GWR brake van design - why single verandah?

[MarkSG]

Apologies if this seems a bit of a dim question, and I have no reason for asking it other than idle curiosity, but can anyone explain why the GWR retained a single-verandah design for its brake vans long after a double-verandah, symmetrical design had become the norm everywhere else?

 

I am aware that, in the early days of the railways, a lot of companies built brake vans that were asymmetrical with a distinct front and back. But, at least by the grouping, the double-ended design was the norm practically everywhere - except the GWR. So why did the GWR cling on to what, by then, must surely have well known to be suboptimal? 

[Harlequin]

This is an old chestnut that's been discussed a lot. For example:

 

[Miss Prism]

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/139249-why-were-toads-not-double-ended/

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/125030-gwr-goods-brake-vans-page-on-gwrorg/page/3/#comment-3938925

 

[Wheatley]

Two answers:

 

1. Because its the GWR so why would they do what everyone else was doing ? See also gauge, lower v upper quadrant signals, ATC v AWS, 21"Hg v 25" Hg vacuum brakes  deisel hydraulic v deisel electric etc etc ...

 

2. "For reasons of historical accident", which is how I eventually ended up answering most of the questions from my Year in Industry student last year as he continually questioned some of the more arcane ways the railway operates.

 

Neither of which, I concede, is actually an answer. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Wheatley

[Michael Hodgson]

It was so he could sit outside on a fine sunny day admiring the scenery of the English Riveria when he was in the West Country, and could sit inside beside the stove to keep dry if he was in Wales where the weather was Welsh!

[MidlandRed]

Having read the various threads, I’m quite surprised the GW and WR didn’t find the operational limitations of single ended brake vans weren’t a PITA - from my own (limited) observation of WR trains around Birmingham in the early 60s, the Toad brake vans were:-

 

1) Usually facing the ‘correct’ way (with the balcony at the back of the train)

2) Very regularly were lettered with ‘return to xyz RU’ or with an origin and destination stated

The pros and cons of various designs re draughts etc are no doubt surmountable but the operational aspects are somewhat perplexing. 
 

Planning my own layout, I am using mainly BR brake vans but because it’s Worcestershire, and mid 60s, and WR/LMR border a couple of Toads (particularly after the recent announcement of the Rapido one - plus obtaining a Hornby one from a friend along with a shunter’s truck also) are planned - however I have no ‘turning’ arrangement for stock. I had the ‘brainwave’ of coupling the two Toads back to back to ensure there’d always be the possibility of them appearing the right way round on the back of trains without the intervention of hands!! Apart from that they may be parked up in a siding with other odd stock like a Wickham trolley and a PWM shunter. 
 

However it does strike me that the only way the WR could manage these brake vans was to place restrictive use on each van (allocating to route or depot), and they surely must have been turned on loco turntables at times? 
 

I guess if the staff had never known anything else then why worry?

 

Incidentally, could someone confirm what an RU, as in Return to Stourbridge RU, means? Also presumably ‘not in common use’ indicated they weren’t classified as common user owing to various bans beyond WR metals?

 

No doubt the late 60s change in practice of goods guards travelling on locos and the spread of fully fitted and even air braked freight overcame the issue completely anyway. 

Edited March 14, 2022 by MidlandRed

[Michael Hodgson]

5 minutes ago, MidlandRed said:

Incidentally, could someone confirm what an RU, as in Return to Stourbridge RU, means? Also presumably ‘not in common use’ indicated they weren’t classified as common user owing to various bans beyond WR metals?

I think it simply stood for Restricted Use.

 

6 minutes ago, MidlandRed said:

 

they surely must have been turned on loco turntables at times? 
 

 

I would have thought triangles would be more likely,

[Steamport Southport]

Didn't need to turn them and I doubt they bothered, apart from one known location where they did for operational reasons and I believe wheel wear, which was Princetown where they used the engine shed turntable.

 

They had a hatch at the other end so that you could do everything you needed to do.

 

I also disagree with the idea they were out dated. Most other railways were still using short wheel based brake vans when the GWR were using long wheel base 20 tonners.

 

 

 

Jason

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[MidlandRed]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I think it simply stood for Restricted Use.

 

I would have thought triangles would be more likely,

Oh right - makes sense and yes agreed - where available. However if the brake van is going on a return journey with the loco? 

