The Torbay Express 1965

[Czesziafan]

One day in mid-September 1965 I was with my parents at Paddington alongside a long train of BR maroon coaches which my mother informed me was a train going to Dartmouth. Of course that Devon town is only linked by the ferry to Kingswear and my subsequent researches have confirmed that the train in question was the 10.50 Paddington - Kingswear. However I did not get to see the engine at the front of the train. I assume it would have been either a Warship, or a Western, but which class was diagrammed for the working?

 

[hexagon789]

There's a photo on geograph of The Torbay Express hauled by a Warship dated 1960.

Whether that was usual by that point or if it remained Warships by 1965 I don't know

 

[30907]

Bit more Googling finds three 1962 images with Warships but nothing more recent, none at all of Westerns. From memory, the weekday Torbay was a lightly loaded train and so wouldn't have been priority for switching to a Western.

OTOH, Warships had taken over the ex SR route by then, and Westerns were allocated to Laira from the beginning so who knows? No solid information, as you're asking about the Other Railway , so I'll stop there.

 

[Taunton]

Memories from Taunton in the 1960s are that the Torbay was well down the list for the latest power. It was the last reliable London service to be seen steam hauled, probably into 1963-4, with a Castle (always well polished), and I think that Westerns were unusual power down at Kingswear in those early times. It was a distinctive service to see come through because of its headboard, my faint recollections are always a Warship.

 

[30907]

Memories from Taunton in the 1960s are that the Torbay was well down the list for the latest power. It was the last reliable London service to be seen steam hauled, probably into 1963-4, with a Castle (always well polished), and I think that Westerns were unusual power down at Kingswear in those early times. It was a distinctive service to see come through because of its headboard, my faint recollections are always a Warship.

Thanks, thought you'd be along. What would we do without your recollections?

 

[Czesziafan]

Thanks for the info - looks most likely to have been a Warship then. "The Warship Stock List " gives 34 Warships at Newton Abbott on 30/06/65 - the Paxman engined D830, and D833-65 so more than likely it would have been an NBL class 43 turn in Sept '65. Apparently crews considered the NBL Warships as less reliable than the Swindon version and I once read that the exhaust manifolds had a habit of cracking and filling the cab with fumes. Practice was to drive with all the windows open and if the loco did not fail by the time they reached Reading there was a reasonable chance of completing the journey.

 

[delt1c]

The NBL Warships were class 43. Whilst outwardly the same they had a MAN engine which was the problem Strangely the class 22 ( Baby Warship) had the same engine and overall were very reliable.

 

[Bevan Price]

As a morning departure from Paddington, the Torbay Express might have been worked by Old Oak Common, so a Warship (42 or 43) or Western (52) are feasible. Even a Hymek (35) might have been provided for the lighter trains. The choice of loco. would also be determined by what were the previous & subsequent workings.
A search through photos in 1960s issues of Railway Magazine, Railway World, Trains Illustrated / Modern Railways might show some examples, as the Dawlish/Teignmouth coast has always been popular with photographers.

 

[Bungle158]

My first ride behind a diesel loco was on the up Torbay Express from Paignton. It was July 1960, the loco, a then pristine Warship, D800 Sir Brian Robertson

 

[randyrippley]

The NBL Warships were class 43. Whilst outwardly the same they had a MAN engine which was the problem Strangely the class 22 ( Baby Warship) had the same engine and overall were very reliable.

I think you'll find plenty of evidence to suggest the 22s were very unreliable...

 

[Cowley]

I think you'll find plenty of evidence to suggest the 22s were very unreliable...

Yes indeed. I think Laira eventually started to get some kind of reliability out of them but they weren’t ever particularly good.

 

[delt1c]

From what I have read the 22’s were not that unreliable when used on services that they were designed for. Problems cane when used double headed for express services.

 

[Taunton]

The D63xx/Class 22 were not used that much as double headed pair. You might get the odd couple on a summer Saturday, or on a heavy ballast freight, but otherwise they were mostly used singly. An exception was using them as pilots to Warships (and initially steam locos) on heavy expresses between Newton Abbot and Plymouth, where they got thrashed to some considerable speeds through the dip at Totnes. Apparently they were not as wild a ride through there as a Warship though.

One of their main problems was that North British had gone bankrupt in 1962, pretty much on completion of the last loco, and the design and ancillary items were pretty much theirs, which were now without primary support. This was different to Birmingham RCW, where the same happened, for they had really just been a fitter of standard proprietary parts, whereas NB manufactured a lot themselves (including engine and transmission) or went to oddball suppliers. The basic engine and transmission were less of an issue than all the peripheral parts, fuel pumps, water tanks, all the electrics, etc. Taunton fitters, from time to time confronted with them, found the overall design pretty poor. Ironically one of the problems was the multiple-unit equipment, which of course you did not find was defective until you coupled them up - and then which one was it? The 5-minute solution to that was provide a second crew for the second loco. The competent North British diesel staff who did the original D600 locos (I think the engines for those five were built in Germany as examples), which although slow and heavy worked pretty well, had seen the writing on the wall and gone a couple of years later by the time the D63xx were built.

The D833 North British Warships did not suffer from this to the same extent because many of the drawings, and selection of component suppliers, had been done by Swindon. You have to be a bit of a geek to spot any external difference between the two Warship versions, so everyone looked at the number first, although inside the engine room the main units are different. North British got the engine drawings from MAN in Germany, but they were of course metric drawings and although the drawing office staff were reasonably numerate with the conversions, this did not extent to the assembly shop staff.

 

[Czesziafan]

One external difference on the NBL Warships was that they had a small oval fixing bracket for a shed plate on the buffer beam.