Tucked away at Oxenhope away from public view

Are three outstanding coaches, just waiting use by you

 

Two Pullmans and a Club Car, the finest of their types

To travel in them is a pleasure, despite the extra price

 

At Easter and on Sundays, in August just for you

The cars will run to Keighley, and back to Oxenhope too

 

“Luxury” doesn’t do them justice, as hopefully you will see

Posh snacks, posh drinks and Afternoon Tea, just like it used to be

 

Glorious and grandly, as in the days of yore

Our Pullmans and our Club Car, will make you hanker for more

 

“The grandest of their types”, it’s said of these three mighty cars

And what makes them even better, they run next to a bar

 

So come along to Haworth and pay that little bit more,

The supplement is very small, it won’t make you poor

 

But leave your prams and bags behind, your small children too

For this is a special adult thing, just designed for you

 

The Pullmans and the Club Car, elitist and so grand,

If you choose to use them, you’ll feel the bestest in the land

 

           

 

From Good Friday to Easter Monday inclusive, on selected Sundays in August and August Bank Holiday Monday, the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway will operate its Pullman and Club cars, for the first time, for general public use with a light refreshment service.  Read on for more...!

 

 

Pullman.  Synonymous with ultimate luxury, style and understated elegance the experience of which has been described as 'Pullmanic'.  Now, you can be a Pullmanic too.  Clad  in Umber and Cream, the majestic, lofty and slab sided cars were the ultimate in style and chic, a symbol of a sleek new world, a synthesis of art and industry.  Their Awful Grandeur made the most splendid passenger wilt with admiration, shudder in anticipation as their terrific majesty was approached down the platform.  Their snob appeal was outstanding.

 

A hallmark of extravagance, elitism, even fantasy; a trip in a Pullman is both an adventure and something else.  Another world, a world of Rolls-Royces and Daimlers, of tycoons and stars of politicians and grandees, of aristocracy and Bertie Wooster; of the dreadfulness and vulgarity of the of the nouveaux riche, as they tried to Fit In.  

 

But all was in the greatest possible mobile splendour that Pullman could provide, in unique surroundings created by the very best British craftsmen.  Waring & Gillow (furnishers), Maple & Co. and Morrison & Co. (woodwork, carpentry and marquetry) James Beresford and Co. (brassware) and the Metropolitan Carriage, Waggon & Finance Company (car builders to the Company) supplied their wares and services, regardless of cost.

 

Yet to experience the Pullmanic is to see that it avoids Excess, the Fancy and Novelty; it makes a deliberate effort not to impress or dazzle yet creates the illusion that Pullman’s brief, unreal world is the norm.  Every vehicle was different, no two cars alike, yet with service all the same, the sheer prestige of the Pullman fleet made the traveller feel like an ambassador, a diplomat or a minor Royal.

 

Need we go on?

 

Of the 104 K class cars out of a contemporary fleet of 200 Pullman cars in total, two of the all-steel type built as a pair in 1931 remain on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.  Each superb and expensively restored; they are very rarely used.  Described by one authority as probably the finest restoration of their type in the world, it says it all.  Cars 83 & 84, ‘Ann’ and ‘Mary’ provide the luxury, reliability and safe travel on the KWVR that the Pullmanic experience once gave to the whole of Great Britain.  Magnificent in their understated and restrained decoration, they lack the chic of Art Deco, but given their overall style, they are all the better for that; they present a range of eclectic artistic styles that blend together in a symphony of elegance and gracefulness.  They are a celebration of the exceptional, the different and the very special.

 

Even on a branch line, to experience such travel is An Event which few experiences today can match.  Perhaps First Class on BA, perhaps a Cunard Voyage, both unique and rather pricey, yet the KWVR is able, after much planning, care and thought, to open the door to this world to you, in the summer of 2012, as a celebration of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubliee and a means of opening such experiences to a much wider audience.

 

At Easter and on August Sundays, one of our trains will be like no other.  Although some ordinary accommodation will be available, the formation will include one or both of the Pullman twins, Ann and Mary, along with another example of sheer, unabashed indulgence, the Manchester – Lytham – Blackpool Club car of 1912, in its centenary year.  In line with Pullman practice, a supplementary fare of £2.50 per person will be charged for travel in the Pullman and Blackpool Club cars. (The company regrets that no concessions are be available). The supplement is only paid once and travel in then permitted for the same validity of your travel ticket.

 

Light refreshments will be available in the Pullmans.  These will include hot snacks, alcoholic and temperance beverages and light luncheons.  The service will be based upon that provided by the Pullman Car Company in the years of its pre-eminence. Comestibles will not be available in the Club Car. See below for the full menu.

