Van Thirds

[MDP78]

Having been able to start making up some coach sets prototypical for the Central Wales Division of BR(WR) I have noticed that a few 3 coach sets in the division in the 1950s were composed of a Composite, Van Third, Third.

 

I had previously assumed (perhaps naively) that the Third and Composite would have been together with the Van Third at one or other end. What was the logic of making the Van Third the centre coach? 

 

Was it for the convenience of the guard to be in the centre?

 

Was it to make it easier to split and reform the sets if one coach needed maintenance?

 

Or was it because the order was useful if the set were to be added or removed from other sets to make up longer trains for through workings - which did seem to happen with some sets in the Central Wales division. 

[hallmodelspares]

My understanding is long journey types they add and take off coaches usually by the brake van and also depends on service route as larger stations accomidate more coaches. Also longer stations and shorter stations requires van to allow on a lot cycle traffic and also in earlier times parcel/ items to be carried on route. Something currently they struggle with on emu based services, easily over subscribed with cycles/

[The Johnster]

With shorter sets, it was sometimes an advantage to have the van and guard’s compartment near the centre of the train.  When the train stopped at intermediate stations, the guard was handy to converse with the station staff, parcels and mails were close to the parcels office, and everyone was under the canopy if it was raining; it does this a lot in Mid Wales!

 

The principle was continued with most of the 1st generation dmus.  

[duncan]

Agree with the johnster, cf the kyle line, the full brake was the middle of 3 coaches.  Meant it always stopped at the same point on the platform for mail transfer.

[Steamport Southport]

It was so the guard was in the middle of a shortish train. Also means you only need one brake coach. Having a brake coach at each end was starting to fall out of fashion as was the need for large amounts of luggage space.

 

A common formation on the LMS/BR(M) was BT/T or a C with the van inboard (meaning nearest the middle). Other railways would use two brakes instead.

 

Later on it became the norm such as with the ER London suburban sets where the formations were often something like S/S/BS/CL/S/S.

 

 

 

Jason

[kevinlms]

13 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

It was so the guard was in the middle of a shortish train. Also means you only need one brake coach. Having a brake coach at each end was starting to fall out of fashion as was the need for large amounts of luggage space.

 

A common formation on the LMS/BR(M) was BT/T or a C with the van inboard (meaning nearest the middle). Other railways would use two brakes instead.

 

Later on it became the norm such as with the ER London suburban sets where the formations were often something like S/S/BS/CL/S/S.

 

 

 

Jason

Did it become more common with all steel coaches? The reason for asking is that in the 1930s the LMS started to form trains with brakes outermost, due to the fact that there had been a number of accidents, where the number of injuries were worse where a train had run into the rear and crushed the passenger carrying end.

 

Of course that referred to expresses, local trains were different due to lower speeds.

[Steamport Southport]

No idea really.

 

But I would think it was a number of factors. Better construction and accident proofing certainly, better braking, improved signalling, ATC/AWS, etc.

 

I think it was gradually change rather than sudden. Definitely a case of looking at what the area you are modelling was doing in real life.

 

With regards to expresses, quite a few of them were split along the way. Some of the SR expresses to the SW coastal resorts composed almost entirely of Brake Composites or BT/BC pairs with just a small section of the main train. They would be dropped off en route and continued to the destination by local train.

 

Too many brake coaches? Model the Southern. They had loads. 

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

Especially the Western Section.  The GW’s answer was slip coaches, which were of necessity Brake Composites with a lavatory  Some slips were ‘portions’, with more than one coach.  These had to be shunted on to the return working; even the GW wasn’t daft enough to try re-attaching in motion, or crashing as it s more commonly known...