A lot of stations are not listed, only what might be described as the more important ones, considerably less than half of the toal number of stations served by sleeper back then are on the map as it would not be practical to show them all on that type of map: missing include e.g stations between Preston and Barrow, most stations between Motherwell and Inverness, etc etc.
If this is the Bristol to Scotland service, it's there (green lines). The extension to Plymouth and the Poole portion didn't come until around 1988 (I believe these changes were simultaneous with the withdrawal of the ECML sleepers).
I imagine that splitting would have been necessary to get the train unassisted to Plymouth (it was very long!). By splitting at New Street you not only opened up a potential new market but obviated the need to pay for Lickey bankers.
What's with the overnight to Barrow, something to do with shipbuilding?
Vickers, I would imagine.
Yes from what I understand the join and split was at New Street , with an hour or do between the Poole arriving then the Plymouth arriving
