OLD TIMETABLES

[50C]

I have just bought 3 time tables from a railwayana auction for what I consider a snip-they are

1 Bradshaws for the month of January 1947-all regions(original price 4 shillings for
over 1000 pages of pure nostalgia)

2 South and West of England for September 1950(one shilling old money)

3 North Eastern England June to September 1953(one shilling old money)

All are in excellant condition considering they are over 55 years old

The comprehensive timetables and cross referencing of services contained within these volumes ,especially the Bradshaws,is incredible.It makes you wonder how they were ever compiled without the use of computers.It also shows all the forgotten stations on the long since closed railway lines which will be very useful info when attempting the Railway Magazine crossword.

Out of interest and being an ex Selby lad I have started to put together a mid week timetable for Selby in July 1953-just as I was getting into my trainspotting phase.This includes the many non stop expresses.
It is amazing what was going on and you didnt realise it , being a youngster who could only afford an ABC loco shed book never mind a time table guide. .For instance there were 8 sleepers passed through in the early morning between 1-30am and 3-30am.Any express train coming from the Doncaster direction we simplistically thought came from KX and likewise from York it must have come from Edinborough--how wrong we were

Im also compiling one for a July saturday when all the none stop timetabled excursions
to Bridlington passed through. It is very interesting to see where they originated from as this was info not available to us at the time. These were the trains that brought locos off the LMS ie black fives,crabs,jubilees,4fs and 8fs -a very pleasant change, dare I say, to the constant passage of LNER pacifics etc-Oh happy days

If anyone is interested in train times local to them in 1947,1950 and 1953 please drop me a line and I will see if I can put a bit of a package together

50C

[John B]

I too have been ruminating on the vagaries of some old timetables and am fascinated at the services provided by British Railways on the old Malton and Driffield Junction railway in East Yorkshire. I have posted this on the Yorkshire Wolds Railways Restoration Project (YWRRP) forum and quote it here in full, I hope it is of interest:

I have been doing some research into the train timings of the old M &DJR as I have in my possession a BR passenger services (North Eastern Region) orange coloured timetable valid from September 27th 1948.

On page 81 is the timetable for trains between Malton and Driffield. There are several interesting features.

Firstly there were only weekday services (so no traffic on weekends) here are the early morning departure times:

Malton dep. .................. 7.00am
Settrington ................... 7.08am
North Grimston .............. 7.11am
Wharram ...................... 7.16am
Burdale ........................ 7.21am
Sledmere & Fimber ......... 7.26am
Wetwang ...................... 7.30am
Garton .......................... 7.36am
Driffield arr. ................... 7.42am

There also was an 11.00am departure arriving Driffield at 11.42am and a 5.55pm departure arriving Driffield at 6.37. These three trains were all scheduled to complete the journey in 42 minutes.

There were three departures from Driffield at 8.56am arr. Malton at 9.39am (taking 43mins), 12.00 midday arr. 12.43pm (taking 43 minutes) and 7.30pm eve. arr. 8.15pm (taking 45mins)

Secondly, the distance between the two towns is given as exactly 20 miles, all the intermediate stations have their cumulative distances listed in the TT from the town of departure. By my reckoning the Malton - Driffield journey time is accomplished at an average speed of 28.57 mph. Quite a respectable time for the seven stop/starts between the towns. The question does arise in my mind though, why was the return journey scheduled a few minutes slower? Perhaps they were timed to meet other trains, they certainly were closely scheduled at the Driffield end to meet Hull to Bridlington trains?

Thirdly, the earliest morning departures from both towns had through carriages destined either to, or from Bridlington, there must therefore have been some level of commuter traffic between Malton & Driffield and Bridlington to warrant this.

The early morning departure from Malton, at 7.00am arrived Driffield at 7.42am, this is the precise time of the departure of the Hull to Bridlington train from Driffield to which the through carriages were presumably attached. It must have been a very slick operation to get the through carriages attached so quickly. Was the "Dodger" a push pull service? If it was, then after the Hull - Brid train would have arrived at Driffield then the "Dodger" would have come into station limits pushing the through carriages onto the back of the Brid train.

