Killingworth
Established Member
The challenge for Devon and Cornwall is that there are very heavy seasonal loads, and parts of the route can experience heavy local loadings, but only at some times of day. To add more capacity would mean dragging around a lot of empty carriage space that might be more needed elsewhere.
We all notice it and say all the trains are crowded, mostly when we've been part of that crowd, but we overlook the empty trains - because we aren't in them as often to notice.
Beeching highlighted this problem, see pages 14 and 15. My own experience was in the North East, but the peak, particularly summer, issues are the same now as they were then. As a boy I recall travelling on a train of musty old corridor coaches from Newcastle to Scarborough via Gilling in 1962 (they stopped after that year). Many more went from the West Riding via Market Weighton and Driffield every 15 minutes to Bridlington and Butlins at Filey, but just on a few Saturdays in July and August. After 1962 more and more cars hit the road and Dad hired a car!
Beeching said;
"Reserve coaching stock is expensive to supply, maintain, and assemble, and is idle for most of the year."
At that time there were 18,500 carriages allocated for fast and semi-fast services, of which;
"5,500 in year-round service, 2,000 additional vehicles for regular summer service, 8,900 available for high peak service, and 2,100 under repair.
6,000 carriages were used for 18 or less occasions in a year. The annual cost of providing the 6,000 coaches was £3.4m. Against this it was estimated that they only earned £O.5m after allowing for all other costs of the movements concerned."
In those days mostly interchangeable spare carriages were liberally distributed around the country and could be added to trains relatively easily - although I'd suspect not as easily as we sometimes imagine. A major part of our difficulties today is the multiplicity of coaching types, TOCs and leasing companies so stock is far less interchangeable. We don't have as much available secure siding space to store surplus vehicles in working order either.
When we have the same XC TOC, leasing company and class of train, 4 or 5 car Voyagers can be made up into an 8, 9 or even 10 coach train. Great, but it's two separate trains running together so unable to even out the load on the move. In the old BR days I could walk along 8 or 9 coaches to find the front half of the train had plenty of space (travelling from KX or St Pancras), although it might be packed at the back. Not possible on too many modern trains.
Northern have the same issue when coupling a Pacer to a 150/1 - and sometimes to a 150/2 so still unable to walk between after clambering aboard at the last minute at Piccadilly. TPE's 185s are grand, but a 6 coach train is two trains, one of which can have more space than the other. I could go on.............. as usual there's not a simple solution or it would probably have been applied years ago.
We all notice it and say all the trains are crowded, mostly when we've been part of that crowd, but we overlook the empty trains - because we aren't in them as often to notice.
Beeching highlighted this problem, see pages 14 and 15. My own experience was in the North East, but the peak, particularly summer, issues are the same now as they were then. As a boy I recall travelling on a train of musty old corridor coaches from Newcastle to Scarborough via Gilling in 1962 (they stopped after that year). Many more went from the West Riding via Market Weighton and Driffield every 15 minutes to Bridlington and Butlins at Filey, but just on a few Saturdays in July and August. After 1962 more and more cars hit the road and Dad hired a car!
Beeching said;
"Reserve coaching stock is expensive to supply, maintain, and assemble, and is idle for most of the year."
At that time there were 18,500 carriages allocated for fast and semi-fast services, of which;
"5,500 in year-round service, 2,000 additional vehicles for regular summer service, 8,900 available for high peak service, and 2,100 under repair.
6,000 carriages were used for 18 or less occasions in a year. The annual cost of providing the 6,000 coaches was £3.4m. Against this it was estimated that they only earned £O.5m after allowing for all other costs of the movements concerned."
In those days mostly interchangeable spare carriages were liberally distributed around the country and could be added to trains relatively easily - although I'd suspect not as easily as we sometimes imagine. A major part of our difficulties today is the multiplicity of coaching types, TOCs and leasing companies so stock is far less interchangeable. We don't have as much available secure siding space to store surplus vehicles in working order either.
When we have the same XC TOC, leasing company and class of train, 4 or 5 car Voyagers can be made up into an 8, 9 or even 10 coach train. Great, but it's two separate trains running together so unable to even out the load on the move. In the old BR days I could walk along 8 or 9 coaches to find the front half of the train had plenty of space (travelling from KX or St Pancras), although it might be packed at the back. Not possible on too many modern trains.
Northern have the same issue when coupling a Pacer to a 150/1 - and sometimes to a 150/2 so still unable to walk between after clambering aboard at the last minute at Piccadilly. TPE's 185s are grand, but a 6 coach train is two trains, one of which can have more space than the other. I could go on.............. as usual there's not a simple solution or it would probably have been applied years ago.
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