SE&CR Traffic on the Sevenoaks-Tonbridge Line

[bécasse]

Boat train routes from/to Victoria were:

 

BTR 1: Herne Hill or Catford, Orpington, Tonbridge, Ashford, Folkestone or Dover

 

BTR 1A: HH or C, Otford, Tonbridge, Ashford, Folkestone or Dover

 

BTR 2: HH or C, Maidstone East, Ashford, Folkestone or Dover

 

BTR 3: HH or C, Chatham, Canterbury East, Dover only

 

There certainly were boat trains booked via BTR 3, notably at times the up Night Ferry, and, of course, while down trains normally followed their booked routes, down reliefs often took different ones, and in the up direction anything was possible - the path to be used wasn't known until TRTS. All the boat train paths had WTT numbers in both directions which greatly simplified the task of advising all concerned of which was being used on any particular occasion, and there were still occasions, even into the 1970s, when control paths had to be used. Boat trains, especially the Night Ferry and those conveying RL, were supposed to avoid coming to a stand at intermediate stations.

 

The BTR 1, 1A and 2 designations were still in use for Eurostar trains until HS1 opened.

 

In the London area, boat trains could diverted to run via Stewarts Lane LL, Clapham Junction, Crystal Palace and Beckenham Junction, or via Nunhead, Lewisham and Grove Park, or via Nunhead, Lewisham, Catford Bridge and Beckenham Junction, or via Nunhead, Lewisham, any of the three routes to Dartford and Chatham for BTR3. Every one had probably been used at one time or another as would have been the East Croydon and Redhill, East Croydon and Crowhurst Spur diversionary routes (and the Crowhurst Spur could also be accessed via Catford Bridge, although I doubt whether a boat train ever went that way).

 

The Crowhurst Spur via Catford Bridge route was seemingly a favourite route for excursions and hop-pickers' friends trains at one time.

Edited January 19, 2018 by bécasse

[Guy Rixon]

And, most exciting of all, to sad chaps like me, there was a through train from the LNW and Midland via Herne Hill, going to Folkestone, Deal and Sandwich. That could provide a serious carriage-fest on a layout. The 'conti' from the GWR I can't find, so maybe that came a few years later.

 

 

 

There were quite a few through trains and through coaches. My prospective layout is largely designed to feature these kind of trains.

 

At one point, the LNWR had a complete through train of their own, I think still going to Deal via Folkestone and Dover, that included a dining car. This was running in 1914, and possibly in other years. I don't know what happened to the Midland through coaches at this time.

 

The GWR had two significant through services. One ran from Birkenhead (later extended to Liverpool via the Mersey railway) and this one started, IIRC, in the 1890s. Another ran from Fishguard, and was set up in competition with the liner services that docked at Fishguard and Dover, the idea being that passengers for the continent could save a day's travel time by getting a train from Fishguard to Dover; this one was introduced somewhat later.

[Oldddudders]

In the London area, boat trains could diverted to run via Stewarts Lane LL, Clapham Junction, Crystal Palace and Beckenham Junction, or via Nunhead, Lewisham and Grove Park, or via Nunhead, Lewisham, Catford Bridge and Beckenham Junction, or via Nunhead, Lewisham, any of the three routes to Dartford and Chatham for BTR2. Every one had probably been used at one time or another as would have been the East Croydon and Redhill, East Croydon and Crowborough Spur diversionary routes (and the Crowborough Spur could also be accessed via Catford Bridge, although I doubt whether a boat train ever went that way).

 

The Crowborough Spur via Catford Bridge route was seemingly a favourite route for excursions and hop-pickers' friends trains at one time.

Crowhurst, not Crowborough! I’m not sure how a train would reach BTR2 via Dartford and Chatham.

 

Some of your suggested routes might have been feasible in physical terms, but crew route knowledge, then and now, is a very limiting factor on such occasions. Conductors would be needed for several of your suggestions.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Oldddudders

[Regularity]

They were  built for 4' 3" gauge, but at least one of them was later altered to standard gauge

Aha, a prototype conversion from very sloppily gauged 00 to P4!

[Nearholmer]

Guy

 

It was the Birkenhead one I was looking out for in bradshaw, but couldn’t find ....... I will keep looking, because it might not be easily found.

 

K

[Guy Rixon]

Guy

 

It was the Birkenhead one I was looking out for in bradshaw, but couldn’t find ....... I will keep looking, because it might not be easily found.

 

K

 

 

Some details of the train, including the stock used, are in Gould. I will post then when I've had a chance to re-read (or if I can find my notes hahaha some chance).