 

57 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Didn't need to turn them and I doubt they bothered, apart from one known location where they did for operational reasons and I believe wheel wear, which was Princetown where they used the engine shed turntable.

 

They had a hatch at the other end so that you could do everything you needed to do.

 

I also disagree with the idea they were out dated. Most other railways were still using short wheel based brake vans when the GWR were using long wheel base 20 tonners.

 

 

 

Jason

 

 

It’s a little surprising the WR could afford to allocate relatively scarce resources like brake van (s) to run purely on one rural branch line - surely the pick up goods would have run elsewhere as well, where the wear could be balanced. 
 

As I say, from my limited observation they usually seemed to be facing the correct way - I’ll have to look at some photos and see how random the direction of WR brake vans actually is. 
 

I do recall someone telling me (I don’t know how accurately) the class 122 used on the Stourbridge Town working was turned (presumably at Worcester) or rotated with other units, to avoid uneven wheel wear (the branch is curved throughout). I’m not sure if the goods branch had similar issues with brake vans! However they would have run up and down it far less than the class 122. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by MidlandRed

[Miss Prism]

"What's all this about being the wrong way round?"

 

[33C]

When I was a guard, many years ago, we always wanted the verandah facing the train so you could see and monitor the running of same more easily and without the need to constantly look around the sides. The windows were not always clean enough to see  through and it always seemed to be less draughty and warmer if the wagon adjacent was a van. 

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

"What's all this about being the wrong way round?"

 

Now I'm thoroughly sceptical of the idea that brakes were turned - I simply don't see the infrastructure for it at yards and goods stations. However, I do wonder if on this occasion the train has been marshalled so that both brakes have their verandahs facing the load, for observational purposes as @33C says. On the other hand, it's only a load of rails.

 

6 hours ago, 33C said:

When I was a guard, many years ago, we always wanted the verandah facing the train 

 

But how did you get what you wanted? Or did you not get what you wanted half the time?

 

6 hours ago, 33C said:

so you could see and monitor the running of same more easily and without the need to constantly look around the sides. 

 

But going out onto the verandah wan't found necessary on other regions; admittedly their more modern brakes had duckets but in earlier days there were plenty of brakes with hardly any way of looking out. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Compound2632

[Michael Hodgson]

8 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

Oh right - makes sense and yes agreed - where available. However if the brake van is going on a return journey with the loco? 

 

Few turntables were big enough to turn even a tank engine + van together,  so where the loco is being turned, it's still more faff to turn both.  However if the loco is going to use a triangle to turn, it's no more work provided you have shunted in such a sequence that you happen to have the van attached when you do so.

 

Don't forget the crews were not playing trains - the attitude of most was "job and home".  In practice most pick-up freights would be out and back, it's still a faff just to turn the loco.  Anyway at a branch terminus you can only do that if there is a turntable there, so tender/bunker first in one direction.  It would relatively rare to find a triangle at a terminus - tehy were provided for traffic reasons, which tended to be at junctions or big complex stations.

 

Film was expensive and the majority of photographers preferred views of locos running chimney first, so I think an analysis of old photos would give you a false impression that trains mostly ran "the right way round".

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

However if the loco is going to use a triangle to turn,

 

And at how many places on the Great Western was that actually done? It would involve section occupancy to say nothing of extra work for three signalmen.

[Miss Prism]

I find the notion of Toads being put on turntables and triangles to be a bit absurd.

[The Stationmaster]

10 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

Having read the various threads, I’m quite surprised the GW and WR didn’t find the operational limitations of single ended brake vans weren’t a PITA - from my own (limited) observation of WR trains around Birmingham in the early 60s, the Toad brake vans were:-

 

1) Usually facing the ‘correct’ way (with the balcony at the back of the train)

2) Very regularly were lettered with ‘return to xyz RU’ or with an origin and destination stated

The pros and cons of various designs re draughts etc are no doubt surmountable but the operational aspects are somewhat perplexing. 
 

Planning my own layout, I am using mainly BR brake vans but because it’s Worcestershire, and mid 60s, and WR/LMR border a couple of Toads (particularly after the recent announcement of the Rapido one - plus obtaining a Hornby one from a friend along with a shunter’s truck also) are planned - however I have no ‘turning’ arrangement for stock. I had the ‘brainwave’ of coupling the two Toads back to back to ensure there’d always be the possibility of them appearing the right way round on the back of trains without the intervention of hands!! Apart from that they may be parked up in a siding with other odd stock like a Wickham trolley and a PWM shunter. 
 

