Loco and brake van from different companies?

[darkscot]

This is something that has just entered my mind for some reason. Would there ever be a situation where say an LMS loco would be pulling a train with an LNER or GWR brake van at the end?

I know trains had a mixture of wagons from different companies bu what about this?

[LC&DR]

I won't say it never happened but I believe the individual companies tried to keep their own locomotives, brake vans, and non-pool wagons under their own control and on their own territory. Many brake vans were painted with routing restrictions, especially on the GWR which not only kept them on the owning railway, but often limited their use to a particular district. The branding took the form of "To Work between ....... and ........" or words to that effect, although the GWR painted the name of the allocated station or district on the side of the van.

It wasn't just brake vans which were restricted. Before the Great War, when there were many more separate companies, any company who kept another company's wagons for five or more days was fined by the Railway Clearing House. Wagons had to be returned to the owning company, loaded or empty, immediately. During the Great War some companies entered into Common User agreements for a restricted number of certain types of wagon which allowed a company other than the owning company to re-load it when it had discharged its previous load. Wagons to which the agreements did not apply were written "Return to GWR (or other company name) Not Common User". All Privately owned wagons were also regarded as "Not Common User" and when empty had to be worked back empty to the owner's siding without delay. The term "Non-Pool" was synonymous with "Not Common User" and became more commonly used after 1939.

During the Second World War the Railway Executive of the Ministry of Transport took control of nearly all wagons and pooled them so they all became Common User for the duration. This included requisitioning most Private Owner Wagons too. In practice however brake vans tended to remain in the workings they did before. Certain wagons were restricted by virtue of exceptional size or weight and these still retained the operating restriction. Perhaps one of the best know restrictions was the line between Tonbridge and Hastings where only narrow width vehicles were permitted.

In 1948 with the formation of British Railways all wagons operating on their system (with a very small exceptions) were absorbed into their stock, Private Owner Wagons were taken into stock permanently, and their owners were given financial compensation. Only petroleum and chemical tank wagons, and less than 20,000 special wagons for exceptional traffic remained in private ownership.

[darkscot]

All Privately owned wagons were also regarded as "Not Common User" and when empty had to be worked back empty to the owner's siding without delay.

Thanks for this very full reply, I find the above information especially interesting. I have this image of private wagons languishing in some remote siding for months on end and thought that companies had more wagons than the needed to compensate for this.

[Nick Holliday]

All Privately owned wagons were also regarded as "Not Common User" and when empty had to be worked back empty to the owner's siding without delay.

Thanks for this very full reply, I find the above information especially interesting. I have this image of private wagons languishing in some remote siding for months on end and thought that companies had more wagons than the needed to compensate for this.

Given the nature of the coal trade, in which the majority of PO wagons were involved, the first comment needs elaborating. If the wagon was owned by the local trader, then, when it was empty, it was already back at its home base. The trader was subject to two charges if he held a wagon for too long, demurrage was payable to the wagon's owner after an agreed time allowed for unloading, and a siding charge, payable to the railway company. It was in the operators' interest to turn wagons around as quickly as possible, unless they owned both the wagon and the siding. Empty wagons would be sent to a colliery for reloading, and many had instructions painted on the wagon, saying where empty wagons were to be sent. Obviously colliery owned wagons would be sent back home once unloaded, and large agents, such as Stephenson Clarke, often operated from strategically located railway yards, usually hubs convenient for one or more coal fields.
Except under war conditions, coal wagons generally carried coal, usually a one way traffic, although there are reports that during the summer, when coal demand was low, some PO wagons were used to carry other loads, such as building materials, and sources of such materials, like brickworks, were scattered widely around the UK.

[footplate]

Hi darkscot this is also a subject I’m interested in. The information provided by forum members is really useful and interesting.

[LC&DR]

Thank you Nick for enhancing the reply.

The subject of use and detention of wagons has been a complicated topic, not only for private owner wagons, but railway owned wagons too. The matter of free days, placement and such like keeping many clerks in goods offices fully employed trying to sort out customer accounts, claims, disputes and rates. Then prior to Nationalisation there was the matter of dividing up the charges and costs between the different companies which is where the Railway Clearing House comes into the picture. The amount of paperwork involved in the days before computers is mind boggling. It was no wonder that the railways needed so many clerical officers.

On top of that there was the Passenger and Parcels business which added another huge level of administration.

[darkscot]

The bureaucracy involved with PO wagons is something I have always wondered about. On layouts it is common to see a train made up of a variety of different wagons, but I wonder how true to life that was? Although having a mixture looks interesting, my preference is to run a train of mainly the same wagon with maybe 2-3 different ones at the end.

I have a large collection of PO wagons from different Barnsley collieries plus several from Wadsworths coal merchants. I picked up a load of these years ago for only about £2 each!

[LC&DR]

Before 1939 there were between 4,000 and 5,000 different traders owning between 1 and 1,000 wagons each. There were nearly 700,000 privately owned wagons. 11,500 were owned by traders who owned less than ten vehicles each.

Even most of the larger traders would not have had sufficient rolling stock to run block loads, so goods trains will have conveyed a mixture of wagons owned by different traders, as well as plenty of railway company owned wagons as well.

Places like Toton Marshalling Yard would be a gathering place for wagons from many collieries in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, each heading for numerous destinations, many in London and the South East. Wath Yard near Rotherham and Barnsley would serve the same purpose for collieries in South and West Yorkshire.

In the other direction empty wagons would return to be sent back to collieries for re-loading, sometimes to the same customers, but often to someone else.

It will have been a very colourful time. Ports like Immingham would also be a destination for thousands of coal wagons, and in South Wales too tens of thousands of wagons of coal trundled to the coast where ships waited to take coal all over the world.