Berry Wiggins at Whimsey 1949-1967

Home	BERRY WIGGINS AT WHIMSEY 1949 -1967



	INTRODUCTION

	Set between the rivers Severn and Wye in the west of Gloucestershire bordering Wales and Herefordshire, the Forest of Dean once had an extensive railway network, not least to serve the numerous collieries and iron and tinplate works located on its coal-bearing syncline. The last of the deep collieries - Northern United - closed in 1965 but names such as Princess Royal, Parkend, Foxes Bridge, Cannop, Wimberry and Parkend survive on the sides of scale model railway wagons - and in some cases on 12" to the foot vehicles on the Dean Forest Railway which by 2008 ran from Lydney Severn & Wye Platforms via Lydney Town and Whitecroft to Parkend. This article however focuses on the Berry Wiggins bitumen wagons which would have run via Newnham on Severn, Upper Soudley and Ruspidge to Whimsey.

	THE LAST PRIVATE OWNER WAGONS IN THE FOREST OF DEAN

	The London offices of Berry Wiggins were in Stratford E15 and Field House, Fetter Lane EC4 and the company produced bitumen from a plant at Sharnel Street on the Isle of Grain as early as 1924. Although it was not until 1949 that their cylindrical tank wagons began to be shunted on the siding behind the goods shed at Whimsey the whole site belonged to Berry Wiggins soon afterward. The asbestos lagged tank wagons would then be heated ( as described in Gloucestershire's Chemical Romance ) to offload the otherwise solid bitumen either to storage tanks or directly to road tankers for onward distribution around west Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. Six or seven loaded wagons would arrive at Whimsey every day - and a corresponding number leave empty - until the depot closed along with the branch from Newnham - which had once run through to Mitcheldean Road between Gloucester and Ross on Wye - in 1967. Also seen at Berry Wiggin's Whimsey depot were South Eastern Gas Board tank wagons with red oxide barrels, white lettering and black solebars and running gear.

	WAGONS COMMISSIONED BUT ALSO NON COMMISSIONED

	Berry Wiggins ultimately operated a large fleet of both Class A ( highly inflammable ) and Class B ( less volatile liquids including bitumen ) tank wagons obtained over a long period of time from builders such as Charles Roberts of Wakefield and The Cambrian Wagon Company. Many Berry Wiggins operated railway wagons were also later leased from British Railway Traffic and Electric Company Limited (BRT & E) of 13 Grosvenor Crescent, London. Historians usually accept that these wagons were painted black and definitely had white lettering in a range of formats. The circular plates on the sides were pale yellow with ( in many cases but excluding wagons 28 and 82 ) red sergeant's stripes and in many cases ( including Charles Roberts built wagon 96 ) also included the words "British Made" and "Liquaphalt" - Berry Wiggin's own trade name for liquid ashphalt, or bitumen. Next to the circular plate, the single contrasting star denoted clearance for the wagon to travel at up to 35 miles per hour.

	BERRY WIGGINS FOR SALE



		Berry Wiggins survived into the 1970s but although they are no longer with us their legacy lives on with N gauge models from Robbie's Rolling Stock.
		Among the early rectangular tank designs ( not used at Whimsey ) the white Class A markings are most interesting. The sergeant's stripes are absent and the address is given as Kingsnorth, Hoo, Kent. This was the location of a major Berry Wiggins Depot and was also inadvertently
	responsible for Berry Wiggins gaining free prime time television publicity . In early 1970 a location scout was travelling to nearby Kingsnorth power station on behalf of science fiction series Dr Who - which had just begun its first season in colour with Jon Pertwee in the title role. Instead the BBC man found Berry Wiggins and as a result millions of viewers saw Berry Wiggins railway wagons, tanker lorries ( with the ergonomic cabs of the era ) and storage tanks as Dr Who, his glamorous assistant Liz Shaw ( played by Caroline Johns ) and such United Nations Intelligence Task Force members as Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart ( Nicholas Courtenay ) and Sergeant Benton ( John Levine ) battled Primords, hairy green human mutants created by a scheme to drill through the Earth's crust to release energy.



	Another variation on the Berry Wiggins livery has been applied to this N gauge Peco Wonderful Wagon pictured at Platform 1 of Terminal 1. Numbered 118 it gives the company address as Field House, Fetter Lane but otherwise more closely resembles the markings of the rectangular tank wagon above. Paul Elliot tells me that this is one of only 2000 such wagons produced by Peco of Beer, Devon, to celebrate the 35th Anniversary Exhibition of the N Gauge Society in 2002.

	WHO'S HOO

	While the cast and crew of Dr Who have long since checked out of their hotels in nearby Rochester, the former Berry Wiggins oil and bitumen site on the Medway Estuary survives as the Kingsnorth Industrial Estate.The northern part, where the Berry Wiggins rail depot stood is now an oil recycling plant, whilst the southern side is now home to Kingsnorth Bitumen Products Ltd. However, this part of the southern edge of the Hoo Penisula served as a Royal Flying Corps airfield from 1914 and after The Great War became a base for airships. The arrival of Berry Wiggins in 1930 saw it develop as Hoo's first oil refinery and on completion in 1932 a connection from the refinery was made with the Southern Railway’s single-track branch across the bleak marshland. The connection trailed off in a south-westward direction, which required trains to be travelling towards Hoo Junction in order to access the site. The private spur was separated from the SR line by a gate and beyond this, it split into numerous sidings. By 1964, Berry Wiggins & Co’s oil refinery at Kingsnorth had an annual capacity of 190,000 tons; the company also had a complex established at Manchester (Weaste) which, during World War II, had received a direct hit during a bombing raid in 1940. New builds of tanker wagons came into service for Berry Wiggins after the war, and the Kingsnorth establishment had been joined in 1951 by the BP refinery on the Isle of Grain. The Berry Wiggins complex ceased to refine oil in 1977, its ''Kingsnorth'' name now being associated with a power station, but refining at the comparatively newer Grain complex stopped only half a decade later. Subsequently, oil was shipped into the country in an already refined state, but deliveries were still made to Grain thereafter, the last oil train not departing until 1999.



	ON THE TRAIL OF BERRY WIGGINS



	After closure, the branch line from Newnham on Severn to Upper Soudley, Ruspidge and Whimsey became a linear park for the expanding town of Cinderford and near the site of the former Ruspidge Halt Berry Wiggins wagon 171 has been preserved as an historical feature. With a tare weight of 11 tons and load of 20 tons, 171 also has TSL (Tank Services Ltd ) markings on its anchor mounted barrel and a solebar plate with the cast characters B-1964 and 749652. 171 was also one of the last unfitted private owner wagons built, although some of the final Berry Wiggins tank vehicles had roller bearings. The fleet was condemned 1971-2 and did not receive TOPS numbers.











	While the schematic map at the top of this feature focuses on the area immediately around the Berry Wiggins depot between Whimsey and Nailbridge, the geographic map above shows the full extent of the railways once operating in the Forest of Dean.