Sophie and the Slip Coaches
Holiday season had arrived in the region, with people heading to other parts of the country for a seasonal break. This, naturally, was putting a bit of strain on transportation resources, and the railway was busier than it often was.
This was, naturally, causing all sorts of operational situations down at the bottom end of the line. No sooner had a train arrived and its coaches taken away for servicing then another set was being propelled into the platform for use. It was all very busy, and understandably it was rushing the engines off their wheels.
"Well, shiver me cylinders!" Salty said, as he reached the carriage sidings with yet another rake of coaches. "This has to be one of the busiest seasons yet!"
"Right, what's the next set of coaches we need?" Sunny mused, as she checked the shunt manifest. "Here we are! The stock on the next siding- the ones in white and purple."
"Ahem- plum and spilt milk," Rebecca said, as she waited at the shunt signal for clearance to back down.
"What?" Salty asked.
"Plum and spilt milk," Rebecca replied. "It was a livery tried by the Southern Region when British Railways was trying to decide on a standardised coach livery. Although they eventually went with carmine and cream, the experimental liveries remained on some coaches into the late 1950s."
Sunny nodded. "I did not now that. Thank you for that piece of trivia."
Once these coaches were in the platform, Rebecca backed down onto the train, and the passengers boarded. With a whistle and the wave of a green flag, she was on her way.
Salty, on the other hand, had dropped back to the refuelling point. "This level of traffic is probably more than we were built to cope with," he said. "A sleepy branchline like this simply cannot cope with this level of traffic!"
"Tell me about it," Porter said, as his tanks were topped up. "If only there was some sort of way to speed things up, then we could make our operations more efficient."
"That's quite enough chit chat!" shouted the yard foreman. "Back to work, Porter!"
"See what I mean?" Porter said, as the water crane was swung out of position. With a blast of steam from his cylinder cocks he moved off to the sidings to continue working.
Salty sighed. "This isn't a viable solution, at all. If only there was some sort of mechanism for dropping passengers off without having to stop..."
That night, the engines were once again in their shed. The shutters were down, which protected them from the elements, but at the same time things were still somewhat uneasy as they conversed with one another.
"This level of traffic is simply getting preposterous," Charles grumbled. "We had so many people getting on and off we were unable to leave on time!"
"Well, this level of traffic does do a lot of good for local businesses," Sophie reminded him.
"I know that," Charles said, "but remember that passengers complain when the trains run late. They can't have their cake and eat it, as we can't increase train lengths as they won't fit in the platforms, causing even more operational headaches!"
"True that," Rebecca said. "If only there was some sort of mechanism for dropping passengers off without having to stop..."
Sophie piped up. "What did you say?"
"I said, If only there was some sort of mechanism for dropping passengers off without having to stop," Rebecca replied. "Why? Do you know of a method?"
"Yes!" Sophie said. "Use slip coaches!"
"What's a slip coach?" Porter asked.
Sophie smiled. "I heard about them from a Great Western engine when I visited the South Devon Railway for a gala. Basically, a slip coach can be uncoupled whilst on the move, as it has its own braking system to bring the coach to a stop. In other words, you maintain speed and eliminate the need to stop!"
"Now I know what you're talking about!" Porter said. "The Lancashire and Yorkshire had some, which passed to the LMS. They mainly used them at Rochdale and Blackburn- one of my early jobs was getting them out of the way of oncoming trains after the passengers got off."
Charles was oddly silent. A fiendish idea was forming in his mind.
The next morning, after the yard staff had arrived, Charles told them all about slip coaches (whilst neglecting to mention that Sophie had been the one to tell him the story in the first place). The staff were quite impressed, and by lunchtime a set had been delivered.
"Where did these come from?" Rebecca asked, as she arrived from another passenger working to get some coal. "I don't recall these being in the fleet."
"We picked them up from a heritage line," explained a worker. "Neat coaches, aren't they?"
"And," Charles said, "will speed up operations no end. Which is always a good thing."
Sure enough, the shunters got to work with the trial service. A single slip coaches was attached to the back of the train, with a large sign on it telling passengers it was for Penrhyn only, and that passengers would need to pay close attention to the signs on the platform. Sure enough, they hopped onboard, and a special railway worker, called a brake man, got onboard to operate the brake controls and slip gear.
