How Did they Cope?

[Speed43125]

I wonder how cars of the early 50s compare for crashworthiness vs cars today?

OT, but there's this pretty well known video, getting a little old itself, but illustrates it nicely.

 

[Bevan Price]

The Marples/Beeching closures rendered a lot of coaching stock surplus, as did the conversion of many services to dmu operation. The replacement of hauled stock by 1st generation dmus with 3/2 seating layouts was a retrogade step for passenger comfort - as happened with many North Wales services (excluding the London services), and also the Birmingham / East Anglia services that endured Class 101s, etc. for around 20 years (excluding some of the summer saturday services).

 

[Taunton]

The Marples/Beeching closures rendered a lot of coaching stock surplus, as did the conversion of many services to dmu operation. The replacement of hauled stock by 1st generation dmus with 3/2 seating layouts was a retrograde step for passenger comfort - as happened with many North Wales services (excluding the London services), and also the Birmingham / East Anglia services that endured Class 101s, etc. for around 20 years (excluding some of the summer Saturday services).

It wasn't as bad as it sounds, as most of the secondary stock the dmus replaced was non-corridor, where once you were in a compartment that was it, no spreading around. Plus it was unusual to find a dmu more than half-full, they were commonly made up into formations well beyond what we now have. I've been reading the thread about overcrowding on the North Wales Coast line currently, where some formations are being turned out 2-car. I remember when this line changed over, quite late, about 1965, to dmus. Normally 6-car, and quite often 8. Control seemed to have a good idea of how services loaded, even looked out of the window at the weather, and allocated stock accordingly. Nowadays a 2-car or a 3-car is just sent out on an all day diagram regardless.

 

[Bevan Price]

It wasn't as bad as it sounds, as most of the secondary stock the dmus replaced was non-corridor, where once you were in a compartment that was it, no spreading around. Plus it was unusual to find a dmu more than half-full, they were commonly made up into formations well beyond what we now have. I've been reading the thread about overcrowding on the North Wales Coast line currently, where some formations are being turned out 2-car. I remember when this line changed over, quite late, about 1965, to dmus. Normally 6-car, and quite often 8. Control seemed to have a good idea of how services loaded, even looked out of the window at the weather, and allocated stock accordingly. Nowadays a 2-car or a 3-car is just sent out on an all day diagram regardless.

Yes - dmus just about wiped out most of the hauled non-corridor coaches, but North Wales, Birmingham/East Anglia, and others, such as Manchester to Blackpool had mainly been corridor stock. And dmus with 2/3 seating helped to destroy a lot of the traffic. One such train that I used quite often in the early 1960s was a quite well loaded 7 coach commuter service from Manchester Exchange (circa 17:35) to Llandudno. Within a year or two after conversion to dmu operation, it had declined to a barely half-full 2 coach dmu.