The 52' 6" Carriages for the Great Eastern Section
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 7:55 am
Various explanations as to why 52’6” Gresley stock was built for the GE have been offered in print, including limitations of the platform lengths at Liverpool Street and trains requiring several portions, when the Cromer expresses are offered as an example, but then going on to say that there was not any restriction on the through services to other Areas and foreign companies from other points in the GE Section.
The observations about platform lengths and trains with several portions were relevant factors. Before the reconstruction, there were only 2 long platforms in Liverpool Street - 9 (originally departures) & 10 (originally arrivals) - which disappeared under the Great Eastern Hotel and passengers had to dive around the back of them to get from the West to the East side or vice-versa, or to access the Metropolitan & Circle lines. There were release roads between platforms 9 and 10 for the station pilots and there was wagon storage at the buffer stop end for coal for and refuse from the hotel. Platform 10 was later used for parcels traffic whilst platform 9 was for the most important trains - the Norwich and Cromer expresses, the Continental Boat Trains and so on and, occasionally, the through Lowestoft/Yarmouth via East Suffolk Line services.
Platforms 9 & 10 were the only ones long enough to take the number of carriages needed for the various portions to Norwich, Cromer, etc., and in the boat trains, so that is the reason for that statement. Platform 9 was favoured as it was also open to the booking hall, taxi rank, and so on with plenty of circulating space and ease of loading and unloading passengers’ luggage and the supplies for the restaurant car(s).
But the real reason was that the GE had standardised on 54’ length carriages and, coupled with all the work that went into revised platform and track layouts in connection with the introduction of the ‘Jazz’ services’, the locking and fouling bars that were installed were of a length suitable for 54’ stock, but would sit between the bogies of longer stock and so would not operate, thereby leading to non-detection and potential collisions. Part of the change to operation for flexibility and efficiency for these intensive services was that incoming trains could be sent to any vacant platform on the appropriate side of the station, i.e. West for Enfield and Hertford local, Cambridge and King’s Lynn, East for Southend, Colchester and Clacton (platforms 9 and 10 were the dividing point between these sides) but may have had to wait for a path.
So it was necessary for general services using the normal length platforms to have the shorter stock, until such time as the signalling issues could be dealt with, but specific trains working into and out of nominated platforms (i.e. platform 9 normally) could be accommodated.
These limitations were not sufficiently constraining elsewhere so the new 61’ 6” stock was acceptable in workings out of locations other than Liverpool Street.
It took a long while to confirm my original thoughts as to the underlying reason, but I finally found it in an article by Cecil J. Allen.
Gresley could have allowed Stratford to construct further carriages to GER designs, which were perfectly acceptable, but decided for whatever reason - possibly because of a greater similarity to the GN and East Coast style that was to become the LNER style - to use instead some NER designs until the new 'short' LNER designs were approved and ordered. Details of the NER carriages appeared in BRJ 34 in an article by Clive Carter.
Had Hornby based their original 'short' Gresley carriages on the GE Section types, then they would have been ideal for modellers of that line, but that was an opportunity missed.
The observations about platform lengths and trains with several portions were relevant factors. Before the reconstruction, there were only 2 long platforms in Liverpool Street - 9 (originally departures) & 10 (originally arrivals) - which disappeared under the Great Eastern Hotel and passengers had to dive around the back of them to get from the West to the East side or vice-versa, or to access the Metropolitan & Circle lines. There were release roads between platforms 9 and 10 for the station pilots and there was wagon storage at the buffer stop end for coal for and refuse from the hotel. Platform 10 was later used for parcels traffic whilst platform 9 was for the most important trains - the Norwich and Cromer expresses, the Continental Boat Trains and so on and, occasionally, the through Lowestoft/Yarmouth via East Suffolk Line services.
Platforms 9 & 10 were the only ones long enough to take the number of carriages needed for the various portions to Norwich, Cromer, etc., and in the boat trains, so that is the reason for that statement. Platform 9 was favoured as it was also open to the booking hall, taxi rank, and so on with plenty of circulating space and ease of loading and unloading passengers’ luggage and the supplies for the restaurant car(s).
But the real reason was that the GE had standardised on 54’ length carriages and, coupled with all the work that went into revised platform and track layouts in connection with the introduction of the ‘Jazz’ services’, the locking and fouling bars that were installed were of a length suitable for 54’ stock, but would sit between the bogies of longer stock and so would not operate, thereby leading to non-detection and potential collisions. Part of the change to operation for flexibility and efficiency for these intensive services was that incoming trains could be sent to any vacant platform on the appropriate side of the station, i.e. West for Enfield and Hertford local, Cambridge and King’s Lynn, East for Southend, Colchester and Clacton (platforms 9 and 10 were the dividing point between these sides) but may have had to wait for a path.
So it was necessary for general services using the normal length platforms to have the shorter stock, until such time as the signalling issues could be dealt with, but specific trains working into and out of nominated platforms (i.e. platform 9 normally) could be accommodated.
These limitations were not sufficiently constraining elsewhere so the new 61’ 6” stock was acceptable in workings out of locations other than Liverpool Street.
It took a long while to confirm my original thoughts as to the underlying reason, but I finally found it in an article by Cecil J. Allen.
Gresley could have allowed Stratford to construct further carriages to GER designs, which were perfectly acceptable, but decided for whatever reason - possibly because of a greater similarity to the GN and East Coast style that was to become the LNER style - to use instead some NER designs until the new 'short' LNER designs were approved and ordered. Details of the NER carriages appeared in BRJ 34 in an article by Clive Carter.
Had Hornby based their original 'short' Gresley carriages on the GE Section types, then they would have been ideal for modellers of that line, but that was an opportunity missed.
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