Last Waterloo-Bristol via S&D working

[bécasse]

At the bottom of page 34 in the current (February 2016) issue of The Railway Magazine there is reproduced a photograph taken by a young John H Bird at Southampton Central on Saturday 1 January 1966. It shows three steam hauled trains, one being the last scheduled steam-hauled Pines Express (but via Reading, of course, not the S&D) while another is what is captioned as the 08.35 Waterloo-Weymouth. However, on Mondays-Fridays at least, at that period the 08.35 from Waterloo was a two portion train with the rear 3-set being detached at Bournemouth Central and working forward to Bristol Temple Meads via the S&D and Bath Green Park (including an unadvertised stop at Templeccombe Lower). (Indeed, I believe that before the Portishead branch closed the train actually worked through to Portishead.)

 

I don't know if that rear portion worked through on Saturdays but if it did, the photo shows the last booked Waterloo to Bristol via the S&D working. Does anyone know for certain? (The through working, by the way, wasn't shown in the public book but certainly appeared in the carriage workings and I actually travelled as far as Evercreech Junction on it from Waterloo on one occasion.)

[JZ]

Whilst I can't confirm the service went through to Portishead, if you look at image 3 on this page http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8064000/8064416.stm you will see what appears to be a 3-car Maunsell set.

[Combe Martin]

It's certainly a southern set, you can see the set numbers on the coach end.

[Combe Martin]

There is a 1965 (I think) colour picture of this service at Bath in one of the S&D picture books.  It was Bullied coaches then.