 

What is clear is that the the GWR F12 slip-coaches - the dinky 38' ones with no side lookouts - were built specifically for this train.through 

 

EDIT: Gould, Bogie Carriages of the SE&CR, p132: "The through service between Deal and Birkenhead via RedHill, Reading. Leamington and Wolverhampton ran from 1903 until October 1916, being reinstated in 1922. The booked formation in summer 1914 of the 10:38 am leaving Deal was : GW Composite and SE&C Tri-composite Brake for Leamington; SE&C Third Brake and Tri-Composite Brake (GW Composite on alternate days) for Wolverhampton; GW Brake Composite for Birkenhead; van and 3-set for Charing Cross. From 1st August, 1914 one train comprised mainly SE&C stock and the other mainly GW, but the Leamington portion always included a GW Composite and an SE&C Brake Composite regardless of  which company's stock formed the remainder of the train. An SE&C Brake Composite  now worked  through to Birkenhead on alternate days.

 

"From May 1915 the through portion was reduced in length: only a GW Brake Composite for Birkenhead and a Tri-Composite Brake (SE&C or GW on alternate days) an SE&C Third Brake for Wolverhampton were now included in the 10:38 from Deal, along with stock for Charing Cross. [...]"

 

This is not the train with the F12 slip-coaches I alluded to above. I think that through-portion was Liverpool-Folkestone Harbour, but I'm still looking for the reference.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Guy Rixon

[bécasse]

Crowhurst, not Crowborough! I’m not sure how a train would reach BTR2 via Dartford and Chatham.

 

Some of your suggested routes might have been feasible in physical terms, but crew route knowledge, then and now, is a very limiting factor on such occasions. Conductors would be needed for several of your suggestions.

 

Sorry, late night mishaps! All now corrected in original post. It was, of course, BTR3 that was reached via Dartford - it didn't happen often but I have certainly seen boat trains routed that way especially when one of the normal routes was blocked by Sunday engineering work.

 

Enginemen, especially from 73A, seemed to have a remarkably wide route knowledge but you are right, conductors were needed on occasions when the more esoteric routes were used. The international obligation to convey RL under Customs' bond meant that coach substitution was considered unacceptable other than in the direst emergency.

[bbishop]

This has made things confusing for me in my research for 'Hastings' as obviously I understand the restriction for the Hastings line from Tonbridge; the only coaching stock which could come down was virtually anything built by the SECR (the 'Birdcages', 'Continentals' and 'Thanets' all built to 'R0'), possibly some Brighton coaches (the suburban 48' stock) and maybe- maybe- some LSW coaches, though I'm not sure about that. Add to that the specially built Maunsells from 1926-29 and the 1926 'R0' Pullmans (which were 57' as opposed to the usual 64'), it seems very limited.

 

 

 

- Alex

 

Not quite.  The early Continentals were R0, but when the width was increased to 8'6" the later ones were R1. Not that it mattered, until 1939 Continentals were pretty much restricted to boat train traffic. Thanets were always R1.  I haven't checked, but assume Birdcages were R0.  In later years all the main line restriction were eased except south of Tonbridge, where there were R1 restrictions to the end of steam, hence the retention of Maunsell R1 corridor coaches.

 

Bill

[Nearholmer]

I found the GWR train. 4:53pm Down departure from Tonbridge.

 

Of course, this train will appear on neither of Edwardian’s projected sections, which is a bit disappointing, because I would certainly want to see those mini-slips.

 

Even more than before, I want a time machine! (‘I want doesn’t get.’ Now, who used to say that to me when I was knee high?)

[Joseph_Pestell]

 

 

Thank you, Joseph. 1910 would be very welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

I will take a look and see what conclusions I can draw. Scanning probably difficult.

 

I see that Nearholmer has already taken a look.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, but not a comprehensive one, and, to be honest, it needs better eyes than mine!

[Caley Jim]

Even more than before, I want a time machine! (‘I want doesn’t get.’ Now, who used to say that to me when I was knee high?)

But them as don't ask never get, so it's always worth a try!

 

Jim

[Joseph_Pestell]

Yes, but not a comprehensive one, and, to be honest, it needs better eyes than mine!

 

Amazingly, the reprint Bradshaw's are a larger format than the originals. Reading them by candlelight or, Portillo-style, on the train must have been quite an effort.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Made a start on Bradshaw (page 228) and it is quite fascinating.

 

Passenger services were indeed much less frequent back then. Only six down trains (one terminating, three stopping, two fast) at Dunton Green from 06.18 until 10.00.

