Slip coach

A slip coach or slip carriage is a British and Irish railway term for passenger rolling stock that is uncoupled from an express train while the train is in motion, then slowed under its own braking effort to a stand in a station. The coach was thus said to be "slipped" from its train. This allowed passengers to alight at an intermediate station without the main train having to stop, thus improving the journey time of the main train.

Some trains would carry a number of these coaches to be slipped at different stations, and sometimes more than one coach would be slipped at one particular station. In some cases the coach would, after stopping at the intermediate station, then be attached to a branch line train to proceed to the terminus of the branch, so passengers from the express train for stations on the branch did not have to change. Special coaches were built for slipping, usually composite, containing accommodation of all classes, and would also contain a small brake section where a guard would operate the brakes and where parcels could be stored.

To reverse the journey, the passengers would board the slip coach at the intermediate station, which would then form part of a local train to the next station on the line where the express was scheduled to stop, and coupled to the express train there to be taken to its destination.

The first certain example of this practice being carried out was at Haywards Heath on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in May 1858. Improvements in the acceleration of trains, in addition to the high cost per passenger of operating slip coaches, meant that the operation had mostly died out by the mid-20th century.

The last two non Great Western Railway slip coach operations were out of Liverpool Street on the LNER until at least 1936. These were the 6 p.m. which slipped coaches for Waltham Cross using old GER 6 wheeled slip coaches and the 4.57 express to Clacton on Sea which slipped a couple of coaches at Mark's Tey for Bury using a bogie corridor slip coach of modern design, with a corridor "trailer".

The very last slip of all was on the Western Region of British Railways at Bicester North on 10 September 1960.

References

*
* cite book|title=The Railway Magazine
month=July | year=1936|

External links

* [http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r017.html A page about the train The Cornish Riviera describing the practice of slipping coaches]