Fourthly, there were connecting services from York, Hull and Bridlington, these are all given in the TT as departure times from these towns. The York connection for instance was a 4.30am start for the journey from York to Malton to catch the 7.00am Malton departure.

As a matter of interest I also have a Bradshaw’s timetable for the previous year for October 1947. The Malton - Driffield line is listed under the LNER heading. The main differences I have picked up between the two timetables are as follows.

The mid-morning service departs Malton at the slightly later time of 11.10am (taking 45 minutes for the journey) The other two Malton departure times remain the same taking 42 minutes each. The 12.00 mid-day departure from Driffield is at a later time in 1947 leaving Driffield at 12.25pm (taking 43 minutes to get to Malton)


I hope others find this information of interest as it does shed some light on the passenger operations of the old M & DJR. If further information is required then please do not hesitate to ask.

John

[Bryan]

Definately interested in all 3 years please.
My Father in law was a fireman at Selby over that period and he has been trying to build up a list of locos around at the time.
(Have used the loco shed sites to assist him)
Now I might be able to give him a list of trains to try and match locos to.
Thanks.

[50C]

Thanks for your comments John B.I have checked my earlier version of Bradshaws(January 1947) and the Malton-Driffield-Malton timings are the same except for the 11-00am which left Malton at 11-10am arriving in Driffield at 11-55am(45 mins). The 12-00 noon from Driffield left at 12-25 pm and arrived in Malton at 1-08 pm(43 mins). As in your October issue.

As my edition is dated January 6th to 31st 1947 I assume they were issued on a monthly basis but I dont suppose they changed very much month on month because of the comprehensive nature of the document .I guess the one major change was the switch to the summer timetable.However was a summer timetable operating so soon after the war.

50C

[50C]

Definately interested in all 3 years please.
My Father in law was a fireman at Selby over that period and he has been trying to build up a list of locos around at the time.
(Have used the loco shed sites to assist him)
Now I might be able to give him a list of trains to try and match locos to.
Thanks.

I have put together a spread sheet of the Selby loco allocations for most of the years between 1947 and 1959 when the shed closed.I have also completed the Selby mid week July 1953 timetable. I will email both of them to you and if you have any additions or suggested improvements please let me know.
I am know working on the 1953 July Saturday timetable and then I will try to repeat the process for January 1947 .

50C

[Bryan]

Does anyone have access to the working timetable for this period?
As there is also a large amount of freight traffic through Selby.

[50C]

I too would be very interested in the Selby freight timetable for the early 1950s.Being on the scene at that time I will try and give a brief summary of what I can remember bearing in mind that it was over 50 years ago!

There were two main freight routes through the town
1 West Yorkshire to Hull
2 North South ECML

Most of the traffic to Hull consisted of coal trains from the West Yorkshire mines. I think the wagons were collected from the local pits by Selby based locos(Q6 and J27) and moved to Gascoingne Wood marshalling yard some 5 miles to the West of Selby where they were formed into full train loads by the Selby based heavy duty T1 and Q1 tank engines.I also think some coal trains arrived from the North East to the yard via Northallerton ,Ripon ,Wetherby and Church Fenton hauled by 51B and 51D WDs.The coal trains were then hauled to Hull for export using Hull Diarycoates(53A) K3s and WDs. The balancing workings consisted of empties or train loads of imported pit props.There were also 2 fish trains from Hull each passing through either side of the 6.55pm York to Swindon stopper.What a wonderful aroma that left in the station! There were also a few mixed van trains from Hull to the West Riding and beyond usually worked by 53A B1s and K3s .Dont remember seeing many parcel trains on this route
On the ECML one of the main traffic flows was steel products from Scunthorpe to Teeside which were hauled by Frodingham(36C) O1,O4 and WDs,together with imported products from Immingham(40B) hauled by O1,O4,WD,K3 and the ocassional K2s.Iron ore trains from the South brought Doncaster(36A) K3,WD,O1,04,O2s and Retford (36E)O4s.Peterboro (35A) K2,K3,WD AND V2s were common on a varied range of mixed traffic including brick trains.There were also mix freights from Whitmoore yard hauled by March(31B) O1,O4,K3,K1 and WDs. Pacifics were quite rare on freight unless working to Doncaster plant
The most common workings were the York B16s in either direction-could be 8 to 10 a day.
Express van trains were in the capable hands of the V2s from various sheds..Parcel and empty stock trains were fairly frequent and usually in the hands of pacifics and V2s.The A2/2s only seem to be used on these trains.There was a North bound empty stock working at about 4pm,could be up to 20 vechicles,on which I had my only sighting of the 'un-named streak' 60700.York was the change over point for most of the above locos and they would all work back South over the following days.
On top of this there were the local Selby pick-up workings which included trains of used ballast and rubbish for Barlow tip on the Seby Goole line and the local collection of loaded sugar beet wagons from every local station for the British Sugar coperation factory which is now the site of the Potter Group railhead
As you can see Selby was a very busy rail junction with all of the above mixed in with a frequent passenger service.Not realising it at the time most of the above freights must have been timetabled but a lot of them were held in loops for long periods because of the density of traffic so must have been well off schedule.Immediately to the south of the station there were 2 south bound and 2 north bound loops,to the west of the station there were 1 west bound and 2 east bound loops(through the shed yard) and immediately to the north in the BOCM complex were 2 north and 2 south bound loops all of which were very well utilised. .
On top of all this were the 'run as required freights',light engine movements including scottish pacifics to and from Doncaster plant,LMS locos on excursions off the midland etc --halcyon days indeed.
Sorry for the long ramble but once I sat down to start composing the memories just flooded back and I had to keep going.
I am hope that some of my 'aged colleagues' in the Forum may be able to elaborate on the above and add some more comments from their 50's trainspotting days.

