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Third-Rail EMU Photos


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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Aha!

 

I persisted, and at 5:58 is the sound I remember. Goodness knows what the earlier sound was. Even better at 7:38, where the ghostliness comes across.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully it will be let out on the main line again at some point in the future, when it passed you at speed the whistle did sound quite eerie. 

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20 hours ago, simon b said:

I think they stopped being fitted in the mid 60's, the preserved 2BIL 2090 had a working one during it's runs at the woking 250 event. The last operating ones on the SR would probably have been the class 487 emu's on the W&C.

 

Interestingly the 378 units on London Overground are fitted with LU style whistles, as are/were Chiltern 165 units. 

 

I believe all Electrostars have whistles. 

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And yet curiously, 313's which were originally designed for the Moorgate to Finsbury Park line, don't have them.  I just have to deafen everyone with the horn every time instead...

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All of which makes me recall the BILs working from Brighton, which a quick check tells me ceased in 1971.

 

Those 1930s SR units seemed pretty ancient at the time, but both the BILs and CORs didn’t last any longer than the successor BR-built units. Heck of a lot more character, though!

 

Link to a 1971 photo in ordinary service. They seem to have been largely ignored by snappers, until the few ‘specials’ at the end. 

2112 Littlehampton 6 February 1971


Mike Morant’s collection contains a real feast of classic SR electrics., but I can’t get a link to it to work.
 


 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

All of which makes me recall the BILs working from Brighton, which a quick check tells me ceased in 1971.

 

Those 1930s SR units seemed pretty ancient at the time, but both the BILs and CORs didn’t last any longer than the successor BR-built units. Heck of a lot more character, though!

Or to put another way, the class 313s that currently work some of those services are 10 years older than the Bils were when withdrawn. 

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35 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

BILs and CORs ..... They seem to have been largely ignored by snappers, until the few ‘specials’ at the end. 

True enough although there seem to be images a-plenty around when you look for them.  Worth remembering also that these units were new in the 1930s when film was costly and cameras more so meaning that few people had such luxuries and fewer still would spend their valuable income photographing trains.  Back in the day we called those people "cameramen". As well there were photographic restrictions during the WW2 years and film was even harder to afford, and come by, immediately afterwards meaning that fewer shots exist for the period 1939 - 49.  There seems to have been an improvement from the 1950s onwards which is when many surviving views date from.  Cheap "consumer" photography was in its infancy in 1971 when these units were withdrawn en masse with the indifferent quality of Instamatic prints only just becoming available and seldom worthy of reproduction.

 

16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The only whistles I recall on the southern were the 71s

Cep, Bep, EPB and HAP units and MLVs had whistles.  As did the 2Hal units.  All of those were SE Section regulars.  But what each of us remembers will be a factor of age and location.  I remember the 4Cor (and associated catering units) whistling furiously as they careered through the likes of Rowlands Castle at speed, front gangways swaying crazily, and also at Fratton where they did at least have to take the curve rather more sedately but could still not be seen coming and so were obliged to sound a warning.  

 

17 hours ago, IncorrectlySpelt said:

Whats happened with that 4Cor?

 

16 hours ago, simon b said:

That's the unique 6tc 601

Indeed it is.  A 6-car trailer unit (with motors removed) formed from redundant 6Pul, 6Pan and 4Res stock* after catering facilities were reduced on the Portsmouth line which could be hauled or propelled by a class 34 locomotive (better known then as a "Crompton" and more recently as a 33/1) and which was a prototype for the Bournemouth electrification which intended to use push-pull working at main-line speeds.  At the time that concept was untried in Britain though is commonplace now.  The normal loco assigned was D6580 which received the prototype conversion to push-pull and was the only one of its class to run so fitted in green livery.  It was also the only one of the Hither Green allocation (later transferred to Eastleigh) to be converted as all the rest were Eastleigh locos from the outset and already working on the Bournemouth line.  

