Coaching Stock (Loco Hauled) "Performance"

[Right Away]

Much has been written by many over the years of the performance by various types of traction and motive power in Britain; the performance logs having been compiled from not only the cab but also a myriad of passenger coaches.

 

As a point of interest, I was curious to know of the comfort and especially the riding qualities of British locomotive hauled passenger coaching stock up to the development of the BR Mk1, which itself was to quickly prove unpopular in this respect until the eventual replacement of bogies.

 

As a child in the 50's, the family trips and odd holiday to North Wales , Essex or the West Country suggest I rode in many different coaches, but like most lads it was what was on the front that mattered. Many years later, I can still remember being soaked by "Queen's Westminster Rifleman" as water was taken at speed on the way to Crewe where we changed trains. As far as what I was riding in - it had seats, a corridor and windows! 

 

Designs from the CMEs of the pre-Grouping raIlways and the Big Four will all have had their advocates and it would be interesting to know of the merits or otherwise of the many different coaches.

 

So as not to digress, can any members recollect their travels on past forms of coaching stock with emphasis on the riding and general comfort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

An excellent ride, certainly up to 60 mph, was to be had on vehicles fitted with GWR 'American' bogies - I once had a ride in a breakdown van equipped with them and they were smoother on the Up Relief through Sonning Cutting than a Pressed Steel dmu (and they weren't exactly poor riding trains).

[The Johnster]

AFAIK no objective comparative work was ever done on this, and subjective opinion abounds, affected by company loyalty.  My own subjective memory does not extend far back enough for me to make sensible comments about big 4 bogies, but I was aware that the BR standard B1 was inferior to the Commonwealth pattern and later B4/5 that replaced it on refurbished vehicles.  At Canton in the 70s, our 'B' rated stock was restricted to 75mph and used for excursion and charter work; all of it had B1s.  My personal opinion is that the Commonwealth 100mph bogies were best, but that the B4/5s were pretty good.  I clocked a B4 fitted mk1 coach at 114mph behind a 50 between Cholsey and Moulsford and Pangbourne in the 80s, an 8 coach train of mixed mk1 and 2 coaches, the fastest I ever went in a loco hauled train, and found the coach ran very steadily.  There was a worrying 'thrum' from air pressure and the thing howled as only a mk1 that's scared of how fast it's going can, but the ride was fine!

 

Of course, as a child, I rode about on various GW bogies and probably some LMS ones as well.  I read somewhere ages ago that the best ride available in the UK was in an LMS coach running on GW track.  I do recall a 1966 run in a Hawksworth between Manchester and Crewe behind an AL6 on a Manchester-Plymouth that was pretty lively, but this may have been influenced by the fact that the Hawksworth was the tail vehicle and rocking harder than Elvis.

 

This leads to another point; track on some railways was not as well maintained as on some others, with the Central and Eastern sections of the Southern having a particularly bad reputation due to using chalk or shingle ballast and being built to low cost standards in the first place.   The River class 2-6-4T locos were apparently such bad riders that they were unsafe at speed, but when one was trialled on the GN main line after the Sevenoaks accident in 1927 it was found to run satisfactorily at speeds of over 80mph; Nigel Gresley was on the footplate and praised the loco's stabilty.  So we are not always comparing like for like.

 

A ride a few years ago on the Bluebell, shortly after the Hayward's Heath section opened and still speed restricted to 15mph, in a Bullied brake composite was quite alarming, but what was I experiencing?  Was it a poorly designed bogie or in fact a very well designed one coping with difficult conditions?  The ride was not brilliant on the rest of the railway either, but I am not qualified to comment on the standard of track on the Bluebell.  

 

One assumes that because the train Mallard pulled down Stoke Bank that day had Gresley bogies, they are particularly suitable for high speed work, but this sort of assumption ignores the other variables.  My opinion of Gresley bogies such as I experienced on emus in the 60s is that they are good riders, but not soft in the way that a Commonwealth is.  

 

One must also take into account the mileage of the vehicle since it's last overhaul; the best designed bogie will cut up rough if it been a while since it was seen to.  And bogies deteriorate at different rates; engines not coaches but as an example the Southern Railway designed bogies on class 40/4/5/6 diesels rode superbly when fresh out of workshops, but appallingly badly in a relatively short time afterwards, to the extent that one could be forgiven for assuming the springs were shock amplifiers, not absorbers!

