Last ever slip coach working

[Welchester]

2 hours ago, Phil Traxson said:

I'm not convinced that the trailers would not have had a vac brake controller anyway as controlling the application to brake smoothly and gradually from a straight on/off valve would be a real art. I think we need to find a photo of inside the auto trailer cab to ascertain the answer to this.

 

Here you go (No. 92 at Llangollen):

 

 

[Welchester]

Actually, that's the non-motor end of the steam railmotor. However, you can see the vacuum brake cotroller in this phot of 178 at Lydney:

 

 

[keefer]

1935 article on slip coaches:

https://www.railwaywondersoftheworld.com/slip-coaches.html

[Steamport Southport]

It's the trailer car, not the SRM which is number 93.

 

 

 

Jason

[Welchester]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

It's the trailer car, not the SRM which is number 93.

 

 

 

Jason

 

Yes. you're right. What confused me is, I think, the reflection of the interior.

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, chrisf said:

There is some confusion in this matter.  Let us start with the calendar.  9th September 1961 was a Friday, 10th a Saturday.  Did the 5.10 pm Paddington - Wolverhampton, the train from which the last slip was made, run on a Saturday?  I do not have a timetable for summer 1960 but I have looked at the carriage working programmes for winter 1959-60 and summer 1961 and the Paddington station working book for summer 1960.   All show the 5.10 pm as Saturdays Excepted.  So when was the Railway Roundabout footage shot?  It appears certain that it was not 10th September because the train did not run that day.  The probability is, then, that it was 8th September or earlier that week.  The original Railway Roundabout commentary was delivered live by John Adams or Patrick Whitehouse.  That on the video is by Jeremy English.

 

As for there being two slips at Bicester, no.  The one in the film was not the same day as the one with W7374W and its attachments.  It seems more likely that extra coaches were attached on a Friday when loadings were higher than in the rest of the week.

 

Chris

And see my previous post regarding errors in the Jeremy English commentaries which came with the video version of the Railway Roundabout films.   The filming was never claimed to have been of the last day.

22 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Re confusion; if there's a wrong end of the stick, that's the end I grab, every time!

 

I'd say your analysis of the situation, that the film was made during the week and the last slip ever was on the Friday with extra coaches, is very probably correct.

I'm not even sure if it was done in the last week, rather a case of the 'soon to end' slip coach working.  The film was in any case shot over several days (as was the norm for a lot of Railway Roundabout filming) because one camera operator could not be in two places at the same time or beat the 17.10 Paddington to Bicester after filming it being given the right away at Paddington.

 

And the reason slip coaches were done away with was far simpler than the case of a train having two Guards (which of course some longer distance services still had anyway in 1960).  Such services were inevitably unbalanced and by then the whole pattern of passenger train working and stops in Class 1 trains was changing rapidly.  Thus apart from the added cost of keeping and maintaining specialised vehicles and arranging their working there was little commercial advantage offered by retaining them - so they were done away with.  I somehow doubt any Guards were made redundant as a result. (in fact Jacky Wells,  the main train Guard in the filming at Paddington, didn't retire until over 20 years after that film was made - and he was the junior man in that film.

[KeithMacdonald]

On 16/11/2019 at 20:09, Not Captain Kernow said:

 

Only in one direction though.  It would be far more interesting and exciting if they had somehow come up with a reverse slip coach that attached itself to the express!

 

For exciting, they could use something like the Bloodhound LSR. Good (they say) for London to Edinburgh in 39 minutes.

 

Quote

Bloodhound LSR hit 628mph (1,010kph) in high-speed testing over the weekend, as fast as its current rocket will propel it. The car left the start line in "max dry" mode – with no visible flames. At 50mph (80kph), driver Andy Green "put his foot down", pushing the jet engine into reheat or afterburner mode.  Maximum speed was reached in 50 seconds, five miles from the start, and Green lifted off the throttle at 615mph (989kph), stabilised the car then deployed the parachute. It came to a stop seven miles (11km) from the starting line. Subsequent GPS checks put the top speed at 1,010kph. Brakes were applied at 250mph (400kph).

