Railway signs.

[Dav and Pen]

Saw this weight sign on a bridge over the Mon and Brec canal. It is by the London and North western railway but the GWR owned the canal. Any ideas ?

[ditchcrawler]

There are still some on the S Stratford, I am surprised they havent been pinched

[Derek R.]

Possibly because the same Act covered the whole country, different canal companies blagged them off the LNWR. Just a guess. I remember seeing them on some bridges over the GU in the Home Counties. Didn't pay any attention to which railway company had their name on them though.

[Athy]

Both railwaws had lines criss-crossing South Wales -  the L&NWR had a line to Swansea, for example. So it would have been quite possible for one company's lines to meet or cross the other's. Perhaps the bridge carried a road leading to an L&NWR station?

[Dav and Pen]

Perhaps they brought a job lot. The Monmouth canal and Railway was owned by the GWR and there is no other railway in the area. I saw a couple of GWR marker posts at railway bridges.

[1st ade]

I'm intrigued (although I've seen the signs plenty of times before) at a "Heavy Motor Car, any axle exceeding five tons" - these days, the whole vehicle wheghing five tons is a different class.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

The London North Western did own railways in the area of the Monmouth and Brecon canal. A screen grab from Rail Map online. They have a canal map too, but I can't work out how you might superimpose the two! Purple legend.

[Athy]

That looks like varicose veins.

Purple leg end, then.

[Tony Brooks]

Thanks for posting that, Jen, a fascinating site to play with.

[Heartland]

Which bridge had the LNWR sign?

[Dav and Pen]

I believe it was number 72 not far from Goytre wharf

[andy3196]

6 hours ago, 1st ade said:

I'm intrigued (although I've seen the signs plenty of times before) at a "Heavy Motor Car, any axle exceeding five tons" - these days, the whole vehicle wheghing five tons is a different class.

A "Heavy Motor Car" isn't a car that is heavy, it is the different class that you mention. The current defininition is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/185 . The 1896 & 1903 acts don't seem to be online, but there is a PDF of the 1930 act which repealed them at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1930/43/pdfs/ukpga_19300043_en.pdf Which has a similar definition but in imperial units. I suspect that the 1930 act would have carried over the existing definition from the earlier acts.

[ditchcrawler]

This one on the S Stratford.

 

[Heartland]

This is a topic of further investigation. The Canal was owned by the Great Western Railway, eventually and bridge maintenance would have become their responsibility. For the LNWR to have erected the sign the reasoning then follows that they had bridge maintenance responsibility. Whilst the LNWR did have railways in this neighbourhood they were at a distance from Goytre. The nearby railway (Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford) was GWR, although the LNWR did have running rights from the joint GW/LNWR Hereford to Shrewsbury Railway. They have no evident responsibility for a bridge in the Goytre area, unless there is something in the records of the company.

 

For a sign to be relocated, as Derek, there has to be a reason. This canal passed from the Railway Company to the DIWE after nationalisation. The Mon & Brec passed from the GWR to the DIWE 20th May 1949 and not on vesting day 1st January 1948. 

[magpie patrick]

Heartland has articulated well what I was wanting to say - this bridge was almost certainly a GWR responsibility until DIWE took over, and it is unlikely that GWR had a spare LNWR sign lying around the depot. To that I would add the class of vehicle referred to was almost certainly obsolete by the time DIWE took over and thus the sign's provisions would have had little legal force by then, although if the weight limit were exceeded liability for any resulting claim would be easy to demonstrate. 

Signs did get moved - in that area there is (or certainly used to be) a Monmouthshire Canal Company milepost with mileage from Potter Street Lock - the sign was on The Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal and Potter Street Lock closed in the 1850s (IIRC), at some point, after the M had merged with the B&A, signs were moved to be the correct distance from the Newport terminus even though this was no longer Potter Street and the signs ended up on the wrong canal.

[Pluto]

I would have thought the signs would have some legal force as a canal company only had to provide a bridge capable of carrying the road traffic at the time of construction, and hence the need for warning signs. The photo below shows what they were trying to avoid.

[magpie patrick]

23 minutes ago, Pluto said:

I would have thought the signs would have some legal force as a canal company only had to provide a bridge capable of carrying the road traffic at the time of construction, and hence the need for warning signs. The photo below shows what they were trying to avoid.

