Electrification/modernisation of LSW Waterloo-Salisbury-Exeter

[Cowley]

Interesting stuff. There were some sections of jointed track (around Seaton Junction for example) that seemed to be travelled over very fast in the 1980s behind 50s.

 

[Bald Rick]

Having checked the current sectional appendix, the linespeed is 90 but there are several sections where "trains composed wholly of Class 442, 444, 450 or HST stock may run at 100mph".

Indeed. I remember pitching up at Brookwood station on a Sunday in around 1986 with my Dad - either for him to renew his season ticket or for me to buzz round the car park in his Escort. Or both. Anyway some of the point work at the west end of the station was being renewed, with everything being worked via Single Line Working through one platform. My Dad asked a ganger (who didn’t seem to be doing much other than hanging around) what the work was being done for. The response was that it was for the HSTs which were coming to the line. Dad, knowing a thing or two about this sort of thing, suggested that perhaps he meant the new Bournemouth line units. The ganger had no idea what they were - this work was definitely for HSTs.

It was at that point in my early teenage years that I realised that statements confidently made or written by railway people are not necessarily accurate. Something that has held me in good stead for the following 30+ years.

 

[hexagon789]

Indeed. I remember pitching up at Brookwood station on a Sunday in around 1986 with my Dad - either for him to renew his season ticket or for me to buzz round the car park in his Escort. Or both. Anyway some of the point work at the west end of the station was being renewed, with everything being worked via Single Line Working through one platform. My Dad asked a ganger (who didn’t seem to be doing much other than hanging around) what the work was being done for. The response was that it was for the HSTs which were coming to the line. Dad, knowing a thing or two about this sort of thing, suggested that perhaps he meant the new Bournemouth line units. The ganger had no idea what they were - this work was definitely for HSTs.

It was at that point in my early teenage years that I realised that statements confidently made or written by railway people are not necessarily accurate. Something that has held me in good stead for the following 30+ years.

That's certainly true, but I'd suggest the ganger wasn't entirely wrong seeing as HSTs can use the differentials though the work was of course for the 442s.

 

[Bald Rick]

That's certainly true, but I'd suggest the ganger wasn't entirely wrong seeing as HSTs can use the differentials though the work was of course for the 442s.

Has an HST ever been able to use that 100mph permitted speed? (Genuine question).

 

[hexagon789]

Has an HST ever been able to use that 100mph permitted speed? (Genuine question).

And a perfectly reasonable one.

Personally, all I can say is they are certainly allowed to travel at up to 100 but I've no actual idea if HSTs have been up that way.

 

[coppercapped]

Explained in post 41. No need to repeat the points. If you can't see the difference between 100+ years of established workings on flaghips routes, and a brand new set up on a route that management will not have in primary focus, I don't really know what else I can say to help you.

Times had changed and the Salisbury to Exeter section was no longer a 'flagship route' - it ever was. It carried the Southern Railway's trains to Devon and Cornwall - which were well publicised - but only carried large numbers of passengers on about ten or a dozen weekends in the year. Twenty four days in three hundred and sixty five. After most of the west country branches had been closed it carried a semi-fast train about every two hours which east of Salisbury ran to London. There were no commercial winnings or operational advantages to be gained if it had remained under the Southern's control.

If we are talking about 1963 (which is, IIRC, when Wilton - Exeter went to the WR), this is simply not true for the WR. (I can't speak for the stations west of Basingstoke, but I don't believe it is true for those either.)

For example, in 1963 there were at least two through peak hour LHC trains per day serving Didcot - Thames Valley stations - Reading - Paddington. I think they came from Oxford, but can't swear to that. These were already Hymeks by the time I saw them, but I assume they were Hall or County-hauled before diesels became available. Didcot certainly had a couple (2? 3?) Counties allocated specifically for commuter trains into London.

There were commuters from the VAle of White Horse too before they closed stations like Wantage Rd and assumed everyone would henceforth drive to their enforced railhead at Didcot.

These were not unusual distances. On the GN there were similarly two loco-hauled peak hour through trains to KX (usually with New England A2s or A3s) that attracted commuters from Huntingdon, St Neots, Sandy and Biggleswade - we are talking 50 - 70 miles here - far greater distances than the 36 miles from PAD to Reading. On the LNW there were commuters from Northampton for sure, again, 65 miles from Euston.

Of course, commuting in terms of passenger numbers and distance was nothing like what we have today, but to say the commuter limit was Reading is simply false.

Of course, commuter workings got more intense the closer you got to London. Nobody would argue with that. But simply repeating your point and deeming any other argument is "post-fact rationalisation" doesn't make it so. It is not true that the limit for daily commuting on the WR c 1963 was Reading. Not in 1963, and not for some years before that, because I don't believe those trains suddenly appeared for the first time in the 1963 timetable.