 

HS3 perhaps?

 

 

[Jub45565]

On 17/11/2019 at 02:05, The Johnster said:

 The Ffestiniog's gravity trains were timed to run up to 70mph, on 2' gauge!

 

Do you have a source for this info?!

 

I'm reasonably well versed with the prototype - both current and historic - and find this very hard to believe.  In the early steam days they ran down trains in 4 sections (slate, passenger, general goods, loco) in line of sight working.

 

Slate trains got a third brakesman at 100 waggons, which means that there will have been a good number of brakes permanently ratcheted 'on', while the brakesmen scampered between the waggons looking after the remainder. Slate ran under gravity control til late on (1939) as it was smoother and so broke fewer slates.  From then til closure in 1946 it was presumably decided that the wage bill for gravity brakesmen alongside loco crew couldn't be justified/sustained.

 

(Apologies for the off topic diversion, but I couldn't let this one slip go).

[Phil Traxson]

15 hours ago, Jub45565 said:

 

Do you have a source for this info?!

 

I'm reasonably well versed with the prototype - both current and historic - and find this very hard to believe.  In the early steam days they ran down trains in 4 sections (slate, passenger, general goods, loco) in line of sight working.

 

Slate trains got a third brakesman at 100 waggons, which means that there will have been a good number of brakes permanently ratcheted 'on', while the brakesmen scampered between the waggons looking after the remainder. Slate ran under gravity control til late on (1939) as it was smoother and so broke fewer slates.  From then til closure in 1946 it was presumably decided that the wage bill for gravity brakesmen alongside loco crew couldn't be justified/sustained.

 

(Apologies for the off topic diversion, but I couldn't let this one slip go).

I just thought it was a typo!

Having ridden the FR gravity train quite a few times over the years I have a sneaking suspicion that the 7 should be replaced with a 2. The idea of an unsprung 3 ton slate wagon with half block brass bearings running for thirteen miles at 70 mph is positively frightening, even if it was in a straight line, which the FR definitely isn't. Even then 20 mph would be a maximum.

[Pacific231G]

On 16/11/2019 at 19:31, johnofwessex said:

I never understood though why the GWR continued to use slip coaches for so long after other companies had abandoned the practice

That easy. It was God's Wonderful Railway and therefore able to do with consummate ease what lesser railways could only struggle with

It is slightly odd that while none of the other companies reintroduced slips after the war the GWR did and,as BR (W), continued with it until 1960.

 

Adrian Vaughan pointed out the dangers of slip coaches in his book on the Farringdon Branch pointing to a near disaster at Uffington in 1950. A slip guard slipped prematurely leaving his coach stranded on the up main line  and the signalman at the next box, forgetting that the Weston-Super-Mare to Paddington train had a slip coach and, seeing a tail lamp, gave train out of section and accepted the next train, a Swindon-Didcot stopping passenger train hauled by a Castle, which would have ploughed into the slip coach had not an alert platelayer  realised what was happening and put detonators on the line. As it was the stopper, with limited braking capacity due to having only two coaches, only just stopped in time. Without that platelayer I doubt if the practice would have long survived the almost inevitable tragedy and it's slightly surprising that it went on for a further ten years after that. Of course the signalman was at fault for not noticing that the train was showing a slip tail lamp when it shouldn't have been but his colleague in the next box didn't notice it either and it it seems that it was only because the signalman at Circourt was the brother of the slip guard so looking out for him that the train with its missing slip coach wasn't passed along till it reached Didcot .  

 

The Railway Roundabout film was clearly not the last slip coach at all and I doubt if was even filmed in the final week. I was taken by my father to see the Bicester slip and the station was pretty crowded. Frustratingly, I simply don't know whether I saw the very last or just one of the last slips but, judging by the almost empty platform in the film, it was probably filmed several weeks before.

