Stranraer freight traffic

[whitrope]

Anyone help me with some research on freight traffic to Stranraer. I assume prior to its closure in 1965 most goods traffic for the Port would have come over the direct line from Dumfries? however did anything from within Scotland or further afield run via Girvan?

Can any older members offer advice on what was booked, what was seasonal and was may have been adhoc? I have seen a picture of D65 working a car train to Stranraer in 1966 (March 1st to be precise) I assume it must have had a Corkerhill conductor driver as Ayr/Stranraer drivers would not have had Peaks on their traction card.

Any snippet of gen however minor will be gratefully received.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

There are some great stories about taking loose coupled unfitted freights over the Girvan line in David L Smith's books but they were well before the diesel era.

 

[route101]

Is there any freight to Stranraer still or when did it stop if so?

 

[Taunton]

Unlike some other ports such as Holyhead I don't believe Stranraer had any specific freight ships, just the passenger/mail ship which generally ran just once a day. There were a substantial number of other (non railway) freight ships from other Scottish ports to Northern Ireland. There were also no real rail freight transhipment facilities at Stranraer, just a couple of narrow passenger platforms out on the pier. It's actually a poor port (which is why it's gone), a very shallow approach, where the passenger ship not infrequently churned up the mud with its propellers at low tide, and all the way up the loch.

David L Smith's "Tales of the Glasgow & South Western Railway" has to be one of the all time classic railway books, it's in my Top 10 (ie allowed in the sitting room bookcase). Not only is it both technically accurate and very atmospheric, it's also extremely funny.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Is there any freight to Stranraer still or when did it stop if so?

Died post the Speedlink review in the early 1990's - the traffic was generally one way only (export) , and was new cars from the likes of Dagenham , and rather a lot of Bulmers / Taunton cider from Hereford and the latter place. All transhipped onto trailers by Stockton Haulage.

2 Speedlink feeder trains a day via Ayr , hopelessly economic. Classic example of Speedlink getting long haul traffic to isolated locations ,with no return traffic. (and high 3d party costs)

 

[Taunton]

and the latter place.

A "latter place" .....?????!!!!!

Quite a number of the earlier railway shipping RORO services were sustained through the winter by new cars business, which were driven on/off by agency drivers, sometimes at a speed which would disappoint their future owners. Most of the new cars in Ireland (both parts) would go in this way, and the Harwich-Hook service used to bring Volkswagen and Mercedes cars in earlier times across to Britain.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

A "latter place" .....?????!!!!!

Quite a number of the earlier railway shipping RORO services were sustained through the winter by new cars business, which were driven on/off by agency drivers, sometimes at a speed which would disappoint their future owners. Most of the new cars in Ireland (both parts) would go in this way, and the Harwich-Hook service used to bring Volkswagen and Mercedes cars in earlier times across to Britain.

The latter place being Taunton ....(Cider works)

I recall brand new Volvo cars coming into Harwich by ship - parked in a very muddy field -and then being driven (badly) , at great speed onto car flats for despatch by rail. Felt sorry for the ultimate owners.

 

[randyrippley]

A "latter place" .....?????!!!!!..........................

He's never heard of Norton Fitzwarren, where it really came from

 

[ChiefPlanner]

He's never heard of Norton Fitzwarren, where it really came from

That is the place - senior moment , however all totally academic now.....

 

[randyrippley]

You've got me thinking about that........surprised it was Bulmers going across, as Magners own the right to the Bulmers name for the whole of Ireland, and have done for years. Hard to see how Bulmers themselves could sell into Ireland without breaking the licencing deal

 

[Glenmutchkin]

You've got me thinking about that........surprised it was Bulmers going across, as Magners own the right to the Bulmers name for the whole of Ireland, and have done for years. Hard to see how Bulmers themselves could sell into Ireland without breaking the licencing deal

There was a time when Magners didn't exist. The market leaders were Bulmers with Strongbow and Woodpecker and Taunton with Dry Blackthorn and Autumn Gold. Gamers was a pretty poor third.


Magners didn't appear in the UK market until 1999.

