TRIVIA - Things you saw travelling on BR that you don't see today

[CentralTrainer]

Slam door EMUs and compartments.

Always wanted the experience of riding one of those - sadly I was slightly too young to be around when they went out of service.

 

[30909]

Day Old Chicks in cardboard boxes, Milk Churns, Cattle Docks and cattle waggons, horse boxes on rear of "express" trains left at racecourse stations, Gas or Oil lamps, Running in Boards, Lamps Sheds, the smell of Paraffin or Jeyes Fluid, 2 or 5 ton hand worked cranes in sidings, loading gauges on the exit road or head shunt, Goods sheds and parcel offices. Oh my age is showing!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Always wanted the experience of riding one of those - sadly I was slightly too young to be around when they went out of service.

There are still compartments in mainland Europe, though not as common as they once were.

 

[30907]

There are still compartments in mainland Europe, though not as common as they once were.

Think the OP means slam door stock? If with non-corridor compartments, they went in the early 80s?

 

[XCTurbostar]

A public telephone in the train? (158s)

Thanks,
Ross

 

[theageofthetra]

The smell of stale cigarettes & the clouds of dust from EBP seats pre- Network South East

 

[tsr]

As I type, I've just watched a relief HST blast through a station in Cornwall, and my local station still sometimes has a bloke in a fibreglass booth (as do several stations on my routes!).

Things from BR though... Definitely compartment stock. And staff (mainly) bellowing unintelligible stuff down the side of a slam door train at somewhere like London Victoria, to get people to hurry up. Opening doors before the train had stopped. Coastal trains from seemingly more places in suburbia.

 

[theageofthetra]

Circus animals were routinely moved by rail, there is a similar picture of Elephants coming out of Ipswich Station in the 1950's (scroll down to about the 9th picture).

http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/d...look-like-when-it-originally-opened-1-4861329

The Bluebell Railway has just opened a former elephant transporter wagon as a kids play zone.

 

[xotGD]

Lots of overnight passenger services
Station pilots / parcels bays
Passengers managing to jump on board as the train was already moving
Summer-Saturdays-only services to every seaside town in the country
Steam heat
The only ticket you could buy from a machine was a platform ticket
Only one place to buy a cup of coffee on the station - but most people drank tea.
Empty coal wagons running back down Dunston Staithes under gravity (an 03 used to push them up)
Loco-hauled trains the length and breadth of the country.

 

[theageofthetra]

This is actually lost on a lot of forum members.....some of the bigger staions years ago were dire to say the least.

I remember the dirt and squalor well into the 80's

 

[Hornet]

Clouds of steam leaking from the steam heating pipe connectors. Telegraph poles and wires linking mechanical signal boxes, (especially up the Midland Main Line). Views out of the front of a DMU. Open braziers on platforms for postal staff during winter. Being able to turn up and go on the 16:10 Euston to Glasgow on a Friday night and find a seat. Police dogs chasing Football fans over the foot bridge at Leeds Station whilst a Wast Ham fan was given a good taste of Truncheon meat for his lip. Not having the security stasi at Stations, screaming at you for daring to take a photo, (even at the height of the IRA campaign). Westerns, Warships and Hymeks.

 

[AlterEgo]

I remember the dirt and squalor well into the 80's

I remember it in the 90s! Manchester Piccadilly was dire.

 

[theageofthetra]

I remember it in the 90s! Manchester Piccadilly was dire.

True though Network South East started to make changes quite quickly. Biggest tidy up for me was when the office complex got built on top of Charing Cross.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Unified buffet branches all over the Network , much maligned , but local staff often sold extra things not on the menu. (like Shepherds pie , home made)

Masses of on train dining cars , open to all.

Newspaper trains , and bundles carried on suburban EMU stock.

The pre Xmas mail and parcels rush - with masses of special workings. Even EMU sets commandeered in the London area.

Marshalling yards with shunting taking place in most city areas , and odd greenfield sites like Severn Tunnel Junction.

