Mixed Passenger Vehicles

[Dave4468]

This seems like the most suitable place to be posting this so here we go. 

 

How common, if at all, was mixing of different designs of rolling stock in BR days? It seems to RTR producers at the moment are happily churning out non-Mk1 BR stock from the Big 4 but are sticking to basic vehicles, "special" vehicles, mainly catering ones seem to be only Mk1 types. 

 

For example, I've got a rake of Bachmann Collett coaches in Blood and Custard, would a Mk1 RMB or RU be vaguely realistic? Also were rakes of mixed Big 4 designs seen?

 

TIA.

 

[Fat Controller]

There are a lot of knowledgeable coaching stock enthusiasts on here, but if I may chuck my two hap'orth worth in.

I'm pretty certain there were instances of BR catering vehicles being used with pre-Nationalisation stock, but it worked the other way as well; most notably with Gresley and Thompson buffets, but also with GWR restaurant cars. 

Mixed rakes were fairly common; initially, these would have been on inter-regional services (the NE-SW trains to the West Country could sometimes be seen with an ex-LNER half, originating in Newcastle, and an ex-LMS stock portion attached at Sheffield). From the early/mid 1960s, however, some stock seemed to have migrated permanently. an ex-SR Bulleid coach, still in green, often worked the Harwich- Manchester, whilst Birkenhead- Paddington trains often included a Thompson coach. Have a look at Robert Carroll's site for inspiration:- https://www.flickr.com/photos/robertcwp/

[TheSignalEngineer]

This seems like the most suitable place to be posting this so here we go. 

 

How common, if at all, was mixing of different designs of rolling stock in BR days? It seems to RTR producers at the moment are happily churning out non-Mk1 BR stock from the Big 4 but are sticking to basic vehicles, "special" vehicles, mainly catering ones seem to be only Mk1 types. 

 

For example, I've got a rake of Bachmann Collett coaches in Blood and Custard, would a Mk1 RMB or RU be vaguely realistic? Also were rakes of mixed Big 4 designs seen?

 

TIA.

On the WR you would be more likely to see a Collett Restaurant Car in a rake of Mk1s. The majority of Mk1 catering vehicles were built between 1958 and 1962.

 

As for mixing of Big Four coaches, as Mk1s became more common it was usual to see mixed rakes, particularly Gresleys, Thompsons and Staniers migrating to other places. Maunsells and Bulleids were generally a SR preserve except on inter-regional workings until some of the latter were swapped for Mk1s during the Bournemouth EMU conversions. Much of the GWR stock was quite restricted off-company, although Hawksworths did seem to get around a quite lot.

[asmay2002]

This seems like the most suitable place to be posting this so here we go. 

 

How common, if at all, was mixing of different designs of rolling stock in BR days? It seems to RTR producers at the moment are happily churning out non-Mk1 BR stock from the Big 4 but are sticking to basic vehicles, "special" vehicles, mainly catering ones seem to be only Mk1 types. 

 

For example, I've got a rake of Bachmann Collett coaches in Blood and Custard, would a Mk1 RMB or RU be vaguely realistic? Also were rakes of mixed Big 4 designs seen?

 

TIA.

 

The BR Mk1 catering vehicles came out relatively late in Mk1 production and so tend to have been in rakes or BR Mk1 or 2 stock as grouping stock was on the way out by then. 

 

On the GWR and LMS it would be more unusual to have a set of vehicles all of the same type.  A mix of eras and types within trains was more common and a uniform rake of the same type would be unusual. This was true for quite some time after they became the WR and LMR.  On the ScR mixed formations of ex LMS/LNER stock were not unusual particularly for non-corridor stock..

[Talltim]

Technically the only limitation would be corridor connection types, BR standard or Pullman, although there were converters for these, if you do a search you should find more information on these.

