Car Tourist (Motorail in the 1960 years)

Hello everyone,

Hope everyone is fine.
I got a question about Car Tourist service in the 1960 years.
In Motorail leaflets some services are Car Tourist, for example London - Newton Abbot and London - St Austell.
If the passengers could take the train he wants from Paddington. The vehicule take another train and cars are loaded in Kensington Olympia.
Does anyone knows witch train carry the vehicules ? (Freight train, postal train, parcels train ?)

Thank you for your help.

Jerome from France

Many of the Motorail trains carried both the motorcars’ passengers in passenger coaches and their cars on wagons behind. A few either consisted of one train carrying the motorcars’ passengers and a second carrying the cars: I think that these were mostly those going to the South-West due to some very steep gradients on the mainline. Later on the passengers were sometimes put into regular passenger trains and the cars travelled on their own. Most, if not all, of the trains that started from Kensington Olympia had both the passengers and their motorcars in one train.

Those from Paddington could well have the motorcars and passengers in different trains. Note that the service that allowed you to take your car with you if you were using the Paddington-Penzance sleeping car train did run from Paddington, although for railway convenience the van with the motorcars in the Down (from Paddington) train could go in a different train (the one carrying the London newspapers to the West of England).

I am not sure about ‘Car Tourist‘. Motorail was the brand name from 1966, although ‘Car Carrier’ was used for one or two earlier services. However, plenty of odd brand names appeared and rapidly disappeared, so that could have been one.

Even if it was just carrying the cars and contained nothing but Carflats or Cartics, a Motorail train would be treated as a Class 1, i.e. of the same importance and priority as an express passenger train. Cars were carried on Carflats: former carriage underframes that had been given a floor, low side guard-rails, end drop-down ramps and attachment points. There were also Cartics, permanently coupled sets of four double-deck wagons, but I never saw one of these on a West of England service.

This recent discussion on Motorail in the 1970s may be helpful:


My library of Eastern Region timetables suggest that "Motorail" as a brand name started in 1967. Prior to that the Eastern Region ran what they called Anglo Scottish Car Carriers. As far as I can tell the passengers and cars travelled on the same train and the London terminal was at Holloway.

I do have the Western Region public timetable for 1964 which suggests that they did things differently. It says this:

Western Region car tourist services PADDINGTON and CORNWALL (St Austell/Penzance) PADDINGTON and DEVON (Newton Abbot/Plymouth) The service will operate each weekday to 31 December 1964 subject to modification during Bank Holiday periods. Motorists and their passengers travel by night sleeper or, alternatively, during the day by specified trains. Cars are conveyed in specially fitted covered vans by a separate overnight service and are available at destination early the following morning. Bookings are limited and motorists are advised to book well in advance.

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I have found a reference in the Summer 1963 timetable (17 June-8 September), although it is not clear if the the term ‘Car Tourist Service’ is an actual marketing term or a convenient heading for the entry in the timetable book.

It runs each weekday from Monday 1 April to Saturday 5 October (longer than the railway’s summer timetable period), except for Good Friday and Easter Monday. Motorists could travel from Paddington to Newton Abbot by selected day trains, while those to St Austell could also use the night sleeping-car trains. The night trains arrived at Newton Abbot at 04.14 and 06.15, and the railway would probably not want the disruption to other passengers of getting the motorists out of bed and the coach (and they would want the greater revenue from longer journey tickets). For those returning to Paddington it would be 01.02 and 01.30, which might also disrupt those who had joined earlier and settled down.

It says that ‘Cars are conveyed in specially fitted covered vans by a separate overnight service…’ This would probably be one of the faster parcels trains or even the newspaper train, but possibly not the Postals.

Gloster said:

It says that ‘Cars are conveyed in specially fitted covered vans by a separate overnight service…’ This would probably be one of the faster parcels trains or even the newspaper train, but possibly not the Postals.

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Does it mention Kensington O as the loading point?

30907 said:

Does it mention Kensington O as the loading point?

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No, it says Paddington. I don’t think that there were any motorcar services at Olympia until the Motorail Terminal opened in May 1966.

