A Railwayman's View - Peter Collins BR Western Region

A Railwayman’s View

The Photographs of Peter Collins

Edited by Ian Simpson

Volume One - Western Region

Copyright Peter Collins 2022

Copyright Ian Simpson/ellyBelly Publications 2022

All Rights Reserved

Foreword

I met Peter Collins for a coffee and a croissant in Carluccios at Manchester Piccadilly station several years ago� He had contacted me after seeing an advertisement in the Railway Magazine seeking railway enthusiasts with a photographic collection that might be worth publishing� Given Peter lives south of London and the fact he was willing to make the journey north made it a no-brainer to meet up; but it is always interesting to see whether other people’s perceptions of a good photo collection match your own�

I wasn’t disappointed� Peter’s collection of over 1300 images, predominantly from the 1970s, spans all regions of British Rail� Even better, the large majority of negatives are in excellent condition, especially given they had been stored in envelopes and plastic sleeves for over 50 years in some cases� The only problem, as I found out early in the conversation, was that Peter didn’t take notes of his photographic exploits and as most negatives are from Ilford Black & White film we have no specific dates in most cases of when photos were taken. We have to rely on Peter’s memory.

Undaunted, however, what we do have are some well taken and well composed (in my humble opinion) photographs of British Rail in the 1970s and early 1980s� This was a time when British Rail still ran a network of passenger services based on locomotives and rakes of carriages and most freight was still made up of 4-wheel vans and mineral wagons� In most regions the Modernisation Plan of 1955 was still in place, although as we shall see in the first volume of Peter’s collection the Western Region had reluctantly begun to divest itself of the Diesel Hydraulics in favour of the ‘standard’ Class 31s, 47s and then 50s�

We have had some ‘healthy’ debates about what should be included in this book (and hopefully future books) and even more energetic ‘discussions’ on the possible dates and services that Peter has captured with his cameras� Fortunately, for us both, the internet and social media has come to the rescue on many occasions to resolve uncertainties� Moreover, we hope that the captions provide some useful background to some well composed photographs that are not the normal record of the railways at this time � For me personally, Peter captures a broad picture of 1970s British Rail, in all its grim glory before the arrival of bland trains painted in bright colours, their designs led by marketeers and accountants�

This first volume depicts the Western Region, from London Paddington to Penzance, Wales and the Midlands. Warships, Hymeks and Westerns are superseded by Goyles, Syphons, Duffs and Hoovers. The future of intercity travel is represented by the Prototype High Speed Train. Many of the photographs include spotters or passengers� If you recognise yourself, get in touch with us at ellybellypublications@outlook �com�

I hope you enjoy the book as much as we both enjoyed putting it together. Peter and I are now looking forward to having more ‘debates’ and ‘investigations’ as we move on to producing the second volume from Peter’s collection; the Eastern Region�

Ian Simpson, November 2022 �

Although the typesetters of the Sunday Times Rich List were never remotely bothered with including my name and details, I was one of the lucky ones when it came to starting real, paid work � I joined British Rail (BR) in 1971 and for almost 20 years I enjoyed fabulous company, a great working environment and the satisfying experience of collaborating with people who were at the top of their game�

Not only that, but I was able to indulge in work that varied from checking student season ticket travel in south east London, much better than it sounds, to staff runs on the new Mark Three sleeping cars to check them out on special prepublic test runs from Penzance to Paddington…� and plenty more besides�

I suppose the only down side was that, to paraphrase Pete Waterman who stated that when he left BR having been a fireman, he had a tremendous skill at his fingertips but it was of no practical use to anyone, anywhere. To some extent my ultimate redundancy in 1990 left me in the same position, just at the time of a recession� But being hungry can be a small advantage and I was able, after various vicissitudes, to restart my life doing something else I loved, albeit with fewer wheels on the main subject, but that’s a whole other story�

Rather than leave it until the end and the usual ‘I must give my thanks to….’ paragraph, I have at this moment to express just how lucky I was to meet Ian Simpson, a brilliant designer and cajoler, who just clicked into place at a time when I was seriously considering consigning all my negatives, prints and slides to the tip�

It was a small advertisement in The Railway Magazine which led me to him and that initial meeting on Manchester Piccadilly station where, to my amazement, after a short browse through my material, he declared that it had possibilities for a book. Make that at least three books now and, roll of drums, this is the first and if you have got this far, I hope you enjoy the content as much I did producing it in the first place.

