"Things "Southern" For a Newcomer"

[Deeps]

22 hours ago, bécasse said:

Actually the Q1s, whilst they roamed reasonably freely on much of the Southern, were extremely rare west of Salisbury and certainly shouldn't feature on any SR west of England layout.

Without trawling through my library for images of Q1’s in the west, I can’t recall any instances. This sort of research is one of the attractions of railway modelling and can become a hobby in itself.

 

However, if you have a desire to acquire a Q1 there is no reason why you shouldn’t run it on a model of, for example, the Callington branch if it takes your fancy.

[Typeapproval]

Hi,

 

You caught my interest with "Chard Town"! was it one the places where two companies met? or was it one of the places that changed hands to "Western Region". Again showing my ignorance about things. 

 

Cambridge always fascinated me, it was possible to get a train to St. Pancras (LMS). Kings Cross or Liverpool Street (LNER) Three London Termini! I imagine the ticket office must have been a crazy place to work! I understand that pre 1923 there were separate facilities for each and only one long platform!

 

Kind Regards

David.

[Nearholmer]

I’m no expert on the history of which services ran when to Chard Town, but it started as a short branch (I think possibly originally a tiny independent railway, which was then taken over by the LSWR) from the LSWR station. The GWR then arrived very nearby from the other direction, and shortly afterwards the two branches were linked end-on. It then had through GWR services all the way to the LSWR station, plus an LSWR shuttle. The question is: did the shuttle continue under the SR? At some stage the shuttle ceased, and the station ended-up as purely a through one on a GER/BR(W) branch, but I think the SR owned the track bed and possibly part of the station until about 1930.

 

Is there a genuine expert in the house?

[Rivercider]

5 minutes ago, Typeapproval said:

Hi,

 

You caught my interest with "Chard Town"! was it one the places where two companies met? or was it one of the places that changed hands to "Western Region". Again showing my ignorance about things. 

 

Cambridge always fascinated me, it was possible to get a train to St. Pancras (LMS). Kings Cross or Liverpool Street (LNER) Three London Termini! I imagine the ticket office must have been a crazy place to work! I understand that pre 1923 there were separate facilities for each and only one long platform!

 

Kind Regards

David.

For a small line the history is quite complicated. I have the book 'Working the Chard Branch' by D Phillips and R Eaton-Lacey which is very interesting.

The LSWR opened a branch from Chard Junction to Chard Town in 1863.

The Bristol and Exeter broad gauge branch from Taunton to Chard opened in 1866.

Chard Joint station was half a mile north of the LSWR Chard Town. To reach it LSWR trains backed out of Chard Town then carried on northwards. At Chard Joint the LSWR used the south end bay.

The GWR took over the B&E in 1876, and the Chard branch was converted to standard gauge in 1891.

From  1896 the LSWR station at Chard Town came under control of the GWR and in 1916 the former LSWR station closed ,but was retained as a goods depot. GWR trains then worked right through to Chard Junction where the platform was separate from the main lines.

 

cheers

[Nearholmer]

Did the SR ever work to Chard Town then, or did that service cease while it was still LSWR? That was the bit I was unsure about. Goods to the old LSWR station?

 

Wikipedia says:

 

“In 1910 the L&SWR and the GWR made an agreement aimed at securing economies in localities where both companies had an activity. One consequence of the agreement was that the L&SWR Chard Town station (including the platform on the spur line) would close and the GWR would provide the passenger service throughout from Taunton to Chard Junction. This arrangement was given effect on 1 January 1917.[16][17] Separate signal boxes were maintained until 1928.[18]”

 

If that’s correct, It was a Southern Branch by ownership, I think possibly until 1928, when I think ownership

kay have been transferred to the GWR, but not operation, so goodness knows how that fits in the listing!

 

 

Edited January 15 by Nearholmer

[Rivercider]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Did the SR ever work to Chard Town then, or did that service cease while it was still LSWR? That was the bit I was unsure about. Goods to the old LSWR station?

If I understand it correctly the LSWR operated trains to the joint station and it still retained a service to the old terminus at Chard Town.

This was not viable so in 1916 the LSWR and GWR had discussions about the situation. The GWR agreed to work the whole branch to Chard Junction. Chard Town (the LSWR station) closed on 30th Dec 1916, as did the spur platform which was adjacent on the line to Chard Joint.