However it does strike me that the only way the WR could manage these brake vans was to place restrictive use on each van (allocating to route or depot), and they surely must have been turned on loco turntables at times? 
 

I guess if the staff had never known anything else then why worry?

 

Incidentally, could someone confirm what an RU, as in Return to Stourbridge RU, means? Also presumably ‘not in common use’ indicated they weren’t classified as common user owing to various bans beyond WR metals?

 

No doubt the late 60s change in practice of goods guards travelling on locos and the spread of fully fitted and even air braked freight overcame the issue completely anyway. 

Let's go through a few facts - again.

 

RU stood for Restricted User. i.e. the place named on the van was the user of it and (officially) nowhere else.  The main reason for this was to ensure that locations had the number of brakevans they needed to cover their traffic demands hence some vans even having their complete working diagrams painted on them as well as the simple RU wordst.  A far more effective - hopefully - system of management than vans going off anywhere and not returning in balance which could leave a location short of vans and hence trains being canceled.   'Not In Common Use' also meant exactly what it said - i.e they weren't in the national count of the total number of brakevans and therefore could not be counted in figures for that pool, and more importantly would not be part of the daily balancing (between Regions) of that count.  So again the marking was part of a system of control of use and availability of the vans.

 

A $64,000 question always seems to be what was the right way round for a GWR pattern brakevan?  The basic answer of course is that such a question was irrelevant because whichever way round it was the Guard had to look out over the side of the verandah to observe his train properly (as the Rules required him to do).  A more relevant question would be why did the GWR not use lookout duckets on its freight brakevans in order to avoid the Guard having to look out over the side of the verandah?  And I've never seen any reference to that in any Minute books etc but I suspect the GWR didn't like the idea of something which didn'y t necessarily offer such a good view and which meant the Guard would sit to use it.  By putting all the essentials out on the verandah it meant that the Guard had to go ouside the nice cosy cabin to do his job.

 

As the Guard had to look out over the side of the verandah it didn't make any difference which way round the van was although verandah leading would perhaps be better in some situations.

 

Interestingly apart from the WR ban, on safety grounds, of using these vans in ordinary freight working imposed some time during 1965 I have never seen any written evidence that they were banned by other Regions and of course plenty of them were transferred with Regional boundary changes and remained in use subsequently.  At the time - early 1950s - when the various markings restricting their use were introduced I suspect they might not have been the only single ended vans on BR and there were definitely vans with far less safe verandah areas than those on the GWR pattern vans.

[MidlandRed]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

I find the notion of Toads being put on turntables and triangles to be a bit absurd.

Me too really, but I guess it depends how much the organisation values the guard and their ability to do their safety critical job, and whether any limitations caused by the equipment provided might impact their ability to do it (for instance on mineral trains where a front facing verandah might mean the guard is less able to carry out their duties, particularly observing the train, owing to the volume of coal dust in their eyes even whilst simply standing on the verandah (unless they wear eye protection) - this may also be an issue simply in wet or other inclement weather. Would this not impact potentially on the amount of look out occurring? I guess we won’t know but an interesting thought. 
 

Regarding the linked photo at Tenby, there appear to be rather a lot of staff in that rear Toad (any travelling as passengers could surely have done so in the front one??!!). One hopes that if the brake control is required to be operated, the guard (possibly the person looking out of the rear window) can get there without obstruction!! 

Edited March 15, 2022 by MidlandRed

[MidlandRed]

Duplicate post

Edited March 15, 2022 by MidlandRed

[Michael Hodgson]

33 minutes ago, MidlandRed said:

 

Regarding the linked photo at Tenby, there appear to be rather a lot of staff in that rear Toad (any travelling as passengers could surely have done so in the front one??!!). One hopes that if the brake control is required to be operated, the guard (possibly the person looking out of the rear window) can get there without obstruction!! 

Given the type of load and as the captions says, it's a PW train.  Workers didn't have their own little vans back then.    They're not passengers they're PW men on their way to/from their worksite.  There will also be tools on board one or both vans.

