What were "swingers"?

[Harlesden]

I've been reading about the Grimsby-South Wales fish trains and there is reference to four or five swingers behind the guards van being dropped off at Nottingham. Unfortunately, there is no further explanation.

 

[The North Briton]

I believe the term refers to vehicles coupled to a train but which do not share the train's brake system (probably the vacuum brake in your example)

 

[EM2]

I've only ever heard it used as a term for van traffic pulled behind a DMU.

 

[christopher]

I've only heard it with regards to a whole different sort of pushing and pulling...

 

[edwin_m]

I belive it was used to refer simply to vehicles to the rear of the brake van, which would be OK if the train was fully fiitted with continuous brakes and indeed was common practice on some fast freights so as to give the guard a better ride. It is also used to refer to unbraked vehicles, which can't run at the end of a train.

 

[Welshman]

That's interesting - I didn't know that vehicles were sometimes added to the rear of the brake van.

Do you know how they got round the regulation that the guard should change his offside rear red lamp to white when running on the outside line of two paired by direction?

 

[Taunton]

I think vehicles behind the guards van (always vacuum braked - unbraked vehicles would not be allowed there) were an LNER/Eastern Region thing, not done elsewhere. Vacuum braked goods vehicles were fairly rare anyway. As well as easing the riding of the guard, it also facilitated some intermediate shunting.

Not sure how many were allowed. I believe there was a comparable restriction on passenger services that no more than two coaches could be behind the guard's position.

"The Fish" was regarded as a premium freight service, in no small part because the vehicles were unrefrigerated, and even gets a mention for its overnight speed in, of all places, one of the Rev Awdry's books! Similarly, Fiennes' classic book of the 1960s records that it was once marked down as delayed by signals from The Talisman express passenger running ahead of it!

 

[9K43]

The term swinger was a slang word to designate a rail vehicle which had no brakes that could be applied by the driver. In brake van days, these trucks would be coupled up to be in the trains consist at the rear and coupled in the front of the brake van.
This term also was used to DMU's with 3 coaches with the middle one not powered
I have worked many loose coupled trains out of pits full of coal with only a brake van at the rear.
Hence a train load of swingers
Some Huddersfield Drivers would not take a 4 car set up the Penistone Line unless all the cars were powered,This sort of combination was know as Dredgers.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

You basically needed at least 3 fully fitted vehicles in rear of an unbraked wagon(s) - and a speed reduction was mandated (e.g 3 vac braked but air piped wagons in a Speedlink freight from say Southampton Bevois Park could legally be marshalled - but dropped the train speed down from 75mph to 60MPH.

 

[DarloRich]

I have heard the term used to describe, say, a failed unit rescued by a locomotive that has an incompatible coupler or breaking system.

Essentially the unit is towed along at a much reduced speed as an unbraked cargo vehicle

 

[wimbledonpete]

I always understood that on the Southern, because it had a preference for having coaches in sets, swingers were carriages not allocated to sets. They could then be added to trains for strengthening purposes. I don't think that that affected braking, though.

 

[edwin_m]

Seems like another piece of railway jargon that hasn't been defined and means different things to different people.

 

[neilmc]

In bus terms, they were peak-period short workings, usually untimetabled, which only worked in service in one direction. Service 1 in Leeds was swinger heaven with short workings to Hyde Park, Headingley (the most common), West Park, Ring Road and Lawnswood.

 

[30907]

I always understood that on the Southern, because it had a preference for having coaches in sets, swingers were carriages not allocated to sets. They could then be added to trains for strengthening purposes. I don't think that that affected braking, though.

The SR usage I've come across is slightly more specific and applies to coaching stock - a loose coach (ie not in a permanent set) attached outside (behind) the rearmost brake.
It only affected braking in that in an emergency the guard could not apply the brake from it, so "swingers" carrying passengers were not allowed on steep banks like Exeter and Mortehoe unless the train was assisted in rear.

 

[barbarajohn]

before a journey started, the guard would say to the driver ,"you,ve got 30 on and 10 swingers". The driver would then know his braking capacity.

 

[western Champion]

A "swinger" is an unbraked vehicle it's that simple. Can be a loco or a coach or a wagon.

I once moved 90024 to Crewe ETD after it had been in a collision with some livestock. It's brake pipes and pipe work underneath were all smashed so had no working brake. We top and tailed it with two manned locos and towed it at, from memory, 40 mph maximum from Rugby to Crewe.

The front loco was hauling, the rear manned loco was there in case of, for example a coupling breaking, 90024 could still be stopped.

 

[barbarajohn]

i was brought up in swinging days, all the coal trains were swingers, exept the guards van, handling an unfited train, was a very skilled job, the drivers would never let a fireman "have a go", unless he had been fiering for a very long time.then it was under close supervision.

 

[Smudger105e]

On the Southern swinger were, as has been previously mentioned, unbraked coahes or wagons. The coaches would have been because of defective power rakes, and could not be at the end of a formation, always three braked vehicles either side.

Unfitted freight trains or trains with a fitted head (the first vehicles behind the loco braked and the rest unbrakes with a brake van on the rear) were outlawed in the late 1970s (I think) and all trains had to be fully fitted for normal service.

One accident happened at Horsham because a train with a fitted head had brake problems at Three Bridges and once sorted a continuity test was not undertaken, and so the train was fully unfitted. The train was unable to stop at Horsham

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=1121

 

[barbarajohn]

when i was a driver at speke jct. liverpool, we had a part fitted job from runcorn . one of our drivers "ran away" down the incline to weaver jct. and collided with a whisky train from scotland, the runcorn train was carrying soda ash! the main line was closed for a week, nobody was killed (or got drunk)