24 TPH in 1961

[D7666]

I think though the article is dated 1961, electrification between Chelmsford and Colchester was not completed until summer 1962 so the actual service pattern shown may have been aspirational (at least on the MLs).

Which is precisely why I wrote "This article is a little ahead of the actual situation as the full electric services had not yet started." in the opening post.

 

[stuving]

This is what the Draft Consultation Document for the South West Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy (2005) says under "option 1.1: provide additional services".

In order to cater for the highest peak flows, additional services would need to be deployed in the high peak hour, arriving at Waterloo between 08:00 and 09:00. The current timetable is constructed on the basis of 2 minute headways and a 5 minute “firebreak” in each half hour, giving a theoretical maximum capacity of 25 identical trains per hour on each of the fast lines, and 3 minute headways on the slow lines, giving a theoretical maximum capacity of 20 identical stopping trains per hour. In practice the trains are not identical so this capacity is not quite reached.

The actual arrivals in the peak hour (8-9) were then 22 and 19.

 

[etr221]

Out of interest, how intensive was the steam service to Chingford and Enfield? I remember the turnarounds at Liverpool Street being very quick, with locos being uncoupled and a new one coupled at the front as soon as a train arrived.

The GER's suburban 'Jazz' service was written up in the Railway Gazette of October 1 1920, reprinted by the GERS as "The Last Word in Steam Operated Suburban Train Services". Probably worth reading if you can get hold of a copy.

Wondering what sort of service the Met and MDR ran in steam days...

Or how many services were handled by Borough Market Junction SB.

 

[D7666]

The GER's suburban 'Jazz' service was written up in the Railway Gazette of October 1 1920, reprinted by the GERS as "The Last Word in Steam Operated Suburban Train Services". Probably worth reading if you can get hold of a copy.

The mag I quoted in the opening post TI 01/61 also carries an item on the GE steam service; I have not seen the 1920 item but it is possible TI used an extract; as both TI items combine to 14 pages I am not going to scan and upload that lot.

 

[MarkyT]

This is a lot of relevant information in "A Railway Plan for London - Preliminary Report by a Working Party of British Railways and London Transport" (in the Railways Archive). This, infamously, proposed doing away with the Paddington inner suburban services (replaced by buses), on the grounds that long-distance and "outer suburban" needed a track pair each, and could not efficiently share with stopping trains.

The BR platforms at Westbourne Park were eventually removed in the 1990s when the terminus approach layout and signalling were completely renewed in preparation for HEX. Odd the report doesn't mention that station, only proposing closure of Acton, West Ealing, Hanwell and Southall.

 

[D7666]

This is what the Draft Consultation Document for the South West Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy (2005) says under "option 1.1: provide additional services".

The actual arrivals in the peak hour (8-9) were then 22 and 19.

AIUI all this on SWML has since been over taken by ETCS possibilities which is why Waterloo radiating lines are high up on the list (3rd is it after ECML and GWML; I forget where we are with this now).

 

[coppercapped]

Do bear in mind that, just as 3 per hour turned off to Cambridge at Bethnal Green, likewise the return services were coming in there, across the Down Main on the flat junction. Yes, you can schedule parallel working, but if you think the 1540 from Kings Lynn, due Liverpool Street 1758, running for over 2 hours, is going to present at Bethnal Green to the second as the 1756 Liverpool Street to Cambridge goes the other way, well, you have optimism. Bear in mind a number of the services were still diesel-powered, many still lower-powered Class 37s, straight up 1in70 Bethnal Green bank. Incidentally, I don't think this was the most intense to-the-second operation of all at the time; that honour went to Borough Market junction over on the Southern.

I do just love the disbelief/"impossible"/"you must be wrong" approach of some here. If you hear a strange noise from above in the stillness of the night, I'm afraid it's the ghost of Gerry Fiennes, laughing ...

I can take a hint...!

In his 1967 book ‘I tried to run a railway’ Gerry Fiennes wrote about the peak hour at Liverpool Street circa 1963/4:

“The commuter services out of Liverpool Street were, with the exception of the minor Lea Valley line, fully electrified. Liverpool Street was running on three tracks 67 trains in the peak hour, over 60 of them electrically hauled…Then we went out on to the bridge which overlooks the East side. You can always tell when, as usual, Liverpool Street are in good form. They are strolling through their job. Steady streams are walking, not bustling or shoving, across the concourse. They are giving the ticket inspectors time to do their work. They form up on the platforms in little blocks four abreast. Their train slides in, stops on a sixpence, opens its doors precisely in front of them. The blocks take two paces forward into the train. The motorman and guard exchange ends and a brief word on their way. A light goes green. The doors close. A bell rings twice. And another 1,200 are on their way—24,000 an hour on one track. We took Deedes (the MP for Ashford, Kent) for a ride in the cab. He was pretty complimentary about it all a little while later in the House.”

