XC coach formations - Blue and Grey days

[axlej]

Hi,

 

As a kid in the early late 70's / early 80's I remember seeing 47s going through Southampton, presumably on the X-Country service up from Poole / Bournemouth. I'm planning to model that era/location so was wondering if anyone had any pointers on coaching stock. Mk 2s from memory but it was a long time ago and no idea on formation.

 

Also, when did HSTs start running down to Bournemouth?

 

Many thanks

Alex

[The Pilotman]

Have a look at this on Flickr:

 

 

There are over 6000 pictures of cross country trains that featured in Table 51 of the BR timetable so some of them should be appropriate for your enquiry.

I don’t think there were HSTs on the Bournemouth trains until the 1990s.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Western Aviator

[keefer]

Consider joining Robert Carroll's io.group:

https://brcoachingstock.groups.io/g/main

Lots of carriage working diagrams available.

A quick look shows a lot of trains you are after worked from the LMR and so used LMR stock.

e.g. From the 1980 LMR Passenger Train Marshalling book.

14.55 Bournemouth-Liverpool Lime St.

Mk2 air-braked stock

Mk1 BG (NEA), BSO, 4TSO, Mk1 RMB, FK, 3TSO

Similar formation for 06.28 (06.38 SO) Poole-Birmingham and  08.42(SO) Poole-Liverpool.

This is the only one i can find that has Mk2 coaches + RMB, other XC trains are either Mk1 or have an RBR/no  dining car.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by keefer

[Steven B]

For everything cross-country and Brighton based, try http://www.1S76.com

 

Steven B.

[Compound2632]

Purely from personal recollection as a frequent traveller between Birmingham and Oxford, sometimes further north to Manchester and Leeds, and one or twice southwards, from 1983 to 1992, and being no expert on on the sub-divisions of the air-conditioned Mk2s, the standard formation was Mk1 BG, 4 x Mk2 SO, Mk1 RMB, Mk2 BFO or thereabouts? The exceptions were the Sussex Scot and Dorset Scot, which had Glasgow and Edinburgh portions, though made up in the same way - air conditioned Mk2s except for a Mk1 RMB. Even south of Birmingham, it was pleasanter to travel in the Edinburgh portion. Those Mk2 SOs were divided into active smoking and passive smoking sections by a half-hearted apology for a partition mid way along. At least one got a table and a window one could look out of and speed wasn't so high that one couldn't enjoy the passing scene. Indeed, one of my fondest memories of those journeys is the good hour I spent watching a field of geese, somewhere between Macclesfield and Stockport. 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

July 1991 for the HSTs down to Bournemouth. Initially some mixed up sets until the ex ECML rakes were reformed and buffets swapped about, by the end of 1991 pretty solidly 7 car rakes, TGS, 4x TS, TRSB, TF. Power cars initially drawn from any in the "Eastern" fleet but by Spring 1992 mostly drawn from the EC based "ICCS" pool- this included all eight buffer fitted examples.

[125_driver]

21 hours ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

July 1991 for the HSTs down to Bournemouth. Initially some mixed up sets until the ex ECML rakes were reformed and buffets swapped about, by the end of 1991 pretty solidly 7 car rakes, TGS, 4x TS, TRSB, TF. Power cars initially drawn from any in the "Eastern" fleet but by Spring 1992 mostly drawn from the EC based "ICCS" pool- this included all eight buffer fitted examples.

Interesting, I hadn't realised it was the eastern regions ones that made it to the south coast. I know that the western also had a XC allocation in the early 90s allocated I think to Laira or Bristol, would they ever make it onto the Bournemouth services say if there was a shortage of eastern sets? Where there any western XC diagrams booked on the Borinemouth route at all?? Back then a HST was a HST to me, region allocation was irrelevant! 

[Zomboid]

I don't know the proportions, but not all HST trailers were/are allowed to run over the 3rd rail network, so the Bournemouth trains would have been drawn from a group that were allowed to.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

1 hour ago, 125_driver said:

Interesting, I hadn't realised it was the eastern regions ones that made it to the south coast. I know that the western also had a XC allocation in the early 90s allocated I think to Laira or Bristol, would they ever make it onto the Bournemouth services say if there was a shortage of eastern sets? Where there any western XC diagrams booked on the Borinemouth route at all?? Back then a HST was a HST to me, region allocation was irrelevant! 

