Through trains

[AMJ]

Following on from privatisation many if not all of the longer distance through train services seem to have been cut back to shorter journeys if they still exist.

 

Examples include the St Pancras to Glasgow trains that used the Midland and S&C.  By the 80's these change to Nottingham - Glasgow and eventually just Leeds - Carlisle.

A few of the trans-Pennine used to go through to the north Wales coast at Llandudno and we used to be able to remember the station order as per the announcement prior to departure from Leeds.

 

There were boat trains that ran down the WCML through Kensington Olympia before heading to the channel ports.  Managed to get one of these so that I had loco haulage to Dover in 88.

 

One service that I used to like was the Manchester - Harwich boat train.  Often in the 80's it would have a celebrity loco.  I saw it with the GWR 47's in Sheffield.

 

Other than the services run by cross country most of these seem to have gone by the wayside as they probably tread upon too many operators toes.

[C126]

I am not quite sure of the purpose of your Topic post, but for Kensington Olympia Inter-regional trains, the 1S76 web-site is excellent.  A wonderful source of information.  Hope this is of interest.

[jjb1970]

As a train spotter in 1980's Carlisle I remember services like London - Stranraer, London - Inverness via WCML, the European to Harwich Parkeston Quay, Glasgow - Nottingham and such like. Then again there were fewer WCML services to Euston and Sunday services were dire.

[Wheatley]

Most of those were gone well before privatisation. Mostly because the number of through passengers using the through trains was vanishingly small. 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

I'm not sure of the dates, but privatisation might have been responsible for Devon and Cornwall West Coast trains becoming Manchester only, rather than going through to Scotland. Most of the direct trains mentioned by the OP had long gone by the time of privatisation.

[nightstar.train]

Air travel killed the boat trains. Very few people use the ferries as pure foot passengers now days. It's mostly people travelling in some sort of vehicle. 

[31A]

Quite an interesting oddball one that lasted until the Pandemic was the Summer Saturdays (or was it Sundays?) Only St. Pancras-Scarborough run by East Midlands Trains.  In fact I think it only started after privatisation!  In winter it only ran as far as York.

[coronach]

10 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

As a train spotter in 1980's Carlisle I remember services like London - Stranraer, London - Inverness via WCML, the European to Harwich Parkeston Quay, Glasgow - Nottingham and such like. Then again there were fewer WCML services to Euston and Sunday services were dire.

London to Stranraer patronage was significantly reduced by the withdrawal of soldiers from NI and the moving of the ferry terminal away from Stranraer Harbour

 

The Clansman day train to Inverness was replaced by a faster service on the ECML

 

The boat train to Harwich was swept up in the changes when Regional Railways was set up - more frequent short trains. 
 

Although these seemingly long standing traditional services have gone, we now have frequent services between the north west and Scotland that connect with the Inter7City HSTs to the North East. 
 

Interesting to recall that what is now the Caledonian Sleeper, prior to 1974, departed London KX and travelled to Glasgow QSt via York and Newcastle, probably as several separate services. There are no sleeper services from York now

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

I'm not sure of the dates, but privatisation might have been responsible for Devon and Cornwall West Coast trains becoming Manchester only, rather than going through to Scotland. Most of the direct trains mentioned by the OP had long gone by the time of privatisation.

 

West of England-Scotland trains presented some challenges in terms of locomotive range; there were 47s with dual fuel tanks to work the St.Austell-Inverness Motorail in the 70s.  There may also have been issues regarding stock diagrams for the very long runs.

 

Swings and roundabouts, though; it is now possible (not necessarily advisable) to travel through from West Wales to Holyhead via the North-to-West, Maesteg-Cheltenham, Cardiff -Leicester, Cardiff-Taunton, as well as Aberystwyth-Birmingham International and no doubt many others.  They tend to be shorter runs than the epics of bygone years, and are usually undertaken for reasons of stock utilisation or even clearing platforms at BNS rather than a response to passenger demand, but they are there...

 

 

 

[Stoke West]

1 hour ago, coronach said:

London to Stranraer patronage was significantly reduced by the withdrawal of soldiers from NI and the moving of the ferry terminal away from Stranraer Harbour

 

The Clansman day train to Inverness was replaced by a faster service on the ECML

 

The boat train to Harwich was swept up in the changes when Regional Railways was set up - more frequent short trains. 
 

Although these seemingly long standing traditional services have gone, we now have frequent services between the north west and Scotland that connect with the Inter7City HSTs to the North East. 
 

Interesting to recall that what is now the Caledonian Sleeper, prior to 1974, departed London KX and travelled to Glasgow QSt via York and Newcastle, probably as several separate services. There are no sleeper services from York now

Caledonian sleepers were always Euston LMS workings to Stranraer , Glasgow Central , Perth , Inverness and Oban where as Kings Cross workings were to former North British destinations Edinburgh  Fort William and Aberdeen . St Pancras to the Waverley route NB  and G&SWR

[Kris]

10 hours ago, nightstar.train said:

Air travel killed the boat trains. Very few people use the ferries as pure foot passengers now days. It's mostly people travelling in some sort of vehicle. 

Not all ferries allow foot passengers. On the Dover Calais route there are only about half a dozen sailings each way each day that take them.

