Student Trains

[crosscity]

Attached is a photo I took of the Exeter University Guild of Students 'Guild train' in 1976 and a scan of my ticket - I was a steward on the train. I wonder if anyone can provide any additional information about any of the the Guild trains, including:
1) The identity of the two Brush 2's that rescued Western Sentinel
2) Any information on the dates they ran, the timing of the trains and the locos and routes involved
3) Whether similar trains were arranged to get other University, Polytechnic or College students to or from their institutions at the beginning or end of term.

I have included a brief background to the Exeter 'Guild' trains.


Mon 27 Sep 1976. Two Brush Class 31s and Western Class 52 No D1022 WESTERN SENTINEL haul the Exeter University Guild of Student's 'start of term' special train from Paddington at Taunton. The Western had failed somewhere between Westbury and Taunton and the train was rescued by the two 31's. by Ray, on Flickr


27Sep76. Exeter St Davids. Special train. Exeter University Guild train ticket. [IMG_20210108_152606_488] by Ray, on Flickr


BACKGROUND TO THE EXETER GUILD TRAINS
The Guild trains started in the early sixties, initially provided at the end of term taking students home at Christmas and Easter. By the early seventies the trains ran at the beginning of term to get students back to Exeter. Most ran from Paddington but for a time they ran from Waterloo. There was also one from Birmingham, but this wasn't very successful and only ran twice.

The cost of chartering the trains was underwritten by the Exeter University Guild of Students (the equivalent of the NUS), and the University Railway Society was charged with organising and negotiating the logisitics with BR, distributing tickets and providing a presence on the train. The Guild marketed the train to students and the University provided transport from St Davids to Halls of Residence for the students and their luggage.

By the time I was involved in 1976 there was just one train per year at the start of the academic year. The train was for any student, but provided some pastoral care for nervous freshers who, of course, were leaving home to start their new lives as students - an exciting, but daunting time for some.

I believe the last train was chartered in 1978.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

We did the same one year for Aberystwyth to Euston - 1978 I think - Christmas term end -a class 40 with 6 MK1's and a scratch buffet organised by the Student Guild.

BR did us "proud" by rostering a no-heat class 40 , the train was known as the "ice-cube special" afterwards. I have a very fond memory as the guard allowed me to flag it off from Borth , "you always remember the first time"

It made a small profit and a good time was had by all. One interesting feature was it avoided Salop by going round the curve for a crew change. Never done that since.

 

[LMS 4F]

As a boy soldier in the early 60s stationed in Dorset every time we went on leave, which we all did at the same time, a special ran from Wool to Waterloo. It was in my time steam hauled by a Battle of Britain and the idea was that we would have swamped a service train.
Interestingly going back after the leave we were left to catch service trains, no doubt because it we got in at different times.

 

[crosscity]

We did the same one year for Aberystwyth to Euston - 1978 I think - Christmas term end -a class 40 with 6 MK1's and a scratch buffet organised by the Student Guild.

BR did us "proud" by rostering a no-heat class 40 , the train was known as the "ice-cube special" afterwards. I have a very fond memory as the guard allowed me to flag it off from Borth , "you always remember the first time"

It made a small profit and a good time was had by all. One interesting feature was it avoided Salop by going round the curve for a crew change. Never done that since.

Did you arrange the train on behalf of the Guild? Was this a one-off or were others arranged too?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Did you arrange the train on behalf of the Guild? Was this a one-off or were others arranged too?

The Student Union took the commercial risk (and did on board ticket checks - 99% compliant - there is always one !) , it was a pure charter for BR. It was very much a one off. Too much organising involved really.

 

[crosscity]

As a boy soldier in the early 60s stationed in Dorset every time we went on leave, which we all did at the same time, a special ran from Wool to Waterloo. It was in my time steam hauled by a Battle of Britain and the idea was that we would have swamped a service train.
Interestingly going back after the leave we were left to catch service trains, no doubt because it we got in at different times.

I wonder how this worked. The student trains were privately chartered from BR who were paid a set amount to run the train. The Guild set the ticket price and the profit/loss thus depended on how many tickets were sold. At busy times BR also ran 'reliefs' which they ran themselves which were additional to the normal timetable, but could be caught by any passenger with a 'normal' ticket. With your trains from Wool did you have to have a special ticket for the train, or would a normal army warrant apply?

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

We did the same one year for Aberystwyth to Euston - 1978 I think - Christmas term end -a class 40 with 6 MK1's and a scratch buffet organised by the Student Guild.

BR did us "proud" by rostering a no-heat class 40 , the train was known as the "ice-cube special" afterwards. I have a very fond memory as the guard allowed me to flag it off from Borth , "you always remember the first time"

It made a small profit and a good time was had by all. One interesting feature was it avoided Salop by going round the curve for a crew change. Never done that since.

