Jump to content
 

Cross-Country workings onto/through the GWR with SR RTR stock?


OnTheBranchline
 Share

Recommended Posts

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

BTW, where does the suggestion that the LMS used Maunsell coaches come from? Good photos of the SSE in SR, as opposed to LBSCR, days seem hard to find, but all that ive seen seem to show ex-LNWR coaches, including a colour film from 1938 that I've seen which showed rake including an ex-LNWR 12W dining car being shunted at Brighton.

 

This was Gould's book on SR Maunsell carriages. After listing the SSE's train formations, he then goes on to cover their build:

IMG_2309.jpg.8fd9d5f801f523644d8fa54aab3474fb.jpg

 

This is what confused me.

 

9 hours ago, melmerby said:

It strikes me it is an awfully long journey from the South Coast to Birmingham in possibly non corridor trains and just a 4-4-0 in charge.

 

That's what I was thinking when the only Hornby LMS stock I could find was non-corridor. But Gould gives the Bournemouth/Manchester train formation as BT/T/C/Dining/C/T/BT/BT/C/BT. No mention of corridors, but how would the dining car work otherwise?

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, truffy said:

This was Gould's book on SR Maunsell carriages. After listing the SSE's train formations, he then goes on to cover their build:


Hmmm ...... that is just plain confusing!

 

He says at the top of the page that the SSE used only LMS stock, and I have never seen any evidence of SR stock being used on it.

 

Does he give build dates for the “to alternate with LMS stock” list? Were any actually built? 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

They are known "holiday" trains which ran between the wars between the South coast of England and Birmingham.

They more often had a GWR loco this far North and they also used GWR stock.

Here's one with Clerestory stock behind the ex-LSWR loco:

https://warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrkd126.htm

gwrkd126.jpg

 

Note this is only about 10 miles from Birmingham, hardly noted for it's military training camps.

Birmingham was hardly noted as a holiday destination for those living along the South Coast either. I don't deny that such holiday trains existed but, unlike the daily through trains which were usually (but not inevitably) worked alternate days with carriage sets from one company or the other, they were commonly worked using stock from the area where the traffic originated - as is seen in the photo of a train with GWR stock.

 

Military, and naval, trains were used to move battalions or ship's companies and much of the traffic originated on the former LSWR, notably from around Salisbury Plain (where the Bulford branch had effectively been built to facilitate such traffic) and from Portsmouth. It was normal to use non-corridor stock for such trains with the first class reserved for officers and it was equally normal to use the stock of the originating company, ie the Southern - it is these two factors which strongly suggest a military or naval purpose for the train that was depicted. The other possibility is that it depicts a special excursion, advertised or privately sponsored, from Southern territory to an event in the West Midlands.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
Just now, bécasse said:

Birmingham was hardly noted as a holiday destination for those living along the South Coast either.

I took it as the traffic going the other way. 
 

Andi 

  • Agree 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

I took it as the traffic going the other way.

In which case it would almost certainly have used the coaching stock of the company (GWR or LMSR) where the traffic originated as the use of Southern stock would have entailed a lot of ecs running. There may, though, have been occasions where an odd Southern vehicle was used to strengthen a return formation or to replace a defective carriage.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 hour ago, bécasse said:

The other possibility is that it depicts a special excursion, advertised or privately sponsored, from Southern territory to an event in the West Midlands.

Why are you so determined to assert these are military trains when everybody else seems to think that they were trains to take Midlanders to the South Coast during the summer holiday season.

I assume the carriage stock used was alternated between the SR & GWR so either could be seen on the service, in either direction.

Comments on the site seem to suggest that normally the ex LSWR locos would be changed further south (Oxford?) but occasionally worked through.

 

The SR locos on the service would be noted by photographers as something unusual so that's why we see them.

A GWR loco in GWR territory with GWR carriages on the service wouldn't attract such attention.

Edited by melmerby
Link to post
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, bécasse said:

use of Southern stock would have entailed a lot of ecs running


Not a lot.

 

First Saturday of the season, ECS to Brum. Come back full. Park up for the week.

 

Second Saturday, take trainload of brummies home; bring back new lot.

 

Etc until last Saturday, when you come back empty., put stock away to moulder until needed for troop train, Spithead review excursion or WHY.