I very much doubt whether the live commentary at the time would have lied about it being the last slip . More likely to have been something like "The very last slip coach in Britain ran on 9th September..... a few days/weeks earlier we took two cameras to film this operation" 

 

Something I did notice in the scenes shot at Paddington was that at about 0m45s the slip passengers seem to be being locked in the coach. Was that a feature of slip working, given that the coach might well end up stopping short?  I thought locking passengers in a carriage had been a complete no no since the 1842 "Versailles" train fire where passengers couldn't escape the fire that followed a crash and were burnt alive. The actual death toll, somewhere between 50 and 200, couldn't be determined because so many of the victims' bodies had been cremated.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Georgeconna]

Nice little Film, Came up on my feed to, Interesting about the Tail Lamps.

 

[KeithMacdonald]

15 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That easy. It was God's Wonderful Railway and therefore able to do with consummate ease what lesser railways could only struggle with

 

 

16 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

 I thought locking passengers in a carriage had been a complete no no since the 1842 "Versailles" train fire where the death toll, somewhere between 50 and 200, couldn't be determined because so many of the victims' bodies had been cremated.

 

Ouch, nasty.

I guess "locking people in" is a very subjective topic - either "to protect the passengers" or "to control their behaviour".

But, isn't that we do now with the "new improved" train manager's controlled door locking?

 

As teenagers travelling to-and-from school by slam-door DMU in the 1970s, we regularly jumped out before the train had completely come to a halt in the station. Would probably get arrested for that now. Different times?

[The Stationmaster]

44 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That easy. It was God's Wonderful Railway and therefore able to do with consummate ease what lesser railways could only struggle with

It is slightly odd that while none of the other companies reintroduced slips after the war the GWR did and,as BR (W), continued with it until 1960.

 

Adrian Vaughan pointed out the dangers of slip coaches in his book on the Farringdon Branch pointing to a near disaster at Uffington in 1950. A slip guard slipped prematurely leaving his coach stranded on the up main line  and the signalman at the next box, forgetting that the Weston-Super-Mare to Paddington train had a slip coach and, seeing a tail lamp, gave train out of section and accepted the next train, a Swindon-Didcot stopping passenger train hauled by a Castle, which would have ploughed into the slip coach had not an alert platelayer  realised what was happening and put detonators on the line. As it was the stopper, with limited braking capacity due to having only two coaches, only just stopped in time. Without that platelayer I doubt if the practice would have long survived the almost inevitable tragedy and it's slightly surprising that it went on for a further ten years after that. Of course the signalman was at fault for not noticing that the train was showing a slip tail lamp when it shouldn't have been but his colleague in the next box didn't notice it either and it it seems that it was only because the signalman at Circourt was the brother of the slip guard so looking out for him that the train with its missing slip coach wasn't passed along till it reached Didcot .  

 

The Railway Roundabout film was clearly not the last slip coach at all and I doubt if was even filmed in the final week. I was taken by my father to see the Bicester slip and the station was pretty crowded. Frustratingly, I simply don't know whether I saw the very last or just one of the last slips but, judging by the almost empty platform in the film, it was probably filmed several weeks before.

I very much doubt whether the live commentary at the time would have lied about it being the last slip . More likely to have been something like "The very last slip coach in Britain ran on 9th September..... a few days/weeks earlier we took two cameras to film this operation" 

 

Something I did notice in the scenes shot at Paddington was that at about 0m45s the slip passengers seem to be being locked in the coach. Was that a feature of slip working, given that the coach might well end up stopping short?  I thought locking passengers in a carriage had been a complete no no since the 1842 "Versailles" train fire where passengers couldn't escape the fire that followed a crash and were burnt alive. The actual death toll, somewhere between 50 and 200, couldn't be determined because so many of the victims' bodies had been cremated.

