brown and grey?

What era?

In BR steam days it showed whether they were brake-fitted or not (grey).

That leads to the next question: why are some fitted with brakes and others are not?

And in LMS days they were all grey, until 1934, than they were gradually all painted brown.

"Jim Northolland" wrote

Two reasons - tradition and cost.

In the early days of railways freight traffic moved very slowly and it was generally within the capacity of a loco and brake van to stop its train, therefore it was considered uneconomic and uneccessary to fit continuous brakes to freight stock. However as freight speeds increased then braking became more critical and the continuous vacuum brake was increasingly added to existing stock and increasingly to new build.

In the BR era, grey livery indicated unfitted stock, whilst those with continuous (vacuum and later air) brakes were painted bauxite.

John.

Jim,

All wagons were fitted with manual brakes which could be operated from the lineside, but the fitted wagons were also fitted with vacuum or air brakes which could be controlled from the locomotive.

Trains of unfitted wagons were usually quite slow affairs and the locomotive drivers had to exercise quite a bit of skill to keep their trains under control when moving. Often, the locomotive and brake van would not have sufficient braking to keep the train under control on downhill sections and the train would have to be stopped before the gradient and some or all of the wagon brakes be applied. At the foot of the gradient, the train would have to be stopped again to release the brakes.

With fitted wagons under control of the driver, the average speed of a freight train could be significantly higher since the driver had very much more control over the train with control of the brakes on every vehicle in the train.

You could also find trains with a mixture of fitted and non-fitted wagons. The fitted wagons would be grouped immediately behind the loco and would provide some extra braking control for the driver.

Jim.

Thanks everybody for all the information. This in turn leads to another question. Are ther reasons why BR would prescribe the use of fitted stock or unfitted stock for specific purposes or services? I can imagine that if you want freight to be moved fast, you use fitted stock to be put into designated fast goods trains. Or was it mere a matter of coincidence, what kind of wagon would turn up at a siding? And was it also a matter of luck if a goods train happened to consist of a large propostion of fitted wagons which would lead to a less streneous ride for the engine crew as they had more braking power? I am very interested to learn more about goods train operations and the rationale behind it. Every answer and story is greatly appreciated.

Thanks everybody for all the information. This in turn leads to another question. Are ther reasons why BR would prescribe the use of fitted stock or unfitted stock for specific purposes or services? I can imagine that if you want freight to be moved fast, you use fitted stock to be put into designated fast goods trains. Or was it mere a matter of coincidence, what kind of wagon would turn up at a siding? And was it also a matter of luck if a goods train happened to consist of a large propostion of fitted wagons which would lead to a less streneous ride for the engine crew as they had more braking power? I am very interested to learn more about goods train operations and the rationale behind it. Every answer and story is greatly appreciated.

The average goods train was pretty slow, and not time-dependent.

Vans (not opens) for special traffic like fruit, fish and other perishables were fitted. These could also be attached to passenger trains as well as running in special, faster freight trains. There were also some fitted general vans used in fast-fitted goods trains like the Kings Cross to Edinburgh which was regularly pulled by a pacific, for general goods that needed fast shipment at a premium price.

Jim,

Another important factor that concerned freight train operations was the type of coupling used. Fitted trains normally had screw link or Instanter couplings which ensured that the wagons were buffered up when in a train and this prevented any back and forward oscillation of the vehicles when on the move.

However, non fitted wagons were normally loose coupled and used the three link coupling. This coupling allowed wagons to oscillate backwards and forwards and could lead to many problems when the train was in motion. The first problem was starting off and taking up the slack between wagons. With a long train, if the driver started off too quickly, as the slack on each wagon was taken up, the wagons were accelerating faster and faster until the brake van was reached which might have to accelerate from zero to several miles per hour in an instant - that's if a coupling hadn't broken before that. On the move, a driver had to try and keep his couplings tight or you could get more coupling breakages - like when a train was coming down a slight gradient and all the wagons buffered up, then the slack was taken up when the train reached level or an up gradient. The guard in the brake van could help matters by keeping the brake on in his van.

If you want some fearsome stories about loose coupled freight workings, try and get a hold of "Tales of the Glasgow and South Western" by David Smith. The G&SWR had a main line which was a bit of a roller coaster and freight trains had a continual fight against keeping to some sort of time and not breaking any couplings. In some cases if loco crews wanted to check if they still had the train complete when decending a gradient, they would look out for the sparks and flames from the brake van where the guard had full brakes on to try and keep the train in check. Some guards would carry a pick handle to jam in the spokes of the brake wheel to give extra leverage.

Jim.

What I have on railway freight ops is all at . .

Mike

Mike, fascinating website. Your link to index for frieght operations doesn't seem to work.

Sorry - That section should have been uploaded following a major clear-out - I will get on it - It's on a friends webspace as the site is too big to fit on the space available on my own accounts.

Regards

Mike

Should now be fixed - Sorry about that.

For what its worth I have (I think) just about finished the pictures of all the diesel and electric locomotives (App 4) and all the EMUs DMUs and DEMUs and push-pull sets (App-3).

Have made a start on the BR steam engines, still to do the pre-nationalisation steam engines though. Coaches will have to wait.

Plan is to produce what amounts to a simple 'know your enemy' chart for beginners.

Regards

Mike

I think the grey ones are fitted for vacuum brakes and the brown ones are not. Both could be seen in the same train but it would have to be an unfitted train.

Other way round - Basic lead grey paint was used, under BR grey meant 'unfitted' (no vacuum brake) and 'bauxite' or brown meant 'fitted with a vacuum brake. Not always correct however there is a pic in one of Dave Larkins 1970s books showing a former GWR open with no vacuum brake in 'fitted' livery.

Something I've never really understood is why Britain ran loose coupled unfitted goods trains so long after the rest of the world. Was it simply because it enabled underpowered locos constrained by our tiny loading gauge to get a train moving albeit slowly- the other side of the coin from the disadvantages of loose fitted freight- or was it also a failure to update operating practices? I've got a copy of SNCF's rule book for train formation from about 1948 and though a large number of wagons were not fitted with continuous brakes (Westinghouse in their case) most of those did have through pipes and screw couplings were universal. Goods trains (and mixed passenger and goods) did come in two categories- fast and slow essentially- with different requirements for the proportion of wagons with continuous brakes on various ruling grades but unpiped wagons, though they clearly still existed, seem to have been a rarity by then only really allowed in small numbers at the rear of slow trains. Yet right into the 1960s I can remember the slow coal and mineral trains clanking and crashing their way in and out of Oxford and you could hear them at night from our house a good mile away. Britain did have piped but unfitted wagons as well didn't it?

One advantage of three-link loose coupling was that the engine could set-back, pushing the wagons together, the set uff, overcoming the intertial of one wagon at a time. Once rolling the train required little power to keep it rolling. Another factor was the prevalence of private owner wagons in a world run on coal.

Mke

I bet the poor guard loved the driver who did that. Apart from the probability of snapped couplings, the front of the train could be travelling at 10mph but the brake van stationary. Then, Wham. After the guard had unstuck himself from the back wall of the van, checked for broken arms, legs etc., he then had to set about rearranging his van, hoping the upturned stove hadn't set it alight. Next stop he would probably have a quiet word with the driver !!

Did wagons that were piped but not fitted have a specific colour? Just interested.