Great Western Coffee Shop

We used to spend a fair bit of time in the school holidays tripping to Yeovil Junction and then to Town and the shed there. I came across these the other day and thought to share them here. The SR usually used the M7s 30129 and 30131. When the WR took over they introduced the auto fitted 54xx, 64xx and even 14xx locomotives until the railbus took over for the final few months along with single car dmus. After closure of Yeovil Town to passengers the service ran into Pen Mill briefly.

Ahh - such memories!

Lovely to see the Hawkesworth auto-trailer there.  Something of an interest for me, as a part-owner of GWR 169 (still in a very major re-build) and BR(WR) 233 which is busy on the South Devon Railway and has been named "Kingfisher"

Yeovil Town shed towards the end.

Last ones at present... 30585/6 passing through Crewkerne Gates on their way to Eastleigh, they stayed at Yeovil town shed for a couple of days. The Gates were where we spent much of the holidays and kept a log of every train passing at the time.
4593 on last passenger train form Taunton to Pen Mill, we had spent the day on the line travelling from Yeovil and back.
5571 on the Taunton to Chard train following a day spotting at Taunton from home in Crewkerne

I travelled on those several times in my younger days, including the link from Pen Mill when town station closed. I particularly remember the railbus bouncing over every rail joint.

Brilliant posts, bradshaw: thank you!  ;D

A bit of a technical question : why does the ex-Southern auto-trailer have such small windows by comparison with the ex-Western one?

I would guess that it's because it's a conversion from a brake van, not purpose-built.

It has something of the look of one of the Thumper DEMUs about it.  I never know if they're "Hastings" or "Tadpoles"

"Hastings" are narrow bodied and typically 6 car sets.
"Tadpoles" are Hastings (narrow) power cars with an intermediate car and a wide bodied EPB drive trailer
"Hamshire" units are 2 and 3 car wide bodied sets based on EPB body shells
"Thumpers" I think of as being the Hampshire units, but probably refers to them all

The trailer shown looks like an EPB based carriage to me

Detailed account of Push Pull sets 600 to 619 on this link

https://www.bloodandcustard.com/BR-CoachingSetsPullPushSets600-619.html

Utterly fascinating. A thick seam of information. I love the idea that these were 1960 conversions of coaches built in 1934 and 1935 so as to comply with a British Transport Commission rule that no stock should be older than 30 years.

No chance of such a rule now.....!