Passengers Luggage in Advance

[DerekC]

Mrs C attended a small boarding school in Devon in the 1960s. Her trunk would be sent ahead by the "Passenger's Luggage in Advance" service. (It didn't always arrive before she did). How did that work? Presumably you had to book and pay extra for your luggage when buying the ticket. Did it travel by passsnger train (presumably in the guards van) or by a parcels train or similar? How were cross-London transfers handled?

 

[PeterC]

I don't know the mechanics but there were different options for collect and deliver or to take and/or pickup yourself. The service seemed to work quite well when I went to university. I don't recall any direct link between having a ticket and using the service. In those days you usually just bought your travel ticket from the booking office when you travelled.

 

[Bevan Price]

You were supposed to buy a rail ticket to use luggage in advance, but (in the 1960s) they did not insist of seeing your ticket when you booked luggage in advance.

 

[30907]

If there was a lot of traffic to/from a particular destination, dedicated vans could be provided and detached there for unloading (ISTR reading that this happened at Christ's Hospital, no doubt at other large schools). Otherwise they would be dealt with as parcels, which would often go by passenger train anyway (station stops were longer, and many passenger trains would have parcels vans in the formation). Collection and Delivery was handled by the normal road vehicles too.

On the IoW there was a Saturday morning parcels train to Sandown and Shanklin (famously double-headed for operating convenience) which ran for the holiday PLA traffic (guest houses etc didn't want the suitcases any earlier!), though the passenger services had a large van space at the Pier Head end.

My parents certainly used PLA for our summer holidays as well as my annual uni trips.

 

[Peter Sarf]

September 1979 my huge trunk from Medway to Birmingham University at Edgbaston. Seems hard to believe we could do that and thanks for reminding me it did happen !.

 

[WesternLancer]

September 1979 my huge trunk from Medway to Birmingham University at Edgbaston. Seems hard to believe we could do that and thanks for reminding me it did happen !.

So when did the service cease it occurs to me to ask? Given it was operational as late as 1979 which surprises me a bit.

 

[MotCO]

I remember my parents using the service to go on holiday to possibly Swanage or Exmouth when the car boot was ridiculously small. I think they took the trunk to a local station, a few days in advance, and picked it up at the destination.

 

[jfollows]

So when did the service cease it occurs to me to ask? Given it was operational as late as 1979 which surprises me a bit.

Soon after. I used it in 1980 from Macclesfield to Oxford but I remember bringing my trunk with me returning home summer 1981. Not sure if PLA had stopped by then, but it might have done.

 

[Rescars]

A problem with PLA was the length of time it took for the luggage to get through the whole process from initial collection to ultimate delivery. IIRC a week in transit was not unusual. It was possible to speed things up by two or three days by delivering or collecting from the relevant station, thus cutting out either the collection or delivery stages.

By comparison, for travellers to Switzerland, the SBB would collect luggage direct from the arrival airport and deliver it to their hotel almost anywhere in the country on the same day. Coming home, bags checked in at the nearest station first thing in the morning would magically reappear on the luggage carousel on your arrival at your UK airport later in the day. It wasn't just SBB who were involved. Changes between operators, gauges or even modes of transport (eg switching to a funicular) appeared to present no problems.

 

[Dr Hoo]

My only (not so ) close encounter with PLA was in 1971 when I travelled to Bridport, by then an unstaffed terminus.

A family travelling light were aghast to discover on arrival that their fortnight’s PLA, confidently consigned to be collected at Bridport, was, of course, nowhere to be found and there was no means of finding out where it had ended up.

I’m not sure that they would have had a very enjoyable holiday in Dorset.

 

[jfollows]

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8082377/passengers-luggage-in-advance is a 1982 poster:

Passengers’ luggage in advance

The conveyance charge is £3.50 per package, inclusive of VAT
….
Additional charges of £1.30 per 5kg/10lb are payable on luggage weights in excess of 70kg/154lb (first class travel tickets) and 50kg/110lb (second class tickets).

Anyway, that shows that it went on for a bit longer than I thought. Still a bargain at £12 in today’s money.

 

[Gloster]

When I was at school in the mid-1970s my trunk was usually sent back home by rail. All the trunks would be packed and piled up near the porter’s lodge, and on the last day of term or the one before a BR or NCL lorry (or two) would pick them up. A day or two later what I think was a BR C&D van would deliver it to the house. I was usually taken back to school at the beginning of term (my parents didn’t want me to do a runner) so my trunk was only sent once or twice. I think you could either take it into a larger BR station, Woking in my case, and hand it over a number of days in advance or you could have it collected from the house, which required more notice and probably cost more.

