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A slip coach, slip carriage or slip portion in Britain and Ireland, also known as a flying switch in North America, is one or more carriages designed to be uncoupled from the rear of a moving train. The detached portion continued under its own momentum following the main train until slowed by its own guard using the brakes, bringing the slip to a stop, usually at the next station. The coach or coaches were thus said to be slipped from the train without it having to stop. This allowed the train to serve intermediate stations, without unduly delaying the main train.
Slip coaches as described above were mainly used in Britain and Ireland from 1858 until 1960; for most of this period there was serious competition between railway companies who strove to keep journey times as short as possible, avoiding intermediate stops wherever possible.
Competition increased as locomotives became bigger and able to haul heavier trains at faster speeds for longer distances, trains no longer need to stop so often, for fuel and water for themselves, using (North America: track pans) to fill up on the move, or for facility stops for passengers by providing , Dining car and . Faster services were becoming progressively safer as more efficient continuous braking was fitted and the absolute block system installed on main lines. All these led to the use of slip services in some places where there was a financial advantage to the company to provide it.
The slip service needed additional staff – at least one extra guard for the slip portion and possibly the use of a locomotive and its crew (or sometimes a horse) if the slip wasn't able to reach the platform; often the slip portion would be attached to another train or locomotive for an onward journey. While these additional staff requirements were lower than if an additional train had been provided, they were still substantial. If the weather was bad, usually because of snow or fog, it might not be possible for the slip to be safely effected, in which case the train usually halted to detach the coach.
Slip carriages were also confusing to some passengers: there are frequent reports of passengers who boarded the wrong carriage of a train and ended up at an unintended destination. This could occasionally lead to passengers causing trains to stop by using the emergency communication system.
Slip carriages are quiet: they are usually equipped with a horn to sound warnings to people near the track if there is time, but their silence has proven fatal, as in the case of a railway worker whose inquest returned a verdict of accidental death when he stepped into the way of a recently released slip at .
A few examples of slips being used in other countries will be found below. In some countries, such as India, the term slip coach refers to a coach that terminates its journey at a station prior to the final destination of the rest of the train. The coach or coaches are left behind after being detached from the train while it is stationary.
Slipped coaches were often also in that they often continued to another destination either by having a separate locomotive attached or by being attached to another train.
Samuel Wilfred Haugton, the locomotive superintendent of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway following a visit to the L&GR in September 1849 took the technique back to Ireland, where following alterations to locomotives and installation of semi-automatic points, it remained in use for several years.
Another early example of slip services was on the Hayle Railway which started passenger operations in 1843. The company operated three daily mixed mineral and passenger trains with the passenger coaches at the rear of the train, and the practice approaching Hayle was to uncouple the passenger portion while the train was in motion, let the mineral train negotiate a set of points which were then switched allowing the passenger coaches to coast (sometimes with the assistance of a waiting horse) to the passenger station. These trains were still running in 1850 despite there having been a non-fatal accident in 1843.
The first certain example of slipping coaches off a moving passenger train was at on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) in February 1858 when the 4 p.m. train from to which ran non-stop from to Brighton slipped a portion for and . The portions were connected with a patent coupling and the instructions to the staff made sure the side chains were not connected. The complete train was to slow as it approached Haywards Heath, the slip to be effected, and the slipped portion to slow itself to arrive gently at the station platform. Once the slipped portion had stopped at the platform the engine to haul it to Hastings was allowed to exit the siding where it had been waiting and attach itself to the front of the new train. The slipping was coordinated by a series of communication bell signals between the guards on the two portions of the train and the locomotive crew.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) followed suit when on 29 November 1858, carriages were slipped at and off to Birmingham trains. The slip service being introduced in December 1858 with a slip at Banbury off the 9:30 a.m. from Paddington.
