lostwin - BR in the mid 80's

[eastwestdivide]

Here, 33103 pushes a 4TC set into Fareham with the 09.08 Portsmouth - Reading.

That entire service, using 33+TC combos, only worked Sundays. The rest of the week, there were separate services covering the different sections of the route.

 

[Ken H]

Got any pics in the snow @lostwin(m) ? That would be great
Ta

 

[Cowley]

Cromptons were high on my list of favoured motive power, which typically meant extended 2-3 days trips to the South West from Leicester, at the time I was taking photos. I had done a fair bit covering the Crewe - Cardiffs as well, but that preceded my days of photography. I cleared around 80% for haulage, which wasn't too bad for a Midlands boy.

31/07/85. 33003 eases down the hill into Exeter St. Davids, the last few meters of the 16.38 ex Waterloo.

View attachment 169781

Lovely shot. Just wondering if it might have been the service from Brighton though as they tended to be 33s with mk1 stock back then?

 

[Gloster]

Lovely shot. Just wondering if it might have been the service from Brighton though as they tended to be 33s with mk1 stock back then?

It has a 62 headcode, so Waterloo-Exeter.

 

[Cowley]

It has a 62 headcode, so Waterloo-Exeter.

Don’t you come around here pointing out the blindingly obvious thing that I should have noticed immediately!

(I’ll use the not very good excuse that I was looking at it on a small phone screen if I may)

 

[D6130]

It has a 62 headcode, so Waterloo-Exeter.

If it's the 16 38 from Waterloo - which for many years was an FO service terminating at Yeovil Junction - it's an air-braked, electric-heated eight car Southern Region Mark 1 Channel Islands boat train set. You can see the early Mark 2 FK and RMB miniature buffet car. The WR vacuum-braked, dual-heated Mark 1 sets used on the majority of Waterloo-Exeter services had an RB restaurant/buffet car with a larger kitchen and loose chairs....although I think that by that time they had been superseded by Mark abc sets with micro-buffets. IIRC, the headcode for the Brighton-Exeters was 99. A great photo anyway! Thanks for posting them all.

 

[Cowley]

If it's the 16 38 from Waterloo - which for many years was an FO service terminating at Yeovil Junction - it's an air-braked, electric-heated eight car Southern Region Mark 1 Channel Islands boat train set. You can see the early Mark 2 FK and RMB miniature buffet car. The WR vacuum-braked, dual-heated Mark 1 sets used on the majority of Waterloo-Exeter services had an RB restaurant/buffet car with a larger kitchen and loose chairs....although I think that by that time they had been superseded by Mark abc sets with micro-buffets. IIRC, the headcode for the Brighton-Exeters was 99. A great photo anyway! Thanks for posting them all.

Great information @D6130.

 

[lostwin(m)]

That entire service, using 33+TC combos, only worked Sundays. The rest of the week, there were separate services covering the different sections of the route.

Yes, now you mention it, I don't recall seeing the 4TC sets often around Sothampton. I guess other than Sunday these would have been 3 & 4 Hamp units from Eastleigh.

 

[Gloster]

I think that Brighton-Exeter was 11. It does look like an 8 RMB Set (or whatever it was called by then) which had been used on the Weymouth Quay trains, the Brighton-Exeter and the Yeovil. Once the Yeovil was upped to a daily train (terminating Salisbury FX) it continued on that and I presume that once it was extended to Exeter they continued to use the set as the best way of providing something for this odd departure.

EDIT: I looked it up and it probably went back on the late Exeter-Salisbury train and then empty to Clapham Junction as before, or maybe it stabled at Salisbury for an extra morning Waterloo.

 

[lostwin(m)]

The knowledge on here is mind boggling and adds a whole new layer of context for me on the pictures I took. Thanks for all the input, fascinating stuff!

 

[D6130]

I think that Brighton-Exeter was 11.

Yes you're right! 11 was the Brighton-Exeter and 99 was the Brighton-Cardiff....both of which I worked as a guard in the 1980s. The old memory isn't always quite what it used to be!

 

[D6130]

Great information @D6130.

Thanks. I've loads of stuff in the old memory banks....and then every-now-and-then I come out with a load of old b*ll*cks (see post #759 & 761)!
Just as well I have a few knowledgable contemporaries like @Gloster to keep me on my toes!

 

[eastwestdivide]

Yes, now you mention it, I don't recall seeing the 4TC sets often around Sothampton. I guess other than Sunday these would have been 3 & 4 Hamp units from Eastleigh.

