442s on the South Western up until 2007 (also the last new build stock for the UK built with them) and the last stock to operate with them would have been the two Lymington CIG’s as you remember.
Very true, in which case that makes the Mk5s the most recent new build stock with them.
Was going to mention this. Think it was just the one vehicle, a brake standard (don't know the acronym for that one). It was only in use at the beginning, IIRC it went once the DBSOs were ready and top&tailing ended.
It was Mk2d Brake First Corridor (BFK) 17159, declassified of course. I had a couple of very enjoyable trips up and down the coast in it, usually with a compartment to myself as it was still stickered up as first class so most passengers avoided it. Combined with the scenery, jointed track and a 37 powering away at the front, absolute bliss!
Thanks for the correction. Unfortunately it took me a while to organise a trip to do the 37s, by the time I did that coach was long gone.
We tend to have a rose-tinted view of compartments based on sole (or limited) occupancy. An eight hour journey in a full 4-a-side compo that includes the family from hell (and both your and their luggage) makes an open coach suddenly more attractive. Compos are also less space efficient (unless EPB style!)
During the early design stages, the Mk3 First Class trailers for the HSTs were originally going to have one Open and one Compartment trailer per set.
I think the last loco-hauled non-gang full compartments went with the outer GN electrification in 1977, hauled by Class 31. They had been the only remaining carriages of this type for quite a while. The GN suburban trains seemed to suffer this antiquity - up to 1940 they included the last mainstream operation still with wooden seats.
Class 304/1 (AM4) EMUs 001-015 until 1984, when the motor brake coach with the compartments was converted to open layout. MBS became MBSO.
Vale of Rheidol? (Still part of BR at the time)
Mark 2d was the last compartment stock. 2e and 2f were all open. All Mark 2 second class carriages were open, apart from a handful converted from Corridor Firsts in later life
The compartments for the 442s was because it gave First Class passengers a degree of privacy on busy peak trains where there would be high chance of people standing, or walking through looking for seats.
Opposite is true, did Salzburg to Buchs on an overnight in a compartment, very pleasant, wandered up to open coach and looked like a bomb had hit it. Mess everywhere and noisy!!
The VEPs and CIGs that lasted the longest on the SW were always a treat even on shortish hops from Surbiton to Waterloo. I've mentioned before how I'd deliberately catch the last down Hampton Court train home in order to have a bit of relative luxury (as opposed to the hideous unrefurbished 455s). As you say, even the one standard class compartment at each end would often be left unoccupied because many assumed it was first class... but on Hampton Court runs even the first class compartments were fair game as those were advertised as standard class only.
On the matter of rose-tinting, someone will know for certain, but IIRC, circa 1969, WR Motorail services were made up of Mark 1 FKs, with a compartment allocated to each car carrying a driver accompanied by two or more passengers. There was a family holiday which benefited from this. May have cost an arm and a leg for all we kids knew, but what a treat to have guaranteed on-train privacy for a whole trip! None of that moaning "Are we nearly there yet" from the back seat of the car!
I did the same from Kensington Olympia to Inverness in the early 1980s. Two of us in a Mk1 FK compartment with some form of bedding provided (can't remember exactly what) - it was very good!