The South Eastern Railway (SER) was an early user of slip services: there is a possibility that it began this a month before the LB&SCR, in January 1858. That month's timetable contained details of the 4.25 p.m. from to that leaves...passengers at......: train does not stop at Etchingham. There is a similar note regarding another train and : how the trains left passengers without stopping is not explained, but there is no corroborating evidence to indicate the use of a slip. The SER was using slip services in 1859 when the 12.20 p.m. to slipped a portion at .
The remaining British railway companies adopted slipping with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with 58 daily slips being made by nine companies in 1875, rising to 189 being made by 12 companies in 1914, when slipping was at its peak. During the First World War slip services almost disappeared, for there were fewer staff available to operate any service, and slip services needed an additional guard compared to the train stopping. After the war, slip services did not attract any priority; services were necessarily slower than normal because the railway suffered from a maintenance backlog, there was still a shortage of staff, and companies were uncertain what the future held after the railways had been under Government control during the war. In 1918 there were eight daily slip services; this had risen to 31 at the Grouping, and reached a post-war peak of 47 in 1924.
Slip services gradually fell out of favour, for many reasons. In the south-east the railways were electrified, allowing faster acceleration; elsewhere trains were travelling faster, and hence able to stop (thus enabling them to pick up more passengers) instead of using slipping coaches, yet without a later arrival time. Perhaps the most compelling reason, according to The Manchester Guardian, was the lack of corridor connections to the rest of the train: slip-coach passengers could not access the restaurant car.
This process was then repeated, the whole process taking 30 minutes; a fifteen-minute service was achieved by the other line operating in the opposite direction. The system worked quite well, so long as the cables did not break. The line was converted to locomotive haulage in 1848.
Trains were fitted with a red tail-lamp so that signalling staff could tell the train was complete when it passed a signal box, no tail-lamp indicating that the train had divided somehow and part of the train was still in the previous section of track. Special arrangements had to be made for slip portions to show this was deliberate, in 1897 the Railway Clearing House published guidelines to standardise these arrangements. If there was only one slip portion it had to carry a red and a white light set between two red tail lamps, one above the other, if there were two slips to be made the first to be detached was marked as described and the last slip had to carry a red light beside a white light, and in one case, the Cornish Riviera Express took three slip portions, the middle slip had a triangle of three red lights.
A method was also required to disconnect any continuous brake system running through the train, this was usually managed by the slip guard turning a stop or slip cock, this closed the pipe off from the main train. In later years trains were often steam heated with pipes running from the locomotive through the length of the train, these pipes had to be closed off prior to slipping, this was often done at the station before the slip until pipe connectors were invented that sealed automatically when the pipe separated.
Further slips were made off other trains at and .
One unusual slip service occurred in 1866–1867 at Paddington itself, the 8.15 a.m. service from Windsor & Eton Central to Farringdon Street in the City of London via the Metropolitan Railway slipped a portion for Paddington mainline station while it went to Paddington (Bishop's Road) where it made an end-on connection to the Metropolitan Railway. The slip appears to have run on its own momentum into Paddington terminus where it was due three minutes after its host train arrived at Bishop's Road.
By 1885, the GWR had 15 broad-gauge and 32 standard-gauge slip coaches in daily use. Slips were made at: , , , , , , , , , , , , , and and other stations. Reading got the most slips with up to thirteen daily, nearly all off up trains, once detached the slip would be diverted across the down line into the platform. Some of the coaches made extended journeys being slipped several times before being returned to their start point.
GWR slip services continued to grow with forty-nine daily in 1900, peaking at seventy-nine in 1908 then steadying at around seventy until 1914. In 1910 there were ten slips at Reading, six at providing through trains to , five at Slough for Windsor & Eton Central, five at Banbury, four at and Bridgwater, connecting with the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway to and twenty-two other places, including the slipping of a mail coach at Pylle Hill, Bedminster, Bristol.
