Tuesday Treasures - March 2025

TUESDAY 25 MARCH

The Blue Pullmans

This week we delve into the pages of the journal of The Institution of Locomotive Engineers. This august body was founded in 1911 for the ‘Dissemination of information concerning Locomotive Engineering and its allied sciences by the reading, discussion and publication of papers and otherwise.’ Some of the finest engineers served as President of the Institution including Richard Maunsell, Sir William Stanier and Oliver Bulleid. It remained an independent body until 1969 when it merged to become the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Our focus is on two advertisements from the 1960-61 edition of the journal. The first is from C.A.V. Ltd., (named after the company founder Charles Anthony Vandervell) and promotes the fuel injection pumps for which they were world renowned. Secondly the Westinghouse Brake and Signal Co. Ltd., whose reputation for safety and excellence was unsurpassed.

These two illustrations lead us nicely to a British Railways (Western Region) poster (from the Great Western Trust Collection) issued at the 1961 launch of The South Wales Pullman. Blue Pullman services to Birmingham and Bristol began in 1960 whilst the South Wales service was still using steam haulage and traditional Pullman coaches. These revolutionary diesel electric trains turned many heads and with their striking Nanking Blue livery were like nothing seen before on British Railways. They were air-conditioned, luxuriously fitted out using the latest decor and sound proofing materials and were designed largely for the business market which was seeing tough competition from the private car and domestic air services. The WR fleet consisted of three 8-car sets and as can be seen from the timetable, they were well utilised, with two daily return journeys from Bristol, the same from Birmingham/Wolverhampton and the third set operating one return trip from Swansea to Paddington.

They were not an unqualified success and suffered from being underpowered and, on indifferent track, gave a rough ride. They did however, prove the concept of a fixed formation train with a power unit at each end and, three years after their withdrawal in 1973, British Rail’s Inter City 125 High Speed Trains were introduced. They radically improved journey times and frequencies and their success and popularity were unequalled.

Sadly, of the thirty-six Blue Pullman vehicles, all built by Metropolitan-Cammell in Birmingham, none have survived. They did, though, provide a very interesting chapter in the post-war history of Britain’s railways.

TUESDAY 18 MARCH

The Last One

On this day, 18th March, sixty-five years ago the last steam locomotive built for British Railways was named at a grand ceremony at Swindon Works. After one hundred and eighteen years of locomotive building, production ended with the unveiling of BR Standard Class 9, 2-10-0 Heavy Freight No. 92220 Evening Star. It was the 999th loco built to a BR standard design. Hundreds of men and women from the works plus senior officers, invited guests and a small army of newspaper reporters and TV crews gathered to mark the end of an era.

This momentous event was presided over by Mr R. F. Hanks, Chairman of the BR Western Area Board, Mr H. G. Bowles, Assistant General Manager and Mr R. A. Smeddle, Chief Mechanical and Electrical Engineer. Alderman F. D. Jefford and Mrs D. M. Shipway, the Mayor and Mayoress of Swindon were also on the specially erected stage. Mr K. W. C. Grand, former General Manager of the Western Region performed the unveiling and Mr Hanks presented to the three winners their share of a ten guinea (£10.50p) prize following a competition which was run among Western Region staff to suggest the most appropriate name for the loco.

Mr Hanks spoke saying it was “an emotional occasion, not to say a sad one,” but how proud he was that the honour of constructing the last steam loco should have fallen to Swindon Works. Uniquely for a BR Standard it was fitted, in true Great Western style with a copper-capped chimney.

R F Hanks speaking, Left, K W C Grand, right R A Smeddle

Special trains were run from Paddington for the occasion and a souvenir programme was produced which is also shown here. Other notable exhibits were on display both in and outside the works.

The unveiling

Following entry into service, Evening Star was allocated to Cardiff Canton depot. Like many BR Standards, it had a scandalously short career, being withdrawn just five years later. It now forms part of the National Collection and is on display at the National Railway Museum, York.

The joint winners of the naming competition

Of the cathedral like ‘AE’ shop where the naming ceremony took place, nothing now remains.

The photographs in this ‘Tuesday Treasure’ come from the collection of William ‘Jock’ Robinson, recently bequeathed to us by his son Terence. The Great Western Trust is very fortunate to have a detailed record of such an historic occasion.

Some of the hundreds who attended the event. Note how the steel supporting columns have been 'dressed' for the event

TUESDAY 11 MARCH

Commercial Travellers

Our Blog today turns to a new subject based upon the Great Western Trust collection, and probably to current times, an occupation that is no longer widely appreciated, that of the Commercial Traveller.

The railways in general revolutionised personal travel for all classes in society and all the more significantly, the ability of manufacturers to get the awareness of their products known to the widest community of potential customers in a more assured manner than advertisements in the press etc.

