Southern Carriage Set 399, ratio of Brake to passengers

[Nearholmer]

Ah, but if you could see an EPB coming, you knew …….

[Wickham Green too]

You only knew that there was a van at the front if there was a triangle ..... no triangle could be a 4EPB with a van both ends or a 2EPB with a van ( and triangle ) on the back.

[Dunsignalling]

On 06/12/2022 at 22:01, johnofwessex said:

I am just putting together a Set 399 from the Hornby models.

 

3 coaches, a composite& two 3rd brakes.

 

Now I see that the Board of Trade required a brake at the end of every passenger train and that there was a lot of parcels/luggage carried in the past but even so it seems that you have the equivalent of 1 out of 3 vehicles in the set is a brake.

 

Did they in fact need this level of provision?

 

If not why not do what was done with one of the MK1 brake designs like the MK1 BSO to diagram 183 at Midsomer Norton, W9267 which has a smaller brake compartment so you have 5 seating bays/compartments instead of 4 or other Maunsell design's that had 6 compartments

 

There were initially only ten such sets, 390-399, designated 3-Set "P" and intended for West of England services to Devon and Cornwall, especially holiday resorts West of Exeter, which generated more luggage and parcels traffic than was customary closer to London. They were sometimes referred to as "Torrington Sets". Four further sets followed a couple of years later, 445-448.

 

Great care was taken to ensure they stayed on their intended services and avoid them being rostered in commuter trains where they would have been a real nuisance.

 

There were similar 4-compartment brakes built for use elsewhere but they formed part of 8-coach sets, mainly for Kent Coast and Eastbourne traffic or inter-regional workings to the North of England. 

 

Brakes with vans taking up half the vehicle were perpetuated in the BR Mk1 4-compartment BSKs which were far more common than the BSO you mention (Southern region had none of the latter). BR supplied the SR with 3-sets (BSK+CK+BSK) and 4-sets (BSK+CK+SK+BSK) with the latter losing the SK in later times. By that time, though, the country was into the baby boom and the vans often carried numerous prams off-peak.

 

Surplus van provision and commensurately reduced seating led to capacity issues when the new flagship "Royal Wessex" was introduced, including four of them. That service soon received Bulleid stock instead, with two more compartments per BSK, the equivalent of a whole extra coach-worth of seats overall.  

 

John

Edited December 8, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Compound2632]

As @Nearholmer has stated, one should not underestimate the sheer volume of non-passenger traffic by passenger train, especially in rural areas, all the way up to pigs in crates and calves in sacks. A couple of examples from an earlier period than the Southern three-coach set under discussion:

 

Study of photos of ordinary stopping trains on the S&DJR in the early years of the 20th century shows that a typical formation was five six-wheelers, marshalled brake van / five-compartment third / four compartment first / five compartment third / brake van, seating 24 first and 100 third class passengers - I doubt the trains were ever that full but I wouldn't be surprised if the vans were.

 

When the Midland built new sets of carriages for the Birmingham area in 1908/9, the sets for the Kings Norton / Lifford loop services and the Wolverhampton services were made up of six or four carriages, seven-compartment firsts and eight-compartment thirds, flanked by six-compartment brake thirds with guard's compartments just 12 ft long. (Seating 84 first and 280 third or 42 first and 200 third respectively.) But for services on the Gloucester loop line out to Evesham and beyond, four carriage sets were built with a third and composite flanked by a pair of four-compartment brake thirds, with van sections 24 ft long - over twice as much van space but seating only 24 first and 190 third class passengers. (The carriages in these sets were the prototypes of the Ratio Midland suburban carriage kits.)

 

At a still earlier period, before continuous brakes became standard and eventually compulsory, a passenger train needed guard's vans for braking, with, usually, one at the front and one at the back, and additional ones in the middle on longer trains. Those railway company directors who complained of the expense of fitting automatic brakes could at least reflect on the saving in wages from only having to employ one guard per train and dispensing with large numbers of under-guards! But this probably established the tradition of a van or guard's compartment at each end, even without any Board of Trade compulsion. (Can anyone give chapter and verse for a Board of Trade regulation on this point?) 

 

Related to this is the matter of the time taken at stations. We're used to station dwell times of less than a minute. With all that non-passenger traffic to deal with, every station stop could take several minutes, which accounts for what can seem the incredibly slow pace of cross-country ordinary passenger trains. 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Compound2632

[DCB]

So we have a three coach train, effectively a corridor composite and a two halves or a third and two halves of a full brake much the same as two Mk1 BSK s and  a CK.  It just looks wrong . Makes no sense at all unless the plan was to split the set and insert extra coaches at peak times.    It looks so wrong that we run our Maunsels as a five set with a 4 comp brake one end and a 6 at the other.

