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When were non-corridor carriages replaced?

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damo44

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Hi

I was watching a documentary about the 1864 murder of Thomas Briggs in east London. A major factor of this case was non-corridor stock where a victim and his attacker were isolated in a single compartment.

I believe non-corridor stock was immediately seen as scary, and there were calls to phase out this stock in favour of newer corridor carriages. I understand that interim measures were the introduction of the communication cord and a small window between compartments known as (at least according to Wikipedia) as Muller's lights. Is it just me or does that sound suspiciously like a jocular Wiki reference to the modern yoghurt?

Anyway my question is when did non-corridor stock a) finally cease production and b) stop being used on national rail (or BR/big-four etc.)

Some of the dates I've seen mentioned online seem too recent in my experience (1950s for a) and 1980s for b) ). I'm pretty sure I've never been in one. Did it really take ~100 years to eliminate non-corridor stock?
 
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headshot119

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...replaced.

Hi

I was watching a documentary about the 1864 murder of Thomas Briggs in east London. A major factor of this case was non-corridor stock where a victim and his attacker were isolated in a single compartment.

I believe non-corridor stock was immediately seen as scary, and there were calls to phase out this stock in favour of newer corridor carriages. I understand that interim measures were the introduction of the communication cord and a small window between compartments known as (at least according to Wikipedia) as Muller's lights. Is it just me or does that sound suspiciously like a jocular Wiki reference to the modern yoghurt?

Anyway my question is when did non-corridor stock a) finally cease production and b) stop being used on national rail (or BR/big-four etc.)

Some of the dates I've seen mentioned online seem too recent in my experience (1950s for a) and 1980s for b) ). I'm pretty sure I've never been in one. Did it really take ~100 years to eliminate non-corridor stock?

Depends how you define none corridor stock.

The class 127 DMU cars were in use up until 1989, and had no access between coaches. But you could walk through most of the individual coach.

I'm fairly sure MK1 Suburban compartment stock lasted into the early 1960s.
 
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yorksrob

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Non corridor saloon stock was certainly in use until 2005 when the last 205 Thumpers went from the Southern Region. Non-corridor stock was being built into the early 60's at least, thinking of some of the local 1st gen DMU's.

As for the non-corridor compartment stock, Some of the EPB's still had them into the early 90's, although they were only used on peak services in the end (various trailers had been refurbed and swapped around so that the majority of EPB's in use all day long were all saloon by then). Celebrity EPB 5001 had a compartment trailer until the end.
 
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Polarbear

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Non corridor stock was certainly in use with BR in the 1970's & the 1980's. Prior to the Great Northern electrification from Kings Cross/Moorgate, there were still non corridor loco hauled coaches in use on the peak hour loco hauled turns.

On the Southern, units such as 4-SUB & 4-EPB didn't have corridor connections & were in use until the 1980's.
 

W-on-Sea

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There was a murder on a Southern Region compartment EMU in 1988 (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21875096 for some info), which really was a major factor in doing away with (or, rather, speeding up the already ongoing doing away with) the small compartment stock (ie typically 12 seats per compartment, with no access to any other part of the carriage or the train). In response to that, red lines were painted above the windows of those sections of carriages that had such compartments, so that they could be avoided by anyone who didn't wish to sit in one.

Apart from Southern Region, these small compartments were still in use on the London Tilbury and Southend Class 302s, until their refurbishment did away with them. But they would have all gone by the early 90s.
 

MarlowDonkey

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On the Southern, units such as 4-SUB & 4-EPB didn't have corridor connections & were in use until the 1980's.

There's a distinction which needs to be made between stock where you could not move from one carriage to another and stock where you could not move from one compartment to another.

The former lasted to the end of first generation DMUs and EMUs. Carriages where you were confined to a single compartment were being phased out in the 1970s, either by scrapping them or rebuilding them as "Open".

The "advantage" of true compartment stock was that whilst the seated limit in "open" carriages was 3 one side and 2 the other, without a gangway, you could have 7 a side.

From what I recall, even London Transport had true compartment stock in the Watford electrics and the stock that was hauled to Aylesbury. That was replaced by open , but not gangwayed between vehicles, A60 and A62 stock.
Elsewhere the DMUs were also internally gangwayed, following to an extent the designs of autocoaches they replaced.

Probably the Southern Region was the last to build true compartment stock for EPBs etc.
 

Taunton

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You have to distinguish between "Non Gangwayed" and "Compartment" stock. The latter are the individual fully-across compartments with no access up or down inside the coach. Gangways are between vehicles. Side corridors normally went with gangways between vehicles, but there were a few that didn't, just to give access to toilets within the coach.

