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1950 weekday express Ramsgate to Birkenhead

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Peter Fox

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I'm reading a Ministry of Transport accident report for an accident on Wednesday 1st February 1950. It concerns a passenger express from Ramsgate(dep 08:58) to Birkenhead. The accident took place at 12:10 at East Shalford between REIGATE and GUILDFORD. So it's taken nearly three and a quarter hours (running 2 mins late) to not yet reach Guildford!

I'm curious to know the route and timing of this train. To get to Guildford I'm taking a long shot that it went from Ramsgate to Dover then Ashford, Tonbridge, Redhill (reverse). Then where was it going? Little Chittering on the Sly?
 
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eastwestdivide

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My winter 1957-58 timetable has it, one in each direction "week days only", as Table 11.
Through carriages:
a) Margate to Birkenhead (including a through buffet car),
b) Sandwich, Deal, Dover to Birkenhead,
c) Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton to Chester.
Timings (some omitted for laziness/clarity) as follows
Portion a):
Margate at 0918, Ramsgate 0934, via Minster, Canterbury W 1001,
Portion b):
Sandwich 0910, Deal, Walmer, Martin Mill, Dover P 0945, Folkestone J, Folkestone C, Shorncliffe
Presumably joining portions a and b at Ashford
Ashford dep 1031, Tonbridge 1106...
Meanwhile,
Portion c):
Hastings 0925, St L WS, St L West Marina, Bexhill C, Eastbourne dep 1003, Brighton dep 1047
Presumably joining the other portions at Redhill
Redhill dep 1140, Guildford 1216, North Camp 1231, Reading General 1257-1307, Oxford, Banbury, Leamington, Birmingham Snow Hill arr 1524, Wolverhampton LL, Wellington, Shrewsbury arr 1636, Gobowen, Ruabon, Wrexham General, Chester General arr 1758, Birkenhead Woodside arr 1837.

Edit: still shown as a separate table in the winter 1963 timetable, without the Brighton portion, and summer Saturdays only.
0845 from Margate, Ashford 0958, Redhill 1108, Guildford 1143, Reading 1242-52, but only as far as Wolverhampton LL arr 1526, after which connections were shown to the other stations to Birkenhead.
 

Peter Fox

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Many thanks for your comprehensive reply eastwestdivide. Lots of food for thought about the nature of cross country travel, organisation, journey times, shunting/joining/splitting. Handling parcels must have been fun when a train splits. Apart from the Wolverhampton Low Level bit the route(s) is still doable.
 

eastwestdivide

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Apart from the Wolverhampton Low Level bit the route(s) is still doable
...and Woodside terminus.

Today, following the same route at roughly the same departure time:
0851 Margate-Ashford 0939
1002 Ashford-Tonbridge 1038
1101 Tonbridge-Redhill 1138
1214 Redhill-Reading 1319
1345 Reading-Birmingham 1518
1525 Birmingham-Chester 1721
1731 Chester-Birkenhead Central 1804
So oddly not much quicker! Mostly down to poor connections in the SE.

Alternatively, on the same departure, the recommended route:
0851 Margate-St Pancras 1021
walk to Euston
1107 Euston-Liverpool 1320
1333 Liverpool-Birkenhead HS 1340
 

Bevan Price

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And in the last years of steam operation, some of these trains used ex-GWR Manor Class 4-6-0s between Reading General & Redhill; ex-SR or BR Standard locos worked between Redhill and the coastal resorts.
 

big all

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yes the drivers when ii was a secondman at redhill around 72 used to talk about the birkinheadas probably the only real interegional worked by redhill in the steam
and as said 3 parts joining and splitting at redhill :D
 

Pyreneenguy

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I've got the L.M.R timetables for 1950. Almost identical timings to 57/58 , just arriving at Woodside 2 minutes earlier. There was a restaurant car Margate to Woodside.
 

30907

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From memory of the documents, SR and WR stock alternated on this (as with other interregional trains).
 

WesternLancer

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Fast fwd to late 90s and I recall Virgin running thru to Ramsgate with hired in Deltic on a few occasions IIRC.

