The service left leave Manchester Central on Mons - Fris at 08:50. There was a stop at Cheadle Heath (convenient for passengers from outer residential districts) and completed the 189 mile journey to St. Pancras in 3hr 13min. These runs were the fastest yet scheduled between Manchester and London, the quickest previous time was 3hr 35min and that was before the First World War.

The fill-in turn left St. Pancras at 12:45, and had a very quick turnaround at Leicester. The full Pullman service would be available in the train at all times.

The six vehicles on the Midland Pullman on its first week of running starting the 4th July '60 were, in order from the London end: 60092 / 60732 / 60742 / 60743 / 60733 / 60093. It got off to a good start, the first run gave a seven minute early arrival and throughout the first week the down train passed the milepost 40 from St. Pancras in 32mins. At Cheadle Heath, where it was booked to set down only, arrivals of 8, 4, 4 and 6 were recorded on four evenings of the first week.

From the 2nd Jan '61 the timings for the Midland Pullman were revised. It now left Manchester (Central) at 07:45 and arrived at 11:00. These new timings allowed businessmen from the north-west to keep pre-lunch appointments in London and also allowed the midday service to be extended from Leicester to include Loughborough and Nottingham.

The new fill in turn was:

This fill in turn did not go done well with staff, and coupled with the very poor patrionism of the Leicester trips, was withdrawn very soon after, if not before the Jan '61 timetable, and was omitted completely from the summer '61 timetable.

They were withdrawn from the LMR in March '67.

WR

The Pullmans were the first Western Region rolling stock with electric transmission, other than shunters.

In August '60 the timings for the WR trains due to start on the 12th September were announced, with the pattern of workings being similar to the LMR ones. Between the up morning service from Wolverhampton to London and the down evening trip, a return London - Birmingham service was given. Again there were tight turn arounds, 25 mins at London and Birmingham. The 'Bristol Pullman' was to make two full round trips a day, although it had no turn around time less than 30 mins. The early departures from Wolverhampton (07:00) and Birmingham (07:30) brought interest over the level of patronisism, although there were some intermediate stops which would improve the usefulness of the trains. Both early morning services were booked into Paddington at 09:35, which meant that for the final two miles there was the possibility of running alongside each other on adjacent parallel tracks.

The timings were quoted as experimental and subject to review. The 'Bristol Pullman' left Bristol Temple Meads and ran non-stop via Badmington to Paddington. On the fill-in turn, all the way back to Bristol, it called at Bath in both directions. The final leg was done non-stop via Badmington again.

The service to/from Wolverhampton Low Level picked up at Birmingham Snow Hill, Solihull and Leamington Central. The fill in turn to Birmingham stopped at Leamington.

On the first day of traffic on the WR the two services did arrive at Paddington side-by-side. A carefully planned publicity stunt perhaps?

The maximum Pullman supplements would be 10s first and 5s second between London and Bristol and London and Birmingham or Wolverhampton.

The "Bristol Pullman" was revised from the 17th October to run both trips stopping at Bath.

From the sum '61 timetable there was an additional service, to Swansea. The "South Wales Pullman" also called at Cardiff and then all major stations till Swansea.

There was a spare steam set kept at Old Oak common to cover breakdowns an maintenance of the Pullmans, and was formed of cars 27, 249, 169, 54, Cecelia and standard FOs W3093/4, all in Pullman Umber & Cream livery.

When the LMR cars moved to the WR they had enough sets to increase their use. They were put to use on a new non-stop Oxford service which covered the 63 1/2 miles in an hour. They were also used on additional Bristol trains which stopped at Bath. The "Bristol Pullman" made use of both 6-car sets on the 08:45 from Bristol and 17:45 return. Finally, there was a new 09:00 service from Paddington to Swansea, the return leaving at 16:20.

As most of the sets work was on Mons-Fris this left them free at weekends for maintenance but they also managed to get a few excusrions and charters in. The most notable was a WR set worked to West Hartlepool from Coventry in March '65 in connection with a Rugby Union Championship Final. Another example is a trip to Aintree on Grand National Day 1964, see http://clive-hanley.fotopic.net/p12170859.html.