Oh, that sounds wonderful...but unfortunately too late for me (1973-1976). Can you recall at what time it left Aber and arrival at Euston? i do wonder whether it would have made my journey back home quicker, I recall leaving Devil's Bridge about 08h00 and catching the - I think - 10h15 from Aber....arriving home about 18h00.
In an age when hiring a train wasn't too onerous if someone was prepared to do it, looking back I'm surprised it didn't happen more often.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Oh, that sounds wonderful...but unfortunately too late for me (1973-1976). Can you recall at what time it left Aber and arrival at Euston? i do wonder whether it would have made my journey back home quicker, I recall leaving Devil's Bridge about 08h00 and catching the - I think - 10h15 from Aber....arriving home about 18h00.
In an age when hiring a train wasn't too onerous if someone was prepared to do it, looking back I'm surprised it didn't happen more often.

Somewhere , in the archives (i.e down the shed , I will have timings and even some tickets for this epic train) - it was non stop from Borth to Wolverhampton for public purposes - with token exchanges on the move. Then set down only at Watford Junction before Euston. Getting the electric on at Wolves was a blessed relief. (heat pumped in !)

The allocated guards were superb - probably enjoyed something a bit different. I recall the Wolves guard , showing me how to do a brake test when the electric came on. I suspect he never realised how he was mentoring a future BR Operations Manager. The stock was from Oxley - but went back to Wembley.

We even litter picked it for them.

 

[LMS 4F]

I wonder how this worked. The student trains were privately chartered from BR who were paid a set amount to run the train. The Guild set the ticket price and the profit/loss thus depended on how many tickets were sold. At busy times BR also ran 'reliefs' which they ran themselves which were additional to the normal timetable, but could be caught by any passenger with a 'normal' ticket. With your trains from Wool did you have to have a special ticket for the train, or would a normal army warrant apply?

We all had a normal ticket either using one of our 3 rail warrants a year or we had to pay at the booking office.
As I recall, it was 55 years ago, we were taken to Wool in the week before the leave a few at a time so we didn’t overwhelm the staff.
The train ran 6 times a year, 3 for our long leaves about the same as school holiday times but not as long and three weekends in the middle of each term.
I have no idea who arranged the trains but I would imagine it was sorted out between the Army and BR.
I would be interested to know if it happened at other places as there were several such junior units around the country.

 

[shap summit]

During my training for the Navy at HMS Ganges at Shotley Gate near Ipswich in 1967-1968, the Navy would charter special leave trains from Ipswich to London Liverpool Street for all us southerners and also trains going north for all the northerners, and then return trains at the end of the leave period.
I also traveled from various Naval bases to others by special trains and on one occasion from Rosyth dockyards halt to Edinburgh where the two carriages were attached to a regular London bound train.
The guard made a mistake by unlocking the doors to the restaurant car and a hoard of thirsty sailors decended on it, but that's a not her story!

 

[John Webb]

Certainly pre-WW2 various public schools had regularly chartered trains at the start and end of term. My father went to Uppingham School and recalled going there and back by special trains. He was planning to build a layout of Uppingham station but got no further than sketching out plans before his death.
I am uncertain if these resumed after WW2.

 

[WesternLancer]

As opposed to start / end of term trains - During my time as student in the 80s there was often talk of chartering trains by the Students Union for demos (ie train to London for whatever national demo NUS had organised that year - mostly about HE sector spending cuts / student grants / levels / abolition of etc I would think) but IIRC when quotes were sourced it always ended up with road coach bookings - which probably also helped if the numbers of people wanting to go on the demo was fewer than the enthusiastic organisers tended to hope for. Of course the lengthy coach journeys were always tedious.... and a v poor substitute for a train IMHO.

I suspect by this point (post 1985) BR had less spare rakes of old stock available to charter for such things in any case.

 

[30907]

Certainly pre-WW2 various public schools had regularly chartered trains at the start and end of term. My father went to Uppingham School and recalled going there and back by special trains. He was planning to build a layout of Uppingham station but got no further than sketching out plans before his death.
I am uncertain if these resumed after WW2.

Don't know about Uppingham, but boarding school traffic was significant on the SR, at least into the 60s - I have somewhere a weekly notice with a significant number of extras - special trains, extra coaches and block reservations.

 

[PeterC]

We did the same one year for Aberystwyth to Euston - 1978 I think - Christmas term end -a class 40 with 6 MK1's and a scratch buffet organised by the Student Guild.

BR did us "proud" by rostering a no-heat class 40 , the train was known as the "ice-cube special" afterwards. I have a very fond memory as the guard allowed me to flag it off from Borth , "you always remember the first time"

It made a small profit and a good time was had by all. One interesting feature was it avoided Salop by going round the curve for a crew change. Never done that since.

