Hawksworth slip coach

[dibber25]

A while back, I started a project to convert a Hornby brake composite into a Hawksworth slip coach, as BR did with three of the real ones. I've tried this in the past but always came unstuck because I couldn't find a photo of the compartment side of the coach. These mods were pretty extensive at one end so I need a picture of the revised window/door layout. So far, every published photo I have found, shows the corridor side. Can anyone point me in the right direction - don't copy the photo, just tell me where to find it. (CJL)

[Karhedron]

Is this the correct side or are you looking for the other side?

 

http://www.robertdarlaston.co.uk/Railways50yr_files/image145.jpg

[Joseph_Pestell]

That is the compartment side, so presumably what Chris is looking for.

 

What a remarkable vehicle! They seem to have added a coupe first class compartment in what was previously part of the guard's van area.

[Phatbob]

Does anybody have a drawing for these vehicles?  I could also use one and I spoke to Andrew of MSE / Comet Coaches at the York show about these.  It seems that Comet produce nearly all the other Hawksworth coaches but not this one.  He said that if I could provide a drawing, he would do the etch for the sides. 

[The Johnster]

Not sure that's a coupe, which would be unusual for a coach from the 1950s, I think what we are looking at is the '1' on the door entering the narrow vestibule leading to the corridor to the first class compartments which are past the toilet, and the fixed window just this side of the door is the one for the van area; it will have bars inside it which cannot be seen in this photo because of the reflection.  The chap leaning out of the vestibule droplight in the second class end is obscuring whether the fixed light behind him is a toilet window with small ventilators or another van window, but I would suspect toilet and a simple 'driving compartment' for the guard at that end; this is of course a double ended slip coach.  But they were certainly remarkable vehicles, and fascinated the childhood me by having vacuum tanks; how could you store nothing, which is what a vacuum is, isn't it, in a tank?   I was well into high school physics before I understood that the purpose of the tanks was not to keep 'nothing' in, but to keep 'everything' out...  Their tail lamps are a whole nother area of study as well.

 

Slipping is one of the madder ideas to come out of the UK railway world (on a par with the insanity of dangling several hundredweight of mailbags inside the loading gauge in the path of express mail trains and hurling them across moving vehicles at 70 mph or so); let's just hook one off the back at high speed and leave it to it's own devices, chaps...  But, until 1960, that's what they did, with special sealing vacuum pipes braking the slip momentarily as it detached from the train to ensure a clean break and of course the lessening of the load encouraging the loco to speed up a little at the same time; clever stuff!  Slip guards were under a lot of pressure, as loco crew were highly sceptical of their ability to stop even a single coach (and sometimes it was a 'portion' consisting of several vehicles) anywhere near where they were required, and a stop short or, worse, an overshoot, would be difficult to live down as said loco crew were not backward in coming forward with some fairly scathing comments!  Most slip destinations were places with a pilot engine on duty which could rescue any that didn't fetch up in the right place!

 

They could, for obvious reasons, be a bit confusing for passengers as well, especially as no railway ever devised a functioning corridor connection for them that was anything other than potentially lethal; certainly none made it past the drawing board.  This meant that passengers travelling in the slip portion did not have access to the restaurant car where the railway had another opportunity to part them from their cash; I am not qualified to define this as a drawback or an advantage...  Another drawback was the unbalance in the timetables; the advantage gained in the slipping direction was lost on the return working when the train had to stop at the place that was not important enough for it in the slipping direction to pick up the coach it had so carelessly discarded, and perform a shunt and a brake continuity test; I suspect that's what the Castle in the picture is doing.  Either that or the slip made it's way home with another train, probably as empty stock in a parcels and not generating any revenue.  A slip is not what would be regarded nowadays as an optimal use of paying customers' space (we called them passengers in my day), and this one only has 3 second class and 2 first class compartments, which equates to 24 second and 12 first class seats, only 36 seats in a 64 foot long coach!

 

Not surprising that economic reality put paid to them; it was cheaper by and large just to stop the whole train to provide service to that destination, and it is perhaps surprising that they lasted as long as they did.  I remember them in trains, just, (I was 8 in 1960), but never saw a slip operation carried out.  Come on, Didcot, you can do a TPO pickup!

