Plymouth to Brighton

[Miss Prism]

I'm a bit partial to dainty 4-4-0s, and I've just won this pic on ebay, an ex-LSWR K10 (no 389) trotting along with a Plymouth to Brighton train near West Grimstead, on the Steyning line. The second coach is mid-period Collett, and the front brake 3rd still has its ducket, so my guess on the date is early- to mid-1930s.

 

On the assumption this is a GWR train (because of the stock), my question is:  what route has it taken?

 

 

[Nick Holliday]

West Grimstead is on the LSWR Salisbury to Eastleigh line, it’s West Grinstead with an N which is on the LBSC Steyning line.

[Miss Prism]

Thanks, my mistake on the spelling and the location.

 

The Salisbury to Eastleigh route now makes the answer to my question easy!

[bécasse]

The head code is Salisbury - Portsmouth Harbour via Eastleigh and I suspect that the train is a Cardiff (or possibly Bristol) - Portsmouth service. The daily Plymouth - Brighton service always used Southern Railway stock as, apart from through Exeter St.Davids and Plymouth North Road, it ran on Southern metals throughout.

[Neal Ball]

9 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I'm a bit partial to dainty 4-4-0s, and I've just won this pic on ebay, an ex-LSWR K10 (no 389) trotting along with a Plymouth to Brighton train near West Grimstead, on the Steyning line. The second coach is mid-period Collett, and the front brake 3rd still has its ducket, so my guess on the date is early- to mid-1930s.

 

On the assumption this is a GWR train (because of the stock), my question is:  what route has it taken?

 

 

Lovely photo.

 

That train would make a nice cross-country service to model, bookended as it is by stock from a different age…. Although I can’t quite work out what the rear carriage is.

 

There looks to be a ducket, so presumably a brake van / Brake 3rd. But it’s in a different livery….. Crimson lake or maybe an LMS carriage? 
 

The four carriages in between are presumably all Collets, but different diagrams. Or, is it 3 x Thirds and 1 Composite?

 

Thanks Neal.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Neal Ball
Typo

[Miss Prism]

Yes, seems to be 3 thirds and a compo. I can't make out what the rear vehicle is - maybe a very dingy clerestory brake 3rd.

 

I imagine the loco changeover was at Salisbury.

 

[Graham_Muz]

4 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I imagine the loco changeover was at Salisbury.

 

 

Yes indeed Salisbury would have been the change over point for what is the Cardiff - Portsmouth service.

[Neal Ball]

I didn't notice earlier, but it looks as if the Clerestory carriages are the only ones with roof boards.

 

Have they come from different services? Added separately at different stations?

[Compound2632]

I really am suffering from a reality dissonance seeing that classic Drummond engine on a train of those big elliptical-roofed Colletts. I have to pinch myself and remember that the Small Hoppers came only 7 or 8 years before the Great Western first started building carriages of that size and profile!

[Miss Prism]

The train is say, 175t. A K10 is approx 46t, with say 28t tractive, so has only marginally less oomph than an early Duke. 

 

Pertinently, I don't think the Salisbury to Portsmouth (and beyond to Brighton) stretch had any significant gradients, so 6 bogies is a modest load. Some of the K10s lasted into BR times, so must have been considered useful.

[bécasse]

T9s weren't that much more powerful than K10s and yet they would handle much heavier trains over much more difficult roads well into the BR era - and with a fair turn of speed too.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, bécasse said:

T9s weren't that much more powerful than K10s and yet they would handle much heavier trains over much more difficult roads well into the BR era - and with a fair turn of speed too.

 

But the T9s were modified in Urie's day - superheated, and with enlarged smokebox - advantages I don't believe the Small Hoppers were ever given.

[Cwmtwrch]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

But the T9s were modified in Urie's day - superheated, and with enlarged smokebox - advantages I don't believe the Small Hoppers were ever given.

Several other Drummond 4-4-0 classes were also modified in a similar way by Urie, but the K10s were not.

[Mallard60022]

4 hours ago, bécasse said:

T9s weren't that much more powerful than K10s and yet they would handle much heavier trains over much more difficult roads well into the BR era - and with a fair turn of speed too.

Thus Greyhounds.

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

The train is say, 175t. A K10 is approx 46t, with say 28t tractive, so has only marginally less oomph than an early Duke. 

 

Pertinently, I don't think the Salisbury to Portsmouth (and beyond to Brighton) stretch had any significant gradients, so 6 bogies is a modest load. Some of the K10s lasted into BR times, so must have been considered useful.

The steepest section between Bristol and Salisbury was about a mile of 1 in 70 on Upton Scudamore Bank between Westbury and Warminster - 'Dukes' were allowed 240 tons trailing unassisted.