Touched on here - tho not to/from merseyside so somewhat different - gets a mention on this site dedicated to the Brighton inter-regional
http://www.1s76.com/1S76 1999.htm
 

big all

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late 80 and 90s at redhill we used to work the brightons from croydon to reading and sometimes oxford and return intermingled with reading drivers the services changed quite a bit over the years
my favorite turn was around mid day on pass to croydon work the brighton around via kenny to reading and on to oxford around 3 hours at oxford then work a bomo as far as reading then take the 47 light to redhill for the vans
we also had a full night turn
last stopper to reading pass to oxford and something like 0327 oxford [21xx manchester to brighton] 12 on vacuum steam heating to east croydon arriving about 0550 or there abouts:D
 

Taunton

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I think it unlikely that the refreshment car worked right through to Birkenhead. Normally only half the carriages were taken beyond the Chester reversal. Among other things the platforms at Woodside were surprisingly short for a main line station. It was a strange terminus, always (by the mid 1960s) seeming completely deserted. Tuplin, the longstanding railway book author, came from Birkenhead, and wrote it was the same 50 years before. The through trains did actually carry quite good loads on this last leg, but almost everyone heading for Liverpool got out at Rock Ferry for the electric service, the days of doing the last lap on the ferry were long gone, and Woodside is not near anything of consequence in Birkenhead either. I got the impression that the passengers were generally from intermediate points, journeys like Wrexham to Liverpool seemed to be the main purpose.
 

eastwestdivide

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I think it unlikely that the refreshment car worked right through to Birkenhead...

My 1957 timetable says otherwise. Note for the northbound train:
Buffet Car and Through Carriages – Margate to Birkenhead.
Through Carriages – Sandwich, Deal, Dover and Folkestone to Birkenhead.
Through Carriages – Hastings, Eastbourne and Brighton to Chester.

(and a corresponding note for the southbound, buffet car and through carriages Birkenhead-Margate)
Birkenhead Margate Winter 1957.jpg
 

sammyg901

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I just bought a house in Ramsgate, so this is most interesting, what a curious service! Almost unthinkable that this was running under the Virgin brand in relatively modern times

I managed a trip from Kenny O to Gatwick on XC before that ceased but otherwise sadly didn't get to try too many of these unusual workings
 

Peter Fox

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Thank you to everyone who contributed facts and memories. A forever lost part of our culture.

Email notifications when there's a thread addition seem VERY sparce. Otherwise I'd have participated more.
 

30907

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I just bought a house in Ramsgate, so this is most interesting, what a curious service! Almost unthinkable that this was running under the Virgin brand in relatively modern times

I managed a trip from Kenny O to Gatwick on XC before that ceased but otherwise sadly didn't get to try too many of these unusual workings

Just to clarify - the Cross Country/Virgin service to Ramsgate also ran via Kenny then Chatham, as per WesternLancer's link not via the North Downs route.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Just to clarify - the Cross Country/Virgin service to Ramsgate also ran via Kenny then Chatham, as per WesternLancer's link not via the North Downs route.

In late BR days this was a Liverpool-Folkestone service via Reading, Kensington and Chatham, and on summer Saturdays to Ramsgate.
It kept varying its route, especially on Saturdays, and at one point it ran round Kent in a circle from Bromley South via Chatham, Dover, Ashford and Tonbridge.
But I don't think it ever went via Redhill and Guildford - that was left to the XC Brighton (occasionally Eastbourne) services.
Sometimes it did work via Clapham Jn and Staines to Reading rather than the West London Line and Ealing Broadway .
Eventually cut back to Reading before Virgin took over, with a summer Saturday service via the WCML and WLL to Ramsgate.

Services via Wolverhampton-Chester-Birkenhead were quite busy up until the WCML route was fully electrified in 1967, and then savagely cut back to local shuttles.
There was also a Birkenhead-Bournemouth service via Reading, with restaurant car throughout.
 

Taunton

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The issue with the Reading-Tonbridge line has always been (and still is to an extent) the reversal at Redhill, in an extremely constrained layout, especially for freight, which dates from early Victorian times when the South Eastern Railway built and ran these lines as London Bridge-Redhill-Tonbridge and London Bridge-Redhill-Reading. There have been various proposals for a direct link (it nearly came to fruition in WW2), and I believe the land required was protected by planning controls until quite recently, but the downside is that trains then miss Redhill and the Gatwick/ Brighton line connection, which is the principal station and traffic generator of the route east of Guildford. A loop from the northern end of Redhill station direct to either of the lines, avoiding reversal, does not fit geographically.
 

big all

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The issue with the Reading-Tonbridge line has always been (and still is to an extent) the reversal at Redhill, in an extremely constrained layout, especially for freight, which dates from early Victorian times when the South Eastern Railway built and ran these lines as London Bridge-Redhill-Tonbridge and London Bridge-Redhill-Reading. There have been various proposals for a direct link (it nearly came to fruition in WW2), and I believe the land required was protected by planning controls until quite recently, but the downside is that trains then miss Redhill and the Gatwick/ Brighton line connection, which is the principal station and traffic generator of the route east of Guildford. A loop from the northern end of Redhill station direct to either of the lines, avoiding reversal, does not fit geographically.
the height restriction is still in force as far as i know at redhill
aldi or one off the other german retailers wanted to build a retail unit but pulled out when the height restriction came to light
although don't take this as a hard fact as the source was a local paper :D
 
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