[zarniwhoop]

31 minutes ago, DCB said:

So we have a three coach train, effectively a corridor composite and a two halves or a third and two halves of a full brake much the same as two Mk1 BSK s and  a CK.  It just looks wrong . Makes no sense at all unless the plan was to split the set and insert extra coaches at peak times.    It looks so wrong that we run our Maunsels as a five set with a 4 comp brake one end and a 6 at the other.

Surely, to a Southern man, different brakes at each end (other than in a BSK/BCK pair) looks wrong ? I suspect that a five coach set will anyway tend to look odd (I'm sure there were some, but three, four and six-or-more seem much more likely).

 

Of course, Rule One can happily override what anybody says.

[DCB]

2 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

Surely, to a Southern man, different brakes at each end (other than in a BSK/BCK pair) looks wrong ? I suspect that a five coach set will anyway tend to look odd (I'm sure there were some, but three, four and six-or-more seem much more likely).

 

Of course, Rule One can happily override what anybody says.

I think we have a BSK / BCK  pair and two non brake coaches and a Diner,  Not too sure. It runs as a dated  summer relief to the scheduled train which is Mk1s,   It was a Christmas present as son and heir got fed up with my Green Hornby Caledonian coaches, which I had spent hours of making interiors for 30 years ago and really just wanted a matching Diner for.  Haven't made one yet but I will eventually when I find a couple which are bad enough to cut up.  I guess the SR sent 399 to the S&D out of the way though I see from the Blood and custard web site that a lot of SR three coach sets were strengthened to 5 by inserting extra SKs for the summer.  Thing is most of my photos are of West of Exeter and the 4 compartment BSK looks wrong as the photos all show 6 compartment brakes, and I am not old enough to have seen it first hand

Anyway I run what I like until son and heir tells me not to.   I want a Triang Battle space turbo car but don't tell him.

[Dunsignalling]

7 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

Surely, to a Southern man, different brakes at each end (other than in a BSK/BCK pair) looks wrong ? I suspect that a five coach set will anyway tend to look odd (I'm sure there were some, but three, four and six-or-more seem much more likely).

 

Of course, Rule One can happily override what anybody says.

General practice:

 

South Western Section sets were normally two, three or five. never four, plus numerous solo BCKs and SOs . Catering cars ran in pairs interspersed with them or, if time was short right behind the tender! Through much of the 1950s, there were "seasonal" sets that ran with BSK+CK+BSK in winter and BSK+SK+CK+SK+BSK in summer, though most later became permanent 5-sets. Apart from those, any "strengtheners" went on the end, not inside!

 

The Bulleid 2-sets were confined to Waterloo-Exeter-Beyond for most of their careers. After the regional takeover, the WR seemed not to want them. Some were withdrawn with survivors transferred eastward where some were made up into longer formations. Only a few continued unchanged, probably where a specific use could be found for them (e.g., Swanage or Lymington branches perhaps?) 

 

Central Section had 4-sets, presumably following EMU practice.  

 

There were dedicated 6-Dining sets (Maunsell and Bulleid) on the Bournemouth line, which normally had at least one 3-set attached which would continue to Swanage or Weymouth after the main train had terminated.

 

Beyond that lot, SR sets tended to be of 8 or 10 vehicles, mainly for inter-regional, excursion, or boat-train purposes.

 

John

[Oldddudders]

Just to re-iterate what has already been written:

 

At the April 1925 meeting of the Southern Railway Rolling Stock Committee, Maunsell put forward a number of proposals for new rolling stock. The first of these, completed in two batches,  July and October 1926, under order E94, was for 10 x 3-car sets, 390-99, with 4-compartment brakes and a composite corridor. These were to be used on WoE services to Plymouth, Torrington and Ilfracombe. The brake vehicle design was expressly to accommodate the large amount of luggage regularly brought by patrons of those routes. Seating was 24 firsts and 88 thirds. 

 

Source : Gould "Maunsell's Steam Carriage Stock" Oakwood Press 2000 Edition. 

