We track the long distance services of the Hampshire coast that ran via Basingstoke and Oxford, and their much expanded links to various northern industrial towns.
Trains serving the Hampshire coast via Oxford owe much to the Great Central Railway in the years after its London Extension opened in 1899. In August 1900 a link to Banbury was completed, and July 1902 saw a Newcastle-Bournemouth service begin, which required the co-operation of the North Eastern, Great Central, Great Western and London & South Western railways. Through carriages from Manchester were added at Nottingham, and the GWR attached a section from the Birkenhead to Deal train at Banbury; at the same time a Manchester section was transferred to the Deal train. Suspended in 1916 due to wartime economies, it restarted in 1921. By 1932 daily trains ran from Newcastle and Birkenhead to Bournemouth, with through carriages conveyed between Manchester and Portsmouth on the Birkenhead train, and a Saturdays-only Birmingham (Snow Hill) to Portsmouth train. War interrupted services again in 1939 but they reappeared in 1949 and steadily grew in number throughout the 1950s. Bournemouth was also served via the ex-LMS lines to Bath and the S&DJR but after the end of the summer 1962 timetable that route’s inter-regional services were merged with those running via Oxford. The volume of traffic however, soon tailed off after a peak in 1963, as steam gave way to diesel, and the nation’s holiday dreams went abroad.
R N Smith Collection
Maunsell ‘N15’ 4-6-0 No 742 Camelot gets underway from Oxford with the 9.35am Birkenhead (Woodside) to Bournemouth (West) train in April 1939. The different brake vacuum rate used by the two companies means that the vacuum in this mixed rake of GWR and SR coaches will have had to be blown down and rebuilt before departure.
Gavin Morrison
Bulleid Light Pacific No 34105 Swanage takes water at Southampton (Central) on 12 September 1964. This was the first Saturday after the end of the summer timetable and contemporary reports suggest that the train is 1N83, the 10.50am from Bournemouth (West) to York, on a day when a number of relief trains also ran to confuse the linesider. The engine would work to Oxford, from where a GWR ‘Hall’ was booked for the short hop to Banbury. By this time the service over the GC main line was in the hands of a Sheffield (Darnall) English Electric ‘Type 3’ on an out-andback turn to Banbury, with the southbound service from York handing over to a GWR 4-6-0 there, which would work all the way through to Bournemouth, returning later on a van train to Reading; on this day it was No 6868 Penrhos Grange.
Pat Whitehouse/Colour-Rail.com/ GW26
Churchward ‘Star’ class 4-6-0 No 4013 Knight of St Patrick has arrived at Shrewsbury with the 9.30am Bournemouth (West) to Birkenhead (Woodside) service in 1938. This year-round duty from Bournemouth developed by the GWR spanned the pre- and post-war years until changes took place in 1961. The train is formed of Southern Railway Maunsell stock and while this set is heading north another set of GWR stock is heading in the reverse direction on the reciprocal service. Southern engines worked both trains south of Oxford on an out-and-back turn from Bournemouth. The train reversed at Chester, from where another GWR engine would work the relatively short journey between there and the Wirral.
Tom Boustead
The evening sun catches Sheffield (Darnall)-allocated Thompson ‘B1’ class 4-6-0 No 61111 heading north on the GC main line past the golf links at Bulwell Common with train 1N26, the 11.16am Bournemouth (West) to York on 27 May 1961. In the post-war years this long-standing service settled down into an all-year-round train that was usually extended to and from Newcastle for the duration of the summer timetable. For the period of this particular timetable, however the train had only just started running again, from 1 May after an intermission since the last run on 29 October the previous year.
Gavin Morrison Keith Pirt, courtesy Book Law Publications
Above: Thompson ‘B1’ 4-6-0 No 61230 lifts train 1137, the 10.15am Bradford (Exchange) to Poole, up the 1 in 50 grade out of the Yorkshire terminus and nears
Mill Lane Junction on Saturday, 22 August 1959. The stock of this summer-dated train will have worked up to here on the previous Saturday and has probably spent the week berthed in Low Moor sidings. On arrival at Poole, the empty stock will go to Wimborne for another week of inactivity! This train would take over eight hours to reach Bournemouth and Poole, and was routed via Huddersfield, Penistone and the Great Central main line, but another to the same destination, taking over two hours more, had left earlier from the former Midland terminus a stone’s throw away.
Train 245, the 7.40am from Bradford (Forster Square) to Bournemouth (West), ran over Midland Railway lines via Leeds, Derby and Cheltenham Spa to Bath (Green Park), and then through the Mendips over the Somerset & Dorset line, thus arriving in Bournemouth from the opposite direction.