One of the GWR's most well known express trains was the Cornish Riviera Express from Paddington to . From 1906 it had two slip portions, the first was slipped at which continued to and the other at which continued to . A third slip was added in 1907 at Taunton which terminated there. The slips ceased during the First World War and restarted shortly after the war ended with slips at Taunton and Exeter, the Westbury slip returning the following year. In 1920 the Taunton slip started to continue on to and . This pattern continued until 1935 when Westbury station could be avoided, a slip still took place but earlier on the line and the slip was worked by a locomotive coming out from the station for it. At the same time the Taunton and Exeter slips were stopped, being replaced by another train. This pattern of a single slip at Westbury continued until the outbreak of the Second World War.
The GWR introduced the first slip in South Wales when it acquired a long lease of the Manchester and Milford Railway in 1906, the slip was made at going on to .
During the First World War slipping tailed off on the GWR, down to thirty-four in 1916 and none in 1918, before a slow post-war revival. The company made thirty-one daily slips in 1922, rising to forty-seven in 1924, then slowly declining with forty in 1928 and twenty in 1938. Slipping ceased completely during the Second World War, and then just a few returned with five daily slips in 1946.
The Western Region of British Railways (BR(W)) continued some of the GWR slips after nationalisation, with the last multiple slip of two coaches taking place at Didcot on 7 June 1960 and the final single coach slip at on 10 September 1960.
The number of slips continued to increase with fifteen in 1910 (sixteen on Saturdays), twenty-three in 1912 and twenty-seven by 1914 by which time slips took place in ten different places in both up and down directions, at times there were twenty-one coaches slipped each day on the Brighton main line alone.
In 1914, slips were being made at , for the branch to , for , and for and whichever the main train was not going to, then either stopping at Haywards Heath, going on to or forming a slow train to , for stations to , of trains heading towards London for , and for .
The use of slips slowed during the First World War, with fourteen in 1916 and just three in 1918. Despite the uncertainties they rose back to eighteen in 1922, but after the Southern Railway was formed their policy combined with a gradual electrification of the main lines reduced the need for slips and they had all stopped by April 1932.
The L&YR had other slip services including slips to from Liverpool to Preston trains which were usually done at , shortly before Preston, but this slip was initially performed at Moss Lane Junction. One slip in particular has been called famous or the trickiest, the Accrington slip.
From 1910, slips were also made at Kirkham from Manchester to Blackpool trains, the 5:10 p.m. from Manchester train took the route via to the slip also went to Blackpool Central but by the direct route, arriving first. The 5:55 p.m. train also went to Blackpool Central, slipping a portion at Kirkham which went to and .
The L&YR continued to use some slips during the First World War; they continued into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) era until they were withdrawn during the LMS economy drive.
Pre-First World War slips happened at:
The LNWR slips gradually stopped during the First World War and were not re-introduced.
From 1893 to 1899, the MS&LR had additional slips at which went on to and at where the slip went on to providing more connection opportunities.
After becoming the Great Central Railway (GCR) slips were stopped on former MS&LR lines except for one at Godley Junction which now went on to , this slip survived until 1904.
In 1903, the GCR began to slip a coach from the 7:42 a.m. express from which ran non-stop to , the coach slipped at and then went to stopping at all stations. In the opposite direction, the 3:25 p.m. non-stop service to Sheffield slipped at Leicester, this slip going on to Nottingham, , and , although by 1910 it terminated at .
A through coach from was introduced in 1905, this coach was attached to a slip coach and both were attached to the 3:15 p.m. (later 3:25 p.m.) express from London to Manchester when it arrived at Sheffield, both were then slipped at , going on to and , this service lasted until 1914. At some time, the slips continued through to serve Grimsby Town and Cleethorpes again.
From 1907 until 1914, and then re-instated after the war, the 6:20 p.m. London to Bradford slipped at at 7:40 p.m. the slip going on to via the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway. This service was competitive with the GWR service.
A commuter slip service was also introduced in 1907, albeit only on Saturdays and it only lasted nine months, a slip coach being attached to the 1.40 p.m. express leaving Marylebone it slipped at at 2:13 p.m. and went on to arriving at 2:24 p.m.
