Last mixed use train?

[Cheshire Scot]

I did understand the return Mallaig oil tanks to Grangemouth were not always empty, as one was commonly left there for trawler maintenance to pump out fuel tank sludge, or any fuel contaminated by seawater, which when full was periodically sent back to the refinery for reprocessing.

That is interesting although on a historical note the fuel was normally supplied from the Esso terminal at Bowling rather than Grangemouth (tripped via Cadder and latterly Mossend to attach to a West Highland freight train).

The distribution terminal at Bowling received inward supplies by sea, presumably from the Esso refinery at Fawley (although the oil industry was riddled with swap arrangements (e.g. the nominally BP 'hot oil' for Corpach often came from Bowling rather than Grangemouth), and the Mallaig tanks would normally have returned to Bowling although they may not have had the capability to deal with sludge/contaminated fuel which would lead to it instead being sent to Grangemouth. The Bowling terminal closed in 1996.

Also worth noting the Mallaig tanks were not fully laden due to route availability limitations- fully laden tanks did run to Fort William accompanied by a BR29973 to permit passage of RA8 traffic over the RA5 route but the route to Mallaig had no exemptions beyond Corpach for traffic above RA5. This led to a strange sensation in the rear carriage of the mixed as the fuel sloshed around in the available space and exerted forces on the screw coupling attaching the tanks to the coaches.

The Mallaig mixed also occasionally conveyed other traffic, in vans or sometimes hyfits, often in connection with MOD exercises in the Outer Hebridies.

 

[Taunton]

The conveyance of passengers on trains primarily run for mail or newspapers more or less ended with sectorisation, because the relevant passenger sector was deemed "prime user" of any service carrying passengers, and bore all the costs of running the service except the marginal cost of the extra vehicles to carry the mail/newspapers/parcels

However the real killer was the move of Murdoch's titles to the Wapping printing plant, which although initially intended to continue rail distribution led immediately to the protracted industrial action and protests, including involving the newspaper trains themselves, whereupon Murdoch switched to road distribution. The newspaper trains were actually chartered by the Newspaper Publishers Association, for all the titles, and the loss of the Times and Sun made the rest of the co-ordinated operation unprofitable, and the whole network fell apart almost immediately to road haulage.

 

[Adrian Barr]

Just to make clear a couple of definitions:

Passenger trains are any train that is supposed to convey passenger. They may also convey parcels, mail, newspapers, fish, live chicks and so on in the van, but they are still a passenger train. They may have various vans in the formation or on the back: if these are what were latterly called NPCCS (Non-Passenger Carrying Coaching Stock) they are built to standards that allow them to run in passenger trains and their inclusion does not in any way alter the situation if the train is intended to carry passengers.

This is true - when I mentioned mail or newspaper trains conveying a small amount of passenger accommodation being "a sort of category by itself" I mean a topic of discussion rather than a recognised category of train - they would be classed as passenger trains as you say if the seating accommodation was for public use.

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Going back to the original question and interpreting it broadly to include all kinds of newpapers / mail / parcels / sundries on passenger services, there would be a few different dates when different kinds of traffic ended.

End of "mixed" services which conveyed passenger coaches and freight wagons - last service appears to have been the Mallaig oil tanks, ended Jan 1989 or possibly late 1988.
End of "sundries" traffic on passenger trains that was being forwarded by BR (rather than miscellaneous items being sent through the mail)
End of passenger services on which the majority of vehicles were NPCCS (i.e. advertised passenger services with a majority of mail/newspaper/parcels vans and limited passenger accommodation)
End of newspapers being conveyed on passenger trains
End of general parcels traffic being conveyed on passenger trains
End of mail being conveyed on passenger trains
End of Red Star parcels being conveyed on passenger trains
Last use of a passenger station to load or unload Royal Mail
N.B. I'm not quite sure where some of these categories begin or end, for example Royal Mail traffic includes a certain amount of parcels but there was a separate "parcels" business from what I understand.