Compartment stock was built up into the modernisation plan emus, my guess would be that the last built were the Class 304 for the Liverpool/Manchester electrification in the early 1960s. There were plenty of close contemporaries, such as the outer suburban units out of Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street, and the most widespread of all the EPB units on the Southern. These were all units formed partly of compartment coaches and partly of open coaches, still without corridor connections between cars.

These units lasted up to around the year 2000, the last being the EPB units, but starting around 1980 there was a sustained rebuilding plan for all of them to strip out the compartments and install open seating, The 25Kv units had gangway connections between cars added, along with much better lighting, and were a substantial project. The EPB units were done more cheaply (as ever on the Southern) by replacing some of the units and then remarshalling to get rid of the compartment cars.

The last loco-hauled compartment stock were built in the mid 1950s, and ran on the GN suburban lines until 1977, being replaced by electrification. The GN seems to have regularly had the worst suburban vehicles, in 1939 it was still using vehicles to Broad Street which did not have full height compartment partitions, so you could go down the coach by mountaineering over the seats.

The upside of compartment stock was its high seating capacity, with no space lost to aisles. Theoretically 6-across bench seats each side and 10 compartments gave 120 seats in a coach. To put it another way, each such coach had getting on for as many seats as a current Class 378 4-car unit! The downsides were that it was unusual to actually get 6-across, apart from schoolkids, 5-across was what you comfortably achieved. It was also the case that some compartments would be fuller than others, if passengers alighted from the next compartment you could not know, to move seats, so the actual proportion seated wasn't that different. Boarding times could be extended, particularly in the am peak at the final inner suburban stations towards the terminus as passengers ran up and down the platform to see where there were any seats left. Standing passengers inside compartments were a real squish, and if it was a smoker you can imagine the conditions - or maybe not!

An old terminology which seemed to have died out by the 1960s was to term what we now see as normal open saloon stock as "Centre Corridor".

... 1864 murder of Thomas Briggs in east London. A major factor of this case was non-corridor stock where a victim and his attacker were isolated in a single compartment.

I believe non-corridor stock was immediately seen as scary, and there were calls to phase out this stock in favour of newer corridor carriages.
Corridor vehicles were unknown at this time, they only came into service around 1890-1900, and even then only on the principal expresses, the main driver being provision of access to the restaurant car. I imagine quite a number of the lesser pre-1923 grouping companies never had a single corridor vehicle.
 
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SpacePhoenix

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I think there might have been non-corridor stock on the routes through London Bridge and Waterloo East before the Networkers were introduced
 

dubscottie

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The 4-EPB's (did some not survive till 1993) or 3 car 305's around Manchester must have been the last?
 

yorksrob

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The 4-EPB's (did some not survive till 1993) or 3 car 305's around Manchester must have been the last?

Yes, the EPB's lasted until 1995, so they definitely had a good innings. By this time, the compartments had long since gone (with the exception of two units repainted into traditional liveries) and the majority were refurbished.

Only around half had been refurbished in the early 80's. The non refurbished ones were easily identified as they retained tungsten lighting and trojan moquette - although due to carriage swaps most of these were also all saloon.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
As I mentioned earlier, the 205 thumpers were saloon non corridor stock and lasted until 2005.
 
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GatwickDepress

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One Thumper, renumbered 205 205, underwent an experimental modernisation refurbishment in the 1980s, which added corridor connections with inter-carriage doors similar to those found on the 455s/456s. It's currently preserved at the Epping Ongar Railway.
 

klewer

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I'm sure I recall there being a few compartment carriages on the SWT trains out of Waterloo in 2003-04. 4-CIG maybe?
 
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yorksrob

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I'm sure I recall there being a few compartment carriages on the SWT trains out of Waterloo in 2003-04. 4-CEP maybe?

CEP's CIG's and VEP's all had them, but these were of the corridor type.

The longer distance 'non corridor' type units were the 2 HAP's. These had a composite carriage with compartments which did have a corridor, however this only gave access to the loo rather than the rest of the train, which were standard class non-corridor saloons. These lasted until about 1995.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
One Thumper, renumbered 205 205, underwent an experimental modernisation refurbishment in the 1980s, which added corridor connections with inter-carriage doors similar to those found on the 455s/456s. It's currently preserved at the Epping Ongar Railway.

Got that many times on the Marshlink (happy memories). This had had it's compartments opened ou.
 