Edited May 2, 2017 by The Johnster

[Joseph_Pestell]

Not sure that's a coupe, which would be unusual for a coach from the 1950s, I think what we are looking at is the '1' on the door entering the narrow vestibule leading to the corridor to the first class compartments which are past the toilet, and the fixed window just this side of the door is the one for the van area; it will have bars inside it which cannot be seen in this photo because of the reflection.  The chap leaning out of the vestibule droplight in the second class end is obscuring whether the fixed light behind him is a toilet window with small ventilators or another van window, but I would suspect toilet and a simple 'driving compartment' for the guard at that end; this is of course a double ended slip coach.  But they were certainly remarkable vehicles, and fascinated the childhood me by having vacuum tanks; how could you store nothing, which is what a vacuum is, isn't it, in a tank?   I was well into high school physics before I understood that the purpose of the tanks was not to keep 'nothing' in, but to keep 'everything' out...  Their tail lamps are a whole nother area of study as well.

 

Slipping is one of the madder ideas to come out of the UK railway world (on a par with the insanity of dangling several hundredweight of mailbags inside the loading gauge in the path of express mail trains and hurling them across moving vehicles at 70 mph or so); let's just hook one off the back at high speed and leave it to it's own devices, chaps...  But, until 1960, that's what they did, with special sealing vacuum pipes braking the slip momentarily as it detached from the train to ensure a clean break and of course the lessening of the load encouraging the loco to speed up a little at the same time; clever stuff!  Slip guards were under a lot of pressure, as loco crew were highly sceptical of their ability to stop even a single coach (and sometimes it was a 'portion' consisting of several vehicles) anywhere near where they were required, and a stop short or, worse, an overshoot, would be difficult to live down as said loco crew were not backward in coming forward with some fairly scathing comments!  Most slip destinations were places with a pilot engine on duty which could rescue any that didn't fetch up in the right place!

 

They could, for obvious reasons, be a bit confusing for passengers as well, especially as no railway ever devised a functioning corridor connection for them that was anything other than potentially lethal; certainly none made it past the drawing board.  This meant that passengers travelling in the slip portion did not have access to the restaurant car where the railway had another opportunity to part them from their cash; I am not qualified to define this as a drawback or an advantage...  Another drawback was the unbalance in the timetables; the advantage gained in the slipping direction was lost on the return working when the train had to stop at the place that was not important enough for it in the slipping direction to pick up the coach it had so carelessly discarded, and perform a shunt and a brake continuity test; I suspect that's what the Castle in the picture is doing.  Either that or the slip made it's way home with another train, probably as empty stock in a parcels and not generating any revenue.  A slip is not what would be regarded nowadays as an optimal use of paying customers' space (we called them passengers in my day), and this one only has 3 second class and 2 first class compartments, which equates to 24 second and 12 first class seats, only 36 seats in a 64 foot long coach!

 

Not surprising that economic reality put paid to them; it was cheaper by and large just to stop the whole train to provide service to that destination, and it is perhaps surprising that they lasted as long as they did.  I remember them in trains, just, (I was 8 in 1960), but never saw a slip operation carried out.  Come on, Didcot, you can do a TPO pickup!

 

Looking at the pic again, you are probably right that it is a narrow vestibule plus a window into the guard's van area. But that vestibule seems like a waste of space given that one of the first compartments has a door on that side as well.

 

Might be a bit difficult to build up enough speed at Didcot to make a slip coach working. But perhaps on one of the preserved lines??? I think that people would turn up to see that.

[Joseph_Pestell]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hawksworth+slip+coaches&tbm=isch&imgil=ZI4xBEa3_mfsWM%253A%253Bw2k5X9-rEeo1dM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.rcts.org.uk%25252Ffeatures%25252Farchive%25252Fsearch.htm%25253Fcompany%2525253DGWR%25252526subtype%2525253D3%25252526class%2525253D%25252526location%2525253D%25252526srch%2525253D%25252526page%2525253D2&source=iu&pf=m&fir=ZI4xBEa3_mfsWM%253A%252Cw2k5X9-rEeo1dM%252C_&usg=__crYqFI6aet-3RdYigCesAy0bWKg%3D&biw=1366&bih=633&ved=0ahUKEwiro9GCqdHTAhXJCMAKHb3hCrEQyjcINA&ei=TYoIWevIG8mRgAa9w6uICw#imgdii=aHwmvp6ADJLd0M:&imgrc=ZI4xBEa3_mfsWM:

 

And here's another, from the other end, in the RCTS Archive.

