The same way that the used bedding from the Down service from Paddington to Plymouth was dealt with, which was bagged up and sent back to London the next night in the van. Only an accountant then withdrew the van, so it was piled instead in the forward end vestibule. This was the laundry that caught fire in the Taunton Sleeper Fire.
Passenger Services over Unusual Lines sheds some light here.
British Transport Hotels had a major contract for dealing with sleeping car linen at its three laundries. My guess is the linen found its way to the most convenient one. I know one was in Willesden, next to the WCML. Can anyone recall the location of the other two? I think one was in Scotland and all three had been inherited from the LMS, but memories dim with the passing decades.
Presumably en route to Willesden!
1/5/72 to 6/5/73 Section A working timetable:
Thank you - most interesting. I had it nearly right from memory!
6/5/74 to 4/5/75 there was 6F08 00:12 MX Parcels Northampton-Leicester D700 but this wouldn't have been advertised since it was a class 6 train. I don't have the previous year's working timetable.
If that had been around I would likely have tried my luck (and in those days might well have got away with it!).
Two sleeping cars - although I only ever saw one in use (the SLC) and I think 5 seated coaches (never particularly busy, I always got sole occupancy of a compartment), and at least six vans.
And I would guess there was a BSK in the train even before it became a Parly - very common on such trains, whether or not advertised.
Timing loads for passenger/parcel trains were always based on tare weights, but they were i nevitably approximat. With 16 passengers = 1 ton, the variation between light and heavy loadings would only amount to 10% of the total train weight, and that's about the same as the extra weight of Commonwealth bogies over Mk1, or indeed the variation among coach types.
I don't know about parcels/newspaper trains, but for passenger workings the timing loads assumed:
My recollection is that vans used for mail and news had "maximum load 1½ tons evenly distributed" stencilled on them.
Currock certainly had an excellent reputation during my years with Speedlink.
Excellent little case study of how to motivate folk at all levels. Thanks for this, just a shame about the bigger picture regarding Speedlink.
Currock also did some of the DMU parcels vans conversions. Also refurbished the moleplough cable train.
Look forward to reading a report of your journey - nice idea!
Not any longer, alas. It's been cut back - starts at Sheffield now.
The Thames-Clyde was usually routed through Trent and Leicester - didn't take the 'back road'. (That was for The Waverley, at least most timetables that I'm aware of. (Sorry to rain on the party!
)I seem to recollect one or the other of these named trains described in an old magazine around 1960, that (possibly only for a year or so) the Down train routed through Melton Mowbray, Nottingham and Derby, stopping at Trent. The Up equivalent routed more directly via the Erewash Valley and Leicester, also stopping at Trent, so both Up and Down trains stopped at the same platform there, heading in the same direction.
The Starlight Specials ran at exactly this period, Glasgow to London. There is a whole book about them
www.amberley-books.com
The Starlight Express was, IIRC, a cheap overnight seated-only service which ran in the late 1950s/early 1960s from Glasgow St Enoch to London St Pancras via Kilmarnock, Dumfries, Carlisle, Leeds and Nottingham. It was a bit like the Nightrider, which ran between Aberdeen and Kings Cross in the early 1980s, but using steam-hauled Mark 1 stock.
The Starlight Expresses were using Marylebone in 1962.
Thanks for both of those bits of info. Shame about the Sunday service I must say. I did it both ways a few years back.Not any longer, alas. It's been cut back - starts at Sheffield now.
The Thames-Clyde was usually routed through Trent and Leicester - didn't take the 'back road'. (That was for The Waverley, at least most timetables that I'm aware of. (Sorry to rain on the party!
