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Were there any passenger services that ran with top and tail diesels in the 60s/70s?


pinzaboy
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Hi

Does anyone know whether any scheduled passenger services ran in the 60s/70s in a top and tail formation with diesel locos?

 

This afternoon I ran green top and tail class 25s on 3 x mark 1 maroon carriages and wondered how prototypical such an event might be!!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Tim

 

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11 minutes ago, pinzaboy said:

Hi

Does anyone know whether any scheduled passenger services ran in the 60s/70s in a top and tail formation with diesel locos?

 

This afternoon I ran green top and tail class 25s on 3 x mark 1 maroon carriages and wondered how prototypical such an event might be!!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Tim

 

Edinburgh-Glasgow services using a Class 27 at each end of 6 coach rakes started in 1971

 

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10 minutes ago, pinzaboy said:

Hi

Does anyone know whether any scheduled passenger services ran in the 60s/70s in a top and tail formation with diesel locos?

 

This afternoon I ran green top and tail class 25s on 3 x mark 1 maroon carriages and wondered how prototypical such an event might be!!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Tim

 

 

Class 27s T&T the Edinburgh - Glasgow shuttles from circa '72 - '79.  A couple of Class 37s and D7584 also deputised for unavailable 27s during the early days of this practice.

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The Glasgow-Edinburgh service was PP, not T&T surely? 27 initially, then later 47.

 

I remember riding on it sometimes mid-70s and I’m blooming sure it was PP, but more memorably on one occasion it derailed due to the loco breaking/shedding a tyre.

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Well they were T&T plus PP really. When I remember them they had a 27/1 at one end and a 27/2 at the other. The latter locos were there for electric heating purposes. There could be noticeable vibrations in the coaching stock if the two locos were not running quite as matched for power as theory might have suggested. 

 

The 47/7s came later and were proper PP. 

Edited by jonny777
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24 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The Glasgow-Edinburgh service was PP, not T&T surely? 27 initially, then later 47.

 

I remember riding on it sometimes mid-70s and I’m blooming sure it was PP, but more memorably on one occasion it derailed due to the loco breaking/shedding a tyre.

It was initially top-and-tailed with 27s, and later changed to a single 47. The Polmont crash was due to the DVT hitting cattle that had strayed onto the line. I remember that well as I was livng in Glasgow at the time and had to go to Edinburgh that day for work; I travelled home on a train an hour or so before the one that crashed.

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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2 minutes ago, Talltim said:

Top and Tail implies the rear loco is not powering the train. Were both the locos powering in 27 days?

 

Yes both powered, so push and pull as opposed to push/pull with one loco.

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Well, memory certainly plays tricks; I remember, clearly falsely, there being a loco, a 27, at one end of the train only.

 

The derailment I recall wasn't Polmont, it was a good many years before that and, thankfully, far less extensive. I think only the loco, but possibly also one coach, came off, and everything remained upright and in-line.

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With the Edinburgh - Glasgow 27s, coaches were through wired and piped so the locos were working in multiple with each other.

Top & Tail working in the modern sense, with the leading loco working the train and the trailing loco hauled dead would not have been possible with vacuum braked stock, as the trailing loco would be unbraked.

Edited by Ken.W
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I think excursions to Whitby were top and tailed once the run-round facilities at Battersby were removed, sometime in the early 1970s. Locos were often EE type 4/Class 40.

 

There were also a couple of rail tours to Meeth and Meldon in the late 70s were this happened with 33/1s at either end of TC+RMB+TC set.

 

At some terminal stations ecs was brought in with the train engine already on the rear.

 

One final one the London - Fort William sleepers were worked in and out of Glasgow Queen St to Cowlairs using a top and tail method, to keep the sleepers in the correct orientation.

 

 

Edited by stovepipe
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6 hours ago, MarkC said:

Edinburgh-Glasgow services using a Class 27 at each end of 6 coach rakes started in 1971

 

They weren't top and tailed they were the famous "Disco" trains with 27s at both ends but with both locos powered up and running in multiple.  The MU signals ran through the coach lighting circuits which caused them to flicker rather like a 70s disco.  Later Class 47/7s were created for these services with 100 MPH speed and MU equipment to run with a MK2 brake converted to a DVT. Later more 47/7s were created 15 I believe. They were painted "Scotrail" livery  (Intercity red stripe except with a blue stripe with scotrail branding.)   Incidentally a further 47, Charles Rennie Mackintosh a 47/4 also had its red stripe over painted with blue, not very well, it looked like someone had bought a tin of Dulux and  brushed it on.

I really don't know of any topping and tailing of passenger trains with a dead loco at the rear prior to about 2000.  

Edited by DavidCBroad
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The 33/1s were designed from the outset to run in multiple not only with other blue square locos, but in multiple with BR standard EP stock using the standard EMU control system. 

 

When I started on BT in 1974 as far as I know there was no top-and-tailing as we know it today. Any loco on the back would have to be manned and running if it was with vacuum braked stock. There wasn't much air-braked stock around in those days.

 

As others have said, the Scottish push-pull wasn't introduce until the early 1970s. 

 

ISTR some of the ECS workings from Old Oak to Paddington had the train engine on the back, saving a path into Paddington for a light engine, and that was in steam days.