[The Johnster]

2 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

AFAIK no objective comparative work was ever done on this, and subjective opinion abounds, affected by company loyalty.  My own subjective memory does not extend far back enough for me to make sensible comments about big 4 bogies, but I was aware that the BR standard B1 was inferior to the Commonwealth pattern and later B4/5 that replaced it on refurbished vehicles.  At Canton in the 70s, our 'B' rated stock was restricted to 75mph and used for excursion and charter work; all of it had B1s.  My personal opinion is that the Commonwealth 100mph bogies were best, but that the B4/5s were pretty good.  I clocked a B4 fitted mk1 coach at 114mph behind a 50 between Cholsey and Moulsford and Pangbourne in the 80s, an 8 coach train of mixed mk1 and 2 coaches, the fastest I ever went in a loco hauled train, and found the coach ran very steadily.  There was a worrying 'thrum' from air pressure and the thing howled as only a mk1 that's scared of how fast it's going can, but the ride was fine!

 

Of course, as a child, I rode about on various GW bogies and probably some LMS ones as well.  I read somewhere ages ago that the best ride available in the UK was in an LMS coach running on GW track.  I do recall a 1966 run in a Hawksworth between Manchester and Crewe behind an AL6 on a Manchester-Plymouth that was pretty lively, but this may have been influenced by the fact that the Hawksworth was the tail vehicle and rocking harder than Elvis.

 

This leads to another point; track on some railways was not as well maintained as on some others, with the Central and Eastern sections of the Southern having a particularly bad reputation due to using chalk or shingle ballast and being built to low cost standards in the first place.   The River class 2-6-4T locos were apparently such bad riders that they were unsafe at speed, but when one was trialled on the GN main line after the Sevenoaks accident in 1927 it was found to run satisfactorily at speeds of over 80mph; Nigel Gresley was on the footplate and praised the loco's stabilty.  So we are not always comparing like for like.

 

A ride a few years ago on the Bluebell, shortly after the Hayward's Heath section opened and still speed restricted to 15mph, in a Bullied brake composite was quite alarming, but what was I experiencing?  Was it a poorly designed bogie or in fact a very well designed one coping with difficult conditions?  The ride was not brilliant on the rest of the railway either, but I am not qualified to comment on the standard of track on the Bluebell.  

 

One assumes that because the train Mallard pulled down Stoke Bank that day had Gresley bogies, they are particularly suitable for high speed work, but this sort of assumption ignores the other variables.  My opinion of Gresley bogies such as I experienced on emus in the 60s is that they are good riders, but not soft in the way that a Commonwealth is.  These emu bogies were of course the heavy duty version, which BR had decided were suitable for it's Liverpool/Manchester area 25kv emu stock, amongst other similar designs.  

 

One must also take into account the mileage of the vehicle since it's last overhaul; the best designed bogie will cut up rough if it been a while since it was seen to.  And bogies deteriorate at different rates; engines not coaches but as an example the Southern Railway designed bogies on class 40/4/5/6 diesels rode superbly when fresh out of workshops, but appallingly badly in a relatively short time afterwards, to the extent that one could be forgiven for assuming the springs were shock amplifiers, not absorbers!

 

[Bucoops]

I no doubt have bias but the fact the the Gresley (derived from Spencer Moulton) design was still being produced decades after first use tells me a lot - obviously a good combination of cost vs effectiveness.

 

The commonwealth is a very fine bogie - ruddy heavy though!

[Ramblin Rich]

The Gresley bogies under class 304 EMUs were extremely 'lively' by the late 1980s. I remember the whole coachload of passengers bouncing up & down in unison on the line between B'ham New St and Wolverhampton. Presumably they had deteriorated over the years given the previous comments about them...

[Nearholmer]

The pre-War SR EMUs that survived into the 70s, and the postwar 4-SUB, were dreadfully poor riders. The motor bogies were worst, but even those without motors were bad.

 

The ride could get genuinely alarming at any appreciable speed, with all sorts of bits hitting the bump-stops, and it was only the fact that the seats were like tired old sofas that took the shock out of things. It is as I teresting, though, because everything bounced and swayed around at different rates, passengers at one frequency, luggage nets at another, curtains at a third etc, and outside the same applied to bits of bogie, jumper cables, and on CORs the corridor connection, which danced about all over the place.