 

 

 

 

 

As far as I can trace there were no Instructions regarding the locking of passenger doors on slip coaches.  i wouldn't be surprised if what we saw in the film was a local arrangement at Paddington carried out for very sensible reasons as we see a woman trying a door after it had been locked.  By locking the door it prevented latecomers on the platform getting into the wrong part of the train and I doubt that the doors were locked on the other side )what happened on arrival at Bicester would confirm that one way or the other of course).

 

The story about the slip coach disaster sounds a bit odd to me as it's far from clear where the coach was meant to slip.  The tail lamp business too sounds rather odd because the main train tail lamp was quite a distinctive thing with two lenses which couldn't easily be mistaken for a normal tail lamp but if a Signalman didn't bother to observe the tail lamp it wouldn't matter how many lenses it had.   What does sounds a bit odd is where the coach appears to have been slipped with the implication that it was one side, or the other, of Uffington although presumably it was intended for Didcot judging by the reaction of the Signalman at Circourt.  It would be a amazing error slipping it on a double line section running through open country between 10 and 13 miles short of where it was supposed to be  slipped compared with a quadruple track section running alongside a major military stores depot and approaching a large junction where it was supposed to be slipped. a completely unmistakable slipping location even in thick fog.   If it had been (and it is conceivable) a slip portion for Challow then the Circourt Signalman wouldn't have been looking out for it in any case so it must have been a Didcot slip (they still took place on Up trains in those days).  I'm more inclined to suspect a technical failure rather than a error that serious on the part of the Slip Guard but strange things did happen of course.  The other oddity however is that it came to a stand - in an area where there a continuous falling gradient hence again I am more inclined to suspect an accidental parting rather than a deliberate slip in the wrong place.

 

Interestingly the Slip Coach Working Instructions were reviewed in April/May 1950but the only change was in respect of examination of the slip equipment at intermediate stations where the slip coupling was brought into use which was accoplished by no mre than a small change to the wording.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

 

 

Ouch, nasty.

I guess "locking people in" is a very subjective topic - either "to protect the passengers" or "to control their behaviour".

But, isn't that we do now with the "new improved" train manager's controlled door locking?

 

As teenagers travelling to-and-from school by slam-door DMU in the 1970s, we regularly jumped out before the train had completely come to a halt in the station. Would probably get arrested for that now. Different times?

Should have been at least shouted at for it then, but it was a very common practice; films of commuter trains arriving at Waterloo show every door on the platform side of 12 coaches open and disgorging passengers long before the train stopped.  It was a very dangerous practice which often caused injury and sometimes worse, and was actively discouraged by safety posters on station platforms, as was opening doors on moving trains to avoid missing them.

 

The original point of locking carriage doors was not to protect the passengers from the consequences of their own stupidity, although many would have been more used to stagecoach speed than the 40 or 50 mph that was being regularly achieved by the 1840s, but was in a sense to control their behaviour.  The landowners of land bordering the railway were concerned to protect crops and property from the ravages of the great unwashed when trains stopped in open country, which in those did they often did to raise steam or because of breakdowns; it is for this reason that UK railways are generally well fenced.  Many of these landowners were shareholders or had reluctantly allowed themselves to be persuaded to allow the railway across their property, and had to be mollified.  

 

Given the common practice on the Weston, Clevedon, and Portishead of tacitly allowing passengers off trains stopped for steam raising or 'other reasons' in order to forage in the surrounding fields, they may have had a point!  Unlocked doors also facilitated fare dodgers, and I once knew a bloke from Brynmawr who used the train to travel to the cinema in Abertillery a few miles down the valley.  He and his chums habitually detrained on the side away from the platform, and boarded the compartment stock of the last up the valley to go home the same way; 'everybody did it all the time, even women with prams'.  

 

He made the comment that it was a very popular service and he couldn't understand why it was axed in 1962 because it wasn't paying, completely failing to grasp the irony. 