 

Interesting to see it on a branch. Most of the slip workings that I have seen in timetables just served the one station. The photo shows it in traffic after its use as a slip.

Edit: And here's another, also taken at Bodmin, with the locomotive not blocking the view: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hawksworth+slip+coaches&tbm=isch&imgil=ZI4xBEa3_mfsWM%253A%253Bw2k5X9-rEeo1dM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.rcts.org.uk%25252Ffeatures%25252Farchive%25252Fsearch.htm%25253Fcompany%2525253DGWR%25252526subtype%2525253D3%25252526class%2525253D%25252526location%2525253D%25252526srch%2525253D%25252526page%2525253D2&source=iu&pf=m&fir=ZI4xBEa3_mfsWM%253A%252Cw2k5X9-rEeo1dM%252C_&uFI6aet-3RdYigCesAy0bWKg%3D&biw=1366&bih=633&ved=0ahUKEwiro9GCqdHTAhXJCMAKHb3hCrEQyjcINA&ei=TYoIWevIG8mRgAa9w6uICw#imgrc=W8MolmzRqzi1vM:

 

And re-edit: Since both photos are labelled as being at Bodmin (I have a slight doubt about the first one), I assume that they were taken on the same date in 1963. But the second photo looks to me like carmine and milk, rather than chocolate and cream. Does anyone know what the paint scheme was? Would they have been on trains that had Chocolate and cream rather than crimson?

Edited May 2, 2017 by Joseph_Pestell

[chrisf]

My understanding is that they were both taken on the same day.  I have print copies of both images and there is a third in the collection which shows the driving end at the first class end of the coach.  The stone building in the background of all three photographs suggests strongly that they were taken at the same place, Bodmin General.  The photographer was the late John Cull, whose record keeping was a sight better than that of many other cameramen of his day.  The livery is in both cases chocolate and cream.  All three Hawksworth conversions were outshopped in that livery in 1958 because at that time it was still possible that they would be marshalled in a titled train.  One of the last slip workings involved the up Mayflower.  Once they were no longer required as slip coaches many such vehicles were allocated to Taunton.  The slip apparatus was decommissioned and the coaches put to work on local branches.  One regular working was on the Chard branch and what is clearly a chocolate and cream coach can be seen in some photographs on that line.  On the Taunton - Barnstaple service a slip coach could often be found augmenting a non-corridor formation such as a B set following complaints that it was a long way to run a train without a toilet!  As the branches radiating from Taunton closed, so the slips dispersed.  In addition to the one recorded at Bodmin, W7376W was photographed at Highbridge on the Somerset and Dorset in 1965.

 

Chris

[coachmann]

The Hawksworth slip-coach conversions, Nos. 7374-6, are said** to have been used on the on the last days of two remaining slips: at Didcot in June 1960 and at Bicester on 9th September 1960. They still remained in BR chocolate & cream when transferred to Taunton in early 1961, with slip gear removed.

 

Crimson & cream was by no means rare in 1960 but it was thin on the ground by 1963 after so many withdrawals on 1920's/1930's-built stock the previous year.

 

** Great Western Coaches by Harris.

 

​EDIT: Being typed while above post was being posted.

Edited May 2, 2017 by coachmann

[Joseph_Pestell]

The Hawksworth slip-coach conversions, Nos. 7374-6, are said** to have been used on the on the last days of two remaining slips: at Didcot in June 1960 and at Bicester on 9th September 1960. They still remained in BR chocolate & cream when transferred to Taunton in early 1961, with slip gear removed.

 

Crimson & cream was by no means rare in 1960 but it was thin on the ground by 1963 after so many withdrawals on 1920's/1930's-built stock the previous year.

 

** Great Western Coaches by Harris.

 

​EDIT: Being typed while above post was being posted.

It's why I asked. Crimson (Carmine) and cream seemed unlikely that late but it does not look like Chocolate in the photo.