Yes I think the non-Sunday service was 3H running Portsmouth-Eastleigh, the Waterloo/Bournemouth stoppers picked up Winchester & Micheldever, and then the Reading/Basingstoke shuttle, also a 3H.

 

[Sun Chariot]

If it's the 16 38 from Waterloo - which for many years was an FO service terminating at Yeovil Junction - it's an air-braked, electric-heated eight car Southern Region Mark 1 Channel Islands boat train set. You can see the early Mark 2 FK and RMB miniature buffet car.

I can make out the Mk2 FK and, to its left - behind the trees - a Mk1 BCK (based on the spacing of its passenger windows and the brake comp window at its far right). I can't make out a Mk1 RMB - perhaps it was in for routine servicing?

@lostwin(m) crumbs, this time last year, we were doing 1980s car recognition. Now it's '80s BR carriage recognition!

 

[Gloster]

Looking at the photo again the half-hidden coach must be a brake vehicle as none of the others are: perhaps by this time the SR had separated the Exeter turn off from the boat trains. No RMB, so perhaps there was a trolley or the Mark II was a TSO(T) (two-a-side second open with a bay modified to take a catering trolley).

 

[Sun Chariot]

No RMB, so perhaps there was a trolley or the Mark II was a TSO(T) (two-a-side second open with a bay modified to take a catering trolley).

I'd wager the former. The Mk2 has "1" door markings and it has seven passenger bay windows per side.

Credit to @lostwin(m) for using a decent film emulsion, so we can see this detail.

 

[jfollows]

That entire service, using 33+TC combos, only worked Sundays. The rest of the week, there were separate services covering the different sections of the route.

Yes, good memories, I lived in Fareham then and went to London many weekends, Saturdays on DEMU and Sundays on 33+TC, changing to REP+TC at Eastleigh.

 

[D6130]

behind the trees - a Mk1 BCK (based on the spacing of its passenger windows and the brake comp window at its far right).

You're right, it is a BCK. The Southern Region RMBs must have all been withdrawn by this time.

Looking at the photo again the half-hidden coach must be a brake vehicle as none of the others are: perhaps by this time the SR had separated the Exeter turn off from the boat trains. No RMB, so perhaps there was a trolley or the Mark II was a TSO(T) (two-a-side second open with a bay modified to take a catering trolley).

Absolutely right regarding the brake vehicle. However the first class coach is definitely a Mark '2z' FK, of which the SR had nos. 13388-13406 specifically for the Channel Islands and Southampton Docks boat trains. They had the earlier Mark 1-style windows with double opposing slide lights, as opposed to the later Mark 2-style windows with single ones. I think the RMBs must have been withdrawn by that date....so the only opprtunity for refreshments would have been a trolley, if provided.

 

[Cowley]

Yes you're right! 11 was the Brighton-Exeter and 99 was the Brighton-Cardiff....both of which I worked as a guard in the 1980s. The old memory isn't always quite what it used to be!

I remember a few of us catching the (I think) 05:50 Exeter st David’s to Brighton on one of the Network Southeast Days in 1986 (maybe the second one?) and it being formed of a rake of mk1s double headed by a pair of 33s. We took it to Salisbury and caught a 33/1 on an 8TC set to Waterloo. I wonder if that was an 11 coach rake then?

My word I’d love to repeat that journey today. The 33s were non stop through a very dark and quiet early Saturday morning Exeter Central.
Well it was quiet until we came blazing through absolutely flat out!

 

[Sun Chariot]

My word I’d love to repeat that journey today. The 33s were non stop through a very dark and quiet early Saturday morning Exeter Central.
Well it was quiet until we came blazing through absolutely flat out!

I can't actually recall any quiet Crompton up the hill My favourite memories:
1983, blue 47484 "IKB" struggling up the grade with a Meldon load; and a (number lost in time) 33/0 thrashing its guts out banking at the rear.
1991: 33113 (IIRC - photos in the loft) making an absolutely volcanic departure from St David's with a Waterloo bound 9-coach set.

 

[Gloster]

I should have checked. It looks as though the SR dispensed with its RMB in 1983,

In the days when there were still a few 33 turns I lived above Central: I could hear them on full power up the hill and only easing off when well down the platform

 

[Cowley]

I can't actually recall any quiet Crompton up the hill My favourite memories:
1983, blue 47484 "IKB" struggling up the grade with a Mendip load; and a (number lost in time) 33/0 thrashing its guts out banking at the rear.