Gloster said:

No, it says Paddington. I don’t think that there were any motorcar services at Olympia until the Motorail Terminal opened in May 1966.

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As I thought, thanks. In which case the vans would have been attached to existing parcels services - Olympia would have required a dedicated working.

Wherever this was done, the drivers (and their passengers) would need to be able to access the train at the same location where their cars were left for loading.

30907 said:

As I thought, thanks. In which case the vans would have been attached to existing parcels services - Olympia would have required a dedicated working.

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The loading and unloading was almost certainly done over the dock at the Lawn end of the parcels line off the end of Platform 1.

Rescars said:

Wherever this was done, the drivers (and their passengers) would need to be able to access the train at the same location where their cars were left for loading.

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See above for Paddington. At Newton Abbot I think they used the former Moretonhampstead bay. At St Austell I suspect they used the dock off the Down line next to the west end of the station building, but they might have used the siding behind the Up platform that later became part of the Motorail terminal.

Forgive me as I'm not overtly familiar with the area, but Newton Abbot doesn't seem all that important a place to terminate Motorail - so was it chosen because there was an intact bay that had road access, or was it something else?

(or was it at that time, most stations had access like this?)

Dave W said:

Forgive me as I'm not overtly familiar with the area, but Newton Abbot doesn't seem all that important a place to terminate Motorail - so was it chosen because there was an intact bay that had road access, or was it something else?

(or was it at that time, most stations had access like this?)

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Convenient for Torquay / Paignton and other South Devon resorts, and it avoided the dreaded Exeter Bypass of the pre-motorway age. It also had a resident shunter and infrastructure for marshalling purposes.

Dave W said:

Forgive me as I'm not overtly familiar with the area, but Newton Abbot doesn't seem all that important a place to terminate Motorail - so was it chosen because there was an intact bay that had road access, or was it something else?

(or was it at that time, most stations had access like this?)

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Two guesses at possible reasons. It was a convenient railhead for a large part of South Devon, which was a major tourist area, arguably relatively even more than now, for people who wanted sun, sea and sand. Secondly, it was before the South Devon banks (Dainton, Rattery/Hemerdon) which would have restricted loads or required additional operating arrangements. It was also a major depot, both loco and stock, which could have been an additional, if not major, advantage.

Dave W said:

Forgive me as I'm not overtly familiar with the area, but Newton Abbot doesn't seem all that important a place to terminate Motorail - so was it chosen because there was an intact bay that had road access, or was it something else?

(or was it at that time, most stations had access like

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The actual location of the terminal for a car carrier doesn't need to be too precise. By definition all the passengers will be driving to their final destinations anyway. Breaking the back of a long distance drive was the aim of the game. Stopping somewhere a bit short which was convenient for railway operations would have been the ideal arrangement to maximise profitability - perceived good value for the passengers whilst avoiding excess railway mileage with all the associated costs. Further west, St Austell worked well - no need to go all the way to the end of the line at Penzance.

St Austell would have been nice and central for most of the tourist areas of Cornwall. It was also conveniently close to St Blazey depot if you needed a shunting loco or attention by the Carriage & Wagon, or even for supplying additional staff.

Most stations of the period would have had an end dock to act as a loading ramp, but you also needed a reasonable level of station facilities. A single elderly porter at a small wayside station would be overwhelmed by having to load and secure the motorcars, close up the van and help the guard in shunting it in or off the train, and all while dealing with the emmets.

I remember the services from Newcastle in the early 1960s. They were branded as "Car Sleepers" and ran, on different nights to both Newton Abbot and Dover. The cars were mainly carried in 4-wheel CCT vans, either of LNER or BR heritage, although occasionally, a bogie LNER CCT(E) or a BR GUV might be included. Passenger accommodation was mainly in Thompson outline 4 berth sleeping cars, which looked very line ordinary compartment coaches from the outside, albeit with a strange window spacing.
I don't remember the motive power used, which probably means it was something unremarkable such as a V2 or an EE Type 4 (Later Class 40).
We also, of course had the Anglo Scottish Car Carrier, which ran between London and Edinburgh by day and London and Perth by night. This had cars carried in bogie CCT(E) vans until the new TCV double deck vans became available about 1962. I remember that these had markings which I associated with ferry wagons on them, they also had air brake connections from new, though whether they were dual braked or just air piped, I don't know.

