The RCTS: then and now
SIXTY years ago, The Railway Observer recorded the details of the last summer of through services using the Somerset & Dorset line to join the North and Midlands to the South Coast at Bournemouth. Having come under Western Region control in 1958, it soon became apparent that the line was likely to be run down, and the ending of through services was a major step in that process. For most of the year, the route was served only by the ‘Pines Express’ running through from Manchester to Bournemouth West, but the summer Saturday timetable provided numerous other inter-regional trains. The change from the Midland Region being responsible for the motive power to the Western saw little happen in the first couple of years, with a number of BR Standards of ‘5MT’ and smaller sizes assisted by LMS ‘4Fs’, ‘7Fs’ and ‘2Ps’ working the vast majority of services, augmented by a small number of Bulleid Pacifics for the summer extras. Double-heading of the heavy trains was mandatory and it was not until 1960, with the drafting in of four ‘9F’ 2-10-0s, that many trains could dispense with a pilot engine.
For the 1962 season, the transferred ‘9Fs’ included No. 92220 Evening Star, thought to have been included specifically to work the final ‘Pines Express’ in both directions, which it duly did on September 8 that year. The ‘Pines’ had its origins in 1910, but did not appear as a named train until 1927. A feature of the 1962 Western Region timetable was that each named train had its own table, with the ‘Pines’ duly appearing as Table 18. On Mondays to Fridays, it departed Manchester at 10.30am, arriving at Bath Green Park just after 3pm, with a further 2½ hours needed to reach Bournemouth; on summer Saturdays, departure was five minutes earlier but Bournemouth West was not reached until 6.08pm – a total journey time of almost 7¾ hours. After 1962, the ‘Pines’ continued to run but was routed from Birmingham to the South Coast via Banbury, Reading and Basingstoke – but only retained its named train status until March 1967. The same route is followed by today’s hourly CrossCountry service, with an average journey time of 4¾ hours from Manchester to Bournemouth – so effectively arriving in Bournemouth in the time it took the original service to get to Bath. Through trains from the North of England to the South Coast have always had fairly slow schedules. It is interesting to note that possibly the fastest way from Manchester to such a destination these days would be by Avanti to Euston in around 2 hours and 5 minutes, then from St Pancras to Folkestone with a South Eastern Javelin in less than 55 minutes. If a 30 minute transfer between the two stations is included, a total time of 3½ hours is achievable. For information on the Society visit rcts.org.uk