From 1st Jan 1917 the GWR operated from Chard Joint to Chard Junction, initially with a separate set of coaches, but after a while it was worked as an extension of the GWR Taunton to Chard service. 

I assume, (dangerous I know), that from 1917 the LSWR, and then SR, only worked goods services from Chard Junction to Chard Town (goods), and Chard Central (as the Joint station had been renamed). Various SR classes were authorised to work as far as Chard Central. The SR did work a very occasional excursion service to/from Chard in the late 1930.

 

Edit - Reading in another couple of books it would seem that the GWR (and then WR) worked all services along the line from 1916 onwards. The exception was summer 1938 when the SR worked summer Sunday services (there was no Sunday service in that time).  There was a list of SR loco classes permitted to work to Chard Central.

In 1964 the line from Taunton to Chard Central closed. So until final closure in 1966 remaining freight traffic at Chard Town (goods) and Chard Central was worked by Yeovil Junction crews from  the Chard Junction end.

 

cheers

Edited January 15 by Rivercider

[Typeapproval]

Hello,

 

I picked up that for a while two Terrier locos had ben brought to work the Lyme Regis Branch. After they were replaced by the Adams Radial tanks, did the Terriers return to the LBSCR or as they had been purchased by the LSWR, did the find employment elsewhere in the West?

 

Regards

David.

[Nearholmer]

One was sold to the Freshwater Yarmouth and Newport Railway on the IoW, and the LSWR kept the other for use on the Lee-on-the-Solent line, so both progressed to the SR after 1923. I think one or both of them was/were also used by very briefly by the LSWR on the East Southsea Branch, before that became a trial ground for various slightly odd steam rail-motors. Possibly also the Bishops Waltham branch.

 

The LSWR was mad keen on trying to find cheap ways to run its spindliest branchlines, of which it had rather a lot, at the time.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 17 by Nearholmer

[Typeapproval]

Hi 

 

Thanks for that, I find things like that very interesting, bit like the Holden 0-6-0s in Scotland. From what I've picked up so far the IOW had a pretty varied collection of motive power. Did the Southern try to standardise the rolling stock on the IOW? Freight wagons were a mixed bunch wherever. Even at nationalisation on the MSLR they were using GER coaches, was that a similar situation on the IOW (and elsewhere on the Southern?) Did the various company coaches disappear quickly or were they simply relegated to minor branch lines as on the LNER? would there have been original IOW stock running in the 1930s?

 

Kind regards

David.

[Nearholmer]

The IoW became a big project for the Southern, they did what amounted to a root and branch upgrade over the period 1923-39, the vast majority of it by recycling things surplus from the mainland, rails and chairs, locos, carriages, and wagons. In loco terms they standardised on Terriers, E1 for goods, and O2 for passenger, they created PP sets from old LCDR six-wheelers, imported old short bogie coaches, imported wagons. Basically, the IoW railways as they were until 1966 were how the SR made them, and that in turn was pre-grouping in style, because that’s when the vast majority of the stock was originally built.

 

As I mentioned before, the SR built not a single new loco-hauled non-corridor coach, so all branch-line stock was either pure pre-grouping, or somewhat rebuilt pre-grouping, but they inherited some pretty decent stock, and looked after it well - it wasn’t quite the situation of tattiness that the LNER descended to in places. The truly tatty stuff the SR inherited was on suburban service. They purged the 6-wheel stock as the suburbs were electrified, and incorporated the best bogie coaches into EMUs, or sent them to the IoW; job done before 1930!

 

The SR had “reuse and recyle” off to a fine art well before the phrase was invented, always trying to put their money towards things that saved money and made money, which meant electrification. Branchlines didn’t really make much money except as feeders, other than during the (then quite short) holiday season in the case of the coastal and IoW ones, so spending on them was careful, rather than lavish, the idea being to reduce costs.

 

 

Edited January 18 by Nearholmer

[Typeapproval]

Hi,

 

You mention "Loco-hauled non-corridor coaches", does that suggest that "Main line Corridor coaches" were produced? If that is the case, would the coaches displaced be be used as branch line stock or would they be scrapped, As the Southern were into recycling would the chassis be used during the new construction?

 

Regards

David.

[Nearholmer]

The SR built oodles of very good corridor coaches, what are known as the Maunsell and Bulleid stock, but there weren’t many corridor coaches to displace to branchlines.