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Newspaper traffic on BR ended in July 1988, with a rapid decline setting in from 1986 with Murdoch's move to Wapping mentioned above in post #32, so passenger trains conveying newspapers presumably ended during this period* (unless you count things like free newspapers handed out in first class!)

There's a long article on newspaper traffic on the Railway Magazine website - two key sections are quoted below.

The preponderance of (usually grimy) vans meant that it was not always easy for a lineside observer to differentiate between a newspaper working and an ordinary parcels train, but in the case of some of the longer-distance corridor formations, it was occasionally possible to do so by the presence of a BSK or similar seating coach marshalled into the rake. This would not only provide toilet facilities in addition to those found in some of the vans, but would allow the staff to relax and get some sleep if they finished their duties before the end of the journey. It wasn’t unknown for such carriages to provide an unofficial early morning Sunday service for late-night revellers who’d missed their last Saturday night train… the staff usually turning a blind eye if the service wasn’t one of those advertised in the passenger timetable.

The first blow to the newspaper train industry fell in the 1980s when The Guardian decided not to renew its contract with BR and switched to road transport, but by far the biggest nail in the coffin was the move of Rupert Murdoch’s News International (publishers of The Sun, The Times and News of the World) from Fleet Street to new-tech printing premises at Wapping in 1986. Murdoch knew the rail unions were threatening to ‘black’ papers printed in Wapping in protest at print job losses and had therefore signed advance contracts with road hauliers for the dispatch of papers in articulated lorries. No longer would those market-leading titles find their way to readers via the London stations. That move took a large chunk out of BR’s £125million-a-year paper and magazine distribution business – and matters were to get worse the following year when it lost another big contract with Mirror Group Newspapers. A number of nightly trains continued to run for the remaining traffic, but with the income continuing to haemorrhage, BR undertook an assessment and concluded that the business was no longer worth pursuing. Overnight sorting of newspapers in dedicated trains thus officially came to an end on July 9/10, 1988.

https://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/6311/newspaper-trains-read-all-about-it/

There's also this thread on newspaper trains, with a list of 1970s workings, some of which ran as passenger trains:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/newspaper-trains.31425/

In a thread on RMweb, there's a suggestion that the carriage of mail on passenger trains had ended by 1996, with the new Royal Mail contract signed that year being purely between Royal Mail and EWS.
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/170460-the-last-mail-on-a-normal-passenger-train/

The situation with Red Star parcels is summed up on Wikipedia as follows - I assume the carriage of Red Star parcels by passenger train ceased when the station-based offices closed?

On 25 May 2001, Lynx Express decided to shut down all of Red Star's station-based offices and attributed this decision had been taken in response to the substantial disruption across the rail network in the aftermath of the Hatfield rail crash of October 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_Parcels

Not really part of the original question, but the final separation between the mail network and the passenger network must have been in 2004 when the Royal Mail contract with EWS ended. Up to this point, although the "Railnet" system mainly used dedicated terminals (such as Willesden PRDC, Shieldmuir and so on) there were still some passenger stations - although not passenger trains - which handled mail, such as Swansea and York.
This is illustrated by a few photos:
Royal mail lorries at Carlisle station in 1998, with a Class 325 mail unit in the platform behind: https://www.flickr.com/photos/75784477@N08/14333880629/ (Photo: Dave McDigital)
The last TPO working to call at York, with 90027 in January 2004: https://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_mason/21390462228/ (Photo: Phil Mason)
Penzance TPO at Exeter behind 67029, later the same month: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33949742@N04/51839842228/ (Photo: BigSky47539)

From memory, I think all mail after that (when a slimmed down network of Royal Mail trains resumed with class 325 units) was only handled at the dedicated Royal Mail hubs. One possible exception is Stafford Royal Mail platform, which was a dedicated mail platform at a passenger station. It was regularly visited by class 325 units on test from Crewe for many years, but I can't remember when it stopped being used for mail.

