CEPs, CIGs and the rest, a brief history –
by Albert Mutton (Vice-Chairman, EMUPS)
First uploaded 1 Dec 08
Small corrections 19 Dec 08
Small corrections 15 April 09
CIGs and BIGs para replaced 21 May
09
CIGS and BIGs para updated 18 Nov
09
4Veps and 4Vops para updated 18
Nov 09
CIGS and BIGs para updated
When it all started
In 1821, within ten years of steam traction being
developed, Michael Faraday had developed the electric motor.
It was to be about 20 years before the internal combustion
engine would be developed.
Electric trains were thus the second wave in our railway
history, after steam and before diesel.
In 2008 Volkes Electric Railway, a narrow gauge electric railway
that runs along Brighton’s sea front celebrated 125 years of operation, so
electric trains are not a recent innovation.
Ten years on, the Liverpool Overhead Railway opened, and by
1900, electrification was being considered in many places and in the first
decade of the 1900s was to spread throughout the Merseyside area and parts of
the Southern Railway, as well as the London Underground.
So why did traction
on the railways develop the way it did?
Steam was the first, and possibly because it was already
there, most lines and companies made little effort to change traction. However
the London & North Western Railway and its associated lines were amongst
the first to look into possible uses for electric traction. It is worth
remembering that the third rail system that so represents the Southern nowadays
was in fact only adopted after members of the board of the L&SWR visited
the Liverpool - Southport line where a side contact system had been in use
since 1904 and decided to use the same idea, only top contact. At the time, the
rival LB&SCR was looking into and had in fact installed a fair amount of
its suburban system with Overhead power starting from 1903. It was only upon
regrouping into the Southern Railway that the ex-L&SWR men (who had a stronger
representation on the SR board) were to establish the adapted L&NWR system
across the whole of the SR. By then the former L&NWR routes between Euston
and Watford and in the Merseyside area were all using 3rd rail, top
contact.
For a long time railway traction was either steam or
electric.
The first EMUs -
Wooden bodied stock
With the third rail system now the standard, the SR began
working on the many different types of EMU that were to represent the Region,
the 4SUBs, 2NOLs, 2HALs, 2BILs, and so on, most designed by Bullied or
Maunsell, and wooden bodied.
These culminated in the express stock, initially with the
6CIT and then the 6PUL and 6PAN units.
Around the same time the famous 5BEL units appeared. Later came the ubiquitous 4CORs, with their
4RES, 4BUF and 4GRI variants. The 4COR type was the final Maunsell wooden
bodied build and was about as far as it was possible to go. The driving cars
had the motor bogies under the drivers’ cabs, and the centre cars were
trailing. This design had been worked on over the years and found to be the
best.
Southern
Classifications.
Before TOPS, the Southern classified the stock with a
digit, [the number of coaches in the unit], followed by usually 3 letters that
denoted the type. A lot of the old units were described thus by the lavatories,
hence BIL meant BI or 2 Lavatories, HAL meant HAlf Lavatoried (and half not),
HAP was the same, but the ‘P’ stood for eP braked! NOL meant NO Lavatories. The
explanation of the MK1 stock is given below, but other well known stock not
listed here include SUB (a shortening of SUBurban), and EPB which stands for
Electro Pneumatic Braked. These classifications continued after TOPS, and some
new sliding door stock has this tradition continuing, as with, for example, the
JOPs [Juniper Open Porterbrook]
The only stock that had a classification but no number were
the MLVs, which were never called ‘1MLV’
End of steam and the
Kent Coast Electrification, the CEPs, HAPs and MLVs
With the coming of BR and the end of steam on the mainline,
most lines saw diesel replace steam, but on the Southern Region, 3rd
rail electrification was to expand. Only a few lines were to be ‘dieselised’,
and the ubiquitous ‘thumpers’ appeared for these routes in their various forms.
The South East part, including the mainlines through Kent to Dover and Ramsgate
and the continental traffic was electrified in two phases, the first phase
being much along the old London, Chatham & Dover Railway’s routes, while
phase 2 was to be the rest.