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

As far as I can trace there were no Instructions regarding the locking of passenger doors on slip coaches.  i wouldn't be surprised if what we saw in the film was a local arrangement at Paddington carried out for very sensible reasons as we see a woman trying a door after it had been locked.  By locking the door it prevented latecomers on the platform getting into the wrong part of the train and I doubt that the doors were locked on the other side )what happened on arrival at Bicester would confirm that one way or the other of course).

 

The story about the slip coach disaster sounds a bit odd to me as it's far from clear where the coach was meant to slip.  The tail lamp business too sounds rather odd because the main train tail lamp was quite a distinctive thing with two lenses which couldn't easily be mistaken for a normal tail lamp but if a Signalman didn't bother to observe the tail lamp it wouldn't matter how many lenses it had.   What does sounds a bit odd is where the coach appears to have been slipped with the implication that it was one side, or the other, of Uffington although presumably it was intended for Didcot judging by the reaction of the Signalman at Circourt.  It would be a amazing error slipping it on a double line section running through open country between 10 and 13 miles short of where it was supposed to be  slipped compared with a quadruple track section running alongside a major military stores depot and approaching a large junction where it was supposed to be slipped. a completely unmistakable slipping location even in thick fog.   If it had been (and it is conceivable) a slip portion for Challow then the Circourt Signalman wouldn't have been looking out for it in any case so it must have been a Didcot slip (they still took place on Up trains in those days).  I'm more inclined to suspect a technical failure rather than a error that serious on the part of the Slip Guard but strange things did happen of course.  The other oddity however is that it came to a stand - in an area where there a continuous falling gradient hence again I am more inclined to suspect an accidental parting rather than a deliberate slip in the wrong place.

 

Interestingly the Slip Coach Working Instructions were reviewed in April/May 1950but the only change was in respect of examination of the slip equipment at intermediate stations where the slip coupling was brought into use which was accoplished by no mre than a small change to the wording.

Hi Mike

Adrian Vaughhan's iniital account is here

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xUCIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT164&lpg=PT164&dq=Adrian+Vaughan+slip+coach&source=bl&ots=KY9AI8Y3or&sig=ACfU3U1MqgxLIpJSuys0XbQ2zid1Dxqs5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMyaWqoPzlAhWBShUIHXvCDRMQ6AEwCHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Adrian Vaughan slip coach&f=false

From a later account in an online sample of his 2015 book it transpired that the slip guard's mistake wasn't to slip prematurely but not to have noticed at Swindon that  the slipping lever wasn't properly latched. Noticing this he then hung on to it till too exhausted to continue at which point it released the slip coupling (decidedly not fail safe!) . His other possible mistake was to stop the coach immediately rather than letting it run on to Uffington station but he was surely anxious to protect it.  As soon as the coach had stopped he jumped down to protect it with detonators but it took the following train - alerted by ganger Brown's detonators- half a mile to stop and guard Snell had only managed to get a quarter mile back from his train. 

 

Even the most experienced and conscientious people do see what they expect to see and the signalman at Uffington, a thoroughly reliable man according to Vaughan, seeing the double red tail lamps of the express without its slip coach, simply forgot  what it meant and gave line clear when it had passed as did the following signalman.

The truth is that even the most reliable people do make mistakes and an accident often involves two or more of them lining up. Fortunately ganger Brown was the duck that didn't line up and he received a commendation for his actions. 

I've not yet found the inspector's report on this incident but it's clear that Adrian Vaughan has.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Pacific231G

[kevinlms]

On 17/11/2019 at 06:31, johnofwessex said:

I never understood though why the GWR continued to use slip coaches for so long after other companies had abandoned the practice

The WR may have been the last to use slip coaches, but wasn't the LB&SCR the first?

[caradoc]

On 17/11/2019 at 02:05, The Johnster said:

Time interval working is still resorted to in the event of complete signal failure. 

 

Sorry Johnster, but Time Interval Working was abolished many years ago by BR. Was there not a nasty accident at Worcester in the 1970s during that method ?