 

The unit had a specific diagram on the East Grinstead line and was later transferred to work the "Kenny Belle" between Clapham Junction and Kensington Olympia.  The image shown is credited (c) Chris Wilson Collection on the Blood & Custard website maintained substantially by John Atkinson and Colin Duff.  * Rather than copy their material here please feel free to visit and learn more about this unit https://www.bloodandcustard.com/BR-6TC.html

Edited by Gwiwer
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54 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

I remember the 4Cor (and associated catering units) whistling furiously as they careered through the likes of Rowlands Castle


I used to see them, but never where they needed to whistle, either stopping at Woking, or belting through such places as Surbiton. The whole syncopated dance of gangway connection, car body, cables, bogies doing a shimmy was astonishing - to my young eyes they looked as if they were about to part company with the track at any second.

 

We had a memorable trip back from Portsmouth one day, when a traction motor caught fire under the second of three units on the train, and everyone had to jam into the front four cars - people sitting on the laps of people sitting on the laps of ……

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35 minutes ago, Southernman46 said:

Q regarding the 707's on the SE. Will they have specific routes or just join the general Networker population ??

 

AIUI the plan is Charing Cross/Cannon St to Dartford, Sevenoaks and Hayes ie basically the routes where 10 car formations already operate.

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1 hour ago, jbqfc said:

no third rail in sight CIG 1497 with 31430 seen at Eridge on the Spa valley railway 

1497

 

Having been to the Spa Valley Railway numerous times I do not think this photo is on that railway. What do others think?

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27 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Having been to the Spa Valley Railway numerous times I do not think this photo is on that railway. What do others think?

 

the Photo is taken from the mainline platform at Eridge station  the Spa valley platform is behind me 

 

John 

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2 minutes ago, jbqfc said:

 

the Photo is taken from the mainline platform at Eridge station  the Spa valley platform is behind me 

 

John 

Thank you. I can now picture exactly where both you and the train are. I was forgetting how much longer the mainline platform is compared to the Spa Valley platform which is still the original length.

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On 08/08/2021 at 22:26, Nearholmer said:

The only whistles I recall on the southern were the 71s, which used to give a  blast as they came under the bridge at Tonbridge with the Night Ferry. Why, I'm not sure, maybe they were scared of the limited clearance of the mouse-hole. The sound was nothing like a steam loco whistle, and only a tiny bit deeper and firmer than the LU ones ...... a slightly ghostly sound.

 

Funnily enough an everyday sound on the Isle of Wight until just a few months back - the same type were fitted to the Standard Stock and 483s to replace the LU originals.

 

Some were even ex-Class 71, recovered from the electro-diesel conversions.

Edited by Christopher125
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It runs on third rail in some areas. It would have done so here in earlier years.  But class 378 dual-system units now use the 25kVac overhead at Willesden Junction. For a few years this route was home to SR-type 2EPB units. 
 

E7BD8473-8DBF-4E1A-AFDA-B55B1088BF80.jpeg.eb113894eaf7a211737dab40496487ea.jpeg

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New out of the box 5-car class 710/3 unit 710376 (which was originally to have been 710236) is on the third rail “DC line” at Willesden Junction working a Watford Junction - Euston stopper. 18/08/21. And finally a use for buddleia - as a visual lead-in to the main subject! 
 

8D6CF9B2-EF4E-4AC7-B86F-AE0F4247F49F.jpeg.5f64e2e48277382dffe86f15ab61c20b.jpeg

Edited by Gwiwer
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4 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

Photos by John Atkinson : Waterloo East in August 1979....

 

875575520_WLOOEAST150879a.jpg.86dab1df003dec2e05139e2a7b0cf4b3.jpg

 

This is particularly interesting.  The Car Hire Services and the apartment block have been replaced by Southwark station, while the low-rise properties before the overbridge are where my office (well it was until March last year) now stands.

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9 minutes ago, Southernman46 said:

And the presence of a SR design 2-EPB between LB & CX

Not the most common on the SED routes but a frequent event - as in every half-hour - on the Charing Cross - Caterham services. Often formed 2+4 or 2+2+4 splitting at Purley with the 2EPB (two in peak hours) going to Tattenham Corner. 

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