[caradoc]

On 12/09/2023 at 10:42, AMJ said:

One service that I used to like was the Manchester - Harwich boat train.  Often in the 80's it would have a celebrity loco.  I saw it with the GWR 47's in Sheffield.

 

Harwich/Manchester (formerly Liverpool but cut back by BR) was a one train a day each way service; Today there is an hourly through service between Liverpool and Norwich! 

 

[C126]

There are still the Cross Country Trains' Penzance-Edinburgh services (alas, no longer going through once a day to Aberdeen).

 

 

[62613]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

Harwich/Manchester (formerly Liverpool but cut back by BR) was a one train a day each way service; Today there is an hourly through service between Liverpool and Norwich! 

 

Harwich - Manchester dated back to at least early LNER days. I'm fairly sure it was established pre - grouping.

[Michael Hodgson]

3 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Harwich - Manchester dated back to at least early LNER days. I'm fairly sure it was established pre - grouping.

I remember them announcing the Harwich boat train at Victoria station many years ago, in amomgst the more routine local services to various small mill towns in Lancashire.  Gave not only the calling points of the boat train itself, but also onward services from Hook of Holland to numerous large European cities, including changes for stations to Moscow. 

[black and decker boy]

I doubt we can solely blame privatisation nor the owning groups - minimum service levels for each franchise were defined as part of the process (which typically matched what the BR shadow franchises were running) so if these services aren’t running

then they weren’t on those protected lists and quite probably binned by BR anyway in the early 1990s.

 

the transport sector evolved rapidly in the early 90s with the arrival low cost airlines and the channel tunnel and then low cost coaches such as megabus.

[KingEdwardII]

4 hours ago, caradoc said:

Today there is an hourly through service between Liverpool and Norwich! 

Yes, but you would not dream of using that as part of a journey to get to Harwich! I checked and if you use the Liverpool - Norwich train to start your journey, it takes about 6 hours 25 mins to get to Harwich and there are 3 changes...

 

The National Rail app recommendation is to go via London and the journey then takes about 4 hours 30mins. Even the trip up from London Liverpool Street involves a change at Manningtree, except for one direct service @ 21:02. So much for "boat trains".

 

Yours, Mike.

[Oldddudders]

20 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

I'm not sure of the dates, but privatisation might have been responsible for Devon and Cornwall West Coast trains becoming Manchester only, rather than going through to Scotland. Most of the direct trains mentioned by the OP had long gone by the time of privatisation.

XC services from Devon and Cornwall currently serve a number of destinations well beyond Manchester, including Aberdeen. And service patterns have changed regularly over the years, including Paignton - Manchester services diverted to the North East instead. New St is the XC hub, and no doubt service tinkering takes place to maximise revenue with available resources. 

[RichardT]

20 hours ago, 31A said:

Quite an interesting oddball one that lasted until the Pandemic was the Summer Saturdays (or was it Sundays?) Only St. Pancras-Scarborough run by East Midlands Trains.  In fact I think it only started after privatisation!  In winter it only ran as far as York.

Yes - Sundays I believe. To protect a path for Midland Mainline (before EMT).  IIRC, for a short period in the 1990s (?) York had direct train services to four London termini - KX, St Pancras, Paddington and Waterloo International.  Three of the four were, of course, only served once a day or even once a week…

 

RichardT

Edited September 13, 2023 by RichardT
Correction

[johnofwessex]

5 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I remember them announcing the Harwich boat train at Victoria station many years ago, in amomgst the more routine local services to various small mill towns in Lancashire.  Gave not only the calling points of the boat train itself, but also onward services from Hook of Holland to numerous large European cities, including changes for stations to Moscow. 

 

On an Autumn evening I like going through Stogumber on the last train from Minehead with teh porter shouting the station name and train destination.

 

I fancy doing it one day when the situation with Russia is back to normal and adding - amongst other things 'For Vladivostok, Peking and stations to Hong King and Tokyo change at....'

[Matt37268]

There’s still some really odd ball long distance services if you know where to look, just had a look on NRES about trying to to get from Foregate Street to Weymouth, apparently you can but it means changing at Gloucester. But even then who’s travelling all the way from Gloucester to Weymouth? 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Two sides to any coin.

 

Who'd have imagined through trains between Brighton and Cambridge, for example?

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Two sides to any coin.

 

Who'd have imagined through trains between Brighton and Cambridge, for example?

Any Cambridge academic who fancied a dirty weekend !

[coronach]

11 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

 

On an Autumn evening I like going through Stogumber on the last train from Minehead with teh porter shouting the station name and train destination.

 

I fancy doing it one day when the situation with Russia is back to normal and adding - amongst other things 'For Vladivostok, Peking and stations to Hong King and Tokyo change at....'

In the ‘good old days’ when the enquiry office at Birmingham New Street included a European desk, a Polish gentleman asked for information about travel to Warsaw and was surprised to hear that the next train was at 12:45 in platform 5. Of course the person behind the desk misheard ‘Walsall!’  

[coronach]

Saturdays only through trains were once more diverse. In the 1970s, there was a through train from York to Tenby. 
 

in the latter days of BR, some novel services were tried out, for example Hull to Brighton, Hull to Cardiff, which I think were portions attached / detached at Sheffield