I thought I had a good memory, but with Ian behind me I realise that maybe it

I was lucky.....

needs a bit of encouragement and he’s even got me going onto Google looking up 1960s Western Region working timetables but, as you can imagine, the potential for distraction is immense � Just as it was when all of this stuff was originally shot �

So, to go back to the beginning, having met everyone at the Divisional Headquarters of British Rail South Eastern Division in Beckenham, it seemed that most of us had joined to avail ourselves of the Privilege Ticket rates and Free Tickets that came with the job� I remember one Monday morning listening to one of my colleagues regaling everyone with his tale of a weekend chasing 03 and 04 204hp shunters in the Doncaster/Leeds/Lincolnshire area….and we were being paid nearly one thousand pounds a year as well� What more could you want?

Well, a bit more actually. After two years and with nagging thoughts like the suggestion from others that ‘you will never ever be promoted from here’ I started to apply for just that and, surprisingly quickly, I landed a position the next grade up in the freight operating section of the Great Eastern Division in their huge Victorian offices at Liverpool Street. I had swapped the Southern Region for the Eastern and it was a culture shock!

It was chalk and cheese compared to arguing the toss with ‘Irate of Tunbridge Wells’ over their season ticket cost; this time it was lively discussions with the ground staff at Temple Mills who, truth be told, knew a damn sight more about the Bow Creek trips than I did, fresh from the constant whine of Electro Pneumatic Brake (EPB) electric units�

But the great thing about British Rail was that everyone, except those few management smart-alecs who just wanted to get to the top, was in the same huge family and time allowed me to settle in so that I soon knew just when to take a chance with the Lenwade Concrete specials etc, etc �

Having built up a great collection of friends and staggered through the three-day week chaos of 1975 there, I was almost head-hunted into another leg up just across the corridor, into the timekeeping section of the passenger operating department �

Imagine being paid to have rides from London to Norwich in the cabs of Class 47s, or joining cross-London guards’ training on Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) on Saturdays – your own private railtour – or having to pop down to Stratford Motive Power Depot (MPD) and works occasionally, in particular when our leading passenger inspector asked if I would like to see the first new Class 56 arrive from Romania. It couldn’t get any better, could it?

Well yes, actually, another leg-up opportunity came my way to become part of God’s Wonderful Region and decamp to the Brunellian masterpiece offices above the Lawn at Paddington. Although I should, perhaps, admit here that I had been a huge Great Western (GW) fan since, well, decades and although I worked for BR I had allowed my railway photography to lapse � Life on the Western Region (WR) restored that enthusiasm�

I started there in Freight Operating, moved to Marketing and then became second in control of WR coaching stock � By this time most express services consisted of Mark 2a/b air-braked sets with an RB. Basically, these proved to be fairly easy to control except for occasional RB difficulties and Travellers Fare problems. We had Mark 1s on all the Cardiff/Bristol- Portsmouth services, but one set of Mark 2D vehicles on the peculiar Paddington to Glasgow daily train� I blotted my copybook once when Old Oak Common (OOC) reported that the set’s First Only (FO) had gone tick � I searched through the

handwritten list supplied every day of the running-numbers of all the vehicles there and, lo and behold, there was what seemed to be a spare Mark 2D FO. Rather than question what on earth it was doing there I wired OOC and duly had the vehicle marshalled into the set vice the tick coach. Job done.

