British Rail published its first ‘All System’ timetable on 6th May 1974, replacing five existing Regional documents. Its introductory focus was on the completion of electrification of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and the consequent improvements to Inter-City services. But buried in the fine detail of 1,307 pages of train timings was another innovation albeit completely unheralded. For the first time the full scope of Cross Country services between Scotland, the North East and North West of England and the South West, South Coast and South Wales via Birmingham was published in one timetable. Table 51, as it was identified, summarised through trains and their associated connecting services across a bank of 79 stations from Aberdeen to Penzance and Glasgow to Poole. This article chronicles the story of how this timetable came to be produced on the back of work done in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The Regional picture
Historically there had never been a coherent or coordinated group of services over the various Cross Country routes between the north and south of the UK. This was because of rivalries between train companies before the Second World War which were perpetuated by the Regions under British Railways management. No one organisation held a monopoly over the traffic flows, particularly those associated with domestic annual holidays to seaside destinations. The London Midland Region (LMR) was challenged by the Western Region (WR), and to a lesser extent by the Eastern Region (ER), in several areas. This had led to a somewhat fragmented picture with separately published timetables competing for the same market over different routes to the coast in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Although Birmingham New Street played a central role inRiding and Bristol, not all West Midlands traffic used this station to get to the South West or South Coast. The WR had operated ‘The Cornishman’ service from Wolverhampton Low Level and Birmingham Snow Hill to Penzance via Stratford-upon-Avon and Cheltenham until 1962. The WR also ran services direct from the North West to Devon and Cornwall via Shrewsbury, Hereford and Severn Tunnel Junction. Passengers from Liverpool and Manchester travelling via Birmingham New Street had to change trains. In 1957 the WR launched a direct four trains a day service between South Wales and Birmingham with newbuild diesel multiple units running via Gloucester Central and Stratford-uponAvon to Snow Hill. LMR passengers had to change at Gloucester Eastgate and walk to/from Central station.