There have been examples of miscellaneous items / parcels conveyed by passenger train since then. Fish on the Caledonian sleeper was mentioned in post #13, and there's a thread about lobsters and shellfish by passenger train from Cornwall to London in 2015: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gwr-delivers-shellfish-by-train.123844/

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*Edit - Reading through the excellent Railway Magazine article on newspaper trains more thoroughly, it mentions that after the end of dedicated newspaper trains in July 1988, newspapers continued to be moved on passenger trains (on a much smaller scale) until privatisation:

A handful of vans remained in use in the south for a few weeks, but they had all gone by November. After that, a few small supplies – tiny in comparison to the huge bulk loads of the past – continued to be conveyed in the guard’s vans of sleeping car trains and ordinary passenger services, but by the time rail privatisation came sweeping in like a new broom in the early-1990s, it was all over.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

The newspaper trains were actually chartered by the Newspaper Publishers Association, for all the titles, and the loss of the Times and Sun made the rest of the co-ordinated operation unprofitable, and the whole network fell apart almost immediately to road haulage.

That's an interesting point. As long ago as it was (I still remember diagramming such trains out of Waterloo), it still seems to me that it dropped off a cliff virtually overnight, and your explanation confirms that. Thanks.

 

[Taunton]

The fastest newspaper train from Paddington to the West Country was timetabled fully up to main line speed, and was sometimes known as the "Riviera of the Night" after the comparable speeds of its daytime companion. I believe the vans had B4 bogies, and it normally used one of handful of the "Golden Westerns", Class 52, which were also on the Riviera and the Golden Hind, specially selected for having well-matched transmissions, something not all had. I have written here before that it conveyed at least a BCK, supposedly for the guard but regularly used by naval sailors returning to Plymouth, very much at the guard's discretion (ie don't be drunk and don't make any trouble).

It was the predecessor of this train that had the astounding escape in the Norton Fitzwarren accident in 1940, when with its top priority it was overtaking the heavy overnight passenger service which overran signals and derailed right alongside, all the panels of the newspaper vans being scored by ballast thrown up, and windows broken, fractions of a second before the King loco overturned across all lines behind the train.

 

[Rescars]

Memories of family holidays in the Highlands and walking down midmorning to the newsagents to buy a London edition paper "just arrived off the train".

 

[Gloster]

The fastest newspaper train from Paddington to the West Country was timetabled fully up to main line speed, and was sometimes known as the "Riviera of the Night" after the comparable speeds of its daytime companion. I believe the vans had B4 bogies, and it normally used one of handful of the "Golden Westerns", Class 52, which were also on the Riviera and the Golden Hind, specially selected for having well-matched transmissions, something not all had. I have written here before that it conveyed at least a BCK, supposedly for the guard but regularly used by naval sailors returning to Plymouth, very much at the guard's discretion (ie don't be drunk and don't make any trouble).

It was the predecessor of this train that had the astounding escape in the Norton Fitzwarren accident in 1940, when with its top priority it was overtaking the heavy overnight passenger service which overran signals and derailed right alongside, all the panels of the newspaper vans being scored by ballast thrown up, and windows broken, fractions of a second before the King loco overturned across all lines behind the train.

Certainly we signalman regarded the 00.30 Paddington News as just about the most important train of the day (or night); it was, if I remember correctly, nicknamed the Waker. Non-stop Paddington to Taunton, four minutes stop to detach the rear four or so vans and change crew (Taunton men off and on), then non-stop to Plymouth using the centre road at Exeter. Its progression down through Cornwall was a bit more stately.

 

[D Mylchreest]

I think a mixed train also did shunting enroute. Not sure that a passenger train that had goods vehicle tacked on behind tha didn't stop to drop off/pick up and shunt enroute is a mixed train.
I'm amazed that a passenger train carried oil tanks. Presumably empties?

 

[Gloster]

I think a mixed train also did shunting enroute. Not sure that a passenger train that had goods vehicle tacked on behind tha didn't stop to drop off/pick up and shunt enroute is a mixed train.
I'm amazed that a passenger train carried oil tanks. Presumably empties?

