Does your layout run a fish train?

[Sun Chariot]

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.

 

[xotGD]

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?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Some of those blue spot vans must have had a very short life in service then.

Or were they just used for other goods?

With the loss of Fish traffic in 1968, many vans entered use as SPV (TOPS NRV) for Express Parcels use.
Others saw departmental usage, as tools / stores vans.

 

[Gloster]

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.

 

[Sun Chariot]

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

Oh of course. My grey cells!
Akin to how TPO vans' POS/POT telegraph code translated to TOPS NSX and NTX; ditto the CCT (NOV) / GUV (NKX, NLV)

 

[xotGD]

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

 

[Sun Chariot]

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.

 

[Gloster]

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.

 

[Sun Chariot]

@Gloster other than fish vans, horse boxes, mail and parcels vans, do you know of any other passenger rated 4-whl vans?

 

[Gloster]

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.)

 

[Iskra]

I came across a fish van yesterday and thought of this thread

 

[Sun Chariot]

Love it @Iskra .

I like those ex-Air Ministry tank wagons, too. I have two of Dapol's current release, one of Bachmann's anchor mount tank wagons, plus 12 Peco "Wonderful Wagon" kits still to build.

 

[BrianW]

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

 

[Sun Chariot]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Surely no fish train is complete without one of these vans?:

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.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Inspired idea @61653 HTAFC

 

[4COR]

I read an interesting article on Blue Spot services at Blood and Custard today - https://www.bloodandcustard.net/bluespot.html - interestingly, it looks like the Eastern region Blue Spot insul-fish vans did sometimes work through the widened lines onto the Southern (for onwards travel to the channel ports for export). It looks like the diagram 800/801 vans would have been used, and (from the Bluebell Railway page on their Insul-Fish van E87720 (https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/wagon/87720.html)) these may have gone vie Eridge and the Cuckoo line to Eastbourne.

I just need to persuade my son who has one of the Hornby set of three Blue Spot insul-Fish vans that he wouldn't mind the "NOT TO WORK BETWEEN TONBRIDGE AND BATTLE VIA ROBERTSBRIDGE SOUTHERN REGION" markings (but these would be a custom transfer I think as well, so a future project!). Usefully, Rapido did a limited edition with these markings so I have an idea what they should look like.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Good sleuthing @4COR - yes, the Blood & Custard site is a really good source of info. I've not read that article, as the Blue Spot era is a little outside my scope.
Were those "through" services run as fish only all the way to the coast? Or were those through vans attached to another service, once on BR(S) metals?

My kit construction is tardy - time is being much consumed by fostering a 16 month old rescue German Shepherd. His energy and curiosity demands constant attention; and his shedding fur definitely doesn't go well with kit adhesive or not-yet-dry paint...

 

[4COR]

Good sleuthing @4COR - yes, the Blood & Custard site is a really good source of info. I've not read that article, as the Blue Spot era is a little outside my scope.
Were those "through" services run as fish only all the way to the coast? Or were those through vans attached to another service, once on BR(S) metals?

My kit construction is tardy - time is being much consumed by fostering a 16 month old rescue German Shepherd. His energy and curiosity demands constant attention; and his shedding fur definitely doesn't go well with kit adhesive or not-yet-dry paint...

I believe they were tacked onto a suitable train and sent on their way (being XP rated they could well have gone onto a passenger service as well). The Bluebell site indicates at Victoria - so I presume they would have gone Blackfriars, Loughborough Junction, Canterbury Rd Junction and then up the Chatham.

I could probably just about get away with a small amount of suitably marked LNER/BR(E) fish vans within another service for my time frame, but it had pretty much died out shortly after (around 1963) so I suspect by the late 50s/early 60s they were few and far between. I can't find any photos of them in an actual train from looking around. There is an LNER D214 with the SR markings at this URL: https://alextrack.co.uk/model_railw...ing_coaching_stock/fish_vans_lner_214_br.html - taken, of all places, at Birmingham New St!

 

[Sun Chariot]

Another three pre-built 'n' painted ex-LNER dia 134 fish vans have been acquired, thanks to a Horsham based eBay seller. I'd snapped up another two of the kits - unbuilt - last month. That takes my fish haul to 19 wagons + brake van.
Once I know how to calm our 16 month old fostered German Shepherd's incessant energy level, I'll then be able to make a start on the to-build kits.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Post #22's kits are still waiting to be built. My biggest excuse is the plastic-chewing tendencies of our (now) 18 month old German Shepherd that we've fostered for a local GSD rescue-cente since mid December.
He has just finished decimating a 1 week-old "indestructible" tug toy - including chewing its tough plastic centre boss. So what hope for delicate Parkside fish van kits!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

^ ...and that's why I'm a cat person! Though even kitties have a tendency to chase model trains around when they're young.
I've also kept pet rats in the past, they certainly wouldn't mix well with model railways with their tendency to chew wires.

 

[Cowley]

Post #22's kits are still waiting to be built. My biggest excuse is the plastic-chewing tendencies of our (now) 18 month old German Shepherd that we've fostered for a local GSD rescue-cente since mid December.
He has just finished decimating a 1 week-old "indestructible" tug toy - including chewing its tough plastic centre boss. So what hope for delicate Parkside fish van kits!

Heavy dog weathering?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Heavy dog weathering?

Ergo: heavy dog slobber over any exposed kit parts which haven't already been chewed into a decidedly un-fish-van shaped mulch of plastic...
If there's an Olympic medal for chewing...

 

[xotGD]

I've also kept pet rats in the past, they certainly wouldn't mix well with model railways

Only if you were running a fleet of Class 25s!

 

[Sun Chariot]

A shout-out to 4COR of this forum and his Workbench thread. With more progress than I've achieved during the darker half of the year!

On the Workbench...

The "Do you have any model railway project" thread (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/do-you-have-any-model-railway-projects-on-the-go.202608/) from COVID lockdowns seems to have fallen by the wayside, and this is a little more specific, so I'll kick this off! Hope to keep adding as we go -...

www.railforums.co.uk

Today I snapped up a mint Ian Kirk GWR dia S6 van kit. Hard to find the Super Series ones, these days.
That means I can tweak my Colin Ashby S6 kit into a dia S12 (it was a later build, with different axle box covers and buffers) for a bit more variety.
Now... can I get all these darned kits built, painted, lettered 'n' weathered before Rapido despatches me an ex-GNR dia 113!

 

[4COR]

Today I snapped up a mint Ian Kirk GWR dia S6 van kit. Hard to find the Super Series ones, these days.
That means I can tweak my Colin Ashby S6 kit into a dia S12 (it was a later build, with different axle box covers and buffers) for a bit more variety.
Now... can I get all these darned kits built, painted, lettered 'n' weathered before Rapido despatches me an ex-GNR dia 113!

Excellent - hopefully some workbench output in the near future I hope!