[gcbradford13]

I'm planning a 50s/60s British Railways layout, where two lines from two regions parallel each other (with a physical connection as well).

Did BR Western and London Midland Regions come into close contact like this? And if so, in which counties?

Thanks.

 

[John Webb]

There are numerous examples: Bath/Bristol area, Gloucester and Cheltenham, Great Malvern, Banbury, Stratford-on-Avon, Royal Leamington Spa, much of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Chester and in North Wales. I suggest you look around for a copy of the Ian Allan "British Railway Atlas 1955" which will show you more clearly where contact was made.

 

[6991]

John Webb is spot on with those locations and of those, one of the most interesting was Banbury, mainly because in the mid-50s you could regularly see locos from all four regions ! Oxford would be similar with an eclectic mixture of engines appearing from the Cambridge line. Even after the great redrawing of the regions, Banbury remained interesting. In the mid-60s even. I had a Midland region rail rover for a week in the 1966 summer school hols. I didn't want to do a massive trip on the Sunday, so I caught a morning express from St Pancras to Nottingham then walked from Midland to Victoria in time for the York to Poole train. There remained mainly steam on the bare bones of the former GC and Black 5s were common on the passenger trains by this time. Ten years earlier it would probably have been a B1 or A3 even. My train had a Black 5 on. This took us down to Banbury, which had retained it's shed exactly for servicing engines on this type of cross country duty.
Waiting to take the train forward was none other than 34066 Spitfire !! I should probably have stayed on the train to Oxford, but I didn't and watched Spitfire chuff off into the distance - five minutes later a Brush 4 came in with my train to Paddington. All manner of ER engines turned up at Banbury in the 50s. The LNWR branch came in across from the East side of Banbury General, at Merton Street station and was a source of variety until closure in 1960.
Good luck with your venture.
6991

 

[SRman]

Beaten to most of the mentions! You could also look at Reading, which had quite a lot of "cross-over" traffic from Western and Midland Regions plus the Southern coming in from both directions too (originally with a separate station adjacent to Reading General).

As 6991 has already mentioned Oxford, I'll simply say that was the first name that occurred to me on reading the original query.

 

[34C]

The next questions are inevitably, 'is there something specific that has to be included on the layout, how much space have you got, and what sort of budget is available?'.

The opportunity to do something ambitious is now possible using RTR OO, but unless you are a pop star or producer, the constraints that apply are often significant...

 

[butler-henderson]

In terms of the original question Wolverhampton springs to mind where the WR and LMR closly parallelled each other albeit at different levels.

 

[34C]

I'm planning a 50s/60s British Railways layout, where two lines from two regions parallel each other (with a physical connection as well)...

Well, if we take the first question, how about just one BR region in a different country from the one currently getting all the attention; where the lines of several pre-group companies, and subsequently the Big Two, were operated as one unit. That would be Scotland, BR ScR.

 

[Graham Plowman]

Did BR Western and London Midland Regions come into close contact like this? And if so, in which counties?

Thanks.

What about Wales ? Most of it was Western until it was later classified as LM. Should be plenty of examples where the WR and LMR came into contact in that area ?

 

[34C]

And heading in the opposite direction there's London. I have locos and stock from all BR regions on my KX inner sub area layout, because the traffic around London yielded a Heinz 57 varieties situation. OK, I am deprived of most traction native to North of a Crewe-Doncaster line, but that's still a plenitude of choice.

 

[liam Biggs]

Birkenhead Railway(Cheshire) was in joint use.

 

[kristopher1805]

Banbury is a good one as the the GC went off to Woodford and the GW headed to Banbury, there was the link to Oxford worked by a J15 of all things as it was light, and an industrial line and the four track has two express lines down the middle home of 47xx and many other interesting locos, the southern part of the GC was handed over to the LMR so in the 1960 period you saw a mix of both LMS and LNER locos and stock, it was a close second choice for my model railway. also use by football specials esp on Saturdays when Pacifics hauled Southern stock to Leicester, Notts Forest and the like.