 'streak' (A4 Pacific) in the 1950s/ early 60s.
 

Sun Chariot

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I can recall seeing (and smelling!) a fish train in Kings Cross behind a 'streak' (A4 Pacific) in the 1950s/ early 60s.
Thanks @BrianW - I'd previously read A4s might have hauled the Aberdeen Fish but your memory puts cast iron proof that they did. Superb.

I didn't realise the fish specials went into KX station; I thought they went to the old York Road goods depot. That passenger train shed must've had a fair ol' waft...
 

BrianW

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Thanks @BrianW - I'd previously read A4s might have hauled the Aberdeen Fish but your memory puts cast iron proof that they did. Superb.

I didn't realise the fish specials went into KX station; I thought they went to the old York Road goods depot. That passenger train shed must've had a fair ol' waft...
Not sure whether it was my trainspotting days (1962/63 Combined Volumes) or earlier as a kid 'visiting' to see my Uncle Robert - a top link driver from York.

The fish train was in either Platform 1 or I think more likely Plat 5 from my sketchy memory of the architecture behind at the platform end.

I generally preferred the 'country end' of Plat 8- the wheelslip, clouds of steam and chuffing smoke and racket setting off uphill for the tunnel, while the new Brush Type 2s (later Class 31 as per Triang) came up from below into the Suburban platforms alongside or down via York Road station.

(Uncle Robert vastly preferred the new Deltics- no smoke, wind, rain, grime, but warm, powerful, easy ... athroaty roaring success!)

And of course occasionally getting into 'Top Shed' (36A) across the canal and doubtless through this or that fence and past a Shedmaster's blind eye ...

Thank you for evoking happy memories, even if a bit off-topic! Wish I still had photos- sigh ...
 

ChiefPlanner

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One of the last fish train survivors was Milford Haven to presumably Paddington goods. Lucrative traffic at one time.

(though I recall loaded fish vans in the Treherbet bay at Neath (General) - possibly detached off the above working. Early 60's
 

Sun Chariot

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I generally preferred the 'country end' of Plat 8- the wheelslip, clouds of steam and chuffing smoke and racket setting off uphill for the tunnel.
I have several stereo audio recordings by the late, great Peter Handford. Including wonderful segments at King's Cross, with Gresley's A3s and A4s sending plumes to the sky, as they tackle the greasy rails.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Surely no fish train is complete without one of these vans?:
20241001_175529.jpg
Image shows a Peco OO-9 van in the colours of Henderson's Relish, along with a (not to scale) bottle of the famous Sheffield condiment.
 

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