BOGIE BLOCK SETS of 1902 – 1912

The Bogie Block Sets were built for use on the commuter services in the London suburban area. They were built in two main batches. 73 sets were built between 1902 and 1905, and 72 sets between 1905 and 1912. The later batch of sets employed a 51’ Tri Compo instead of a 51’ Bi Compo.

The make up of the sets was thus:-

Sets 1B - 73B 51’ Bk Third + 49’ Tri-Compo + 51’ Bi-Compo + 51’ Bk Third (1902/05)
Sets 74B-145B 51’ Bk Third + 49’ Tri-Compo + 51’ Tri-Compo + 51’ Bk Third (1905/12)

The first sets entered service in January 1903. The outer ends of the Brakes had normal couplings and buffers, but between the vehicles they were close coupled with a draw bar.

63 sets were progressively withdrawn for conversion to electric stock in late 1914 and through 1915. In dribs and drabs through to 1930, further withdrawals and conversions took place. More complete details are contained in “LSWR Carriages in the 20th Century” by Gordon Weddell (p16). [See right to purchase book]

PULL – PUSH CONVERSIONS starting 1915

In 1915 the LSWR started to break up a few block sets to create pull – push sets. Their choice of original sets to break up created three variations of 2–car sets:-

51’ Bk Third + 51’ Tri-Compo sets 1P, 4P (1915)
51’ Bk Third + 49’ Tri-Compo sets 2P, 3P (1915), 6P,7P (1916), 10P (1922), SR376 (1926)
51’ Bk Third + 51’ Bi-Compo sets 5P, 8P (1916), 9P (1922), SR377 (1926)

Note that the SR conversions, in 1926-1930, rebuilt the Brake Third ends taking away the side lookouts and replacing them with a window. This conversion is not catered for in the SBM kit.

The running numbers of each vehicle within all of the sets is now known, including SR renumbering etc. Details from SBM.

The above photo is showing the unique close coupling system.