Alternative main line terminus in OO

[jamespetts]

The suggestion regarding the possible prominence of the Alton/Meon route is an especially interesting one, and I have been considering the various permutations of how this might have worked. I have been reading this article about the Bournemouth expresses in the late 1920s, which refers to an hourly service, each with dining cars, which, on the even hours, would be non-stop to Southampton West and then non-stop to Bournemouth from there, and on the odd hours would stop at more stations, including Basingstoke and Brockenhurst. How, I wonder, might fast via Alton services fit into this pattern?

 

Might we have, perhaps, one train every two hours to Poole from Waterloo and one alternately to Bournehampton via Basingstoke, with alternate hours filled in with the Alton route? Alternatively, might one imagine an hourly service to Poole, with every other train stopping at Eastleigh and detaching cars for Bournehampton (and again the via Alton service filling in the alternate hours to Bournehampton)? In the latter case, what locomotive, I wonder, would work the train onto Bournehampton (as I imagine that the main engine would work the front portion to Poole)? How many carriages, I wonder, would be detached? Would the Alton services have dining cars?

 

I had so far imagined having a via Alton service as a stopping service (as the real London to Portsmouth via Alton really was), comprising 4-6 carriages hauled by an N class. This is an interesting alternative to consider.

[Zomboid]

In my mind, the Meon Valley line would be taking on the role of the Portsmouth direct line (I'm imagining your city centre to be somewhere on the east bank of the Solent, in the Fareham/ Lee/ Gosport kind of area). So that service group, rather than the Bournemouth line which now bypasses the major city in the area, and is reduced in importance as a result. Though the Bournemouth/ Poole conurbation still needs a decent service.

 

Much like the Portsmouth direct, there's not a whole lot of anything south of Woking (Guildford, Haslemere & Petersfield on the direct as against Aldershot, Farnham and Alton via the Meon Valley, none of which are especially huge places, except possibly Guildford).

 

Anyway, I'd mainly base the service pattern on the Portsmouth direct is what all that adds up to.

[jamespetts]

An interesting idea. Unfortunately, I do not have any early 1930s timetables showing the Portsmouth direct: my own timetable is from 1938, post electrification, and the earlier timetables that I can access via a club library are from the early 1920s or earlier or the 1950s or later.

 

Incidentally, one thing that I do note from the 1938 timetable is that there was an interesting service via Alton: at irregular intervals through the day (anything from 1 to 3 hourly, but always departing Waterloo at 27 minutes past the given hour), there was a semi-fast from Waterloo via Alton, splitting at Alton, one portion going via Arlesford to Southampton, another portion going via the Meon valley route to Gosport.

[Zomboid]

Well the Alton line was electrified at the same time as the Portsmouth line. So here on fantasy island, it's possible (likely?) that the Meon Valley line would have been. A combined city of Portsmouth and Southampton would have been a major destination for the SR, and probably a priority for electrification.

 

Doesn't help with what it might have seen pre-electrification though. It would have been early though, as the coastway from Brighton was early, too. No spam cans without 3rd rail, that's for sure

[jamespetts]

Indeed - an interesting conundrum. My layout is intended to be set in 1935 at the latest (1935 with various backdating options), so this is intended to be after the Brighton electrification but before the Portsmouth (Bournehampton) electrification.

 

One thought: if the Schools classes would have been used on expresses through the Meon valley line, where would the Arthurs and Nelsons have been used, and what would become of the Arlesford line? In respect of the latter, I note that, in the 1938 timetable, there was an irregular service leaving Waterloo at 27 minutes past some hours (anything between hourly and three hourly at various times of day) to Alton, where it would divide, and one portion would continue to Southampton via Arlesford and another would go onto Gosport via Meon. This seems to have been instead of the Portsmouth via Alton service that existed at some point before electrification of the Portsmouth direct.

 

One service pattern that I have considered for the expresses is an hourly service with the following pattern:

 

(1) fast limited stop (possibly non-stop) Waterloo to Bournehampton via Basingstoke;

(2a) semi-fast Waterloo to Poole/Weymouth via Basingstoke;

(2b) semi-fast Waterloo to Bournehampton via Alton;

(3a) fast limited stop Waterloo to Poole/Weymouth via Basingstoke;

(3b) semi-fast Waterloo to Bournehampton via Basingstoke.