Left: The late summer evening sun catches Collett ‘Grange’ class 4-6-0 No 6857 Tudor Grange at Rowington troughs on the approach to Lapworth with the 1.11pm from Portsmouth Harbour to Wolverhampton (Low Level), which is formed of former GWR coaches in August 1964. The crew of the Oxley-allocated engine has lowered the scoop and is taking water. With a myriad of extra trains such as this which ran only in the summer timetable period, it was useful to provide identification for signalmen and staff and the chalk markings indicate that the engine worked down earlier on train 1O22, the 8.43am from Wolverhampton (Low Level) to Portsmouth Harbour, but nobody there has thought to revise the enthusiastic application of the earlier southbound reporting number on the smokebox door prior to the return working.
Nigel Kendall/ANISTR.COM
Top left: Bulleid ‘West Country’ 4-6-2 No 34102 Lapford arrives at New Milton with train 1V90, the 9.20am Bournemouth (West) to Wolverhampton (Low Level) on Saturday, 23 June 1962. Until the winter 1961/62 timetable period this service continued on to Birkenhead (Woodside) but it was cut-back to Wolverhampton as a decline set in after much of the former GWR route to the Wirral was transferred from the Western to the London Midland Region. However, a summer Saturday service was maintained to and from Birkenhead until the end of the 1965 season. Bournemouth was served by six return trains via Oxford in the summer of 1962, with trains from Sheffield (Victoria), Birmingham (Snow Hill), Birkenhead (Woodside) and Bradford (Exchange). The daily York service was extended to start from Newcastle, as usual, and there was also an overnight train from Newcastle, which departed on
Friday night and returned early on Saturday morning. A further eight trains were routed via the S&D and Midland lines. Inter-regional trains such as this made slow progress on the Southern, with trains generally starting at Bournemouth (West) and calling at Bournemouth (Central), Boscombe, Pokesdown, Christchurch, New Milton and Brockenhurst, before further stops at Southampton (Central), Eastleigh, Winchester (City), Basingstoke and Reading (West).
Les Elsey/Colour-Rail.com/322922
A BR Standard 4-6-0 is on the loop line to the engine shed on the right as GWR ‘Hall’ class 4-6-0 No 5927 Guild Hall nears Eastleigh, well off the beaten track on the Botley line with 1V98, the 3.50pm Portsmouth Harbour to Wolverhampton (Low Level) service on Saturday, 7 July 1962. Portsmouth was served by six return inter-regional trains in the summer of 1962, with two from Wolverhampton (Low Level), one from Birmingham (Snow Hill) and another that started from Birmingham (Moor Street). In addition, there were overnight trains from Nottingham (Victoria) and Sheffield (Victoria) which departed on Friday night and returned on Saturday afternoon.
T B Owen/Colour-Rail.com/392036
The city of Portsmouth is intrinsically linked with the activities of the Royal Navy, but with its shipping connections across the Solent from here at Portsmouth Harbour station it was also the gateway to many a happy holiday on the Isle of Wight and was thus served by summer-dated through trains from the Midlands. On Saturday, 24 June 1961, Nine Elms-allocated British Railways Standard ‘5MT’ 4-6-0 No 73081 waits at the head of 1V94, the 1.11pm Portsmouth Harbour to Wolverhampton (Low Level), as passengers off the Isle of Wight ferry variously join the inter-regional train or fill the adjacent platform as they await the arrival of an electric service that will whisk them back to the capital.
Colour-Rail.com/71215
Rebuilt ‘West Country’ 4-6-2 No 34034 Honiton rounds the curve from Scours Lane Junction into Reading (West) station with a southbound inter-regional. The engine had gone north to Oxford earlier on train 1N63, the 10.34am Bournemouth (West) to Bradford (Exchange). Reading (West) station opened in 1906 and became a useful way for these trains to serve the town without the need to go into Reading (General) and reverse. There were four out-and-back duties to Oxford for Southern Light Pacifics in the summer of 1964 but by the following year they were increasingly handing over to diesels at Oxford for the journey onwards, in particular the four summer trains that until the end of the summer 1964 timetable ran via the GC main line. These were re-routed over the Varsity Line to Bletchley and then via Northampton and Market Harborough for the 1965 season only, before going elsewhere in 1966.
