Waverley route ECS at Carlisle

[DCB]

The  double track throat and the north end of Carlisle Citadel seems like a wonderful modelling opportunity for passenger train fans as most freight went round the separate goods lines.

I have seen pictures of A3 pacifics in the North End bays at Citadel presumably heading for Edinburgh and apparently on lengthy rakes of coaches. I was wondering how the ECS got into these bays, where the Carriage sidings for these trains were, and what sort of locos acted as pilots in the 1950s.  Obviously some of the Waverley route trains were re engined in the through platforms, but it is the trains from the bays which interest me.

Did the ECS come up from the south and back into the bays, or was a pilot loco involved, if so did it wait at the buffers?    

 

[58herbie]

Hopefully madMccan will pop by on this thread and will maybe shed some light

 

Jon

['CHARD]

The WR trains using the north end bays (platforms 7 and 8) in the sixties belonged to the 2S52 diagrams.  The responsibility for the ECS was with Scottish, and daily incoming sets would have originated at Craigentinny at some point.  From memory there were three sets of coaches on this circuit, which would remain on there between exams.  

 

This includes 1M42, the last internal working of the day, which conveyed more parcels tail traffic than the daytime services, and some certainly was detached at Citadel for onward southbound movement overnight.  I have no proof, but suspect this may have been handled in a through platform before the day coaches were stabled until morning.  

 

This rake, complete with head traffic more than likely a BG or Southern PMV/ CCT, would then form the 09XX first 2S52 of the following day.  I have a feeling that the stock for this first train may have been positioned by the north end pilot in the bays and stabled there overnight, with the forwarding loco coming on a while before departure to heat the stock the following morning.  On this basis, and I too welcome Mad McCann's words of wisdom here, WR passenger stock may not have troubled carriage sidings in the Carlisle area on a routine basis.

 

 

EDIT: Bubble-blowing man is sat on Platform 8!