GWR slip coach operations

[Mick38]

I am curious to know how slip coaches were handled after being dropped off. Were they simply attached to the next available “up” service?

As most slip coaches appear to have been “toplights”, I wonder if Dapol could be persuaded to include a double ended slip when the corridor toplights are announced?

[hexagon789]

3 hours ago, Mick38 said:

I am curious to know how slip coaches were handled after being dropped off. Were they simply attached to the next available “up” service?

As most slip coaches appear to have been “toplights”, I wonder if Dapol could be persuaded to include a double ended slip when the corridor toplights are announced?

Dependent very much on the route and service.

 

Some were worked ECS to another station, some were attached to a stopping service in the other direction, some were worked by local train to a junction station for attachment.

 

It really depended exactly on the individual slip service.

[Bulleidnutter]

5 hours ago, Mick38 said:

I am curious to know how slip coaches were handled after being dropped off. Were they simply attached to the next available “up” service?

As most slip coaches appear to have been “toplights”, I wonder if Dapol could be persuaded to include a double ended slip when the corridor toplights are announced?

There were Collett and Hawksworth slip coaches. The railway roundabout film is a good start. The GWR were the main users of slip coaches but others used then as well. 

[Michael Hodgson]

It wasn 't just the GWR who slipped - many of the bigger pre-Grouping companies also had slip workings from their longer distance expresses.  Slipping is largely seen as a GW practice because they kept it up long after the rest abandoned the idea as uneconomic. 

 

Stations served in this way tended to be middle-sized towns, big enough to justify an express service, but not so big as to warrant the time penalty incurred if a through working were to make the aditional call there. 

 

The problems were that there wasn't an equivalent method that enabled passengers in the opposite direction to join a though train that didn't stop, so the workings were unbalanced even on the few services were you might manage to send it on as a slip to somewhere else; you had the costs of shunting and employing an additional man to act as Slip Guard and the special rolling stock didn't spend anywhere near as long in daily revenue earning usage as normal coaching stock.  It was also inherently more dangerous, though I don't think there were many accidents as a result.

[The Johnster]

Slipping had pros and cons; it was a way of providing a through service without stopping the main train and meant that the load became lighter towards the end of the longer non-stop runs, which made life easier for the fireman and eked out the coal.  I associate slips with down trains, but there were up workings as well. 

 

The cons are the aforementioned unbalanced working, and the exclusion of  slip passengers from access to catering facilities.  It was generally fairly safe, especially considering the fundamental insanity of the concept, but I believe there was an example of a level crossing incident where a crossing keeper put the gates back after the main train only to have them destroyed by the slip portion...  Less dangerous but highly inconvenient were slips that overshot the platform or stopped short, which of course then had to be time-consumingly rescued by the station pilot.  Drivers were often vocally contemptuous of guards' driving abilities, and while most men coped well enough, some were, well, not really quite as advanced in having developed the neccessary skillsets as a perfect world would have demanded...

 

This sort of shennanigans was more likely to happen with high speed slips, where the distance between the slipping point and the station is greater.  A slip guard had route knowledge and would know where to slip (he would seal the vacuum and then drop the slip coupling, releasing the portion), and this would be agreed with the driver who has to put steam on to ensure a proper separation of the train from the slip portion, and had reserve vacuum tanks to blow the brake off if he'd been overenthusiastic with it, but once the reserve was gone he was at the mercy of physics, and whatever leakage there may have been in the system, leaving you stranded some distance short of your intended destination.  So, some slip guards were nervous of applying the brakes too soon or too heavily, and of course the inevitable result of this is going to be a propensity to overshoot, leaving you equally stranded but this time some distance beyond your intended destianation...

 

Slower speed slips, such as the 40mph Reading examples, were less prone to this sort of embarrassment, the slip was made not far off the end of a long platform,and most guards could pull up somewhere along it.

 

The unbalanced workings were dealt with in the WTT, and incresed costs but were easy enough to arrange.  The problem is to get the slip coach back to it's point of origin carriage sidings for the next day's working, so unless you have 2 sets of stock and slip coaches on a 2-day diagram (I believe this applied to the Cornish Riviera) the clock is ticking.  The slip will be booked to be attached to a working in the opposite direction asap, inconvenient and costly but not really a problem beyond that.

