What was the shortest electric loco hauled service?

[6Gman]

The freight trains between Manors Yard and Newcastle Quayside Yard?

Operated by the LNER's Class ES1 locos.

Can't remember the exact distance but not much more than a mile I think?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

What was the distance of the electric train service that once ran from Bury to Holcombe Brook?

 

[Springs Branch]

What was the distance of the electric train service that once ran from Bury to Holcombe Brook?

3¾ miles Bury Bolton St to Holcombe Brook, according to Marshall's Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Vol.2.

IIRC, the rolling stock used on the Holcombe Brook branch comprised a motor coach plus trailer(s) - so not loco-hauled as per the OP, but more like an EMU (although there would not have been call to run trains in multiple on that particular backwater).

 

[topydre]

Hellingley Hospital Railway? 1.25 miles

 

[30907]

Victoria to Gatwick with class 73s was shorter

Not than the Met - at most 20m (Baker St to Rickmansworth is 17.5.)

 

[The Crab]

You know where you are with crabs…

Couldn't agree more!

 

[75A]

Brighton to Worthing and return paper train.
if you're talking ECS, Brighton to Hove both by 73's .

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

There have been push-pull trains between Rotenburg Wumme and Verden, about 30 km: one double-decker, electric locos behind and before, no time wasted running round, so the traction is longer than the accommodation.

 

[O L Leigh]

Hythe Pier Railway? Shortest trains and shortest distance.

I think that has to be the winner. The pier is only 2100 feet long which is about 0.4 miles, and is electrically hauled using converted battery locos now running off a 250V DC 3rd rail.

 

[Rescars]

You know where you are with crabs…

From Horwich?

 

[The Crab]

From Horwich?

Where else? The Crab is, of course, 42942.

 

[Mag_seven]

Sometime in the 80s a Class 87 plus a set of coaches off a Birmingham - Glasgow service (portion that split at Carstairs) ran a service round the Cathcart circle due to service disruption.

 

[Richard Scott]

Can't remember the exact stations but remember going to Meissen in 2011 and there was a shuttle with a class 143 and one double deck coach to the other Meissen station. I'd need to check my records to find the exact names of the two stations but know it was a short trip, around 5 minutes or so.

 

[Beebman]

Can't remember the exact stations but remember going to Meissen in 2011 and there was a shuttle with a class 143 and one double deck coach to the other Meissen station. I'd need to check my records to find the exact names of the two stations but know it was a short trip, around 5 minutes or so.

I remember visiting Leipzig in the late 90s before the cross-city tunnel was built and there was an S-Bahn shuttle with a class 143 and a couple of double-deck coaches from the Hbf to Miltitzer Allee, a distance of about 4.5km.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Sometime in the 80s a Class 87 plus a set of coaches off a Birmingham - Glasgow service (portion that split at Carstairs) ran a service round the Cathcart circle due to service disruption.

Wow I would have loved that rare route-haulage combo.

 

[theageofthetra]

Didn't the old service between Pisa airport and the main station used to be loco hauled? That was only a couple of miles.

 

[Inversnecky]

I was going to proffer the approx 10 miles Manchester to Bury (side contact electric), but think that was only EMUs, perhaps?

Manchester Bury Electric Line

Heritage Photo Archive & Heritage Image Register

www.heritagephotoarchive.co.uk

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I was going to proffer the approx 10 miles Manchester to Bury (side contact electric), but think that was only EMUs, perhaps?

Manchester Bury Electric Line

Heritage Photo Archive & Heritage Image Register

www.heritagephotoarchive.co.uk

Yes, class 504 units only I'm afraid.

 

[Strathclyder]

Sometime in the 80s a Class 87 plus a set of coaches off a Birmingham - Glasgow service (portion that split at Carstairs) ran a service round the Cathcart circle due to service disruption.

Presumably this was due to engineering works in the Rutherglen/Polmadie area?

 

[The exile]

I remember visiting Leipzig in the late 90s before the cross-city tunnel was built and there was an S-Bahn shuttle with a class 143 and a couple of double-deck coaches from the Hbf to Miltitzer Allee, a distance of about 4.5km.

4.4Km is actually the length of the branch from L-Plagwitz. The whole run from the Hbf is about 15Km. With emus basically confined to S-Bahn services in Berlin, Hamburg, Rhein-Ruhr, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart during the 1980s & 1990s, Germany would have been a good candidate for lots of electric loco-hauled services over very short distances. Duisburg Hbf - Entenfang must have been in the running before it was downgraded to dmu then closed.