Fantastic.

I remember getting a train up the bank sometime (probably in 1987) with an original NSE liveried class 50 piloted by a 33. The driver of the 33 was a quite well known long haired local guy and after absolutely belting it up to Central the 33 driver gave it a bit of an arm wave flail salute as we rolled into the platform. I think that remains the loudest and possibly fastest I ever went up there actually, even compared to a pair of 50s driven normally.
Right place, right time and all that…

1991: 33113 (IIRC - photos in the loft) making an absolutely volcanic departure from St David's with a Waterloo bound 9-coach set.

I never missed an opportunity to get a 33 on the line in that early 90s era. It was always worth stepping away from the Seawall if you noticed a 33 had ended up on The Mule. Absolutely brilliant!

In the days when there were still a few 33 turns I lived above Central: I could hear them on full power up the hill and only easing off when well down the platform

Wonderful punchy little machines.

They were so synonymous with Exeter back then, you’d see them on stone trains to Meldon, locals to Barnstaple, locals to Paignton, trains to Brighton and standing in for 50s that had gone pop. Incredibly versatile.

 

[D6130]

locals to Barnstaple

Bet they made a right racket accelerating away from Newton St Cyres past the garden at the Beer Engine!

 

[Sun Chariot]

Wonderful punchy little machines

Much as I Ioved the Peaks, Hoovers and Grids, it was the Cromptons and their pocket rocket power-to-weight ratio, that drew my biggest smile - whether on Cardiff-Pompey turns, or pottering around Clapham, or shaking Bath Road's foundations.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I remember a few of us catching the (I think) 05:50 Exeter st David’s to Brighton on one of the Network Southeast Days in 1986 (maybe the second one?) and it being formed of a rake of mk1s double headed by a pair of 33s. We took it to Salisbury and caught a 33/1 on an 8TC set to Waterloo. I wonder if that was an 11 coach rake then?

My word I’d love to repeat that journey today. The 33s were non stop through a very dark and quiet early Saturday morning Exeter Central.
Well it was quiet until we came blazing through absolutely flat out!

One of my regrets is never going deep West on an NSE day.

For me it was a long way from mid-Kent. My best memories of 33s were at Hoo Junction hearing them long before seeing them thrashing away off the Grain branch through Hoo Junction towards London and the wider world - usually an aggregates train or oil train. Also trips to Waterloo from Southampton hauled by hard to get (for me) 33/1s. This would all have been 1974 to 1979.

Much as I Ioved the Peaks, Hoovers and Grids, it was the Cromptons and their pocket rocket power-to-weight ratio, that drew my biggest smile - whether on Cardiff-Pompey turns, or pottering around Clapham, or shaking Bath Road's foundations.

They were so different to their 12 cylinder and 6 cylinder cousins !.

@lostwin(m) thanks for the nice photos.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Semi-related: a mystery excursion from Kent, waiting at Strood to join mates already on board from Gillingham, and 2x33s trundle round the corner, for a trip down the SW Division to Exeter. A fine sight and sound (and photo somewhere) coming up the bank into Exeter C on the way back.
And those aggregate trains from Cliffe (Brett and Murphy) loaded well, also making a racket pulling away from the 15mph speed restriction at Strood on the way south via Maidstone.

 

[75A]

In the early 80's Brighton crews picked up a double headed aggregate train from Chichester early in the morning and took it to Ardingly via Worthing. Going through the curved Clftonville tunnel was a sound to be heard especially if we'd stopped at Hove to change Guards. The other 3 tunnels weren't in the same league as far as noise goes. We didn't have that many 33 turns but as I much prefered 73's it wasn't a problem.

 

[lostwin(m)]

A handful of Sparklers on the WCML

25/10/86. 87027 (nearest camera) and 87006 both head Southbound services to Nottingham (15.20) and Euston (15.10) at Glasgow C.

 

[lostwin(m)]

27/04/86. A quick final stop for 86257 at Sandwell and Dudley as it heads for Wolverhampton.

 

[Sun Chariot]

A handful of Sparklers on the WCML

25/10/86. 87027 (nearest camera) and 87006 both head Southbound services to Nottingham (15.20) and Euston (15.10) at Glasgow C.

View attachment 170063

A great compositional contrast to post #1. Your camera was busy that day.