Information - Facts & Figures

The various sections set out historical information about the railways in the Malverns that are not appropriate to include in the chronology.

Signal Box Types Signal Box Opening Hours Running Powers Facilities at Stations Railway Timetables Bus Timetables Late Trains Railway Staff in Census Records

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Types of Signal Boxes

The chronology mentions type codes for the various signal boxes. The type codes were developed in the 1980s by members of the Signalling Record Society and published in “The Signal Box” under the pseudonym of The Signalling Study Group. The descriptions also appear in the Signal Box Registers published by the Signalling Record Society and the codes have been used in many other publications.

With the passage of time repairs and alterations have sometimes altered or obscured the features that distinguish the types; none more so than the replacement windows utilised in the 21st century refurbishment program. The counter to this change of window style is, of course, that the working environment of the signaller was much improved.

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Signal Box Hours of duty

These hours are a clear statement of the hours of day and night when it is possible to run trains along the line. Generally speaking, if all the signal boxes are closed then no trains can run. In recent years the lines in the Malverns have been closed during the night hours.

Some signal boxes were equipped with 'closing switches' which allowed them to be switched out of circuit when not required. When switched out the running signals in both directions would be left 'off' for the passage of trains. During the time such boxes were 'closed out', the number of trains that could be run was inevitably reduced.

The signal boxes are listed in line order in the down direction, down being from both Worcester Shrub Hill and Tunnel Junctions to Hereford.

As at 1^st October 1945

Source: GWR Service Timetable Appendix No.12.

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Running Powers

Running Powers existed where the trains of one company were permitted access over the lines of another company. In most instances, but not all, these powers arose from agreements reached during the parliamentary process of obtaining an Act allowing construction of a railway. A common reason for such agreement was to remove an objection to the bill going through parliament and, in these cases, the running powers thus given were enshrined in the resultant Act of Parliament. Running powers were explicity stated and were not reciprocal.

Where joint lines were concerned the arrangements usually allowed for trains of all the participating parties to have access. Worcester Shrub Hill passenger station was jointly owned.

List of running powers were published in the Railway Junction Diagrams books issued by the Railway Clearing House.

With the 'grouping' of 1923 many running powers were extinguished by virtue of the companies concerned have amalgamated and this process of extinction was largely completed with the nationalisation of the railway on 1^st January 1948.

A form of running powers now exists again whereby each Train Operator is only authorised to run over certain lines; this situation having arisen from the privatisation of the railways in the 1990s. Some flexibility in times of disruption has thus been lost!

Great Western Railway (West Midland Amalgamation) Act 1863

Midland Railway trains over Great Western Railway lines between Worcester & Hereford authorised but deferred until the single line sections other than through Colwall and Ledbury tunnels have been doubled. The West Midland Railway agreed to double the relevant lines within 5 years. The running powers were not to interfere with local traffic arrangements.

Railway Junction Diagrams Books 1915 & 1922

Midland Railway trains over Great Western Railway lines:

Section of Line		Type of Traffic
Abbots Wood Junction to Worcester		all trains.
Hereford Brecon Curve		all trains.
Stoke Works to Worcester		all trains.
Worcester to Shelwick Junction		merchandise (goods); free of toll between Malvern Link and Malvern Junction.
Worcester Tunnel Junction to Malvern		coaching (passenger); free of toll between Malvern Link and Malvern Junction.

Midland Railway trains over Shrewsbury & Hereford Joint Railway (GWR & LNWR) lines:

Section of Line		Type of Traffic
Hereford Brecon Curve to Hereford		coaching (passenger)
Shelwick Junction to Hereford Barrs Court Junction North		merchandise (goods)

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Facilities at Stations

For many years a basic list of facilities was published periodically by the Railway Clearing House on behalf of the railway industry under the title “Handbook of Stations”. Between main editions supplements were issued. The Handbooks were used by the railway companies and were also sold to other companies and organisations who wanted to buy them.

The prime purpose of the book was to allow railway clerks and others responsible for accepting forwarding traffic to know whether or not the destination point could handle the traffic or needed to know where responsibility for specific private sidings lay.

One interesting feature of the books was the perpetuation of showing the pre-grouping company names despite grouping and subsequent nationalisation. However, this did help correct routing when duplicated place names abounded on the railway network.

The last full edition was published in 1956 and supplements continued until November 1964, after which the substantial closure of goods yards rendered continued publication superfluous.

The facilities were coded in the book:

G = Goods.
P = Passenger & Parcels.
P* = Passenger only.
F = Furniture Vans, Carriages, Portable Engines, Machines of Wheels.
L = Livestock.
H = Horse Box & Prize Cattle Cans.
C = Carriages by Passenger Train; later included Motor Cars by Passenger Train.

Crane power was quoted in Tons and Hundredweights (cwt). Where a second railway company had access to a station, the access was sometimes only for a sub-set of the facilities. In these circumstances the station would be listed twice to make it clear what facilities were available to each of the companies involved. This has been standardised in the table to ease cross-reference. As the years went by the amount of detail in the handbook increased which is why some earlier entries in the table are blank for some locations or expected facilities not shown even though they existed at that time.

Generally speaking the Handbooks did not quote dates of change, notification of precise dates were issued as appropriate by the relevant railway company and circulated using the general and facilities circulars issued by each railway company. Precise dates cannot, therefore, be given in this table for the changes.

Whilst each station was owned by just one company, facilities were available for other companies with running powers access as well. Where two companies had facilities at a station, the owning company is listed first. It is unlikely that each company had a separate crane with the result that the one crane was used by both. The disappearance of a facility category or crane power and subsequent reappearance may be down to a suspension of the facility, a delay in replacing a worn out crane, or may simply due to 'clerical error'. Unless other evidence is forthcoming your guess as to which is as valid as mine!