That is true (relatively) for almost every line emanating from London. It doesn't mean to say that there was not traffic to be had, even on winter Tuesdays, despite the original hope to close the LSW at Sherborne (another enforced railhead for folks from Yeovil). And, going back to the original point of the thread, I still say that had the line stayed in SR ownership, that that traffic could have been built up earlier and more easily than what ultimately transpired.

Please try reading what I wrote. I did not write that there was no season ticket traffic west of Reading, I wrote that

...similarly Reading was the effective limit from Paddington.

(My bold). Of course there was some traffic west of there, people travelled from Oxford and, to a lesser extent, from stations in the Vale of the White Horse to Swindon and to and from Newbury - but the numbers fell off considerably. One has also to allow that trains were not as fast then - it took 40 to 45 mins for a non-stop steam hauled train to reach Reading from Paddington and an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half to reach Oxford or Swindon with a stop or two. Almost by definition this limited season ticket travellers from those distances to those who didn't have to be at their desks before about 10 am and could be sure of leaving work punctually in order to make sure they didn't miss one of the few trains home.

The Vale of the White Horse traffic was sparse and the stations between Didcot and Swindon all closed about this time even though the costs of the route were carried by the longer distance traffic - the local traffic did not even cover its movement costs. In the case of the line west of Salisbury there was not even any long distance traffic to carry part of the costs, it had to stand or fall on the income it generated itself which essentially came from Exeter, Honiton, Axminster and Yeovil. The only part of Salisbury's income that would count is that for travel westwards. As Fiennes wrote, from passengers and milk. Even dedicated management of that stretch would not have been able to make more than a marginal increase in income as, with the exception of Yeovil, there were no large centres of population.
If you claim that if the line had stayed in SR ownership traffic could have been built up earlier then you have to explain how this would have been done.

 

[yorksrob]

Times had changed and the Salisbury to Exeter section was no longer a 'flagship route' - it ever was. It carried the Southern Railway's trains to Devon and Cornwall - which were well publicised - but only carried large numbers of passengers on about ten or a dozen weekends in the year. Twenty four days in three hundred and sixty five. After most of the west country branches had been closed it carried a semi-fast train about every two hours which east of Salisbury ran to London. There were no commercial winnings or operational advantages to be gained if it had remained under the Southern's control.


Please try reading what I wrote. I did not write that there was no season ticket traffic west of Reading, I wrote that

(My bold). Of course there was some traffic west of there, people travelled from Oxford and, to a lesser extent, from stations in the Vale of the White Horse to Swindon and to and from Newbury - but the numbers fell off considerably. One has also to allow that trains were not as fast then - it took 40 to 45 mins for a non-stop steam hauled train to reach Reading from Paddington and an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half to reach Oxford or Swindon with a stop or two. Almost by definition this limited season ticket travellers from those distances to those who didn't have to be at their desks before about 10 am and could be sure of leaving work punctually in order to make sure they didn't miss one of the few trains home.

The Vale of the White Horse traffic was sparse and the stations between Didcot and Swindon all closed about this time even though the costs of the route were carried by the longer distance traffic - the local traffic did not even cover its movement costs. In the case of the line west of Salisbury there was not even any long distance traffic to carry part of the costs, it had to stand or fall on the income it generated itself which essentially came from Exeter, Honiton, Axminster and Yeovil. The only part of Salisbury's income that would count is that for travel westwards. As Fiennes wrote, from passengers and milk. Even dedicated management of that stretch would not have been able to make more than a marginal increase in income as, with the exception of Yeovil, there were no large centres of population.
If you claim that if the line had stayed in SR ownership traffic could have been built up earlier then you have to explain how this would have been done.

I suspect that had the Southern region retained the line west of Salisbury, the rationalisation wouldn't have been so swingeing. There may have been some singling, however I suspect that as with the route west of Bournemouth, this would have involved shorter sections, making the inevitable recovery in the routes prospects, easier to accommodate and build on.

It's also interesting to consider whether the Southern might have adopted some form of push-pull working, as tried and tested at Weymouth. Of course, Southern ownership wouldn't have been a panacea. They still felt the need to close the Swanage branch (even though a local manager at the time admitted to Barry Doe that it was profitable), so rationalisation would have come in some form.

It's interesting to note that since the route came back within the remit of Waterloo (under sectorisation) we have seen a very successful investment in the form of the 159's and it has thrived ever since.

 

[coppercapped]

I suspect that had the Southern region retained the line west of Salisbury, the rationalisation wouldn't have been so swingeing. There may have been some singling, however I suspect that as with the route west of Bournemouth, this would have involved shorter sections, making the inevitable recovery in the routes prospects, easier to accommodate and build on.

Wishful thinking - the economics would have looked exactly the same whether viewed from Paddington or Waterloo.

Do please understand - on this stretch there was limited passenger and no freight traffic.