 

Several trains still running via Redhill rather than the more direct Tonbridge route (two between 06.18 and 10.00) and another via Maidstone East.

 

It's a pretty complex service pattern and I suspect that some of the trains shown as terminating at Sandwich in fact continued round the loop and back to London, as now.

 

The other surprise to me was that many of the trains were still serving both Charing Cross and Cannon St. I thought that had stopped earlier. Made for a very slow start to the journey if boarding at CX.

[Nearholmer]

Not sure which of the Mr Ed ‘Many Threads’ Wardian’s areas to post this in, but I thought people might like it.

 

I found it in a bookshop near Brighton Pavilion in about 1975, and its a contemporary tourist guide, rather than a ‘railway book’, but interesting for period atmosphere.

 

To be honest, I’d forgotten about it until looking for something else.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Guy Rixon]

Joseph's research underlines the fact that the SER's new main line was made to get trains to the ports faster and didn't serve many population centres outside London. Local traffic in Ruralshire was elsewhere and better served by the old main line.

 

However, I wouldn't expect that many down trains in the interval searched anyway. All the money in the morning peak is in getting people to London so there should be more up trains. The balancing workings would be later, or to a different destination, so not apparent in Joseph's search. Diagramming of the long-range trains was very relaxed, with many sets making only two round trips per day.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Joseph's research underlines the fact that the SER's new main line was made to get trains to the ports faster and didn't serve many population centres outside London. Local traffic in Ruralshire was elsewhere and better served by the old main line.

 

However, I wouldn't expect that many down trains in the interval searched anyway. All the money in the morning peak is in getting people to London so there should be more up trains. The balancing workings would be later, or to a different destination, so not apparent in Joseph's search. Diagramming of the long-range trains was very relaxed, with many sets making only two round trips per day.

Good point. I will take a look at the Up timetable until 10.00 before continuing work on the Down timetable.

 

Apart from Boat Trains, the main traffic over the Orpington - Tubs Hill line would seem to be for Hastings. As often on the railways, change was not quick to happen. So the Ashford/Folkestone trains continued to use the routes that they had previously.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell

[Nearholmer]

The other thought is that Kent and East Sussex were very self-sufficient. There isn’t much that is needed for a basic but comfortable existence that can’t be farmed, coppiced, forested, or dug-up locally. Coal wasn’t mined in Kent until C20th, but until the populations increased Wood was a sufficient fuel, charcoaled for some purposes, and some coal came coastally and up the rivers by barge. The midland railway built a big coal depot at maidstone.

 

My point being that people didn’t have much need to go gadding about, so three or four trains a day for local purposes was probably enough - commuting by ordinary people hadn’t spread very far. There were ‘super commuters’ though, even from the 1870s, like Mr Siemens, from his comfy home at Tunbridge Wells to his huge electrical equipment factory in SE London - I bet he went first class!

Edited January 20, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Mike Storey]

Sorry, late night mishaps! All now corrected in original post. It was, of course, BTR3 that was reached via Dartford - it didn't happen often but I have certainly seen boat trains routed that way especially when one of the normal routes was blocked by Sunday engineering work.

 

Enginemen, especially from 73A, seemed to have a remarkably wide route knowledge but you are right, conductors were needed on occasions when the more esoteric routes were used. The international obligation to convey RL under Customs' bond meant that coach substitution was considered unacceptable other than in the direst emergency.

 

BTR3 was used very frequently in the mid-1980's, whilst BTR1 was being extensively relaid between Folkestone and Sevenoaks, in long sections. When I was briefly a Traffic Manager at Ashford, I spent most of my time (on 12 hour nights) being the Pilotman for the evening locals, vans and then the first few each morning, firstly between Ashford and Staplehurst, then further north as the work progressed. The evening boat trains all used BTR3 meanwhile. The work was still going on when I left for a job at Brighton in 85/86. OD probably knows a lot better than me the exact routings of the time.

 

I also recall, in the 1970's, when I worked for Sealink at Victoria, (in Customer Information and not in operations), that most, if not all, the summer, bank holiday and big match day relief Boat Trains (of which there many in those days) were routed via BTR2 or BTR3, on their Q paths. I only know that because of the frequent enquiries of me by people wondering when their Auntie Mary would arrive from Brussels, or whatever, and the main scheduled train had already arrived. The reliefs would sometimes arrive before the main scheduled service (and Auntie Mary would be found wandering the nether parts of Hudson Place), despite departing after it at Dover, or more often the relief would arrive an hour or more later. One of the more informative East Side supervisors patiently explained to me as to why and how this happened, after I had badgered him several days running.

