SR slam door stock.

[lightengine]

When all the SR slam door stock was replaced where was it all taken? Was it all scrapped straight away? There must have been a huge amount of stock going all at once.

[phil-b259]

The slam door units were dispatched to the scrap yard on a regular basis during the replacement programme rather than being stored in great numbers. Obviously the exact numbers going at any one time were based on the number of new electrostars / Deseros that had recently been accepted into traffic so there were variations in the number of withdrawls and many units went through a 'component recovery' phase before the body shells were cut but certainly they weren't dumped for an extended period before cutting

 

(It goes without saying the odd few units did linger but they were the exception rather than the rule)

[Gwiwer]

A lot was taken to MoD Shoeburyness and some to the South Wales scrapyards. More still went to MoD Kyneton and a lot was broken up at the MoD sites IIRC.

 

Withdrawals and scrapping took place over an extended period of years.  Some stock was stored short-term at the varous depots awaiting sale to the scrapyards such as Brighton, Selhurst and Eastleigh with a few coaches scrapped at the latter as well I believe.

[br2975]

A lot was taken to MoD Shoeburyness and some to the South Wales scrapyards.

 

Predominantly "Gwent Demolition" at Margam, and (IIRC) "J.T.Landscapes" at the former ROF/MOD facility, Caerwent and to a lesser extent Sims, Newport Docks and even lesser extent Sims, Cardiff (but the rail connection to Sims, Cardiff required passage through the adjacent steelworks, so virtually all stock to this yard came in by road, including Cl.86 locos).

.

Brian R

[Oldddudders]

When all the SR slam door stock was replaced where was it all taken? Was it all scrapped straight away? There must have been a huge amount of stock going all at once.

Southern Railway and Southern Region slam-door stock had been going through the usual cycles of service and withdrawal for many decades. So, for example, in the early '60s CEPs & BEPs began to displace CORs and BUFs, then CIGs & BIGs to retire PULs and PANs, and by the end of the decade VEPs were displacing LAVs, BILs and HALs. The elderly SUB units that were commonplace in the early '60s when I was numbersnatching had all gone by the time I joined the industry in 1966, with only the all-steel variety in service by then. They were in turn displaced by the 455 units, just as the South Eastern's EPB fleet was replaced by 465/6. 442s replaced REP and TC formations. 365s appeared in small numbers on the South Eastern, giving a foretaste of modern power door stock to rural Kent, ahead of the 375s that finally cleared the deck of slamdoor trains there. And so on.

 

As you can see, the transition was by no means overnight, and the scrap trade was well-versed in dealing with the flow of retirees, as others have shown above.

[talisman56]

And in earlier times, Vic Berry's (before the Great Fire)...

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholasy/6926423087/in/photostream/

[NXEA!]

A lot of sets had component recovery done at depots, for instance South Central sets were sent to Stewarts Lane for shoegear removal, and a lot of early withdrawals went to depots such as Selhurst/Brighton/Fratton/Bournemouth/Ramsgate to top up their 'spares bins' to keep others going until 375-377/444/450 deliveries had begun to gather pace. What was interesting about the withdrawals was that it was generally steady for ages, but each region then had a massive blitz in one month, I remember in March 2005 SWT withdraw around 40 slamdoors overnight leaving just 2 CEP's, a few Greyhounds and a few VEP's to cover the last few diagrams into May! SouthCentral did the same around May/June, leaving a core fleet of around 15-20 CIG/VEP's which was whittled down to the last 8 from September onwards, and SouthEastern did theirs around the same time leaving just CEP 1698 and around 7 VEP's to potter around into October. Also whilst the fleets were generally withdrawn from their respective depots, there was one set of transfers that took place between regions - this was withdrawn SWT CEP's moved to the SE division in 2004 to replace the SE's own CEP's as they were in poor condition whilst the SWT ones had been looked after right to the end!

 

As for scrapping, lots of sets were cut up at Immingham RfT, particularly the early SouthEastern CEP withdrawals, and Immingham was also dealing with Virgin Class 86's at the time. Not sure where the 'magnificent seven' SE CEP's ended up, may have been Immingham too! Loads of units were dispatched to Shoeburyness and at one point there were deliveries about twice a week of 3 slam-doors in each delivery. Some were cut up there, some went from Shoeburyness to Caerwent for scrapping, and some such as 1304/1881 were stored there for years before leaving in 2010/11. Lots of sets went straight to MoD Caerwent for cutting up, and some sets made their final journey to Caerwent in the company of FGE 312's too. As others have mentioned, MoD Kineton, JT Landscapes, Newport Docks and Gwent Demolition all got their hands dirty with scrapping as well.

 

Some depot's held on to a couple of units, for instance 1705 languished at Selhurst after withdrawal in 2003 until 2005, Bournemouth depot held onto 1499 as spares for 1497/1498 until about 2006, and Ashford Chart Leacon kept 3905/3918 as shunters until earlier this year, so units did sometimes find other uses before final condemnation.

 

Gone but not forgotten!