It's also interesting to consider whether the Southern might have adopted some form of push-pull working, as tried and tested at Weymouth. Of course, Southern ownership wouldn't have been a panacea. They still felt the need to close the Swanage branch (even though a local manager at the time admitted to Barry Doe that it was profitable), so rationalisation would have come in some form.

It's interesting to note that since the route came back within the remit of Waterloo (under sectorisation) we have seen a very successful investment in the form of the 159's and it has thrived ever since.

It is possible that push-pull could have worked, but the changeover point would have to have been at Basingstoke as in 1963/4 when the decision was made to electrify to Bournemouth there was no financial justification to include Salisbury. In an interview with Dr. Beeching at around that time Geoffrey Freeman Allan, the editor of Trains Illustrated which morphed into Modern Railways, was told there was absolutely no justification for a third rail to Salisbury.

So there would have been no savings in the costs of train operation between Basingstoke and Exeter - it would have remained diesel hauled - but possibly some reduction between Basingstoke and Waterloo where an electric locomotive or REP unit could have been used.

Sectorisation did concentrate minds wonderfully - but the 159s only appeared on the route because Regional Railways had bought more 158s than it needed following a downturn in its traffic. Clearly Network South East made a conscious decision to take the 159s, but it did not order them originally.

I've been banging on about the opportunities missed by the BTC and Railway Executive in the years immediately following nationalisation in other threads - this line of route shows in concrete form how the BTC/RE/BR really screwed it up. If the GWR twin railcars 35 to 38 had been further developed after the War then the railways would have had rolling stock suitable for lines such as Waterloo - Exeter in the early 1950s and would not have had to have waited 40 years for a train suitable for the route to become available.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The man himself, Chris Green, in his book 'NSE Story' (co-authored with Mike Vincent) briefly mentions that third-rail electrification Reading-Basingstoke-Salibury was included in the 1989 Rail Plan for completion in 1995. It would be worked by existing EMU stock through better utilisation. Electrification of Salisbury to Exeter was regarded as a non-starter - he doesn't elaborate on how, or if, through services would have been maintained. The plan was scuppered by the deep 1990 recession and the dramatic collapse in passenger numbers. The Class 159 solution to replace the ailing Class 50s was regarded as a stop-gap until better times, but then of course privatisation intervened.

Fiennes, despite his many virtues, seemed to have a blind spot about Salisbury - Exeter - it was plainly ridiculous to propose closing Yeovil Junction which was, and is, the largest traffic generator on the route, yet keep open Crewkerne and Sherborne.

 

[coppercapped]

The man himself, Chris Green, in his book 'NSE Story' (co-authored with Mike Vincent) briefly mentions that third-rail electrification Reading-Basingstoke-Salibury was included in the 1989 Rail Plan for completion in 1995. It would be worked by existing EMU stock through better utilisation. Electrification of Salisbury to Exeter was regarded as a non-starter - he doesn't elaborate on how, or if, through services would have been maintained. The plan was scuppered by the deep 1990 recession and the dramatic collapse in passenger numbers. The Class 159 solution to replace the ailing Class 50s was regarded as a stop-gap until better times, but then of course privatisation intervened.

Fiennes, despite his many virtues, seemed to have a blind spot about Salisbury - Exeter - it was plainly ridiculous to propose closing Yeovil Junction which was, and is, the largest traffic generator on the route, yet keep open Crewkerne and Sherborne.

Fiennes did not propose any stations for closure. The BRB was the organisation which did that, independently of the Regions, and Fiennes was a Regional General Manager.
Are you sure that Yeovil Junction was proposed for closure? The first Beeching Report proposed Yeovil Pen Mill and Yeovil Town for closure, but not Yeovil Junction.

 

[yorksrob]

Wishful thinking - the economics would have looked exactly the same whether viewed from Paddington or Waterloo.

Do please understand - on this stretch there was limited passenger and no freight traffic.


It is possible that push-pull could have worked, but the changeover point would have to have been at Basingstoke as in 1963/4 when the decision was made to electrify to Bournemouth there was no financial justification to include Salisbury. In an interview with Dr. Beeching at around that time Geoffrey Freeman Allan, the editor of Trains Illustrated which morphed into Modern Railways, was told there was absolutely no justification for a third rail to Salisbury.

So there would have been no savings in the costs of train operation between Basingstoke and Exeter - it would have remained diesel hauled - but possibly some reduction between Basingstoke and Waterloo where an electric locomotive or REP unit could have been used.

Sectorisation did concentrate minds wonderfully - but the 159s only appeared on the route because Regional Railways had bought more 158s than it needed following a downturn in its traffic. Clearly Network South East made a conscious decision to take the 159s, but it did not order them originally.

The fact remains that the regions had different approaches to things. We have seen that the Southern Region did single routes, but not to the same extent that the Western tended to. I don't think there's any real reason to suggest that the Southern wouldn't have pursued its own solutions on this route and in its own style, and I'm pretty sure that this would have been a better one more suited to the route than the Western's somewhat extreme option, although i am of course eternally grateful to the Western that it didn't close it.

