1970's Paddington - Weston-super-Mare consist's

[TravisM]

As a teenager in the 70's, I used to travel regularly from Weston-super-Mare to Bristol (and further) on services to London Paddington behind unrefurbished (at the time) Class 50's and I remember the smell and hum of the A/C of the Mk II stock and wondered what the consist's were at the time.  I'm also going to ask the impossible question and ask if anyone also have the stock numbers as well the consist.

 

Any help would be most useful.

 

Julian Sprott

Edited July 12, 2017 by jools1959

[Bomag]

As a teenager in the 70's, I used to travel regularly from Weston-super-Mare to Bristol (and further) on services to London Paddington behind unrefurbished (at the time) Class 50's and I remember the smell and hum of the A/C of the Mk II stock and wondered what the consist's were at the time.  I'm also going to ask the impossible question and ask if anyone also have the stock numbers as well the consist.

 

Any help would be most useful.

 

Julian Sprott

 

Most WR A/C stock in the 70's were Mk2E with a few later Mk2Fs. There are several threads on this and a couple include coach numbers.

[Flood]

There is a Yahoo coaching stock group which is run by Robert Carroll who also posts on RMweb: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BRCoachingStock/info

 

Not only are all the Passenger Train Marshalling booklets from 1953 to May 1980 available (with a few more from the 1980s and prior to 1953) but there is also a file of coach sets recorded at Paddington on Thursday 12th June 1975. This includes all the coach numbers recorded for both the Mk1, early Mk2 and air-con sets seen that day.

 

Once you have requested access to the site this file is available under Files, Train_workings_and_formations, Paddington Coach Sets 12-6-75.pdf

 

Happy reading

[TravisM]

 

Thursday 12th June 1975. This includes all the coach numbers recorded for both the Mk1, early Mk2 and air-con sets seen that day.

 

What a wonderful day that was, my 16th birthday     

Julian Sprott

[robertcwp]

Like this: 

 

1937_WhiteWaltham_0807-WSM-Pad_31-1-73 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

3 FO, RB, 5 TSO, BG

 

This set would be Mark IIe as it is from just after the first air-con sets appeared on the WR. They were joined as noted above by Mark IIf stock shortly afterwards.

 

Mark IIe leading on this one too:

50001_BTM_1348-WSM-Padd_13-4-76 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

[Coach bogie]

There were also stock from HST sets awaiting power cars used with a mk 1 full brake converted to a generator car.

 

 

But a mkII mk 1 buffet and full brake were more the norm.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[The Johnster]

The mk11e/f air conditioned sets were made up as stated, with the first class at the Paddington end and the BG at the Bristol/Weston/Swansea end.  AFAIK no mk2e/f brake vehicles were allocated to the WR and it was some time before they appeared at Bristol T.M., on cross country trains.  The mk1 RB and BG were fitted with B4 or Commonwealth bogies for 100mph running, although of course the 47s which originally hauled them were only rated for 95mph.  The 50s, when they arrived, were allowed 100mph, but were very largely confined to the Brisol/WSM workings while the South Wales trains continued to use 47s. Canton and Landore drivers were not trained on the 50s.   It was reckoned that a 10 coach set of air conditioned coaches equated to 400 hp off the power off the loco's output at the rail, and the locos had to be worked hard to maintain the schedules; a reduction to 9 coach sets was deemed necessary for planned timetable improvements (Cardiff-Paddinton 2 hours 10 minutes) to be brought in.

 

These air conditioned coaches were the only ones in the world at the time that were not charged a premium fare for, a tradition continued with the mk3s and HST.  They were double glazed and fitted with tinted windows, a thing only previously seen on Blue and mk2 Pullman stock in the UK.  As originally built, and when Canton guards including me were trained on a day's course in the use of the air conditioning equipment, they had fixed lights in the doors and an interior brushed aluminium handle for passengers to open them; this led to a tragic accident very shortly, I believe within a week, after their initial introduction on the ECML, when a passenger stumbled into one of these handles and opened the door at 100mph, which decanted him out onto the opposite line to be almost immediately run over by an approaching train; the stock was immediately withdrawn from service (to the extent that trains were stopped en route and passengers transferred to other stock to complete their journeys),  and the doors replaced with earlier mk2 wrap around ones or opening droplights fitted, a feature continued in the mk3s.  This meant that passengers had to open the windows to get at the outside handles to open the doors as they had had to with previous stock.  Of course, this destroyed the original concept of climate control that the air conditioning was provided for in the first place, but until electronic door locking became available this was the only safe way to run them.  We were instructed to close any open windows after leaving stations, but of course on warm days the passenger opened them as soon as you'd move on anyway, preventing the air conditioning from being able to cool the coach....

 

Their introduction on the WR was one of the reasons for the withdrawal of the 'Westerns', which could not be fitted with the eth and airco equipment because of limitations in their electrical equipment which had been designed for loco auxiliary use and not 'hotel' services, and lack of space aboard them to retrofit suitable generators and equipment anyway. They were doomed by the decision to standardise on electric transmissions in any case, but the introduction of stock that they could not work their top link duties with hastened their being reduced to 'minimum maintenance' status.

Edited July 15, 2017 by The Johnster

[brushman47544]

There were also stock from HST sets awaiting power cars used with a mk 1 full brake converted to a generator car.

 

hst set 47482.jpg

 

Mike Wiltshire

Interesting photos, but this one is not 47482 (as per your file name) - there's not ETH connector above the rh buffer. It looks like it could be 47056.