[Dunsignalling]

5 hours ago, DCB said:

I think we have a BSK / BCK  pair and two non brake coaches and a Diner,  Not too sure. It runs as a dated  summer relief to the scheduled train which is Mk1s,   It was a Christmas present as son and heir got fed up with my Green Hornby Caledonian coaches, which I had spent hours of making interiors for 30 years ago and really just wanted a matching Diner for.  Haven't made one yet but I will eventually when I find a couple which are bad enough to cut up.  I guess the SR sent 399 to the S&D out of the way though I see from the Blood and custard web site that a lot of SR three coach sets were strengthened to 5 by inserting extra SKs for the summer.  Thing is most of my photos are of West of Exeter and the 4 compartment BSK looks wrong as the photos all show 6 compartment brakes, and I am not old enough to have seen it first hand

Anyway I run what I like until son and heir tells me not to.   I want a Triang Battle space turbo car but don't tell him.

The 3-sets with the 4-compartment brakes were originally provided for services to Plymouth, Ilfracombe etc. with a high demand for luggage space in summer and substantial parcels/sundries traffic all year round. There were more of them than were needed for the S&D and they tended to remain where they started, even after they ceased to run in multi-portioned trains to the capital. 

 

I remember them putting in occasional appearances on Salisbury-Exeter locals (usually with a SO or SK tacked on the end) just before withdrawal but, by then, the big vans would have been of neither use nor ornament.

 

John      

Edited December 17, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[DCB]

On 17/12/2022 at 10:24, Dunsignalling said:

The 3-sets with the 4-compartment brakes were originally provided for services to Plymouth, Ilfracombe etc. with a high demand for luggage space in summer and substantial parcels/sundries traffic all year round. There were more of them than were needed for the S&D and they tended to remain where they started, even after they ceased to run in multi-portioned trains to the capital. 

 

I remember them putting in occasional appearances on Salisbury-Exeter locals (usually with a SO or SK tacked on the end) just before withdrawal but, by then, the big vans would have been of neither use nor ornament.

 

John      

I found  a  photo of 4 compartment brakes in a 3 car set as the first three coaches of a 5 or more coach  Exeter Salisbury local  in clean Carmine cream livery dated 1957.  The  strengtheners look possibly Stanier  one Carmine / Cream one Maroon, so maybe they gravitated to these services before repainting in Green.  I am struggling to find pictures of them West of Exeter in BR days.  Lots of 6 comp brakes.  Loose and in sets.

 

 

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, DCB said:

I found  a  photo of 4 compartment brakes in a 3 car set as the first three coaches of a 5 or more coach  Exeter Salisbury local  in clean Carmine cream livery dated 1957.  The  strengtheners look possibly Stanier  one Carmine / Cream one Maroon, so maybe they gravitated to these services before repainting in Green.  I am struggling to find pictures of them West of Exeter in BR days.  Lots of 6 comp brakes.  Loose and in sets.

 

 

IIRC, six out of the ten sets were allocated to the S&D by 1957. The remainder probably were working between Salisbury and Exeter. 

 

Through portions to/from further West had been upgraded to Bulleid stock by then and most of the "Withered Arm" locals had gone over to 2-sets, a coach saved at a loss of only three compartments of seating. Less if the BCK was paired with a SO rather than a BSK.

 

"Foreign" coaches would have been exceptional on WoE stopping services, though. Usual strengtheners at that time were other Maunsells (SK or SO) ex-LSWR 56' panelled corridors or Ironclads. Post-1960, though, ER Thompson (and some Gresley) stock appeared in some quantity.

 

Exeter-Salisbury line stoppers generally employed 4-6-0s in the 50s/60s (usually Maunsell S15s as the numbers of Arthurs and H15s dwindled), seldom with more than six-coaches in tow; and often fewer. The idea was that if a heavy express got into difficulty on one of the banks, the following stopper had enough power in hand to assist.

 

Having a "big van" set might be compensated by omitting a PLV, which were often attached to shorter formations.

 

John 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Michael Hodgson]

Where trains divided en route it would be necessary to have a brake vehicle in each portion, and that could explain multiple brakes in some trains especially at the London end of a longer distance journey.

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Where trains divided en route it would be necessary to have a brake vehicle in each portion, and that could explain multiple brakes in some trains especially at the London end of a longer distance journey.

More than 50% of the Atlantic Coast Express formation when running as a single train was made up of 6-compartment brakes. Often a dining pair, one 3-set, one 2-set, the odd SK or two and the rest brake composites.

 

The 3-sets with 4-compartment brakes were very sparingly used on long distance trains even when new as the van capacity was needed only for destinations beyond Okehampton and the low seating capacity a positive nuisance anywhere else.

 

John

Edited December 25, 2022 by Dunsignalling