 

[randyrippley]

There was a time when Magners didn't exist. The market leaders were Bulmers with Strongbow and Woodpecker and Taunton with Dry Blackthorn and Autumn Gold. Gamers was a pretty poor third.


Magners didn't appear in the UK market until 1999.

But the Magners plant has been selling cider in Ireland under the Bulmers name since the 1930s, and any link between the companies was broken in the 1960s. The Magners name only came about when they started exporting from Ireland to the Britain. As far as I'm aware, all "Bulmers" in Ireland (north and south) was really Magners. Or should have been.........

 

[Glenmutchkin]

I was directly involved in the operation of pubs in and around Belfast in the early 1990s but cannot now recall which ciders were stocked or who supplied them.

 

[Taunton]

Don't really want to divert a Stranraer thread, but Taunton Cider is indeed originally from Norton Fitzwarren, and progressively expanded onto the old WW2 US Army supply base alongside the line, where they built a substantial rail-linked facility which, as a number here will know, became a major Speedlink shipper in the 1980s. I didn't know they sent it to Stranraer, but that would fit. There was an enthusiast on the board who encouraged this, along with the links they developed with the West Somerset Railway to facilitate connections to their line at Bishops Lydeard. Unfortunately, Taunton Cider sold out, factory closed, and all the production was transferred to non-rail connected Shepton Mallet, the facility known throughout Somerset as "The Babycham Factory". In recent times even this has been closed, and production transferred to ... the Magners factory in Ireland.

If you want proper Somerset cider then I know a few places

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Don't really want to divert a Stranraer thread, but Taunton Cider is indeed originally from Norton Fitzwarren, and progressively expanded onto the old WW2 US Army supply base alongside the line, where they built a substantial rail-linked facility which, as a number here will know, became a major Speedlink shipper in the 1980s. I didn't know they sent it to Stranraer, but that would fit. There was an enthusiast on the board who encouraged this, along with the links they developed with the West Somerset Railway to facilitate connections to their line at Bishops Lydeard. Unfortunately, Taunton Cider sold out, factory closed, and all the production was transferred to non-rail connected Shepton Mallet, the facility known throughout Somerset as "The Babycham Factory". In recent times even this has been closed, and production transferred to ... the Magners factory in Ireland.

If you want proper Somerset cider then I know a few places

A good local friend is from that part of the world , he has local contacts for non bottled cider , comes in 4 pint milk cartons with lumps of organic material in - absolute rocket fuel. To be drunk sparingly....

 

[deltic]

The 1968 wtt shows a daily weekday train between Millerhill and Stranraer which was unusually a named train, The Galloway Piper ex Millerhill and The Lothian Piper ex Stranraer. These named trains were also running in the 1962 wtt

 

[jimm]

whitrope69

If you run searches on Flickr they will throw up various pictures of freight workings in the 1980s and early 1990s - try searching for Stranraer freight and Stranraer Speedlink.

There is a bit of discussion and some pictures in this thread on RMWeb http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/18401-stockton-haulage-depot-stranraer/

A few freight-related images here too https://www.railscot.co.uk/search/index.html?textfield=stranraer#

The Speedlink services in the 1980s tended to originate at Tees Yard, as there was a lot of steel traffic from British Steel at Redcar to Northern Ireland, which was the core traffic for the Speedlink services - and was why Stockton Haulage got involved, the firm being from Teesside. Their Stranraer depot opened in 1975 or 76 on the site of the carnage sidings built during the Second World War. Other wagons with various kinds of traffic were attached and dropped at Ayr Falkland Yard, Carlisle Kingmoor and Tyne Yard as required. Bunker oil for the ferries was also carried for many years.

One bit of outbound traffic I recall from the late 1970s was feta cheese from the Stranraer creamery which was taken to Turkey in Interfrigo insulated ferry vans, which I assume were brought empty to Stranraer after bringing other traffic into the UK, though I think this was just a short-lived trial.

A train only carrying steel operated from Teesside to Stranraer for a while after the end of Speedlink, but it stopped in, I think, 1994.