In terms of NSE, I agree that the 159's turned up at the right time and solved a problem. However had they not been available, NSE would have found another solution to that problem, of that I have no doubt.

I've been banging on about the opportunities missed by the BTC and Railway Executive in the years immediately following nationalisation in other threads - this line of route shows in concrete form how the BTC/RE/BR really screwed it up. If the GWR twin railcars 35 to 38 had been further developed after the War then the railways would have had rolling stock suitable for lines such as Waterloo - Exeter in the early 1950s and would not have had to have waited 40 years for a train suitable for the route to become available.

This seems a bizarre statement for a number of reasons. Why would two carriage railcars have been the solution for a long distance route that even in its quieter years merited eight carriage rakes. I'm not sure what benefit four of them coupled together would have had over loco hauled, infact loss of access to buffet facilities would have been more of a negative. If your point is that shorter units would have enabled shorter, more frequent services West of Salisbury, well yes - but that still would have required less singling and more capacity West of Salisbury - and that is something that would have been more likely under Southern than Western stewardship. It's worth noting that the WoE line was singled in 1967 - the year that the Southern was successfully introducing push-pull operation to Weymouth. That would have been the ideal way of providing an hourly service along the Salisbury - Exeter section don't you think ?

If you're point is that BR should have been working on a long distance diesel multiple unit, BR had successfully introduced such trains a lot earlier than forty years after nationalisation. The TPE multiple units in the north, not to mention the Western Regions own regional inter-city units. Of course, the Southern had been operating long distance express standard DEMU's since 1957 on the Hastings line, so there was plenty of experience and expertise and opportunity built up for such a more frequent interval service to have been introduced on the route, but it would have required the line not being drastically singled in 1967. In that circumstance, a long rake of carriages every two hours was the only solution - and to be fair it did the trick more or less even if not ideal.

The point is that less than optimal decisions were made at various times in the railways history and you cannot blame them all on the BTC. The 1967 singling was not inevitable, certainly not to the extent that it was done, and the people who made that decision are responsible for setting the route's service in aspic for the next thirty years, not the BTC.

 

[yorksrob]

Fiennes, despite his many virtues, seemed to have a blind spot about Salisbury - Exeter - it was plainly ridiculous to propose closing Yeovil Junction which was, and is, the largest traffic generator on the route, yet keep open Crewkerne and Sherborne.

In his memoir, he clearly indicates that he felt that there were too many stations on the route and believed that it would make it less popular and less successful in the long run. This seems to have turned out to be erroneous.

 

[coppercapped]

The fact remains that the regions had different approaches to things. We have seen that the Southern Region did single routes, but not to the same extent that the Western tended to. I don't think there's any real reason to suggest that the Southern wouldn't have pursued its own solutions on this route and in its own style, and I'm pretty sure that this would have been a better one more suited to the route than the Western's somewhat extreme option, although i am of course eternally grateful to the Western that it didn't close it.

In terms of NSE, I agree that the 159's turned up at the right time and solved a problem. However had they not been available, NSE would have found another solution to that problem, of that I have no doubt.

Yes, the regions did have different approaches to things. Sometimes because the geography and traffic flows differed.

The Southern, for example, had no other route that was in any way similar to the Salisbury - Exeter route. This was longer, further away from London and went through countryside with lower population densities than any of Kent, Sussex or Hampshire.

There might have been slight differences in the way the line was singled, but to suggest that the Southern would have kept much more double track than the Western is, frankly, delusional.

This seems a bizarre statement for a number of reasons. Why would two carriage railcars have been the solution for a long distance route that even in its quieter years merited eight carriage rakes. I'm not sure what benefit four of them coupled together would have had over loco hauled, infact loss of access to buffet facilities would have been more of a negative. If your point is that shorter units would have enabled shorter, more frequent services West of Salisbury, well yes - but that still would have required less singling and more capacity West of Salisbury - and that is something that would have been more likely under Southern than Western stewardship. It's worth noting that the WoE line was singled in 1967 - the year that the Southern was successfully introducing push-pull operation to Weymouth. That would have been the ideal way of providing an hourly service along the Salisbury - Exeter section don't you think ?

If you're point is that BR should have been working on a long distance diesel multiple unit, BR had successfully introduced such trains a lot earlier than forty years after nationalisation. The TPE multiple units in the north, not to mention the Western Regions own regional inter-city units. Of course, the Southern had been operating long distance express standard DEMU's since 1957 on the Hastings line, so there was plenty of experience and expertise and opportunity built up for such a more frequent interval service to have been introduced on the route, but it would have required the line not being drastically singled in 1967. In that circumstance, a long rake of carriages every two hours was the only solution - and to be fair it did the trick more or less even if not ideal.

The point is that less than optimal decisions were made at various times in the railways history and you cannot blame them all on the BTC. The 1967 singling was not inevitable, certainly not to the extent that it was done, and the people who made that decision are responsible for setting the route's service in aspic for the next thirty years, not the BTC.