Hello,
Thanks for all your replies.
Regarding the vehicle loading location, in the 1966 Motorail brochure, it says Kensington Olympia,
in the 1965 Motorail brochure, nothing is mentioned, so it’s probably Paddington.

As for the feeder trains, if the departure is from Kensington in 1966, is it possible that the vehicles were transported by direct freight trains between LKO and Penzance, stopping at Newton Abbot, Plymouth, St Austell, and Penzance?

For 1965, you seem to say that the newspaper trains could carry the vehicles.

The WTT documents don’t always mention details about these transfers, so it’s hard to know.

The new Motorail terminal at Kensington Olympia was officially opened on Tuesday 24th May 1966 according to that day's "Reading Evening Post" and also the following day's "The Scotsman". Fairly sure, however, that there were still trains conveying cars from London Paddington to/from Penzance (and possibly destinations elsewhere), for some time after this date.

The lower decks of the Newton Chambers E.C. car carriers ('Tierwags') were not used after a staff accident. Perhaps to supply replacement capacity for Motor-rail a small number of LNER (?Thomson? E88nnnE numbers) 51' coaches were re-bodied as car carriers (E96200-3E). For a period there were 9 'Cartic-4' that were in passenger stock*, painted blue and with a 'Motor-Rail' plate attached to the railings on the upper deck.
Clues to how the services worked should be found in the Marshalling Circular and Circuit Working books of the period. I have a couple and I'll dig them out, but perhaps they're available on the web. From memory, one of the ones I have shows Cartics on one of the Kenny. services.

*A difference from the wagon stock ones would be long buffers, which was one of the differences between otherwise similar designs split between passenger and freight stock.

1966 and the opening of Olympia Motorail terminal marked a major change in the operating practices of the car trains. All (or at least almost all) the trains operated out of Olympia consisted of both passenger coaches and Carflats/Cartics carrying the passengers’ cars.

In 1965 BR was only beginning to test the water and the services offered were much fewer in number than later on. It is possible that the day service did run to and from Paddington, but I would suspect that the number of places was limited due to capacity at Paddington. (It must have been a nightmare for the staff at Paddington.)

The overnight Motorail service was really part of the sleeper offering and used, I think, BR GUV. As it was only one or two GUV the number of cars involved could be handled at Paddington: there really wasn’t the space to deal with a long line of cars waiting to load or filling up with passengers after unloading. Similarly, the logistics and inconvenience of ferrying drivers and passengers between Paddington and Olympia would be a damper on the attraction of the service.

As far as the newspaper trains carrying the cars this was in the early 1980s. One GUV carrying cars for Penzance could be included in the News. I am only certain about this in the Down (to Penzance) direction and it might not have applied every day; the News detached four vans at Taunton so was much more lightly loaded over the banks, while the sleepers was usually heavily loaded.

Mostly the accompanied cars travelled in the same train as the passengers, but when a full train of accompanied cars ran separately to the passengers, it was treated as a Class 1 like the passenger trains. It was, I am fairly sure, only the accompanied cars offering for the night sleeper that saw the vans carrying the cars included in parcels trains, usually of the highest priority/class.

Cars accompanying passengers did not travel in freight trains, always in passenger trains, car only trains treated as passenger trains for priority purposes or, in a few cases (almost all at night) in parcels trains. New cars being distributed from the factory or port did travel in freight trains, but that is a completely different matter.

Mcr Warrior said:

The new Motorail terminal at Kensington Olympia was officially opened on Tuesday 24th May 1966 according to that day's "Reading Evening Post"

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It's surprising because the 1965 Motorail brochure mentions a connection between LKO and Fishguard during the summer of 1965. So before the official opening in May 1966.

The Kensington Olympia-Fishguard service was inaugurated on 18 June 1965 and charged £18 per car irrespective of the number of passengers. At Fishguard the cars were handled at Fishguard & Goodwick station, which had closed to regular services the year before. I suspect that for the first year of operation the service was not advertised as Motorail as that name would probably have been kept back for the big launch the following year.

