The Bournemouth Belle

The Bournemouth Belle was a name train run by the Southern Railway from 1931 until it was nationalised in 1948 and then by British Railways until it was withdrawn on 9 July 1967. The train, composed of Pullman carriages, first ran on Sunday 5 July 1931. It initially ran direct from London Waterloo, leaving at 10:30, to Bournemouth Central, returning at 19:18. The service was later amended to call at Southampton, and extended from Bournemouth Central to Bournemouth West. The journey time was between two hours one minute and two hours twenty minutes, depending on direction, configuration and the locomotive.

At first the train ran on summer Sundays. It was sufficiently successful to be run on all weekends and summer weekdays until in 1936 it was a daily working. Before the war the train was usually hauled by SR Lord Nelson Class locomotives. On its reintroduction on 7 October 1947 the superior SR Merchant Navy class provided power (as in the postcard), a 4-6-2 Pacific type designed by the company's Chief Mechanical Engineer, the New Zealand born Oliver Bulleid.

The final trains in 1967 were hauled by British Rail class 47 diesels.

The Southern ran three Pullman trains with the suffix 'Belle'. The others were the Brighton Belle (see earlier post) and the Devon Belle. British Railways introduced the Thanet Belle in 1948.