 

An alternative would be:

 

(1) fast limited stop (possibly non-stop) Waterloo to Bournehampton via Basingstoke;

(2a) semi-fast Waterloo to Poole/Weymouth via Basingstoke;

(2b) semi-fast Waterloo to Bournehampton via Alton;

(3) semi-fast Waterloo to Bournehampton and Poole/Weymouth via Basingstoke, splitting at Eastleigh.

 

The diagrams shown in cyan would not be depicted in the model but are added for completeness. These do not explain what services might run via Arlesford, what all stations services might run on the Meon line, nor give any non-stop services via the Meon line, which may need looking into.

 

What I do not know is whether the Meon line (if it had been used for expresses) could have accommodated Nelsons and/or Arthurs. I inferred that the suggestion of using Schools class locomotives on that line was as a result of it being sharply curved in places and perhaps hillier than the Basingstoke line, but I am not sure whether this is correct or not.

 

In any event, thank you for your thoughts: there is much to consider.

[Zomboid]

The Meon Valley was built with the intention of upgrading it to a proper main line, with the bridges abutments being wide enough for a second deck if the bridges themselves weren't 2 tech structures, the West Meon viaduct was 2 track width, as were the tunnels. The earthworks were substantial because the gradients were limited to 1/100. Platforms were built for 10 carriage trains. It was a bit twisty, but otherwise it was a definite main line in waiting. In fact you could argue that for a long time it was a single track main line (like the Highland main line is), before the rot set in.

 

All that said, I have no idea what the heaviest kind of locomotive it would have been able to handle was. In terms of length of run, the Schools was suited to the Hastings and Portsmouth lines, so would probably have been appropriate for the Meon Zephyrs.

[jamespetts]

I have been looking into this in a little more detail. I attach a more detailed version of my schematic representation of reality:

 

 

Looking into this a little more closely, I suspect that the Meon Valley route would not have fared better in my imaginary universe than in the real universe. I imagine Bournhampton in the eastern bank of the Solent, considerably west of Fareham, perhaps somewhere near where Woolston is in reality. The Meon Valley line connected to Fareham and initially trains ran through to Stokes Bay and Gosport, but these were not popular destinations, and, as a result, the line was not used. (Source: Wikipedia).

 

Given that my imaginary station is very close to the real Southampton, it seems unlikely that it being slightly to the west of the Solent would have made any difference to the geographic significance of the Meon Valley line. Also, I had misread my timetable (which can be confusing, as timestables of this age did not clearly distinguish through and connecting services): by the 1930s, the Meon Valley line had no through passenger services at all, only a shuttle service between Fareham and Alton.

 

Had the Meon Valley line become a mainline as envisaged, it would, from what I can tell, have been suitable for the largest engines of the Southern Railway, as it was built to really rather high late 19th century standards, with a ruling gradient of 1/100 and gentle curves, so the Schools Class's ability to deal with tight curves, relevant on the Portsmouth direct, would not be relevant on this line in any event.

 

From what I can work out, the Schools class had slightly less power (dictated ultimately by firegrate area and efficiency) than the Arthurs, but a little more tractive effort (subject to adhesion); but considerably less of both than the Nelsons, although they were apparently easier to drive. I infer from that that they would have been more suited to the more loosely timed stopping trains, perhaps with lighter loadings, than the more tightly timed limited stop services with heavier loadings.

 

I have updated my diagram of the imaginary world in which the layout is set to include the detail from the above diagram:

 

 

I have added in orange the route taken by the (relatively infrequent) London Bridge to Bournehampton services modelled on the real London Bridge to Portsmouth services run by the LBSCR and continued by the SR (although they are not shown in my 1938 timetable, so they may have ceased when the Portsmouth line was electrified; but I do have confirmed photographic evidence from books of H2 locomotives at Havant/Fareham hauling London Bridge trains to Portsmouth). These were, I think, Pullman services with a single Pullman car in an otherwise ordinary express train formation, which would by 1935 have been made up of Maunsell corridor carriages. These would be hauled by H2 class locomotives (although were also hauled in reality by B4/B4x class locomotives; if I can ever get one of those built/learn how to build one, I might use those, too).

