TRIVIA - Things you saw travelling on BR that you don't see today

[Whistler40145]

Travelling Post Office trains

 

[OuterDistant]

• Guards lugging a SPORTIS around, and having to use a fares manual for more complicated journeys
• The 1960s-onwards platform signage which, being plain "black on white", now looks very dull indeed - to me, anyway!

 

[Hartington]

Signal boxes. They still exist but in much reduced numbers.

Paying to put a bicycle on a train. Then the Cyclists Tourist Club negotiated a deal where you had to apply for a free ticket. That only lasted a short time before BR simply allowed bikes on free.

At the age of 9 being put in a coach at Waterloo that went all the way to Bude and my parents having a word with the guard to keep an eye on me! On another occasion a few years later coming back from the Isle of Wight to Waterloo where I was supposed to be met by an Aunt. When I couldn't find her I found a policeman who took me to the station manager who started make calls - Aunt tuned up an hour late!

Q1s going through Chiswick when we lived there.

Level crossings with gates (operated from the adjacent signal box).

Fingerboards to tell you what the next train was supposed to be.

 

[co-tr-paul]

Different trains that you could actually couple up together. Its so daft that modern stock is not compatible with that of the franchise next door.

 

[Bevan Price]

Even more. There were just about 20,000 BR locomotives in 1950, not counting any of the electric multiple units.

Summarised from RCTS Locomotive Stock Books:

31 Dec. 1947 (Handed over to BR)
Steam locos: 20023
Diesel: 53
Petrol: 2
Electric 16
Diesel Rail Car: 40 (GWR)
Steam Railcar: 3
EMU power cars: 2006

31 December 1957:
Steam: 16954
Diesel: 802
Petrol : 2
Gas Turbine: 2
Electric: 71
DMU (powered cars): 1955
EMU coaches (powered) 2601

31 December 1967

Steam: 362
Diesel: 4742
Electric: 341
DMU (Power cars): 2370 (+1609 unpowered coaches)
EMU (Power cars) : 3043 (+ 4403 unpowered coaches)

Totals exclude service (departmental) stock.

Diesel locos & DMU power cars reached their maximum totals in 1966, with 4961 locos and 2424 power cars.)

By the end of 1968, BR had only 3 steam locos (Vale of Rheidol line)

 

[03_179]

For me:

Brutes: A godsend on the end of a platform
Decent loco hauled stock: TransPennie, Waterloo-Exeter, Waterloo Alton, Scotrail 47/7 push/pulls, Invernes to Kyle/THurso/Wick.
Full Depots: Stratford, Cardiff Canton.
Family: When it didn't matter if you were in the southwest, the North, Anglia we were all BR and we never dumped on one another.

 

[Marklund]

As reminded from another thread, proper named services, not just the token one or two.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Some good beers on there. Several ruined by mergers and acquisitions over the years.

...also some rat pee too - Stones and Wilsons yukk!

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Nicely said! Everything was better in the past (we think), but we inevitably taint our memories and obliterate the bad bits! The very definition of "nostalgia".

Talking of modern brutalism, have a look at the new footbridge at Gomshall, (North Downs line) which recently replaced the pedestrian crossing with its gigantic, wheelchair-accessible network of ramps and angles, and which dwarfs the entire rural station with its sprawl. I don't know if anyone in a wheelchair has ever used Gomshall (and of course they should not be denied it), but the solution is incredibly disproportionate.

...every Cotswold line station has an awful turgid brown monstrosity in the name of 'access'. Am sure they cost enough - surely a little more thought into design would be justified.

 

[randyrippley]

Wicker baskets full of racing pigeons

Pigeon cars FULL of pigeons (usually at the seaside e.g. Weymouth)

 

[randyrippley]

Class 55s growling through Crewe station. The noise just seemed to echo for ages. Being really young the locos felt like they were the biggest thing I've ever seen. A class 55 will always be my favourite sound.

Crewe?
How often did that happen?

 

[Garmoran]

Level crossings with gates (operated from the adjacent signal box).

Level crossings with gates (operated by the secondman and guard). I remember this was routine at Morar for 15 years or so from about 1970 on. Did it happen elsewhere?

 

[Hornet]

Level crossings with gates (operated by the secondman and guard). I remember this was routine at Morar for 15 years or so from about 1970 on. Did it happen elsewhere?

Manorbier rings a bell. Not certain though.

http://www.philt.org.uk/BR/BR-class-37/i-v6SSJ9k

Mind not playing tricks!

 

[bastien]

The taxi rank through the middle of Paddington station - with the ramp up and out.

Network Days - go everywhere in NSE for a quid or something silly. There was a sort of exhibition at Waterloo one time, too.

 

[nlogax]

Network Days - go everywhere in NSE for a quid or something silly. There was a sort of exhibition at Waterloo one time, too.