 

There were a few workings on the Isle of Wight in steam days with a loco on the back going either to Pier Head or Shanklin as the turnover engine on summer Saturdays.

 

Edited by roythebus
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Not 1960s/70s but there are only two instances of top and tail in the 80s/90s I can think of:

 

1. There was a Bristol - Inverness service around 1984/5 which called at Glasgow Queen Street arriving at Eastfield via Springburn so it had to have a loco put on the rear to get to Queen Street. In the reverse direction it arrived via Bishopbriggs so then had a loco put on the front to take the train to Eastfield so the train could then head off towards Springburn. The South curve from Queen Street to Springburn did not exist at the time.

 

2. Class 20s on the Matlock branch in 1990. They started as double head then went to one at each end after about a week or so.

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1 hour ago, stovepipe said:

I think excursions to Whitby were top and tailed once the run-round facilities at Battersby were removed, sometime in the early 1970s. Locos were often EE type 4/Class 40.

 

 

The loop at Battersby is still there - but after the rationalisation at Whitby, release involved propelling into the sidings at Bog Hall to run round, so it might have been more convenient to have a loco at each end. (This propelling to Bog Hall was used by the NYMR, of course, until Platform 2 and accompanying loop was reinstated).

 

Mark

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9 hours ago, stovepipe said:

 

One final one the London - Fort William sleepers were worked in and out of Glasgow Queen St to Cowlairs using a top and tail method, to keep the sleepers in the correct orientation.

 

 

 

I am sure this was a banking operation rather than top and tail, the rear loco was not coupled to the train.  Most passenger trains out of Queen Street at that time were assissted by the rear loco.

 

Jim

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9 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

They weren't top and tailed they were the famous "Disco" trains with 27s at both ends but with both locos powered up and running in multiple.  The MU signals ran through the coach lighting circuits which caused them to flicker rather like a 70s disco.  Later Class 47/7s were created for these services with 100 MPH speed and MU equipment to run with a MK2 brake converted to a DVT. Later more 47/7s were created 15 I believe. They were painted "Scotrail" livery  (Intercity red stripe except with a blue stripe with scotrail branding.)   Incidentally a further 47, Charles Rennie Mackintosh a 47/4 also had its red stripe over painted with blue, not very well, it looked like someone had bought a tin of Dulux and  brushed it on.

I really don't know of any topping and tailing of passenger trains with a dead loco at the rear prior to about 2000.  

 

No, your getting confused. The earlier description is correct. 

The 27's were in multiple using a 27 pin cable and regulating air pipe either end of 6 mk2 coaches.

These were completely replaced by the 47/7 , mk3 coaches and mk2 dbso using the Brush 2 wire tdm system via the coach lighting rch cables. They were the ones that made the interior lights flicker .

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10 hours ago, stovepipe said:

There were also a couple of rail tours to Meeth and Meldon in the late 70s were this happened with 33/1s at either end of TC+RMB+TC


They ran in proper multiple, not T&T, the RMB being one of the few ‘wired’ ones created specially for PP operation.

 

I travelled on an excursion to Cornwall formed thus, and it put on a cracking performance over the Devon Banks, 3000hp on a nine-car set, flying along as a sort of proto-HST before HSTs went that way.

 

(The ‘Thames Tamar Express’ IIRC, and about a year earlier an ‘’Atlantic Coast Express’ which went to Barnstaple and a lot of other places I think.)

 

 

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Loco-hauled trains on the Folkestone Harbour branch were topped and tailed even after electrification. As Roy said, both locos had to be manned, and one, at least, would have been an electric loco rather than a diesel.

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After the Keswick branch was rationalised in the late 1960s, some special trains ran top and tail. There is a photo in "Rails through Lakeland" by Harold D Bowtell of class 50 D417 heading ECS through Threlkeld en-route to Carlisle with D313 on the rear.  

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2 hours ago, luckymucklebackit said:

 

I am sure this was a banking operation rather than top and tail, the rear loco was not coupled to the train.  Most passenger trains out of Queen Street at that time were assissted by the rear loco.

 

Jim

 

Not in this case, a loco was added to rear at Cowlairs and then led formation down into Queen Street, then yes banked out. Similar arrangements on the reverse trip.

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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:


They ran in proper multiple, not T&T, the RMB being one of the few ‘wired’ ones created specially for PP operation.

 

I travelled on an excursion to Cornwall formed thus, and it put on a cracking performance over the Devon Banks, 3000hp on a nine-car set, flying along as a sort of proto-HST before HSTs went that way.

 

(The ‘Thames Tamar Express’ IIRC, and about a year earlier an ‘’Atlantic Coast Express’ which went to Barnstaple and a lot of other places I think.)

 

 

 

I think this is missing the point. For a model railway operation the OP asked about, here are several examples of loco on each end, regardless of whether it was technically multiple, push-pull or top and tail.

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11 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

They weren't top and tailed they were the famous "Disco" trains with 27s at both ends but with both locos powered up and running in multiple.  The MU signals ran through the coach lighting circuits which caused them to flicker rather like a 70s disco.    

 

It was the 47/7's that were known as discos - for the reasons you outline.

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