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Company Trains

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Andy873

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After looking at some 1970's WTT's, I noticed many references to "COY".

I found out that COY meant a company train, and the ones I was interested in came from / ran to Stanlow refinery owned by Shell.

Now does this mean the whole train (including the loco) were owned by Shell? or did BR locos simply attach to the Shell oil wagons?

I'm sure this one will be easy for someone to answer!

Thanks,
Andy.
 
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Snow1964

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BR provided the locos

There were few short exceptions where the company locos ran along the mainline tracks between 2 company sites, but I think they generally had a BR driver (or pilot)
 

30907

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Not sure whether all COY workings used non-BR-owned wagons, but they were certainly for a specific company's traffic and I think always a block train.
 

Gloster

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BR provided the loco, train crew and saw to the operation, while the company owned (or leased or hired, etc.) the wagons and the terminal. Stanlow was a Shell refinery, while the destination terminal was often owned by a separate company, rather than Shell or one of its subsidiaries.

Company trains had, as with all regular trains, a pathway in the timetable, but they could be altered to meet the client’s wishes: they might not run, or run additionally on other days. Some could go part of the way in a regular route and then either be divided or continue as needed.

(Entirely imaginary example: tanks from Stanlow might supply Accrington, Barrow and Carlisle on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (respectively). On all three days they would follow the same path to Preston and then go their separate ways, but they might run additionally to one of the destinations on Monday or Friday, or it might be decided to send Tuesday’s train to Carlisle instead. All this would be organised by the railway according to Shell’s wishes; Shell would also act for the receiving terminal’s owner in relations with BR.)

EDIT: They were normally block trains of one type of traffic, but it was not unknown for wagons, when different destinations were being served, to do the last leg of their trip in another train. There could sometimes be other traffic added to a block train, but this was only with permission and would only be allowed if it did not affect the block loads’ operation.
 
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Helvellyn

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Wasn't the Foster Yeoman operation this sort of Company Train service, but Foster Yeoman wasn't happy with the reliability of the Class 56s, which culminated in them buying the Class 59s?
 

delt1c

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Wasn't the Foster Yeoman operation this sort of Company Train service, but Foster Yeoman wasn't happy with the reliability of the Class 56s, which culminated in them buying the Class 59s?
As far as I am aware the Foster Yoeman was the 1st to employ non BR traction on the main line
 

Gloster

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Wasn't the Foster Yeoman operation this sort of Company Train service, but Foster Yeoman wasn't happy with the reliability of the Class 56s, which culminated in them buying the Class 59s?

They owned or leased and maintained the locos and wagons. The drivers, guards and some staff at the Merehead terminal were provided by BR.
 

6Gman

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BR provided the loco, train crew and saw to the operation, while the company owned (or leased or hired, etc.) the wagons and the terminal. Stanlow was a Shell refinery, while the destination terminal was often owned by a separate company, rather than Shell or one of its subsidiaries.

Company trains had, as with all regular trains, a pathway in the timetable, but they could be altered to meet the client’s wishes: they might not run, or run additionally on other days. Some could go part of the way in a regular route and then either be divided or continue as needed.

(Entirely imaginary example: tanks from Stanlow might supply Accrington, Barrow and Carlisle on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (respectively). On all three days they would follow the same path to Preston and then go their separate ways, but they might run additionally to one of the destinations on Monday or Friday, or it might be decided to send Tuesday’s train to Carlisle instead. All this would be organised by the railway according to Shell’s wishes; Shell would also act for the receiving terminal’s owner in relations with BR.)

EDIT: They were normally block trains of one type of traffic, but it was not unknown for wagons, when different destinations were being served, to do the last leg of their trip in another train. There could sometimes be other traffic added to a block train, but this was only with permission and would only be allowed if it did not affect the block loads’ operation.
Having worked in Freight Short Term Planning in the late 1970s can I say that is an excellent description.

There was one other variant I could mention, which was a company train which gradually shed wagons as it progressed. Classic example were the fertiliser trains from Ince & Elton. There was one to Truro which left with a fair load but had dwindled to a couple of wagons by the time it reached Truro (from memory it dropped wagons at Bridgewater and Tavistock Junction and possibly elsewhere).
 

Gloster

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There was one other variant I could mention, which was a company train which gradually shed wagons as it progressed. Classic example were the fertiliser trains from Ince & Elton. There was one to Truro which left with a fair load but had dwindled to a couple of wagons by the time it reached Truro (from memory it dropped wagons at Bridgewater and Tavistock Junction and possibly elsewhere).

There were at times two trains to that west with depots at Bridgwater, Lapford (dropped at Exeter Riverside), Plymouth (dropped at Tavistock Junction if the train was going to Truro) and Truro. The pattern of calls altered a bit over the years.

There was also a train that came from Ince & Elton that came on to the Southern Region via Warminster. It dropped half the wagons at Salisbury, took the rest on to Andover and shunted them into the siding there. The loco then ran light back to Salisbury, picked up the other half of the train and took it to Gillingham, before running light back Salisbury. It was supposed to stable at Salisbury until the evening return working, but often got nicked for the Dinton trip.
 

Hadrian

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In 1972 I was seconded to Freight Short Term Planning when the volume of work increased dramatically following a decision to reduce the scale of timetabled freight services and to have more resources specifically dedicated to short term planned freight services. A significant part of the work related to Company trains.

Short term planning included specifying alterations to timetabled trains to meet customer requirements (altering days of operation, diversions to alternative destinations etc) as well as timing additional trains from scratch.

Some contracted traffic flows, including Shell (from Stanlow) and Shellstar (from Ince and Elton, almost next door) as well as the Merry Go Round coal flows to power stations had specific numbers of locomotive diagrams dedicated to those contracts.

This was, of course, well before 'instant communications', so we spent much of our time on the telephone agreeing additions and alterations which we then documented in single sheet special traffic notices which, when printed, were distributed overnight to the traincrew depots, signal boxes and control offices relevant to the train(s) contained in each notice.
 

Adrian Barr

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A surprising statistic is that by 1969, BP and Shell Mex had a combined fleet of over 1000 privately owned bogie tank wagons for their joint distribution operation, a number hard to conceive these days. (That statistic is from Modern Private Owner Wagons on British Rail by David Ratcliffe).

In a 1969 Eastern Region Freight timetable I saw on Ebay, COY "Denotes Private Company Train." This would be to distinguish it from the large number of wagonload services conveying various traffic flows for multiple different customers, compared to today when almost every freight train would be classed as "COY" by this definition and the term seems to have been dropped.
 
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