 

[keefer]

Accident report on the Railways Archive site:

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=777

[The Johnster]

16 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

Even the most experienced and conscientious people do see what they expect to see and the signalman at Uffington, a thoroughly reliable man according to Vaughan, seeing the double red tail lamps of the express without its slip coach, simply forgot  what it meant and gave line clear when it had passed as did the following signalman.

Which not only illustrates that signalmen must be on top of the game all the time, but a shortcoming in the GW's method of lamping trains with slip portions.  The train, having slipped prematurely because the slip guard no longer had the strength to hold the latch against it's spring, passed Uffington box showing the correct double red tail lamps.  All this conveys to the signalman is that the train has slipped a portion, but not where and when.  It might have happened hours ago and miles to the west for all he knows.  And he isn't expecting a slip here, all of which combines to make it easy for him to 'forget what it meant' and clear back, accepting the following train into the section which was actually occupied by a stationary slip coach!

 

That Guard Snell only made 440 yards with his protecting dets and red flag is worrying as well; I'm sure he was as prompt as he could have been but making speed is not easy in the cess, and he no doubt did his best.  But the headways between trains are too short to allow proper protection at those speeds, and it is very fortunate that Ganger Brown was a) on hand, b) equipped with detonators, and c) had realised what was happening and reacted promptly to the situation.  Train protection is not part of a ganger's training or normal working practice, and his commendation is fully justified!

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, keefer said:

Accident report on the Railways Archive site:

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=777

I always considered that 'keep a good look out' when proceeding under time interval working due to total block failure' should be taken to mean 'proceed with caution', which ought to mean 'at a speed consistent with being able to stop the train within the distance that the line ahead can clearly be seen to be clear'.  But drivers are conditioned to accepting the authority of signalmen to enter a section in these circumstances as if it was a the authority of a clear starting signal; the wording of the signalman's instructions 'you will pass signal xxx at danger' sort of re-enforce this sort of thinking.  

 

A year before this tragedy, I was guard on a train of 7x100 fuel oil tanks hauled by a 47  We left Canton at about 05.10, having relieved a Llanelli crew at North Curve ground frame, and were stopped at Barry signalbox, where the driver was told of a complete block failure between there and Rhoose by the Barry signalman.  I was riding in the front cab with the driver and secondman, and we had just run past a train of empty MGR hoppers with another 47, a Barry duty heading for Blaenant waiting to leave sidings.

 

A 10 minute minimum time interval should have been in force as Porthkerry Tunnel is in this section.  Barry signalman instructed my driver to pass his starter and advanced starter at danger and obey all other signals, but did not actually say anything about keeping a look out or proceeding with caution.  The driver mentioned this as we got under way and stated that he intended to keep a good look out and drive as far as he could see anyway.  The day was overcast and the sun was not yet up but it was getting light.  We left Barry at about 05.45, and ran up the bank at about 30mph.

 

The Rhoose home signal was on and the level crossing gates closed against us.  The driver instructed the secondman to go to the box, where the lights were on but as far as we could see the box was empty.  I immediately took my bardic lamp and detonators to protect in rear despite the driver telling me that there was no need and I should wait a couple of minutes to see what happened, but I felt uneasy about that.  The time was about 05.55 when I set off.  As I got to the rear of my train, I was startled to see the Barry 47 breast the top of the bank at about 40mph with the MGR empties; I started waving a red Bardic with some enthusiasm.  The Barry driver responded immediately with an acknowledgement on the horn and I heard the brake go in.  Within a few seconds of this, my own loco sounded it's rear horn to recall me, but I wanted to make sure the MGR pulled up in time so I stayed where I was until it did.