Would have been nice in my day (class of 1970), the best that we had to provide capacity was a Cardiff - Chester (I think) DMU splitting at Shrewsbury and one unit joining the Wolverhampton - Aber service. This wasn't shown in the timetable so I assume that it was a special arrangement for the startt o term.

The Union did charter trains on the VofR once for a small music festival which, IIRC, was in a field near Capel Bangor station. Half a century on I can remember the train ride but not a thing about the music.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Would have been nice in my day (class of 1970), the best that we had to provide capacity was a Cardiff - Chester (I think) DMU splitting at Shrewsbury and one unit joining the Wolverhampton - Aber service. This wasn't shown in the timetable so I assume that it was a special arrangement for the startt o term.

The Union did charter trains on the VofR once for a small music festival which, IIRC, was in a field near Capel Bangor station. Half a century on I can remember the train ride but not a thing about the music.

A mini Welsh Woodstock ?

The local management at BR Aber were very obliging in arranging well priced party rates for small groups , and of course special deals on the VoR. Quite commercially orientated.

 

[Taunton]

Now the opening photo had me a bit thrown - 1976 and not a single semaphore in sight. Then realised that Taunton West Junction, its box squashed against the lineside just by the right hand road bridge pier, the substantial junctions crossing all main lines, and the multiple signal bracket arms, have all gone, in typical WR 83 Division scorched-earth rationalisation of the era. Resignalling didn't come for some years afterwards. Incidentally my longstanding position was commonly about 6 feet above the photographers' position, on the footbridge directly above. But by 1976 I, too, had moved on, through academia, and then on across some distant worlds. Possibly just as that photo was being taken I was hearing a distant Southern Pacific freight whistling through the California orange groves. Those NBC TV news images one evening, grainy through standards conversion, of that exact so-familiar road bridge and track on the day of the Taunton sleeper fire, were a sudden jolt though.

Student charter trains had happened on odd occasions, I think what dealt with them was the student half-fare railcard (1975?), which instantly made any normal service far more affordable. I wonder who was the commercial manager who saw that through.

The Exeter charter services were well described from the off in articles in the Railway Magazine at the time, Warships at the beginning of course, with a special headboard. Doubtless written by one of the organisers.

And now, if you work back through some past posts of mine here, there are some notable trails to bring together. One is about a pioneer 1966 family Motorail holiday from Newton-le-Willows to Newton Abbot, where whiling the time away on the return there was a WR memorabilia shop at the up end of the station in an old van. Taking up floorspace were some old WR carriage roofboards, about 20 feet long, from the Torbay Express, something completely impractical to get home (I suggested of course on the carflats alongside our car ...). Then recently there was a thread here started by the Newton Abbot town museum archivist, about how they had acquired some wooden boards with names, which we rapidly identified as 1960s carriage roofboards, and me as potentially the same ones. Someone then casually asked what was on the back. "Oh, it's been painted by someone in green paint "University of Exeter or something ...", whereupon I drew together all the strands - 1960s Mk 1 boards; 1970s charters by local university; 2010s into the hands of the town museum. All the same ... well it's possible, isn't it?

 

[randyrippley]

We all had a normal ticket either using one of our 3 rail warrants a year or we had to pay at the booking office.
As I recall, it was 55 years ago, we were taken to Wool in the week before the leave a few at a time so we didn’t overwhelm the staff.
The train ran 6 times a year, 3 for our long leaves about the same as school holiday times but not as long and three weekends in the middle of each term.
I have no idea who arranged the trains but I would imagine it was sorted out between the Army and BR.
I would be interested to know if it happened at other places as there were several such junior units around the country.

Presumably you were going to Lulworth ranges? Or Bovington?
Did they get you there in trucks or did you have to march from Wool??

 

[LMS 4F]

Presumably you were going to Lulworth ranges? Or Bovington?
Did they get you there in trucks or did you have to march from Wool??

We were at Bovington Camp on a separate barracks as you came into the camp opposite the Tank Museum. The Junior Leaders Regiments are no more but the last time I was there a few years ago various units had moved in.
We were taken to the station by bus or truck and there was transport meeting trains when we returned from leave. There wasn’t any public transport in my time.
Later in my service as an adult I was posted to Lulworth and transport to and from Wool station was down to each individual, once again with no bus service.

 

[Gloster]

On Sunday nights at the end of the 1970s the only member of staff on duty at Andover was supposed to collect tickets. Supposed was the word, as the large number of soldiers returning to camp would make a dash for the small number of taxis. One half of the double-leaf doors from the platform to the booking-hall was normally kept shut, but was opened for this sudden exodus. (I learnt that the first time I did the turn, when somebody leant down and pulled up the bolt, allowing the door to crash back.) The staff just stood to one side with a hand out, hoping that a few tickets would be pushed into it.