Oh dear, one gains the impression that railway enthusiasts do not understand the underlying issues. Which bit of "had been further developed" is not understandable? The important thing is that these GWR railcars were cross-country, inter-urban or inter-regional units which were being developed in 1940. Whether they were two, three or four coaches long is completely irrelevant - the part to understand is that the private railway management saw these railcars as a way to reduce costs and increase performance on the more lightly used lines. A mark two version of the GWR railcars could have been built by 1948 - and there is no reason why it could not have been three or four coaches long, the GWR twin units were already designed such that a trailer coach could be inserted. If the will had been there a couple of later generations could have been further developed by 1958 when BR finally came out with the Class 120.

BR lost 10 years in modern train design at a period when car ownership doubled. This is the crux of the matter.

Just think what the economics of the Salisbury - Exeter section would have been like by 1955 if such trains could have been used rather than the Bulleid Pacifics - beautiful as they were. Operations at Waterloo would also have been simplified and costs reduced if it were no longer necessary to move light steam engines between Nine Elms and Waterloo. Loco movements at Waterloo finally disappeared with the introduction of the 159s in 1993, 40 years too late.

 

[randyrippley]

Fiennes did not propose any stations for closure. The BRB was the organisation which did that, independently of the Regions, and Fiennes was a Regional General Manager.
Are you sure that Yeovil Junction was proposed for closure? The first Beeching Report proposed Yeovil Pen Mill and Yeovil Town for closure, but not Yeovil Junction.

Yeovil Junction was intended for closure. If you know the local roads you would understand why.
The access to Yeovil Junction is poor, with (at the time) no bus service. Buses were banned due to the weight restriction over the bridge on Newton Rd, while the only alternative route was via a single track lane past Barwick Park.
There was a regular direct bus service Yeovil-Sherborne which made Sherborne the easier to access by public transport. The only advantage that the Junction had was a lot of empty land where sidings had been removed which became a large de facto car park, turning Yeovil Junction into a park and ride before the term had even been invented. That's probably the only thing that saved the Junction station, as parking at Sherborne was minimal.
As for Pen Mill, it would only have closed if the Westbury-Weymouth route had been closed.
If intercity DMUs had been available at the time, I suspect they would have considered reopening the original Pen-Mill > Sherborne chord (it had been temporarily relaid during WWII and later lifted), closing the Junction, with all Waterloo-Exeter services reversing at Pen Mill. However that is pure conjecture.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, the regions did have different approaches to things. Sometimes because the geography and traffic flows differed.

The Southern, for example, had no other route that was in any way similar to the Salisbury - Exeter route. This was longer, further away from London and went through countryside with lower population densities than any of Kent, Sussex or Hampshire.

There might have been slight differences in the way the line was singled, but to suggest that the Southern would have kept much more double track than the Western is, frankly, delusional.

I think the Southern would have tailored any track rationalisation to run the service it wanted to run. If it had decided to go for an hourly push-pull service modeled on the Weymouth route, it would have kept enough double track to run it. Or do you think the Southern wasn't capable of working out how much track it needed to run a service ?

You also forget that singling long sections of main line was very much a Western thing. It wasn't done on the Settle Carlisle, or the Skegness line, or most of the other secondary routes which cross lightly populated areas.

Oh dear, one gains the impression that railway enthusiasts do not understand the underlying issues. Which bit of "had been further developed" is not understandable? The important thing is that these GWR railcars were cross-country, inter-urban or inter-regional units which were being developed in 1940. Whether they were two, three or four coaches long is completely irrelevant - the part to understand is that the private railway management saw these railcars as a way to reduce costs and increase performance on the more lightly used lines. A mark two version of the GWR railcars could have been built by 1948 - and there is no reason why it could not have been three or four coaches long, the GWR twin units were already designed such that a trailer coach could be inserted. If the will had been there a couple of later generations could have been further developed by 1958 when BR finally came out with the Class 120.

BR lost 10 years in modern train design at a period when car ownership doubled. This is the crux of the matter.

Just think what the economics of the Salisbury - Exeter section would have been like by 1955 if such trains could have been used rather than the Bulleid Pacifics - beautiful as they were. Operations at Waterloo would also have been simplified and costs reduced if it were no longer necessary to move light steam engines between Nine Elms and Waterloo. Loco movements at Waterloo finally disappeared with the introduction of the 159s in 1993, 40 years too late.

It would have been interesting to see how an earlier introduction of longer distance DMU's might have affected the costs of local services on the line, however the route was still being used for long distance services to Plymouth and the West Country in the early years of BR, so this would likely have been limited.

Simplification of signalling, de-staffing of local stations and straight line double track could also have been used to reduce costs as others have mentioned on here. These are all what-ifs. I still think that given where we were, the Southern would have made a better fist of running the line, had it kept control of it.