 

By this time the Rhoose signals were cleared.  Apparently the box was not due to switch in until 06.00 (this was Monday morning and Rhoose switched out on Sundays), but the signalman had unlocked it, put the homes to danger, and opened the crossing gates for the traffic for the morning shift booking on at the Cement works, still operating then.  Barry must have let the MGR out of the sidings and authorised it into the section in much less than 10 minutes after we'd left, and, as we found out in conversation with it's crew at Aberthaw, he made no mention of the fact that there was a train in the section.  It seems to me that both signalmen were at fault,, and that the Rhoose man had succumbed to pressure from the queue of Cement workers at the crossing gates, and then gone across the road to buy a newspaper, but we never heard any more of the incident, which had passed off without harm to anyone.  The Barry driver reckoned he'd have contacted our train had I not 'red lighted' him, but as a heavy shunt rather than a full on collision.

 

I was happy that I'd done everything that was expected of me as promptly as possible.  I was, of course, not riding in the rear cab as I should have been, but as this would have resulted in some time wasted while I was appraised of the situation by the loco crew, so I claim that it did not have any adverse effect on the outcome, in fact if anything the opposite.

[johnofwessex]

When was the last 'Non GWR' slip coach operated.

[The Stationmaster]

21 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Mike

Adrian Vaughhan's iniital account is here

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xUCIAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT164&lpg=PT164&dq=Adrian+Vaughan+slip+coach&source=bl&ots=KY9AI8Y3or&sig=ACfU3U1MqgxLIpJSuys0XbQ2zid1Dxqs5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMyaWqoPzlAhWBShUIHXvCDRMQ6AEwCHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Adrian Vaughan slip coach&f=false

From a later account in an online sample of his 2015 book it transpired that the slip guard's mistake wasn't to slip prematurely but not to have noticed at Swindon that  the slipping lever wasn't properly latched. Noticing this he then hung on to it till too exhausted to continue at which point it released the slip coupling (decidedly not fail safe!) . His other possible mistake was to stop the coach immediately rather than letting it run on to Uffington station but he was surely anxious to protect it.  As soon as the coach had stopped he jumped down to protect it with detonators but it took the following train - alerted by ganger Brown's detonators- half a mile to stop and guard Snell had only managed to get a quarter mile back from his train. 

 

Even the most experienced and conscientious people do see what they expect to see and the signalman at Uffington, a thoroughly reliable man according to Vaughan, seeing the double red tail lamps of the express without its slip coach, simply forgot  what it meant and gave line clear when it had passed as did the following signalman.

The truth is that even the most reliable people do make mistakes and an accident often involves two or more of them lining up. Fortunately ganger Brown was the duck that didn't line up and he received a commendation for his actions. 

I've not yet found the inspector's report on this incident but it's clear that Adrian Vaughan has.

Ah, it now makes much more sense - and explains a reminder and amplification in the Slip Instructions published in January 1951.  The Slip Guard was obviously very remiss in his duties in that he not only must have failed failed to check the Slipping Lever was secured by the cotters but even worse he failed to padlock it.   Equally having become aware of the situation he then failed to stop the train which would have been the correct action in the circumstances so I suspect he probably ceased to be a Guard of any sort in the aftermath of that incident.   His behaviour after the accidental slipping of the coach is also inexplicable although it was no doubt a very stressful situation and it simply didn't occur to him to immediately release the brake and let the coach roll forward to Uffington where it would have been within the protection of fixed signals - overwhelmingly safer than coming to a stand in the section and no more than a couple of miles on a falling gradient.

 

The time situation is also interesting.  I can't find a 1950 WTT and the 1948 one isn't much help as the stopping train then was in front of the 07.00 from Weston-Super-Mare.  But in 1952 public TT the second train was quite a distance behind the express leaving Swindon c.10 minutes after the 07.00 WSM had passed although it was only booked to call at Challow to the west of Didcot.   This train was very unlikely to have gained on the 07.00 Weston and if it was in 1950 still the local service it would have stopped at Shrivenham.  So the times fit fairly well - it would have taken the Slip Guard around 5 minutes to walk  440 yards in rear of the slip coach (and 10 minutes to make half a mile).  Allowing for him first having to apply the handbrake and then climb down it's not surprising that he only got around a quarter of a mile from it.  So it was indeed a good job that the Ganger had seen what was happening and was able to get some protection down further back.

