Southern Railway gangways

[JZ]

Does anyone know why the Southern used standard gangways on it's utility vans when it had Pullman gangways on it's coaching stock. Was it down to cost? It seems a little odd, to me anyway, as they would need adaptor plates when running in a passenger train.

[SRman]

I will have to check this, but I suspect it would be because the utility vans were used in parcels trains of mixed stocks from other railways/regions, as well as within the Southern's own trains.

Certain SR coaches had standard gangways fitted at one or both ends for use on inter-railway/inter-regional trains - these are detailed in Mike King's book on SR coaching stock.

The one I don't understand is why the SR used standard gangways within its corridor electric multiple units, including the Pullmans (in 6 PUL and 5 BEL units). This meant they had Pullmans without Pullman gangways!!

[ChrisH]

If I remember correctly the SR gangwayed vans were built on recovered underframes.

 

The Pullman gangway requires a central buffing plate and buckeye couplers and it may be that these old frames could not be converted,  or would have been too expensive to do.  Plus, of course, there would have been a ready supply of second hand standard gangway units from stock being scrapped at the time.

 

I agree with the comment re the SR corridor emus which were all constructed after Pullman gangways became the norm on loco hauled stock.

 

Chris

[JZ]

Thanks ChrisH and SRman. This would also explain why the Pullman obs cars had standard gangways, as they were built on old (LNWR?) frames.