Charles was the one to work this train, and smiled. "Brilliant idea, this was," he said. "Now we can all get everything done faster."
Zipp glanced behind her for the guard's whistle. "I wasn't aware you were familiar with Great Western operational practice," she said. "I know the consitutent companies of the Southern used them, but they'd abandoned slip working by 1924."
Just then, the guard sounded his whistle and waved his green flag, and what was possibly the wackiest train ever seen on the line got underway. After the stop at Penmere, they got underway again, and rumbled down the hill and back up into the climb towards Penrhyn. "We should probably release the coach around the top of the viaduct," Charles said.
"That would give it enough momentum to stop in the platform," Zipp added. "Brilliant thinking!"
"I am a certified genius, after all," Charles said.
Charles blasted a special horn sequence to inform the brake man to release the rear coach. He pulled on a lever and began to apply the brakes.
But, just then, Charles saw the signal was red! "BRAKES!" he shouted.
Zipp brought the train to a stop in the platform before the signal- before there was a sudden bang from the back of the train. "Oh no."
Zipp hopped out of the cab and walked back to see what had happened, and saw the brake man getting out of the brake compartment. "Everything OK?"
"No, it is not!" the brake man snapped. "You're supposed to keep going with these slip coaches! Otherwise we just bump into the back of the train we detached from!"
"In fairness, the signal is red," Zipp said. "Perhaps slip operation doesn't work on single track railways."
Just then, Sophie arrived with a passenger train and saw the confusion. "Having fun?" she asked.
"A slip coach slammed into the back of my train!" Charles complained.
"That's because they're meant to be detached from fast moving trains, not stopping services," Sophie replied.
"Otherwise," Pipp added, "what's the point of uncoupling them in the first place?"
Charles glanced about. "It seems this idea has a few flaws in it."
After the test, it was decided that slip coaches were of limited utility to the Maritime Line, as train speeds simply were not high enough to justify their usage. However, the extra seats were certainly appreciated by the railway and the passengers, and as such the slip coaches were used as normal passenger coaches. However, the lack of corridors did generate complaints about being unable to access the buffet coach.
Eventually, it was decided it was more efficient to just operate longer trains and have shorter stop times- after all, detaching coaches in motion sounds impressive at first, but is fraught with all sorts of problems!
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awesome chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
11851942
Glad you enjoyed. Much slipping!
nobody likes a glory hound and Plagiarism
11851944
Not in the slightest.
know that.*
It's obvious what he's got planned.
If there's 1 thing I don't understand about the episode this is based off, how did sir Topham Hatt just 'find them' and purchase them, within a matter of hours?!? The episode is still neat with giving Duck a spotlight episode, but I still find it a bit dumb there wasn't a small time jump after James told Sir Topham about them.
Kinda coincidental they're trying out just one, seeing how only 1 got preserved. And sadly, isn't in use as its been turned into a camping coach people can rent. Which, is still nice, but it deserved better than that.
Sophie's idea, not yours!
Certified genius eh?
11852031
1. Fixed.
2. Indeed.
3. That's a fair point, actually.
4. Remember that classes that are extinct IRL turn up in this series; no Fowler Dock Tanks survive, for example.
5. Indeed.
6. And on that bombshell...
11852485
5. You got me there.
11852530
Eeyup.
Hmm, this was a unique take on this episode. But I think it was a good way to show how slip coaches are meant to be used on most trains, as they made more sense for a high-speed express train. And I’m not gonna lie, while I was only just hearing of these coaches in that episode, I think the lack of a corridor was a big flaw in a certain way.
11852598
Agreed. Interestingly the LMS did experiment with corridor slip coaches, but was never able to get the technology to work properlu.
I thought that the other trains said the platforms were too short, and that with more people coming for holiday, they couldn't do shorter stop times?
Of course, they could always just extend the platforms, even if just temporarily, and with more cars they wouldn't have to stop as long for offloading.
11873490
They only stick one extra coach on and instruct people to stand or sit in specific coaches to speed up loading and unloading.