On 9th July 2020 it was 53 years since the last steam locomotives on the Southern Region worked in regular revenue-earning service, a full electric service being in operation to accelerated timings from the following morning. These had worked from eight locomotive sheds and on pre-planned tasks known in the jargon as Duties, some of which had no regular tasks established to allow a few locomotives to be available for short notice jobs. This article will look at some of those Duties which applied during the period of the 1963/64 timetable but first a little history of the service patterns which applied then is required.
The replacement of steam with third rail electric trains was a long drawn-out process after the London & South Western Railway’s services from Waterloo to Wimbledon via East Putney began in 1915 followed by the longer suburban routes. Throughout the 1930s electric multiple units took over from steam on virtually the whole of the main line services to the Sussex Coast and Portsmouth. Had it not been for World War II the third rail would have been installed all over Kent, on the Hastings line and as far west as Bournemouth but these plans were put on hold and it was many years before they were resuscitated. When the railways were nationalised there was no money available to do anything other than struggle on with steam, though with the long-term aim of electrification, and this policy was followed until the 1955 Modernisation Plan was published.
The services on what was known as the South Western Division fell, in 1963, into two distinct groupings – express and stopping services between London Waterloo and Exeter and on into North Devon and Cornwall plus those to Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth. These were very much the same as had applied for much of the Southern Railway’s existence although the frequency did change from time to time.
Somerset, Devon and Cornwall
The West of England route was worked in the traditional manner for many years – a two-hourly service from Waterloo as far as Exeter Central where the train would split into a Plymouth portion and others for variously Barnstaple, Ifracombe, Bude or even as far west as Padstow. Between Woking and Salisbury calls were generally at Basingstoke and Andover Junction although the ‘Atlantic Coast Express’ (‘ACE’) ran non-stop from Waterloo to Salisbury. The branches in Somerset, Dorset and east Devon were generally served by connecting services from main line junctions although the ‘ACE’ did sometimes have through carriages.
At the beginning of 1963 everything west of Salisbury was transferred to Western Region (WR) control which aimed to eliminate steam as soon as possible, so many of the ‘foreign’ steam engines were returned to the Southern and replaced by, sometimes older, Great Western locomotives. Initially London services remained in the hands of the Bulleid Pacifics until sufficient ‘Warship’ dieselhydraulics became available.
Wessex
A ‘fast’ down service departed Waterloo at 30 minutes past the even hours; in 1960 a new 08.30 became the earliest fast train with an additional stopping service departing five minutes later. This ‘35 minutes past’ path was
