RMweb Gold stovepipe Posted August 15, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 15, 2015 (edited) So, pre-nationalisation the likelihood is that parcels van would have been attached to a passing passenger train. Detached on route and attached to something else going in the right direction. Correct? Yes I think this is the case. Dedicated parcels trains became more common in British Railways days. I can recall an article in Modern Railways from the early 1960s, regarding passenger train delays on the Midland Mainline which were in part due to the amount of overtime that occurred whilst parcels were loaded and unloaded at each station. The outcome was to restrict the parcels carried to premium service items only, remarshall the parcels accommodation to the centre of the train, and run dedicated parcels services for the remaining traffic. Model Rail had a 2-part article on Parcel Train formations around 2006 or 2007. If I can find them I'll post the issues numbers. Edit: it was actually a three part series - I only have the first two, issues 110 and 115. It covers the BR era. Edited August 15, 2015 by stovepipe Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 Chaps This is getting interesting; thank you. The van to Calne, BTW, was almost certainly for sausages. The few pre-nationalisation pictures that I have found of complete parcels trains are two different ones of a Paddington- Shrewsbury working, which seems to contain a hotch-potch of things, including a six wheeled milk tank, but all GWR vehicles, and an LMS one! which looks to be all LMS vehicles. One thing I would debate is the contention that all post office parcels would have travelled in "Royal Mail" vehicles. Bagged mail was conveyed in all sorts of vehicles, in what we know as "parcels trains", and in ordinary passenger trains, either in attached vans, in the brake van, or in locked passenger compartments (the seat cushions were supposed to be turned over to stop them getting too grubby). I strongly suspect that the same applied to post office parcels that were too big to fit in a mail bag. I have watched post office traffic being loaded and unloaded many, many times, so this is eye witness testimony, if you will. Kevin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted August 15, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 15, 2015 Parcels trains were also used for a variety of positioning moves for passenger stock, particularly if there were unbalanced workings. Some also included a passenger vehicle to act as a 'staff taxi' outside normal passenger train hours. In 1938 the West London to Shrewsbury working picked empty up milk tanks at Banbury for Dorrington. The Up working was used to recover two Slip Coaches from Banbury and Reading for return to Paddington. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted August 15, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 15, 2015 Chaps This is getting interesting; thank you. The van to Calne, BTW, was almost certainly for sausages. The few pre-nationalisation pictures that I have found of complete parcels trains are two different ones of a Paddington- Shrewsbury working, which seems to contain a hotch-potch of things, including a six wheeled milk tank, but all GWR vehicles, and an LMS one! which looks to be all LMS vehicles. One thing I would debate is the contention that all post office parcels would have travelled in "Royal Mail" vehicles. Bagged mail was conveyed in all sorts of vehicles, in what we know as "parcels trains", and in ordinary passenger trains, either in attached vans, in the brake van, or in locked passenger compartments (the seat cushions were supposed to be turned over to stop them getting too grubby). I strongly suspect that the same applied to post office parcels that were too big to fit in a mail bag. I have watched post office traffic being loaded and unloaded many, many times, so this is eye witness testimony, if you will. Kevin Post Office mails came in two sorts - Letter Mail and Parcel Post and they were quite distinct from each other. As far as I know Parcel Post was not conveyed in Royal Mail vehicles - they were strictly for Letter Mail although it is quite feasible that Parcel Post was conveyed in vans attached to trains carrying Royal Mail vehicles. Letter Mail was handled by Postal staff at stations, Parcel Post was handled by railway staff and loaded to trains by them them and it was scheduled by railway personnel to meet GPO specifications for quantity (I know that because at one time that was what I did). On passenger trains you could obviously find Parcel Post and letter Mail loaded in the same brakevan area but it was still separate for handling purposes. I'm fairly sure that some Letter Mail passed on 'parcels trains', especially at Christmas time, but normally it went by passenger train or Mail trains (which included Post office Controlled trains - some of which were passenger trains and one of which was a road lorry). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 (edited) Ah, it begins to become clearer! I found a brilliant Getty image of Christmas Mail being unloaded at kings cross station, from ordinary fitted goods vans, and it includes vast numbers of parcels of all sizes, plus bagged (letter?) Mail, which has been placed in distinct piles. Also, an image showing GWR staff unloading parcels vans, probably just pre or post First World War (moustache an uniform dating!) and there is a batch of churns among all the parcels. Finally, this image http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrls891.htm . The tank wagon apparently ran Dorrington, Shrewsbury, Banbury, Woodford, Marylebone, and return. Has anyone written pre-WW2 "parcels" up for Backtrack? If not, it would make a really helpful and interesting article. Kevin Edited August 15, 2015 by Nearholmer 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted August 15, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 15, 2015 Ah, it begins to become clearer! I found a brilliant Getty image of Christmas Mail being unloaded at kings cross station, from ordinary fitted goods vans, and it includes vast numbers of parcels of all sizes, plus bagged (letter?) Mail, which has been placed in distinct piles. Also, an image showing GWR staff unloading parcels vans, probably just pre or post First World War (moustache an uniform dating!) and there is a batch of churns among all the parcels. Finally, this image http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrls891.htm . The tank wagon apparently ran Dorrington, Shrewsbury, Banbury, Woodford, Marylebone, and return. Has anyone written pre-WW2 "parcels" up for Backtrack? If not, it would make a really helpful and interesting article. Kevin If this is the Kings Cross pic on Getty (assuming the link works) then that is Parcel Post. If it was Letter Mail it wouldn't have been left like that as the GPO staff would have loaded it directly to road vehicles (or the train if it was outwards traffic), and in any case they