FVW flats - locally maintained at Eastleigh and almost all were ex BR carriage based (minus the original body of course) - the odd one might have slipped away for a heavy overhaul and therefore got a repaint in blue , but basically they were kept safe and had not a lot of money spent on them - the odd rotten floor plank maybe replaced !
All the way from end to end?
For a while there was a service from Surbiton to the West Country, i've got a OO model of one of the vans.
I vaguely remember that. Did it go to Okehampton?
There was earlier service, 1959 that ran from Nine Elms to Barnstaple. Known as car carrier service before Motorail term was used.
From 1960 to 1964. 8.03 from Surbiton arr Okehampton 12.28. Cars were unloaded in the MoD sidings at the Meldon end of the station. It returned from Okehampton 15.55 arriving into Surbiton 20.11. £20 for car and driver and £4 13s for each additional passenger.
Surely the keys were left in the cars, who's going to drive off with them? (or am I missing something?)
Can’t say for Motorail but there have been accounts of new cars being being broken into when stood in loops and radios etc being removed.
IIRC up Motorails arrived at the platform at Olympia, the carflats /vans were uncoupled, drawn back and shunted into the loading dock with an 08 or similar. This enabled the cars to be driven forwards off the carflats. Assuming that the cars were driven forwards into the vans at the start of the journey and the vans were coupled to the rear of the train, how could the vans have been turned so the cars would be needed reversing out of them at journey's end?
I remember an ex-BR acquaintance of mine was once spinning a yarn about the 'good old days' and the colourful characters he worked with.
It's all a long time ago, but I have a dim recollection of over-revving and gear crunching during the loading process when presumably BR staff were doing the driving. Even for experienced hands, some of the cars which turned up must have created a few headaches, such as semi-automatics, column changes, gear shifters sticking out of the dashboard etc - never mind all the possible permutations to prevent accidental selection of reverse.
From my own experience I can confirm the passenger coaches were shunted onto the cars.
The original Glasgow-Newhaven service was originally to Eastbourne, but switched in 1964 to Newhaven, but later on it ran from Stirling and it may have originated at some time, or had a portion, from Newcastle. It dated from before the Motorail brand came into use: both the 1963 Eastbourne and the 1964 Glasgow-Newhaven-Dieppe service are referred to as ‘Car-Sleeper. I think that this was withdrawn before the Brockenhurst and Dover service started.
You don’t need insurance either if you’re not on public roads (though it’s obviously advisable!). In this case, the insurance companies would surely not have cared as the event would have happened on railway land while being driven by a servant of the railway so would have been the railway’s (ie the government’s) responsibility. The government self insure.
Any more info about that, as I've not seen any other reference? I presume the cars were conveyed on an overnight freight and the passengers by ordinary day train?
There couldn’t have been much room as there was a long siding (was two) the other side of the down platform at the Plymouth end.
There are 4 pages (blue leaflet) in this blood and custard article, looks like passengers went by separate train having dropped off car.
Further on in the article it describes the shunt moves made at both ends to attach/detach the GUVs and passenger coaches.