 

One important question for determining the nature of the service to Bournehampton is where the main south coast port would be. Southampton had such a frequent service because it was such a major port, and the Southern Railway simply continued the trains to Bournemouth, which was a popular seaside resort and significant town. If we imagine that Bournehampton is to be the major port, then it would receive the majority of services from London, with Poole/Weymouth receiving a more limited service. If, however, the major port is Poole, then Bournehampton might have had a less frequent service.

 

However, if Bournehampton is to be a major port, then one might expect facilities similar to that at Southampton Terminus (i.e. the Eastern Docks station), which I do not have room to model.

[Zomboid]

I won't bang on about the Meon Valley much more, but the junction faced Fareham because it was integrating with the network as it then was. Stick a big city in the Fareham/ Woolston area replacing Southampton and Portsmouth and the rest of the railway geography of south Hampshire changes. In fact a lot could change beyond that too - for example, the main line running along the eastern side of the Solent might have meant that Bournemouth and Weymouth would be better served from Salisbury rather than Southampton, and the route through the New Forest would be very much a secondary route.

 

If the main line to Bournemouth did still run via Eastleigh, I would also think that a combined city of Portsmouth and Southampton would have been served by the vast majority of Bournemouth line trains, in the fashion that Southampton terminus was. Possibly more so, given that there's no Southampton Central (west?) to take care of any through trains. It's an ideal place to change locos for trains heading further west (and lose a few carriages, Exeter Central style). The Weymouth/ Poole/ Lymington boat trains might have gone past without calling, but most would stop.

 

The Solent remains a good place for maritime operations, but you can just shove all that off scene, having a couple of stations in a city as large as this would be entirely expected. After all, Southampton had two, as did Portsmouth (3 if you count Fratton).

[Chimer]

You had me confused when you said Bournehampton was "east of the Solent" - the Solent is the bit of water that separates the Isle of Wight from the mainland, it doesn't go up to Southampton, so you can only be north or south of it.  But I eventually realised you meant "east of Southampton Water".  This is just a pedantic geographical point and irrelevant to the main discussion, but perhaps worth pointing out  .

 

The big problem with playing parallel universes with port cities is that port cities are where they are for geographical/oceanographical reasons - around natural harbours and easily defensible.  It's a bit of a stretch to see why what has become Southampton would have centred itself a couple of miles further south-east on the other side of the Itchen, and I'm not sure that the railways would have developed any differently if it had.  I'd have thought you might have been better off imagining one of the smaller coastal towns or villages (maybe Milford-on-Sea, or Lymington) becoming a major seaside resort, rather than a major port, and attracting more attention from the railways that way.

 

On a completely different point, if an ex-LBSCR London Bridge - Portsmouth service was ever pictured at Fareham, it must have missed its left turn onto Portsea Island after leaving Havant ...… 

[jamespetts]

Thank you both for your replies: my apologies for not having replied sooner: I wanted to think about some of the issues raised in more detail and carry out some research. I do not think that that thinking and researching process has yet come to an end, but I have at least made some progress.

 

My apologies for the geographical error apropos the Solent - thank you for setting out the correct information. Likewise, I had forgotten the relative positions of Fareham, Portsmouth and Havant: of course, the H2 hauled London Bridge expresses would have turned off to Portsmouth before Fareham.

 

The reason for my choice of service pattern/location is to enable me to have a south coast Southern Railway terminus of a major main line featuring two incoming lines from different directions, one being the former LSWR and one being the former LBSCR. The amalgam of Portsmouth/Southampton and the rest of my imagined geography, both human and topographical, arises from those considerations.

 

In an imaginary world, one can always imagine geography having been different so as to have caused the different town and therefore different railway development, but the basic idea is that the town on what is in reality Southampton Water developed to the east such that there would have been no economic way of extending the line beyond that station to serve Poole (which in my parallel universe would be a major port - I believe that Poole in reality has a harbour, but it was not as significant as Southampton or Portsmouth) such that a main line diverging further north (at around Eastleigh) would serve these more westerly destinations, leading to main line trains terminating at Bournehampton from London and different trains carrying on to Poole/Weymouth. There would then be stopping trains from Bournehampton to Poole and semi-fasts to Weymouth.

