LM Supplies Manager Question Regarding Sale Of Ballast

Andy873 · 9 Aug 2026

In early 1966, the LM Region's Supplies Manager writes to the Estates Department asking for consent for putting up for sale almost 88,000 cubic yards of old ballast on a closed line, which will be put out to competitive tendering. Now I understand why the Estates Dept has to give consent to the sale of this ballast, but why is it left to the Supplies Manager to sell it?

Why isn't the Estates Dept dealing with this sale? or perhaps the Civil Engineering Dept?

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sh24 · 9 Aug 2026

Maybe the Suppliers Manager (Procurement in 2020’s speak) was considered to have the right commercial skills to maximise value from the sale?

Magdalia · 9 Aug 2026

Andy873 said:
In early 1966, the LM Region's Supplies Manager writes to the Estates Department asking for consent for putting up for sale almost 88,000 cubic yards of old ballast on a closed line, which will be put out to competitive tendering. Now I understand why the Estates Dept has to give consent to the sale of this ballast, but why is it left to the Supplies Manager to sell it?

Why isn't the Estates Dept dealing with this sale? or perhaps the Civil Engineering Dept?

At the time the British Railways Board had a Supplies Committee that was in charge of supplies. This mainly involved purchases (anything from uniforms to sleepers) but also included disposals. It was very bureaucratic, with price thresholds determining which contracts had to go to the BRB Supplies Committee for approval, which had to be reported to the the BRB Supplies Committee, in a report produced every three months, and which could be decided at a regional level, without reference to the BRB Supplies Committee. Each region would have a Supplies Manager, and each regional board probably had its own Supplies Committee too, with another lot of price thresholds.

It was the 1960s bureaucratic way of controlling expenditure. Estates or Civil Engineering wouldn't be dealing with the sale because they were not budget holders and had no power to buy or sell.

Andy873 · 13 Aug 2026

sh24 said:
Maybe the Suppliers Manager (Procurement in 2020’s speak) was considered to have the right commercial skills to maximise value from the sale?

Magdalia said:
At the time the British Railways Board had a Supplies Committee that was in charge of supplies. This mainly involved purchases (anything from uniforms to sleepers) but also included disposals. It was very bureaucratic, with price thresholds determining which contracts had to go to the BRB Supplies Committee for approval, which had to be reported to the the BRB Supplies Committee, in a report produced every three months, and which could be decided at a regional level, without reference to the BRB Supplies Committee. Each region would have a Supplies Manager, and each regional board probably had its own Supplies Committee too, with another lot of price thresholds.

It was the 1960s bureaucratic way of controlling expenditure. Estates or Civil Engineering wouldn't be dealing with the sale because they were not budget holders and had no power to buy or sell.

Sorry for the late reply to this. I see what you're both saying here, perhaps if you've got the right skills for negotiating purchases then I'm sure you would be ok dealing with tenders for the sale of something.

Andy873 · 2 Oct 2026

While on the subject of ballast I'd like to ask what might sound a silly question - If you have a double line and one of the two lines has been lifted, could you remove the ballast of the lifted track while the other line is still in situ?

yorksrob · 2 Oct 2026

Andy873 said:
While on the subject of ballast I'd like to ask what might sound a silly question - If you have a double line and one of the two lines has been lifted, could you remove the ballast of the lifted track while the other line is still in situ?

I've not seen any evidence of this happenning on the single lines I've been on.

Gloster · 2 Oct 2026

Andy873 said:
While on the subject of ballast I'd like to ask what might sound a silly question - If you have a double line and one of the two lines has been lifted, could you remove the ballast of the lifted track while the other line is still in situ?

I would think that it was probably too difficult and expensive to bother about: fresh ballast is not very costly. You have got to get a train to put the ballast in (which means no other train can use the remaining line * ), and either a lot of men to laboriously load the wagons or equipment to do the same job. And what do you end up with: a load of dirty ballast that can’t be used until it has been cleaned.

* - If you do it on Sunday when there are no trains, you have PW staff, drivers, guards and probably signalmen, all pleased to be earning extra on top of their forty hours.

Rescars · 2 Oct 2026

Would removing the ballast from the lifted line be likely to have any impact on the stability of the remaining line?

Sir Felix Pole · 2 Oct 2026

Rescars said:
Would removing the ballast from the lifted line be likely to have any impact on the stability of the remaining line?

You would also risk disturbing drains, culverts, signalling cables etc. so not worth the effort removing the ballast. There might be a dig-out if the remaining line was slewed to ease the curvature.

Andy873 · 3 Oct 2026

Rescars said:
Would removing the ballast from the lifted line be likely to have any impact on the stability of the remaining line?

Sir Felix Pole said:
You would also risk disturbing drains, culverts, signalling cables etc. so not worth the effort removing the ballast. There might be a dig-out if the remaining line was slewed to ease the curvature.

The bottom line then - It's not practical that way, could as an alternative BR simply say to the contractor they are lifting the remaining track from date X and you can remove all ballast up to the point near to where we have got up to?

Taunton · 4 Oct 2026

Magdalia said:
At the time the British Railways Board had a Supplies Committee that was in charge of supplies. This mainly involved purchases (anything from uniforms to sleepers) but also included disposals. It was very bureaucratic, with price thresholds determining which contracts had to go to the BRB Supplies Committee for approval, which had to be reported to the the BRB Supplies Committee, in a report produced every three months, and which could be decided at a regional level, without reference to the BRB Supplies Committee. Each region would have a Supplies Manager, and each regional board probably had its own Supplies Committee too, with another lot of price thresholds.

It was the 1960s bureaucratic way of controlling expenditure. Estates or Civil Engineering wouldn't be dealing with the sale because they were not budget holders and had no power to buy or sell.

This is standard in any business with significant purchasing, that those involved have various price levels, or budget-exceeded levels, which require authorisation at one or more supervisory and management levels above. You don't take on a junior buyer and allow them to buy anything, at any price ...

For the Supplies Manager (actually a significant team) the various processes of buying things, arranging the stores, reordering them when used up or not, keeping what really is required in stock, deciding what items are no longer required, determining what to do with offcuts and scrap, and selling the surplus off, are very much inter-related.

LM Supplies Manager Question Regarding Sale Of Ballast

Andy873

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sh24

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yorksrob

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Gloster

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