are Parcel Post bags which were different from Letter Mail bags. http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/90771080-christmas-mail-at-kings-cross-station-1-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=X7WJLa88Cweo9HktRLaNXoaD5PukrtRsHUH42YahzSVRXwt9N1zhx9C02EIqaZC56Q0%2FB9agLgcU4ImOrLeaM0p2tR26il7jtNTZK5afdF8%3D Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 Stationmaster, Sir. How can one distinguish between letter mail bags, and parcel mail bags? Is it size? The way they are secured? Or what? It's probably a distinction too far for me, but fine-scalers will surely want to know. Kevin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted August 16, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 16, 2015 Stationmaster, Sir. How can one distinguish between letter mail bags, and parcel mail bags? Is it size? The way they are secured? Or what? It's probably a distinction too far for me, but fine-scalers will surely want to know. Kevin Simples - Parcel Post bags were larger and had a flat bottom (and I can tell you from working on the Christmas Post many, many, years ago that they tended to be an awful lot heavier than Letter Mail bags). However the other clue in the KX picture is even more telling - there's no way that Post Office staff would leave their Letter Mails trapped behind a mountain of railway parcels traffic (even in London) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwealleans Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 Someone pointed out this fantastic Ben Brooksbank shot from 1948 on Hornby's website. From the front, I reckon ex-NE D 171 van, next one no real clue, ex-LNWR bogie van, SR PMV, LNER 51' van, LMS 42' van and another teak van at the back. Any advance on that and any ideas about that lovely second vehicle? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
62613 Posted September 25, 2015 Share Posted September 25, 2015 (edited) Someone pointed out this fantastic Ben Brooksbank shot from 1948 on Hornby's website. From the front, I reckon ex-NE D 171 van, next one no real clue, ex-LNWR bogie van, SR PMV, LNER 51' van, LMS 42' van and another teak van at the back. Any advance on that and any ideas about that lovely second vehicle? The second picture is even more interesting; who would ever run a highfit immediately behind the loco. on a passenger train? Also what looks like some sort of motor car van behind that. At March, by the looks of things Edited September 25, 2015 by 62613 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Delamar Posted October 17, 2015 Author Share Posted October 17, 2015 Reading back through this thread, a bump as the new Bachmann PMV is out, also to include this shot. Kemp Town Station, 1 Oct 1967 by Ian Nolan, on Flickr 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRman Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Nice photo, Michael. What's with the big 'X'es all over the place ... well, on the two rail vehicles, anyway? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 17, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 17, 2015 Nice photo, Michael. What's with the big 'X'es all over the place ... well, on the two rail vehicles, anyway? Means they're internal use only and not to run in traffic I would suspect as the 'X' was used for that purpose elsewhere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Nice photo, Michael. What's with the big 'X'es all over the place ... well, on the two rail vehicles, anyway?It's to emphasise that the vehicles are in Internal Use, and not allowed to move from the confines of the depot. You'll notice that the vehicle in the foreground has a number, without alphabetical prefix, starting in'0'- this is another way of indentifying such vehicles. The PMV seems to have become the yard office, judging by the sign and the steps with handrail. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 (edited) I've got a vague recollection that the main building at Kemp Town was let out to a firm that bottled or pickled things, hence need for an office in a van for the railway staff, and, possibly a van rented out to store jars of pickled things in. I will try to check later to see if my memory is ciorrect. Kevin Nope! It was Lewes Road station, the other side of the tunnel, that was a pickle factory. Edited October 17, 2015 by Nearholmer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porcy Mane Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 I've got a vague recollection that the main building at Kemp Town was let out to a firm that bottled or pickled things, hence need for an office in a van for the railway staff, and, possibly a van rented out to store jars of pickled things in. I will try to check later to see if my memory is ciorrect. I suspect that van is being used as additional warehousing. It seems to be full of boxes of Barker & Dobson sweetie jars. I didn't realise Everton mints were that popular. P Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Ah, your eyesight is better than mine; I was trying to work out what it said on the boxes! Lots and lots of sweetie shops on front at Brighton. K Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Delamar Posted October 17, 2015 Author Share Posted October 17, 2015 What is the van on the right? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 What is the van on the right?It's an LMS wartime design, also used (with a different underframe) by the LNER- Diagram 2103? This one was fitted from new; others were built with Morton unfitted gear and vac-fitted in the 1950s. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Clive Mortimore Posted October 17, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 17, 2015 (edited) What is the van on the right? Hi Michael LMS Dia D2103 edit...Brian must have posted while I was looking in me Essery LMS wagons book. Edited October 17, 2015 by Clive Mortimore 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Delamar Posted October 18, 2015 Author Share Posted October 18, 2015 Cheers gents Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Phil Bullock Posted October 18, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 18, 2015 I've got a vague recollection that the main building at Kemp Town was let out to a firm that bottled or pickled things, Wasn't that Manchester Picalilli? Phil 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Delamar Posted October 21, 2015 Author Share Posted October 21, 2015 55010 on the approach to Doncaster by chris, on Flickr 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray M Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 55010 on the approach to Doncaster by chris, on Flickr Talk about overkill. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 Crikey, MD! Is that a regular working? Rough date? And, where is its nameplate? Apologies if that is a lot of questions, but a photo like that invites them. Kevin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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