If you register, you can do a lot more. And become an active part of our growing community. You'll have access to hidden forums, and enjoy the ability of replying and starting conversations.

PULLMAN and STANDARD GANGWAYS

Discussion in 'Carriage & Wagon M.I.C.' started by threelinkdave, Apr 3, 2014.

  1. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    In the West Sommerset Gala Thread there is a discussion regarding adding spare DMU vehicles to service trains. At least one forum member was unaware of the issue so I thought a small note here may be useful and informative.

    Pullman gangways are associatedd with the buckeye automatic coupling. Prior to Nationalisation the coupling was widely adopted by the Southern (Maunsell and Bulleid) and the LNER ( Gresley and Thompson) as well as being used on Pullman cars. The LNER are probably unique in UK steam in pullman gangways were used on coridor tenders. Post Nationalisation Pullman gangways were used on MK1 and later hauled coaching stock plus a number of EMUs. Coach side buffers play no part in Pullman to Pullman conections with the bellows part being kept together with sprongs at the bottom of the gangway. There are no clips or other fittings holding the gangways together, simply spring pressure. As far as I know all Pullman, LNER, Southern and BR gangways are compatable

    Standard gangways were used on all GW and LMS corridor vehicles and some on the Southern and for some reason all the DMMU Fleet. Having shunted two coaches together and coupled them using the screw coupling the gangways need to be deployed. The gangways are free to move back and forth and need to be held in the colapsed position by hooks. Having released all 4 hooks manual effort is needed to pull/push the two bellows units together. To hold the bellows together each has a U shaped clip to fix one end plate to the other. The one clip per bellows is always on the same side so the one on the other coach clips the other side together. Standard gangways are very mandraulic and really require two shunters.

    Incompatability - Whilst a standard gangway vehicle can be coupled to a Pullman fitted vehicle, buffers long and buckeye dropped, unmodified standard gangways cannot connect . Firstly the standard gangway is narrower than the Pullman there is only a single clip. To overcome this problem some standard gangways are modified with two much wider mounted clips which fit over the Pullman gangway. In this configuration the gangway is safe to use

    Photographs - I will try to add some pics of the adaptors as seeing how they actually look speaks a thousand words
     
    gwalkeriow likes this.
  2. John Webb

    John Webb Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2010
    Messages:
    501
    Likes Received:
    86
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    St Albans, Herts
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Re DMUs -may I point out that a few BRE designs, all built by Swindon as 'Intercity' units, namely classes 123, 126 and 127, and the 'Trans-Pennine' units (class 124) were built with buck-eye couplings and Pullman-type gangways. (Information from Brian Haresnape's 'Diesel Multiple-units - The First Generation', Ian Allan, 1985)

    Regards,
    John Webb
     
  3. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    John - quite happy to accept your clarification. I think of the Intercity units as a separate breed to the run of the mill "derby type" DMMUS
     
  4. Pyracmon

    Pyracmon New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 31, 2007
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Hi Dave,

    I read your post with interest as we are currently in the throws of trying to rebuild a corridor connector on our 117 dmu. I was wondering if you might know if a drawing still exists for the standard type of corridor connector and if so whether it might be possible to get a copy? In particular we find it strange that (on our vehicles at least) the 'step plate', if that is the correct terminology, is attached to the angle frame that connects to the next vehicle rather than the 'step plate' being attached to the vehicle as per the Pullman type connector. Any advice would be gratefully received.

    Ian
     
  5. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Ian - firstly I am a guard rather than a C&W expert. They make em - I shunt em. In truth standard gangway is a misnomer. They are standard in that two standard gangways will couple together. They are not standard in construction. The GW designs and LMS designs are similar but not identical. Purely from memory they hang from brackets on the coach end suported on springs. The ones on the DMMU are if I recall corectly are a scisors design. I am at Kidder for a meeting Sunday so will try to remember the camera and take some pics. I will then have to work out how to post the pics.

    Send a PM/conversation if you want to discuss furthur as it might be easier to exchange info by e-mail
     
  6. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Ian - was down the line today and have taken some pics of gangways. You are corect with the steo plate the plate on the frame lays on top of the plate attached to the body. Just to make life interesting the plate on the motor brake is smaller than the buffet coach. Wont have time to upload the pics today, possibly mon. Watch this space

    Dave
     
  7. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    The first pic shows a GWR brake with a standard gangway shield and illustrates the extra width of the adaptor clamps. The second and third pic shows a standard gangway adaptor conected to a MK1. The large clip is used with the small clip stowed
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2006
    Messages:
    8,077
    Likes Received:
    2,264
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Engineer Emeritus
    Location:
    Aylesbury
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Tongue in cheek, but, I always think of 'Standard' gangways as being rejects from a piano-accordian factory where some components were accidentally made in meters rather than feet.........
     