This meant new stock was required, and the decision was
taken to build an express BR MK1 version of Maunsell’s successful 4COR design.
The resulting 4CorEPB stock (quickly shortened to 4CEPB, then 4CEP) was built
in two phases to match the electrification, and was essentially a 4COR built to
MK1 standards, even to the guards’ brakes being behind drivers’ cabs, something
that was to last until the refurbishments at Swindon.
The local services were to be operated by 2 car HAP units,
which were built a few years before the 4CEPs, around the same time as the
thumpers, and were similar in many ways, the exception being the motor bogies
and replacement of a passenger area of a 2HAP with the diesel engine of a
‘thumper’
The 4CEPs and 2HAPs were very successful and the
4CEPs and their buffet variants the 4BEPs were to work many boat trains and
royal trains, often with the Single vehicle MLVs containing luggage; these MLVs had batteries and could run
‘off the juice’ in unelectrified sidings and harbours. Later on, when used by
the Post Office, they would regularly run along the then unelectrified Redhill
– Tonbridge line.
Later slam-door
stock, the ’63 stock’
In the late 1960s the time was up for the wooden bodied
stock that had been the Southern’s backbone since before the war, and BR decided
to ignore the traditional SR builders at Eastleigh, and instead get York to
build a third rail second generation EMU. [The 4CEPs were thus the last
Southern built stock for the
Southern.]
The 4CIGs appeared
as a result of this change in policy, CIG meaning ‘Corridored Brighton – IG
being the telegraphic code for Brighton.
(There is a popular myth that the ‘IG’ stands for ‘Intermediate Guard’,
a term that could also apply to other stock, and thus incorrect.)
These units differed from the usual Southern EMU of the
time in many ways, the principle one being the position within the unit of the
motors, which, instead of at each end of the unit, were concentrated in one
carriage in the middle of the rake, the MBS or Motor Brake Second. This meant
the driving cars were all trailers. The
4CIGs also had an unusual layout with part compartment / part saloon in all but
one of the 4 coaches.
The 4CIGs were followed by the more intensively seated 4VEPs or Vestibuled EPBs, these from a
front view looked very similar to 4CIGs, with the hollowed our recesses for the
brake pipes, but they had a door for every 3 + 2 seating bay and non-standard
sized windows. The 4VEPs were also York built, and again had the motors in an
MBS rather than at each end of the unit. Unlike the 4CORs, 4CEPs and 4CIGs,
there was no buffet or Restaurant version on the 4VEPs
Why the positioning of the motors was so popular with York
has led to a lot of debate, drivers preferred the 4CEPs as there was less
bunching up and pushing problems during shunting; it would appear to be related
to the Overhead powered EMUs where the pantograph was usually sited on a centre
car and usually the motored one. With the exception of the REPs and 508s, it
wasn’t until the advent of the Networker units that the traditional positioning
of motor bogies was reinstated on a large scale.
‘Swindonisation’
Refurbishment of the 4CEPs took place in the 1980s, and saw
the DMBSO [Driving Motored Braked Second Open] coaches at each end lose their
‘B’s as the guards’ brakes were moved to the former CK coach which became a TBC
[Trailing Braked Composite]. This coach remained compartment-ised, but the
other trailer, the TSK lost the ‘K’ and became a TSO [Trailer Second Open] coach.
These changes took place at Swindon and saw, by the moving
of the guards’ brakes, an extra 16 seats in the two DMSO coaches. The TSOs also
meant more seating could be provided in 2 + 2 formation rather than the 3 +
corridor that existed with the TSKs.
The sliding upper windows were replaced with hopper
windows, something that also happened with the class 309 stock, and the
interiors ‘brightened up’ with aluminium replacing wood in the TBC and
fluorescent lighting and new ceilings replacing then old incandescent bulbs.
