304s/310s & 312s

[Merle Haggard]

Thank you to those who taken the time to post details of allocations and other information about the Cobbler sets and the LM (W) emu, all valuable info'.
With regard to my previous post about LL stickers on Cobbler coaches.
I recollect that looking from the train I then regularly caught home across to the the next Cobbler departure on the other face of the same platform (I think it was 14/5/6 side) that this set had very neatly applied LL stickers on most cars, place centrally below the number. I accept that some wag might have stuck the odd one on, but this seemed to be more official and very neat. Also, it was so bizarre that I really took close notice!
So that set my mind working. When specific coaches were first allocated to maintenance depots (part of coaching stock going on to TOPS) , how did this work? Before the setup of individual coaches being allocated to depots and pools I imagine that the effort was put, using the Passenger Train Marshalling and Circuit Working of Carriage Sets books , into making sure that every train was correctly formed with coaches detached for maintenance and replace by spares by looking at chalked on dates etc. As long as coaches arrived from Works to balance ones sent there the individual stock number was unimportant.
I just wonder whether, on the day that the TOPS-based system was introduced, the coaches were allocated on the basis of where they were physically. This would probably be done on a Sunday. So it's just possible that a Cobbler set was standing at Edge Hill on that Sunday (having worked the booked weekend working in the Circuit book and that meant the coaches in the set were 'allocated' to LL.
That's just a guess, of course; but perhaps someone with knowledge of how coaching stock was cutover to TOPS could help.

Clarence Yard helpfully posted that the Cobbler sets when transferred to Old Oak had the symptoms of not having been separated much and this reinforces my recollection of the situation. We usually congregated in the 3rd coach from the front at Euston, and walking down the train I usually looked at the stock numbers partly to check that I was boarding the right coach. Although I couldn't quote the numbers from memory it was that situation where once I saw them, I recognised that they were the same. This seem to be at odds with the apparently constant re-allocations officially.

Of course, relying on memory for events over time is difficult. For instance, I can clearly remember the appearance of the sequence 4997 - 5001 but when that was, or for how long they were in the sets, is not something that I can now recall. Sometimes, too, something that one remembers as being long lasting turns out to have been transient and v.v..

Sorry if this seems long winded but the LL allocation has intrigued me for getting on for 40 years!

 

[etr221]

Some of the 304s (as they became) were, I believe, used on the ER (GE/LTS lines) in the very early 1960s, until all the ER's own units were available. One difference was the LM units had two brake compartments, the ER's only one.

In the early days (1966) of ac electric services from Euston there were one or two train's worth of AM4s (as they were at the time) that worked peak hour trains out of Euston, but most of the locals were AM10s.

 

[magpiespy]

I recall a regular but most unusual 310 working in the late 1980s - a single unit from Birmingham to Preston and back. This was a rare sight indeed at Preston in those days. In fact it's the only time I remember seeing an EMU in Preston in the last century.

I'm fairly sure it was timetabled as I saw it more than once. It never seemed to be busy.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

I recall a regular but most unusual 310 working in the late 1980s - a single unit from Birmingham to Preston and back. This was a rare sight indeed at Preston in those days. In fact it's the only time I remember seeing an EMU in Preston in the last century.

I'm fairly sure it was timetabled as I saw it more than once. It never seemed to be busy.

Im sure I read somewhere that it was in the senior (read - near retirement) link at Crewe, an out-and-back job which relieved one of the busier XC Anglo-Scot loco-hauled services?

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I recall a regular but most unusual 310 working in the late 1980s - a single unit from Birmingham to Preston and back. This was a rare sight indeed at Preston in those days. In fact it's the only time I remember seeing an EMU in Preston in the last century.

I'm fairly sure it was timetabled as I saw it more than once. It never seemed to be busy.

I recall seeing a 304 at Preston around that time presumably on the same working

 

[TheHovisKid]

I recall a regular but most unusual 310 working in the late 1980s - a single unit from Birmingham to Preston and back. This was a rare sight indeed at Preston in those days. In fact it's the only time I remember seeing an EMU in Preston in the last century.

I'm fairly sure it was timetabled as I saw it more than once. It never seemed to be busy.

I had a 310 to Preston, which had arrived from the South into P3 at Lancaster, a regular thing that year at least. I think the odd set got to Carlisle too, intentionally or otherwise.

 

[Beebman]

I recall seeing in a railway mag in 1974 a photo of a 304 at Preston working a service from Crewe which I think was a short-term timetabled one just before the main electrification to Glasgow went live.