Bloody LOVED Network Days. 'How many 50s can you travel behind for a fiver?' 'AS MANY AS POSSIBLE'

 

[Cowley]

Bloody LOVED Network Days. 'How many 50s can you travel behind for a fiver?' 'AS MANY AS POSSIBLE'

They were excellent. The first one I did in 1986 or 87 we caught the 0550 Exeter to Brighton/Hove and had to buy singles to Pinhoe because at the time that was were Network Southeast started, it was later on that it reached Exeter Central even though obviously the trains went there.
We visited so many places around London that day, every train was rammed.

 

[Mag_seven]

They were excellent. The first one I did in 1986 or 87 we caught the 0550 Exeter to Brighton/Hove and had to buy singles to Pinhoe because at the time that was were Network Southeast started, it was later on that it reached Exeter Central even though obviously the trains went there.
We visited so many places around London that day, every train was rammed.

I did a couple of those as well - seemed like every gricer in the country had descended on London!

(were there not similar days both in ScotRail and Northwest England?)

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Going into the stores and asking for 2ba nuts and washers (it's an S&T thing) being asked how many you wanted and the storeman would count them out. No more and no less.

- My best example of BR 'economy' is the BR drawing pin. How did you know it was a BR drawing pin? Because it was carefully engraved/stamped with 'BR' in the head. As seen (once, when I was going round putting up TSSA notices) in Western Tower some time between 1991 and 1997.

I always wondered how much (if any) money was saved by preventing the pilfering of drawing pins against the cost of having to have the things if not specially made then specially engraved.

 

[bastien]

- My best example of BR 'economy' is the BR drawing pin. How did you know it was a BR drawing pin? Because it was carefully engraved/stamped with 'BR' in the head. As seen (once, when I was going round putting up TSSA notices) in Western Tower some time between 1991 and 1997.

I always wondered how much (if any) money was saved by preventing the pilfering of drawing pins against the cost of having to have the things if not specially made then specially engraved.

If it's anything like the BR engraved mirror, it actually made them MORE likely to be pilfered! It seemed like everyone had one above their sink when I were a lad!

 

[CentralTrainer]

Buffet cars serving draught beer in the early days of HSTs.

They still do that on the Bergen - Oslo service in Norway. Was quite a nice surprise when I took the sleeper overnight a couple of years back - although the bag of cans we'd bought didn't get used!

 

[nw1]

As with many things about latter-day BR, it's worth watching the Victoria Wood Great Railway Journey to see just how rough and depressing it was. In the 1990s it felt like half of it was about to be closed down. Nothing like the present-day growth franchises and the impeccable presentation of stations etc particularly by the likes of LM (even their smallest ones).

Not really my experience (with the caveat below) I have to admit - perhaps around 1982-84 things looked quite "old" but I remember the NSE era everything looked quite modern. Regularly travelled Southampton to Bath in the 1990s (both late BR and Wales and West) and again the stations were in a reasonably good state, though the trains (158s with the odd 150, as now) had a tendency to be late and overcrowded (which was worse under W&W than BR).

Late BR was also when a good number of modern stock was introduced - 15x, 165/6, 442 etc - which again gave late BR a modern feel.

Having said that - I do remember timetables being run down around 1991-93 probably due to the recession. 1988-90 saw a good many improvements the "SWT" area (Weymouth electrification with 442s; Greyhound CIGs; speeding up of various services out of Waterloo e.g. the Alton trains; Solent electrification) but I do remember several cuts during 1991 and around 1993 we had as few as two trains an hour on the Portsmouth Direct off-peak.

As for things more common in BR times... more in the way of frequency and train length variation between peak and off peak, though the latter was also the case in the earlier days of private operators; 10 or 15 years ago there were much more in the way of 4-car trains into Waterloo off-peak for example. Sometimes the off-peak/peak variation was quite dramatic; for example on the Knutsford line (something of a special case these days due to Metrolink, admittedly) I am fairly sure it went from hourly off-peak to something like 4 or 5 trains an hour in the peak circa 1984.

 

[03_179]

Proper Open Days like the ones at Stewarts Lane, Doncaster, Crewe Works etc.

Used to have about 5 or more a year at locations all over ....

EDIT:
Thought of another one .....

Proper interregional services ... Brighton to Manchester/Glasgow or Glasgow to Harwich (The European).

 

[Elmers End]

Excellent thread. So evocative I decided to join and add my own recollections, albeit a little dull compared with most.

4EPBs with a whole carriage locked out, to be filled with mail sacks at London Bridge, and being emptied out at Clock House on the Mid Kent Line.

Periodic flooding at Clock House by the Chaffinch Brook – with steam haulage of the emus through the flood water. Not my recollection but my dad told me that had happened when he came home late from work.

