Slip Coach Operations

[Pigeon]

And there you have one of the problems with slip coaches: you can't just catapult them on to the back of a passing express. They had to be worked back, often as through coaches, to their starting point, although there were some cases where the coach formed a return through working: there were a number that were dropped off Up workings at Reading, for example. There was, until the final years, also the problem that through coaches did not have gangways, so if formed in an express the passengers couldn't get to the Restaurant Car. This all added to the difficulties of using the coaches and made them, even in an era of low stock utilisation, a poor bargain.

I refer the honourable Member to the Pigeon Rail Systems instantiation of the pils coach: http://www.railforums.co.uk/threads...un-which-would-you-choose.166085/post-3524955

Adrian Vaughan gives a description of the up slip at Reading in "Signalman's Morning".

 

[Irascible]

What sort of training did slip guards get, and from whom? it is vaguely a driving job ( come to think of it I don't know how other guards got trained back in the days either, but let's stick on topic ).

 

[Rescars]

I refer the honourable Member to the Pigeon Rail Systems instantiation of the pils coach: http://www.railforums.co.uk/threads...un-which-would-you-choose.166085/post-3524955

What a nice idea. An evolution of London and Blackwall technology (see my #6 above). Despite no H&S back in the day, your proposition does seem a bit scary for the local p-way gang! I think Heath Robinson could have worked the mechanics up nicely for the GWR's centenary though - full working drawings to be included in Railway Ribaldry!

 

[Dr Hoo]

What sort of training did slip guards get, and from whom? it is vaguely a driving job ( come to think of it I don't know how other guards got trained back in the days either, but let's stick on topic ).

Guards were, of course, trained in bringing the rear portion of an un-fitted freight train safely to a stand when it broke away. Many would also be well used to ‘gravity run-rounds’ using the handbrake in coaching stock, so slip coaches were in many ways much easier. Nice little ‘cab’ at the front, brake on a lever rather than a wheel, no peering out of the ducket…

 

[Rail Ranger]

Gloster's points are all quite correct. A poor bargain they may have been, but by the look of it, really rather good fun!

Just to be picky, there were some slip workings on up trains too. Back in the broad gauge era, the GWR slipped some coaches from Paddington-bound expresses to provide through coaches to Victoria. The LBSC also slipped from up London Bridge expresses at East Croydon to provide a service to Victoria. There were quite a lot of companies operating slip coach services pre WW1. Others will be able to advise if those on the broadly east-west L&Y were either up or down trains.

On the L&Y it was always Up to Manchester Victoria.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

I read an amusing story about one of the Up expresses that slipped at Reading. It may have been an OS Nock title and probably dates to the loco exchanges of 1948 as the story states that a ‘foreign’ crew were working the express under instruction from a WR crew. The train went through the loop platform at Reading with the slip occurring on the western approaches and subsequently had a fast run up the main line to Paddington. They were checked on approach and had a slow run into the platform, and as they came to a stand the ‘foreign’ driver looked back and saw one of the two diesel parcels railcars drawing into an adjacent platform. Not having seen such a strange vehicle before, he asked the WR driver what it was, and was immediately told “oh that’s just the Reading slip coach arriving!”