Ash Bridge

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I'm sure I recall there being a few compartment carriages on the SWT trains out of Waterloo in 2003-04. 4-CIG maybe?

But surely the 4-CIGs if compartmented all had a side corridor and gangway connections between vehicles?
 

JonathanH

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Yes, the EPB's lasted until 1995, so they definitely had a good innings. By this time, the compartments had long since gone (with the exception of two units repainted into traditional liveries) and the majority were refurbished.

Only around half had been refurbished in the early 80's. The non refurbished ones were easily identified as they retained tungsten lighting and trojan moquette - although due to carriage swaps most of these were also all saloon.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
As I mentioned earlier, the 205 thumpers were saloon non corridor stock and lasted until 2005.

Some of the BR-design 2-EPBs numbered in the 62xx series lasted longer than the compartment 4-EPBs into 1994. These had half a trailer coach with non-corridor compartments.

In addition to the first class area which gave access to a toilet, the last batch of 205s had one 12-seat standard class compartment between first class (one less compartment) and standard class which had no access to elsewhere in the train although my recollection is that this ended up locked out with the seats removed in their final days.

It has never been clear to me why the 302/305/307/308 fleet got the more extensive refurbishment with class 317-style seats and the EPBs carried on with the traditional seats. I guess that the 25kV units worked longer distance journeys.

Although I went on 305/5s, 307s and 308s after they went north, I never got to ride one of the 305s which got class 319 seats without a full refurbishment. That must have looked a bit odd relative to what went before. Are there any pictures of that interior?
 
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yorksrob

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Some of the BR-design 2-EPBs numbered in the 62xx series lasted longer than the compartment 4-EPBs into 1994. These had half a trailer coach with non-corridor compartments.

In addition to the first class area which gave access to a toilet, the last batch of 205s had one 12-seat standard class compartment between first class (one less compartment) and standard class which had no access to elsewhere in the train although my recollection is that this ended up locked out with the seats removed in their final days.

Ah cheers. I think all the 2EPB's I went on had been refurbished and opened out. How I miss the infinite variety of them!
 

AM9

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I remember the GE non-corridor stock with mixed feelings. When they were lightly loaded it could be pleasant having a compartment to onesself. In the peak, it could get quite hectic, especially when there were passengers standing, - there wasn't anywhere to put your feet. In the 'work to rule' disputes of the early '70s I have been in a compartment with 12 standing and 12 seated. If somebody seated on the opposite side to the platform wished to alight, it usually meant most of the standees stepping out onto the platform. At times like that, the elderly 306s were quite welcome.
The composite cars in each set were side-corridor for first class only with access to the toilet. The rest were 2nd class with 6+6 seating.
One characteristic of the 6 seats that I do remember was the springyness of the long seats. On a 10 minute stretch of GE metals at 75mph, the bouncing up and down against the fixed seat back tended to pull shirt tails above the belt-line. Those who complain about firmer modern seating would be dissapointed to commute as we did in these little 6ft x 8ft boxes in seats that weren't very ergonomic. And they didn't have charging points!
 

damo44

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Thank you everyone for the plethora of information, helpful as always.

There's a distinction which needs to be made between stock where you could not move from one carriage to another and stock where you could not move from one compartment to another.

I was thinking about those carriages where you were confined to a single compartment, typically seating 4 or more passengers per row in two facing rows.

From the reading I had done, I'm aware that corridors could be a single one connecting all compartments along one side of the carriage. Or there could be more than one corridors linking compartments of the same class with a toilet.

I'd seen connections between carriages described as 'gangways' or 'corridor connectors' so no I wasn't considering that having one of those makes it corridor or corridor vs non-corridor.
 
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Deepgreen

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The real gems/horrors of the compartment world were the 11-compartment 4SUB vehicles (the majority were 10-compartment) which survived in small numbers into the 80s/90s and were incorporated into EPBs. These had no legroom between opposing seats and standing was nigh impossible without being pinned in place by knees! The opposites were the very few ex-composite vehicles from the very first batch of SUBs which were declassified before entering service in the 1940s, but which had their erstwhile first class compartments built to a much more generous legroom.
 

GatwickDepress

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The real gems/horrors of the compartment world were the 11-compartment 4SUB vehicles (the majority were 10-compartment) which survived in small numbers into the 80s/90s and were incorporated into EPBs. These had no legroom between opposing seats and standing was nigh impossible without being pinned in place by knees! The opposites were the very few ex-composite vehicles from the very first batch of SUBs which were declassified before entering service in the 1940s, but which had their erstwhile first class compartments built to a much more generous legroom.
Speaking of the SUBs, I wonder if anyone on this forum has been lucky (sic) enough to travel on one of Bulleid's 4DDs during crush hour...

