APPENDIX "B"
DIESEL LIGHT WEIGHT TRAINS
DERBY, NOTTINGHAM, LEICESTER SCHEME
Notes of meeting held at Euston. Thursday, 9th August, 1956.
PRESENT :-
Mr.E.S.Hunt
" B.A.Adkinson
" J.J.Finlayson
" T.Fiske
" R.E.Lawrence
" H.G.N.Read
" R.Varley
" C.Larkin
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The Chairman referred to a letter which has been received from Mr.Watkins enclosing a memorandum from Mr.Pope and said that the cause for the urgency of this matter is the fact that the Scottish Region are pressing the B.T.C. very strongly for diesel light weight trains and that these can only be supplied quickly to that Region if the L.M.Region consider it essential to have 200 H.P. engines for the Derby, Nottingham, Leicester scheme, in which case the 17 3-car sets on order for that scheme will be transferred to Scotland. So far as the L.M.Region is concerned, this would mean that the introduction of this particular scheme would be delayed by 6-12 months. The Chairman said that both Mr.Watkins and Mr.Blee felt that the units should continue to be allocated to the L.M.Region if alternative arrangements could be made for dealing with tail traffic. Also there would be no objection to the use of 200 H.P. engines if this would speed up the passenger service and give better schedules, but it could not be agreed to a further £152,000 being spent on higher powered engines simply to cater for tail traffic which, in any case, is inadviseable so far as light diesel trains are concerned.
Mr.Read said there is considerable parcels and postal traffic in this area, including through parcels vans to and from main line services, also stores vans and gas tanks, and if tail traffic is precluded from diesel services it would be necessary for some alternative method to be found for dealing with these. This was supported by Mr.Lawrence, who said there are 24 vans journeys each day to various points after all the space in the guards' vans of diesel units had been fully loaded. Of these, ten van journeys were for destinations beyond the terminating points of the diesel units and have to be attached to other trains. This area is one of the largest in the Region for small parcels traffic and parcels post. In order to build up the diesel service in the area, the line capacity has been completely taken up and there is no prospect of providing additional paths for the parcels and postal traffic.
The Chairman raised the point of the possibility of conveying the parcels traffic by road to and from selected railheads, but it was stated that the stations in the area, particularly Nottingham, were already overburdened with handling over the station premises and we could not give the transits at present in operation, the process of transfer from road to rail being a much slower operation. It was thought, however, that this feature should be further examined, not overlooking the possibility of the use of containers to save handling, or the use of freight terminals if this was feasible.
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