Anyway, Bournemouth to Weymouth soldiered on with inefficient expensive steam hauled services right up until 1967. It didn't prevent the Southern from coming up with a very good cost effective modernisation programme for it, so why would the WoE mainline have been any different.

 

[coppercapped]

I think the Southern would have tailored any track rationalisation to run the service it wanted to run. If it had decided to go for an hourly push-pull service modeled on the Weymouth route, it would have kept enough double track to run it. Or do you think the Southern wasn't capable of working out how much track it needed to run a service ?

You also forget that singling long sections of main line was very much a Western thing. It wasn't done on the Settle Carlisle, or the Skegness line, or most of the other secondary routes which cross lightly populated areas.

Again, you miss the point. It wasn't anything to do with "...the service it wanted to run" but the service it could afford to run. Everyone would like to run more frequent trains - but if the traffic is not there then the money it costs to run the additional services could have been spent on something more useful.

This concept of push-pull trains modelled on the Weymouth line also needs some closer examination.

One of the complaints of many of the posters earlier in this thread was the unreliability of the diesel traction used on the Waterloo - Exeter run. Push-pull would have made little or no difference as the traction on the longest sections would still have been diesel. Look at the figures:

• Waterloo to Exeter Central: 171 miles
• Waterloo to Weymouth: 142 miles
• Waterloo to Bournemouth: 108 miles
• Waterloo to Basingstoke: 47 miles.

This means that a Waterloo - Weymouth train is electrically powered for 76% (say three quarters) of its journey whereas a Waterloo - Exeter Central train is electrically powered for 27% (say one quarter) of its journey. Three quarters of its journey would still have been diesel powered and to get any sort of performance on the route via Salisbury something more than 1,550 bhp was necessary - when the Type 3s did haul the Exeter trains they were painfully slow.

Given that BR's diesel maintenance was appalling in the 1960s and that poor availability and reliability was not specific to the hydraulics[1] what alternatives were there in 1963 for reliable diesel traction?

It would have been interesting to see how an earlier introduction of longer distance DMU's might have affected the costs of local services on the line, however the route was still being used for long distance services to Plymouth and the West Country in the early years of BR, so this would likely have been limited.

Exactly. And the beauty of the multiple unit approach was that every train could have been like the Atlantic Coast Express - shedding portions for the branches.

Simplification of signalling, de-staffing of local stations and straight line double track could also have been used to reduce costs as others have mentioned on here. These are all what-ifs. I still think that given where we were, the Southern would have made a better fist of running the line, had it kept control of it.

Anyway, Bournemouth to Weymouth soldiered on with inefficient expensive steam hauled services right up until 1967. It didn't prevent the Southern from coming up with a very good cost effective modernisation programme for it, so why would the WoE mainline have been any different.

Quite so - but the simplification process started much too late - as it did all over the railway network.

[1] Brian Reed, in his book Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives of the Western Region (David and Charles, 1974) writes of locomotives in the 1960s

Availability of the two principal BR-designed diesel-electrics, the D1 and D1500 (BR Classes 44-47), were such that normally well over 200 locomotives were out of service daily, and it was not uncommon to see 35 to 38 of them in Crewe works alone. These ineffective locomotives represented around £24 million of invested capital lying idle throughout the year, and this was quite apart from the time lost back at the maker's works. WR diesel-hydraulics at least never had such a fiasco marked against them.

 

[RT4038]

I think the Southern would have tailored any track rationalisation to run the service it wanted to run. If it had decided to go for an hourly push-pull service modeled on the Weymouth route, it would have kept enough double track to run it. Or do you think the Southern wasn't capable of working out how much track it needed to run a service ?

You also forget that singling long sections of main line was very much a Western thing. It wasn't done on the Settle Carlisle, or the Skegness line, or most of the other secondary routes which cross lightly populated areas.

The train service Poole-Weymouth was running about every hour with steam, hence an hourly push-pull service. The fast train service Salisbury-Exeter ran about every two hours ( all the intermediate stations having been closed, and with them the stopping trains withdrawn). Why would the Southern have considered an hourly push-pull service on this section? I do not think there would have been any appetite to increase the frequency of service through such sparsely populated country, esp. as the line was one 'not selected for development'

The singling of main secondary lines was a particularly Western thing, although the Scottish Region also did some. Probably seemed sensible at the time, but time has indicated differently....

 

[yorksrob]

Again, you miss the point. It wasn't anything to do with "...the service it wanted to run" but the service it could afford to run. Everyone would like to run more frequent trains - but if the traffic is not there then the money it costs to run the additional services could have been spent on something more useful.

This concept of push-pull trains modelled on the Weymouth line also needs some closer examination.