[Tom Burnham]

The Maidstone East line (basically BTR2) was in use as an alternative to the Tonbridge route for Eurostars right up until the first phase of the High Speed line was opened.  Until the Medway bridge on the Maidstone East line was rebuilt (late 1920s from memory), the Southern Railway 4-6-0 classes weren't allowed to use that route.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I've now had a look at the first part of the Up timetable. Even more interesting! Indeed, in many years of looking things up in Bradshaw I have rarely come across such a quirky mainline service.

 

As Nearholmer says, not many  long-distance commuters back then. Beckenham and Chislehurst would have been regarded still as rural.

 

I have found 11 up  trains but it is not clear if all are going via Dunton Green.

 

First train is an "Inland Mail" from Dover, running fast from Tonbridge to Cannon St in 48 mins. That looks a bit quick to be via Redhill but in more recent times Dover TPOs have gone via Redhill.

 

Second train is "Continental Mail", non-stop from Dover Pier to Cannon St and Charing Cross.

 

First up stopping train is at 07.35 which has stopped at all stations from Dover but semi-fast from Dunton Green onwards.

 

There is then a fast train from Dover which is non-stop from Ashford to London Bridge. I would need to look up the Maidstone East timetable to check whether it may have gone that way.

 

Second stopping train is at 08.35, originating at Tunbridge Wells for both Cannon St & Charing Cross.

 

At 08.52, the train that terminated earlier at Dunton Green, sets off back to Cannon St.

 

09.00, not stopping at Dunton Green, a semi-fast from Ashford to Cannon St and Charing Cross.

 

09.09, a stopper from Tunbridge Wells to Cannon St.

 

09.30, not stopping at Dunton Green, a "Special Fast Train" non-stop from Folkestone to Cannon St and Charing Cross, presumably for some very well-heeled long-distance commuters.

 

09.42, not stopping at Dunton Green, a slow train from Dover.

 

Just beyond 10.00, about 10.15, a train from Sandwich to Cannon St & Charing Cross, running non-stop from Paddock Wood.

 

Another point of interest is that even the slower trains from Dunton Green to London rarely served both Knockholt and Chelsfield, usually one or the other.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Jumping forward to the afternoon, that GW train from Birkenhead is indeed interesting but shows much more clearly on Pg 81 of Bradshaw.

 

Splitting at Wolverhampton LL, one portion heads via Snow Hill and Henley-in-Arden (a very new route then) to Bristol and Weston-s-Mare. The other portion, for London and Dover, runs via Reading where the Dover coach(es?) are slipped and then routed via Guildford.

 

So only the combined Midland/LNW train, marshalled together at Herne Hill with the Midland having come through from Kentish Town and Farringdon, would have been seen at Dunton Green.

[Tom Burnham]

From the Birmingham Daily Gazette - Tuesday 30 June 1903.

[Guy Rixon]

09.30, not stopping at Dunton Green, a "Special Fast Train" non-stop from Folkestone to Cannon St and Charing Cross, presumably for some very well-heeled long-distance commuters.

 

Possibly the "Folkestone Vestibuled Limited", 08:30 ex Folkestone, down working 16:28 ex Charing Cross, non-stop between Canon Street and Folkestone in each direction. Fastest train on the railway in 1906. Stock was the similar to the American-built coaches on the Hastings Car train, but designed by Mr. Wainwright in collaboration with Mr. Laycock (he of the ventilators and other coach fittings) and built by MRWC in 1897.

[Nearholmer]

The GWR service also, at some stage, served the Sussex Coast, detaching a portion at Redhill, which then went (I think) Brighton (reverse), Eastbourne (reverse), Hastings, but I’m not totally sure, it may have subdivided at Redhill or Hayward’s Heath, with separate bits for Brighton and Eastbourne. And, if it did subdivide, were the portions tacked onto something else, or run as separate trains?

 

The Sunny South poses similar questions, but I do know that (at least for some of the year and some of its history), it went as a longish train direct from Redhill to Eastbourne, and I’ve seen colour movie film from the 1930s of a bit of it arriving at Brighton, an ex-LNWR 12-wheel diner, between two other coaches.

 

These cross-country, multi-destination trains are really interesting, but I think that understanding any one of them fully would require a lot of delving.

 

And, all this does make apparent that, because of the infrequency of ordinary trains, quite a high proportion of trains were ‘something special’ ....... train spotting must have been a very absorbing hobby 1900-1914.