  9. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Was it to be played by Hagrids mother?
     
  10. John Stewart

    John Stewart Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2011
    Messages:
    4,206
    Likes Received:
    2,072
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Hilton, Derby
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    It just struck me as yet another example of the chronic inability of British railways (not British Railways) to achieve compatibility. This isn't just an interesting technical wonks' issue, it has had serious economic consequences over decades. We had left / right hand drive steam locomotives; we have vacuum / air brakes, differently colour-coded (old) DMU connectors, modern DMU connections built to operators' preference (although do I detect a migration to Dellner now?). We had mechanical / hydraulic DMUs but with the Southern opting for DEMUs. We have third rail electrification at 750v dc (or a bit less), overhead electrification at 1500v dc (Tyne &Wear), 25kv elsewhere. DC and AC overlaps produce interference that is costly to ameliorate.

    The prize for judicial arbitration leading to technical disadvantage must be in Ireland where it was decided that the fairest way of dealing with a range of gauges from 4'6'' to 6'0'' was to make all change to the median figure of 5'3''. This made the interchange of British and Irish stock impossible for ever and left the Irish railways unable to buy "off the peg" designs. No-one ever learns and this stupidity was exported to Australia, where they are still struggling with it. Dublin and Melbourne could use the same commuter stock - but they're different voltage!
     
  11. threelinkdave

    threelinkdave Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2013
    Messages:
    2,065
    Likes Received:
    1,240
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Stratford-upon-Avon or in a brake KD to BH
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Whilst I agree with most of what you say I must challenge the imposibility of interchange between British and Irish stock. Much modern Irish stock viisibly utilises the Mk3 bodyshell. The only major difference is in the bogies and wheelsets. The Spanish gauge is I believe 5ft 6 and stock moves in and out of the country via the simple expedient of either changing wheelsetson 4 wheel stock or changing bogies. I suspect the differences in Irish stock are for the same reasons that British concerns have detail differences..

    EDIT did a search of the web and discovered that some Mk3 stock in Ireland was actually built in Derby and ran on an Irish version of the B4 bogie
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2014
  12. YM-Mundrabilla

    YM-Mundrabilla New Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2014
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Rail Operations Consultant (retired 6/2014)
    Location:
    Melbourne
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Thank you, but no thank you. We in Melbourne are perfectly capable of producing our own non standard rolling stock quite apart from the break of gauge for which we like to blame the Irish and the British 12,000 miles away rather than the Australain Colonies here 600 miles away.

    From the first electrification in Melbourne around 1918 to the 1950s we had EMUs of two basic body styles both timber, one with swing doors and one with sliding doors, but all completely interworkable/interchangeable and very reliable. All GE equipment. Commencing in the 1950s we started on steel bodies with EE equipment. Then Hitachi equipped sets followed by Comeng (Commonwealth Engineering) sets (EE?). The Comengs are/were the bulk of the fleet at that time.

    Up to this point, whilst each brand would not talk to the others, all were capable of running system wide.

    Then came privatisation (haha) which immediately resulted in dividing the previously compatible Comengs into two incompatible groups and the purchase of Siemens and Xtrapolis sets. At this stage we had:

    • The Hitachis which could run anywhere but which would not talk to anything else.
    • Two groups of Comengs which could not run system wide and which would not talk to each other, or anything else
    • Siemens which could not run system wide and which would not talk to anything else
    • Xtraps which could not run system wide and which would not talk anything else
    Oh the joys of privatisation which is a common sense free zone!
     
  13. John Stewart

    John Stewart Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2011
    Messages:
    4,206
    Likes Received:
    2,072
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Hilton, Derby
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    My reference to Melbourne was more of a comment that the Irish were a bit late in the day in adopting 1500v dc, but then the people in Tyne and Wear did the same. The Australian incompatibility came home standing on the platform at Southern Cross Station looking at the dual-gauge for the train to Sydney. However, nothing beats the tram for a ride down to St. Kilda Beach for an afternoon in the ice cream parlour.
     

Share This Page