 

The gentleman looking back probably isn't the Guard.  Anything he sees behind the train isn't unlikely to be a reason to stop as such danger is now behind him - he should be looking forwards for any signs of trouble.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Michael Hodgson

[Legend]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

Interestingly apart from the WR ban, on safety grounds, of using these vans in ordinary freight working imposed some time during 1965 I have never seen any written evidence that they were banned by other Regions and of course plenty of them were transferred with Regional boundary changes and remained in use subsequently.  At the time - early 1950s - when the various markings restricting their use were introduced I suspect they might not have been the only single ended vans on BR and there were definitely vans with far less safe verandah areas than those on the GWR pattern vans.

 

Very interesting thread . What was the safety issue that restricted their use in 1965 Mike ?

 

So a Toad could be run attached to a freight train either way round as opposed to the traditional balcony at the back that you usually see on layouts ?

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Legend said:

So a Toad could be run attached to a freight train either way round as opposed to the traditional balcony at the back that you usually see on layouts ?

 

Not could be, would be. Indeed, as @33C posted, the guard might prefer verandah leading rather than trailing, though as Mike @The Stationmaster says, that makes no difference in the light of the rule requiring the guard to lean over the side to look out and anyway wouldn't help if there was a van near the end of the train.

 

For optimum operational realism, if a brake has gone from left to right across your scene, it should make its return journey from right to left in the same orientation, which is an argument against turntable fiddle yards, return loops, or pick-up-and-rotate cassettes!

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

And at how many places on the Great Western was that actually done? It would involve section occupancy to say nothing of extra work for three signalmen.

In the steam age the most obvious one was Newquay after the turntable had gone (which i thin was in the 1930s) but the triangle was actually a triangular junction.  tender engines working specials to Porthcawl might well have turned on the triangular junction at Pyle.

 

52 minutes ago, Legend said:

 

Very interesting thread . What was the safety issue that restricted their use in 1965 Mike ?

 

So a Toad could be run attached to a freight train either way round as opposed to the traditional balcony at the back that you usually see on layouts ?

Lack of a ready means of escape from the non-verandah end in the event of a collision.  I have delved through various things over some years trying to find out what prompted it and it was probably a collision of some sort which trapped the Guard but I have never been able to find anything about it.  The main reason I know the ban was imposed in 1965 was that not long after I started full time on the WR in 1966 I asked someone about the non-use of GWR pattern vans and was told that they had been banned the previous year - so it was very fresh in memory for many then.  Additionally one of my Guards in 1973 was bemoaning the loss of GWR style vans and he too quoted 1965 as the year that they were banned. 

 

I think the 'traditional way round' might even be a railway modelling tradition rather than a real railway one.  For instance our local branch freight trip reversed enroute from the yard where it started so for c.50% of both its outward and return workings the verandah would be trailing and for the other c50% it would be leading.

[33C]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Now I'm thoroughly sceptical of the idea that brakes were turned - I simply don't see the infrastructure for it at yards and goods stations. However, I do wonder if on this occasion the train has been marshalled so that both brakes have their verandahs facing the load, for observational purposes as @33C says. On the other hand, it's only a load of rails.

 

 

But how did you get what you wanted? Or did you not get what you wanted half the time?

 

 

But going out onto the verandah wan't found necessary on other regions; admittedly their more modern brakes had duckets but in earlier days there were plenty of brakes with hardly any way of looking out. 

The first van in the road was the one you took, irrespective of which way round it was. With a Toad, 50/50, and you hope the last bloke hadn't sh@t in the stove! 

[MidlandRed]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Given the type of load and as the captions says, it's a PW train.  Workers didn't have their own little vans back then.    They're not passengers they're PW men on their way to/from their worksite.  There will also be tools on board one or both vans.

 

The gentleman looking back probably isn't the Guard.  Anything he sees behind the train isn't unlikely to be a reason to stop as such danger is now behind him - he should be looking forwards for any signs of trouble.

Yes I’d realised that - however one would have thought they would have ensconced themselves in the spare brake van at the other end (unless the loco has possibly just run round). 

[GeoffAlan]

I remember reading an autobiography of a railwayman based somewhere just outside the GW area. Apparently the guards hated getting a GW Toad, in place of their normal LMS ones and it was all down to the lack of verandah at one end. Also he stated that the preferred orientation, should they get lumbered with one was verandah next to the train.