Got that many times on the Marshlink (happy memories). This had had it's compartments opened ou.
As do I. Continued right until the end on the ML, bless South Central and their appalling reliability when introducing new stock. <D
 

damo44

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The real gems/horrors of the compartment world were the 11-compartment 4SUB vehicles (the majority were 10-compartment) which survived in small numbers into the 80s/90s and were incorporated into EPBs. These had no legroom between opposing seats and standing was nigh impossible without being pinned in place by knees!

Sounds rather cosy :D

I don't recall ever actually travelling in a compartment, on a scheduled service (whether corridor or non-corridor). Although I'm in my late 40s I suppose that I happened to have mainly lived in areas where they didn't get used much.

I've only travelled in compartments on preserved railways, or seen them in old films, so I probably have a romanticised view of them. The reality was probably different.

Actually, to contradict myself I now have a vague memory of travelling once or twice between Birmingham New Street and Perry Barr (must have been around 1991) on an old EMU which had a partition across the carriage I was travelling in, how many seats were in the other section I don't know. It looked bigger than what I think of as a traditional compartment though.
 

MarlowDonkey

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It looked bigger than what I think of as a traditional compartment though.
[/I]

The 115s which operated out of Marylebone would have been similar. These had 3+2 seating with at least two doors either side to each set of seats. Unlike the similar 117s operating out of Paddington, they didn't have internal gangways any longer than the length of the compartment, nor corridor connections between the carriages. The advantage of no gangways was that it becomes possible to use six across seating in places.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_115

As the wiki suggests, these lasted until 1992 and a bit.

True compartment stock was confined to the Southern Region by the end of steam with the possible exception of the loco hauled trains out of Moorgate. Even then, the single box version was increasingly regarded as unsafe for passengers and so they were opened out or replaced.

Side corridor loco hauled stock, although not made in second class form since the 1960s generally survived until the general cull of slam door stock in the 1990s.

The Western Region even had some side corridor DMUs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_123
 

Wolfie

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I remember the GE non-corridor stock with mixed feelings. When they were lightly loaded it could be pleasant having a compartment to onesself.

A friend of mine wasn't quite by himself in an EPB compartment where he claims to have joined the 4'6'' club.....;)

The former lasted to the end of first generation DMUs and EMUs. Carriages where you were confined to a single compartment were being phased out in the 1970s, either by scrapping them or rebuilding them as "Open".

Probably the Southern Region was the last to build true compartment stock for EPBs etc.

I would have to, having used closed compartment EPB stock in the rush hour into Blackfriars in the mid-late 1980s, at least partially disagree with your first para.
 
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physics34

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I do remember seeing a red stripe across the top of a blue/grey Mk1 EPB when I was younger around 1993) thinking.... "Buffet""???! On an epb?! On closer inspection of course it all made sense!

I'm pretty sure the last of these 2EPBs were still in service very close to the end of EPB operation. 1994 I guess.
 
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physics34

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From 1994 stock book. The 77xxx coaches are Driving Trailer Standard "Semi-open". It was just these and 5001left at the time.
 

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Deepgreen

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Speaking of the SUBs, I wonder if anyone on this forum has been lucky (sic) enough to travel on one of Bulleid's 4DDs during crush hour...

Yes - my father took me on a trip from London Bridge on the units near their demise in August 1971 - a hot day, upstairs with almost no ventilation! It was like climbing into a loft in a heat wave!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
A friend of mine wasn't quite by himself in an EPB compartment where he claims to have joined the 4'6'' club.....;)

Or even the 4'8.5" club?
 

theageofthetra

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Remember the compartment EPB's well as I used to travel back from school from Tonbridge to Sevenoaks on them in the 80's. I am convinced that one service in the afternoon was a schools special and consisted of the oldest stock. Invevitably all the bulbs would be removed in the compartment through Sevenoaks tunnel and some unfortunate would find themselves in the string luggage rack with their shoe laces firmly tied to it. I can certainly remember a compartment door being almost knocked off when some kids in compartment further up opened it up on the approach to the tunnel. Many rumours abounded of one intrepid group who would climb out of one compartment door window go along the wooden running board and into the next one!
 
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yorksrob

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Those who complain about firmer modern seating would be dissapointed to commute as we did in these little 6ft x 8ft boxes in seats that weren't very ergonomic. And they didn't have charging points!

I would take a springy Southern Region cushion over a hard modern seat any day !
 
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