 

The LBSCR famously had no corridor coaches (I think one rake with partial corridor provision for The City Limited) and its passengers were forever moaning that they were cross-legged by the time they got anywhere. They did use Pullmans in a lot of trains though, so you could have a wee if you’d paid for the upgrade!
 

The SECR had some, but mainly (exclusively?) for boat train services.

 

My Even the LSWR, which I know less about, didn’t have a huge proportion of corridor stock (their ‘cross country stock’ wasn’t, although it did have loos for first and second class compartments, I think). I believe that some of theirs were converted to PP by the SR, but you’d have to check that. I know that odd ones were sold off to the EKLR and KESR because the brake composites made good one car trains.

[Robin Brasher]

I think that the airsmoothed Bulleid light Pacific locomotives appeared on most parts of the Southern Railway. The Q1 class and rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics had too heavy an axle load for many lines in the south west.

[Typeapproval]

Hi,

 

Just found some photos of the Lyme Regis branch, The Adams Radial locomotive and what look to be corridor coaches (It looks like a corridor connection on the end of the coach nearest the loco. As usual the picture is 3/4 front so sadly no detail is very clear. The Loco is No 3125 so I'm assuming in Southern days. Not BR. Did corridor stock get used on branch lines? 

 

Kind Regards

David.

[Olive_Green1923]

14 minutes ago, Typeapproval said:

Hi,

 

Just found some photos of the Lyme Regis branch, The Adams Radial locomotive and what look to be corridor coaches (It looks like a corridor connection on the end of the coach nearest the loco. As usual the picture is 3/4 front so sadly no detail is very clear. The Loco is No 3125 so I'm assuming in Southern days. Not BR. Did corridor stock get used on branch lines? 

 

Kind Regards

David.

 

Are you referring to this photo?: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/lyme_regis/index23.shtml

 

If so, those are compartment coaches. They are likely to be the ex-LSWR Maunsell 58ft rebuilds (which were lengthened from 48ft in 1935-36) because Maunsell recognised that the branch line stock needed strengthening (as touched on by Nearholmer i.e. lack of stock). Hornby produced RTR versions of the Maunsell rebuilds, which you can read about here (with specific reference to Lyme Regis some of the way down): https://uk.Hornby.com/community/blog-and-news/engine-shed/stop-press-sr-58-maunsell-rebuilt-ex-lswr-48-coaches

[Nearholmer]

One reason you might see corridor coaches in SW branch photos is that several branches had through coaches, and in some cases in the holiday season entire through trains, from Waterloo.

 

The most famous case was the Atlantic Coast Express, allegedly the most multi-portioned train in Britain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Coast_Express, and there were Brake Composite corridor coaches, first LSWR ones, then Maunsell, then Bulleid, and even Mk1 provided to allow single through coaches (not all the portions were singletons, even in the winter though) for such services.

 

You will find that any respectable semi-freelance model of a SW branchline has a portion of the ACE, and an entire through train on summer Saturdays, to relieve the tedium of shuffling an M7 back and forth with a PP set, and running one hoods train each day (SSuX)!

[bécasse]

12 hours ago, Olive_Green1923 said:

 

Are you referring to this photo?: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/lyme_regis/index23.shtml

 

If so, those are compartment coaches. They are likely to be the ex-LSWR Maunsell 58ft rebuilds (which were lengthened from 48ft in 1935-36) because Maunsell recognised that the branch line stock needed strengthening (as touched on by Nearholmer i.e. lack of stock). Hornby produced RTR versions of the Maunsell rebuilds, which you can read about here (with specific reference to Lyme Regis some of the way down): https://uk.Hornby.com/community/blog-and-news/engine-shed/stop-press-sr-58-maunsell-rebuilt-ex-lswr-48-coaches

Those carriages aren't the Maunsell 58' rebuilds (on new under frames) but 48' originals. The normal Lyme Regis branch set did become one of the 58' rebuild sets once they became available, possibly only a few months after the photo was taken. The 58' rebuilds by the way usually used all compartment 48' originals with a new 10' guards compartment added at the outer ends of the two carriages in each set. These new guard's compartments were quite distinctive and enable the rebuilds to be readily identified in photos, they didn't offer much accommodation for luggage or prams, though, and so a 4-w U-van was often attached to the train.

[Typeapproval]

Hi,

Yes that was one of the photos. Looking at it on the laptop its clearer but to my old eyes still not that clear. Off to Specsavers I guess!🤓.