The Woodford slip was reintroduced after the First World War, going on to Stratford-upon-Avon from around 1920. About the same time a slip was trialled at from the same train; it lasted just over a year. It is not clear whether the two slips coincided or whether the Woodford slip was re-introduced following the failure of the Brackley one. By November 1922 there were definitely two slips being made from 6:20 p.m. The Woodford one as before and another one at which arrived at 7:28 p.m. This service catered for a cluster of residences of prominent people who lived close to the station and had "formed a sort of travelling club", including a director of the GCR and later the LNER. These two slips, both attached to the 6:20 p.m. from Marylebone continued for thirteen years until the Woodford and Hinton railway accident.
There was a dramatic rise in slip numbers in 1888, with 25 daily slips taking place in eighteen different places:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . In other years slips were made at , , , , , and .
By 1900, slips had dwindled to 5 daily but then increased again to sixteen in 1903, fifteen in 1910 and nineteen in 1914. All were at stations that had previously been used except for two daily slips at (introduced in 1910) off the 3:58 p.m. and 4:42 p.m. trains from to and which went forward to and at , this slip which was introduced in 1914 being unusual as the slip vehicle was used twice in the same journey. It was attached at Kettering, slipped at Wellingborough, then attached to another train and slipped again at Luton. Slipping stopped during the First World War and was not resumed afterwards.
Most of the GNR slips were at principal stations with a few exceptions in the earlier days. had up to eight daily slips for the Royston and Hitchin Railway to take on to , in 1872 the 10:10 a.m. and the 2:45 p.m. trains from Kings Cross and the train due to arrive at Kings Cross at 11:55 a.m. all slipped at Hitchin for Cambridge.
had up to six slips probably for the St Albans and branches. also had up to six daily slips for the branches to and on the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway.
An unusual GNR slip service involved the 5:30 p.m. from London King's Cross; this train slipped a carriage at , and then another at , and slightly later it stopped at where it picked up an additional slip carriage that was slipped at Newark before stopping at , where it picked up yet another slip carriage which it slipped at , four slips in total from one train. This service was running in 1887, but had stopped operations by 1895.
A lot of the earlier slips were from up trains heading into with the slip going to , these slips took place at to start with then from . These St Pancras slips reduced down to one by 1910 when there were also slips at going on to , going to , , , going to, or connecting with the branch to , going through to , and .
Slips were re-introduced after the war in much smaller numbers with two daily in 1921, it stayed at two although not always in the same places until 1937 when it went down to one, the final slip at stopping in 1939.
The NER stopped using slip coaches in 1905 and never started again.
From 1891 to 1902, a slip was made at off the 5:40 p.m. down train from to which went on to . From 1894 there was a slip off the morning London to train at and from 1896 to 1900 an evening slip at off the bound express, in 1902 the LSWR stopped using slips altogether.
The GNRI started slipping a coach at in 1913 instead of stopping there. This slip continued throughout the First World War, by 1921 the slip was operated twice daily off the 3 p.m. and 6:35 p.m. trains from Dublin that otherwise ran non-stop to , by 1923 it was just the afternoon train that slipped and this continued into the 1930s. It was the second last slip coach to be discontinued in Ireland.
During 1921 and 1922, a slip was made at from the same 3 p.m. departure from Dublin which was dropped in 1926 in favour of a border control stop. In the reverse direction a slip coach was provided for slipping off the 5:30 p.m. train from Belfast at Goraghwood.
From 1921 to 1940, except for 1934–1935, a slip was made at from the 9 a.m. (it ran at 9:15 a.m. in 1922) Dublin to Belfast, this slip then took the branch to Antrim and avoiding Belfast altogether.
In 1932, the 3:15 p.m. northbound from Dublin to Dundalk achieved the first scheduled mile-a-minute () run in Ireland whilst slipping a coach at Drogheda.