R N Smith Collection
Rather belatedly, BR began weeding out duplicate trains that were a legacy of pre-nationalisation services. Many served the same towns and cities but were routed according to traditional company allegiances. Former Midland trains were re-routed away from the S&DJR after the end of the summer 1962 timetable, and the prestigious daily ‘Pines Express’, which linked Bournemouth with Manchester, adopted the pathway through here at Oxford that was previously used by the daily Wolverhampton (Low Level) services that had until recently also served Birkenhead (Woodside). North of Wolverhampton, the train took the Market Drayton line at Wellington to re-join the original route at Crewe. Bournemouth-allocated Light Pacific No 34103 Calstock has come off the northbound working at Oxford, turned on the shed and is at rest on the up through line while a member of its crew chats with the public on the right as they await the arrival of No D1018 Western Buccaneer on train 1O35, the 10am from Manchester (Piccadilly) to Bournemouth (West), the southbound ‘Pines’. These diesel-hydraulic locomotives had only recently taken over from ‘Castle’ class engines inherited from the previous Wolverhampton train when the ‘Pines’ was re-routed. A booked locomotive change here will see Calstock work ‘The Pines’ south.
Tony Doyle/R N Smith Collection
GWR ‘Modified Hall’ class 4-6-0 No 6998
Burton Agnes Hall worked the Poole to York service between Oxford and Banbury on 1 January 1966, bringing the curtain down on Western Region steam at Oxford, but with Banbury shed now in LMR hands the new method of operation from the Monday after would see a Banbury ‘Black Five’ work all the way through to Poole, returning north again on the following day’s service. LMS ‘5MT’ 4-6-0 No 44942 heads north out of Oxford and nears Wolvercote Junction with train 1N83, the 11.10 Poole to York on Saturday, 5 March 1966, a day when many enthusiasts were elsewhere taking a last trip over the S&DJR. The final ‘Black Five’ to work the service out of Poole would be No 45132 on Friday, 2 September 1966 as the following day Bulleid Pacifics
Nos 34034 and 34005 worked the north and southbound services at Banbury, and on the same day the GC closed completely as a through route. From Monday, 5 September the train was re-routed but continued to be diagrammed for steam as far as Basingstoke, and sometimes further, until Saturday, 4 March 1967 when rebuilt ‘West Country’ 4-6-2 No 34004 Yeovil worked the last scheduled steam turn. From the 6 March it was re-timed to reverse at Reading (General), but the WR would still witness the occasional appearance of steam on it at Reading after that.
David Christie/ANISTR.COM
While the summer-dated trains that used the GC main line were diverted away, the yearround Bournemouth to York train continued on its traditional routing over the line. At Oxford the arriving Southern Region engine has scuttled off to the shed and GWR ‘Grange’ class 4-6-0 No 6870 Bodicote Grange backs down onto the stock of 1N83, the 10.50 Bournemouth (West) to York on Saturday, 10 October 1964. Within a year the terminus at Bournemouth (West) would be taken out of use and close, this train being diverted to start and terminate at Poole instead. Steam continued to work the service south of Banbury but didn’t look likely to continue for much longer as the demise of Western Region steam was scheduled for 1 January 1966.
D J Mitchell/Colour-Rail.com/BRM1738
Farnley Junction-allocated ‘Jubilee’ No 45647 Sturdee forges out over Penistone viaduct with train 1N63, the 10.29 Poole to Bradford (Exchange) on Saturday, 2 July 1966. This is the return duty for the engine that was earlier employed on 1O43, the 09.06 Bradford (Exchange) to Poole and had taken over from a diesel at Nottingham (Midland). There was no Leeds portion in this direction but a connection was made with a trans-Pennine service at Huddersfield instead. It was planned to use a ‘Jubilee’ again on this service in the summer of 1967 but in the end only the Bradford (Exchange) to Huddersfield section was steam-worked, with the last reported use of steam being Fairburn ‘4MT’ No 42152 on 26 August 1967, several months after the last steam-worked inter-regional on the Southern.
R N Smith Collection
The summer 1963 timetable saw the long-established Bradford to Poole service gain through coaches from Leeds. Stanier ‘Jubilee’ class 4-6-0 No 45562 Alberta passes the closed station at Bradley Junction on the approach to Huddersfield with the Leeds section in the summer of 1966. This left Leeds at 09.08 and within minutes of it passing here the main train from Bradford, often hauled by a Fairburn ‘4MT’ 2-6-4T, will have appeared on the left hand lines, having left two minutes earlier, at 09.06. The two trains combined at Huddersfield and the ‘Jubilee’ then took it via Penistone, Barnsley and the MR lines to Nottingham (Midland), where it reversed. A diesel from Leicester depot then worked the train onwards, which ran as train 1O43, the 09.06 Bradford (Exchange) to Poole, via the Midland main line to London, and on to the Southern. The train had previously used the GC main line until the end of the summer 1964 timetable, and then in the 1965 season a route that included the Varsity Line to regain the original route at Oxford.