Non-stop School Trains, Central Line

[mrfs42]

Another daft TT-inspired question I'm afraid , arising out of my pile of most recent acquisitions:

Central TT 27 Oct 1964, there's 2 column notes CC and DD.

CC Special Train for School Parties - empty to Fairlop, picks up thence special and non-stop to Mile End and then non-stop to Bethnal Green then ordinary passenger to White City.

DD empty Liverpool St - Bethnal Green/Mile End non-stop to Fairlop empty to Hainault.

The paths are EB Hainault dep 1138 arriving at Ealing Broadway 1246.5, returning 1255.5 ex Ealing Bdwy and arriving back in Hainault at 1407.

Why were these trains run? It's obviously not a 'school run' as the trips are in the middle of the day rather than morning or afternoon. They're not shewn as runs if required either. I've not got anything else off the Central of that period apart from a Sundays TT which is no help. Anyone got any ideas?

[towerman]

They used to run until the late 70's,to take schoolkids to the playing fields at Fairlop.Used stock stabled at Hainault between peaks.

[Phil]

towerman said:

They used to run until the late 70's,to take schoolkids to the playing fields at Fairlop.Used stock stabled at Hainault between peaks.

Then that's a puzzle. From the timings mrfs has given, the first journey was INTO town and the second out - or did the kids go out in the afternoon and come back the next morning?

Otherwise you'd expect the 'down' journey to be in the morning and the 'up' in the afternoon.

[towerman]

Probably taking one lot back to the smoke who used a regular service to get there,then taking the afternoon class to Fairlop and they would use a regular service to return.

[CSLR]

The answer to this certainly lies in the date, 1964. Short of looking at the timetable office notebooks - which I believe still survive - the only way to work this out is to understand what was happening in those days.
At that time most London schools fell under the control of the London County Council (LCC). To make things more efficient, they had centralised a lot of the infrastructure and this sometimes meant moving pupils around to shared facilities. This was very visible in south London, where convoys of buses could be seen all day long conveying pupils between the numerous school and the 80 acres of playing fields that the LCC owned in Merton. For those interested in buses, many of these vehicles were operated by private contractors who used a variety of ancient vehicles, many of which should have been in a museum (even in those days).
The post war baby-boom had also filled schools beyond capacity and the LCC made up the shortfall in space by sharing classrooms between physically separate schools and expanding into other available premises, such as drill halls. In those days, it was not at all unusual to see whole classes of pupils walking through the streets (unaccompanied) to lessons in satellite locations. Obviously if the distances were greater - as in the south London example - transport would have been provided and, presumably, this would have included use of the railways of the London Transport Board where they were available.
While it would make perfect sense to run a special train to cover a regular daily movement of pupils, the timing does seem unusual as it appears to span the lunch period. Is there any chance that we could have the exact times that the pupils would have departed and arrived at the stations? It might then be possible to gain some insight into what was happening.

[Oracle]

Fascinating! Of course the former LCC education authority was ILEA, Inner London Education Authority, whereas the boroughs created in Greater London after 1st April 1965, such as my authority, London Borough of Hounslow, handled their own educational facilities. Feltham Urban District Council used to pay for our school, Souuthville Junicor, to go to Feltham Swimming Baths, and they used private contractor Golden Miller of Feltham who also ran that rarest of bus routes, an independent fare stage route under license from the LTE, Feltham Station to Bedfont. This was then taken over by Hounslow Borough when Feltham UDC, Heston & Isleworth and Brentford & Chiswick Boroughs were merged.

I was always suprised in the late sixties when I was at Isleworth Grammar, that no staff specials were run to my knowledge to Osterley LT sports ground on the Great West Road near Osterley station.

[mrfs42]

towerman said:

They used to run until the late 70's,to take schoolkids to the playing fields at Fairlop.

When I've finished at work and popped to the local medicine shop I'll check in the WTT mountain at home.

Interesting that you should say late 70's as my run of WTTs starts in about 1969 and I've not noticed this particular column note before. Could it be possible that the school specials were shewn in separate Timetable Notices?

The TT it comes from is interesting insofar as it is the first 24 hour format one for the Central and gets very confusing with a set of "A" pages and "B" pages covering Thursdays Only operations part way through the Mon-Fri services.

Thank-you all for your answers thus far.

[DWS]

Thursdays only were for when the shops along Oxford Street , remained opened till about 8pm.

[mrfs42]

dws said:

Thursdays only were for when the shops along Oxford Street , remained opened till about 8pm.

I'd suspected that - but hadn't yet formulated the question. ;D

[mrfs42]

E kai pika ana nga taurekereka ra - 'Those scoundrels are drinking beer'. ;D

I've now appraised the WTT mountain and I can't find any further reference to the school specials, my run of Central WTTs starts with No 33 in 1970 - given that the Central TT numbering is historically prone to gaps and the time reference given by CSLR - I cannot find any more information from my bookshelves. I guess that these school trains continued running under timetable notice, rather than working timetable - can anyone else confirm?

[mandgc]

My WTT # 24 ,Oct 1962 shows the two trains departing Empty from Hainault Depot and "Fairlop dep. 1132 and 1156 (Both 'Note CC'). The first ran to White City and the second to Northolt siding to reverse.
They were later shown to depart Bethnal Green at 1 34 and 1 46, Mile End at 1 37 and 1 49 ( Note DD) to Hainault and Shunt.

Note CC- "Special train for school parties. Runs empty to Fairlop, entrains School children, thence Special and Non Stop to Mile End, detrains.....and Bethnal Green ,detrains ....,thence Ordinary passenger to White City".
Note DD- shows "Empty to Bethnal Green, entrain School Children, calls Mile End entrain SC, Special and Non Stop to Fairlop, detrain & Empty to Hainault Depot."