GWR 1955-1965 Kingswear Churston Brixham Stock ?

[ThePurplePrimer]

Hi guys

 

I suspect we have plenty of GWR fans out there and I am hoping you can help me

 

In a ficticous GWR location that has the feel of the area around Paignton, Churston, Kingswear and Brixham what kind of locos,coaches, DMUs and wagons might I have been able to see in the period 1955 - 1965 ish do you think ?

[chrisf]

If you are talking of the Brixham branch itself, the answer is relatively simple - and has disappeared into cyberspace so I must type it again!  Grrr ...

 

Passenger service: Hawksworth auto trailers, usually one and powered by a 14xx.  This was prior to March 1961.  Subsequently a Class 122 single dmu was used except on summer Saturdays when a two or three car Class 118 would appear.  Unusually this was not to cope with high passenger demand but because the dmu had no other work, there being no capacity on the Kingswear branch for local trains among the long distance expresses.

 

Goods traffic: a lot of fish was and still is landed at Brixham and was largely carried by rail.  An engine and brake van were sent from Paignton to Churston at lunch time to take away the loaded fish vans which had been attached to branch passenger trains as required.

 

The Brixham branch was never a money spinner and closed in 1963.

 

Paignton to Kingswear I will leave to others!

 

Chris

[ThePurplePrimer]

What sort of small station pilot / shunters would you expect to see - steam and diesel ?

[gwrrob]

There's an excellent Oakwood Press book on this line by C R Potts with lots of information.

[Rivercider]

What sort of small station pilot / shunters would you expect to see - steam and diesel ?

I stand to be corrected, but I do not recall seeing any photos with small pilot/shunting loco at those locations, certainly not diesels.

 

The route from Paignton to Kingswear could handle the heaviest ex GWR locos, including Kings.

On summer saturdays locos of many steam classes would get down there, I would suspect if a pilot loco was provided

it would be a mainline class capable of working any train away to Newton Abbot, or beyond, in the case of a loco failure.  

 

Coal was unloaded from ships at Kingswear for the short trip to the gas works between Torquay and Paignton, Hall class locos

were among the types that worked the coal trains, and did their own shunting I think.

 

After dieselisation any DMU class allocated to Laira might get down to Kingswear including class 118 and class 122 single power cars, I have also seen a photo of class 120 cross country set there.

Hydraulic locos of class 22, 35, 42, 43, and 52 all went to Kingswear. In those days some trains had a Plymouth/Penzance portion, and a Paignton/Kingswear portion which split at Exeter or Newton Abbot, class 22s often worked the Kingswear portion.

 

cheers 

Edited July 21, 2016 by Rivercider

[MPR]

On 21/07/2016 at 13:18, ThePurplePrimer said:

What sort of small station pilot / shunters would you expect to see - steam and diesel ?

No pilots as such, further back up the branch, banking locomotives would be held on the centre road in Torquay, pushing heavier trains up as far as Torre. The gas works between Torquay and Paignton was usually capstan worked, but had a 48DS for a period. There was also apparently a Peckett used there too, but I haven't seen any photos showing it.

On the Brixham branch itself, although it was mostly worked by 14xx, a small Prairie was used on Sunday engineering trains on at least one occasion, after closure the branch was used as a backdrop for the film "The System". - a d63xx was brought in for filming.

Chris Potts' book on the Kingswear branch was updated last year and is thoroughly recommended in either edition,as is his book on the Brixham branch.

Edited March 23, 2023 by MPR

[tanatvalley]

Two useful books are:

 

Foxline Scenes from the Past No. 19 Newton Abbot and Torbay

 

British Railways The First 25 Years Volume 4 The South West, Lightmoor Press.

[Kris]

Coaches to Kingswear came from all over the country, particularly on Summer Saturdays. Towards the beginning on your time frame most coaches would have been ex GWR types, there would have been a few trains with ex LMS stock and even fewer trains with ex LNER stock. SR stock would have been a very rare beast. The further through your time frame that you get the more mk1 coaches you would have seen, right at the end there might have even been occasional mk2 coaches. As time went on the older coaches would have been further phased out. 

[ThePurplePrimer]

Thanks for the suggestion

 

I had a copy arrive today and it's just what I was looking for

[Kris]

Not mentioned previously, but for a very good overview see if you can get hold of Operation Torbay, 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Torbay-Railway-Operations-summer/dp/190105618X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470335998&sr=1-1&keywords=operation+torbay

 

If you want to take your inspiration from a little further west 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Cornwall-Trainservices-Formation-Carriage/dp/1901056252/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470336044&sr=1-1&keywords=operation+cornwall

 

Both of the prices shown here seem reasonable to me as the books have been out of print for some years now. 

 

p.s. I don't have anything to do with the retailers mentioned, I do own copies of both books however. 

[Gerald Henriksen]

Hi guys

 

I suspect we have plenty of GWR fans out there and I am hoping you can help me

 

In a ficticous GWR location that has the feel of the area around Paignton, Churston, Kingswear and Brixham what kind of locos,coaches, DMUs and wagons might I have been able to see in the period 1955 - 1965 ish do you think ?

 

In case you haven't seen it a commentary of a young person's Brixham holiday in 1959, including spottings at Churston on a Summer Saturday:

 

http://www.jaggers-heritage.com/resources/Brixham%2C%20Devon%20holiday%201959.pdf

[Gerald Henriksen]

In this time period, what stock would have been used for the fish from Brixham, and for the coal from Kingswear to Hollicombe?

[Fat Controller]

In this time period, what stock would have been used for the fish from Brixham, and for the coal from Kingswear to Hollicombe?

The fish traffic would have been in BR-built Insulfishes, and their ex-LNER equivalents. I have seen photos of both types in the area. The WR had built a small fleet of six-wheeled In-Six-Fishes, but most had been sent to Scotland, and the rest worked from Neyland.

Coal would have been in whatever non-hopper minerals were around, both steel and wooden-bodied.

[The Stationmaster]

In this time period, what stock would have been used for the fish from Brixham, and for the coal from Kingswear to Hollicombe?

 

Fish was also despatched in insulated containers loaded on Conflats in mid 1960s - duly collected by a passing dmu from the up sidings at Churston.