Carriage formations

[pancratiossanders]

I know this will be teaching some of you to 'suck eggs' but it does slightly bother me when I run certain scenarios.

In the days before fixed formation multiple units there were certain requirements for UK passenger train formations that were intended to be met wherever possible.

I'll quote as follows:

Marshalling of Passenger Trains
a brake van or vehicle with brake compartment leading should, as far as practicable, be marshalled next to the engine of all Passenger trains, except where the formation is otherwise specified in the Carriage Working Instructions or delay will be caused at starting points; similarly a brake van or vehicle with brake compartment trailing should, as far as practicable, be marshalled at the rear of Passenger trains.
When passenger carrying vehicles are attached en route to either the front or rear of a train they should be marshalled within the brake van where this can be done without causing delay to the working.

Source: BR General Appendix (I work from the 1960 edition which is the only one I've got left). This includes info on the marshalling of 4w vans in passenger trains, ballast working, freight trains, oil trains, breakdown trains and the like. If anyone wants more info please let me know!

It was also normal practice to keep 1st and 2nd/3rd separate with the 1st at the 'London' or principal destination end so that the 'well-to-do' didn't wear out too much shoe leather getting through the barriers to their place of work. Where included, restaurant or buffet cars would be marshalled between the classes. This would all be made up differently where the train was to split en route, for example principal trains on the GWR / Western Region to destinations in Devon and Cornwall (which might run to several duplicates in high season).

The SR / Southern Region tended to keep their carriages in fixed formations, generally of 3 or 4 coaches in a numbered set. These would be made up in groups to the required number of carriages for that train with odd carriages added from the pool as strengtheners.

It must also be remembered that in the days of the companies and into the first two decades of BR there were vast numbers of spare carriages stored in sidings that might only appear for a few weeks every summer. As most folk took their holidays in the UK by train this was essential. It might also be recalled that in those days there were Station Masters at most stations and they had authority to strengthen trains or even call for complete additional trains to move the passengers (not customers - a different animal) to hand. Even small rural termini and junction stations would have a brake compo sitting in a siding for such an eventuality. Carriage working cycles, in themselves, are fascinating and often surprising subjects to investigate.

Every member of the railway staff took their duties very seriously and endeavoured, come rain, hail, snow or accident, to get the trains and their passengers to their destinations on time, and they didn't consider 5 or 10 minutes late to be 'right time'. In the February/March of 1963 on the Eastern Region, when the weather was much worse than the last few weeks (I know, I was out in it!), in the whole seven weeks a mere nine trains into and out of KC were more than half an hour late. Cancellations, not likely! We had a duty to passengers to get them to the destination for which they had paid their fare.

A useful source of enquiry for the make up of specific trains is through the Yahoo group 'British Railways' where a group of ex-Railwaymen can usually come up with the info pretty quickly!

Best wishes to all you scenario creators. Keep up the good work.

Bob

[philspace]

Hello Bob

A very interesting insight - many thanks

Best wishes

Phil

[yerkes]

Thanks very much for sharing this - very useful indeed.

'Duty'... 'service'... 'passengers'... a vastly different ethos from that behind today's operations, and to my mind a far better one.

I'd thought that the reason you mention for keeping 1st class at the buffer end - to keep the upper classes happy - was apocryphal, so it's interesting to hear that there was some official sanction behind it!

Michael

[skiddaw]

Hi Bob ,
One summer evening in the mid 60's I was waiting for the York to Leeds train with 1 other person at Church Fenton and the train sailed through the station without stopping. The Station Master came out and apologised for the inconvenience and said there was an engineering train due through a few minutes later and he would stop it for us. So we travelled to Leeds in a BR staff train.
Any minor annoyance I might have felt at the delay was far outweighed by trouble taken to remedy the situation. As you say we were treated like passengers who mattered and the positive impression has stayed with me to this day.

Goods vans tacked onto local passenger trains is something I still see ocasionally in Switzerland and I have a vague recollection of seeing it in the UK probably in the 1950's . Would the vans have just been coupled to the back of the passenger train?
_John

[RudolfJan]

Hi Bob ,
One summer evening in the mid 60's I was waiting for the York to Leeds train with 1 other person at Church Fenton and the train sailed through the station without stopping. The Station Master came out and apologised for the inconvenience and said there was an engineering train due through a few minutes later and he would stop it for us. So we travelled to Leeds in a BR staff train.
Any minor annoyance I might have felt at the delay was far outweighed by trouble taken to remedy the situation. As you say we were treated like passengers who mattered and the positive impression has stayed with me to this day.

Goods vans tacked onto local passenger trains is something I still see ocasionally in Switzerland and I have a vague recollection of seeing it in the UK probably in the 1950's . Would the vans have just been coupled to the back of the passenger train?
_John

Impressive, you still remember this. A real good experience this must have been.

[pancratiossanders]

One thing I for got to mention was the reason for placing brake compartments at the front and rear of formations and that was to protect the passengers in case of collision or other form of accident.

One recollection of my own in the way 'things used to be'. Back in the mid 60s travelling regularly between Grantham and Liverpool - not the easiest journey in the world:
Deltic to Retford, class 40 or similar to Sheffield, Bo-Bo electric to Manchester and steam on to Liverpool. So this particular evening, the Deltic is down on schedule, so I'm a train down all the way across the Pennines. Just make it in time for the last CLC train out of M/C Central for Warrington only at around 11.30pm. A word with the guard en route led to a confab with the driver on arrival at Warrington. A quick phone call to Control, and I settled back down to a Black 5, driver, fireman, guard and four on for a splendid run through to Liverpool Central all to myself. A never to be forgotten moment though I've no doubt the crew enjoyed a few bob extra in their pay that week. Bit different from today when you'd probably be consigned to a taxi, if you were lucky.

Bob