I can recollect a couple of mildly interesting services. In my 1960s spotting days it wasn't easy to work out the origin of trains (there wasn't that much about where they were going to, either!) but about 19.00 there was an Up terminator which carried a lot of workers. It turned out they it was the 18.01 from Coventry, and most of its passengers worked on the production lines at car factories there, well paid even then, put perhaps the monotony of the work explained the noticeable urgency with which they left the train and indeed the station. It was usually a Nuneaton 'Mogul', either a Stanier or Ivatt 4, and passenger work for them must have been rare. I don't know how that train or engine was balanced, though - there aren't any obvious candidates.
The other working was a New Street - Northampton round trip worked by a d.m.u.. It was at Northampton around mid-day, and used the North facing bay now numbered 4. We didn't usually bother to walk up there to take the numbers but I do remember that, when I did, the motor cars had steam loco type shed plates, with the unusual Ryecroft code, bolted onto the sole bar above the engines.
There was a number of Rugby - Bletchley via Northampton services in the early 1960s but I don't know whether these were previously Euston ones truncated by electrification work. It's maybe worth pointing out how few long distance express trains then ran on the West Coast, the services having been diverted to other routes; Liverpools to Paddington-Birkenhead, Manchesters to St Pancras, for instance; some sleeper services still ran but diverted to Marylebone via Bletchley. There were still an up Llandudno and an up Carlisle that called at Northampton - the latter was a sedate all stations (including Shap!) service,