Speedlink services were operated over the years by 26s, 27s, 37s and 47s, though pairs of 20s even got a look-in sometimes. See http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3268480

Class 40s seem to have pretty much disappeared once vacuum-braked freight via Girvan ended in the late 1970s.

For many years there were also daily parcels van trains from and to London Euston.

Freights get a mention along the way in Girvan & Portpatrick Railway and The Portpatrick & Wigtownshire Railways, both by CEJ Fryer (Oakwood Press), including longstanding daily overnight trains between Stranraer and College Yard in Glasgow.

Branches & Byways Southwest Scotland and the Border Counties by Robert Robotham (OPC) has a lot of information about services between Dumfries and Stranraer and pictures of freight trains from the 1950s and 1960s along that route. Until the late 1940s there were dedicated milk and fish trains to Dumfries and Carlisle.

Unlike some other ports such as Holyhead I don't believe Stranraer had any specific freight ships, just the passenger/mail ship which generally ran just once a day. There were a substantial number of other (non railway) freight ships from other Scottish ports to Northern Ireland. There were also no real rail freight transhipment facilities at Stranraer, just a couple of narrow passenger platforms out on the pier. It's actually a poor port (which is why it's gone), a very shallow approach, where the passenger ship not infrequently churned up the mud with its propellers at low tide, and all the way up the loch.

David L Smith's "Tales of the Glasgow & South Western Railway" has to be one of the all time classic railway books, it's in my Top 10 (ie allowed in the sitting room bookcase). Not only is it both technically accurate and very atmospheric, it's also extremely funny.

I would have to take issue with the suggestion the ship ran once a day. Perhaps in the early years after the line from Dumfries opened but there were morning and evening sailings both ways between Stranraer and Larne from the late 19th century.

There were some facilities at the harbour provided long before the days of the lorry park - notably a large cattle dock for transfer of livestock, which was an important traffic for many years. There were also a few sidings at the town end of the pier, though not sure whether there was a loading dock next to any of them. This was where the ramp to unload new cars from Speedlink services was later built.

I would endorse the recommendations of David L Smith's books about the railways in the South West of Scotland - whatever your specific interests they are a good read.

 

[Taunton]

The 1968 wtt shows a daily weekday train between Millerhill and Stranraer which was unusually a named train, The Galloway Piper ex Millerhill and The Lothian Piper ex Stranraer. These named trains were also running in the 1962 wtt

There were some other freight services with comparable names. The "piper" is not a reference to the Scottish musical instrument player, but to these services being vacuum braked throughout, with vacuum pipe connections needing to be made, running to faster timings. Some of the wagons ("Pipers") did not actually have vacuum brakes, but had through pipe connections as if they did, allowing them to be marshalled inside such services, up to a certain proportion. Unbraked wagons were painted grey, and vacuum fitted ones brown, to allow ready identification, but the Pipers were brown as well and the train preparer/shunter would have to look more carefully to make up the train correctly.

I would endorse the recommendations of David L Smith's books about the railways in the South West of Scotland - whatever your specific interests they are a good read.

A typical story therein. A tunnel was being rebuilt, and temporary single line working was in force. Glasgow crews got little experience with this, so the driver said he would show the fireman how to pick the hoop up. He then gives it to him saying "as we come out of the tunnel a man will be there with a stick, just drop it over that". Unfortunately as they slowly emerged the surveyor has just set up his theodolite alongside the line ...

 

[route101]

Interesting stuff.

Anyone know if Stranraer s other platform is still used?

 

[Taunton]

The issue with rail freight to Stranraer is, for many years, there was no rail freight service on the Northern Ireland side, so everything had to leave Larne by road anyway. The arrangements described with Stockton Haulage would put the freight on road trailers which avoided any further transhipment on arrival. The most substantial steel user in Northern Ireland would be the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, but I always got the impression that their heavy steel plate came directly from Scottish steelworks to the shipyard.

The main issue with specialised road trailers would be the difficulty to get a return load, so they would have to be shipped back empty, at additional cost. Meanwhile the opposite traffic, which included much livestock (sheep/cattle) to the mainland would likewise need to return empty in the other direction.