[The Johnster]

Looking at the pic again, you are probably right that it is a narrow vestibule plus a window into the guard's van area. But that vestibule seems like a waste of space given that one of the first compartments has a door on that side as well.

 

Might be a bit difficult to build up enough speed at Didcot to make a slip coach working. But perhaps on one of the preserved lines??? I think that people would turn up to see that.

 

The principle was that first class passengers entered through the marked first class doors, so that they didn't have to contaminate themselves with passing though areas infested with the peasantry, and likewise second class passengers were not supposed to access their designated areas through those containing nice people.  

 

Didcot pick up mailbags with a TPO, an operation requiring 40mph running.  Most preserved railways are restricted to 25mph by their light railway orders, but it might be interesting if Great Central had a go!

[dibber25]

Thanks for all your responses. I'm converting a Hornby brake compo. Began it it years ago, but stopped because I couldn't find a picture of one side. In fact, both sides are remarkably similar and the main difference is the precise placing of doors and windows. I've thought for years that slip coaches make interesting models but could never get Hornby interested. There seems to be an obsession with "how do you make them operate realistically?" I don't think it needs to operate. After all, they spent the great majority of their time attached to the rear of the train and that's all mine will do. It'll be interesting to make the special lamps etc, though. 

I'm not sure about that curious first class 'compartment'. I think The Johnster may be right. The gap between the door and the window is much wider than the gap between the compartment windows and the door, suggesting that it's wide enough for a bulkhead. That would give two small guard's compartments, one each end, but only a single first class compartment. I have a feeling that one received lined maroon after it ceased to be a slip coach, but I may be imagining it. 

John Coiley took good pictures of the very last Didcot slip. It was, indeed, a Hawksworth vehicle. 

I think slipping is one of the stranger aspects of the old railway, which is consigned to history. Like 'dipping the troughs' I think its a curiosity for which we'll need to rely on archive film and photos as no preserved railway will have the need, the funds or the enthusiasm to re-introduce it. (CJL) 

[Joseph_Pestell]

Thanks for all your responses. I'm converting a Hornby brake compo. Began it it years ago, but stopped because I couldn't find a picture of one side. In fact, both sides are remarkably similar and the main difference is the precise placing of doors and windows. I've thought for years that slip coaches make interesting models but could never get Hornby interested. There seems to be an obsession with "how do you make them operate realistically?" I don't think it needs to operate. After all, they spent the great majority of their time attached to the rear of the train and that's all mine will do. It'll be interesting to make the special lamps etc, though. 

I'm not sure about that curious first class 'compartment'. I think The Johnster may be right. The gap between the door and the window is much wider than the gap between the compartment windows and the door, suggesting that it's wide enough for a bulkhead. That would give two small guard's compartments, one each end, but only a single first class compartment. I have a feeling that one received lined maroon after it ceased to be a slip coach, but I may be imagining it. 

John Coiley took good pictures of the very last Didcot slip. It was, indeed, a Hawksworth vehicle. 

I think slipping is one of the stranger aspects of the old railway, which is consigned to history. Like 'dipping the troughs' I think its a curiosity for which we'll need to rely on archive film and photos as no preserved railway will have the need, the funds or the enthusiasm to re-introduce it. (CJL) 

Still two first class compartments there, one with a door to the platform and the corridor, one with just a door to the corridor.

 

I totally agree that there is no need for a model one to work - even if now quite doable with DCC. These Hawksworth coaches would only have been used as Slips for slightly more than two years, so more time just as a strengthener on other services, mostly branches. But I can see that it is perhaps not mainstream enough for Hornby. Could be an ideal special commission.

 

I'm not suggesting that any preservation line should use slips regularly - just a one-off occasion (60th anniversary?).

[Dunsignalling]

After slipping ceased, these coaches had the slip controls removed and were used on various branch line and secondary services in Devon and Somerset (EDIT: and apparently in Cornwall, too).

 

It seems that little more was removed than was essential to prevent any attempt at reviving the practice. For example, the transverse vacuum storage cylinders remained in place, which makes the former slip coaches quite easy to spot in pictures.

 

Published photographic evidence indicates that at least one of them worked on the Somerset & Dorset for a while.   

 

Commercially, it looks as if it would be quite straightforward to offer both Slip coach and ex-Slip coach versions with fairly minor tooling variations. 