The GS&WR began introducing slip coaches in November 1900. By 1902, the working of slips was regularly about six each day on down trains. The service peaked in 1913 with slips at:
Most of the slips stopped during the First World War, with just two at Ballybrophy continuing. After the war some slips were re-introduced including one at Sallins and one at Kildare.
As soon as the slip coach guard knew that he had been detached, he used his hand brake to make sure that he did not catch up with the main train, which had itself to slow for the curve south of the station. Then he used his vacuum brake to stop in the platform. Up to five ordinary coaches could be attached to the slip coach. They were taken non-stop to by an engine which had worked light from there to Comber. Journey time from Belfast was 39 minutes. The slip coach ended in April 1918, as a “temporary” wartime measure. It never resumed but was replaced by a semi fast train at 12:12 p.m. each Saturday taking 44 minutes to Donaghadee with six stops.
Conversely, there needed to be a procedure for when the slip guard was unable to effect the slip, this usually involved the train having to stop to detach the coach in the station. Similar situations could occur when the weather was foggy or snowing.
Slipping procedures usually insisted that the slip guard was to only use the hand brake to control the braking of the slip, the continuous brakes were to only be used in an emergency.
Whilst it would appear that flying switches were mainly used with freight trains it was not exclusively so. Flying switches were used extensively when Grand Central Depot opened in New York in 1871. The train shed was kept fairly quiet and smoke-free partly by the use of the “flying switch”
The Boston and Maine Railroad used flying switches at White River Junction from mixed, freight and passenger, trains and had a fatal accident involving one on 8 March 1889.
The Old Colony Railroad used flying switches at junction stations, where slip coaches would be attached to a locomotive to continue on the branch line. The state regulatory body did not approve the practice, but did not have the authority to ban it outright. The Old Colony stopped using flying switches after an 1883 incident on the Milton Branch, three coaches were slipped at Neponset and collided with the waiting locomotive, whose crew had jumped clear just prior to the collision, which then ran crewless for three and a half miles before being switched onto a siding where it collided with freight cars.
Two further French slips of more recent date belong to the same system - now the SNCF, but when Acworth wrote, the Western railway of France. Both were introduced in the summer of 1933 in connection with a Saturdays Only non-stop express from Paris to . The slip portions were dropped at Motteville for Fécamp and Étretat, and at for .
The Netherlands Railway Museum has, among a collection of destination plates affixed to the sides of carriages, one marked Sliprijtuig voor Hilversum - 'slip carriage for Hilversum' - coming from the Holland Iron Railway about 1900.
Slip carriages were also used at Bussum between 1895 and 1904.
A short story The Slip Carriage written by Walter Thornbury was published in The Albion, an International Journal in 1873.
A short story The Slip Coach written by Emily Elizabeth Steele Elliott was published in 1873 in her book Stories for workers, by the author of 'Copsley annals'.
The Slip Coach Mystery: A Railway Adventure written by V.L. Whitechurch was published in the first issue of The Railway Magazine in 1897.
A Narrow Escape was published in Pearson's Magazine, 1897 where a wanted man disappeared from a train utilising a slip coach.
Cy Warman published a short story Jack Farley's Flying Switch in 1900 in his collection Short Rails.
In 1922 Harry Collinson Owen wrote a series of short stories about Antoine one of which includes a journey, by mistake, on the slip portion of the Côte d'Azur Rapide, that was slipped at .
Cuthbert Edward Baines had The Slip Coach published in 1927, described in a Times advert as "A thrilling romance of crime".
Lynn Brock wrote The Slip-Carriage Mystery the fourth novel in his Colonel Gore detective series, published in 1928.
Herman McNeile, writing under his pen-name "Sapper", published Mystery of the Slip-Coach in his book Ronald Standish published in 1933, the story was also published in the anthology Blood on the Tracks in 2018.
The following are examples of the term slip being used for a through coach as the train in question, the Orient Express, had through coaches to several destinations, they were all uncoupled while the train was stopped.
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