 

[BeijingDave]

"The York-Shrewsbury mail was at one time electric hauled from Stockport to Crewe."

Serious question: Why even bother with the engine change?

 

[_toommm_]

"The York-Shrewsbury mail was at one time electric hauled from Stockport to Crewe."

Serious question: Why even bother with the engine change?

I believe the diesel loco was required to haul the mail train back in the other direction over non-electrified lines, and there wasn’t enough time for it to get to Crewe and change there.

 

[The exile]

"The York-Shrewsbury mail was at one time electric hauled from Stockport to Crewe."

Serious question: Why even bother with the engine change?

Were vans / coaches attached / detached at either? If so, changing the loco would hardly complicate matters further (might even speed things up) - especially if the two workings were booked to pass between Crewe and Stockport and both diesel locos were for some reason needed back at their starting points.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

"The York-Shrewsbury mail was at one time electric hauled from Stockport to Crewe."
Serious question: Why even bother with the engine change?

Before the WCML wires reached Stafford (1960-63), there were plenty of electric locos (81-85) and most services from the Manchester/Liverpool directions were electrically hauled into Crewe.
These included many portions for things like Manchester/Liverpool-Plymouth (inc sleepers), some as small as 2-car.
The north-and-west route via Shrewsbury obviously stayed diesel until all long-distance services to Bristol and beyond were diverted via Birmingham c1970.

 

[nw1]

We're probably not allowed out of the UK for this, but Germany seemed to specialise in relatively short electric loco-hauled services in 2009-14.

For example the Ehrwald branch out of Garmisch had some electric loco-hauled services of perhaps 3 or 4 coaches in the summer of 2014, mixed with EMUs.

 

[jfollows]

"The York-Shrewsbury mail was at one time electric hauled from Stockport to Crewe."

Serious question: Why even bother with the engine change?

I grew up in the 1960s alongside the WCML electrification south of Manchester. Even by the 1980s I got the feeling that BR considered it inappropriate to run diesel-hauled trains on electrified lines, and this included Manchester-Crewe. So the Manchester-Crewe-Shrewsbury-Cardiff services had an engine change at Crewe, and I had some enjoyable runs behind electric locomotives north of Crewe.
Likewise, some cross-country services changed loco at Coventry (not many, to be fair) rather than Birmingham New Street, and running diesel-hauled Birmingham-Manchester just didn't happen.
Presumably the economics changed in the 1990s, along with privatisation, and the number of electric locomotives probably decreased significantly also with even the better early locomotives like class 85 being withdrawn around 1990.

 

[Dai Corner]

I grew up in the 1960s alongside the WCML electrification south of Manchester. Even by the 1980s I got the feeling that BR considered it inappropriate to run diesel-hauled trains on electrified lines, and this included Manchester-Crewe. So the Manchester-Crewe-Shrewsbury-Cardiff services had an engine change at Crewe, and I had some enjoyable runs behind electric locomotives north of Crewe.
Likewise, some cross-country services changed loco at Coventry (not many, to be fair) rather than Birmingham New Street, and running diesel-hauled Birmingham-Manchester just didn't happen.
Presumably the economics changed in the 1990s, along with privatisation, and the number of electric locomotives probably decreased significantly also with even the better early locomotives like class 85 being withdrawn around 1990.

I wonder whether there would have been drivers who signed steam and electric but not diesel?

 

[Taunton]

I seem to recall from 1974 that in the evening the "Postal" from Glasgow Central was a couple of TPO mail vans, plus a coach, which left from the river end of one of the short bays (11A). Electrically hauled, it went as far as Motherwell, where it was coupled to the main train coming from Perth. That's 13 miles.

 

[Gloster]

Were vans / coaches attached / detached at either? If so, changing the loco would hardly complicate matters further (might even speed things up) - especially if the two workings were booked to pass between Crewe and Stockport and both diesel locos were for some reason needed back at their starting points.

I think that there was a fair amount of attaching and detaching at Crewe. I am not sure about Stockport: it is possible that Stalybridge was used instead.

 

[jfollows]

I think that there was a fair amount of attaching and detaching at Crewe. I am not sure about Stockport: it is possible that Stalybridge was used instead.

In the up direction there was a portion detached at Stalybridge for Manchester Victoria, but this wasn't done in reverse in the other direction.