One of the complaints of many of the posters earlier in this thread was the unreliability of the diesel traction used on the Waterloo - Exeter run. Push-pull would have made little or no difference as the traction on the longest sections would still have been diesel. Look at the figures:

• Waterloo to Exeter Central: 171 miles
• Waterloo to Weymouth: 142 miles
• Waterloo to Bournemouth: 108 miles
• Waterloo to Basingstoke: 47 miles.

This means that a Waterloo - Weymouth train is electrically powered for 76% (say three quarters) of its journey whereas a Waterloo - Exeter Central train is electrically powered for 27% (say one quarter) of its journey. Three quarters of its journey would still have been diesel powered and to get any sort of performance on the route via Salisbury something more than 1,550 bhp was necessary - when the Type 3s did haul the Exeter trains they were painfully slow.

Given that BR's diesel maintenance was appalling in the 1960s and that poor availability and reliability was not specific to the hydraulics[1] what alternatives were there in 1963 for reliable diesel traction?

Exactly. And the beauty of the multiple unit approach was that every train could have been like the Atlantic Coast Express - shedding portions for the branches.

Quite so - but the simplification process started much too late - as it did all over the railway network.

[1] Brian Reed, in his book Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives of the Western Region (David and Charles, 1974) writes of locomotives in the 1960s

The 33's were amongst the more reliable locomotives of the era. If they were underpowered for an 8-9 carriage train every two hours, that might have helped to make the case for a shorter (four or maybe six carriages) train every hour. However sparse the traffic was, it still justified 8-9 carriages every two hours, so there were passengers to justify a regular interval service.

Given that the Southern Region was:

a) historically the most committed region to regular interval services;
b) the region that had already developed a push-pull solution;
c) the region with the longest and most developed tradition of multiple unit development;

I stand by my assertion that the Southern Region would have been the most likely to come up with a smart, efficient operating solution, at least in the 60's/70's.

That said, I agree with your point that an earlier adoption of MU technology could have been a boon for portion working.

 

[yorksrob]

The train service Poole-Weymouth was running about every hour with steam, hence an hourly push-pull service. The fast train service Salisbury-Exeter ran about every two hours ( all the intermediate stations having been closed, and with them the stopping trains withdrawn). Why would the Southern have considered an hourly push-pull service on this section? I do not think there would have been any appetite to increase the frequency of service through such sparsely populated country, esp. as the line was one 'not selected for development'

The singling of main secondary lines was a particularly Western thing, although the Scottish Region also did some. Probably seemed sensible at the time, but time has indicated differently....

Well indeed. If the Southern didn't have a tradition of wholesale singling of such routes, one can not unreasonably speculate that they might not have done this to the same extent on Salisbury-Exeter.

 

[randyrippley]

....................Given that BR's diesel maintenance was appalling in the 1960s and that poor availability and reliability was not specific to the hydraulics[1] what alternatives were there in 1963 for reliable diesel traction?...............

.

In 1963 not a lot
By 1967 or thereabouts the Sulzer crankcase problems had been resolved - hence the reliability of the 33 (helped by the superiority of Crompton electrical gear). By then they SHOULD have been able to get the 47 fleet up to decent reliability, but BR support seemed incapable

 

[Taunton]

it was plainly ridiculous to propose closing Yeovil Junction which was, and is, the largest traffic generator on the route, yet keep open Crewkerne and Sherborne.

There was some (albeit flawed) logic to this. The only reason Yeovil Jc generated traffic was that it was the only stop around for the faster trains; Crewkerne and Sherborne were only served by the infrequent stoppers going not too far, despite both being reasonable sized places in their own right. The Yeovil Junction-Town shuttle was also down for closure, a few used it from the town but not many, and most long distance travellers from Junction (principally to Waterloo) arrived by car. It's little different getting from Yeovil south to the Junction as it is going east to Sherborne, which is at least on an A road rather than along a back lane - that last may have had input from Southern National buses of the era about running full sized vehicles to the station.

 

[NSEFAN]

Well indeed. If the Southern didn't have a tradition of wholesale singling of such routes, one can not unreasonably speculate that they might not have done this to the same extent on Salisbury-Exeter.

Tradition isn't everything. Remember that most Southern routes are ultimately commuter lines into London which were mostly electrified, unlike the Western which was more about diesel long-distance expresses and regional connecting routes. The Salisbury-Exeter section is arguably quite different to the rest of the operation, so whilst push-pull may have happened it's quite likely that a similar amount of singling would also have occurred, given the pressure from the very top for all regions to take such economy measures.

 

[yorksrob]

Tradition isn't everything. Remember that most Southern routes are ultimately commuter lines into London which were mostly electrified, unlike the Western which was more about diesel long-distance expresses and regional connecting routes. The Salisbury-Exeter section is arguably quite different to the rest of the operation, so whilst push-pull may have happened it's quite likely that a similar amount of singling would also have occurred, given the pressure from the very top for all regions to take such economy measures.

I'm not saying it wouldn't. Just that the Southern would have designed any rationalisation around it's service.