Next day irate calls and messages alerted me to the fact that although the replacement vehicle was fine dynamically, passengers were perplexed to find it had no seats in it! Someone had designated it a hospital coach and had carefully removed all of its interior, then shunted it into a siding where it was promptly forgotten�

My favourite WR locomotives were the Hymeks� Many were the times I cruised up from Oxford on a Worcester express or up the Vale of the White Horse at an easy 90mph, although once steam had gone in 1965 I used to enjoy catching the 16 � 20pm to Banbury back to school for new terms� This quirky train, usually booked for a Hymek, consisted of around 3 or 4 Mark 1 carriages and a van and spent 20 minutes in a siding at Bicester en route, to allow a Birkenhead express to get ahead� I am sure many will throw up their hands in horror when I say that I consider their replacements, the Class 31s, were the most boring diesels ever on BR � They didn’t make any particular noise, didn’t look particularly attractive and provided no spectacular performances whilst on the God’s Wonderful Region!

Photographically, I started taking my own pictures in 1962 when my mother lent me her pre-war Box Brownie � This was a camera with no lens, simply variable size holes through which the light was let in to expose the film by moving a lever on top of the box. You did this once for each picture, so it was one way for one photo, then back the other way for the next � If the conditions were suitable the results could be reasonable�

Far more attributable to luck than good judgment was the result from this camera of the very first train photograph I took and it’s reproduced here out of interest (see opposite page). The loco is 7027 ‘Thornbury Castle’ and I think the train was the 12.45pm to Hereford in autumn 1962. I have also included the very first WR diesel shot I took with the Brownie of an unidentified Western about to leave Platform 1 at Paddington with a Birkenhead express. Note the Fruit D van behind the loco. The year is 1963 and very early, as the results of the famous 1962/3 winter are clearly evident with plenty of snow and ice hanging around�

From this I learnt enough to be given a Brownie 44B eye-level camera with three speeds, 1/60th, 1/30th and B � It taught me a lot and the Western and Warship at rest at Paddington were taken with this. Eventually I was bought an Olympus Pen half-frame camera, leading to my first SLR and interchangeable lenses� Many of the pictures you see were taken either on my Zenith or later Miranda � I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them�

I have tried to convey the feeling of the railway as I knew and loved it at the time, so I make no apology or excuse for not producing a volume of sunny days by the track with immaculate expresses speeding towards the camera ���� Perhaps, once we have dealt with all the regions, I will be allowed to dig out all my colour material� Whilst Ian has provided the vast bulk of the loco info in these pages, the errors can be put down to me �

Peter Collins, November 2022

My first photographs... taken in 1962/63. I still have my mother’s Box Brownie with which I took the photograph of the Castle at Paddington, complete with leather carry case � The camera has survived both locomotives�

Paddington

It is a morning in March 1964 and a visit to Paddington to meet my sister off the train back from school in Great Malvern was always an excuse to try and take some photos with my Brownie 44B

The locomotive numbers were never noted but 6A90 was the headcode for an afternoon Severn Tunnel Junction to Moreton Cutting Sidings freight which presumably was the Western’s previous working� Both trains here were parcels workings, a huge business for the railways then� The incongruous sight of an oil-lamp on the loco in addition to running lights and headcode panel rather encapsulates the philosophy of BR at the time �

Hymek Class 35 D7061, still bearing its ‘D’ number prefix, pulls into London Paddington with the 13.15pm 1C56 up Hereford and Worcester express in 1971. Looking very much the worse for wear, the Hymeks became regulars on these services for a time, as it had become almost traditional that the Cotswold trains would be the last main-line refuge of first steam, then the Hymeks and after them, the Warships. By the late 1970s, a frankly pathetic service of DMUs bolstered by two morning and evening through loco-hauled trains with Brush Type 4 Class 47s was considered adequate. Considerable migration of wealthy London commuters to areas such as Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton in Marsh since the turn of the century has, at last, persuaded the operators that the line deserves much more �

It’s around midnight at a strangely deserted Paddington one Friday night in April 1974�Waiting in platform 2 is the Western Class 52 that will head the overnight sleeper to Penzance, but first it has to pick up the Motorail GUV (General Utility Vehicle) from the loading ramp at the top of the platform at the buffer-stops before finally backing it, or them, onto the front of the sleeping cars� Over on platform 4 Hymek 7029 has a long, patient, wait at the head of a rake of GUVs and at least one Siphon G, before forming the early morning Thames Valley newspaper train� Over on platform 7 the stock is already in to form the 01�25am South and West Wales departure which ran via Gloucester and includes one of the relatively rare Mark 1 brake composites or BCK as they were coded� The Hymek was preserved and is currently undergoing restoration at the Severn Valley Railway by its owners, the Diesel Traction Group.

A Brush Type 2 Class 31 5539 (later 31121) waits at Paddington before returning empty coaching stock to Old Oak Common in the early 1970s� The locomotive is a spiritual successor to the many Pannier and Prairie tank locos that used to cover these workings in steam days, and the North British 63XX ‘Baby Warships’ that had previously worked the trains� It was one of a number of these rather nondescript and, in comparison, far less competent, engines that were drafted into the Western Region to take over from the departing Hymeks, as they were also used on the Worcester services�

A summer’s morning at Paddington station in 1971 and on the left one of the newly arrived Brush Type 2 Class 31 locomotives waits to leave for Old Oak Common with 5A71, the empty stock of the 07.58am Didcot service, 1A71, consisting of one of the Western Region’s air-braked Mark 2 coaching sets. The Class 47 on Platform 5 is at the head of the 09.45am Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, 1B52. The DMUs that replaced steam on the Western’s Thames Valley suburban services lasted for many years and one of these units is waiting to leave on Platform 6 with 2A18 from Paddington to Reading at 10�35am, calling at all stations� The Brute trolleys seen on the left of the photograph are left over from the previous night’s parcels activities� These trolleys are synonymous with British Rail at this time, and probably burned into the memories of many a rail enthusiast even now, some 50 years later�

Heading into Paddington to complete its run from Weston-super-Mare is a two-tone green Brush Type 4 Class 47 number 1605 (later 47028/47559) in 1971� On the right is the huge Paddington Goods Depot which has now long gone. The train is the 13.40pm service that was due to arrive in the capital at 16.10pm, and is formed of the then-standard air-braked rake of Mark 2 carriages with the addition of Mark 1 catering vehicles and a BG Full-Brake � The stock returned to Bristol at 19�45pm after being serviced at Old Oak Common carriage sheds� Beyond the familiar girder-bridge in the background will be London Transport’s Royal Oak station, their electrified tracks being the two on the far right in the picture.

Hymek D7064 arrives at Paddington’s platform 4 on a gloomy afternoon with the 14.15pm from Worcester (1A26) in 1971. Consisting entirely of Mark 1 stock, these trains were and always had been the Cinderellas of the various mainline routes radiating out of the capital to the West and were always at the end of the supply-chain as far as motive-power was concerned. Despite this, with the last-remaining Hymek Type 3s concentrated on the route they were quite capable of running very fast indeed, even in their twilight hours. In the far right background, an LT Hammersmith-line train is calling at Royal Oak station. D7064 was withdrawn on 3rd October 1971, not long after this photo was taken and is reflected in the state of the loco!

Class 47 1749 (later 47156), departs London Paddington with the 12�52pm 1B29 service to Cheltenham in 1971� Alongside is Class 31 5539 (later 31121), used regularly at this time to move coaching stock between Paddington station and Old Oak Common carriage sidings� The leading coach of the Cheltenham service has one of the short-lived waist-level destination boards that were used at this time � To the right and adjacent to 5539 are the points at the throat of the entrance to the locomotive layover sidings at Westbourne Park� These were used by engines that were booked for a smart turn-round in London and wouldn’t have time to return to Old Oak between arrival and departure �

Warship class 42 number 805 ‘Benbow’ backs down from Old Oak Common or Westbourne Park onto the late morning Hereford express one spring day in 1970 at Paddington station� This route is now called the Cotswold Line as a marketing tag and run today by Great Western, which is probably the greatest misnomer of all time � They were the last Class 1 trains to be steam-hauled from the terminus and later the final top-link trains to be hauled by Hymeks. Subsequently, the Warships worked out their last days on the services and, as can be seen from the condition of the locomotive, little care was being expended on them by this stage� However, the crews still maximised their performance and I enjoyed a run behind 842 ‘Royal Oak’ at this time, when it deputised for a failed Brush Type 4 on an up Hereford train and it cruised happily at over 90mph between Oxford and London� 805 still carries a headcode that suggests earlier use on a special Penzance to Kensington milk service �

This photograph is not all it seems� The 11�55am Paignton to Paddington Express, 1A05, due in Platform 2 at 15�50pm, seems to have been late into London behind Brush Type 4 Class 47 number D1932 (later 47493/47701).The photograph was taken pre-May 1972, when the loco had its boiler removed and was fitted with Electric Train Heating (ETH)� The train would form the 16�30pm service to Penzance, nominally from Platform 2, and so as to reduce any delays and platform changes, it seems that the train is being dragged out of Paddington and re-positioned to Platform 2 for departure � The train is a standard air-braked set of Mark 2 coaches with a Mark 2A BFK behind the loco� These were superb vehicles as they had all the advantages of the modern Mark 2 construction and bogies, yet still retained full First Class Mark 1 compartment accommodation. The locomotive is interesting in that it still displays a painted D before its numerals, but has two new BR logos on its bodyside.

The prototype High Speed Train (HST), then classified as Class 252 and with Power Car 43000 leading, waits to leave Paddington during its revenue earning trial period on a train to Bristol� Little did anyone realise what was going to develop���� Note the empty Brutes waiting around for their next tasks, with some blocking the platform for passengers� These were neat cages on wheels for parcels/newspapers, or other items of non-freight train merchandise � The title derives from British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment and they could be seen littering pretty well any busy station, making it clear how important this sort of traffic was to British Rail at the time.

A quiet summer’s morning at Paddington in 1971 and the empty stock for a down express to Bristol has arrived from Old Oak Common at Platform 2. Putting in a very rare appearance is an ex GWR Director’s saloon (W9005W) looking smart in chocolate and cream livery, attached at what will be the front of the coaching set which is awaiting its locomotive, probably from Westbourne Park layover sidings� The saloon formed part of the Ocean Liner Express trains that ran from Plymouth to London in the 1930s until the Great Depression saw the services suspended and the coaches used on special services. The last Ocean Liner Express ran in 1962, and W9005W was then used as an Inspection Saloon by BR Western Region. The saloon has been restored and is now used on the South Devon Railway.

It is difficult to believe that well into the rail-blue era, the huge Paddington Goods Depot was still despatching trains to the west. Here, in the mid-1970s, a Class 47 Brush Type 4 D1637 (later 47483) makes up its train of fitted vans in the yard adjacent to Royal Oak underground station on the Hammersmith branch. Nowadays the location is part of the Crossrail project, an area of which was also once utilised as a bus depot� After closure to rail services the vast goods shed became a National Carriers Limited road depot before it was finally earmarked for redevelopment and demolished in 1986.

It was very unusual to see a Class 08 350hp shunter at Paddington, so I can only surmise that the booked Brush Type 2 Class 31 pilot has failed or a carriage has gone tick and needs removing to Old Oak Common. The Class 50, 50013, in line with most of its siblings, was later given a name, ‘Agincourt’. Many of the others received names from UK fighting vessels to create a sort of 1980s Warship class. Astonishingly, 21 examples, nearly half the original fleet, are now preserved in one form or another. It is to be hoped that all passengers on incoming services are aware that the place called ‘Paddington’ is the end of the line.

