Looking back

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I wonder what figures would replace those here if this was being written for 2015?

[Chris from Nailsea]

The total number of carriages and their total seating capacity, relative to the population at the time, are quite remarkable. 

Don't let member 'broadgage' see this. 

[Electric train]

The total number of carriages and their total seating capacity, relative to the population at the time, are quite remarkable. 

Turn around times at each end were not as efficient then, maintenance need to be done more often and there was a great number of line / route mileage than now.

The 1930's was post grouping (semi Nationalisation), the railways needed state compensation for the war effort which did a lot of damage; also there was a realisation at the time of the great industrial might, the National Grid was being constructed etc.

There is huge investment in the railways now, however if I were hazard a guess and compare the cost with today we are doing it cheaper

[grahame]

The railways were in other businesses that they've exited from too

[grahame]

The total number of carriages and their total seating capacity, relative to the population at the time, are quite remarkable. 

Turn around times at each end were not as efficient then, maintenance need to be done more often and there was a great number of line / route mileage than now.

The efficiency difference is quite remarkable ... I can recall hearing comment with my lifetime of rakes of carriages that were used only on Fridays and summer Saturdays.   And a single journey per day was not uncommon for long distance trains.  Apart from the sleepers, are there any single-journey trains left?  I suspect that even the Aberdeen / Dundee / Inverness to London / Plymouth services double back, at least for a shorter journey such as back up to Leeds?

[stuving]

The railways were in other businesses that they've exited from too

Well, sort of. From Wikipedia's entry on Pickfords:

In 1920, the company was sold again, to Hays Wharf Limited, on the back of a burgeoning post-World War I home removals business. Pickfords still continued to operate under that name. In turn Hays Wharf was taken over by the four main British railway companies in 1934 and was subsequently nationalised in 1947 as part of British Road Services[3] and what would become the National Freight Corporation (NFC) in the 1969.[1]

So I wonder whether that count includes road removals as well.

By 1934, most of the "last mile" railway distribution system was already obsolete, and largely replaced by the railways' own road vehicles operating from fewer, bigger, railheads. I can remember the cheeky little Scammell Scarab tractors in the 50s, though not their precursors that were around in the 30s. Removals using a single vehicle point-point without even two transhipments are going to rapidly take the bulk of the trade from now on.

Small vans and lorries can into general use very quickly after the war (indeed, starting before it). I've been looking at some of my father's diaries, written in the 30s, as a teenager on a family farm in Aberdeenshire. His mother's family ran two village shops nearby, and had a regular van service covering the area. They also had phones in the shops, at a time when few ordinary houses or isolated farms did. He comments at one point that the farm was losing its regular weekly visit from the fish van, though I can remember in the 1950s when his mother was living in Inverurie that a fish van came once a week to visit her house and the four next to it at the end of a steep narrow lane (it reversed up).

[JayMac]

The efficiency difference is quite remarkable ... I can recall hearing comment with my lifetime of rakes of carriages that were used only on Fridays and summer Saturdays.   And a single journey per day was not uncommon for long distance trains.  Apart from the sleepers, are there any single-journey trains left?  I suspect that even the Aberdeen / Dundee / Inverness to London / Plymouth services double back, at least for a shorter journey such as back up to Leeds?

The Aberdeen-Penzance CrossCountry service starts from Edinburgh's Craigentinny depot and runs ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) to Dundee. It then forms the 0640 Dundee-Aberdeen, arriving 0757.

0820 Aberdeen-Penzance 2143

Then it forms the 2208 Penzance-Plymouth arriving 0001. Then off to bed at Laira depot.

The King's Cross-Inverness service starts from Leeds' Neville Hill depot and runs ECS to Harrogate. It then forms the 0734 Harrogate-King's Cross, arriving 1035.

1200 King's Cross-Inverness 2006

It then runs ECS to Inverness depot.

The Inverness-King's Cross service starts from Inverness' depot and runs ECS to Inverness.

0755 Inverness-King's Cross 1551

Then it forms the 1719 King's Cross-Hull, arriving 2004. From there it's ECS to Leeds' Neville Hill depot.

From that you can see these sets operate at least one other passenger service per day in addition to their main journey.

Then there is the the Arriva Trains Wales Business Service. This makes just one return trip per day.

0533 Holyhead-Cardiff Central 0958
ECS to Cardiff Canton depot
ECS from Cardiff Canton depot to Cardiff Central
1716 Cardiff Central-Holyhead 2145

[IndustryInsider]

Even more staggering than the amount of surplus stock is the number of signal boxes.  10900 then, down to 800 or so now, and down to a planned 14 in the not too distant future!

[stuving]

The total number of carriages and their total seating capacity, relative to the population at the time, are quite remarkable. 

Don't let member 'broadgage' see this. 

Some while back I copied the figures from the Network RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) Passenger Rolling Stock of 2011 into Excel. Using those (now a little out of date) gives a total vehicle count of about 11,000 - a fourfold reduction from 1934.

Now how was the 1934 figure generated? And what dictated the number of coaches "in use"?

I imagine that on rationalisation each component organisation provided a set of figures, and as relative importance depended on big numbers they would likely list everything with nearly all its wheels left. Given the low priority for scrapping stock (if you don't lift the siding and dispose of the land it saves almost nothing) and the history of mergers and takeovers of smaller units, I think you'd expect a high figure even allowing for different operating methods. 

I understand that then (and until the end of steam, if not later) trains would usually be taken out of a terminus once empty, cleaned and prepared in carriage sidings, and then brought back to form a later train. That is efficient in its use of mainline locos, which can escape immediately, and terminus space as you need no third track and "headshunt" distance at the closed end. It's less efficient in siding space and carriage numbers, and (as a guess) maybe developed because there were plenty of coaches in the 30s.

[4064ReadingAbbey]

Some while back I copied the figures from the Network RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) Passenger Rolling Stock of 2011 into Excel. Using those (now a little out of date) gives a total vehicle count of about 11,000 - a fourfold reduction from 1934.

Now how was the 1934 figure generated? And what dictated the number of coaches "in use"?

The 1962 Beeching Report, page 15, may give some enlightenment in the classifications and gives the following figures for coaching stock...

Total number of gangway coaches allocated to fast and semi-fast services 18,500

(of which)

Number in year-round service  5,500
Additional vehicles for regular summer service  2,000
Available for high peak service  8,900
Under repair  2,100

A large number of vehicles available for high peak traffic were only required on a limited number of occasions as the following table, relating to the last 6,000 vehicles in the fleet, shows:-

Number of coaches                     Required on not more than:

2,000                                            10 occasions
2,000                                            14 occasions
2,000                                            18 occasions

Mind-boggling, huh?

[Chris from Nailsea]

My mind is indeed suitably boggled. 

Perhaps that perception - that there are apparently thousands of railway carriages just standing about in sidings somewhere - is why there are still so many recent calls from the travelling public to 'please just put on an extra carriage to my overcrowded train(s)!'

Yes, there were thousands of 'spare' railway carriages in 1934 - but there weren't in 2014! 

[onthecushions]

 
The "heritage" sector has 371 Mark 2's, 1059 Mark 1's, 437 grouping and 668 pre-grouping carriages, at 159 sites, according to VCT. A few come complete with hens.

OTC

[JayMac]

Who or what are VCT?

[Red Squirrel]

I'd take a wild crazy guess he means these lovely people. Either that or a Venture Capital Trust. But I'd go for the carriage people, given the context 

[onthecushions]

I'd take a wild crazy guess he means these lovely people. Either that or a Venture Capital Trust. But I'd go for the carriage people, given the context 

Spot on.
 
OTC