New cars are a useful, although also one way, traffic. The old expression for these on the early RoRo ships was "trade cars", those which needed driving on and off, along with a compound close to the linkspan at either end to be efficient with the unloading crew. Passengers driving were referred to as "accompanied cars". I guess this is a more accurate usage of the aviation industry term "self loading freight". I used to look after a large national company car fleet which were provided by a single supplier, who delivered them individually to each office branch around the country, collecting any returning old one. For the Belfast branch however they would only drive to Stranraer, the Belfast staff had to come across to get their vehicle there.

 

[whitrope]

whitrope69

If you run searches on Flickr they will throw up various pictures of freight workings in the 1980s and early 1990s - try searching for Stranraer freight and Stranraer Speedlink.

There is a bit of discussion and some pictures in this thread on RMWeb http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/18401-stockton-haulage-depot-stranraer/

A few freight-related images here too https://www.railscot.co.uk/search/index.html?textfield=stranraer#

The Speedlink services in the 1980s tended to originate at Tees Yard, as there was a lot of steel traffic from British Steel at Redcar to Northern Ireland, which was the core traffic for the Speedlink services - and was why Stockton Haulage got involved, the firm being from Teesside. Their Stranraer depot opened in 1975 or 76 on the site of the carnage sidings built during the Second World War. Other wagons with various kinds of traffic were attached and dropped at Ayr Falkland Yard, Carlisle Kingmoor and Tyne Yard as required. Bunker oil for the ferries was also carried for many years.

One bit of outbound traffic I recall from the late 1970s was feta cheese from the Stranraer creamery which was taken to Turkey in Interfrigo insulated ferry vans, which I assume were brought empty to Stranraer after bringing other traffic into the UK, though I think this was just a short-lived trial.

A train only carrying steel operated from Teesside to Stranraer for a while after the end of Speedlink, but it stopped in, I think, 1994.

Speedlink services were operated over the years by 26s, 27s, 37s and 47s, though pairs of 20s even got a look-in sometimes. See http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3268480

Class 40s seem to have pretty much disappeared once vacuum-braked freight via Girvan ended in the late 1970s.

For many years there were also daily parcels van trains from and to London Euston.

Freights get a mention along the way in Girvan & Portpatrick Railway and The Portpatrick & Wigtownshire Railways, both by CEJ Fryer (Oakwood Press), including longstanding daily overnight trains between Stranraer and College Yard in Glasgow.

Branches & Byways Southwest Scotland and the Border Counties by Robert Robotham (OPC) has a lot of information about services between Dumfries and Stranraer and pictures of freight trains from the 1950s and 1960s along that route. Until the late 1940s there were dedicated milk and fish trains to Dumfries and Carlisle.



I would have to take issue with the suggestion the ship ran once a day. Perhaps in the early years after the line from Dumfries opened but there were morning and evening sailings both ways between Stranraer and Larne from the late 19th century.

There were some facilities at the harbour provided long before the days of the lorry park - notably a large cattle dock for transfer of livestock, which was an important traffic for many years. There were also a few sidings at the town end of the pier, though not sure whether there was a loading dock next to any of them. This was where the ramp to unload new cars from Speedlink services was later built.

I would endorse the recommendations of David L Smith's books about the railways in the South West of Scotland - whatever your specific interests they are a good read.

Magic and very helpful ta

 

[jimm]

Interesting stuff.

Anyone know if Stranraer s other platform is still used?

Can't be used - the footbridge was removed some years ago.

 

[route101]

Wonder when it was last used ? 80S?

Can't be used - the footbridge was removed some years ago.

 

[duesselmartin]

A "latter place" .....?????!!!!!

Quite a number of the earlier railway shipping RORO services were sustained through the winter by new cars business, which were driven on/off by agency drivers, sometimes at a speed which would disappoint their future owners. Most of the new cars in Ireland (both parts) would go in this way, and the Harwich-Hook service used to bring Volkswagen and Mercedes cars in earlier times across to Britain.

I always wondered what the car ramp was for at Stranraer 20odd years ago. Back then I assumed some sort of Motorrail fossil.