Freight Guards (Trainmen G)

[Ashley Hill]

Another thread on brakevans had me thinking,do any FOCs still employ any freight guards? I'm aware that the few vans that survive are only used for specific traffic but someone must be in it.Is it a travelling shunter or a RST who carry out the guards duties or a bona fide guard?.

 

[godfreycomplex]

Another thread on brakevans had me thinking,do any FOCs still employ any freight guards? I'm aware that the few vans that survive are only used for specific traffic but someone must be in it.Is it a travelling shunter or a RST who carry out the guards duties or a bona fide guard?.

DRS are the main ones, all nuclear traffic is guard operated as far as I know.

DB still have a few I think at Stewarts Lane, primarily for charter work

The rest, when they do have them which isn’t often, usually use travelling shunters

 

[Ashley Hill]

DRS are the main ones, all nuclear traffic is guard operated as far as I know.

DB still have a few I think at Stewarts Lane, primarily for charter work

The rest, when they do have them which isn’t often, usually use travelling shunters

Thanks for replying. IIRC from guards school (oh so many years ago) Hydrocyanic Acid trains had to have a guards van. Is this traffic still conveyed by rail?

 

[godfreycomplex]

Thanks for replying. IIRC from guards school (oh so many years ago) Hydrocyanic Acid trains had to have a guards van. Is this traffic still conveyed by rail?

I believe it got knocked on the head in the mid 2000s but I’m not 100%

Apropos of almost nothing, one of my tutors at signalling school worked with those trains, and one of his favourite rules questions was “what steps would you take if a hydrocyanic acid wagon was derailed or damaged”

The answer, of course, was “very large ones in the opposite direction”

 

[FOCTOC]

Thanks for replying. IIRC from guards school (oh so many years ago) Hydrocyanic Acid trains had to have a guards van. Is this traffic still conveyed by rail?

No, not for years. I worked one of the last down to Fawley - brake van having been detached at Totton ( they got a little excited if a brake van arrived in the refinery with the stove billowing smoke - and it did happen once). Van should have gone back to Willesden Brent later in the day but I refused to take it any further as the body was barely hanging on! It therefore got condemned at Totton.

 

[warwickshire]

DRS are the main ones, all nuclear traffic is guard operated as far as I know.

DB still have a few I think at Stewarts Lane, primarily for charter work

The rest, when they do have them which isn’t often, usually use travelling shunters

Yes . Most interestingly found a working out for myself on Wednesday 10th November 2021 at 11am at Stafford station. Just before the move to booths masboro rotherham the 365 scrap move.
Colas working from pinnox esso sidings to crewe basford hall s.s.m came in the side off the station where the old royal mail terminal is. With 56302. Shunter rides on locomotive detaches at the front. Locomotive moves around.
Shunter then attached locomotive on the front off train heading back to crewe again.
Iff interested anyone and see how a train attaches to locomotive by a shunter platform 5 at Stafford is the place to be for this example off a travelling shunter.
Interesting working by colas and also good for 56s.
That is the pinnox esso sidings to crewe basford hall s.s.m.