My gut feeling is that rakes tended to be fairly uniform (BR vs pre-nationalisation) with the exception, as mentioned, of catering vehicles and NPCC. You might get one or two 'odd' vehicles added as strengtheners at the end of a fixed take. Also as mentioned, portion working might give you mixed trains, although each portion would probably be fairly internally consistent. Also remember that the Mk1s were new and would on the whole be kept for the more prestigious services.

As with all this sort of thing, learning from photos is probably your best bet.

[Andy W]

This seems like the most suitable place to be posting this so here we go. 

 

How common, if at all, was mixing of different designs of rolling stock in BR days? It seems to RTR producers at the moment are happily churning out non-Mk1 BR stock from the Big 4 but are sticking to basic vehicles, "special" vehicles, mainly catering ones seem to be only Mk1 types. 

 

For example, I've got a rake of Bachmann Collett coaches in Blood and Custard, would a Mk1 RMB or RU be vaguely realistic? Also were rakes of mixed Big 4 designs seen?

1956 was the cut off point for crimson and cream, and any ordinary Collett coaches that went through works after 1956 appeared in maroon. 1956 was also the start of the WR chocolate and cream livery which with a few exceptions was applied only to Mk1 stock, and intended for the main named expresses, the very trains that always had catering vehicles in the formation.

Now there were other trains with catering too that weren't named, and these would have has a mix of maroon and crimson and cream stock, with the maroon getting more and more predominant as the years went on. As other posters have said, the WR (as the GWR before it) only tried to maintain uniform formations on its top expresses, and after that was more interested in getting the right numbers of first and second (third) class seats in the train than having coaches match.

As to why there are so few pre-nationalisation designs of catering vehicles available RTR, there were only very small numbers of each design constructed compared to the large number of Mk 1s, and they were heavily rebuilt often more than once in their lifetimes, so the Collett restaurant car that Hornby used to make to match its previous range of mock-Collett coaches wasn't that good a model of the GW original, and before even passing to BR the real coaches had been rebuilt almost beyond recognition, so the model is useless in BR livery. Now that didn't stop Hornby selling models painted that way, any more than it stopped them selling Gresley Buffet Cars in blue and grey, when the real ones that survived to blue and grey had been heavily rebuilt and didn't resemble the model, which represented an earlier stage in their life.

[Marshall5]

Inter-regional trains and holiday excursions could often be made up of mixed rakes of stock. In the early 60's excursion trains from Yorkshire to Blackpool often had a mixture of Mk1 and Gresley corridor stock. There was,a Summer SO working through Wrexham (Poole - York maybe?) which consisted of half- a dozen Bulleid corridors with a couple of Gresleys bringing up the rear.  On of my favourite 'odd' formations was of the 8.13 Horwich - Bolton working in Oct '59 with Bolton station pilot 50850 hauling a Mk1 SK, a Thompson BS, and a Gresley SK.  Something must have happened to the regular Stanier 2-6-4T and 3 LMS non-corridors.

Although maroon replaced 'blood & custard' from 1956 it was not unusual to see the 'old' colours as late as 1961. Hope this helps.

Ray.

[Andy W]

It was of course very easy to mix Gresley/Thompson/later Maunsell/Bulleid stock with Mk1s. They all used the same gangway design on corridor stock and any would couple easily to any other. As we've discussed in other threads, GW and LMS designed corridor stock had a different design of gangway. Absolutely all coaches of all origins would couple together, but if you wanted to use the corridor connections between coaches, then they had to be the same gangway design, or the GW/LMS gangway had to be fitted with an adapter.

It wasn't that unusual for GW and LMS stock to be mixed in sets from the late 1950s onwards, what with regional boundary changes.

[Dave4468]

Thanks for all this. I'm not too bothered about exact dates and formations, although I didn't realise Blood and Custard was so early, so don't mind mixing that much, just wanted to be vaguely realistic. Happy to know I can mix and match and remain closeish to reality. 

[chrisf]

All I would add to the above is - look at lots of photographs!  They can be full of surprises.

 

Chris