I suspect that the service probably disappeared in the hurried slaughter of C&D services, which was, if I remember correctly, in mid-1981. It can hardly have been a useful contribution to the balance sheet.

N.b. the above only applies to school trunks, which were, I suspect, not part of the main PLA offer.

 

[WesternLancer]

Soon after. I used it in 1980 from Macclesfield to Oxford but I remember bringing my trunk with me returning home summer 1981. Not sure if PLA had stopped by then, but it might have done.

Thanks

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect that the service probably disappeared in the hurried slaughter of C&D services, which was, if I remember correctly, in mid-1981. It can hardly have been a useful contribution to the balance sheet.

The air-travel-motivated move for basically all suitcases to be fitted with wheels so it's feasible to move them yourself must also have contributed. Luggage concierge service in any setting is only useful to a few people now, really.

 

[WesternLancer]

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8082377/passengers-luggage-in-advance is a 1982 poster:


Anyway, that shows that it went on for a bit longer than I thought. Still a bargain at £12 in today’s money.

Good find!

 

[RT4038]

I suspect that the service probably disappeared in the hurried slaughter of C&D services, which was, if I remember correctly, in mid-1981. It can hardly have been a useful contribution to the balance sheet.

Hopelessly uneconomic I should think...

 

[norbitonflyer]

. Luggage concierge service in any setting is only useful to a few people now, really.

Very useful on walking holidays. Several tour operators provide a luggage service (usually organised through the hotels you are booked at) allowing you to walk with just a day sack.
Diid one in Scotland last month and just on my way home from a second in Italy as I write, from somewhere near Zurich

 

[Taunton]

N.b. the above only applies to school trunks, which were, I suspect, not part of the main PLA offer.

They do actually seem to have been a significant proportion of it.

Prominent railway author Hamilton Ellis, on his way to his first boarding school, had the unedifying view of a porters handcart loaded with all the schoolboys' trunks, including his own, being struck and destroyed by a light engine on the barrow crossing at, I think, Salisbury, on the LSWR. The stationmaster took the calamity in hand and promised compensation, which there was a week or so later; a grand new wooden trunk, which appeared to have been made in the railway carpentry shop, filled with replacement tuck shop goodies from Harrods.

Somehow I can't quite see South West Trains doing the same today!

 

[Gloster]

They do actually seem to have been a significant proportion of it.

Prominent railway author Hamilton Ellis, on his way to his first boarding school, had the unedifying view of a porters handcart loaded with all the schoolboys' trunks, including his own, being struck and destroyed by a light engine on the barrow crossing at, I think, Salisbury, on the LSWR. The stationmaster took the calamity in hand and promised compensation, which there was a week or so later; a grand new wooden trunk, which appeared to have been made in the railway carpentry shop, filled with replacement tuck shop goodies from Harrods.

Somehow I can't quite see South West Trains doing the same today!

I was rather thinking of later BR days rather than pre-grouping, when everything was just all lumped in together. By BR days you had the two services: the various passenger luggage ones and the C&D, and it is my suspicion that the actual movement of large and heavy items like trunks was under C&D.

 

[Rescars]

Idle speculation, but could the need to transport school trunks following the demise of PLA services be one of the reasons for the popularity of SUVs amongst well-heeled town folk who never venture off-road?!!

They do actually seem to have been a significant proportion of it.

Prominent railway author Hamilton Ellis, on his way to his first boarding school, had the unedifying view of a porters handcart loaded with all the schoolboys' trunks, including his own, being struck and destroyed by a light engine on the barrow crossing at, I think, Salisbury, on the LSWR. The stationmaster took the calamity in hand and promised compensation, which there was a week or so later; a grand new wooden trunk, which appeared to have been made in the railway carpentry shop, filled with replacement tuck shop goodies from Harrods.

Somehow I can't quite see South West Trains doing the same today!

Never happened at Hogwarts!!

 

[RT4038]

Idle speculation, but could the need to transport school trunks following the demise of PLA services be one of the reasons for the popularity of SUVs amongst well-heeled town folk who never venture off-road?!!

I would guess that the quantity of schoolchildren boarding has probably reduced since those times, certainly as a percentage of the school population.

 

[jfollows]

I would guess that the quantity of schoolchildren boarding has probably reduced since those times, certainly as a percentage of the school population.