From 1991 when ECML electrification cascades basically doubled the XC HST fleet the XC allocation was split, half (mainly the original NE-SW sets) were at Laira and the other half (principally reformed ECML sets) were at Craigentinny. Only the ICCS pool code sets from Craigentinny were scheduled onto the Bournemouth services (along with some other long distance Anglo-Scots to/from Penzance) and the sets were "captive" with cyclic diagrams which returned them to EC every few days. The ICCP pool code sets from Laira still covered the NE-SW route and the Plymouth to Aberdeen and return, these were by then fitted with Short Swing Link bogies which would allow them to stray onto the Bournemouth services but it was uncommon. This regime stayed in place until May 1998.

 

[Atlantic]

 

Some Eastern Region HST powercars had SC prefixes instead of the usual E or W prefixes - set 254016 was one example with SC 43086 and SC 43087. My question is, did the coaches also have SC prefixes or did they have E prefixes?

[Hobby]

On 15/09/2020 at 21:04, Zomboid said:

I don't know the proportions, but not all HST trailers were/are allowed to run over the 3rd rail network, so the Bournemouth trains would have been drawn from a group that were allowed to.

 

Short swing link bogies can travel on 3rd rail sections, long ones can't... Drummed into us when we used to work HSTs on the Southampton run in the early 2000s.

[Bomag]

4 hours ago, Atlantic said:

 

Some Eastern Region HST powercars had SC prefixes instead of the usual E or W prefixes - set 254016 was one example with SC 43086 and SC 43087. My question is, did the coaches also have SC prefixes or did they have E prefixes?

 

A small number of sets were allocated to Craigentinny (e.g. 8/9 21-23 in 1986) but generally sets were regularly moved around ECML depots and less so between ECML/MML so by the early 80's, when power cars were not allocated to sets then everything seemed to have eastern prefixes. They may have had SC prefixed in the late 70's / early 80's but by the time the extra EC based cross county sets were formed in the early 1990's there were no regional prefixes. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by Bomag

[Atlantic]

On 25/11/2020 at 14:12, Bomag said:

 

A small number of sets were allocated to Craigentinny (e.g. 8/9 21-23 in 1986) but generally sets were regularly moved around ECML depots and less so between ECML/MML so by the early 80's, when power cars were not allocated to sets then everything seemed to have eastern prefixes. They may have had SC prefixed in the late 70's / early 80's but by the time the extra EC based cross county sets were formed in the early 1990's there were no regional prefixes. 

So if I'm getting my powercars renumbered with SC prefixes, do I get the coaches done too?

[Bomag]

3 hours ago, Atlantic said:

So if I'm getting my powercars renumbered with SC prefixes, do I get the coaches done too?

 

Not if you are modelling blue grey cross country HSTs

 

For ECML sets power cars, except for the first couple of years, were frequently changed and then stopped being allocated to sets at all. There was a good chance that a EC allocated powercar would have been on the end of sets from Heaton, Neville Hill or Bounds Green. Looking at the period '77 to '79 several ECML sets were stored which freed up powercars to try and keep the allocated powercars in their correct set (and even correct end) - with 'temporary' replacements where there was a failure and any 'fixed' powercars kept back until they could be slotted back in to the correct set.  This is well before my time but I had a chat with a couple of people at Hudson House who were instrumental (as they said) in getting a general use policy for ECML powercars, with them added and removed as necessary (they needed more frequent maintainance than the coaches).  This, along with the last batch of power allowed extended utilisation of the sets. It did help that depots had access to turntables or triangles to get the powercars the right way round.

 

So unless you have some photographic evidence stick to Eastern prefixed  sets

[brushman47544]

On 14/09/2020 at 13:56, Compound2632 said:

Purely from personal recollection as a frequent traveller between Birmingham and Oxford, sometimes further north to Manchester and Leeds, and one or twice southwards, from 1983 to 1992, and being no expert on on the sub-divisions of the air-conditioned Mk2s, the standard formation was Mk1 BG, 4 x Mk2 SO, Mk1 RMB, Mk2 BFO or thereabouts? The exceptions were the Sussex Scot and Dorset Scot, which had Glasgow and Edinburgh portions, though made up in the same way - air conditioned Mk2s except for a Mk1 RMB. Even south of Birmingham, it was pleasanter to travel in the Edinburgh portion. Those Mk2 SOs were divided into active smoking and passive smoking sections by a half-hearted apology for a partition mid way along. At least one got a table and a window one could look out of and speed wasn't so high that one couldn't enjoy the passing scene. Indeed, one of my fondest memories of those journeys is the good hour I spent watching a field of geese, somewhere between Macclesfield and Stockport. 