Private Sidings

These arise where a specific company has a private siding agreement with the railway company. The siding was owned by the private company and, depending on the specific agreement, maintained by either the railway or the private owner. Private sidings should not be confused with railway owned sidings which were (normally) dedicated to a specific trader or type of traffic.

Station	Year	Siding
Malvern Link	1904 1912 1925 1938 1956	Link Gas Works. Malvern UDC Gas Works. West Midlands Gas Board.
Great Malvern	1925 1938 1956	Malvern Girls College.
Colwall	1925	West of England Granite Quarries Ltd.
Colwall	December 1949 *	Admiralty Old Tunnel.

Notes:
* after the publication date denotes a change notified in an Appendix or Supplement.
† shown against GW part of entry only.

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Timetables: Railway

The railway industry generally produced two types of timetable:

Public (PTT), which contained the publicly advertised times of passenger trains, and
Working (WTT), which contained operational detail of the trains and were normally split into separate books for passenger and freight traffic. WTTs were not available to the public at large although Network Rail now makes them freely available on its web site.

British Railways generally produced regional and all line public timetables and the all line versions were perpetuated by Railtrack and Network Rail. However, Network Rail subsequently stopped publication of the PTT and left it to private providers to produce versions. Smaller pocket timetables were also produced and production of these continues with the train operating companies.

A selection of these timetables are available for viewing here:

February 1863* July 1935 June 1947 May 1949 January 1965 May 2004 December 2004 Adelante Fleet June 2006 August 2006 December 2006 May 2007 September 2007 December 2007 May 2008 May 2010 December 2010 December 2011 May 2012 December 2012 May 2013 December 2013 May 2014 December 2014 May 2015 September 2015 December 2015 May 2016 December 2016 Christmas 2016 May 2017 December 2017 May 2018 December 2018

* - denotes from Bradshaw rather than railway company issue.

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Timetables: Local Buses in Malvern

For many years the principal bus operator in Malvern was the Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company, trading under the name “Midland Red”.

September 1942 January 1961 January 1968 August 1969 October 1976 June 1986 363 September 2007 December 2007 March 2008 44 April 2016 April 2018 June 2018 August 2018

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Late Running Trains

The Great Western Railway was not exceptional in running some trains late any more than the present day train operators are!

An instruction issued by the Superintendent of the line to operate from June 1907 set out which locations were to telegraph or telephone late running information ahead of trains. Within the Malvern area the requirements were:

Station	Information Sent	Information Received
Malvern Link Box		From Great Malvern Office: the folloing passenger trains ex Hereford: 11.32am, 12.50pm, 2.22pm, 3.12pm, 4.22pm and 6.20pm.
Great Malvern	To Malvern Link: the following passenger trains ex Hereford: 11.32am, 12.50pm, 2.22pm, 3.12pm, 4.22pm and 6.20pm. To Worcester Shrub Hill Office: all up Hereford passenger trains except 7.45am, 11.32am and 8.10pm and 3.40pm Cardiff (Fridays only) and 8.29am ex Malvern Wells.	From Hereford Barrs Court Office: the following passenger trains ex Hereford: 8.40am, 11.32am, 12.50pm, 2.22pm, 4.20pm, 5.8pm (Fridays only), 6.20pm and 8.50pm; also all express excursions and second portions of divided trains. From Worcester Shrub Hill Office: 2.22pm ex Worcester. From Ledbury Box: 8.10pm passenger ex Hereford.
Malvern Wells		From Hereford Barrs Court Office: all second portions of divided trains.
Colwall		From Hereford Barrs Court Office: Second portion of divided trains.
Ledbury Box	To Gloucester Office: All up branch passenger trains when running 5 minutes late or more. To Great Malvern Office: 8.10 pm passenger train ex Hereford.	From Over Junction (telephone): All Newent line passenger trains when running 5 minutes late or more. From Worcester Shrub Hill Office: 9.35am, 9.50am, 1.0pm, 3.30pm, 4.2pm, 4.15pm, 6.25pm, 7.10pm, and 8.10pm ex Worcester. From Hereford Barrs Court: Second portion of divided trains and the following trains ex Hereford: 7.45am, 8.10am, 8.40am, 9.48am, 11.30am, 12.50pm, 12.57pm, 2.20pm, 3.10pm, 4.20pm, 5.8pm, 5.10pm, 6.20pm, 8.10pm and 8.50pm and all express excursions.
Ledbury Rea Bridge Box	To Hereford Barrs Court: all down passenger trains and all Chepstow excursions. To Shelwick Junction: All down passenger trains.

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Census

This section contains some entries extracted from the Census that refer to railway employees.

1871 Census

People who were at home on the night of 2^nd April 1871.

Address		Name		Position		Age		Occupation		Born		Reference
District 3, Leigh
16 Spring Gardens		John Powell		Head				Railway Porter		Epsom		-
16 Spring Gardens		- Powell		Daughter				-		Malvern Link
Lower Howsell Road		James Smith		Head				Platelayer		Leigh		129
Lower Howsell Road		John Williams		Head				Platelayer				129
		Ebenezer Hobbs		Head		59		Gateman to Great Western Railway		Bredon		Page 30
		Thomas Davies		Head		46		Signalman		Standwater, Gloucestershire		Page 30
		Emma Davies		Wife		42				Forthampton, Gloucestershire		Page 30
		Jane Davies		Daughter		3				Leigh Sinton		Page 30

1881 Census

People who were at home on the night of 3^rd April 1881.

Address		Name		Position		Age		Occupation		Born		Reference
District 3, Leigh
104 Stocks Lane		George Batchelor						Railway Signalman
Newland
Cottage		Albert Powell				18		Railway Porter				36