ECS Transfer Between Paddington And Willesden

[RichmondCommu]

Hello everyone,

Back in the mid 1980s I can recall ECS transfers between Paddington and Willesden which have always puzzled me. Here are two examples; 50035 hauling sleepers by Willesden TMD on the 06.01.86 and 31468 doing the same with a real mixture of mk2s on the 29.06.86.

Given that Old Oak Common clearly had capacity for the storage of carriages (the late RichmondCommu and I were fequent visitors over the years) I'm curious to know why these movements took place.

Kind regards,

Essex Ram.

 

[47513 Severn]

In the case of the sleepers, I believe it was to access the toilet tank emptying facilities at Wembley. CET toilets were pretty uncommon at the time with Mark 3 sleepers and BedPan class 317's being the only stock fitted.

 

[Highlandspring]

Mark 3 sleeper toilet waste tanks can also be discharged by gravity in the same way that the mark 1 sleeper tanks were (yes, the mk1 sleepers were tank fitted because of the length of time they were expected to stand in stations). In this case the waste is emptied onto a so called “flushing apron” which is a sort of concrete sump on a depot road that drains to the sewerage system. I would imagine that Old Oak had a flushing apron but perhaps Willesden had vacuum CET equipment to allow the tanks to be emptied properly. Incidentally Polmadie depot still has it’s flushing apron though it’s no longer used.

 

[Helvellyn]

I don't think the WR Sleepers were allocated to Laira until the late 1980s either. Before that I think pretty much any Wembley based SLEP could be utilised on the Night Riveria.