Victorian train lengths

[30907]

Back in them days, people would simply use a bit of common sense and alight and board the coaches that were on the platforms. Simple.

More sensibly, given the length of time it would have taken to load/unload while blocking the main line, they split the overlong trains at KGX and drew forward everywhere else.

In 1960s the fairly usual number of carriages on trains on WCML was 12 for Euston to Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool...

Actually slightly shorter than an 11-car Pendo, even with the loco, and certainly seating fewer (cue comment on comfort...)

 

[Killingworth]

I can't accurately date steam hauled journeys between York and Newcastle but I'm sure some of the trains were very long, and setting forward happened. There were lots of khaki uniforms most of whom got off at Darlington for Catterick or Barnard Castle.

In 1967 we travelled on the car sleeper between Newcastle and Newton Abbot but, sadly, I didn't count the vehicles in the train. The car carrying vehicles were certainly not in the same platform as our sleeping car when we boarded.

In the late 1970s summer Saturday trains heading for the south-west might have 14 or 15 carriages as they left Sheffield. I think that may have been after consolidating portions from Newcastle and maybe Bradford?

 

[coppercapped]

Most likely this incident on 4 February 1945, resulting in two deaths and 26 injuries. There were 17 carriages involved.

One of the two people killed in this crash was Cecil Kimber, founder of the MG Cars company.

 

[edwin_m]

Also: "We apologise for the use of non-corridor, non-gangwayed rolling stock on this service."

"... and also for the lack of a public address system"

I wonder how many people were over-carried because they expected the train to pull up twice and it didn't. Jumping down onto the ballast was acceptable practice until fairly recently too.

 

[WatcherZero]

Another thing is the trains on rural routes were a lot longer because they were far less frequent, you might see a tiny rural station have a train with more than 8 carriages call there.

 

[Killingworth]

By the time of the Beeching report there were 18,500 gang-wayed coaches in daily use with 2,000 held in reserve for regular summer services. A further 8,900 were held for high peak period service, of which 6,000 were used 18 or less times in a year. A lot of almost empty carriages were being pulled up and down so that a few trains could carry very heavy one way loads. Those final 6,000 carriages were to be withdrawn and seat reservations used to ration space on the busiest trains. This was also when peak periods started to see higher fares. It was estimated those 6,000 carriages brought in £0.5m in revenue and cost £3.4m to run. They occupied a lot of siding space when not in use.

 

[randyrippley]

An excursion from Nottingham in 1840 had 4 engines, 67 carriages and carried 3,000 passengers.

must have been damn strong couplings

 

[Lucan]

An excursion from Nottingham in 1840 had 4 engines, 67 carriages and carried 3,000 passengers.

must have been damn strong couplings

Maybe the locos were distributed through the train; don't the Americans do that with their long freights, with intermediate locos radio-controlled?