The refurbishments also saw TOPs numbering being given to
the units, the 4CEPs becoming class 411 and the 4BEPs class 412. However,
instead of all 6 digits being displayed, the Southern style of only 4 digits
was retained, thus unit 412325 would appear as 2325 for example
CEP and BEP
modifications
The 4BEPs went to Swindon and after some coaches were
swapped around, less 4BEPs emerged and more 4CEPs. This was due to withdrawal
of some buffet cars, and conversion of some hauled Mk1 TSOs to EMU standard and
incorporation into former 4BEPs to create 4CEPs.
Seven 4BEPs emerged from Swindon and were allocated
straight to the SW division where they were to stay for the remainder of their
mainline lives. Under TOPs these were class 412s, and their numbers were from
412301 [2301] to 412307 [2307].
After Swindon all the 4CEPs went initially back to the SE
division. Many of them were to stay there, but others migrated to SW with three
(1699, 1698 and 1697) going to SC for a brief period.
The 4BEPs remained in this formation for several decades,
but after a Health & Safety ruling the buffet cars were taken out of
service.
Later on the BEPs swapped their buffet cars with ordinary
CEPs, and were renumbered, not as CEPs but still as BEPs, 2311 to 2317. The ex
CEPs now BEPs became 2321 to 2327, artificially doubling the number of 412s for
a few months.
Interestingly, both 2315 and 2325 have been preserved, and
if they ever were to swap back their TSO and buffet car the original formation of
2305 and 1537 could be restored.
CIG and BIG
modifications
The HSE ruling that saw the BEPs’ buffet cars
decommissioned also saw the end of the BIGs. These trains were converted to
CIGs by replacing the buffet cars with CEP TSOs from the creation of the second
batch of 3CEPs. These units were numbered in the 42139xx series [1391 – 1399]
and were transferred from the South Central to South Western division.
The 3CEPs
This was tried three times in all, in each case by removing
the TSO coaches.
The first time, on the South Eastern division, saw the
creation of about 20 3 car units. These were numbered under TOPs as 4114xx,
[starting with 1401] and this batch had several problems which led to their
fairly rapid withdrawal.
A few years on, and the idea was tried again, this time
numbered in the 4111xx series, numbered from 411101 to 411118 [1101 – 1118].
This time the lessons learned with the ‘1400s’ meant the sub-fleet was more
successful, and it was only the deadline for installation of TPWS that led to their
withdrawal and scrapping. Several of their TSOs were to survive however, when
the 4BIGs lost their buffet cars and became 4CIGs with CEP TSOs, see above.
The last time 3CEPs appeared was towards the end of the
CEPs’ mainline lives, and was used just twice by SWT, who created a new 4111xx
series. To avoid confusion with the earlier batch of non-TPWS units, numbering
started with 411199 [1199] and counted backwards. This fleet was to be more or
less exclusively for the Lymington line.
1199 went for scrap to be replaced by 1198. However, there
was to be no 1197; most of SWT’s 4CEPs that had not gone for scrap had been
sent back to the SE for a few months, back where they started out, and two
others [2311 and 2315] had been sold into preservation at the Eden Valley
Railway.
The 3CIGs
As a result when 1198 went off lease [and promptly into
preservation] SWT decided to use 3 car CIGs. The series was to be 4214xx, but
as there had been a series of 3CEPs and also 3COPs starting with 1401 earlier,
again the idea was to start with 1499 and count backwards. Unlike the 3CEPs, by
losing the TSO vehicles, no part of the 3CIGs were to be completely open
carriage, as all three coaches left, [DT-MBS-DT] are part saloon and part
Corridored.
1499 was retired and preserved with a 4CIG with a CEP TSO
[1392] by the Dean Forest Railway. Its replacement was to be two units, 1498
and 1497, painted in old liveries, with Central Door Locking. It is these that
survive today on the Lymington line.
Prior to this there had been the COPs, a variant of the
CIGs, created by opening out some of the compartments. These appeared as 3 or 4
car versions, and were numbered 4214xx, meaning there had confusingly been two
units with the same last 4 digits in a decade.