 

Slip portions, TPO pouch collection and delivery, and water troughs seem to me to be the sort of thing that Victorian engineers were brilliant at, effective but, let's be honest, a bit close to the acceptable boundaries of sanity!  Slips; 'ok, let's devise a coupling hook that can be dropped out by a guard on a vehicle that is then detached from the train and left to fend for itself', TPO pickup; 'tell you what, we'll hang a leather pouch containing several cwt of mail bags from a hook by the side of the track, and they can hang a net out of the side of the train beyond the loading gauge and catch it at 70mph, hurling it across the coach at about that speed, oh, and we'll allow postal workers without route knowledge to deploy the thing', delivery; 'no problem, we'll hang a simlar pouch outside the loading gauge off the side of the train and lineside appartus will fire it into a bin, the collections postmen standing well back (!).  Water troughs; 'brilliant Idea i had up the pub, what we'll do is, we'll make little pools of water in the 4 foot about 2' wide and hundreds of yards long on level track, and the fireman can drop a scoop hinged beneat the tender which will pick up water at a high enough speed to force it about 10 feet up the chute into the tanks.  The fireman then has to play this marvellous game where he has to judge when the tanks are full, drenching everyone in the first coach who doesn't have the route knowledge to shut the windows, and then wind the scoop back up before he gets to the end of the trough and it starts ripping up the track.  What could possibly go wrong'?

 

Madder'n a bag o' badgers, the lot of 'em!

[KeithMacdonald]

Are there any good RTR models of slip coaches?

 

I've seen mention of ex-slip coaches being used on the Lambourne branch.

[Miss Prism]

27 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Are there any good RTR models of slip coaches?

 

There are no GWR RTR slip coaches.

 

27 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I've seen mention of ex-slip coaches being used on the Lambourne branch.

 

https://www.lambournvalleyrailway.info/uploads/1/3/2/2/132230311/published/newbury-lvr-bay.jpg?1648036679

 

The Faringdon branch used an F13 concertina slip for many years.

 

 

[Harlequin]

9 hours ago, Mick38 said:

As most slip coaches appear to have been “toplights”, I wonder if Dapol could be persuaded to include a double ended slip when the corridor toplights are announced?

 

That is a really good idea!  Dapol could even incorporate some technology to allow them to be slipped and operated independently, just like the prototypes.

 

The advantage of the Churchward toplight slip coaches for Dapol is their long lifetime. A decent number made it into BR ownership. So multiple liveries and a larger potential market.

 

Dia. F14: 1908-57 - 57ft composite, single ended + corridor

Dia. F15: 1909-56 - 57ft composite, double ended

Dia. F16: 1908-58 (reclassified in 54) - 57ft composite, double-ended

Dia. F20: 1913-58 - 57ft composite, single ended + corridor

Dia. F21: 1916-59 - 70ft composite, double ended

 

[Michael Hodgson]

Slip working using  DCC shouldn't be difficult for a manufacturer to implement all you need is an accessory decoder and and uncoupling mechanism though it may depend on having some compatible drawhook on the main train.  Timing of actuation could be determined by trail and error on a particular layout, although that might vary slightly if you want to have additional vehicles in the slip portion.  Automating it so that it can be actuated by software would probably require an infrared

sensor or similar, again located by trial and error.

 

Another approach would be to motorise the slip coach, run it as effectively a banking engine not coupled to the main train and remove it from the consist at the appropiate juncture.  You'd need to ensure that it didn't buffer lock though.

 

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Less dangerous but highly inconvenient were slips that overshot the platform or stopped short, which of course then had to be time-consumingly rescued by the station pilot.

 

... or in some places by a shunting horse in the early days, I believe!

 

The delay would be an embarrassment of course, but it would still have worked out to be less delay than having to chnage trains somewhere en route.  I think slip guards were paid more and would have taken pride in their skill - whereas a driver who is about to undershoot can at least reapply steam when he overdoes his braking.

[The Johnster]

Comet do some Collett types IIRC, if you can manage a kit.  
 

It would be possible I suppose to have DCC operated slip mechanism, or a mechanical version of some sort for us DC Luddite paupers, but it would be a whole different box of ferrets to control the slipped coach.  Simplest would be to let ‘er roll, which wold work well enough once you’d established the exact speed the main train is doing at the moment of the slip and the exact position at which the slip occurs.  Establishing this will take considerable trial and error, though.  And I suspect there is nowhere near enough ‘run’ on most layouts to be able to do this from reasonable express speeds.  
 

