Does anyone know what a typical formation would be in the Intercity swallow period?
Apologies for the delay, I'm only on here once a fortnight now
I worked on these between 1991 and 1994
North of Edinburgh the loco was "rostered" for a Class 47/6, on Aberdeen and Inverness
The Fort William was a Class 37/4
All trains went to Edinburgh, with the exception of the Glasgow
South of Edinburgh the normal loco was a Class 87, but was occasionally a Class 90
The Glasgow - Plymouth was normally a Class 86/2 or 86/4 (simply a normal day loco swap)
Up to 1992 there were a variety of rakes, all had seats
If you need details of these, let me know
However, there was a core formation for the Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Inverness sleeper
As a result the Aberdeen was the "swap" for maintenance on a Monday morning and left Aberdeen shortly after arrival, to swap for the Edinburgh set, arriving back about 16:00 (although often later than this!)
Why this wasn't done at Wembley is beyond me, I suspect the shunters weren't trusted to get the sets correct, although they did manage to swap the RLO between sets without any problems (as there was a spare kept at Wembley)
NHA-SLE-SLEP-SLE-RLO-SLE-SLEP-SLE-SLEP
Added to this were the seats, typically a TSO and BSO
There was then the motorail, varying between 2 and 4 coaches, depending on destination and booking levels
Intercity decided to withdraw seats on all but the Glasgow service
This allowed them to utilise the pair of Class 37s and a generator van (on the Aberdeen and Inverness sleepers, for operational reasons), removing the Class 47/6 (which had become unreliable and thus releasing these for charter duties, in preparation for the sale of the ICCU the following year)
Stagecoach Holdings (as it was then) put in a "last minute" offer to retain the seats on the Aberdeen, and this was completed with just days to spare!
The same sleeper formation was retained, but the Inverness and Edinburgh were extended by between 1 and 3 sleepers (depending on day and demand)
The Glasgow - Plymouth and Motorail was withdrawn the following year, the Fort William was also planned for withdrawal but was retained due to campaigns and political reasons
At the same time, the Inverness and Fort William were merged during the winter timetable (which presented time keeping problems!)
This presented problems on the Fort William sleeper, during the winter timetable, as this now took the train below five coaches (required for braking), the solution was to increase the number of sleepers
Eventually, sense prevailed and the train was permitted to operate with 4 coaches
Due to high level of complaints over time keeping, reliability, and cold trains, the reign of pairs (or sometimes on the Aberdeen a single 37, or even a Class 47/4) of Class 37 with generator van came to an abrupt end, with the return of the Class 47/6
However it was short lived, as another cost cutting decision was made the next year to merge the Scottish sleepers, basically to what we have today