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Camping coaches at closed stations


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I have a picture of the camping coach parked at Lochmaben between 1956 - 1961.  (DM SC30)

Question - if the station was closed to passengers (as Lochmaben was in 1952) how were customers supposed to reach it ? 

The usual qualification  for booking one in that period was the purchase of a minimum of 4 adult return tickets and a hire charge of around £10 per week, but as the nearest stations to Lochmaben were either Dumfries or Lockerbie in this period how did the punters get to their holiday destination - or am I missing the obvious? 

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Very good questions......

Passenger services were ceased over the branch as from 19 May 1952 so there was no regular passenger service along the line when the coach was installed - unless of course the record is wrong.  The coach is parked on a siding next to the one remaining platform which is fenced off and the only other way of getting into the coach is a set of wooden steps  seen at ground level in the yard.  The picture is undated but the coach looks newly converted.   

Strangely, the print shows another carriage at the station platform beyond the camper but there's not enough detail in the print to provide any further clue.

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The rail tickets would have been to the nearest available station to which there was a bus link. Mundesley had comping coaches for the 1965 season even though the station had closed the previous October, the rail tickets being to Cromer Beach and then by the bus service which had replaced the trains.

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16 hours ago, RANGERS said:

The rail tickets would have been to the nearest available station to which there was a bus link. Mundesley had comping coaches for the 1965 season even though the station had closed the previous October, the rail tickets being to Cromer Beach and then by the bus service which had replaced the trains.

So you had to buy tickets for a longer journey than to the nearest station - which would be North Walsham.

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I'd not thought about N Walsham actually being nearer, but it is a valid point, though Gunton is even nearer but presumably no bus connection. I'll need to do some digging amongst my books to find the piece about the Mundesley coaches and check it but assuming it is correct, it would be assumed that the bus service from Cromer was more frequent than the one which replaced what by that stage was probably a sparse rail service to Mundesley.

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There's a decent bus service between Cromer and Mundesley these days, using the coast road.

Don't know what buses there were at the time the coast line via Mundesley was closed.

I don't think Gunton is served by buses, even on rail replacement.

I did see rail replacements at Cromer recently, but that was for the Sheringham line, whilst work was being done at Sheringham.

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  • 2 months later...

That is a conundrum!  :-o

 

More straightforwardly, Scalby, the first station north from Scarborough on the former coast line to Whitby, closed to passengers in 1953 and then played host to camping coaches from 1954‒64.  (The stationmaster's house became a 'camping cottage' as well.)  The other stations on the line retained a passenger service until 1965, though, and holidaymakers could request stops at Scalby from the guard or by hand signal to the driver, to use the train the middle of their stay as well as at either end.

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