Oxford - Ramsgate Merrymaker excursion in the mid/late 70s

[Buttsy]

Hello, I wonder if anyone can help me fill in some detail on this.

I was a child and taken on this to Broadstairs by my parents and I think I know the route around south London based on my memory a few years later (signal check in the Clapham Junction/Stewarts Lane area), but I would like to find out if anyone knows the exact route taken in both directions.

As far as I remember it was on a Saturday and the train was formed of (about) 9 coaches, all from Reading's allocation of Thames Valley suburban 117 DMU sets I'd wager (the front end of the lead unit was this cab style from memory).

Any assistance would be most helpful. Thank you.

 

[Harpo]

Through the 70s/80s the usual route for Thames Valley to SR SE/SC was OOC E and Olympia for a crew change there. It was also used by some WR to East Anglia excursions too with a loco change or run-round at Olympia.

 

[Buttsy]

Through the 70s/80s the usual route for Thames Valley to SR SE/SC was OOC E and Olympia for a crew change there. It was also used by some WR to East Anglia excursions too with a loco change or run-round at Olympia.

Thanks, I remember the train turning right at north pole and going straight on at latchmere (the memory popped in when I went to Brighton on the Sussex Scot (or similar) about 10 years later, not long after I started marking off the routes in the Baker rail atlas. What I don't really remember are the stations we passed through after latchmere, though I guess Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street were definitely passed. Did the train go via Nunhead or via Bromley South?

 

[30907]

Did the train go via Nunhead or via Bromley South?

These aren't alternatives

It would be unusual for the train to take anything but the direct route via Bromley South; whether it went via Nunhead or Herne Hill would be down to the signaller on the day (there would have been a booked route, but any disruption and that could be changed - it was a standing instruction to crews to accept either route.)
Do you recall a reasonably long tunnel, if so that would be Penge.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Did the train go via Nunhead or via Bromley South?

I’ve been on a Leicester to Ramsgate mystery excursion that went via Dartford, but it came back via Bromley (in 1982/83 I think - I was at Uni and quite annoyed that a mystex took me to home territory). However, growing up spotting in Medway (1976 to mid-80s), it was pretty unusual for Merrymakers etc to go that way and not Bromley-Sole Street.
(edited to add dates and more details)

 

[Jim Jehosofat]

From around 1966 to 1971 I lived in a house that backed on to the railway between Kidbrooke and Eltham Well Hall on the Bexleyheath line to Dartford. I can remember a couple of times when a strange to me diesel unit went past the house towards Dartford, but never saw one coming back. Perhaps it was one of these excursion trains I saw. It made a change from the usual EPBs, odd VEPs and CEPs and off course the 4DDs.

 

[Magdalia]

In steam days it was usual for return excursions from Ramsgate and Margate to go via Dartford to avoid the need to climb Sole Street Bank.

This persisted into the diesel era, for example the train that derailed at Eltham Well Hall in 1972.

 

[Taunton]

Who would know how to handle a WR DMU over the Eastern Division. I believe the go-anywhere team on them were Tonbridge crews, who held down not only the services from there to Redhill and Reading, which used these units then, but even on the Ashford to Hastings line where such diesels occasionally appeared. There appeared no fuel at Tonbridge so they had to be taken ECS to Chart Leacon for this. Someone posed some photos of all this on here a while back.

 

[Buttsy]

These aren't alternatives

It would be unusual for the train to take anything but the direct route via Bromley South; whether it went via Nunhead or Herne Hill would be down to the signaller on the day (there would have been a booked route, but any disruption and that could be changed - it was a standing instruction to crews to accept either route.)
Do you recall a reasonably long tunnel, if so that would be Penge.

I meant Nunhead-Lewisham-Dartford as an alternative route as I forgot about the Catford loop. Oops!