Liverpool - Skegness in the 80s

[30907]

The problem with the timetables is that they don't show everything that ran. It was common place for additional relief services to run, some with almost identical timings week after week. They were in effect timetabled trains that didn't appear in the timetable, something that some of us grumbled about at the time. So for example in the summer of 1988 from the end of June, and at least until the end of August, on Saturdays from Liverpool;

0908 Liverpool - Yarmouth
0925 Liverpool - Nottingham

Neither of which were in the timetable. Both were loco hauled Mk1 and neither involved running round as far as I recall (except the Yarmouth was a reverse/loco change at Norwich). Both were via the Hope Valley to Sheffield. The Yarmouth was then via Worksop, Retford curve and ECML to Peterborough. The Nottingham was via Beighton to Chesterfield. The lack of reversals doesn't help the OP although the simplest route from Liverpool to Skegness would have been to change trains off the Nottingham for a dmu to Skegness which may well have reversed at Grantham.

Interesting: there was a SO Manchester-Worksop-Yarmouth in 85 IIRC. Was the weekday Liverpool-Yarmouth still in the 88 timetable?

 

[Siemens Staines]

In 1988 on Monday - Saturday there was a two hourly Sprinter service departing Liverpool;

0730 Liverpool - Norwich
0935 Liverpool - Norwich
1135 Liverpool - Norwich
1335 Liverpool - Yarmouth
1535 Liverpool - Lowestoft
1735 Liverpool - Ipswich
1935 Liverpool - Nottingham

Of the few of these services I travelled on in 1988, all were a single 156.

The extras were clearly reliefs to the 0935.

 

[ElectroSoldier]

Maybe we changed at Manchester...
I remember the reversal for sure. Ive just no idea where it was.

It was before 1987.
'84, '85 or '86

 

[55002]

Interesting: there was a SO Manchester-Worksop-Yarmouth in 85 IIRC. Was the weekday Liverpool-Yarmouth still in the 88 timetable?

Used to be a 40 on that..