I presume that the Fishguard trains had too many cars for the marshalling and loading of them to be easily handled at Paddington and, rather than delay following the introduction of ro-ro to the Rosslare ferry, BR decided to use Olympia. Olympia had plenty of spare capacity and, because some West Coast Main Line trains had been diverted to it due to electrification works, was in reasonable condition, so fixing temporary arrangements for handling cars shouldn’t have been too difficult.

EDIT: I have had a look in the carriage workings and they appear to be listed as car carrier.

Thanks for these details.
So we can think that it's the parcel train that carries the vehicles.
In 1965 maybe the 1C07 (Parcels and News) train Paddington 00 30 - Penzance 07 40 with stops at Newton Abbot, Plymouth and St Austell.
No idea for the train Penzance - Paddington.

To illustrate these discussions,
Here are some photos of personal documents concerning the Car Tourist service in 1965 (white background pages) and in 1966 (blue background page)

Firstly, a Newspaper train was not a Parcels one. It was a specific category that was equal to an Express passenger train, Class 1, rather than being Class 3, which was what the fastest parcels trains were. For signalling purposes it was the same code (4) as Express passenger trains, Postal trains and one or two other of the most important trains.

My guess, based on later practice, is that the night Penzance car carriers had only limited capacity and so the one, or possibly two, vans could be included in the News to Penzance without problem and so reduce the load for the sleepers. In the Up direction to Paddington the sleepers were probably less heavily loaded and the vans with the cars could be included in that.

The Fishguard service was a bit of an oddity as it was tied in to the ferry service to Rosslare. I think that it was only six coaches, including a Buffet, and eight Carflats. It was close to the main car carrier or Motorail offering, but slightly different because of the ferry service.

To make clear, the night service to Penzance was generally included under the same car carrier and later Motorail brands, but were a different type of operation to the main group of services, being smaller scale and more orientated to being an add-on to the night sleeper offering.

Jerome said:

Thanks for these details.
So we can think that it's the parcel train that carries the vehicles.
In 1965 maybe the 1C07 (Parcels and News) train Paddington 00 30 - Penzance 07 40 with stops at Newton Abbot, Plymouth and St Austell.
No idea for the train Penzance - Paddington.

To illustrate these discussions,
Here are some photos of personal documents concerning the Car Tourist service in 1965 (white background pages) and in 1966 (blue background page)

View attachment 207936View attachment 207937View attachment 207938View attachment 207939

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Thanks for sharing these documents. A small point of detail which perhaps tells a story. In 1965, the maximum height of car was given as 6ft 6ins including luggage. By 1966, the maximum height allowed was 6ft 6ins including luggage rack. In an era before roofboxes, this suggests that luggage which may once have been left on the roof had, by 1966, to be stowed inside the car for the duration of the journey. Images of the GW main line in 1965 festooned with the contents of damaged suitcases spring to mind.

I've found my LMR Passenger Train Marshalling Circular for 6th May 1968 to 4th May 1969 and the following might be of interest:-

00.30 SO Sutton Coldfield - Newton Abbot (runs 25 May to 14 September)

BSK. )
4SK. ) Newton
BSK ) Abbot
9 Carflats. )

Works 16.30 (SO) Newton Abbot - Sutton Coldfield

15/402. 40 Compts 36 cars

-----

21.05 TThO Sutton Coldfield - Stirling
Tuesday - 14 May to 24 September
Thursday - until 26 September

/- TSO. )
/- 4SLSTP. )
/- BSK. ) Stirling
/- BG. )
/- 11 GUV )

2145 from Stirling. Works 2145 Stirling -to Sutton Coldfield

18/589 /- 88 88 Berths 33 Cars

Also includes NE - SW motor rail trains in transit through the lMR and the most interesting one is

21.15 (MThS)) Newton Abbot to Newcastle

ER Stock

BSO. )
3 SLSTP. ) Newcastle
2 SLSTP. )
BSK ) Sheffield
7CCT. )
10 CCT Newcastle



24/584 /- 63 110 berths 34 cars

And there's one I don't remember

00.50 (MX) Kensington to Holyhead
(Runs 6 July to 31 August)
/- 4SK. )
/- BSK. ) Holyhead
8 Carflats )

Works 10.45 (MX) Holyhead to Kensington

13/346 36 Compts 32 cars.

