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WR four auto coach train 1960s

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Hello all,

I'm new here. I've signed up in order to ask for help in identifying the location of a photo that I just received from a friend.

It was taken during a university geological field trip in the late 1960s. I don't remember seeing this train, so I might not have been on this trip. I'm sure I would have remembered it, since I grew up in Maidenhead and travelled on the Marlow Donkey when it was a 14xx Autotrain. However, that was just a one coach train. I wasn't aware that there were four coach trains.

Does anyone recognize the location?
 
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John Webb

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Welcome to the Forum.
Virtually every door seems to have someone hanging out of the window - could this have been a special for enthusiasts, perhaps? Or may be the 'Last Train' on a branch line somewhere? Sorry I can't give an identity to the location.
 

Cowley

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Is that somewhere on the South Devon Railway in the late 1960s?
Possibly this train:
8C7A77C7-E69C-4A51-A51A-B9D7702B8AE9.jpeg
(Not my photo)
 

randyrippley

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I was under the impression that the GWR limited autocoach sets to two cars only for safety reasons with the controls.
 

Taunton

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I was under the impression that the GWR limited autocoach sets to two cars only for safety reasons with the controls.
It was actually a longstanding Board of Trade stipulation that only two unpowered vehicles could be propelled ahead of the power unit. This lasted right through to CIG/VEP emus, which could have two unpowered cars ahead of the motor car. It was finally rescinded in the mid-1960s after some extensive trials with a special full set, which allowed the REP/TC type of formation.

The GWR themselves took advantage to the full, and formations like the one shown, with a tank engine in the middle, two in front and two behind, were, somewhat occasionally, provided. It was of course common that push-pull trains were generally used on lightly loaded lines, single coach being the most common. Two coach trains could be either two at one end, or one either side of the loco. The latter was preferred because the GW auto train system with the mechanical linkage underneath the loco and coaches with universal joints worked ok for one coach, less so where the driver was two coaches away. There actually weren't too many auto-coaches available to do that sort of formation anyway.

The LBSC AC electric trains from about 1910 also ran as 5-coach sets, two trailers either side of a power car, to be compliant with this rule.
 

30907

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AFAIK Plymouth Division ran 2+loco+2 formations on the Saltash route.

The chocolate and cream livery points to the then Dart Vslley Railway; whether it was the inaugural train as per Cowley's recreated shot I can't say. The scenery also says DVR/SDR to me.
 

70014IronDuke

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Hello all,

I'm new here. I've signed up in order to ask for help in identifying the location of a photo that I just received from a friend.

It was taken during a university geological field trip in the late 1960s....

Surely there were no 14XX working then? I don't know when the last finished, but I'd say there was no chance of a 14XX on a scheduled service after late 65. (I seem to remember seeing one or two 14XX on Worcester shed in August 65, but they must have been on their last legs.)
 

AndrewE

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AFAIK Plymouth Division ran 2+loco+2 formations on the Saltash route.
A picture of just such a working on the approaches to the Saltash bridge popped up in the last couple of days, obviously not on this thread, I will try to remember where...
 

Taunton

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Surely there were no 14XX working then? I don't know when the last finished, but I'd say there was no chance of a 14XX on a scheduled service after late 65. (I seem to remember seeing one or two 14XX on Worcester shed in August 65, but they must have been on their last legs.)
That's not a 14xx in the middle, it's a pannier tank. If auto-fitted likely a 64xx. Nor were there two-tone (it's a B&W photo) auto trailers by then, they had been maroon for quite a while before their demise. I think the last auto trailer line was Gloucester-Chalford, finishing about 1965, with 14xx and single coach. Given the date it's a preserved line, and I can't think of one other than the Dart Valley, which did have all this stuff by about 1966-7.
 
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Thanks everyone for their input. I have found this photo of the DVR's inaugural run:
Nursery-Pool-inaugural-train-6412-11.15-am-from-Buckfastleigh-05-April-1969-0955-copy-1024x655.jpg

It's titled "Nursery Pool inaugural train 6412 11.15 am from Buckfastleigh 05 April 1969". The train is crossing the Dart downstream of Buckfastleigh. A push-pull train was used because the DVR were not allowed into Totnes station, so the engine could not run around the train.

My university friend lived in Newton Abbott so I suspect he made a trip to see the train and the geological field trip was a red herring!
 

Bevan Price

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If "late 1960s" is correct, then it is almost certainly on a heritage line. I think that the last autotrains on BR were no later than about 1964 or 1965.
 