 

Very poor stock utilisation, but not untypical for an ‘excursion set’.

 

Even in BR days, there was a Brum to Hastings working using WR stock that operated like this, with WR coaches spending the week at the seaside with the punters.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

The military specials is a possibility. We had them even in BR days, sometimes split to more than one train,  ordinary coaching stock on one for the men and NPCCS or goods vans and flats for vehicles and equipment. Sometimes for a smaller move it was a train with a few coaches and carflats.

 

In 1915 my grandfather took a piece of shrapnel in the shoulder at Aubers Ridge in France. He was shipped back from Dieppe to Newhaven. On arrival back in England he was taken as a sitting case by ambulance train through from Newhaven to Warrington via Birmingham Snow Hill. Would be interesting to see the stock and loco arrangements on those workings.

Edited by TheSignalEngineer
typo
  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:


Not a lot.

 

First Saturday of the season, ECS to Brum. Come back full. Park up for the week.

 

Second Saturday, take trainload of brummies home; bring back new lot.

 

Etc until last Saturday, when you come back empty., put stock away to moulder until needed for troop train, Spithead review excursion or WHY.

 

Very poor stock utilisation, but not untypical for an ‘excursion set’.

 

Even in BR days, there was a Brum to Hastings working using WR stock that operated like this, with WR coaches spending the week at the seaside with the punters.

 

 

Exactly.

The stock used would not have been the best the company had, more the "reserves" that sit in the sidings waiting for a job.

Things were much different in earlier times, new stock wouldn't mean old would be scrapped, just moved down the pecking order until it was worn out/unusable.

Even BR had loads of underused generally older carriages which would be cobbled together for Footex or Mystery days out etc.

 

So different to modern times with mostly fixed formation trains with less chance of much further use once the "newer model" arrives.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:


First Saturday of the season, ECS to Brum. Come back full. Park up for the week.

 

Second Saturday, take trainload of brummies home; bring back new lot.

 

Etc until last Saturday, when you come back empty., put stock away to moulder until needed for troop train, Spithead review excursion or WHY.

 

Very poor stock utilisation, but not untypical for an ‘excursion set’.

 

Even in BR days, there was a Brum to Hastings working using WR stock that operated like this, with WR coaches spending the week at the seaside with the punters.

 

 

As the pre-nationalisation stock was withdrawn and replaced by Mk1s in the early 1960s a lot of sets from weekday services were used for weekend holiday trains. I travelled on Sets 868/869 which were green Mk1 sets allocated to the Hastings/Eastbourne - West Midlands services on local trains out of Snow Hill c1962. One of the sets worked Cannock Rd to  Wolverhampton (ECS) / Wolverhampton - Dudley - Birmingham, Brimingham - Tyseley (ECS) in the morning then Tyseley - Wolverhampton / Wolverhampton - Cannock Rd (ECS)  in the evening on M-F

Another example was the 7.25am from Leamington to Snow Hill which formed the 5.38pm back to Lapworth on M-F then the Wolverhampton - Ilfracombe through carriages on summer Saturdays. That was WR sets each weekend with a layover in the West Country, although I suspect it may have appeared on the Ilfracombe - Taunton trains in the week.  

 

 

Edited by TheSignalEngineer
Missed a word
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, truffy said:

........  formation as BT/T/C/Dining/C/T/BT/BT/C/BT. No mention of corridors, but how would the dining car work otherwise?

Don't forget the carriage type designations - BTK, TK, CK etc. - that we take for granted only date from British Railways Days and only the L.N.E.R. used a similar shorthand in earlier days ........... so Goulds use of "BT" for Brake Third etc.etc. means exactly what HE meant by it and it shouldn't specifically be taken as an implication of the lack of corridors !

  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

I travelled on Sets 868/869 which were green Mk1 sets allocated to the Hastings/Eastbourne - West Midlands services on local trains out of Snow Hill c1962.

 

If you can get hold of a copy of 'Steam Days' for Nov. 2020, it has a very good photo article about inter-regional trains to/from Kent and Sussex in the fifties and sixties, containing a picture that im fairly sure shows 'your' set 869 on 1220(SO) Hastings to Birmingham in July 1962.