 

Salisbury to Portsmouth via Eastleigh the steepest stretch was 1 in 100.   But on the route via Southampton there was a stretch of about a mile at 1 in 81 between Southampton and Fareham plus some short stretches of 1 in 91

[Miss Prism]

Thanks for that interesting gradient info. It puts into context what small 4-4-0s were expected to cope with.

 

On the GWR part of the journey (before the loco changeover at Salisbury), I imagine that train would have had a Bulldog or a Hall or a Star.

 

[Cwmtwrch]

I would suggest that a 43XX would be rather more likely than a 4-6-0 for a train that size; a Hall is not entirely impossible, or perhaps even a Saint, but even in the 1930s Stars were still front rank express engines. A Bulldog is perhaps the most likely, although there may have been heavier trains involved in the loco diagram, which makes any certainty very difficult.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Cwmtwrch

[martinT]

9 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

On the GWR part of the journey (before the loco changeover at Salisbury), I imagine that train would have had a Bulldog or a Hall or a Star.

 

6 hours ago, Cwmtwrch said:

I would suggest that a 43XX would be rather more likely than a 4-6-0 for a train that size; a Hall is not entirely impossible, or perhaps even a Saint, but even in the 1930s Stars were still front rank express engines. A Bulldog is perhaps the most likely, although there may have been heavier trains involved in the loco diagram, which makes any certainty very difficult.

 

I've just scanned through the 2 volumes of Soole's photos - 'The GWR in the 1930s'. I've found 8 photos of trains reputed to be Cardiff to Brighton (or reverse).  5 are headed by Stars, 2 by Moguls, & 1 by a Saint. The preponderance of Stars surprised me. It might be argued that Soole overlooked lesser locos such as Bulldogs but on the evidence of the books I'm not sure that is true. Interestingly I think there's probably more SR stock shewn than GW tho' several of the photos shew trains of mixed stock.

 

For the record the photos are nos. 32, 55, 83 (from Vol 1), 149, 157, 162, 244, 277 (Vol 2). If I've missed some I apologise.

 

Martin

[bécasse]

It shouldn't be forgotten that before, say, the mid-1950s, a significant proportion of railway photography was done on Saturday afternoons, a day when, even if the timetable looked very similar to that for Mondays-Fridays, loco and stock working was often different. That makes inferences from extant historic photographs interesting but not necessarily representative. Reverend gentlemen, of course, tended to photograph on Mondays and that makes their contribution just that little bit more important.

 

Through trains between the Southern and GWR (and LMSR) tended to be made up by alternate working of complete trains of one Company's stock or the other, not least because the SR used Pullman vestibule connections and the GWR standard ones. Any mixed stock was probably the result of the need for strengthening of the regular formation. Gangway adaptors for this purpose existed, of course, and some SR sets regularly allocated to inter-railway services actually had standard gangways at their outer ends to readily facilitate the addition of strengthening vehicles from the other railway (strengthening SR vehicles would be cut into the set).

[martinT]

20 hours ago, bécasse said:

It shouldn't be forgotten that before, say, the mid-1950s, a significant proportion of railway photography was done on Saturday afternoons,

 ... yes of course, a well known &  oft-reported fact - I've done so myself! Having said that I have wondered about the Soole photos - the early ones would be from his time as a student so he would perhaps have plenty of free time during the vacations.

 

The 2 volumes of Soole photos are a wonderful collection but one unfortunate failing is that dates are generally not given leaving David Geen & his fellow compilers to determine approximate dates by analysis of details. However dates are given for 27 of the c280 photos. (12 of these, all from Vol 1, are given in 'Additional Info & Corrections to Vol 1' at the end of Vol 2). Of these 27 one is from 1934, the other 26 from 1933. The 1933 photos are amongst the earliest Soole took (he would have been 20 & a student at Cambridge). So it seems he started off by recording dates but later gave up - unless the records have been lost. Of the 27 the days are: Monday 4, Tuesday 7, Wednesday 3, Thursday 3, Friday 2, Saturday 6, and Sunday 2 - so he obviously did have plenty of free time on weekdays in 1933! (lucky guy). One of these (no. 244) shews a Cardiff to Brighton train headed by a Mogul at Foxes Wood, on 17 June 1933 - a Saturday, & Soole recorded a time of 1.35pm. This suggests the train to be the 12.20pm departure from Cardiff (1.24pm ex-Stapleton Road). The train is made up of 4 GW + 4 SR + 1 GW which the compilers' analysis report as: C10, C23, C58, C30, 4-car ex-LSWR Ironclad set, C54. My 1932/1933 GWR timetable describes this as a Luncheon & Tea Car Train.

Edited November 9, 2022 by martinT
typo