 

The suggestion that trains might have arrived and reversed is an interesting one; did they actually do this at Southampton terminus? I thought that they had just used Southampton Central; that is the impression that my 1938 timetable gives at least. From and to what locomotives would the trains have changed?

 

The Schools class poses a particular issue, as described above, and I have researched this a little more (although I did not get the time to read as much on this topic as I had hoped on Thursday at the MRC library). From what I have discovered so far, these were used from 1938 (i.e., after the electrification of the Portsmouth Direct was completed) on the Southampton/Bournemouth services quite extensively, and were even used on the Belle during the winter months. They seem to have been used, from what I have worked out so far, mainly on the non-stopping trains, certainly in preference to Arthurs, and in preference to Nelsons on all but the heaviest trains. There were 40 in the class in total, but I understand only 10 allocated to the western section, the others being used on the eastern section on the Kent coast lines.

 

The question then becomes: if Schools class locomotives were used in preference for all but the heaviest expresses on the Bournemouth route after the Portsmouth direct was electrified (and we are imagining a world in which the Schools would have been available on the equivalent line after the Brighton line was electrified), what would the King Arthur class locomotives have been used for?

 

In reality, in 1938, the Bournemouth line was a single through line, separate from Basingstoke onwards from the West of England line. The Portsmouth direct was also a separate line, and fully electrified.

 

In my universe in 1935, there are two main lines, both steam operated, from London to the south coast: one to Bournehampton and one to Poole/Weymouth. We assume that the eastern section remains unchanged and makes full use of 30 of the 40 V class locomotives; so how, do we imagine, would these classes have been allocated between the Bournehampton line and the Poole/Weymouth line?

 

I currently suspect, as was suggested above, that they would have been allocated to the Bournehampton line in preference to the Poole/Weymouth line. Thus, the situation would be similar to the Bournemouth line in and after 1938. How, then, would the King Arthur classes have been used?

 

In reality, there seems to have been a Southampton via Alton service: see this very interesting website. That website's information appears to be correct for the late 1920s or possibly very early 1930s - slightly before my period. That suggests that the locomotives on this run would have been the K10 or A12s: both very old mixed traffic locomotives not available in ready to run form. I assume that this "via Alton" would be via Arlesford and the now preserved Mid Hants Railway, as the Meon valley route was by then merely a shuttle service. These services seem to operate with a circa 2 hour interval. I wonder whether some of the Arthurs (perhaps Urie Arthurs) might have found themselves on this route by the mid 1930s, or would my original idea of using the N class for this be more plausible? Similarly, might they have been used on the odd hour semi-fasts?

 

For what services might the H15s and N15xs have been used? I have seen them referred to as being confined to lesser or secondary services on the Bournemouth line, but it is not clear from the timetable what lesser services that there were, exactly. The via Alton trains, possibly? Parcels trains?

 

One possible coherent service pattern for the LSWR line expresses is therefore:

• even hour London expresses, non-stopping (including the Belle), LN or V (or N15 in a pinch);
• odd hour London expresses, semi-fast, N15 or V;
• irregular (~2 hourly) via Alton semi-fasts, N15 or N (or possibly even Us, N15xs or H15s if I can get one/some of these from a kit or somesuch);
• irregular cross-country express (via GWR lines), N15 (Maunsell only - the V were not permitted on GWR lines, apparently, nor were the Urie Arthurs);
• irregular Brighton-Plymouth express, D15;
• irregular cross-country semi-fasts via GWR (e.g. to Reading) N15 (Maunsell only), N or (if can be obtained from kit, etc.) U;
• irregular semi-fast to Weymouth, T9;
• irregular semi-fast to Salisbury, T9;
• irregular semi-fast to Plymouth, T9

Does this seem at least generally plausible?

Edited January 19, 2019 by jamespetts

[Zomboid]

What was the service on the Eastleigh - Fareham - Portsmouth line like at the time? Obviously right now it has an hourly semi-fast from Waterloo, but during the 1930s it could have that secondary route feel that might have used the second hand/ less prestigious locos.

