chrisf Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 Here is a correction to an earlier post. One of the autos which I supposed to be based at Banbury was in fact an Aylesbury turn. Sorry! In the 1960 summer WTT the auto diagram starting at Banbury seems to have become an ordinary train but I'v no idea what sort. By summer 1961 it had become a bubble car [Tyseley allocation, Leamington duty]. I promise that I will now concentrate on what I am supposed to be doing! Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 7, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 7, 2018 Here is a correction to an earlier post. One of the autos which I supposed to be based at Banbury was in fact an Aylesbury turn. Sorry! In the 1960 summer WTT the auto diagram starting at Banbury seems to have become an ordinary train but I'v no idea what sort. By summer 1961 it had become a bubble car [Tyseley allocation, Leamington duty]. I promise that I will now concentrate on what I am supposed to be doing! Chris I am having the same problem this morning! I think that I will have to print out the 1960WTT on M. Clemens' website, if only because it is round the wrong way on screen which makes it tricky to view. But also, having to scroll from page to page makes it hard to understand fully. Clearly there is an awful lot of data to be gleaned from it once one gets skilled in reading it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 7, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 7, 2018 (edited) I think that I had always assumed that the coach slipped at Princes Risborough continued towards Oxford rather than towards Banbury. Clearly that is a working that should be represented on the model. Operationally, I assume that it would have come to rest on the Down Through line at P.R. and then picked up by the train loco and attached to the front of the other waiting coaches in the Down Platform. Or was there a station pilot to attach it to the rear? Anybody know of photos of this train after leaving P.R.? I would want to know what the other coaches were. As I said earlier, no way that one could run the whole timetable sequence, but it would be fun to do like Gilbert (Peterborough North) and take photographs of all the various workings on the layout. Edit: I have found pictures of the last slip service, where the slip was detached at Banbury. That was worked as I thought; train engine, a King no less, collecting the slip from the centre road and attaching to the front of its semi-fast train. Edited March 7, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted March 7, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 7, 2018 I am having the same problem this morning! I think that I will have to print out the 1960WTT on M. Clemens' website, if only because it is round the wrong way on screen which makes it tricky to view. But also, having to scroll from page to page makes it hard to understand fully. Clearly there is an awful lot of data to be gleaned from it once one gets skilled in reading it. Can you not turn it onscreen? Definitely possible to rotate individual pages on my iMac but maybe Windows isn't so clever (although I would think it should be). But overall you will find printed ages a lot handier I would think. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 7, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 7, 2018 Can you not turn it onscreen? Definitely possible to rotate individual pages on my iMac but maybe Windows isn't so clever (although I would think it should be). But overall you will find printed ages a lot handier I would think. Good point. I can probably turn them once I have downloaded and saved. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisf Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 I think you will find that the slip took place at Bicester North. Chris [ so much for concentration ...] Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 7, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 7, 2018 I think you will find that the slip took place at Bicester North. Chris [ so much for concentration ...] Certainly, the last slip working (in 1960) was at Bicester and continued on to Wolverhampton on a semi-fast train. But there were also slips detached at Princes Risborough. But perhaps for Thame and Oxford as I previously thought. Or just for P.R. so that passengers could change for Aylesbury, Thame and Oxford. I will have to go back to the earlier timetables. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisf Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 I have found the Princes Risborough slip. It was detached from the 7.10 pm Fridays and Saturdays only Paddington - Wolverhampton and went forward to Banbury attached to the 8.10 pm auto. The return working was attached to the rear of the 6.40 am Wolverhampton - Paddington at Banbury on Mondays and Saturdays. How long the working lasted I know not but it had ceased by the beginning of the 1956-57 WTT. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 9, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 9, 2018 (edited) I have found the Princes Risborough slip. It was detached from the 7.10 pm Fridays and Saturdays only Paddington - Wolverhampton and went forward to Banbury attached to the 8.10 pm auto. The return working was attached to the rear of the 6.40 am Wolverhampton - Paddington at Banbury on Mondays and Saturdays. How long the working lasted I know not but it had ceased by the beginning of the 1956-57 WTT. Chris I had only found one that went to Thame, also presumably with an autotrain as it is marked as "one class only". I did not know that slip coaches were ever attached to autotrains. That just has to be modelled, even if it means a bit of Rule 1 as regards date. Have to look up what is available by way of kits, although I have always thought that r-t-r slip coaches would sell well. Edit to add: Oh to have the space to model Princes Risborough. What a fun layout that would be to operate! Edited March 9, 2018 by Joseph_Pestell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 9, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 9, 2018 Another RMWebber e-mailed me earlier with a CGI video uploaded to YouTube showing a 51xx hauled pick-up goods shunting Haddenham and then arriving at Princes Risborough. Amazing stuff to a Luddite like yours truly. