Their Crossley two-stroke engines were unreliable though, and prone to black smoke when throttling up. The Condor service was well-suited to the Metro-Vicks, as the night working allowed a relatively constant power output, with little other traffic to cause signals checks. Their 'Red Circle' connection system of multiple working was not widely used on BR, compared to the contemporary 'Blue Star', and few other classes used it hence the Metro-Vicks were used throughout. The Metro-Vicks were fitted for multiple working, so although two locos were needed, there was only one crew. They also had five driven axles, rather than four, giving good traction without wheelslip. The Type 28 had a relatively high tractive effort for a Type 2 loco, of 50,000 lbf (220 kN) compared to 42,000 lbf (190 kN) for the Sulzer Type 2. Pairs were needed as the dieselisation process was still new to Britain and the more powerful Type 4 locomotives were in short supply and in demand for passenger services.
These were 1,200 bhp (890 kW) locomotives, used in pairs. The first Condor services were hauled by pairs of the newly built Metro-Vick Type 2 Co-Bo locomotive. The 10 hour long service required a very brief, two minute, stop at Carlisle, at the change of a crew shift, rather than any limitation of the train. Both left almost simultaneously, after 7 pm and would arrive some time before 6 am. The service ran daily, one each way, and ran overnight to obtain the clearest running.
The cost of hiring a container in 1962 was £16 or £18, depending on size, and this included road pickup and delivery by British Road Services lorries, inside Greater London or within 10 miles (16 km) of Glasgow. The train's gross weight could be up to 550 long tons (620 short tons 560 t).
#CONDOR 2 STEAM CODE#
The Conflats for Condor were heavier at 35.5 long tons (39.8 short tons 36.1 t) than earlier examples and were later given their own TOPS code of FC. Each could carry one or two containers, the containers carrying up to 8 long tons (9.0 short tons 8.1 t). Įach Condor train was of 27 four-wheeled conflats, of a new design with roller bearing axles to allow the fastest running and without the risk of stopping for a ' hot box'. The route was from Hendon on the Midland Main Line in North London to Gushetfaulds freight depot, near Glasgow South Side railway station. Return traffic was largely imported raw materials, supplied from London's docks. A single route would operate, linking the manufacturing base of Glasgow with the consumers of central London. The Condor was the exemplar service for this new containerised operation. The conflat wagons were four-wheeled, vacuum-braked, and could carry either one Type B container or two smaller Type A. They dated from the 1920s in design and were sized for lifting by the mobile cranes of the day. These were smaller, lighter, wooden containers which resembled a demounted railway wagon body, included the curved roof. The 'container' to be used for this traffic was not the modern familiar stackable intermodal container or TEU, but a much earlier version, the railway conflat. Containers were key to this: road haulage would provide local flexibility to move the loads to and from the customer warehouses and the rail operation would concentrate on rapid transfers between a handful of large depots. There would also be a centralisation of freight services: as well as the increasing development of and investment in marshalling yards, as much freight as possible would become block trains, where a single rake of freight wagons shuttled continuously between two large depots, without needing to stop for shunting operations.
#CONDOR 2 STEAM MANUAL#
A key part of this was to be containerisation, replacing the network of railway goods sheds and manual loading in and out of vans, by pre-loaded containers from the customer factories loaded onto railway wagons by mechanical cranes. In 1928, the LNER had introduced the Green Arrow service.īy the 1950s, there were additional target goals: still a faster freight service to be more attractive than the growing competition from road haulage, but mostly a reduction in operating costs by reducing the manual effort needed in handling freight. Part of the goal was to reduce marshalling for the railway company, who wished to concentrate freight marshalling at fewer, larger and better equipped marshalling yards.
If a wagon load was in the marshalling yard that day, it could have a guaranteed next-day arrival at a similar yard, even travelling the length of the country. 'Liner' or trunked services were scheduled long-haul freight services, between regional freight depots, usually run overnight.
#CONDOR 2 STEAM SERIES#
Modernisation of British Railways įollowing the 1955 Modernisation Plan, British Railways embarked on a series of modernisation plans in all areas of operation, including freight.įaster freight services had been a goal as far back as the end of World War I, with fast, overnight services between major marshalling yards.
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