Southern Electric - London to Brighton in another 5 minutes or therabouts

The motormen on the Brighton Belle service must clearly have needed the company, because here is yet another film taken from the cab of a 5-Bel electric unit doing it's Groundhog Day style London Victoria to Brighton routine in 1939. The relative lack of traffic and abundance of permanant way workers seen en route point to this being a Sunday morning service. On our way we glimpse an ex-London & South Western T9 4-4-0 at Victoria, a Maunsell W Class 2-6-4T on a cross London freight as we pass Clapham Junction, a 6-PUL unit on the Ouse viaduct, an ex-South Eastern and Chatham Railway E Class 4-4-0 with matching stock, and the usual selection of lesser electric units before arriving at Brighton just in time for lunch. As a bonus, we have a short colour clip of a 10-BEL formation passing through Wivelsfield in the 50's. The original 1933 units would continue, with a break between 1940 and 1947 when the Southern were obliged to suspend Pullman services due to the hostilities, to operate the Belle until the train itself was withdrawn from the timetables in 1972. All three units were disbanded and sold off. with the result that 14 of the 15 vehicles survive to this day (Third Class Motor Brake Parlour Car No.90 was scrapped, after a fire in 1990 and subsequent vandalism, in1995), some restored to main line use for the prestigious Venice-Simplon orient express charter train. Thanks to metadyneman for adding extra sauce to this information nugget

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• brighton
• belle
• southern
• railway
• region
• british
• railways
• rail
• 5-Bel
• 5bel
• pullman
• electric
• london
• victoria
• third
• 3rd

[metadyneman]

Not all 15 cars have survived.. there are now only 14. Motor Brake second from unit 2052 (3052) No. 90 has unfortunately been scrapped. You also mention the "ouze" viaduct... it is in fact the Ouse valley Viaduct spelt with an "s" not a "z". All of these archive films are brilliant and thank you for posting them on here

[SouthernRailwayFilms]

Thanks for the sad news about car No.90 and my risible spelling attempts. Thanks too for your kind comments, hopefully more films to come soon.

[sargwil]

Interesting clip thanks for posting.

[60103Henry]

Great Video, 5 Stars!

[steamybrian]

Nice archive film