S/D coaches

chippy · Post by **chippy** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:10 pm

Hello all,Someone sent me a Flickr e-mail asking if I remembered the colour of somerset/dorset coaches,as I was only a kid back in the 50/60 I don't know...can anyone help.and I will pass it on and mention your help...thanks, chippy (JR)

Roger · Post by **Roger** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:19 am

If you are talking about the 50s and early 60s the livery of coaches for local services would have been mainly southern green. The long distance summer Saturday services were predominantly maroon and would be mostly formed of Midland Region coaches, as would the daily Pines Express. When the Western Region took over the line there was more use of their stock which was maroon.

From time to time the odd Western chocolate and cream coach would turn up and also ex LNER stock, albeit maroon.

I am sure the historians among the membership could comment about S&D stock from early days.

chippy · Post by **chippy** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 9:48 pm

Thanks Roger,I have passed this info on,and he is most grateful...JR.

Hobbler · Post by **Hobbler** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:32 pm

If my memory is not playing tricks I think the majority of the coaching stock used on the branch and north of Templecombe betwween 1955 and 1966 was maroon , blood & custard and occasionally chocolate & cream .

I dont often remember seeing southern green but it was not unknown .

Of course on summer saturdays just about anything that could carry passengers would be pressed into service and trains would be a right kaleidascope of liveries.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:42 pm

Hobbler wrote:If my memory is not playing tricks I think the majority of the coaching stock used on the branch and north of Templecombe betwween 1955 and 1966 was maroon , blood & custard and occasionally chocolate & cream .

Yes. Southern green was standard for the main line (Bath to Bournemouth) mainly using numbered 3-car sets in fixed formation, which was the SR way of doing things in those days.

The Highbridge branch rarely ran to more than one or two coaches and, if I remember correctly, elderly maroon LMS and GW coaches were the order of the day by the time I first got there (1963)

Hobbler · Post by **Hobbler** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:40 pm

I had a look at Norman Locketts book "The Somerset & Dorset in Colour" in order to check my facts . Norman was Ivo Peters travelling companion and concentrated on colour transparencies . Both gentlemen appear in each others pictures from time to time .

The book covers most of the period in question and the predominant coach colour is maroon , with the occasional one or two blood & custard appearing in the middle of a formation . Most of the southern green stock appears to be on railtours or specials with the exception of a couple of shots of Maunsell three coach sets on local services . However in one shot a three coach green maunsell set has been augmented by a fourth coach in blood & custard livery whilst in another shot bizarrely one maunsell coach has been removed from a three coach set and has been replaced by what appears to be an ex LNER Gresley Full Brake.

In true S&D fashion you can probably say there was probably a prototype incident for just about any type of operating scenario you could imagine sometime in the history of the line.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:32 pm

Hobbler wrote: .... Most of the southern green stock appears to be on railtours or specials with the exception of a couple of shots of Maunsell three coach sets on local services .

By the time I got down there, which was late (post September) 1962, there were only local trains left, the Pines having been diverted at the end of the summer timetable and with it the seasonal extras.

This is clearly why my recollection is of southern green 3-coach sets on the main line.