 

John

Edited May 3, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[chrisf]

 I have a feeling that one received lined maroon after it ceased to be a slip coach, but I may be imagining it. 

 

7376 was carrying lined maroon when photographed at Highbridge on 1st August 1965.  My copy of the photo gives no clue as to authorship.

 

Chris

 

Oh, and while I think of it: the underframes of the converted Hawksworths were rebuilt to accommodate the extra cylinders.

 

Chris

[Dunsignalling]

Somerset & Dorset in the Sixties (Volume 4) by Ivo Peters.

 

One in service at Edington Burtle, August 1964 (Plate 120) and at Catcott in October the same year (Plate 121)  Probably maroon but reflected low sun makes it hard to be certain. 

 

Accompanying vehicle appears to be a Thompson BZ.

 

John

[The Johnster]

2 first class compartments, one smoking and one non-smoking; in the photo only the one with the door into the compartment is marked '1', but both compartments that end are first class.  I am, if I am being totally honest, only guessing about the vestibule instead of a coupe, but it seems the most likely explanation given the date the coaches were converted; coupes were well a thing of the past by then and plenty of first class accommodation was already provided!  Some of the subsequent photographs linked to in the thread suggest that the 2nd class end did not contain a toilet, and that the fixed light at that end is for more van space, which seems a little wasteful but of course the guard's compartment at both ends would have needed his seat, pigeon holes, brake setter and handbrake, as well as the slip control 'cabs'.

 

An operating slip coach in 4mm is a challenge (though I have an idea someone who built a model of Wellington (Salop) some years ago did it with flywheels and such, maybe I just dreamt that, or I'm confusing it with the gravity shunting of the branch stock!), but not impossible I suspect in the days of DCC control and the like.  The thing would have to be configured to roll freely or decelerate, but not accelerate in any way at all, so could not be motorised in the conventional sense, and to be able to run completely freely when it was operating as a coach in the normal way and not in the process of being slipped.  Unless you wanted to make a particular showpiece of it, it is probably more trouble than it is worth to have an operating slip system, but there is still IMHO a market, albeit a niche one, for models of these very interesting coaches that the likes of Comet may be able to satisfy; as has been said, they spent the vast majority of their service lives running 'normally' in normal trains.

Edited May 3, 2017 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Somerset & Dorset in the Sixties (Volume 4) by Ivo Peters.

 

One in service at Edington Burtle, August 1964 (Plate 120) and at Catcott in October the same year (Plate 121)  Probably maroon but reflected low sun makes it hard to be certain. 

 

Accompanying vehicle appears to be a Thompson BZ.

 

John

Full brakes of various descriptions were common on this service, for the shoe traffic from Street.

[dibber25]

I have got myself quite confused over the mods to these coaches but by putting my part converted Hornby model alongside the drawings of a brake compo in  Great Western Coaches Appendix Vol 2 (Russell, OPC) I think I can now understand what was done. The main mod was to the second class end, apparently with the removal of one 2nd class compartment enabling the former vestibule area-plus to become a guard's van with double doors (one plain/one with droplight), a repositioned toilet and a cross-vestibule, inboard of the toilet and guards van. I think I now understand why I abandoned the conversion - because it involved altering both sides. I shall press on, however, now I've seen a nice shot of W7374 on the last ever Bicester slip carrying the coaching roundel, which seems to have been absent from the others. In  a rash moment I mentioned it in the office as a possible magazine project, so there's no going back now! (CJL)

Edited May 3, 2017 by dibber25

[ejstubbs]

The Hawksworth slip-coach conversions, Nos. 7374-6, are said to have been used on the on the last days of two remaining slips: at Didcot in June 1960 and at Bicester on 9th September 1960.

 

 

There is a film of the final slip coach working to Bicester on the Railway Roundabout To The End Of The Line DVD; it's the last segment on the DVD.  It includes views of both sides of the slip coach:

 

 

 

The commentary states that it was one of the three converted Hawksworths, number 7374 (there doesn't seem to be a clear view of the coach's number to confirm this, unfortunately).  The film also includes some interesting footage of the departure from Paddington, including a Castle and a Warship stabled together at Ranelagh Bridge.