The so-called Commercial Traveller was one key occupation that blossomed under this new age of travel, and he, yes, males predominated, would travel the length and breadth of the UK to visit customers and carry with him samples and brochures of the products of his employing manufacturing company seeking to gain orders. Further visits would occur to maintain that business connection, and to introduce new stock items etc.

Recognising that such a travelling customer base existed, and with its scale, a potential influence to seek special lower fare rates for those companies, in 1872 the Commercial Travellers Association was founded, and the identity card illustrated being registered as No 12357 is just one of many expensively produced by the GWR, this one dated to 1900.

We illustrate the very attractive cover design of the identity pass; in gold on dark green, and the two inside pages which show that one Stephen Yeoman of Lyneham near Chippenham was a Commercial Traveller employee of S Rawlings & Son of Frome and gave authority to GWR Booking Staff to provide special rate week-end tickets for him to return to his home (nearest station Dauntsey) probably after a tiring and demanding sequence of trade visits during the preceding weekdays. This item is a delightful survivor including the passport-style photo image of Mr Yeoman.

The illustration of an S Rawlings & Son envelope from 1909 (not part of the Trust collection) gives an indication of the products that Mr Yeoman’s company produced.

Turning to another section of the Great Western Trust archive, we look at the ticket collection that was bequeathed by Charles Gordon-Stuart. The collection was expertly catalogued by the late David Geldard of the Transport Ticket Society and we have illustrated a selection of Commercial Traveller tickets with David’s notes. The four-figure numbers refer to the numbers printed on the tickets:

1470 to 2854 – Commercial Traveller week-end tickets. These were introduced on 1 July 1896, to enable commercial travellers to visit their homes at the week-end. They were available both 1st and 3rd class for local and foreign destinations between stations where the 3rd class single journey fare was more than 2s 6d, at single fare for the return journey. The intending passenger was required to present to the booking clerk a certificate of identity from his employer or a current year's membership card of the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers’ Association (price 1s 6d), and to surrender to the clerk a voucher taken from a book of 52, one for each specific week in the year (price 2s 6d for a book of 52 vouchers).

Special coloured card tickets were used originally, with conditions specific to commercial travellers. These were later replaced by standard conditions. Plain white and buff cards for 1st and 3rd respectively were used from 26 August 1907; from that date the CT skeleton overprint also came into use. Green card was used for 3rd class bookings from late 1934/early 1935.

9999 – Probably an August 1907 specimen. Where through fares were not in operation the commercial traveller was issued with a return ticket to the bookable intermediate station closest to his ultimate destination, together with a re-book voucher to be presented at the intermediate station in exchange for a single fare return ticket to the destination. In some cases Edmondson rebook tickets were issued when the voucher was presented.

191 to 4258. Commercial traveller day tickets were introduced in the 1930s, but these were probably work-related.

The second group of three Commercial Traveller tickets is from the Mike Ogden collection. Mike was the Western Region’s fares officer until the 1980s, during which time he obtained the specimen books of tickets, which have also found their way to Didcot. Specimen tickets were always given the number 9999 or 0000. The three Commercial Traveller weekend tickets illustrated here probably date from their introduction in 1896. Note they are of the three classes available at the time: 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

All in all, what appears to be a straightforward offer to a section of the business community becomes extremely complicated. One wonders how they managed to administer it all without computers.

TUESDAY 4 MARCH

BUSINESS EXPRESSions

In order to prove that British Railways didn’t just use female models for their publicity, this week we feature a poster from 1962, now in the Great Western Trust collection. It is clearly aimed at the businessman, encouraging him to travel from South Wales to London on the ‘Capitals United Express’.

Traction for the Capitals United Express 1 – a Castle class 4-6-0 gets special treatment from the cleaners at Cardiff Canton engine shed

Cardiff was formally recognised as the capital city of Wales on 20 December 1955 and the Western Region of British Railways launched the named train on 6 February the following year. It left Cardiff at 8am and the return journey departed Paddington at 3.55pm, although the timings varied slightly over the course of its life. The train was steam hauled throughout most of its ten year life, the name being dropped from the timetable on 12 June 1965, although it was revived in later years.

Traction for the Capitals United Express 2 – Britannia class 4-6-2 No 70026 Polar Star hauls the London bound service through Sonning cutting. This photograph, by Maurice Earley was published on the cover of the October 1957 edition of British Railways Western Region magazine

Cardiff Canton engine shed rostered its best locos for the job, initially ‘Castles’ and latterly ‘Britannias’. Canton was one of the few depots on the Western Region where the footplate crews were happy with the BR ‘Standard’ cab layout. Notwithstanding, the Western’s ‘Brits’ were transferred away to the London Midland Region before the end of steam.

Traction for the Capitals United Express 3 – a King class 4-6-0 hauls the westbound service through Southall in 1962, photograph by Mike Peart

With the advent of the D1000 ‘Western’ class diesel-hydraulic locos the steam gradually disappeared from the South Wales main line.

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