50C

[Bryan]

You can add to the list of pick up freights the Cawood branch.
My Father in law was often on that run from Selby shed.
Plus the pick up to Driffield, this would also collect / deposit Derwent valley traffic at Cliffe.

[strang steel]

On the subject of WTTs, I was interested in the 1958 Peterborough North to Yarmouth Beach version that appeared on Ebay a couple of days ago, but after 48 hours it is already well above my price range.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0513211599

John

[AndyRush]

For Working Timetables, try the NERA Collection at the Ken Hoole Study Centre. The Excel file of the catalogue is at
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/m.h.ellison/ ... eracat.xls

The National Archive also has a collection of NE Region WTTs under the RAIL914 reference

HTH

Andy

[Irishswissernie]

As regards the Midland & Great Northern Railway WTT; Xpress Publishing have covered this line in their Railway Operations series giving a detailed analysis of the trains, times and traffic.

I also have an extensive collection of Working Timetables, most of which I have scanned and can provide CD's of specific areas or in some cases paper copies (it depends on the size of the services covered) These are mentioned on my fotopic gallery Front Pages.
Link below. A bit cheaper than trying to get hold of an original!

Links below

[strang steel]

Thanks for the offer Irishswissernie.

My interest is really the late 50s/early 60s Lincoln District, especially the lines south and east from Lincoln but also Grantham - Boston, Spalding - Boston and, moving further afield - the lines west of Grantham to Nottingham and Leicester (Belgrave Road).

Anything concerning the GN&LNWR Jt seems to command a ridiculous premium these days.

John

[Richard Maund]

[quote="AndyRush"]For Working Timetables, try the NERA Collection at the Ken Hoole Study Centre. The Excel file of the catalogue is at
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/m.h.ellison/ ... eracat.xls

The National Archive also has a collection of NE Region WTTs under the RAIL914 reference

[/quote]

As the original enquirer was based in York, presumably (s)he will be aware that NRM have a good collection in their Search Engine facility.

[Phoenix]

Hi Guys, if this thread isn't totally dead, I might be able to help Working Time Table info for Selby. In-box me to open a conversation. I have an interest in loco working and carriage stock that local Selby might be able to help me with to.

In 1947, The Hull-Selby-Pontefract-Leeds evening mail train was made up of two Selby coach sets. It left Hull at 8:40pm Express Pasenger. At Selby the train devided, the first half left for Pontefract at 9:26 pm arriving at 9:46, the second half left at 9:32 for Leeds arrving at 10:11. I suspect the locos will have been Selby based LNER D20 (NER Class R) 4-4-0s. Any photographs and information about the service, locos and coaching stock would be most welcome.