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Hi all,


A question if I may about freight trains.
I'm deciding on what I willing be running on my soon-to-be-started layout. It will be an early 90s era set in a fictitious North Staffordshire/South Cheshire border location (location isn't completely set in stone so there is some wiggle room).

I have my intercity fleet ready to go (swallow class 43 hst & Class 91 with mk4's) but I need some advice on freight trains. I have a rake of speedlink/railfreight ferry and box vans that will be hauled by a railfreight livery class 90 & I have a rake of speedlink hoppers to go with my class 37. I have a spare railfreight class 47 and I'm looking to set up a rake for this loco.

One of the things that I wanted to build was a rake of mixed freight, but I don't know if this would be accurate. I have a few container wagons that would be typical for the era but I don't know if they would mix these up with other types of wagon, such as container wagons mixed with a few hoppers, box vans, tanker wagons etc. I've tried some googling and youtubing but searching for mixed freight tends to bring back other eras such as steam or early diesels in the 60s to 70s.

I was wondering if this omission from my searches is because it didn't happen or if I'm not using the correct wording in my searches.

Could anyone shed any light?

Many thanks

By the 90s mixed freight was almost a forgotten description. From the 60s through to the 90s freight went from single shipments to wagon loads, to train loads. If there was variation within a freight train it would be either in the livery carried by the wagons (repainting a fleet takes a long time), or the age and builder of the wagons, a train carrying cars might be comprised of end door vans and "cartic" double deckers. A trainload of coal may be in multiple types and colours of wagons but they were all carrying coal, unless it was on a "merry-go-round" in which case it would be all hoppers compatible with the loading and unloading points with just some variation of the paint scheme.
The train most likely to have the greatest number of types of wagon would be an engineers special, a typical one would be a mess coach, a crane and its match trucks, some ballast wagons and low loaders carrying track panels, finished off with a brake van in grey and yellow engineers colours. Wagon types which may appear have become popular subjects for RTR wagons just because they can introduce some variety into the trains.

I used to see quite a lot of interesting mixed freight trains pass from around 1976 to around 1982-3 but after that it became rare. However, of late, one can see (Depending where in the country) some rather interesting mixed trains pass. Someone on YouTube shared what they saw. Take a look at this!

https://youtu.be/gxThp0L_uTA?feature=shared

Take a look at the first working and then at around 2.23 there is something really interesting! I don't know where it was filmed but it goes to show that unusual workings are seen!

Back in the 1970's to early '80's it was the military trains and other "Mopping up" workings inbetween depots that headed west of Llanelli towards Carmarthen that I loved to see! Sometimes there would be trains full of brakevans, wagons.. All sorts and these were sometimes we'll over 100 wagons long, it not more! (I guess they would need to be split somewhere as no way would they fit as they were in any of the yards!)

Some other unusual workings would be a class 47 pulling just two coal wagons towards Milford Haven coal depot in the early '80's... Hardly an economical working!

The wagon load network, as a general conveyor, effectively ceased in 1991 with the end of the Speedlink network, Speedlink being the remains of the network-wide wagon load network, the yards mostly becoming supermarkets. That wasn't quite then end, some activity continued - from Wikipedia : "The loss making Speedlink operations ceased in 1991. In 1992 wagonload traffic carried by BR in the UK was 15.2million tonnes, approximately 10% of freight traffic. Some residual wagonload operations including international freight work continued to be operated by Railfreight Distribution (RfD), in particular as part of its Connectrail service; RfD was also unprofitable, and when privatised in 1997 the acquirer, EWS received significant subsidies (over £200 million over 8 years). Minor wagonload services were operated in the post privatisation period, including EWS's 'Enterprise' service, which carried 3 million tonnes of freight in 1999." That may help with a search for photos perhaps. Also, Shelton Steel Works staggered on until 2002 and sand from Oakamoor continued until 1989 so a bit of modellers licence... But still, for your period, sand, coal, steel, china clay and passing tanks, all block trains, are the most likely freight visitors.

Thank you all for your messages.
I think I'm going to go speedlink hoppers with my class 37, speedlink ferry/box vans & steel carriers with class 90 then mixed coal with the 47.

Thanks again

Whilst Speedlink had already died a death by the period you are looking at, a good deal of mixed freight was still being hauled by Railfreight Distribution as Richard 08 already mentioned. They had a mainly 47 fleet, although some 37's, 90's and other bits and bobs. RfD was responsible for all the ferrywagon traffics and then of course, the channel tunnel flows.
I worked for Tiphook Rail in the period you are looking at and we had an extensive Ferrywagon fleet (ex VTG) with 3 different types of size sliding door vans and steel coil carriers with telescopic hoods. These in particular are still being offered by Dapol in either the original VTG or Tiphook Rail livery. In addition there were bogie covered flats. Dapol also do the Silver Bullet slurry wagons that were often through the midlands/Staffs on there way up to Scotland. ECC/Imerys also had their ex Tiger/Tiphook hoppers on international flows that ran up t Stoke on trent via the Rfd services. The Cargowaggon vans and flats that are also currently available from were also on both international and domestic flows at the time utilsing the Rfd services to move bottled water and wood products into Midlands/North of England storage depots. Short wheelbase SNCF covered flats coil carriers were also coming across the channel in Rfd wagonload operations. Rfd often piggybacked single load wagons onto dedicated trainload services which would pass through compatible locations to get them to their mutual final destinations. It could be a bit harem scarem sometimes and a train planners nightmare I should think but the Rfd guys were desperate to try and keep the services running.
Although, none of this proved ultimately profitable for Rfd, throughout the early 90's the business struggled on even after privatisation 94/95. Given the variety of wagons that were forming trainload services I reckon you could assemble a number of fairly colourful and diverse train consists.
I model the same period and use the steel coil carrying wagons and vans exactly in that fashion.
I have an excellent publication by David Ratcliffe 'The Changing Face of Railfreight - 50 years of freight transition'and Speedlink/rfd connectrail and EWS's Enterpriseis detailed therein with some good pictures of the kit that was being hauled through out the period.

Hi Stokestation12,

In the early 90s, mixed freight trains with a variety of wagon types, including container wagons mixed with hoppers, box vans, and tanker wagons, were indeed common. So, creating a rake of mixed freight for your layout is accurate. You're on the right track for a realistic setup.

Best of luck with your layout project!

Cheers!