Were there any passenger services that ran with top and tail diesels in the 60s/70s?

[keefer]

6 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Classes 25 and 27 were of course both blue star so could work in multiple, ie coupled together, but if a 25 was used vice a 27 on the E&G push-pulls, would the rear loco, whether the 25 or the 27, have been able to be controlled from the leading loco and therefore power the train ? Given that the 27s were specially fitted for the service, I would have thought not.

 

There was no problem traction/control-wise using any Blue-Star fitted loco in place of a 27/1 or /2, all the MU, brake and control-air pipes were present, through the coaches, to enable push-pull to work. The locos would have to be rated for 90mph though (hence using 25s and 37s).

The only issue with using a 'normal' loco was, that if it was at the trailing end, it had to be manned as it did not have automatic fire extinguishing eqpt. fitted. (This was an instruction in the Sec. Appendix).

IIRC this was the only major modification to the standard loco to produce the 27/1 (possibly also providing driver/guard communication loudaphones - i don't know if standard locos had these).

The use of a normal loco vice one of the dedicated 27s would ideally only be a last-ditch temporary solution anyway - these were intensive services which were very hard on the locos, so the diagrammed maintenance schedule would need to be followed. Much easier to do this when there is a limited pool of locos/stock to be used.

EDIT: Meant to say, with a 25/37 leading the rear 27/1 or /2 could be unmanned - but i would imagine a 2nd driver/secondman would have to stay with the train until the normal loco was swapped back out. The p-p service was a 45-50 min journey with only 10-15 min turnaround and the 2nd man would be required on alternate trips.

The colour photos linked to show the orange external conduit on the solebar which was for the remote fire system.

Edited April 18, 2020 by keefer

[keefer]

16 hours ago, RFS said:

Some pictures of the services would be useful I think and here are 3. The first is one of c;lass 27 + 37, and the other two pairs of 27s. In all cases there were 6 coaches.

 

https://railphotoprints.uk/p582944081/e7a6fb267

 

https://railphotoprints.uk/p582944081/e8961f9c0

 

https://railphotoprints.uk/p582944081/e8961f9d8

 

 

 

The third pic. is a rare spot of 27120 - when first converted, the cl.27/2 locos were numbered 27113-24, but by the time the ETH was fitted the numbering was changed to 27201-12

(also notice the loco has ETH jumper sockets but no cables - the locos were wired up pending a decision on how the ETH was to be powered)

 

The full story of the p-p cl.27s here: http://www.6lda28.com/shove.html

Edited April 18, 2020 by keefer