Three Way Splits

[30907]

I always have too. I wonder if the Plymouth/Cornish parts ever had to run via Newton Abbot ( like say, flooding at Cowley Bridge ); it seems to have been a regular thing for GW/SR services ( not just crews ) to swap routes to keep knowledge up. Waterloo-Exeter-Newton Abbot-Plymouth-Halwill-Bude would take all week, mind you

Not the services, just the locos - except for engineering work of course.

 

[Oliver]

Sometimes happened at Plymouth North Road, where if the incoming loco was a King (not permitted over Saltash Bridge) the through coach would come off with the loco and something else, a Castle, a Grange, a pair of 43XXs or whatever, would back down onto the remainder. The King would leave the coach in a bay and run back to Laira for servicing and turning.

Where was the through coach in the bay going to?

 

[LE Greys]

Where was the through coach in the bay going to?

That is a good question. One option is Lydford. Another might be that it would be put on the back of a stopper going forward towards Penzance. A third is that it might not be a passenger vehicle at all, but a parcels van heading for the docks. I'm mostly piecing together information from photographs of a King coming off an express with a chocolate and cream vehicle that subsequently ended up in a bay, combined with what various members of the GWS have told me.