[plarailfan]

In one of the Railway Modeller magazines back in 1977, the was a large exhibition layout, called "Long Suffren" and they had an unpowered slip coach, with the uncoupling, being activated by a beam of light ! The article does say it was a test of the layout operators skill, getting it to stop in the correct position.

Being a mere youth at that time, this slip coach concept was totally new to me and I still have the magazine somewhere today. 

[BernardTPM]

I have got myself quite confused over the mods to these coaches but by putting my part converted Hornby model alongside the drawings of a brake compo in  Great Western Coaches Appendix Vol 2 (Russell, OPC) I think I can now understand what was done. The main mod was to the second class end, apparently with the removal of one 2nd class compartment enabling the former vestibule area-plus to become a guard's van with double doors (one plain/one with droplight), a repositioned toilet and a cross-vestibule, inboard of the toilet and guards van.

Actually if you look at the plan views of the 1938 Collett Double slips, the arrangement is quite similar, even if fudged out of an existing coach, rather than custom built like the 1938 version.

[Brian Kirby]

Hi Everyone,

     Here's one I made, when the Hornby Hawksworths came out a few years back. This is modelled as a post-1960 de-fitted ex-slip (or in Python jargon, a slip coach that has ceased to be). When slip working ended in 1960, the three Hawksworth conversions survived for further use, they lost their cab equipment, bells and external slip gear, but oddly retained the transverse vacuum reservoirs, albeit out of use. Obviously it wasn't worth replacing the corridor connections for regular express use, so they were dispersed to places like Taunton, Banbury and Mid-Wales for branch line use. In the early-60s, Western Region had decreed that surviving steam services on their longer branch lines, must provide passenger access to loos, so older corridor stock, plus these three ex-slips were put to work.

     All three had been painted chocolate-and-cream for express slip working, but at least one (my one) was repainted maroon, at least one of the others, perhaps both, remained in choc/cream. I only added a yellow stripe on one side, to depict final condition, the plain side would be about 1961-63. I encountered problems fitting the vacuum reservoirs (they just wouldn't fit in the space!), but on consulting the Easter-Foren Research Establishment, it was discovered that Swindon had stretched the truss rods during the 1958 conversion work. I'd built the thing by now, so I left it be (having used slightly smaller reservoir tubing), but I might change the truss on the Chocolate working slip that i've started.

                                                                     Cheers, Brian. 

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Brian Kirby

[Joseph_Pestell]

Apart from an obvious demand for 4mm and 2mm scale, a Lionheart/Dapol version of this would go so well with their B sets.

[The Johnster]

Hi Everyone,

     Here's one I made, when the Hornby Hawksworths came out a few years back. This is modelled as a post-1960 de-fitted ex-slip (or in Python jargon, a slip coach that has ceased to be). When slip working ended in 1960, the three Hawksworth conversions survived for further use, they lost their cab equipment, bells and external slip gear, but oddly retained the transverse vacuum reservoirs, albeit out of use. Obviously it wasn't worth replacing the corridor connections for regular express use, so they were dispersed to places like Taunton, Banbury and Mid-Wales for branch line use. In the early-60s, Western Region had decreed that surviving steam services on their longer branch lines, must provide passenger access to loos, so older corridor stock, plus these three ex-slips were put to work.

     All three had been painted chocolate-and-cream for express slip working, but at least one (my one) was repainted maroon, at least one of the others, perhaps both, remained in choc/cream. I only added a yellow stripe on one side, to depict final condition, the plain side would be about 1961-63. I encountered problems fitting the vacuum reservoirs (they just wouldn't fit in the space!), but on consulting the Easter-Foren Research Establishment, it was discovered that Swindon had stretched the truss rods during the 1958 conversion work. I'd built the thing by now, so I left it be (having used slightly smaller reservoir tubing), but I might change the truss on the Chocolate working slip that i've started.

                                                                     Cheers, Brian. 

 

20170504_165533.jpg

20170504_165638.jpg

20170504_165628.jpg

 

That's revived some memories, Brian!  IIRC, corridor stock with access to a toilet for all passengers was required on all services that took 2 hours or more to complete in the timetable, this included Newport-Brecon and Brecon-Moat Lane, the B & M and Mid-Wales lines, and explains the use of 'main line' stock on these services.