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HST Coach Lettering

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ryan125hst

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I have seen that from their introduction until the mid 2000's, HST's on the East Coast Main Line were formed of 8 coaches and were lettered as follows:

TGS - A
TS - B
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TRFB - F
TF - G
TF - H

In the mid 2000's GNER obtained spare HST coaches (former Midland Mainline Virgin Trains, I forget which) and extended them all to 9 coaches.

Ultimately, they were lettered as follows:

TGS - A (Guards Van), B (Seating)
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TS - F
TS - G
TRFB - J
TF - L
TF - M

Did the HST's coach lettering get changed to this at the same time as the extension to 9 coaches, or was another coach lettering system used first? I'm aware the above came in for reasons of standardisation following the Mallard refurbishment program.

Frustratingly, I saved an image that might have answered this question years ago, but my not as savvy 12 year old at the time self modified the image to make it correct as it was out of date! I wish I thought to save the original! It's titled 125 Diesel Train Arrangements if someone happens to have it saved - think I got it from a long gone Fotopic account but i'm not sure.
 
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transmanche

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I have a notion that one of the drivers for re-lettering the HST coaches was the abolition of smoking carriages, which happened in August 2005 and fits in with your timeline.

My vague recollection is that coach B was the standard class smoking carriage. I don't think there was a coach A on the 91+mkIV sets, so the smoking carriage was next to the loco. On the HSTs the smoking carriage was one coach away from the loco. (Was there a fear that it was too close to the fuel tanks?)

When smoking was banned on-board, I guess they took the opportunity to standardise the coach lettering?
 

hexagon789

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Did the HST's coach lettering get changed to this at the same time as the extension to 9 coaches, or was another coach lettering system used first?

The first list of letters matches up with what BR used, so imagine GNER stuck to that and then changed them at the time of lengthening to 9-car and homogenising them to be akin to the Mk4s
 

jopsuk

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for comparison, the 9 car Mark IV formation:
loco
B: TSOE
C: TSO
D: TSO
E: TSO
F: TSOD
H: RSB
K: FO
L: FOD
M: FO
P: DVT (letter used for bike reservations, as with A on HSTs)

Something I never really understood was why the two formations were not made even more similar- eg with the same number of 1st class carriages, catering vehicle the same way round.
 

sprinterguy

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I have a notion that one of the drivers for re-lettering the HST coaches was the abolition of smoking carriages, which happened in August 2005 and fits in with your timeline.

My vague recollection is that coach B was the standard class smoking carriage. I don't think there was a coach A on the 91+mkIV sets, so the smoking carriage was next to the loco. On the HSTs the smoking carriage was one coach away from the loco. (Was there a fear that it was too close to the fuel tanks?)

When smoking was banned on-board, I guess they took the opportunity to standardise the coach lettering?
The lengthening of the HST sets, Mallard refurbishment and abolition of smoking carriages all occurred within the same twelve month period or thereabouts, so it makes sense that the carriage lettering was rejigged at that time.

For historical record, find attached the GNER train formations circa 2002, including the location of smoking carriages.
 

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DarloRich

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always annoying having to go walk the smoking carriage on the HST formation. i assume this was because they didn't want the guards compartment in the smoking zone.
 

Failed Unit

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cant blame them for that!
I could imagine the reaction if they had tried. If I was a guard on a HST forced to work in a smoking coach I would be straight on the phone to my RMT rep. Never enjoyed having a reservation in coach A as you needed to walk through the smoke to get to the buffet.
 

DarloRich

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I could imagine the reaction if they had tried. If I was a guard on a HST forced to work in a smoking coach I would be straight on the phone to my RMT rep. Never enjoyed having a reservation in coach A as you needed to walk through the smoke to get to the buffet.

agreed!
 

duffield

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If I remember correctly the 1st class smoking coach was always next to the loco on Midland Mainline (as it was then) right up to the abolition of smoking coaches.
 

ryan125hst

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Okay, I've been doing a bit of digging around online and have found a few more things. As sprinterguy has shown above in the image showing the 2002 GNER coach layouts, the formation at this time was as I have posted above:

TGS - A
TS - B
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TRFB - F
TF - G
TF - H

However, thanks to the Wayback Machine, I have found formations from April 2004. At the bottom of the page, it shows a nine coach HST formation with a Coach K. Looking at the coach numbers, it looks like they lettered them as follows:

TGS - A
TS - B
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TS - F
TRFB - G
TF - H
TF - K

So they basically shunted all the letters up one from the added TS and added K (instead of I or J) to the end.

This made it very similar to the 225 formation posted by sprinterguy above, although it's odd that Coach K was chosen instead of just using Coach M as per the 225's.

I then found this website which shows formations in a post from August 2004 (scroll down to the bottom for these):

TGS - A
TS - B
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TS - G
TRFB - J
TF - L
TF - M

It looks like they were making a move towards the standard Mallard style formations at this point, although the HST's still differed here as they have a coach A. Coaches G, J, L and M were as they were until retirement last month however.

The 225 formations of the time are also shown, although that's a topic for another thread to avoid going off topic here.

Finally, I'll attach the image I referred to in my original post that I stupidly altered. I have no idea where I got it from back in 2007 so I can't credit the owner of the image - maybe it was from an old Fotopic page or another since shut down railway image site? In that image, coaches J, L and M haven't been altered, but A-G have, so I can only assume that it dates from the above formation change. Curiously, the original formation shown is of an 8 coach HST with A-H lettering, which raises the question of whether the April 2004 formations were correct at all?

If anyone has a copy of the unaltered image and can upload it that would be great :)
 

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rebmcr

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If anyone has a copy of the unaltered image and can upload it that would be great

It must have come from a non-web source (email list, BBS, Usenet, etc) because there are no matches whatsoever on reverse image searches.
 

ryan125hst

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It must have come from a non-web source (email list, BBS, Usenet, etc) because there are no matches whatsoever on reverse image searches.

I tried a reverse image search as well and found the same. I think it was either from Fotopic or maybe one of the railway photo sites that have since gone, The Sidings or Rail Scene I think they were called.
 

ryan125hst

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I found the original image by chance the other night. It appears it's from Joyce Whitchurch's now discontinued website. I was able to find the original image thanks to the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20060531073644/http://joycewhitchurch.care4free.net/gner_hst.jpg

So, according to this image, which presumably is a layout used by railway staff for reservations, the lettering was as follows:

Original:

TGS - A
TS - B
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TRFB - F
TF - G
TF - H

Following the extension of the HST's to nine coaches, which occurred towards the end of 2003 and at about the same time the Mallard refurbishments of the 225 sets commenced.

TGS - A
TS - B
TS - C
TS - D
TS - E
TS - G
TRFB - J
TF - L
TF - M

This matches up with several videos I have been able to find from the 2003 to 2005 era on YouTube.

I can only assume that the formation listed on that other website that included a coach K was wrong?
 

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