 

Somewhere on-line I found a picture of a predecessor train, 1959, c1215 from Hastings, when it was formed of ex-GWR stock, which I think either spent the week at the seaside, coming south on Saturday afternoon, or possibly the southbound working was overnight F-S.

 

Of course, BR continued to use Mk1 sets for "commute in the week, seaside at the weekend" well into the 1980s. I sometimes used to sit in exactly the same seat for a ride to the Cambrian Coast on Saturday as I travelled home from work in M-F.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Of course, BR continued to use Mk1 sets for "commute in the week, seaside at the weekend" well into the 1980s. I sometimes used to sit in exactly the same seat for a ride to the Cambrian Coast on Saturday as I travelled home from work in M-F.

And probably right up to privatisation with Mk2s. There was a Milton Keynes - Birmingham - Penzance and returning at 1600 on summer Saturdays which used one of the WCML faux Pullman sets for a few years. I think at one time it did Derby - Penzance returning to Coventry then ECS to Wembley. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Don't forget the carriage type designations - BTK, TK, CK etc. - that we take for granted only date from British Railways Days and only the L.N.E.R. used a similar shorthand in earlier days ........... so Goulds use of "BT" for Brake Third etc.etc. means exactly what HE meant by it and it shouldn't specifically be taken as an implication of the lack of corridors !

If you look at my post at the top of this page, you will see that Gould does not use BT for Brake Third, he refers to "Third Bke".

 

It was I who introduced the abbreviations, driven by laziness a desire for simplicity, and @melmerby who introduced the possibility of non-corridor formations.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Getting back to Mr Gould's book for a moment: does he mention the set(s) for the 'Continental', i.e. Birkenhead (or short thereof) to Margate (and a lot of other places)?

 

I ask, because I'm almost wondering if he has got mixed-up between destinations and railways with that list of coaches "to alternate with LMS stock", or whether perhaps the SR built for one service, and then used them on the other.

 

And, here is a lovely picture of one of the "conti" trains in pre-Maunsell-coaches days. People really would raise their eyebrows at that combo on a GWR layout! 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrrj1479.htm

 

This is what "Railway wonders of the World" said about the train in the mid-1930s:

 

Another cross-country service, starting from Birkenhead at 8 am, uses the same route as the Bournemouth train down. through Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Oxford to Reading, but, instead of taking the Reading West curve, it continues into Reading GWR station, which adjoins that of the Southern Railway.

 

Here a Southern 2-6-0 engine is waiting to haul this express, bound for the Kent Coast over difficult gradients through Aldershot, Guildford, Dorking, and Redhill to Tonbridge, where the Southern main line to Dover is reached. Continuing over this to Ashford, the train divides, half of it proceeding to Folkestone, Dover (4.9 pm), and Deal (4.34 pm), and the other half through Canterbury to Ramsgate and Margate, reached at 4.49 pm.

 

In this convenient way the north-west and south-cast coasts of England are linked, and useful service is given also between intermediate towns. Both the Birkenhead-Bournemouth and Birkenhead-Dover services are composed alternately of Great Western and Southern Railway rolling stock, and both include restaurant cars in their formations. From Birkenhead to Dover by this cross-country route is a total distance of 307 miles.

 

This is a bit of a simplification, because it misses-out the reversal at Redhill (engine change) and the Brighton-Eastbourne-Hastings portion (detached at Redhill, yet another engine, and another one again after reversal at Brighton), although that was, I think "summer only". A good train if you were a "haulage basher"! In high summer in some years, I think it actually ran as two complete separate "core" trains, one from Deal and one from Margate, about an hour apart.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Getting back to Mr Gould's book for a moment: does he mention the set(s) for the 'Continental', i.e. Birkenhead (or short thereof) to Margate (and a lot of other places)?

 

I ask, because I'm almost wondering if he has got mixed-up between destinations and railways with that list of coaches "to alternate with LMS stock", or whether perhaps the SR built for one service, and then used them on the other.

 

In preface to what I quoted earlier, Gould notes:

 

Quote

The 9ft stock for through services was unusual in that nose of the brake coaches had standard gangways (adaptor-fitted) at the outer ends, although gangways within the sets were the Pullman type. They were so fitted to allow them to run with LMS or GW stock. The intended formations are quoted, but whether all of the coaches worked in these services is not known. In particular, the SR never supplied coaches for the 'Sunny South Express' as far as is known; it was always LMS stock.

