Anyone know if Britain had overnight Pullman trains?

[SteamSewnEmpire]

I know that there were Pullman sleepers on the continent...

... and that several British railroads had all-Pullman consists...

... but I haven't been able to connect the line between the two. Admittedly, I'm an American, and kind of a neophyte to this European railroads thing as a whole, so I'm just kind of limited to what I can Google. I was just wondering if anyone knew if there were Pullman sleepers - specifically in the interwar years - on any British railways?

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by SteamSewnEmpire

[SteamSewnEmpire]

As an aside, while I was looking for inspirational photos, I stumbled onto this. Just masterful work:

[Hod Carrier]

There were Pullmans and there were sleepers but there wouldn't have been any Pullman Sleepers, at least not during the inter-war period.

Pullman's involvement in the UK railways started in the 1870s at the behest of the Midland Railway using rolling stock shipped in flat-pack form from the US in 1874, including three sleeping cars. However, these were of a convertible type based on the open saloon "Palace Cars" and proved unpopular with British travellers who would have been used to more privacy and greater respect for social niceties. Although other companies initially copied the pattern these were not Pullman cars and, in any case, all were superceded in the 1890s by corridor-compartment coaches.

The entire Pullman experiment wasn't a huge success in the UK. At the time of their introduction in the 1870s, pricing was by class and mileage, which was a simple and straightforward model, whereas the use of the Pullman required payment of a supplement, which the British were not used to having to do. This particularly caused bad feeling when the Pullman cars were used in place of the regular 1st class offering, prompting furious letters to The Times. Oddly the one place the concept did take off was on the London Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) who introduced the first all Pullman service for the London Victoria to Brighton route (journey time 1 hour) in 1881. The other companies were slow to follow but did eventually catch the Pullman bug, with some crack express services using the Pullman brand and some iteration of Pullman stock. The heyday was probably during the inter-war period during which the classic British Pullman stock that everyone associates with the brand was built for the Southern Railway (the successor to the LB&SCR following Grouping).

All of these British Pullman services were all day trains rather than sleepers. The main use for them was either as boat trains (e.g. Golden Arrow) or to give business travelers a fast connection to London from various provincial cities (e.g. Tees-Tyne Pullman).

That wonderful Class 73 you found did get some use with the Belmond British Pullman on it's travels around the former Southern Region but was withdrawn from service in 2002. It received the livery in 1992 and should have been painted back into a standard scheme, but an agreement was reached to allow it to retain these colours. It would not have been specifically allocated to Pullman duties and could be seen hauling a lot more mundane stuff about too, but I'm sure that if it was free to be allocated it would have been used.

[MAB]

There is a nice book on sleepers (specifically Anglo-Scottish ones) called somewhat unsurprisingly "Anglo-Scottish Sleepers". You can see some images from it here: https://mediadrumworld.com/2018/03/07/23696/

There was a London-Scotland Pullman called the Queen of Scots, but it wasn't a sleeper. It left in the morning and got in to the destination in the evening, so no need to overnight on the train.

[SteamSewnEmpire]

Thanks for the replies, guys - fascinating stuff.

[Hod Carrier]

Happy to help.