Southern Railway coaching formations - Maunsell and Bulleid

[geoedlegg]

I cannot seem to find sufficient information regarding coaching formations during the big 4 era for the Southern Railway, I find a lot of stuff that I fear is BR orientated, and didn't want to assume it was the same. 

can anyone help out? I am interested in Maunsell and Bulleid formations, and am also curious to know if the coach types were ever mixed?

 

Thanks alot

[phil-b259]

 

I cannot seem to find sufficient information regarding coaching formations during the big 4 era for the Southern Railway, I find a lot of stuff that I fear is BR orientated, and didn't want to assume it was the same. 

can anyone help out? I am interested in Maunsell and Bulleid formations, and am also curious to know if the coach types were ever mixed?

 

Thanks alot

 

Download the excel file here. https://sremg.org.uk/coach/sets.html

 

It covers both the Southern Railway and BR(S) era as well as a bit of pre-grouping and is a fantastic resource for the modeller.

 

If you highlight everything and sort by 'column E' it will put the sets in date order.

 

As for mixed sets - No generally most sets were of the same type (e.g all Maunsell's) but WW2 losses could have produced the occasional oddity.

 

A more likely is that a Maunsell open third strengthener got tucked inside Bullied set, or a 3 car Maunsell set got coupled to a 3 car Bullied set to make up a 6 car rake.

Edited July 28, 2021 by phil-b259

[Train Thing]

https://www.hattons.co.uk/newsdetail.aspx?id=460 
Maybe one of these will be helpful.

[SRman]

Occasionally a different type of coach was inserted into a set as a temporary replacement when a coach was taken out for maintenance purposes. In BR days, the odd BR standard mark 1 got put into a Bulleid set, for example, but the substitution was only temporary. Photos of such things do exist in some of the colour albums, but are not common.

Later still, in the md 1960s sets were being disbanded and mixed around, but the brake coaches still bore their previous set numbers in service.

[Oldddudders]

In the Southern era sets were the thing. Their formations were fixed, and a vehicle defect generally sidelined the whole set. Yes, there were 'loose' vehicles, but they were much in the minority, and were used for strengthenings and things like the BCKs used to provide through seats from Waterloo to every tuppeny-halfpenny West Country terminus. 

 

That spreadsheet from phil-b259 is a wonderful resource and contains a ton of useful detail. Note that FKs were mainly used on busy commuter routes and prestige services where first class was popular, lesser routes might have a set with a CK instead. Almost every set was bookended by brake vehicles - even the 2-sets P had a brake each end. 

[Mallard60022]

Remember there were hardly any actual Bulleid designed and built Steam Hauled Set Coaches running until  the very end of 1945 and during 1946. By Big Four do you mean ore 1948 or the Big 4 post 1948 and that was British Railways of course. There were plenty of refurbished Sets but not pure Bulleids.

Phil