Impressive!

By "legal force" I meant that the vehicle class described no longer existed in 1949 - the weights on them would still be valid. Edited to add - and therefore DIWE would probably have had new signs manufactured with the correct vehicle classification on rather than putting a second hand sign up, but I guess it's possible that the old sign was damaged and someone just picked on up from the back of  a depot.

Further to add - not sure DIWE would have had LNWR signs to hand though, aside from the gapoof 24 years DIWE were not the successor to a railway company!

Edited June 27, 2021 by magpie patrick

[andy3196]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

vehicle class described no longer existed in 1949

 

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, andy3196 said:

 

I saw you the first time - You've quoted an existing piece of legislation which in turn draws upon previous legislation for it's wording, however since the days of the LNWR (which is where this conversation started) several changes have come about. First, vehicle categories, you cannot pay vehicle excise duty on "a heavy locomotive", or at least there is no such category, you'd have to find the category that suited your vehicle, and nor can you get a licence to drive one. 

Second, when LNWR/GWR etc were posting these signs the concept of a Traffic Regulation Order, or even a highway authority with regulatory and maintenance powers, was in it's infancy - now (and indeed since about 1930) there is a distinction between the responsibility of the bridge owner and the powers of the highway authority. I have worked on instances where Network Rail have an issue with the weight of vehicles over a bridge, as Pluto says they are under no obligation to strengthen the bridge, instead they apply to the highway authority for a traffic regulation order to limit the weight - NR can't just stick a sign up the way that GWR and LNER did 100+ years ago. The highway authority will impose a traffic regulation order (after due process) that makes it an offence to drive a vehicle in excess of a given weight (normally maximum gross weight, sometimes axle weight) along the section of road in question, sometimes with an exception, usually for PCV's/service buses as they often just exceed a weight limit and the alternative is a big diversion. 

Or to put it another way - a sign saying "heavy motor cars in excess of..." and bearing the name of the railway company would have no legal status. 

It is worth noting that all these signs are, as far as I'm aware, pre-grouping, and thus 98 years old at least. 

Edited June 27, 2021 by magpie patrick

[noddyboater]

Not sure if this has anything to do with Pluto's photo..

Apparently found in the garden of our cottage,  but originally on the Grade 11 listed Smeath Lane Bridge,  Chesterfield Canal. 

[David Mack]

Just now, noddyboater said:

Not sure if this has anything to do with Pluto's photo..

Apparently found in the garden of our cottage,  but originally on the Grade 11 listed Smeath Lane Bridge,  Chesterfield Canal. 

I can remember the days when signs like that were quite common on bridges, but almost all of them seem to have fallen prey to scrappies and souvenir hunters.

[Heartland]

Yes such signs are to be found on different navigations. The MSLR/ GCR/LNER was responsible for the Chesterfield Canal.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

1 hour ago, noddyboater said:

Not sure if this has anything to do with Pluto's photo..

Apparently found in the garden of our cottage,  but originally on the Grade 11 listed Smeath Lane Bridge,  Chesterfield Canal. 

 

On 27/06/2021 at 14:36, Pluto said:

I would have thought the signs would have some legal force as a canal company only had to provide a bridge capable of carrying the road traffic at the time of construction, and hence the need for warning signs. The photo below shows what they were trying to avoid.

 

Interesting the at the sign at the top is so vague as to what is too heavy. What is within the rules and what is not. Perhaps the engine driver was using some of the famed common sense that Boris goes on about when he decided to cross the bridge! After all, you could describe a traction engine as normal traffic for the district at the time.

[noddyboater]

2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

 

Interesting the at the sign at the top is so vague as to what is too heavy. What is within the rules and what is not. Perhaps the engine driver was using some of the famed common sense that Boris goes on about when he decided to cross the bridge! After all, you could describe a traction engine as normal traffic for the district at the time.

It's also ironic as the bridge now has to accommodate HGV's over 30 tons on a daily basis. This is despite the road being signed 7.5T except for access on either end as it's an alternative route to avoid a low railway crossing. 

[1st ade]

5 minutes ago, noddyboater said:

...except for access....

And there is the excuse

 

We regularly have 44 tonners dropping off a bag of sugar and thereby "needing access"