Hook Continental

The Hook Continental was a passenger train running between London's Liverpool Street Station and Harwich Parkeston Quay where it connected with the night ferry sailing to the Hook of Holland in the Netherlands. It was introduced as a named express by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1927, and was part of the marketing strategy pushing the concept of almost seamless travel from London overnight to numerous European destinations utilising the company's own ships and the rail connections from the Hook of Holland.

The promotion of Harwich as a good railhead for ferry services across the North Sea dates back to the Eastern Counties Railway and from 1869 the Great Eastern Railway (GER) advertised using its services from Liverpool Street to Harwich in conjunction with a ferry service as "The shortest, cheapest, and most direct route" to a selection of northern European countries, and offered through tickets. A new station adjacent to a deep water quay was opened in 1883 and was named Parkestone Quay after the Chairman Charles Henry Parkes, and Hook of Holland became one of the main destinations of ferry services from 1893.

In 1905 the GER produced its first corridor train set of 13 coaches specifically for the service to Harwich, and this was also the first GER train to be steam heated throughout with Claud Hamilton 4-4-0 steam locomotives providing the motive power.

In 1925 a set of 20 coaches was built at Stratford Works for the Hook Continental, the new train set of eleven bogie coaches having four second class coaches, three first class coaches, three restaurant coaches plus a full brake. In addition two Pullmans were also allocated to the service although only one of the two was used on some occasions. Driving the locomotive that hauled the Hook Continental with this set of coaches was considered a very difficult turn due to the weight of the train and the climbs to Bethnal Green and Brentwood, with speed restrictions through both Chelmsford and Colchester, followed by the severe restriction over the junction at Manningtree. The tare weight was 430 tons with a gross of up to 455 and it constituted the 'top link'^{[clarification needed]} at Parkeston shed where four engine crews were responsible for this duty. The B12 / "1500" class 4-6-0s were used exclusively and the train was allowed 82 minutes for the 68.9 miles for the down journey.

A further new and more luxurious train set was introduced in 1936 with the same composition as the 1925 set and weighing 443 tons tare, although the change is also reported as the introduction of some new coaches rather than a complete new rake in 1936 with the remaining coaches being replaced in 1938; certainly an additional 10 coaches for the Hook Contienetal were included in the construction programme at York Works in that year. While the formation of the train remained as it had in 1925 it was occasionally increased by an additional bogie coach. Haulage of the train by this time had been taken over by the "Sandringham" or "B17" Gresley 4-6-0s although their performance was never considered greatly superior to the earlier G.E.R 1500s especially after the latter had been fitted with larger boilers.

The Hook Continental ceased immediately at the outbreak of World War II and the three ships operating the ferry sailings were requisitioned for war service. The train service officially restarted in November 1945 using the same coaches and locomotives as pre-war, but with only three sailings per week. Of the three vessels that had been used pre-war, the SS Amsterdam was lost and the SS Vienna was purchased by the government as a troop carrier leaving the SS Prague as the sole vessel to operate the service.

The train was restored as a daily service in the summer of 1947 with the arrival of the faster and more capacious vessel "Arnhem" from the John Brown Shipyard on Clydebank. The Thompson B1 class 4-6-0s took over the duties at that time from the B17s and continued as the principal locomotive on the train until the advent of the Britannia pacifics after which they were still used for relief services until the withdrawal of steam haulage in the Great Eastern area in 1962.

In the early 1950s six Britannia 4-6-2s worked out of Parkestone Quay shed for boat train traffic and the main train in both directions through the mid-1950s was hauled by these. Although driven by Parkeston crews the actual locomotive allocation was to Stratford who adopted a policy of allocating 70000 Britannia whenever possible. At this time the train weight had grown to 485 tons tare/520 tons gross and the allowed time was actually increased to 90 minutes compared to the 82 minutes of 1912.