Ferry Wagon Operation In The 1960s

[RichmondCommu]

G'day everyone,

I'm looking for information on ferry van operation in the 1960s, from either Harwich or Dover. In particular I'm interested in the long (ish) wheel base vans that crossed over from the continent and whether they had to run in fully fitted trains or whether they could run in non fitted / partially fitted services.

Following on from the above any information on London destinations for ferry waghons would be much appreciated! I'm building a 00 gauge model railway very loosely based on the GOBLIN in the 1960s and I'm looking for scratch building projects for the winter. There certainly seem to have been quite a few wagons built in the late 1950s / early 1960s and these will be the basis of my model.

Transfesa had depots in Paddock Wood and Wavertree but I'm interested to know whether their wagons could have conceivably run to anywhere north of the Thames.

Finally, if anyone knows of any ferry wagons that have survived into preservation please let me know so I can at least have something to measure up and scale down. By all accounts Peak Rail had an Austrian built ferrry wagon in their possession back in 1991 but I don't whether it survived the move from Buxton when the whole operation moved further south.

Thanks for reading this. Any information would be gratefully received!

Kind regards,

Richmond Commuter!

 

[eastdyke]

I was hoping to turn up something in the East Anglian Film Archive but whilst there is a charming Anglia TV documentary from 1960 it majors on Parkestone Quay . There is a later film from 1985 showing the train ferry.

http://www.eafa.org.uk/search.aspx#&&page=1&navid=&psize=10&text=harwich+railway

'In period', this thread from rmweb has some info and pictures, although some links are now broken.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/8203-belgian-ferry-vans-on-eastern-region/

There are pictures showing wagons at Mile End and at Spitalfields.

I remember seeing continental wagons at Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds in the 1950's en route to/from Whitemoor which would fit with Ashburys as a destination.

 

[DidcotDickie]

One of the destinations for ferryboat wagons from Harwich and Dover was the London International Freight Terminal (LIFT) in Stratford. Built in 1967, this was a large Inland Clearance Depot (ICD) for wagonload and container traffic and was served by both road and rail.

Most of the sheds were privately operated by freight forwarding companies but I believe that one was operated by BR.

There was another large ICD nearby at Chobham Farm which was built in the early 70s but IIRC this handled containers and I don't think it was rail connected.

Both of these depots were located on or near the site of Stratford Loco Works and have now completely disappeared under the Olympic Park.

There is an RMWeb thread from 2011 on LIFT here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/in...d-lift-london-international-freight-terminal/

..and a Greater London Archaelogical Society write up about Stratford Works and the development of LIFT and Chobham Farm ICDs here: http://www.glias.org.uk/journals/13-b.html

Hope this helps.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Transfesa wagons carrying such loads as potatoes , onions and oranges often travelled well up into the Midlands and elsewhere , sometimes in single wagon loads - certainly recorded at Wavertree / Trafford Park / Hull and Cardiff Newtown.

They were air braked and vacuum piped , but of course could and did run in unfitted trains.

 

[randyrippley]

Safety could be a bit haphazard with those ferry wagons....
Before the drop of the iron curtain I worked for a chemical company in Haverhill, Suffolk.
We purchased a container load of diethyl ether in drums from a supplier in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Ordered it, then heard nothing more until six weeks later we got an abusive phone call from the station master at Cambridge. A loco had dropped off overnight into his parcels bay a single ferry wagon stuffed full of drums of (extremely flammable) ether and he wanted it shifted ......like right now. We sent a truck in to pick it up, but it was a bloody dangerous situation - one drum dropping off the forklift and Cambridge station would have burnt in minutes.
When we got the drums, they had no danger warnings or signs on them at all, and the RID/ADR regulations (or their rail equivalent) had been totally ignored