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Bevan,

Thanks. It’s the Dart Valley Railway. I posted earlier, but it’s waiting on a mod’s approval, probably because I posted a picture.

Update: My post has been approved. See Post 13.

Taunton was right - the loco is 6412.
 
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randyrippley

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That's not a 14xx in the middle, it's a pannier tank. If auto-fitted likely a 64xx. Nor were there two-tone (it's a B&W photo) auto trailers by then, they had been maroon for quite a while before their demise. I think the last auto trailer line was Gloucester-Chalford, finishing about 1965, with 14xx and single coach. Given the date it's a preserved line, and I can't think of one other than the Dart Valley, which did have all this stuff by about 1966-7.

I have a memory of an autocar set at Yeovil Town around 1964/5 still in chocolate/cream. Presumably for the Junction shuttle.
Green loco, presumably a pannier though I really can't remember, with a trailer either side. It sticks in the mind because I tried telling my father that the train was driven from the coach end and he told me to shut up and stop talking rubbish...........I was aged 5 or 6 and could understand more than he did.
Strangely enough I've no memory of the train we did catch to Exmouth
 

Gwenllian2001

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I have a memory of an autocar set at Yeovil Town around 1964/5 still in chocolate/cream. Presumably for the Junction shuttle.
Green loco, presumably a pannier though I really can't remember, with a trailer either side. It sticks in the mind because I tried telling my father that the train was driven from the coach end and he told me to shut up and stop talking rubbish...........I was aged 5 or 6 and could understand more than he did.
Strangely enough I've no memory of the train we did catch to Exmouth
I'm sure that your memory is at fault. Auto cars were originally painted Carmine and Cream after Nationalisation but this was superceded by allover maroon from the mid Fifties. The only coaching stock painted chocolate and cream surviving into the sixties would have been a handful of Restaurant cars from the dedicated sets on named trains.
I have a memory of an autocar set at Yeovil Town around 1964/5 still in chocolate/cream. Presumably for the Junction shuttle.
Green loco, presumably a pannier though I really can't remember, with a trailer either side. It sticks in the mind because I tried telling my father that the train was driven from the coach end and he told me to shut up and stop talking rubbish...........I was aged 5 or 6 and could understand more than he did.
Strangely enough I've no memory of the train we did catch to Exmouth
 

30907

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I'm sure that your memory is at fault. Auto cars were originally painted Carmine and Cream after Nationalisation but this was superceded by allover maroon from the mid Fifties. The only coaching stock painted chocolate and cream surviving into the sixties would have been a handful of Restaurant cars from the dedicated sets on named trains.
A single trailer either side of the loco would be an odd formation too - why would the crew go to the trouble?
 

Merle Haggard

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4 coach push pull trains were operated in normal service on the Dart Valley, not just on the opening train - I travelled on (and photographed) a 4 coach train one summer's day in 1968 or 9 as a diversion during a week of Warship/D6300 haulage bashes. As an aside, the railway only seems to have 3 autotrailers now - anyone know what happened to the 4th?
 

70014IronDuke

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That's not a 14xx in the middle, it's a pannier tank. If auto-fitted likely a 64xx. Nor were there two-tone (it's a B&W photo) auto trailers by then, they had been maroon for quite a while before their demise. I think the last auto trailer line was Gloucester-Chalford, finishing about 1965, with 14xx and single coach. Given the date it's a preserved line, and I can't think of one other than the Dart Valley, which did have all this stuff by about 1966-7.

Silly me, I didn't look, and think I was influenced by the OP's avatar!
 

Taunton

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A single trailer either side of the loco would be an odd formation too - why would the crew go to the trouble?
Might have been a shunting nuisance to get the second vehicle on the other end (eg loco and single coach arrive in the bay road loco leading, to find the strengthening trailer against the buffers). Also, as described, one trailer worked OK but with two the mechanical linkage through all those intermediate joints didn't feel good, and I once heard that for some trailers the linkages were known to be impossibly tight with two.

In truth, the drivers did prefer to be on the loco anyway, their home and familiar territory, going in one direction (preferably the chimney first way) with the coaches behind. I never saw the Taunton-Castle Cary auto train, it finished before my time, but although provided with fitted loco and trailer I heard a number of crews ran round at both ends anyway.
 
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A question about autocoach controls that had not occurred to me before I started this thread, since I had previously only seen one-coach trains.

On a four-coach train, were the controls on the trailing coaches disconnected to reduce the friction or were the linkages on the loco designed so that front and back were two independent systems?
 
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