Passenger Train Makeup.

"Eddie Bray"

Hi Eddie,

The Hornby Harry Potter coaches are based on BR Mk1 stock and are not ex-LMS.

John.

Sorry John,

I stand corrected, the others are identical, so I assume that they are BR mk1 stock as well then. Hornby numbers R4131, R4133, R4202. As they all had a M designation to their number I thought they were ex LMS.

Questions still stand though as to the makeup of the rakes.

Eddie

Hi Eddie,

Well it's your train and all that, but there is a rather a lot of brake and

Perhaps like this: brake/3rd, 3rd/1st, restaurant, 3rd/1st, full brake.

Hornby train sets tend to include a shrunken carriage "set", and the add-on packs are usually internal cars.

I know in the old days it used to be 3rd, 3rd, 3rd/brake. That was OK until you put your Pacific on the other end, and it just looked daft. Someone will now point out that the Devon trains used to split into small sections, and the last one might have one, two, or three cars with only one brake. Very true, but in the generality of express trains, in the era I think you are modelling, there was a brake at each end.

Hope this helps. I am following your progress with great interest.

Cheers, Steve

Thanks Steve,

I will be updating some pictures on the website soon. I have finally finished relaying the track for the station, sidings and branchline area. The boards are much beter now using the 12mm MDF and the 4mm sanded cork tiles make a fantastic track bed (and really cut the noise down).

I now just have to work out how to cut the hole for the point motor at the apex of the wye (not enough room above or below to get a drill in there) to have the main board completely finished.

Eddie

Eddie,

When I did a fair bit of long distance railway travel back in the

I also seem to remember that the restaurant car woiuld be towards the middle of the train.

Somewhere there are references to typical train makeups, but I can't remember where at the moment - I'll have a dig around with Google to see what I can turn up.

Jim.

"Eddie Bray" wrote

The M-prefix indicates that the coaches were allocated to the London Midland Region of British Railways - an M-suffix to a number would indicate a coach of LMS origin.

Thus M5968M would be an ex-LMS coach allocated to BR LM Region, whilst M25698 would be a BR built coach allocated to the LMR.

John.

On the other hand, it was common for the restaurant car to be at the end, this allowed for the coach to be added to / removed from services at stations without the need to split half the train.

Also, if the train destination was for more than one place, you could well find that the complete formation has more brake coaches than usual to allow for guard accommodation etc. for each split IYSWIM.

Ten is an unusual number of coaches for a Midland Region train. The ex- LNWR went in for caravans of 12 to 15 coaches, the ex-Midland (aka the Royal Society for the Protection from Cruelty to Steam Engines) preferred seven or eight. Other factors, which could be contradictory, include:

an open coach next to the restaurant car (kitchen end) to cope with an overflow of diners

first class towards the London end

a brake end at each end of the main formation

separating the LMS and BR coaches as much as possible (different gangway connections - LMS and COR had British standard, LNER, SR and BR had Pullman)

the main issue in those long lost days of providing what the passenger wanted, rather than deciding what the customer can have, was to provide the correct mix of seats for bums. So an early morning train would provide a high proportion of second class for the workers, later trains more first class seats for the bosses.

There is a prototype for everything.

Try and scrutinise as many photos as you can. I am looking at a copy of London Midland Steam In Colour, by Hugh Ballantyne. There is a photo of a Black 5 on a Leeds/Bradford - Morecambe working which had seperate portions from Leeds and Bradford and they combined at Skipton.

The formation seems to be SK,BSK,SK,BSK,BSK,SK,SK,BSK. I'm sure there must be some 1st class accommodation in there somewhere but they did not have the yellow cantrail stripe, and some of them may be open seconds.

Brake 3rd, 3rd/1st, Restaurant car, 1st/3rd, full brake.

Restaurant would be in the middle. 1st Class passengers would normally be seated nearest the resaurant. A brake at either end means the train can be pulled from either direction.

(kim)

The yellow stripe appeared fairly late in the 1950s.

In article , crazy_horse snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes

But the Restaurant car might be first class, in which case an open 3rd would be a likely adjunct. If I were Eddie, I would seek to acquire an open third (or second, depending on exact timing) and a full first. But really, practically anything is justifiable.

In article , kim writes

From what you have, it would be impossible to make up a typical train formation. Almost all trains would contain several 3rd Class only coaches. A Restaurant Car would be unlikely to be found in many 5 coach sets, unless it was in a portion of a train that split en route to serve several destinations.

A typical 5 coach set might be 1 x Brake 3rd, 1 x 1st (Or 1st/3rd Composite), and 3 x 3rd Class. If it was a portion, the Restaurant Car might replace one of the 3rd Class coaches. Full brakes were uncommon on passenger trains until the 1970's. Of course, you can use 1st/3rd Composites instead of 3rd Class, but if this happened in reality, some of the 1st Class seating would have been "declassified" - declared available for use by third class (later, second class, after about 1956) passengers.

Bevan

Many Bradford Exchange and Leeds Central to Kings X trains (even Pullmans) had a short Bradford section of about 3 coaches hauled by a tank loco to either Leeds or Wakefield Westgate to be coupled to the Leeds portion (and vice versa on return, of course). I have a photo somewhere taken at Bradford Exchange in 1967.