That a train shunted en-route was not a defining point about a mixed train: it could shunt en-route, but so could a normal goods train. However, shunting with a mixed train would be a bit constrained by the rule that a vehicle with passengers in it could not pass over a point that doesn’t have a facing point lock: a trailing point might not be so fitted as passenger trains normally pass over it in the trailing direction, but when shunting they might have to move back over it. But there are ways round that…

If a train conveying passengers had goods wagons attached, it was a mixed train, but as far as signalling and other regulations were concerned it was treated as a passenger one. Whether it stops to pick up or set down is irrelevant, it is the consist that matters.

The tanks were empty (mostly, see#31), but they went out full.

 

[robert thomas]

I think that at a very early date the Railway Inspectors recommended that wagons should be behind the coaches. I think that it was the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 (it might have been earlier, or that have just been ‘urging‘) that finally mandated that the automatic brake was to be in force on all the passenger section. As almost all goods wagons right up until we’ll after World War II had hand-brakes only, they had to be behind the coaches and in turn required a brake van at the rear.

Up to 8 empty milk tanks were certainly carried at the front of the train on the Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line right up to closure to Passngers in 1965.

 

[Gloster]

Up to 8 empty milk tanks were certainly carried at the front of the train on the Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line right up to closure to Passngers in 1965.

But milk tanks were fully braked and passenger-rated. Even if they looked like goods stock, they could be formed within a passenger train.

 

[Taunton]

I don't recall whether the Hemyock branch was officially classed as Mixed. It certainly ran like one, with substantial loads of milk tankers that were shunted on/off en route in the large dairies of the Culm Valley, with a single old coach on the rear.

 

[AndrewE]

Up to 8 empty milk tanks were certainly carried at the front of the train on the Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line right up to closure to Passngers in 1965.

But milk tanks were fully braked and passenger-rated. Even if they looked like goods stock, they could be formed within a passenger train.

I don't recall whether the Hemyock branch was officially classed as Mixed. It certainly ran like one, with substantial loads of milk tankers that were shunted on/off en route in the large dairies of the Culm Valley, with a single old coach on the rear.

So either the milk tanks were through-piped for steam heat - or they didn't bother to heat the passenger coach!

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I'm amazed that a passenger train carried oil tanks. Presumably empties?

The tanks were empty (mostly, see#31), but they went out full.

Important to stress the tanks were loaded on the outward journey - and occasionally on the return, but note they conveyed fuel oil rather than the more highly fammable products such as petrol or paraffin.

Also Mixed Trains were designanted as such in both the Working Timetable and the Passenger Train Marshalling books - which is not to say other trains might be auithorised to run a Mixed from time to time.

Until well into the seventies there were passenger trains which were booked to convey 4 wheel freight vans (typically conveying sundries traffic, or in earlier years from Mallaig fish) but these were still designated as passenger trains and not as mixed. The freight vans would be stencilled XP which I always assumed was an abbreviation for Express Passenger albeit in later years the vanfits/VVVs typically used were limited to 45 mph (fish vans had a higher limit).

Memories of family holidays in the Highlands and walking down midmorning to the newsagents to buy a London edition paper "just arrived off the train".

Vitrually anywhere north of Perth, and on the West Highalnd lines, received their London (or Manchester printed) newpapers off the first morning train - or off the second morning train beyond Inverness.

For many years the morning Inverness to Kyle freight also conveyed newspapers and mail in bogie vans as well as freight vehicles but at some point in the early seventies it was decided to add a passenger coach for use between Dingwall and Kyle (the train followed the 06.15 Inverness to Wick enabling passengrs to change at Dingwall for Kyle), initially on two or three days per week but later daily and this train was then designated as Freight between Inverness and Dingwall, and Mixed between Dingwall and Kyle.

 

[Gloster]

So either the milk tanks were through-piped for steam heat - or they didn't bother to heat the passenger coach!

I am fairly sure they were through steam-piped. Certainly the SR designs were.

 

[Rescars]

I am fairly sure they were through steam-piped. Certainly the SR designs were.

Sad it was just a through pipe. The prospect of gallons of latte on demand is quite appealing!