A world class management training scheme , covering all functions

Area Managers

Station Managers (proper ones - with idenifiable gold braid caps - on the platforms in the peaks - not hidden away around 150 miles away in a bland office block)

 

[Wookiee]

1. Relief Trains - often these would run on inter-city routes. They would inevitably be formed of rakes of Mark I coaches with compartments and any 1st class vehicles in the rake more often than not declassified. Classic traction (such as a "roarer" on the WCML) would often be found on these services making them a magnet for enthusiasts.

I can remember going from Bournemouth to Reading on a Poole-Manchester relief train, back in the days of the Area D rover. Hauled by a Crompton!

 

[Wookiee]

Summer-Saturdays-only services to every seaside town in the country

I miss those, and the non-heat haulage they usually attracted.

 

[BestWestern]

Those massive, red, push-button TVMs with a huge array of destinations and ticket options, each with a little (green or blue ISTR?) button to select it

 

[johnr57]

Platform tickets

 

[yorksrob]

Carriages lit with light bulbs.
Flappety flap solari boards
Sliding ventilators
Cadburys hot chocolate machines in buffets (lovely )
Buffet cars on the Brighton main line
Piles of ticket clippings on the floor by the platform barrier

 

[yorksrob]

Platform tickets

I bought a platform ticket at Manchester Oxford Road about three months ago !

 

[route:oxford]

As previously mentioned.

Utter filth.

Also

DMUs running with knackered exhausts.
Passengers relying on timetables when boarding a service.
Planters made of old tractor tyres in major stations.
Fences and barriers made from welded track remnants.
Direct dial telephone numbers to your local station (where staff would take over the phone ticket sales, hand deliver tickets and pick up the cheque at the same time!)
Casey Jones burgers that would take the roof of your mouth off.

But mostly.

Utter filth.

 

[westv]

The flipperty flip sound as the departure board set out the next services to leave.

 

[Harbornite]

2. Trains being diverted via alternative routes during engineering works rather than just being bustituted like they are today.

You may not have seen it but that does still happen on occasion.

 

[RichmondCommu]

MGR wagons

Loco stabling points and MPD's - so many have closed

Class 08s seemingly everywhere

Railway workshops - again so many have closed

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The flipperty flip sound as the departure board set out the next services to leave.

The Solari Boards .....

 

[ChiefPlanner]

As previously mentioned.

Utter filth.

Also

DMUs running with knackered exhausts.
Passengers relying on timetables when boarding a service.
Planters made of old tractor tyres in major stations.
Fences and barriers made from welded track remnants.
Direct dial telephone numbers to your local station (where staff would take over the phone ticket sales, hand deliver tickets and pick up the cheque at the same time!)
Casey Jones burgers that would take the roof of your mouth off.

But mostly.

Utter filth.

Standards of cleaning greatly improved from the advent of business management and especially on NSE with the advent of "Operation Sparkle" which put in proper cleaning regimes for trains and stations. Daily light clean and heavy periodic cleans. Agreed standards could vary incredibly - especially when stations had been de-staffed in the regions , but at least BR did (belatedly) get a grip on much of it. Not scoring points , but LT went through a very bad phase with stations and trains filthy , subsequently handsomely countered.

 

[b0b]

I remember it in the 90s! Manchester Piccadilly was dire.

worse than pre-eurostar St Pancras?

 

[AY1975]

Think the OP means slam door stock? If with non-corridor compartments, they went in the early 80s?

There were still non-corridor compartment EPB and Class 302 EMUs around until the late '80s or early '90s, but I think someone got murdered in one so they painted a red stripe above the windows of compartment cars and latterly used them only in peak hours wherever possible.

 

[AY1975]

Curtains or blinds in both First and Standard Class. I think the Voyagers and Pendolinos (and obviously the Sleepers) are currently the only trains to have them in SC. Southern Region main line EMUs (CIGs, CEPs, etc) had them in SC until they were refurbished in the '80s.

 

[Tio Terry]

I loved the really freshly cooked breakfasts from the restaurant car, not this airline style rubbish we get today. Also the real steak and kidney pie we used to get. I travelled a lot between Norwich and London, the S&K pies used to be prepared in the dining rooms kitchens in Norwich and delivered to the trains, great big trays of them, were really excellent - and in those days I could claim them on expenses!