RBRs were used on cross-country services until the Mk2f RFB conversions, not RMBs which I think were confined to NSE services out of Liverpool St to Cambridge and Kings Lynn by then.

[Compound2632]

29 minutes ago, brushman47544 said:

RBRs were used on cross-country services until the Mk2f RFB conversions, not RMBs which I think were confined to NSE services out of Liverpool St to Cambridge and Kings Lynn by then.

 

My ignorance of the finer points of Mk1 stock, I'm afraid.

[caradoc]

On 27/11/2020 at 13:25, Bomag said:

....people at Hudson House who were instrumental (as they said) in getting a general use policy for ECML powercars, with them added and removed as necessary (they needed more frequent maintainance than the coaches). 

 

One does have to wonder who in BR thought HSTs could be permanently kept in complete sets, including PCs, given the totally different maintenance and servicing requirements compared to coaches.

 

['CHARD]

29 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

One does have to wonder who in BR thought HSTs could be permanently kept in complete sets, including PCs, given the totally different maintenance and servicing requirements compared to coaches.

 

 

Attempting it again with balanced exams on the Virgin XC 'Challenger' HST short-sets based at Longsight, and supported by various other depots including Laira, Neville Hill and Craigentinny, back in 2002, resulted very predictably in chaos, cancellations and power cars off maintenance/ repair shuttling nightly over the Pennines to scramble a following morning's starter. 

 

I remember being engaged in Thunderbird contract negotiations with Virgin throughout this entire period, locked away for days at Centre City in Birmingham, and every morning the pager (remember them?)  going off, with the stock position following the daily fleet conference, and 'Where are the Challengers today' being a standing joke, because the deployment (or should I say displacement) seldom bore anything greater than a passing resemblance to the plan. 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

One does have to wonder who in BR thought HSTs could be permanently kept in complete sets, including PCs, given the totally different maintenance and servicing requirements compared to coaches.

 

The Western region persisted long after the Eastern had realised the folly of trying to keep power cars with their allocated sets, even down to still applying the 253xxx numbers to the nose cones of some power cars as late as IC Swallow paints in 1987. I don't think the ER really took it seriously from day one, there were reports of "wrong" pairings when the ECML HST service was launched in 1978.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

3 hours ago, 'CHARD said:

 

Attempting it again with balanced exams on the Virgin XC 'Challenger' HST short-sets based at Longsight, and supported by various other depots including Laira, Neville Hill and Craigentinny, back in 2002, resulted very predictably in chaos, cancellations and power cars off maintenance/ repair shuttling nightly over the Pennines to scramble a following morning's starter. 

 

I remember being engaged in Thunderbird contract negotiations with Virgin throughout this entire period, locked away for days at Centre City in Birmingham, and every morning the pager (remember them?)  going off, with the stock position following the daily fleet conference, and 'Where are the Challengers today' being a standing joke, because the deployment (or should I say displacement) seldom bore anything greater than a passing resemblance to the plan. 

Sort of. The Challengers were not fixed pairings but they could NOT mix with "Pioneer" power cars or trailers and vice versa as they were maintained by Alstom as opposed to the Bombardier maintained Pioneer fleet (for WCML HST operation and a small number of XC trains post Operation Princess) and this itself imposed the bulk of the operational restriction. To the outsider a power car in the same livery, leased to the same operator, from the same ROSCO being unable to replace a poorly counterpart from the opposite pool was insanity (and yes, especially so to the insider!), especially as the maintainers mostly sub-contracted HST maintenance to other TOCs who owned the depots anyway but was the post September 2002 set-up until the Challengers were binned and drew the lucky straw as overhaul and refurbishment for Midland Mainline awaited most of them.