West of Salisbury, the route was no longer an express/Intercity service. It was an interval semi-fast service of the sort that the Southern was used to running.

It's also worth remembering that at the time the Southern ran quite a substantial network of non-electrified routes, including main lines, so electrification wasn't the be all and end all.

 

[randyrippley]

................. It's little different getting from Yeovil south to the Junction as it is going east to Sherborne, which is at least on an A road rather than along a back lane - that last may have had input from Southern National buses of the era about running full sized vehicles to the station.

As I said earlier, weight restrictions on the bridge on Newton Road prevented buses accessing the Junction

 

[Taunton]

Not only was the main line only busy for the 12 summer Saturdays of the year, but it didn't have a lot of freight. After all, it came from a direction where little freight was actually generated to go west.

The principal freight usage was west of Templecombe. The S&D down to there was likewise much busier with freight north than south of that point, and quite a lot of freight was interchanged between the two. Somerset coalfield coal was useless for gasworks or household (as was Kent), so the substantial loads came down from the Midlands and Yorkshire this way, via Birmingham, Bath, Templecombe, Exeter, and onwards. Likewise steel for construction and other heavy stuff. Now of course this was just a LMS/SR continuation of avoiding the GWR via Bristol, a much more practical and shorter route. Once this was moved over, which took until the 1960s and Beeching's (actually Stewart Joy's) freight studies, freight became pretty thin.

 

[randyrippley]

I think you've got that slightly wrong: from what I've read the Somerset coal WAS suitable for gasworks use, but not a lot else.

 

[AndrewE]

The singling of main secondary lines was a particularly Western thing, although the Scottish Region also did some. Probably seemed sensible at the time, but time has indicated differently....

However the LMR did relay most of the Crewe-Shrewsbury line with CWR on alternate sides over successive lengths (up and down,) I was told preparatory to singling it and recovering the old jointed rail. It's lucky that traffic built up (or policy changed) before it was carried out.

The 33's were amongst the more reliable locomotives of the era. If they were underpowered for an 8-9 carriage train every two hours, that might have helped to make the case for a shorter (four or maybe six carriages) train every hour. However sparse the traffic was, it still justified 8-9 carriages every two hours, so there were passengers to justify a regular interval service. Given that the Southern Region was:

a) historically the most committed region to regular interval services;
b) the region that had already developed a push-pull solution;
c) the region with the longest and most developed tradition of multiple unit development;

I stand by my assertion that the Southern Region would have been the most likely to come up with a smart, efficient operating solution, at least in the 60's/70's. That said, I agree with your point that an earlier adoption of MU technology could have been a boon for portion working.

Agreed.

 

[RT4038]

I'm not saying it wouldn't. Just that the Southern would have designed any rationalisation around it's service.

West of Salisbury, the route was no longer an express/Intercity service. It was an interval semi-fast service of the sort that the Southern was used to running.

It's also worth remembering that at the time the Southern ran quite a substantial network of non-electrified routes, including main lines, so electrification wasn't the be all and end all.

However, the Southern had no other lines like the route west of Salisbury. There was only a two-hourly 'fastish' service, and I think it unlikely that the Southern would have increased that frequency at that time. They had no other routes with trains running at a wider interval than 1 hour [which didn't end up closed], and a double track route (with no freight on it) would be quite an extravagance for one train every 2 hours.
As I write this, I wonder why the line remained at all a la Great Central? A two-hourly Inter-City DMU service Paddington-Reading-Newbury-Westbury-Frome-Yeovil Pen Mill would have served the only major town (acting as a railhead for the surrounding area) and enabled a lot of line to be removed. I guess there were plenty of influential people in the Blackmore Vale and further west.

 

[yorksrob]

However, the Southern had no other lines like the route west of Salisbury. There was only a two-hourly 'fastish' service, and I think it unlikely that the Southern would have increased that frequency at that time. They had no other routes with trains running at a wider interval than 1 hour [which didn't end up closed], and a double track route (with no freight on it) would be quite an extravagance for one train every 2 hours.
As I write this, I wonder why the line remained at all a la Great Central? A two-hourly Inter-City DMU service Paddington-Reading-Newbury-Westbury-Frome-Yeovil Pen Mill would have served the only major town (acting as a railhead for the surrounding area) and enabled a lot of line to be removed. I guess there were plenty of influential people in the Blackmore Vale and further west.

Much as I lament the passing of the Great Central, they had managed to get the longer sections down to three or four three carriage trains a day. That's a bit different to a route that's always justified two hourly rakes of 8-9 carriages.

Perhaps someone realised the limitations of "railheading" theory that was prevalent at the time.

 

[RT4038]

Much as I lament the passing of the Great Central, they had managed to get the longer sections down to three or four three carriage trains a day. That's a bit different to a route that's always justified two hourly rakes of 8-9 carriages.

Perhaps someone realised the limitations of "railheading" theory that was prevalent at the time.

Well, whatever the reason, thank goodness!