 

[jfollows]

I recall seeing in a railway mag in 1974 a photo of a 304 at Preston working a service from Crewe which I think was a short-term timetabled one just before the main electrification to Glasgow went live.

See https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/least-used-electrified-mainline.218230/page-2#post-5167227, for example. There was a morning EMU service in both the 1974 & 1975 timetables. 09:17 from Crewe in the attached public timetable, follow the link for the working timetable.
EDIT Up afternoon timetable including 15:00 EMU Preston-Crewe added.

 

[Bikeman78]

I had a 310 to Preston, which had arrived from the South into P3 at Lancaster, a regular thing that year at least. I think the odd set got to Carlisle too, intentionally or otherwise.

They definitely went to Carlisle, see this photo. I have seen a photo of one at Carlisle but I cannot find it at the moment. https://www.flickr.com/photos/psrp/51013562481/

 

[jfollows]

They definitely went to Carlisle, see this photo. I have seen a photo of one at Carlisle but I cannot find it at the moment. https://www.flickr.com/photos/psrp/51013562481/

I once went to Oxenholme to catch an AM10/310 to Crewe which I knew about, and hoped it would be formed so that I could look out of the front (it was). Some kind of extra working probably on a Saturday morning in the late 1970s which started from Carlisle.

 

[Merle Haggard]

One feature of the AM10 units was their brake performance - which I remember from commuting to and from Euston from 1970 - and this hasn't been mentioned so far. Braking down from 75 to about 20 was impressively sharp but sometimes, randomly, it would then noticeably fade. Much lower rate of retardation, down to about 7 m.p.h (notably, just too fast to risk jumping off!) and then there would seem to be no braking at all, and the train would coast slowly run the length of the platform, and some distance beyond, before coming to a very leisurely stop. After a short pause, the train would reverse into the platform in a 'nothing to see here' way.
I was at the time working on the Accidents Section and it was interesting that Mishap Forms for the irregularities never arrived. The driver should have contacted the signaller for permission to set back and it's possible that he could have walked back to the signal post telephone to do so but, in the time elapsed, that did seem doubtful. Even if he had done so there were rumours of an 'I'll say nothing if you say nothing' agreement. The setting back just seemed to take place very quickly in possibly a 'no-one will notice if we're quick' way.*
The brake fade is different from the wheels picking up on a damp rail when braking. This happened frequently on Autumn mornings on early morning trains. There was no sensation of the wheels starting to slide but the indicators were the undiminishing speed approaching a station stop and the very distinctive sound. Wheel slide sounded exactly like frying bacon, on an AM10.
Both a feature of the generally excellent disc brakes on AM10s which very probably either avoided mishaps altogether or reduced the effects, on a few occasions.


* the danger was created if a signal was passed moving forwards and a second time setting back. The signal would most probably be green and would revert to red when it was passed in the forward direction setting the next signal back to single yellow. When the train reversed past the signal then the track circuit would detect a train standing at that signal and change the single yellow behind back to red, and all the previous signals all went down one aspect. This was worrying for drivers of following trains, and DID, understandably, raise a mishap form. I don't know if current signalling is as simplistic.

 

[Magdalia]

One feature of the AM10 units was their brake performance - which I remember from commuting to and from Euston from 1970 - and this hasn't been mentioned so far. Braking down from 75 to about 20 was impressively sharp but sometimes, randomly, it would then noticeably fade. Much lower rate of retardation, down to about 7 m.p.h (notably, just too fast to risk jumping off!) and then there would seem to be no braking at all, and the train would coast slowly run the length of the platform, and some distance beyond, before coming to a very leisurely stop. After a short pause, the train would reverse into the platform in a 'nothing to see here' way.

The AM10s arrived on the Liverpool Street-Cambridge line in I think 1987. I didn't do many journeys with them, but have vague recollections that stopping at Stansted on the up road with a falling gradient was particularly dodgy. What I remember most was the Cambridge drivers that I knew being very disparaging about AM10 brakes, but without this detailed description of their idiosyncrasies.

 

[danielnez1]

Always thought it odd the 304s never got a refurbishment in the way 30 of the 302s, the four-car 305s, 307s or 308s did (even if just fluorescent lighting and gangway within units).

I have wondered about that as well. One reason could be that the 302,305,307 and 308 refurb was undertaken by the Eastern Region, and perhaps the Midland region elected not to do the same for whatever reason. A shame IMHO.