memories of fast trains SR

[30907]

No mention then of the 1967 electric service timetable on the Bournemouth line , fast Winchester to Waterloo , every hour ...

Summer only Wloo - Lymington Pier fast - 4 VEP - calling only key stations.

Nor of the Brighton line 1932 timetable for that matter.

But then the thread started with slghtly less obvious "fasts" in the London suburbs.

 

[Taunton]

No mention then of the 1967 electric service timetable on the Bournemouth line , fast Winchester to Waterloo , every hour ....

Were they ?

I seem to recall it started as as 2-hourly fast, just Southampton Central and Bournemouth, then on to Weymouth, and hourly semi-fast, for Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Airport, etc to Bournemouth. The Bournemouth fasts progressively built up to hourly by 1974, which is what caused the extra REP/TC stock to be built then.

 

[nw1]

I remember this timetable, it was around 1988 and featured direct trains from the Camberley line to London off peak for around 3 years.

Pattern out of Waterloo was IIRC:

xx00 Clapham, Richmond then fast to Ascot then all to Reading
xx03 Clapham, Richmond, Twickenham, Feltham, Staines, all (?) to Guildford via Camberley
xx33 Clapham, Richmond, Feltham, Staines, all (?) to Reading

There was also interestingly a Guildford-Ascot-Reading which combined with the other 2 to form 20 minute interval Ascot to Reading.

Definitely one of the more interesting timetables on this line in my memory. Also in those days the "outer" peak workings were as frequent as every 10 minutes out of Waterloo (00, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50) alternating between Reading and the Camberley line.

 

[nw1]

Ah, the Summer Saturday Pompey services - those 'squiggly line' trains in the timetable - I had forgotten all about them! Some running straight through Guildford at a stately 40mph or whatever it was.

VEP stock in the late '70s I seem to recollect, although my memory may be based on seeing just one train

I remember seeing these in the timetable in the 1980s but they only ran for a very limited period in the summer (mid July to end August?) so rarely saw them. I think I recall one being formed of a 12VEP; there were several (more than one an hour?) in 1983 but the service was still running on a more limited basis as late as 1991.

I seem to remember some of them being advertised with a buffet; in these hours the regular Portsmouth-London fast had the buffet symbol marked with "NOT 15 July to 31 August" or something similar, suggesting the CIG-BIG/BEP-CIG stock was taken off the regular fast and put on some of these in certain hours.

 

[AY1975]

I seem to recall that until the mid to late 1980s there was at least one fast train from Wimbledon to Sutton via the St Helier loop in the morning peak: I think it was non-stop for a time, but may have called at St Helier for at least one timetable period.

I never caught it, but my dad often did, as we lived in Putney and he worked in Sutton in the early to mid '80s.