 

[LMS 4F]

On Sunday nights at the end of the 1970s the only member of staff on duty at Andover was supposed to collect tickets. Supposed was the word, as the large number of soldiers returning to camp would make a dash for the small number of taxis. One half of the double-leaf doors from the platform to the booking-hall was normally kept shut, but was opened for this sudden exodus. (I learnt that the first time I did the turn, when somebody leant down and pulled up the bolt, allowing the door to crash back.) The staff just stood to one side with a hand out, hoping that a few tickets would be pushed into it.

I caught the train many a Friday at about 5pm bound for Waterloo. It was very popular with us Squaddies and the buffet was often sold out.
I don’t recall the station on our return but the local Chinese was interesting to say the least.

 

[crosscity]

Now the opening photo had me a bit thrown - 1976 and not a single semaphore in sight. Then realised that Taunton West Junction, its box squashed against the lineside just by the right hand road bridge pier, the substantial junctions crossing all main lines, and the multiple signal bracket arms, have all gone, in typical WR 83 Division scorched-earth rationalisation of the era. Resignalling didn't come for some years afterwards. Incidentally my longstanding position was commonly about 6 feet above the photographers' position, on the footbridge directly above. But by 1976 I, too, had moved on, through academia, and then on across some distant worlds. Possibly just as that photo was being taken I was hearing a distant Southern Pacific freight whistling through the California orange groves. Those NBC TV news images one evening, grainy through standards conversion, of that exact so-familiar road bridge and track on the day of the Taunton sleeper fire, were a sudden jolt though.

Student charter trains had happened on odd occasions, I think what dealt with them was the student half-fare railcard (1975?), which instantly made any normal service far more affordable. I wonder who was the commercial manager who saw that through.

The Exeter charter services were well described from the off in articles in the Railway Magazine at the time, Warships at the beginning of course, with a special headboard. Doubtless written by one of the organisers.

And now, if you work back through some past posts of mine here, there are some notable trails to bring together. One is about a pioneer 1966 family Motorail holiday from Newton-le-Willows to Newton Abbot, where whiling the time away on the return there was a WR memorabilia shop at the up end of the station in an old van. Taking up floorspace were some old WR carriage roofboards, about 20 feet long, from the Torbay Express, something completely impractical to get home (I suggested of course on the carflats alongside our car ...). Then recently there was a thread here started by the Newton Abbot town museum archivist, about how they had acquired some wooden boards with names, which we rapidly identified as 1960s carriage roofboards, and me as potentially the same ones. Someone then casually asked what was on the back. "Oh, it's been painted by someone in green paint "University of Exeter or something ...", whereupon I drew together all the strands - 1960s Mk 1 boards; 1970s charters by local university; 2010s into the hands of the town museum. All the same ... well it's possible, isn't it?

That is very interesting about the carriage roofboards at the Newton Abbot town museum. The organiser of the Guild train in the photo still lives in Devon, so when the Covid crisis is over he might pop down to Newton Abbot to try and see the nameboards.

The organiser of previous Guild trains has produced a 'lock-down' article in the last week. He has collated a lot of information about the trains from when they first started in 1962, such as tickets, flyers and photos but is missing quite a bit. Is there a chance you saw some of them? This table shows the info we have so far. It would be really great if some of the gaps could be filled, especially the locos. The up trains would leave Exeter around midday, and the down trains arrived at about 4pm.

Date ran	Loco	Train
Fri 14Dec62	Warship	Exeter-Paddington
Mar63	Warship	Exeter-Paddington
Dec64	Western (ran out of fuel)	Exeter-Paddington
65-70	May have been up to five trains each year	3 x Paddington-Exeter and 2 x Exeter Paddington
Wed 24Mar71	Class 47	Paddington-Exeter
Tue 03Oct72	D1004	Paddington-Exeter
Wed 13Dec72	D1003	Exeter-Paddington
Tue 09Jan73	D1016	Paddington-Exeter
Wed 21Mar73	Not known	Exeter-Birmingham
Wed 21Mar73	Not known	Exeter-Paddington
Tue 24Apr73	Not known	Paddington-Exeter
Tue 24Apr73	Not known	Birmingham-Exeter
Tue 02Oct73	Not known	Paddington-Exeter
Tue 02Oct73	Not known	Birmingham-Exeter
Mon 30Sep74	Two Cl 33's to Westbury, 47088 from Westbury	Waterloo-Exeter via Westbury
Mon 29Sep75	D1036	Paddington-Exeter
Mon 27Sep76	D1022 + two Cl 31	Paddington-Exeter
Mon 26Sep77	47028	Paddington-Exeter
Mon 02Oct78	Not known	Paddington-Exeter