 

The information from Hornby was very interesting, quite in depth. The Hornby train pack is available but a little beyond my pocket! 

 

I've seen the Hornby  Maunsell coaches in Two different shades of green, the SR olive and BR green. Also the EFE "Gate stock" once again a little rich for my blood! 

 

Kind regards

David.

[Oldddudders]

Hornby Maunsells come in four different liveries. Original olive, malachite, crimson and cream, and BR(S) green. For some reason, Hornby malachite and BR(S) green are the same shade, but lettering etc are quite different. Ebay has a good selection if you watch prices for long enough. 

[Olive_Green1923]

25 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Hornby Maunsells come in four different liveries. Original olive, malachite, crimson and cream, and BR(S) green. For some reason, Hornby malachite and BR(S) green are the same shade, but lettering etc are quite different. Ebay has a good selection if you watch prices for long enough. 

Yes to echo that, I bought all my 58’ rebuilds from ebay for very reasonable prices. Worth a look.

[Oldddudders]

12 minutes ago, Olive_Green1923 said:

Yes to echo that, I bought all my 58’ rebuilds from ebay for very reasonable prices. Worth a look.

I was actually referring to the real Maunsells, the corridor coaches from 1926 onwards, not the rebuilds. The rebuilds do feature on ebay, too. At times I regret having bought quite so many new.......

[bécasse]

I suspect that most 58' rebuilt sets that appeared in "BR" green were in reality in malachite revarnished with BR lettering substituted for the earlier Southern lettering as part of the revarnishing process. Many will have been repainted BR red - and withdrawn in BR red - and at least one set in BR red was lined (I don't know which one, the set number wasn't visible in the photo I saw).

[Typeapproval]

Hi,

 

On the subject of coach liveries. I guess the change from the separate companies to the "Southern Railway" paint schemes would not have happened immediately on the grouping. When did the change to green begin? As I understand it the original SR green was an Olive Green introduced by Mr Maunsell . Then came Malachite. Was that also at the behest of Maunsell? Did Oliver Bulleid introduce a new shade when he took over?

 

I'm sure you will appreciate that after a lifetime of "Varnished Teak" and muddy brown the variety of liveries that have been mentioned with reference to Hornby SR coaches has been intriguing to say the least. I have seen that Heljan and Bachmann have produced SR coaching stock, but to be truthful I've not researched very deeply into their products, I gather that the most recent Hornby SR coaches are actually modelled on the real thing rather than the generic coach painted green that followed on from Triang.

 

One final question at this point, how quickly did the various company paint schemes last into SR days? 

As most of the English constituents of the LNER were already various shades of brown there was no great rush to take on a "Corporate" style, indeed for much of time simple rebranding and numbering was sufficient.

 

Kind Regards

David.

[SRman]

3 hours ago, Typeapproval said:

Hi,

 

... snipped ...

 

One final question at this point, how quickly did the various company paint schemes last into SR days? 

As most of the English constituents of the LNER were already various shades of brown there was no great rush to take on a "Corporate" style, indeed for much of time simple rebranding and numbering was sufficient.

 

Kind Regards

David.

 

There's no hard and fast answer to the "How long ...?" question. Once the new railway companies were formed, they then had to make the decisions on liveries before any repainting could commence, and even then, it took a long time to send everything through the works. Typically you could say that by about five years after formation, the majority of stock was in the newer schemes, but there were always odd survivors soldiering on in the old schemes, especially if they were scheduled for withdrawal anyway.

I do have a reference book with a photograph of a locomotive in SR days still in pre-grouping livery on 1927, so that was four years on. There's another photo in another book with a Bulleid locomotive hauling a 3-set of coaches still in Blood & Custard in early 1963 (there's snow on the ground). That's fully six years after that colour scheme was superseded. As someone else has pointed out earlier, the SR and BR Southern Region had a habit of revarnishing rather than repainting coaches, so older colour schemes could survive longer. There are stories (I can't verify them, though) of SR green coaches surviving long enough to go straight into the darker BR(S) green, bypassing the carmine and cream livery altogether.

Your best bet is to dig out as many photo images from those periods as you can, using books and online sources, and whatever else you can find. If all else fails, use Rule 1. 😉

[Nearholmer]

After WW1, LSWR coach livery was green anyway, wasn’t it? Certainly their electrics were always green (straight copy of US practice). My point being that a lot of stock was green from the start, which is why the colour was adopted.