I'm not really that familiar with the services of the time, but it may be worth considering that the Southern was in no way averse to a bit of portion working (the ACE comes to mind). I could imagine that many of the services (particularly those that were semi-fast in nature) could have been a portion detached at Eastleigh from a Bournemouth Train, and that could have been about 4 coaches, hauled from Eastleigh by just about anything capable of movement.

 

I think this variant of the SR would have had a slightly different set of loco needs to what happened in reality, so don't get too hung up on what they actually did with the LNs, Arthurs etc, chances are they would have built a different number of them to account for the different service requirements of Bournehampton being a major destination off the main line.

 

Would you also have the GWR trains off the DNS in this scenario? Would they be in the "local" trains that you haven't mentioned. I think your set of trains is pretty plausible.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your thoughts: that is most helpful. I am aware that the SR used portion working: quite whether it would have used portion working in this way for this imaginary line is another matter. Not knowing quite what the incentives were for doing so (or not doing so) makes it hard to judge this.

 

As to the GWR trains via Didcot and Newbury: I had not spotted any in my 1938 timetable, although I might have missed them. I do have trains to Reading, but I suppose that they would have been Southern all the way. There were also via GWR trains to Cardiff/Swansea, Birkenhead and LNER destinations such as Newcastle and York. Have I missed the Didcot trains somewhere do you think?

 

Thank you again for your input: it is much appreciated.

[Zomboid]

I think the notion of having your semi fast Waterloo trains worked as a portion for part of the day would add a bit of interest, and maybe allow the use of certain types of loco which wouldn't otherwise have been seen very much. Not that I know what those may have been. But that's just me...

 

Regarding Didcot, I had the impression that the DNS trains went to Southampton terminus. Since Southampton no longer exists in this universe, I would expect the GWR to still want access to the major city/ port on Southampton water (which may need a new name). I could be wrong, but if you're not averse to a bit of GWR then 3 coaches behind a 43xx heading towards Didcot, 5 or 6 times a day would add a bit of copper-topped variety.

[Jongudmund]

When is your shed arriving? Have you started building this yet?

[jamespetts]

I was also thinking after I wrote the previous post about having a mix of portion working and through working on the semi-fasts: the idea would be that services to Bournehampton would be more frequent than services to Poole/Weymouth, so only a fraction of the semi-fasts to Bournehampton would divide at Eastleigh and work on to Poole/Weymouth.

 

I am definitely not adverse to the GWR - as indicated elsewhere on this thread, the idea of this layout is for it to be convertible in location/period by changing the rolling stock and a few scenic items which will be easily removable, such as signalboxes and station name boards, so as to be able to represent not only Bournehampton, but also a fictional South Wales location, "Port Tawe" loosely based on Swansea.

 

Looking again at my timetables (both my Southern 1938 timetable and my GWR 1936 timetable), I notice that I had indeed missed the through services to Didcot from Southampton Terminus (Edit: 7 trains a day in each direction on week-days, 8 on Saturdays and 1 on Sundays) - this is most interesting. I infer from what you write that these ran with GWR locomotives all the way through? I will have to look into what sort of rolling stock that these used (clerestories? bow ended corridor carriages?): the journey time of >2 hours suggests that corridor carriages of some sort would be used to allow lavatory access. One possible issue is whether there will be enough fiddle yard space for this on top of the other sets that I plan to model: this will need some consideration.

 

Thank you very much for pointing out this service, however: this does give potential for some rather more interesting variety.

 

Edit: Jon - my reply crossed with yours. The shed is now ready and I spent much of yesterday assembling my desk in there. The baseboards are being built for me, so it will be a little while before those are ready (I have not been given details). However, I cannot lay the track on this layout until the Peco Bullhead slips become available in any event.

Edited January 20, 2019 by jamespetts

[jamespetts]

Researching the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton yields some interesting results. It appears to have been an independent company until the grouping, albeit worked by the GWR. It had intended its own terminus in Southampton but ran out of money and had to connect to the LSWR just south of Winchester. It never attracted the anticipated level of traffic, and had mostly freight traffic. It closed in the pre-Beeching era. It was a single track line, doubled during the second world war as it was strategically important.

