4COR, 4RES & 4BUF SR EXPRESS EMU'S.

[The Duke 71000]

1937/8 Portsmouth Express EMU's. The 4COR/4RES & 4BUF family.

As Hornby seem to have an affinity for pre-BR designed EMU's (2BIL/2HAL/5BEL so far). I would suggest the next consideration should be the 4COR express type stock. The 4COR (4 car CORridor express units) were introduced for two electrification schemes. A total of 55 units were built. 29 units for the Waterloo-Portsmouth Harbour via Woking & Guildford electrification, opened in 1937. A further 26 units for the Victoria-Portsmouth via Horsham & Chichester electrification opened in 1938. Some of these units lasted until September 1972. 4COR's units were numbered 3101-3155.

 

Two variations of the 4COR type were the 4RES (4 car REStaurant) & 4BUF (4 car BUFfet) types. 19 x 4RES (Nos 3054-3072) were built for the Waterloo-Portsmouth service & 13 x 4BUF (Nos 3073-3085) for the Victoria to Portsmouth service, although the 4BUF generally detached at Barnham and went down the branch to Bognor Regis. 

26 vehicles damaged by WW2 bombing, were replaced with an order in late 1944, and all complete by 1946.  The relacement vehicles were not quite like for like. Three 4RES restaurant vehicles had been destroyed from Units 3058/60/63. It was decided to turn these units in 4COR types as operational experience (pre-war) had quickly revealed there was an over provision of 4RES catering units. The three replacement new 4COR units becoming 3156-3158.

This family of units were also found on other routes notably London-Brighton, London-Eastbourne, Brighton-Portsmouth, Brighton-Ore, Waterloo-Reading & Waterloo-Alton.

Service operation meant that when working expresses on the various services from London to the coast trains were either 8-car (off-peak) & 12-car (peak times) and normally included a catering unit. The other services were most commonly formed of a single 4-COR.

However the 4RES units very rarely strayed away from services based on Waterloo (South Western Division). While the 4BUF sets normally only appeared on services out of Victoria or London Bridge (Central Division).   

From a production point of view the 4COR family are concurrent with the BIL & HAL types already in Hornby's range. Indeed BIL's & HAL's could work in multiple with the "COR" family, but this was not common. Obviously it would be sensible to produce the basic 4COR units first, and possibly add the 4RES &/or 4BUF units later. The COR family therefore worked across roughly two-thirds of the large Southern electric network. The did not appear on South-Eastern services into Kent, and as they were designed for the Southern Railway 660v system, they couldn't stray onto any new BR lines electrified at 750v. This also meant they couldn't be used on the Bournemouth line, which was electrified beyond Pirbright Junction (Brookwood) at 800v DC in 1966/7. Indeed no Southern Railway designed units could go onto 750/800v routes in public service. (For maintenance certain older units did appear at Eastleigh, but if running on the 3rd rail on this 800v line they had to switch heating & lighting circuits off. Or the bulbs when bang and the heaters caught fire !!!). The preserved 4SUB & 2BIL had to have electrical alterations to cope with the higher voltages. All 660v routes were upgraded to 750v once the last Southern Railway types were withdrawn on an area by area basis.