So, an alternative is to create a situation in which the distance the slip runs is lessened, either with a lower speed or an uphill gradient before the platform is reached.  
 

DCC offers the possibility of a motor in the slip coach and ‘driving’ it to the platform, bit there is a temptation to cheat and accelerate if things are going badly,, which to my mind would destroy the illusion. 
 

IMHO, the ideal would be an actual brake, a retarder of some sort operated by a servo.  This could be configured to work off DCC or directly from track current by DC once the distance between the main train and the slip portion is sufficient.  DCC has a clear superiority here; you could brake as soon as the separation had taken place, and release and re-apply the as needed just like a real slip guard!

 

It might be an advantage to have the slip coach slightly less free running than normal. 

Edited May 29, 2022 by The Johnster

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

It might be an advantage to have the slip coach slightly less free running than normal. 

 

I've got some rolling stock like that!

[The Johnster]

It's not always a disadvantage on a layout where there is a lot of shunting and stock is left uncoupled from locos.  My brake vans have foam sponge rubbing on the axles; keeps the couplings tight and enables rakes to be 'parked', but the wheels still turn.  The layout is pretty level but some of my free-er running stock can find gradients!  Not as bad as some Trix stuff I had back in the day which would not stay still anywhere!

[Hal Nail]

11 hours ago, The Johnster said:

IMHO, the ideal would be an actual brake, a retarder of some sort  

Bear with me on this one, but an idea I had down the pub, surely if you want to stop something moving at high velocity in a confined distance, you simply need a piece of string and a hook....

[The Johnster]

Any Victorian engineer capable of designing a system to allow coaches with passengers in them to detach from trains at high speed and be left to their own devices would be capable of designing this, perhaps a bit like the retarders on aircraft carriers…

[cctransuk]

17 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

There are no GWR RTR slip coaches.

 

...... but a Collett double-ended slip coach can be produced quite easily from an old Airfix RTR B-set coach.

 

John Isherwood.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Any Victorian engineer capable of designing a system to allow coaches with passengers in them to detach from trains at high speed and be left to their own devices would be capable of designing this, perhaps a bit like the retarders on aircraft carriers…

They might have produced ejector seats working like mailbag apparatus - and pick-ups in like manner!

[The Stationmaster]

13 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

They might have produced ejector seats working like mailbag apparatus - and pick-ups in like manner!

I think Heath Robinson got there before you 

[Mick38]

Well! Thank you one and all for that amazing compendium of information. I have improvised an end piece to a third class brake coach to make an approximation of a slip coach, but of course the side details are all wrong, and it would be great to have a r-t-r version.

[Michael Hodgson]

I believe Oakham once had slips.  Pity Airfix never did a slip coach!

[Mick38]

This is my faux slip coach:

[The Fatadder]

Comet F24 slip

mostly built as intended (but with the tanks replaced with a 3d print that’s closer to the real thing).  Still need to print a slip lamp for it…

 

 

[The Johnster]

Slip coaches were of necessity composites; probably the best candidates for ‘faux’ conversions are the Hornby Hawksworth BCK and the Mainline/Replica/Bachmann Collett 60’ ‘sunshine’ BCK.   Not certain off-hand of the suitability of the Hawksworths as slips for pre-BR layouts, but they did carry the WR chocolate/cream post 1956 livery. 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Slip coaches were of necessity composites;

Brake compos surely !

[Mick38]

 (The Fatadder) Very impressed with the Comet version - makes my effort look like the rubbish it is. As I lack the skills to complete a kit, I wonder if you could make one for me? Please?

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Brake compos surely !

The pedants are revolting!  Yes, BCKs but not with gangways at the slip end, which means BCs if they are double enders.  Slip portions could consist of the slip and an ordinary coach to the rear; IIRC only one per portion as there was a limit to the capacity of the vacuum reservoir.  A feature of slips was that the guard's compartment was very small and not accompanied by parcels stowage space, just his 'office', and the handbrake wheel, and a foot pedal to operate the gong same as an auto trailer. 

 

This is why I nominated the Hornby Hawksworth BCK and the Mainline Collett 'Sunshine' BCK as suitable fodder for faux conversions.