 

For layout operational purposes, it seems to have had an interesting "pooling" arrangement from 1910 onwards according to Wikipedia. Browsing (quasi-)postcards for sale on eBay, I find that this seems to have meant that either Southern or GWR locomotives were used on the route for the whole distance: prior to that, locomotives were changed at Winchester. The eBay postcards seem to show Drummond 4-4-0s, Collet goods 0-6-0s and Moguls using the line in the 1950s, and the single photograph of the 1930s, from 1939, shows a Collet goods on a passenger train of I think 3 carriages of bow ended corridor stock - with a two carriage train of non-corridor stock behind an unidentified tank on the other line. This was on the northern section of the line, so this latter might have been a local train that did not extend to Southampton. (The eBay auction is here, although this link will not last long, I anticipate).

 

All of the long distance cross-country trains ran (as they do now) via Reading and Basingstoke (with only 6 miles extra in route distance), so this line was confined to freight workings and stopping passenger services. Because of the confusing way in which timetables of the era were set out, it is not possible to deduce whether any trains continued north of Didcot to Oxford or beyond, or whether the through times shown on the GWR (but not Southern) timetable are for connecting services only.The service frequency in the Southern 1938 timetable seems to be identical to that in the GWR 1936 timetable (7 trains a day each way weekdays, 8 on Saturdays and 1 on Sundays).

Edited January 20, 2019 by jamespetts

[jamespetts]

Revising my fiddle yard diagrams, I think that I could just about manage to add a 4-set of Maunsell corridors for the detaching semi-fasts and a 3 carriage GWR train providing that a single set of non-corridor carriages were used for most local workings and no fewer than two sets of carriages were kept in the scenic section at all times, but this may perhaps be stretching things a little.

 

Alternatively, I could remove the provision for excursion trains to make some of these things easier, but that would be rather a shame given the variety of stock that those allow.

Edited January 20, 2019 by jamespetts

[Zomboid]

I would vary things between sessions. Fancy some GWR? Put the DNS (DNB?) set on. If you fancy excursion trains then just switch the storage yards using your 0-5-0.

 

Your automation might complicate matters in terms of manual operations, but for a manual session you don't have to have everything on the layout the whole time. And for an automation session then just don't run the unusual stuff (such as the excursions).

[john dew]

I would vary things between sessions. Fancy some GWR? Put the DNS (DNB?) set on. If you fancy excursion trains then just switch the storage yards using your 0-5-0.

Your automation might complicate matters in terms of manual operations, but for a manual session you don't have to have everything on the layout the whole time. And for an automation session then just don't run the unusual stuff (such as the excursions).

It actually will not be an issue with RR&Co......both the GWR and excursion trains would remain listed in the computor even though one isnt on the layout......just a couple of key strokes to remove one train from its storage block and re assign the replacement.....James will just have to remember not to change the structure of the train not on the layout without also telling the computor!

Edited January 20, 2019 by john dew

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your thoughts. My preference is generally to run a whole day's timetable: the excursion trains will only be needed for Saturday timetables, but the Didcot trains also ran on Saturdays. One might imagine the locomotive coal train not running on a Saturday, but switching these would require manual intervention in the fiddle yards in order to run a full service.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

The summer 1938 timetable shows that the 7.32am from Southampton Terminus, running via the DNS, had through carriages to Glasgow (Queen St) [via the ex-Great Central line, Newcastle and Edinburgh]. On Saturdays, there was also a through carriage to Scarborough.

 

There didn't appear to be a return service.

[jamespetts]

The summer 1938 timetable shows that the 7.32am from Southampton Terminus, running via the DNS, had through carriages to Glasgow (Queen St) [via the ex-Great Central line, Newcastle and Edinburgh]. On Saturdays, there was also a through carriage to Scarborough.

 

There didn't appear to be a return service.

 

Very interesting and quite intriguing. Quite how I might model such exotic workings with a limited fiddle yard capacity I am not yet sure.

[john dew]

Very interesting and quite intriguing. Quite how I might model such exotic workings with a limited fiddle yard capacity I am not yet sure.

A shed extension perhaps?......says he safely thousands of miles away

[jamespetts]

A shed extension perhaps?......says he safely thousands of miles away

 

Perhaps the people at MERG know how to wire up a TARDIS?

[jamespetts]

I have amended my schematics to show the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton (or Didcot, Newbury and Bournehampton as it would be in my universe) given the potential significance of this line, and they are appended below.