Blue pullman replacements

just an idle query.

watching Lets go to Birmingham, and then reading and learning of the sad death of the driver featured in the film, in the dorridge rail crash a year later.

which was a blue pullman replacement using a western and pullman coaches.

id never knew of these replacements or the crash.

id like to know a little more, such as coaches used on these trains, how regular they replaced the blue pullmans, locos used etc etc

just any real discussion on them would be great

thanks

Mike

The replacement set for the Blue Pullmans came about when the WR decided to use all three of their BP sets on a daily basis. It was known as the "Wells Fargo" and used some of the cars formerly used on the South Wales Pullman and some others displaced from the East Coast by new Metro-Cammell vehicles. Some of he cars acquired the names of rivers in WR territory, a pleasant change from girls'names or gem stones. Later on a second set was assembled including a couple of Mk 1 open firsts painted in Pullman colours.

I've seen some discussion on a Yahoo group about this topic - I think it was Robert Carroll's coaching stock group and I'm sure he will say so if it was. [EDIT: it was in fact the GWR e-list, sorry people]

Chris

Hi Mike,

There's a photo of D1031 Western Rifleman on the replacement down Bristol Pullman in Keith Montague's 'Westerns, Hymeks and Warships' (OPC 1975). There's no date alas, but it shows the headcode 1B15 and the first three Pullman vehicles in Sonning Cutting, with D1031 in remarkably clean maroon livery, at a guess I'd say the pic dates from around 1963/64.

The locos used would have been any Type 4 that was available at Bristol, Old Oak, Tyseley etc, Westerns, 47s and possibly D800 Warships. The Hymek 'stand in' which Rich mentions could well have been on the South Wales Pullman replacement, as they were frequently used on normal South Wales services anyway, when the booked Western or 47 was not available.

D1040 Western Queen was the loco involved in the Dorridge crash of 15th August 1963, there's a photo of the incident in the Ian Allan colour book 'Western Steam Farewell', although the stock isn't seen in the photo. In another Ian Allan book 'Heyday Of The Westerns' there's a very good shot of D1002 Western Explorer' in green livery hauling the repalcement Birmingham Pullman (1M02) up Hatton Bank on 6th June 1963.

HTH

Nidge

There were several different standby sets during the 1960s. At one time, the WR needed two sets - one as standby and the other to cover for a Blue Pullman being overhauled.

After withdrawal of the Queen of Scots, some 1960 second class cars were transferred to the WR and used as firsts in the standby set, reported by Brian Haresnape in his Pullman book as being formed in 1965 of:

54, 106, 340, 352, 344, 105, 55

340, 352 and 344 were the upgraded 1960 cars.

thank you guys

very interesting.

do we know of any shots on fotopic or the like?

Mike

Kevin Robertson's "Blue Pullman" book (2005, Kestrel) also has details on the "Wells Fargo" stock.

David

Accident report for the Knowle & Dorridge collision is at: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Knowle1963.pdf

As usual with these reports, the most striking thing is the extreme ordinariness of everything, right up to the point where it all became very un-ordinary indeed.

Jim

thanks again

there some brief footage, of a maroon western on a mix of old and newer pullmans on diesels and electrics on 35mm

Mike

As usual with these reports, the most striking thing is the extreme ordinariness of everything, right up to the point where it all became very un-ordinary indeed.

It seems it was OK at the time for the outer distant to be at well under the braking distance out from the stop signal. There was a rule that the train had to be checked at the previous box when it didn't have a clear run, but this seems to have been poorly defined and not fully understood by the staff involved. On this occasion ignoring this rule, along with another signaller error and a slightly slow response by the driver, resulted in three deaths.

When one of the fundamental principles of absolute block is that the distant can't be cleared until all the associated stop signals are clear, I was surprised to read that there was no interlocking to enforce this at the only distant signal far enough out to matter. The excuse in this case was the close spacing of the boxes, but for me that doesn't wash as closely-spaced boxes usually meant a busy line where signaller errors were more likely and the risk of severe consequences much more.