Another interesting Kensington one is:-

19.15 Kensington to Perth
(Runs daily until 28 September
(MThSO) 30 September to 12 October

D 0/ -/ RB. )
0/ -/ TSO. )
0/ -/ 7SLSTP )
0/ -/ BSO. )
C 2 Cartics. )
0/ 2 Carflats. )

19.45 SX and Sun from Perth

C Fitted with air brakes only
D Kitchen end to be leading
0/ Fitted with air and vacuum brakes

14/560 (-/ 79) (154 Berths) (56 cars)

In the book. the'/' appears across the '-' or '0' which I can't reproduce.
'/-' means dual heated.

There were lots more ...

Merle Haggard said:

.

Another interesting Kensington one is:-

19.15 Kensington to Perth
(Runs daily until 28 September
(MThSO) 30 September to 12 October

D 0/ -/ RB. )
0/ -/ TSO. )
0/ -/ 7SLSTP )
0/ -/ BSO. )
C 2 Cartics. )
0/ 2 Carflats. )

19.45 SX and Sun from Perth

C Fitted with air brakes only
D Kitchen end to be leading
0/ Fitted with air and vacuum brakes

14/560 (-/ 79) (154 Berths) (56 cars)

In the book. the'/' appears across the '-' or '0' which I can't reproduce.
'/-' means dual heated.

There were lots more ...

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How nice for the cook to have the kitchen marshalled directly to the loco. A guarantee to make dinner service as choppy as possible! Was the TSO intended to be used, at least in part, as a dining saloon perhaps? Fitting everyone into the seating in the RB would have been a tight squeeze and not everyone would be keen on a very late dinner.

Rescars said:

How nice for the cook to have the kitchen marshalled directly to the loco. A guarantee to make dinner service as choppy as possible! Was the TSO intended to be used, at least in part, as a dining saloon perhaps? Fitting everyone into the seating in the RB would have been a tight squeeze and not everyone would be keen on a very late dinner.

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But, on the West Coast, they used to 'TUTT!' if you walked along the corridor past the kitchen ...

I guess because there's no seating total shown, only berths, that it's for dining. Surprised it wasn't an SO though, the LM had plenty.

Merle Haggard said:

But, on the West Coast, they used to 'TUTT!' if you walked along the corridor past the kitchen ...

I guess because there's no seating total shown, only berths, that it's for dining. Surprised it wasn't an SO though, the LM had plenty.

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What were the tables like in an SO? IIRC, the Mark 1 TSOs had ideal tables for dining. A saloon seating 28 or even 56 diners plus 24(?) in the RB would have worked pretty nicely. In this case, having the kitchen leading makes sense - you certainly would not have wanted to serve meals out of both ends of an RB simultaneously.

marsker said:

We also, of course had the Anglo Scottish Car Carrier, which ran between London and Edinburgh by day and London and Perth by night. This had cars carried in bogie CCT(E) vans until the new TCV double deck vans became available about 1962. I remember that these had markings which I associated with ferry wagons on them, they also had air brake connections from new, though whether they were dual braked or just air piped, I don't know.

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There was usually four or five passenger coaches behind the vans. The train made a splendid sight with an A4 at it’s head, nearly always a Top Shed engine in the early 1960s.

Harvester said:

There was usually four or five passenger coaches behind the vans. The train made a splendid sight with an A4 at it’s head, nearly always a Top Shed engine in the early 1960s.

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The formation of the day Edinburgh in 1962-1963 was six Newton Chambers car carriers (one of which only ran south of Newcastle), First Open, Buffet, First Compartment and a Brake Second Open for luggage. This was the southbound formation and it was supposed to be the reverse, i.e. passenger coaches leading, in the northbound direction.

The northbound Perth was a Brake Second Open for luggage, five Second Class Sleeping Cars with Pantry and six Newton Chambers. Again this was in the reverse formation for the return.