4-CEP and 4-BEP services on East Coastway Line

[Oldddudders]

34 minutes ago, Ben04uk said:

Many thanks, I wonder if this is the Hastings to Brighton student service mentioned above but the '64' headcode suggests not - anyone know what service the 64 was?

The train appears to be standing on the up line to Cooksbridge.

[C126]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

The train appears to be standing on the up line to Cooksbridge.

 

Yep, I am not sure of the stops, but this would be one of the off-peak (hourly?) Hastings/Eastbourne to London Victoria services.  Judging by the distance along the platform, in a 4+4 formation as well.  Wasn't Hastings-Brighton '18'?  It is all so long ago, I forget - '4x' for East coast-Brighton I think - but I hope someone has a set of WTTs to give us chapter and verse.

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, Ben04uk said:

anyone know what service the 64 was?

 

Hastings - Eastbourne - Victoria. 

 

Only for use in that direction because of the double-run between Hampden Park and Eastbourne.  To avoid confusion where the same train passed in both directions Up trains carried one headcode and down trains another - in this case 62.

 

Unusually for the Southern Region the headcode was not specific to route in the Redhill area.  Most codes were specifically "via Redhill" or "Via Quarry" with the Quarry Line being the main lines and effectively the Redhill avoiding line. 62 and 64 could be via either route.  While they normally ran via Plumpton, Selhurst and Balham if the train was diverted from its booked route it would still show the headcode applicable to its normal route,  So for example if this train were to be diverted at East Croydon to run via Crystal Palace instead of Selhurst it would still show 64.  

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, C126 said:

It is all so long ago, I forget - '4x' for East coast-Brighton I think - but I hope someone has a set of WTTs to give us chapter and verse.

Headcodes changed over time.  Partly to accommodate changing service patterns and partly as the original single letter evolved into two letters with a series of dots and bars above and below.  That was simplified when numbers replaced letters however the precise meaning of the numbers also changed with time.

 

SR headcodes is a subject worth its own topic.  There have been booklets published by the Southern Electric Group listing codes in then-current use with editions from around 1974 - 1993.  Copies might still turn up at sales or via the internet.  A far from exhauistive, but good, listing also appears as an appendix to Vol. 1 of David Brown's "Southern Electric - A New History" (Capital Transport)

 

As an ongoing work I am compiling a listing of all known headcodes.  I recognise there may be dates of change which have gone unrecorded and are therefore lost but I shall make a fair attempt.  There are also inconsistencies with official descriptions sometimes vague and occasionally even inaccurate.  Further to which it was far from unknown for a driver to display a "reversed" code for example 26 instead of 62 and the use of extempore codes especially on branch shuttles (such as the highly unofficial display of a red and a white blank together at both ends) and other very short workings was commonplace.