 

Beyond that, I'm beginning to think that, while the tabulated, diagrammatic, and photographic data are solid enough, the discourse is a little....'loose'. As I mentioned earlier, it's open to interpretation as to whether some of this stock was built by the SR for ownership/operation by other companies.

 

35 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

And, here is a lovely picture of one of the "conti" trains in pre-Maunsell-coaches days. People really would raise their eyebrows at that combo on a GWR layout! 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrrj1479.htm

 

Quote

...a rake of ex-SECR stock in 1933. This is probably the 9:10 Deal to Birkenhead cross country service which ran via Ashford, Redhill, Reading, Oxford, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury and Chester, arriving at Birkenhead at 18:15. This express normally comprised eight coaches including a restaurant car.

 

Birdcage non-corridor stock. Which suggests that passengers could only join/leave the dining facilities at station stops. Perhaps the timetable also allowed them opportunity to avail themselves of other 'facilities'.

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, truffy said:

Perhaps the timetable also allowed them opportunity to avail themselves of other 'facilities'.

 

There must have been a bundle to get to the facilities at Redhill, and possiblyby the most desperate at Guildford, but whether it was in a platform road for the engine change at Reading, I'm not sure ......... I do hope so!  "Hold the door open Mavis; I'll be as quick as I can; don't let it go without me!"

  • Funny 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

.... And, here is a lovely picture of one of the "conti" trains in pre-Maunsell-coaches days. People really would raise their eyebrows at that combo on a GWR layout! 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrrj1479.htm ......

By 1933 there WAS plenty of gangwayed stock available on the Southern and I wonder if this - undoubtedly NON-gangwayed - was something like a troop train, rather than as captioned ??!?

Link to post
Share on other sites

It does seem late for non-gangway stock on a train of that kind, I agree.

 

Picking through the text in the page from Gould reproduced above, it seems to imply that the trains in question may have had gangway stock from c1929-30.

 

We shall probably never know for certain what these various photos show: special excursions; troop trains; dated services that were only advertised in particular localities and not shown in the timetable; reliefs for the regular trains using second-rank stock; or, something else. 

 

It might help if Warwickshire Railways made clear whether the captions are "by modern deduction", or from contemporary notes, but the site is so excellent that griping is churlish.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

It might help if Warwickshire Railways made clear whether the captions are "by modern deduction", or from contemporary notes, but the site is so excellent that griping is churlish.

I would imagine a lot of the text is based on photographer's notes, with some cross references from other sources.

Several of these Southern workings are captioned as "Sunny Coast Express" specials

Link to post
Share on other sites

One of the guys in our 0 gauge group has a wonderful collection of 1930s holiday guides, published by all of the Big Four, and I think they might be the place to look for clues, because they include, among much other superb period detail, times and fares for the "not in the main public timetable" dated services, which were rather like the equivalent of a charter-flight, or budget airline flight - low priced ticket "valid on this train only", with local agents holding allocations of tickets summing to the seating capacity of the train. I'm thinking that "Sunny Coast Special" was possibly a marketing name for some of these.

 

If/when our group can reconvene, I will pester him to bring an armful of the guide books along again - I found them fascinating insights to a lost world.

 

Here is a sample page or two that I snapped.

 

 

 

 

47FF9FD6-8153-4E93-A45F-23A94DE646C9.jpeg

26CBB752-0BF3-4935-B289-8732F984950C.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
Link to post
Share on other sites

However, the two routes highlighted in that official Brighton holiday guide were both served by regular timetabled trains. Rather oddly, the Brighton-Salisbury section of the Cardiff route was the regular haunt for several years in the early 1930s of the T9 class 313 which is pictured at Hatton in one of those Warwickshire Railways links.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, bécasse said:

the two routes highlighted in that official Brighton holiday guide were both served by regular timetabled trains.

 

Indeed. I only snapped that particular page because I thought the graphic was very "period". These guides are each about 2" thick, hundreds of "bible paper" pages, so include details of many other things.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...