I came down from University in 1966 and my first job was in Chelmsford so I used Liverpool Street regularly for the next couple of years[1]. It was grimy — as was all of London in those days before the Clean Air Acts started to have an effect — and quite a proportion of the weight of the cast iron brake blocks ended up on the outside of the trains. But the service was much as Fiennes described it, it just worked.

[1] The AM9s were impressive - especially being able to have a minute steak from the Griddle Car for breakfast on my way out to Chelmsford…

 

[Taunton]

Thank you. And Fiennes was never known for overstatement. My copy of said book is looking down at me from the shelves as I write this. If I look carefully I can see, in that cover photo of him and the Deltic, he seems to be smiling at being quoted. Did you ever meet him?

Bill Deedes, MP, after being such, was the longstanding editor of The Daily Telegraph, and also the "Dear Bill" subject of the long running Private Eye column which parodied Margaret Thatcher's husband Dennis writing to him. The two men were regular golf buddies. I wonder if Deedes wrote a positive news article afterwards. You don't get to be editor of such a paper without being a particularly sharp cookie.

The AM9s were doubtless impressive, but the more so east of Shenfield when things went up from 6.25kV to 25kV. All this performance described here was done on quarter voltage.

 

[MotCO]

It’s not plain line capacity which is the issue, it’s station dwell times. I know the 306s were sliding door, but the 307s were slam door and so station dwell times were much lower.

Are dwell times longer with slam door or sliding door stock? I can imagine in the 60's that doors were slammed shut quickly, and even if reopened briefly, the train would continue on its way. There were more slam doors down the side of commuter trains than sliding doors so more passengers could board simultaneously.

 

[Bikeman78]

Are dwell times longer with slam door or sliding door stock? I can imagine in the 60's that doors were slammed shut quickly, and even if reopened briefly, the train would continue on its way. There were more slam doors down the side of commuter trains than sliding doors so more passengers could board simultaneously.

When slam doors were everywhere and people were used to them, they were undoubtedly faster than the early years of sliding door trains. As you say, there were far more doors per train. By the end, they were an ordeal, especially at places like Gatwick.

 

[Taunton]

Are dwell times longer with slam door or sliding door stock?

Both can be extremely quick, or not, depending on the procedures. Slam doors can be rapid on suburban stock, because there are so many of them. For power doors, I've been on the Paris Metro late at night with sub-10 second stops (I started timing them) at station after station. I think of these trips when it takes longer than that on SWR just to release the doors in the first place.

User familiarity is part of it. I can recall traditional double decker buses, with the open rear, not quite coming to a stand and passengers had both got on and off, and it would be belled away. The sort of thing that nowadays is described as 'completely unacceptable'. But I never, ever, saw a passenger accident with one.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

There was a further full article a few years later, when the same magazine had become Modern Railways, that described it all on the GEML in the evening peak. Notable were the crossings of semi-fast trains from Main to Electric as they got further out, plus some services that started on the Electric, actually crossed to the Main beyond Stratford to overtake the one in front, and then crossed back. This all on tracks paired by use, so needing weaving in with the incomings. There weren't any carriage sidings at Liverpool Street either, so the inward service needed to be just as dense to provide the following outbound services.

When described in general terms at least one modern day operator said the descriptions were "impossible", until the detail was posted.

It wasn't much different out of London Bridge or Waterloo.


Well I certainly don't remember one going through the buffers at Enfield Town, as happened a year or two ago ...

I’ve often wondered whether the great eastern could have been paired by direction instead with the fasts on the outside because of these exact movements.

 

[30907]

I’ve often wondered whether the great eastern could have been paired by direction instead with the fasts on the outside because of these exact movements.

You would need a flyover outside Liverpool St, and depot access would be an issue at Ilford for starters, on top of all the station alterations - of course, if you had built it that way from the start, all that would have been planned in, and the timetable would have been different too.

In the end, ISTR there were trains that ran on the Electrics to beyond Stratford and then switched to the Mains, to serve outer-suburban destinations.

 

[D7666]

The AM9s were doubtless impressive, but the more so east of Shenfield when things went up from 6.25kV to 25kV. All this performance described here was done on quarter voltage.

