I do miss the Summer Holiday maker trains to the South West, as they used to have interesting variety of traction and stops, unlike today where everything pretty much stops the same, wether summer or rest of the year, i can remember all sort of stop patterns like Birmingham to Beyond Bristol Non stop, Birmingham to Bristol with various intermediate stops omitted.
my favourite were when the HST’s did overnight from Leeds to Newquay on a Friday night, calling only Leeds-Wakefield-Doncaster-Sheffield-Derby-Birmingham-Bristol temple Meads-Plymouth-Par then Newquay, then return the same stops, and while stopped Bristol on the overnight run, would overtake a 47 hauled service which stopped Bristol for an hour, was always a good fast run, and on the overnight run, was pretty much always quiet, so a pleasant journey.
Haulage wise i can remember doing a 45 Peak, on a Birmingham-Taunton non stopper, some 50’s to the south west, and plenty of HST’s, and the ubiquitous 47’s, had some other haulage like double headed 31’s, 37’s but cant remember the exact services they were on, was just so much more interesting back then in the 80’s and 90’s, i never travelled on it, but there used to be double headed 31’s on a MK3 Pullman set, i think from the North West, was just so much more interesting stop wise etc, and haulage wise.