 

How much of this was due to wear, how much to original design, and how much to track is an open question, but I do remember that the line down through Dorki g and on to Horsham had smooth track, but still produced an astonishing ride in a 4-SUB when they ran non-stop between the two places.

 

i do remember that it was said of the HAL and LAV units that maximum safe speed was reached when the woodworms jumped ship!

 

 

Edited February 18, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Titan]

1 hour ago, Bucoops said:

The commonwealth is a very fine bogie - ruddy heavy though!

It's of American heritage, what do you expect!!! 

[royaloak]

Best way of travelling has to be a Mark 2D FK or BFK, air conditioned compartments, whats not to like.

[Gibbo675]

4 minutes ago, royaloak said:

Best way of travelling has to be a Mark 2D FK or BFK, air conditioned compartments, whats not to like.

Ha !

You beat me to it. All I can add is the seats are just the best also.

 

Gibbo.

[The Stationmaster]

Interestingly BR did a large amount of work on bogie ride and whole life costs starting off in the 1950s when there was also a series of tests involving bogie designs from all over Europe - and the BR Mk1 came out on top as giving the best ride of the lot.  But of course the problem with the BR1 was that its performance deteriorated as mileage increased unless it received some very careful maintenance attention and it was an expensive bogie to maintain and flange wear also affected it performance.  The Commonwealth bogie had the advantage offering a slightly better ride than a new BR1 but it cost a fortune compared with the price of the BR1 - hence the development of the far more cost effective BR Mk4 bogie.

 

Oddly foreign bogie designs don't seem to fare too well in Britain for some reason although the GW American bogie seems to have been good (certainly was in my experience) but was probably expensive.  Foreign designed bogies never gave a good ride on the Blue Pullmans (except on the power cars which were the best riding vehicles in the train) and the bogies under the ECML Mk4 coaches were none too good in their early days.  Now we have poor ride from a Japanese design under the Class 80X TEPs and a German design under the Class 374 Eurostars.

 

Gresley bogies gave mixed ride over the years as far as I was concerned and again I suspect that this was down to age and length of time since last shopping as they weren't a bad ride when newly ex-works in my experience of them.  Equally the CORs could be distinctly lively and probably gave intending matelots a bit of practice for life on a choppy sea as they travelled down to Pompey  from Waterloo.

[Davexoc]

Tyre wear is going to have an effect on even the best designs. As soon as the profile starts to go concave you will start to get hunting, which will set up a lurching motion from side to side. Might ride rough in a certain speed range and then stabilise again once through it.

Can also be caused if someone puts the wrong profile on too....

 

Dave

[The Johnster]

Life on the Portsmouth emus was probably made even more interesting by the fact that these sets had a reputation for being pretty fast as well!  Commonwealth bogies added a ton of deadweight to mk1 coaches, but rode very well.  I think I'd second the comment about air-conditioned mk2s being the best ride and the best appointed seating ever in a British main line coach, superior to Pullmans and I don't believe those big orange first class seats have ever been bettered!

[Market65]

I recall a journey to Kings Cross from Doncaster in a Mk2f TSO, hauled by a 47. It was towards the rear of the formation, which may just have had something to do with the ride, but, despite B4 bogies, it was very rough. There was a poor vertical ride, with much bouncing, and every so often hunting took place, with a pronounced banging and crashing from the gangways, unlike a Mk2d on an earlier journey from York to Selby behind a Deltic - unidentified - which floated along. In that coach apart from some very faint rail sounds, you otherwise had to look out for the window to see if the train was actually moving.

I always found Commonwealth bogies to produce a most sea sick kind of ride, and always found myself feeling most ill as the carriage made that gentle sway along the rails.

Today I love the ride from a class 158. It seems be a really good ride, and I’m consistently falling asleep!  Very smooth as it powers along at up to 90 mph. 

We will not mention Pacers!!!

 

Best regards,

 

Rob.

[caradoc]

In September 1979 I travelled overnight from Euston to Inverness. I started the journey in a late-build Mark 1 TSO, with fluorescent lighting so bright the Gestapo would have hesitated to use it for interrogations. At Carlisle my 1st Class Freedom of Scotland Railrover kicked in and I transferred to an empty compartment in a Mark 1 FK for the rest of the trip. The contrast in comfort, between vehicles of essentially the same design, was incredible !