The shortening from 4 to 3 car units was limited to just
the CEP and CIG types, there were no 3VEPs.
Withdrawal and what
replaced the slam-door EMUs
With the passing of BR and the establishment of Train
Operating Companies, different replacements to the CEPs CIGs and VEPs were to
appear. SWT turned to Siemens, and the Desiro while South Central and South
Eastern, at the time both Connex–owned went for the Bombardier Electrostars.
The last CEPs on the mainline were the three units that
after Swindon spent some time on the SC division before going to the SW and
finally back to SE, they had thus seen service on almost every Southern line,
not a bad record. The last mainline 4CEP, 1698 was kept for a last tour, from
Ramsgate to Weymouth and back with a CIG and a VEP, and was then hauled to
Immingham for scrap. 1697 and 1699 had gone there about a month before. An era
was over.
Preservation and what
stock is available for service right now.
4COR
Of the types mentioned above, there is a 4COR 3142, plus two spare driving motor coaches. Five vehicles are owned
by the Southern Electric Group one by the NRM
None are
available for service; three coaches are at the EKR, stored, one is at
Acton undergoing works and another is at Horsted Keynes as a static exhibit
2HAPs
Two 2HAPs
survive, 4311 at Coventry, privately
owned, the other [4309] is at NRM
York.
4311 is
available for service, 4309 had been stored for many years at Shoeburyness and is in need of
some cosmetic work
‘Thumpers’
Of the ‘thumpers’ all but one of the class 205 and 207
units in existence upon withdrawal have been preserved, this was helped by the
fact that they were owned, [as were most of the preserved CEPs and CIGs] by
Porterbrook Leasing, who decided to sell them for £50 per carriage in
comparison to Angel Trains’ £1500 per DMMU carriage. In fact, out of all the
recent preservations, with the exception of the stock at Eastleigh, only the
historically important CIG 1753 was not a Porterbrook unit, and therefore
instead of costing £200 plus VAT cost £7000 plus VAT from Angel Trains.
Most are
available for service, there has been a fleet-wide problem with class
205’s fan clutches and the various owners have come up with different ways of
tackling this.
CEPs and BEPs
UPDATED
When it comes to 3
and 4CEPs, there are a large amount of TSOs in various states of repair and
use, from cafés and artist’s studios to prison school rooms. As far as complete
units are concerned, there is 2325 with
the only surviving BEP Buffet car at the East Kent Railway, ( www.epbpg.co.uk ) the aforementioned two
units at the Eden Valley Railway [2311
and 2315] ( www.evr.cumbria.org.uk ) and the
Lymington 3 car 1198 at former
L&NWR Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway.
Both Driving motor coaches [although without the motors and robbed of
other parts] of unit 1598 are at Dartmoor Railway and there are two TBCs loose,
one of which was once in 1598. 1598’s TSO also survives, see below.
2325 is to be retrofitted into its
pre-Swindon form, and has been retro-numbered 7105, a number three of its
coaches once were part of.
2311 and 2315 have received ETH in
order to allow light and heat to be provided to the unit off the 3rd
rail.
1198 is planned to also receive a
conversion to allow both Westcode and Blue Star locos to work in multiple with
it as well as wheelchair accommodation in its TBC.
All the
complete units, 1198, 2311, 2315 and 2325 are available for service.
CIGs and BIGs
UPDATED
3 and 4CIG
preservation has not been quite as straightforward as the CEPs; initially three
CIGs with CEP TSOs were preserved, 1392, 1393 and 1399.
Of these,
none survive intact.
1392, was saved,
along with 1499 (The first of the Lymington 3CIGs) at the Dean Forest Railway.
Both units were vandalised badly, and a remarshalled unit has been put together,
consisting on all of 1499's vehicles, plus 1392's ex-CEP TSO and the TSO from
1881, making a “5-CIG”. The remaining three coaches from 1392 were dispersed;
the MBS and one DTC going to the 5 Belle Trust for scrapping for spares and the
other DTC remaining at Lydney for spares for the “5CIG”
1393,
formerly a phase 2 CIG was matched with a phase 1 BIG buffet car at the Great
Central Rly, to create a hybrid 4BIG [7059] in green livery, something three of
its coaches never carried, and its TSO [formerly in unit 1598] is now at the
Reepham station, Norfolk. [This means all four coaches of 4CEP 1598 still
survive, albeit in different locations.]