Side corridor coaches

Table 51 in full British Rail Timetable

Affordable All-Line Rail Rovers

Pick-up goods trains seen in suburban station goods yards

Seeing a train containing Ambulance coaches passing through Bromley South. I assume these were Lourdes Pilgrimage Specials but stand to be corrected

Seeing and hearing 12 car Hastings demus hurtling through New Cross for the first time

Being able to put a motorcycle into the guards van but having to carefully workout where your journey would end so that you could actually heave the dead machine out into the street, ie stations with no footbidges or subways between platform and street. I remember having to push my dead Velocette Venom 500 up the slope at Waterloo East (from Hastings) and fortunately being able to access the taxi road on the level – not possible now in all respects.

Risking a good hiding if you pointed out the NO SMOKING window stickers to the smoking oaf slumped in the corner!

 

[Wookiee]

For me:

Brutes: A godsend on the end of a platform
Decent loco hauled stock: TransPennie, Waterloo-Exeter, Waterloo Alton, Scotrail 47/7 push/pulls, Invernes to Kyle/THurso/Wick.
Full Depots: Stratford, Cardiff Canton.
Family: When it didn't matter if you were in the southwest, the North, Anglia we were all BR and we never dumped on one another.

What used to work the Waterloo to Altons? 33s?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I still think the NRM at York ought to have a recreation of a typical BR admin / traffic office with 3 drawer desks , minimally padded chairs , Bakelite phones with no outside access until you talked past some harridan (they were always quite challenging ladies) as to why you needed a GPO number. (the internal system was actually quite good) - the ability to send mail and packages "OCS" (on Company service) to anywhere in the UK or Eire with total security and good service.

Typing pools / piles of papers / telex machine rattling away in a cubby hole.

Dim lighting

Carpet tiles if you were lucky. Tiles or line with a rug otherwise.

 

[nw1]

What used to work the Waterloo to Altons? 33s?

Nothing loco-hauled AFAIK has worked Waterloo Alton since at least 1983 (but see below, was possible in 1989/90...)

There were a few oddities on the South Western in the 80s though; for instance a regular 1700 or so Waterloo to Salisbury and Eastleigh which was made up of a 33, 4TC and 8VEP. This would then split at Basingstoke with the 33/TC to Salisbury and the VEPs to Eastleigh.

Later on, in the 1989/90 timetable for one year only when the 442s were introduced but there were still TCs around, there were about two Waterloo-Southampton stoppers per day which were made up of a push-pull 73 and one or two TCs. One left Southampton around 0850 and another around 1650, IIRC. It's possible these might have found their way onto Alton services, as IIRC many incoming trains to Waterloo in this era from Southampton then formed Alton services, and vice-versa. In particular ISTR these xx50 stoppers from Southampton arrived Woking (xx+2)05 which would get them into Waterloo in time to form the (xx+2)55 to Alton, as it was at the time.

This was the first year that the Southampton stoppers were completely separate from the Altons (in previous years they divided at Woking - who remembers "this train is for Surbiton, and Waterloo. Surbiton and Waterloo *only*. Another portion will be attached to the rear of the train"...)

 

[Cowley]

Nothing loco-hauled AFAIK has worked Waterloo Alton since at least 1983.

There were a few oddities on the South Western in the 80s though; for instance a regular 1700 or so Waterloo to Salisbury and Eastleigh which was made up of a 33, 4TC and 8VEP. This would then split at Basingstoke with the 33/TC to Salisbury and the VEPs to Eastleigh.

Later on, in the 1989/90 timetable for one year only when the 442s were introduced but there were still TCs around, there were about two Waterloo-Southampton stoppers per day which were made up of a push-pull 73 and one or two TCs. One left Southampton around 0850 and another around 1650, IIRC.

This was the first year that the Southampton stoppers were completely separate from the Altons (in previous years they divided at Woking).

Yes, pretty certain it was always VEPS on the Alton services back in the early 90s at least.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

What used to work the Waterloo to Altons? 33s?

As the line was 3d rail electrified in 1937 , in later BR days it would have been 4 VEP or 4 CIG ..

 

[ChiefPlanner]

As the line was 3d rail electrified in 1937 , in later BR days it would have been 4 VEP or 4 CIG ..

2 HAPS also ....sometimes 4 of them coupled together - giving 8 cabs and 4 brakevans !

 

[nw1]

Yes, pretty certain it was always VEPS on the Alton services back in the early 90s at least.

Pure VEPs off peak (but some CIGs and HAPs peak) in the mid 80s in the dividing-at-Woking days IIRC, though by 1997 in early SWT days there were a fair few CIGs particularly off peak, in fact in the middle of the day the majority were CIGs: perhaps the aim was to attract more off-peak traffic by using "express" stock, perceived as more comfortable, which was unneeded on fast services off-peak so could be deployed on slower routes like Alton services?