Something like 0.7% of pupils are boarders, and although the number has been reasonably constant since 2000, a greater percentage of the 0.7% today are foreign pupils. Before 2000 I couldn’t find figures easily, but I know that my former school, Cheadle Hulme School, MWCOS, 1970-73 had a boarding option, although I wasn’t a boarder, and the school isn’t a boarding school any more. I had a colleague who boarded and I used to carry letters for her to her parents in Poynton who didn’t live far from me. I’m sure I’d have hated it, but hopefully it still works for the 0.7%.
EDIT https://www.schoolsmith.co.uk/boarding-schools/ says:

But in recent years, the size of the military has declined as has the MoD education subsidy. Subsequently, there was a steep decline in the number of children boarding. Even in the period 1980-2000 the number of boarders in the UK dropped by 40%.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Best beloved tells me luggage in advance was still available, at least for Oxford students, in 1977

 

[WesternLancer]

I would guess that the quantity of schoolchildren boarding has probably reduced since those times, certainly as a percentage of the school population.

I believe the reduced size of the armed forces and the foreign office has sent numbers down (MoD paid school fees for officers children to board and may still do, probably FCO too for certain grades if i understand it correctly) as well as other social trends affecting boarding popularity.

But there must have been significant markets for PLA other than end of school and university terms, but maybe that was mostly holiday traffic?

 

[Gloster]

Holiday and academic establishments were probably one of the main traffics, but they came, particularly the latter, in peaks and troughs. Another traffic that had faded was commercial travellers, who used to send their cases of samples on to their next calling point, but they had replaced their train journeys with racing Dagenham Dustbins.

There was an upswing in interest in boarding schools around the turn of the century from people who had read Harry Potter and the Mountain of Cash and thought that their offspring would enjoy private schools like that. The number of private school pupils has been falling for a few years: perhaps this country is growing up and no longer trying to ape the nobs, who would never allow it.

 

[30907]

A problem with PLA was the length of time it took for the luggage to get through the whole process from initial collection to ultimate delivery. IIRC a week in transit was not unusual. It was possible to speed things up by two or three days by delivering or collecting from the relevant station, thus cutting out either the collection or delivery stages.

Memory says that holiday PLA was collected from home Tuesday or Wednesday for Saturday delivery.

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8082377/passengers-luggage-in-advance is a 1982 poster:

Anyway, that shows that it went on for a bit longer than I thought. Still a bargain at £12 in today’s money.

Though only station-to-station.

My younger sister went off to uni 1981-85 and we didn’t have a car - I must ask her, but I think BRS Parcels may have offered door-to-door.
EDIT: they definitely used a carrier not PLA.

I was rather thinking of later BR days rather than pre-grouping, when everything was just all lumped in together. By BR days you had the two services: the various passenger luggage ones and the C&D, and it is my suspicion that the actual movement of large and heavy items like trunks was under C&D.

According to the 1958 SR timetable (it's on timetableworld.com) P.L.A. (note the full stops!) was 5/6d, half price if you only wanted collection OR delivery (C.L. or D.L.) or the rail part only.

 

[6Gman]

I used PLA once, in 1977, and the case arrived with a large hole in it!

All contents were secure but hardly ideal at the start of term/ a holiday.

 

[The exile]

Interestingly, the international version outlasted the domestic by a few years. I was able to send a trunk to London from Germany as late as 1989 - for (IIRC) the princely sum of DM26.00 on production of the appropriate railway ticket. From Victoria it then had to go Red Star to Bath, taking twice as long (it did get a nice trip via Chichester) and costing about 4 times the price.

 

[WesternLancer]

Interestingly, the international version outlasted the domestic by a few years. I was able to send a trunk to London from Germany as late as 1989 - for (IIRC) the princely sum of DM26.00 on production of the appropriate railway ticket. From Victoria it then had to go Red Star to Bath, taking twice as long (it did get a nice trip via Chichester) and costing about 4 times the price.

That's a good point actually. I took a car to Europe in summer 1988 which broke down terminally in Germany and I had to send luggage I could not carry back to UK. I'm sure I sent this via DB which got sent to Victoria station where I then went to collect it in person IIRC.

Can't recall the costs but a travel insurance / breakdown insurance associated with taking a car to abroad paid for it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's of note that Lumo (and I think Virgin before them) has attempted to bring this back in a form - the trouble is that modern couriers have such a poor reputation that few people would be willing to entrust the success of their holiday to Evri (or whoever their contractor is, they're all as bad as each other) chucking it over the correct fence in the rain.