1399 left
its TSO behind at
Lymington
3CIG 1499 was saved by the Dean Forest Rly, and it is strange to think the unit
it replaced on the Lymington line, 3CEP 1198, is at a neighbouring line –
1753 was
saved by the NSE Railway Society and is stored at an airfield near Beccles,
BIG buffet
cars have been saved in several locations, one is in
1498 and
1497 were remarshalled from Phase 2 4CIGs into 3CIGs with CDL and various
modifications to replace 1499 on the Lymington Line, the last in a line of
Lymington 3 car units that started with 3CEP 1199 'Lucy'. These were recently
retired, and one, 1497, is now to be found at the Mid Norfolk Railway. At the
current time the fate of other, 1498, remains uncertain
Recently
units 1304 and 1881 along with the DTs of 1884 and a couple of VEP inner
coaches were hauled to
Of the complete units, '7059', 1497 and 1498 are
immediately available for service. 1499 as a 5 car unit is
also available. '1496'
has more work to be done, and 1753 is stored on an airfield and subject to an
agreement with Angel Trains that it will not run in revenue-earning service
ever again
4VEPs and 4VOPs
UPDATED 18 NOV 09
With the 4VEPs,
and the later variants the 4VOPs, there is the ?celebrity? unit 3417, named Gordon Petit and owned by
the Bluebell Railway, although Eastleigh works are taking care of it at
present.
VOP 3822 was
saved at the Churnet Valley Railway, but has been rumoured to have had its
motors removed.
Two DTs have been preserved, one at York NRM and the other
at a miniature Railway near Woking. A third was saved by the then Bideford and
Instow railway group at Bideford, but the council has now taken over the site
and the DT was cut up on site.
As previously said, two inner VEP coaches [MBS and TSO] are
at Eastleigh, plus two 4VOPs have been turned into departmental use, had Delner
couplers fitted and are used at Chart Leacon for shunting purposes.
3417 is
immediately available for service, the VOPs at Chart Leacon may need
some cosmetic work and 3822 may need re-motoring
MLVs.
Ten MLVs were built, and all but 9006 and 9007
survive. Four [9001, 9002 , 9008 and
9009] are at East Kent Railway, two at the Eden Valley Railway [9003 and 9005,] and one at each of Mid
Norfolk Railways [9004] and
Wensleydale Railway [9010]. 9001,
9002, 9003 and 9005 are all available for service. Two at [EKR 9008 and
9009] are is undergoing restoration.
Other EMUs not mentioned above are mainly of the suburban types,
4SUB, and 2EPB and so on. Space and time means these will be dealt with
separately.
The Future
While most people would like to see the stock running again
on the mainline, this is unlikely for most. To do this would involve not just
CDL but also OTMR fitting and to appease the crashworthiness rules, the leading
and last carriages would need to be locked out of service. MLVs may be an idea
as barrier vehicles here; however the problem with most tours on the mainline
is where the stock goes when it is not touring.
The Eastleigh idea is an interesting one as the stock has a
home, albeit a few sidings and how much testing will be possible in short
shunts is uncertain. A better idea would possibly be one or two electrified
preserved or community lines that connect to the mainline where the stock could
spend 360 or so days a year, providing services as well as test runs off the
mainline.
For this to happen there needs to be a few things
understood. The biggest problem is not as popularly assumed, Health and Safety,
(the HSE in fact only makes two stipulations: Adequate fencing and no
Electromagnetic Interference to overhead or buried cables), but cost.
This area will be covered in more depth at a later date,
but there is likely to be a meeting of interested people in a few months to
discuss the aspects of electrification of preserved and/or community lines.
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