 

[Bodiam]

Going back a bit, there were some independent lines on which all (or almost all) trains were mixed. The Bishops Castle for instance. Does anyone know which was the last one of these to close? A constituent of Col Stephens' empire perhaps?

At least some trains on the Kent & East Sussex were mixed until the passenger service was withdrawn under British Railways in January 1954.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I don't recall whether the Hemyock branch was officially classed as Mixed. It certainly ran like one, with substantial loads of milk tankers that were shunted on/off en route in the large dairies of the Culm Valley, with a single old coach on the rear.

Gas lit apparently - (ex Barry Railway ?) , train did not go fast / far enough to charge the batteries.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Gas lit apparently - (ex Barry Railway ?) , train did not go fast / far enough to charge the batteries.

Yes Barry Rly - retro fitted with gas lighting by the WR in the '50s! At the end LNER Thompson coaches were used - their batteries could last a week and then had a jaunt to Exeter for a top- up.

 

[trainmania100]

Shame this was only an ECS

Be a good way of getting engineering vehicles to their evening spit without extra route knowledge

 

[Route115?]

Going back to Swiss railways, I remember in the early 90s going up to Engelberg, and there was one train where you found yourself sitting on a mixed train performing a shunting manouevre at one station, with wagons being detached and shunted into a siding at an intermediate station by the emu with the conductor doing his stuff with a shunting rod.

 

[popeter45]

if motorail counted as mixed goods then the night rivera ending its service in 2005 could be considered the end?
depends on if you count the GUV's as fright or NPCCS's

 

[Gloster]

if motorail counted as mixed goods then the night rivera ending its service in 2005 could be considered the end?
depends on if you count the GUV's as fright or NPCCS's

No, Motorail never was goods. The vans were passenger-rated and, for the most part, ran in passenger trains.

 

[frankmoh]

if motorail counted as mixed goods then the night rivera ending its service in 2005 could be considered the end?
depends on if you count the GUV's as fright or NPCCS's

If we are counting cars then surely LeShuttle is still carrying both goods (cars) and passengers?

 

[Cheshire Scot]

Mentioning vans and GUVs, yesterday morning on the M6 just north of Warrington, two GUVs loaded on trialers heading south, very grubby yellow livery and fading Network Rail markings. GUVs, no longer an everyday sight aorund the country!

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I understand there were trains which used to convey passengers and freight (such as newspapers) until around forty years ago. Anyone know when the last one was, please?

Pedantically here there’s a bit of a difference between items carried in NPCCS (non passenger-carrying coaching stock) and “true” freight. Newspapers fall into the former category. Thanks to a brief trial iin the Far North line, I think that the date for the genuinely “mixed train” may ironically be later than for the newspaper trains with the odd passenger coach.

Well I have documented records on the southern region of taking a god awful hour Class 73/0 out of London Victoria in just 1 passenger coach iirc and the rest were parcels/mail/newspapers iirc.

 

[Gloster]

Well I have documented records on the southern region of taking a god awful hour Class 73/0 out of London Victoria in just 1 passenger coach iirc and the rest were parcels/mail/newspapers iirc.

Which would almost certainly have been described as a Class 1 train.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

Well I have documented records on the southern region of taking a god awful hour Class 73/0 out of London Victoria in just 1 passenger coach iirc and the rest were parcels/mail/newspapers iirc.

Likewise out of Waterloo.

 

[AndrewE]

Well I have documented records on the southern region of taking a god awful hour Class 73/0 out of London Victoria in just 1 passenger coach iirc and the rest were parcels/mail/newspapers iirc.

Which would almost certainly have been described as a Class 1 train.

Exactly. Pretty well every train in the public timetable was exclusively a passenger train (not "mixed") and would have been class 1 or 2. Parcels vans, Motor-rail, newspaper or mail vans were all passenger-rated stock, so not one counts as a mixed train. After the trawler fuel tanks were discontinued, that is.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Which would almost certainly have been described as a Class 1 train.

Well those books which I no longer have - loco hauled travel and 1H83 would certainly have the headcodes.