 

It is of course not unusual for signalmen to miss tail lamps and of course in this incident two successive men (at Uffington and at Challow) missed the lamps or did not react in the way they should have done to what they saw.  Oddly reminiscent of the pre-war at not very far away (from Uffington) Shrivenham collision where the Signalman there also didn't notice that a passing train didn't have any tail lamp at all and accepted another train into the back of the detached portion left in the section.  as was so very often the case it was two, or more mistakes coming together that nearly led to disaster.   As there was no collision or loss of life I suspect there was little or no involvement of HMRI and the matter was dealt with internally by the GWR.

[John Mair]

On 17/11/2019 at 17:17, chrisf said:

There is some confusion in this matter.  Let us start with the calendar.  9th September 1961 was a Friday, 10th a Saturday.  Did the 5.10 pm Paddington - Wolverhampton, the train from which the last slip was made, run on a Saturday?  I do not have a timetable for summer 1960 but I have looked at the carriage working programmes for winter 1959-60 and summer 1961 and the Paddington station working book for summer 1960.   All show the 5.10 pm as Saturdays Excepted.  So when was the Railway Roundabout footage shot?  It appears certain that it was not 10th September because the train did not run that day.  The probability is, then, that it was 8th September or earlier that week.  The original Railway Roundabout commentary was delivered live by John Adams or Patrick Whitehouse.  That on the video is by Jeremy English.

 

As for there being two slips at Bicester, no.  The one in the film was not the same day as the one with W7374W and its attachments.  It seems more likely that extra coaches were attached on a Friday when loadings were higher than in the rest of the week.

 

Chris

I am afraid that there is a calendrical error here.   The last slip coach working took place on 09 September, 1960, not 1961.   The Friday dating for the last such event is thus correct, though Chris is right in saying that there was no 5.10 p.m. train from Paddington to Wolverhampton on Saturdays during the summer timetable of 1960.  (I am not offering any comment about when the Railway Roundabout film(s) was (were) actually made!)

 

I have a copy of the Summer 1960 Western Region public timetable, and what seems to have happened is as follows:

 

1.   On Mondays to Saturdays a stopping train to Wolverhampton (Low Level) left Paddington at 4.34 p.m., and, after calls at Gerrards Cross, Beaconsfield, High Wycombe, Saunderton (except on Saturdays), Princes Risborough, Haddenham, Dorton Halt, and Brill and Ludgerhsall Halt (Saturdays only) arrived at Bicester North at 5.59 p.m. (6.03 p.m. on Saturdays) and would depart from that station at 6.25 p.m.   (See below.)

 

2.   On Mondays to Fridays an express to Wolverhampton (Low Level) left Paddington at 5.10 p.m., and was booked to arrive at its first stop at Leamington Spa General at 6.48 p.m.   It was this train which conveyed the slip portion for Bicester North.

 

3.    The slip portion is shown as arriving at Bicester North at 6.15 p.m., after having been detached shortly before by the 5.10 p.m. from Paddington.   The slip came to rest on the centre road, parallel with the platform road.

 

4.    The engine of the 4.34 p.m. from Paddington, which was then standing at the down platform at Bicester North, then collected the slip and attached it to that same 4.34 p.m. from Paddington.   Passengers for Bicester were then free to alight.

 

5.     The complete train was now ready to leave Bicester North at 6.25 p.m. and to travel as a stopping train to Wolverhampton (Low Level), where it was due to arrive at 8.31 p.m., 40 minutes after the 5.10 express from Paddington had arrived at Wolverhampton (Low Level) at 7.51 p.m.

 

A note in the public timetable specifically says that arrival at Bicester North was by slip carriage.

 

The date of 09 September, 1960, for the last slip working was appointed presumably because the summer timetable for that year ended on Sunday, 11 September.

 

John

[chrisf]

This topic bred confusion through and through.  I apologise for mixing up 1960 and 1961, though these days I never seem to know what day it is, never mind the year!

 

Chris