 

Excursions de Luxe will operate each day of the Easter holidays, from Good Friday to Easter Monday inclusive and Sundays 5th, 12th 26th August, in addition to August Bank Holiday Monday, 27th August.  We regret that perambulators and backpacks are not accommodated in the cars, nor is this service suitable for small children.  Advance booking is not essential, but parties of four or more may reserve seats by contacting the Railway on 01535 645214, or by e-mail at summer.salooons@kwvr.co.uk

 

Pullman Cars Ann and Mary

 

The Pullman Car Company Limited was a private undertaking, which owned a large fleet of ultra luxurious cars.  These were hauled either in complete trains or as individual vehicles by the various railway companies and later British Railways.  The railway retained the ordinary fare and maintained the ‘running gear’ such as wheels, brakes and exteriors of the coaches, whilst the Pullman Company looked after the interiors, in addition to providing the on-train catering.  Thus, the public were given utterly superb coaches in which to travel, the railway avoided having large sums of capital tied up in vehicles which were little used yet retained the fares, whilst the Pullman Company made its money from the catering and a supplement which was charged for travel in the coaches.

 

Ann and Mary are both third class cars from a batch of four all-steel, K Type cars, built for the Pullman Car Company Limited by the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company.  Although they had been ordered in 1929 completion was delayed until 1931 having been purchased under a unique hire-purchase arrangement with the builders.  As third class cars, they did not carry names.  Instead, they were given numbers, in this case cars 81, 82, 83 & 84.  The car which now runs as ‘Ann’ was originally ‘Car No. 83 Third Class’ whilst the current ‘Mary’ was ‘Car No. 84 Third Class’.  Later they were known ‘Car no. 83’ and 'Car No. 84’.  81 and 82 had kitchens along with 30 seats for passengers but later were rebuilt with guards' vans to replace the kitchens.  83 and 84 spent their entire lives in main-line service as you see them now, as 42 seat parlour cars, each weighing a massive (particularly in Worth Valley terms) 40 imperial tons each.  As a comparison, a typical 'ordinary' coach carries 64 passengers and weighs about 30 tons.  The Pullmans are about a ton a passenger, whilst ordinary coaches are about half that, sometimes even less. This huge weight on a very steeply graded Railway makes them exceptionally expensive to operate in regular service and explains the need to charge a premium for their use.

 

All four cars were sent new to the Southern Railway (SR) for use on the ‘Bournemouth Belle’ between Waterloo and Bournemouth their first day in use was on the inaugural ‘Belle’ on 5th July 1931, when for a short time it ran beyond Bournemouth to Weymouth.  In 1933 all four were transferred to the LNER which was a big user of Pullmans and where they was a shortage. Cars 83 & 84 ran on the LNER as ordinary third class coaches, painted brown, during the second world war but soon afterwards re-commenced their luxury roles.  83 was transferred to the Southern Region in April 1961 and 84 followed soon afterwards where both again joined the pool of cars for the ‘Bournemouth Belle’. 

Car No. 84 was withdrawn during 1966 and sold to Ron Ainsworth, who was heavily involved in the embryonic KWVR.  He named it ‘Lorna’ after his wife and it was used along with car ‘Zena’ which was also at that time on the KWVR as a dressing room and costume store for the film ‘The Railway Children’ in 1970.  The KWVR purchased the car on Mr. Ainsworth’s death and renamed it ‘Mary', after Mary Tracey, wife of Eric, its then President and the former Lord Bishop of Wakefield.

 

Car No. 83 was withdrawn in July 1967 when the ‘Bournemouth Belle’ ceased to operate and sold along with a number of other Pullmans to the Bulmer Cider Company.  They used it on their mobile exhibition train, in which form it had all the seating removed for use as a display space.  Bulmers sold it to the Venice –Simplon Orient Express which never used it, but stored it along with other spare cars at its Longhedge works in London.  VSOE kindly agreed to lend it to the KWVR to run with its twin and the interior was restored at Oxenhope using the original fittings.  It now carries the name ‘Ann’, after Canon Dr. Ann Cryer J.P., President of the KWVR and widow of its founder, Bob Cryer.  Ann & Mary  are generally considered to be outstanding original examples their type.

 

 

You may know about the modern airline concept of Club Class - introduced to fill a gap between economy and first class air travel. What you may not know is that the airlines took a much older concept of club travel but downgraded it in the process. Club Class in late-Victorian/early-Edwardian travelling terms was superior to first class. Club Trains were first introduced on the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway’s Blackpool-Manchester services, conveying businessmen from their homes on the Fylde coast to their businesses in Manchester. The businessmen formed themselves into a self-governing club and negotiated with L&Y for exclusive travel. The club obtained their exclusivity on payment to L&Y of not only a first-class season ticket but also an annual fee - so ‘Club’ as a concept was born as first class plus, not the airline view as economy plus.

Such was the pull of the Club that L&Y built special carriages for use only by Club members. L&Y carriage 47 is a unique survivor, showing the sumptuousness in which the businessmen travelled each day. This carriage was restored by volunteers of the L&Y Trust over some eighteen years from its use as a sports pavilion to the glorious ‘as-built’ condition in which it can be seen today.

Naturally, just as the clubmen of Victorian and Edwardian times had to pay a supplement for travel, the same applies today - giving you access to a mode of travel that was available only to a privileged few. Nowhere else in Britain
can you experience just what it was like to travel as member of a very exclusive club.