Not sure what you are meaning about "quarter voltage" ???? If you are implying 'quarter power' then nay nay and thrice nay.

AM9 (and all dual 6.25/25 kV types) performance specification was same on 6.25 kV and 25 kV all other things being equal.

On the AM9 traction transformer, there were 4 sections to the primary winding. When on 25 kV, the 4 sections connected in series, and on 6.25 kV the 4 connected in parallel.

In either case the resultant output from the secondary winding towards the motors is exactly the same.

I have not looked into how this was done on other dual 6.25/25 kV EMU types but however it was set up, the result is the same, equal performance on either.

 

[Oxfordblues]

Trainspotting at Kirkham North Junction on summer Saturday mornings in the early-1960s, with a 3-munute headway on all 4 tracks, you could expect see a train on average every 45 seconds, so up to 80 trains an hour, mostly steam-hauled. Happy days!

 

[Bikeman78]

User familiarity is part of it. I can recall traditional double decker buses, with the open rear, not quite coming to a stand and passengers had both got on and off, and it would be belled away. The sort of thing that nowadays is described as 'completely unacceptable'. But I never, ever, saw a passenger accident with one.

I can recall a time on a class 302 that someone opened the door, jumped off and slammed it shut before the train stopped.

 

[coppercapped]

Thank you. And Fiennes was never known for overstatement. My copy of said book is looking down at me from the shelves as I write this. If I look carefully I can see, in that cover photo of him and the Deltic, he seems to be smiling at being quoted. Did you ever meet him?

Not directly, unfortunately, but shortly after I graduated in 1966 I attended two lectures in London which he gave. At this distance in time I can no longer definitely remember the venue or venues but the lectures may have been presented at the London School of Economics.

A very impressive speaker with an easy manner - but he kept everybody's attention. A full lecture hall — and you could have heard a pin drop.

As I wrote earlier I was working in Chelmsford at the time and occasionally some evenings I saw Fiennes at Liverpool Street waiting patiently in the queue for his train until the platform was opened. This was after his retirement but there was always a senior uniformed member of the station staff talking to him. A tall man with a ramrod pose.

Bill Deedes, MP, after being such, was the longstanding editor of The Daily Telegraph, and also the "Dear Bill" subject of the long running Private Eye column which parodied Margaret Thatcher's husband Dennis writing to him. The two men were regular golf buddies. I wonder if Deedes wrote a positive news article afterwards. You don't get to be editor of such a paper without being a particularly sharp cookie.

The AM9s were doubtless impressive, but the more so east of Shenfield when things went up from 6.25kV to 25kV. All this performance described here was done on quarter voltage.

 

[Horizon22]

I think you have to accept that the local line on the GEML has, officially, always been called the Electric line, ever since 1949 - when all the lines were electrified from the go, but this pair had the main local electric service, just out to Shenfield.

Bit like the GWML has always been Main and Relief. Not everyone is wedded to LMS nomenclature ... .

I mean crossing over onto the Main Lines for a significant chunk of a journey cannot truly be considered an "Electric Line" service. No qualms with the nomenclature!

 

[Taunton]

I can recall a time on a class 302 that someone opened the door, jumped off and slammed it shut before the train stopped.

In the Cannon Street EPB buffer stop collision a number of passengers had actually alighted onto the platform and started walking forward before the collision occurred.

 

[Ploughman]

By comparison,What was the rate per hour at Liverpool Central underground station with the reversing track?

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Interesting to hear mentions of the unusual signalling sequences (G-YY-YY-YY-YY-Y-R) on the GEML electric lines. I believe the resignalling maintained some of these non-standard sequences with the standard BR 4-aspect installations particularly around the Stratford/Maryland/Bow areas where the signal spacing are similar to the Charing Cross lines - the AWS magnet for one signal being positioned just after the previous - but with linespeeds of 70mph+ rather than 30mph.

Anecdotally it created some challenges when Crossrail was designed, as the underlying principles are quite difficult to specify, given that the braking distance from linespeed is clearly greater than the final YY-Y-R pair of sections, and yet with 315s running on 2-min headways it quite clearly worked! I wonder how MTR drivers were taught to treat the shorter signal blocks.

 

[Taunton]

By comparison, what was the rate per hour at Liverpool Central underground station with the reversing track?

It was 24tph. Completely automated from the Mersey Railway resignalling on electrification in 1903 by Westinghouse, it lasted to the 1977 opening of The Loop, whose new signalling could not keep up with the previous service level. We have discussed it here in the past. In my more youthful times I used to sneak into the arriving train and ride into the reversing track and back.