What was the role of a 'Travelling Shunter'

[benjidog]

I have been tracing my family history and found that many of my Botsford ancestors worked on the railways in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I am very puzzled by the job title of Alfred Botsford who worked at Staveley and various other locations for the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. He did various things but the one that has got me stumped is "Travelling Shunter". I have seen a few mentions of this in documents online but nothing that explains what this job involved. He started this particular job on 1 December 1902 and was rewarded with the princely sum of 1s 5d per week - though I suppose this was a big increase from his first job with the railway as a Goods Porter at Deepcar for which he got just 1s per week.

If anyone can throw any light on the job of a travelling shunter I would be very grateful to hear from you.

Best wishes,

Brian Watson

 

[co-tr-paul]

Don't know about back then but in the days of EWS, a Bristol based "Ground Crew" aka travelling shunter would take a van from base ie Bristol Parkway mail depot, and shunt as required yards at Gloucester,Westerliegh, Avonmouth, Bridgewater etc.. .

 

[AndrewE]

I would imagine that the guard of a pick-up goods train might have been fully occupied with paperwork at a wayside station that had few staff, so a shunter travelling with the train would be a sensible way to drop off wagons and attach some more in time to depart.
Google books
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...EIVjAH#v=onepage&q=travelling shunter&f=false
offers in "An entry in the train register":

... The clay empties from Stoke stopped during the afternoon to pick up a travelling shunter to assist with the dropping off and picking up of wagons at Ivybridge

 

[Andy873]

I have a copy of a 1905 working timetable which lists shunting engines for three main stations on this particular line:

Great Harwood, Simonstone & Padiham.

It details when and where shunting engines would work, what times, and type of work.

These engines not only traveled between these stations for shunting duties, often as and when required, but also worked as both banking & pilot engines too (assisting in pushing or pulling a train respectively).

It looks like although some shunters would be permanently base at one yard, many others would travel from place to place.

On this line, there was a large amount of coal moved, and some shunters went with a goods train, some went ahead to where the coal wagons needed to be placed in sidings.

The term "traveling shunter" could just be a generic phrase for one that moves from station to station and used as required - not sure.

There is some information out there that describes traveling shunters....

"the goods train stopped in the afternoon to pick up a traveling shunter to assist with the dropping off and picking up of wagons further down the line".

I am sure of what I've described above as being correct in 1905 for the Great Harwood loop line.

 

[benjidog]

Thanks everyone for your quick replies. Very kind of you. When I get home I will post Alfred's employment record for anyone that might be interested.

Brian

 

[ChiefPlanner]

They were used well into the 1980's on the Pantyffynon to GCG / Abernant lines in assisting the guard with both ground frame operation and wagon marshalling / securing etc.

(I sort of acted as an unofficial one , until "caught" by the local Inspector) i

 

[tsr]

I'm pretty sure I saw an elusive travelling shunter only a few months ago doing some sort of complicated run-round manoeuvre at 0400 in the old Up yard at Redhill, just before it was lifted. There were certainly no shunters or freight drivers based there for many years and I seem to remember he had "Shunter" on the back of his jacket. The driver was on the locomotive, and said shunter then wandered off down the stairs and out of the station.

As it just so happens there are a surprising number of conductors/guards on certain bits of the national network who can be sent out to shunt passenger trains as required, both whole and in some cases in portions, but it's pretty rare and not the usual day in the office for most of them!