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisf Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 Joseph, have you come to a view about the date you wish to portray? If you have, it will help your advisers to help you! Slip coaches tended to be long-lived and many came to rest on branch lines after they had been decommissioned. Towards the end of slip operations there were many more slip coaches than there were workings. Perhaps the most representative were the F24 [7069-74], which dated from 1938. Comet make a kit and Phoenix used to. I remember there being some notes about slips in the Railway Observer. Let me have a rummage. Perhaps the oddest thing about slips was that three were converted from Hawwksworth BCKs as late as 1958 when the writing was well and truly on the wall. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 4069 Posted March 10, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 10, 2018 The mix of signals on the Joint line was quite common and arose from the fact that the GCR/LNER and GWR took it in turns to take responsibility for the route. Thus if a signal was renewed when the LNER was in charge it would be one of their signals but if it was done while the GWR was in command it would be one of theirs. This was particularly noticeable at Princes Risborough but also happened elsewhere with an example of LNER signalling design at Saunderton and, of course, at Haddenham. Once the line went under full WR control its practice became a constant - until the route was transferred to the LMR in 1963. According to the minutes in the National Archives, the Great Western & Great Central Joint Committee agreed on 9 January 1907 to divide its line in half for maintenance purposes: from zero (Northolt Junction) to the 17 1/4 milepost (between High Wycombe and West Wycombe) would be maintained by the GWR, and from mp 17 1/4 to Ashendon Junction by the GCR. I have no reason to believe that this ever changed: no GCR or LNER equipment ever appeared south of West Wycombe, and by nationalisation many (but not all) of the signals at West Wycombe, Saunderton, Risboro and Haddenham had been renewed as upper quadrants by the LNER. Those boxes also had LNER-style nameplates fitted to their ends, which did not happen on the rest of the line. Soon after nationalisation, the WR took control of maintenance for the whole route, and by the time the line north of Risboro was singled in 1968, there were no upper quadrants left. The line went to the LMR for signalling purposes in 1975, and from then until modernisation in 1990 the signals were painted in LMR style (of which the most obvious difference was grey rather than black ironwork, and white rather than red or yellow finials), but no renewals too place, with all the remaining signals being lower quadrants (unlike many other ex-GW lines which became LMR). The nearby Met & GC Joint line did have maintenance alternating between its owning companies every five years in pre-London Transport days, but this was not the case on the GW&GC. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vpetg Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 I don't think I have seen any mention of slip coaches being taken along the Thame line. Using a pinchbar looks easier than trying to do it with a loco but that is not easy to do in a simulator either! A 4 minute simulator video if you don't mind. I haven't seen any good photos of the up station but it looks similar to West Wycombe. The down building doesn't look like any other north of Wycombe. The 'gents' didn't have a roof. There was a time in the evening when a King was closely followed by an A3. Rotating PDF's in Windows: it may be a right click option. Regards Peter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 10, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 10, 2018 I don't think I have seen any mention of slip coaches being taken along the Thame line. Using a pinchbar looks easier than trying to do it with a loco but that is not easy to do in a simulator either! A 4 minute simulator video if you don't mind. I haven't seen any good photos of the up station but it looks similar to West Wycombe. The down building doesn't look like any other north of Wycombe. The 'gents' didn't have a roof. There was a time in the evening when a King was closely followed by an A3. Rotating PDF's in Windows: it may be a right click option. Regards Peter Earlier in the thread someone explained that the buildings at Haddenham are GC rather than GW. A King followed by an A3 has to be tempting doesn't it. What I have not previously explained is that this is envisaged as an O Gauge project, not for me but for a small group. I don't have, and probably never will have, much 0 gauge stock but between us we can muster quite a selection appropriate to the location. My contribution will probably be a 14xx, autocoach and slip. We will probably be quite flexible about dates and I personally like crimson and cream. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 10, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 10, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NEwrjQtrKo YouTube clip of Railway Roundabout film of last slip working at Bicester. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
D826 Posted March 10, 2018 Share Posted March 10, 2018 Superb post Joseph. Thank you. I have a super little book called ‘watching the trains at Brill’ by Robert Avery which talks about Kings thundering through from ‘ Risborough to Bicester passing through at about 90 mph. Robotham and Stratford book on ‘the Great Central from the Footplate’ also has an amusing tale of a Black 5 hammering north at night to Ashendon Junction and realising the signals were showing the Banbury route rather than its intended route from the joint line to the GC mainline - too late. Best regards Matt Wood Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 12, 2018 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 12, 2018 Kings "thundering through" was a key part of my upbringing when my parents lived at Beaconsfield for a few months in 1960. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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