Brakevans

Heading south from Quorn for Swithland yard on the Great Central Railway is a rolling stock re-shuffle "freight" train (which has just completed shunting Quorn yard) with the guard and shunter silhouetted in the guards van whilst approaching out of the low winter sun is two car diesel multiple unit 51427+50321 with the first northbound train of the day, 17th January 2015

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/16509325456/

 

All the 813 funds Toads are used as brake vans. We have 5:
SVR x 1
AVR x 2
WSR x 2

nb

 

The GCR has 4 regular freight trains in use .....the Vans, Minerals (Windcutters), Tanks and "Mixed". Additionally there are the PWay ballast wagons and mobile cranes. All these use brake vans, usually front and rear (for convenience). They are in use at Gala events, P way work and for photo charters. Some experienced guards I believe, do use their brake to keep the couplings tight but some leave all the braking to the loco crew.

 

These two have been match wagons for years already. Last used I believe when the C-stock needed to be split at Edgware Road following the bombing on 7/7/05. They are also not ex-BR vehicles, despite being to essentially the standard BR design. Nice to see them getting some love.

 

They also get used at Swanage for loco moves between Swanage and Norden and vice versa when locos are visiting or off to another lines gala or to a third party for work. And due to not being rail connected even locos to and from Herston Works that need to go via Norden.
Image of Manston heading off to the MHR on November 28

 

The one type of brakevan I wish more railways preserved, they are probably the best built of all brakevans ever made!
Although, I admit, the six-wheeled variants were really weird looking.

 

It will never stop amazing me how the SR had the biggest built brakevans and yet, weren't a heavy goods line.
What did these monsters do in BR service?

 

They had a lot of fast freight, much of it was mixed in with ordinary passenger services (the four track sections of SR mainline didn't have separate goods and passenger lines, unlike some other parts of the country). So there was a high premium on braking performance.

I think you could make a good case for the Queen Marys being the best all-round brake vans to run in this country, given the fact when the demand for brake vans declined in the 1980s and into the 1990s, it was the Queen Marys that survived for the few remaining duties in preference to any others.

Tom

 

There are a lot of missing designs. Once heard a rumour of a GCR body surviving but not sure anything came of it.
Dean Forest adn ELR at least do brake van rides- highlty enjoyable.

 

Yup - at NVR we usually top and tail the demonstration freight on our freight driving days - and the participants are invited to have a go on the trailing brake van brakes (closely supervised of course) at bringing the loose-coupled rake to a controlled stop without yo-yoing Come and have a go - we usually run three or four a year...

On photo charters we try to have a single brake van for prototypical rakes.

There is also a dedicated civils brake van used on works trains (currently in grey following extensive refurbishment by the Wagon Group a couple of years or so back).

 

We offer full line brake van rides at galas on the GWSR in either our Queen Mary or the Toad. I would agree with Tom that the QM is definitely the superior van (in all other respects though, GWR wagonry is certainly superior ) of our other operational brake vans, the Shark and LMS brake vans are probably equal worst in terms of comfort.

 

The real thing of course is retaining the skills to run unfitted trains.

 

We'll convert you, even if it is one wagon at a time ...

Not my video, but see from 9'24" - this is largely unfitted. Our normal practice is also to run with one brake van and swap ends at each end of the line. Driving unfitted trains is part of our driver competence (and a separate competence for goods guards). Our plan is to run more goods trains this year in order to maintain competence.



And some bonus Q class footage from five years ago ...



Brake van rides: It's become the practice to offer them for a nominal donation at galas on a short (but fitted) goods rake, doing a circuit of Horsted Keynes station. The complete circuit is about a mile and, from timings by a certain ornithologically-minded gricer, about eight minutes round trip. View from one such trip leaving HK ...



Tom

 

I think my favourite brake van ride was in front of Union of South Africa

 

Isn't this CLC brake van basically a GCR design?
CLC 509950 Brake Van built 1903 (rhrp.org.uk)

 

I’ve not really tracked asset ownership, but isn’t it a bit odd that - if that page is to be believed - the Somerset and Dorset Trust own an ex-Cheshire Lines Committee brakevan currently based in Westmorland?

One feels a tactical transfer might make sense!

Tom

 

I suspect the ownership field may be wrong, that brake van moved north a few years ago. (It's not a vehicle I've ever clapped eyes on, so I'm just guessing really.)

 

I believe there's an ex-GNR 8-wheel rigid wheelbase brake van in preservation, but where?

 

Tanfield (but owned by the NYMR) according to the wagon survey

 

I remember reading somewhere once that if the Queen Mary's ventured off the Southern region in BR days the LMR or which other region one ended up on would try and hang onto them, although the smaller Southern ones, the pill box type, weren't that popular elsewhere, although their braking performance was good, due to their being 25tons, as opposed to 20 tons for the LMS/LNER/BR ones.

The vans which other regions didn't like or want were the GWR toads.