With the almost complete elimination of longer distance locomotive-hauled timetabled passenger trains, except for Northern and Chiltern Railways and the individual franchised railway firms that eradicated the role of an overarching British Rail, spotters are no longer treated to the occasional exciting sight of ‘foreign’ locomotives working off region. A regular ‘foreigner’ during the Winter 1983/4 timetable was a Class 45 Peak on the 13.07pm 1M14 Paddington to Liverpool service. Some time in Summer 1983 (possibly the10th or 24th June) 45131 is waiting to leave London Paddington� Meanwhile, HST power car 43008 (from set 253004) is idling in the adjacent platform� Given I rarely took notes of photographs, its amazing what can be found out from the Internet and social media�

Brush Type 4 Class 47 47500 ‘Great Western’ has charge of the Venice Simplon Orient Express Pullmans making up a special service to the March Cheltenham Gold Cup horse races, some time in the 1980s. The locomotive when built was given the number D1943, but on reception of its Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) identity it also received the nameplate and company crest in February 1979, eventually becoming the region’s pet, being painted GWR green and even having brass cabside number plates attached�

Western Region Passenger Rolling Stock (or not...)

By 1980 I was ensconced in the WR General Manager’s Passenger Rolling Stock department office at Paddington. Open its door to the corridor outside and the complete vista of the platforms and train-shed interior of Paddington were laid out before and below you as we were situated to the side of Platform 1� A downside of all this was that your, erm, cock-ups, could be clearly seen, as a train with the wrong coaches might sit in full view of the General Manager, who occupied offices only two doors down from ours.

My job was to endeavour to ensure that all loco-hauled passenger trains consisted of the correct vehicles, preferably in the right order� We were encouraged to actually go down to the platforms to check on the results of our work and occasionally we were able to experience special trains when they were in one or other of the platforms� In this book you can see the result of that with the Cheltenham Gold Cup special of Orient Express Pullmans although once, with great fanfare, the prototype diesel-powered four-car semi-fast DMU arrived for inspection. In effect it was a 317 or South Western suburban unit, but not powered by electricity. Someone remarked it looked like an early 1900s Manchester to Bury electric unit! We were not impressed. Another time a panic-stricken Passenger Inspector burst in to say that the Queen Mother was on the late morning arrival from Cheltenham and there was no-one to meet her� I am not certain whether she was impressed with my hastily combed hair and tweed jacket, but we got her into her car without too much hassle �

Luckily for me the air-braked Mark 2 sets which provided the lion’s share of the stock for the West Country/Bristol/South Wales services virtually ran themselves and I don’t recall any serious hiccups� I was backed up by fabulous guys at Old Oak Common, Laira and Malago Vale, Bristol, the Foremen of which I spoke to every morning first thing and they reported a complete run down of every passenger vehicle at their location and its status. No computers then, I had to handwrite a report-sheet each day�

The list was vital. If anything in the London Division went tick, you could usually work something out with OOC. The worst occasions were the aforementioned Mark 2D FO with no seats and when, for some reason or other, there seemed to be a defect pandemic breaking out amongst the Sleeping Cars (SLEPs). I remembered in the back of my mind that for week after week Laira reported two ‘spare’ SLEPs, but nobody took much notice until it seemed that there was a UK shortage of them, at least two went tick at the same time�

Sleepers were like Catering Vehicles, we existed on just enough and not more� The latter were continually unavailable at critical moments because Traveller’s Fare wanted to restock or destock or some such nuisance activity� That meant OOC would have to extract the vehicle they wanted from the set it was in, then you had to arrange a trip to bring it to the parcels bay outside the station itself at the end of Platform 1 where the first WR publicity shot of desert-sand Western Diesel Hydraulic D1000 was taken. All so that the passengers could be nourished en route.

So, one day to try and alleviate the SLEP shortage I had the bright idea of retrieving those vehicles from Laira � We ran a daily Empty Coaching Stock (ECS) and parcels train from Plymouth via Bristol that picked up and dropped off anything we at Paddington asked it to, in addition to its normal everyday consist. When the two sleepers arrived at OOC, the shunters were surprised that they contained, from floor to ceiling, spare and used bunks, bedding

and anything connected� It took some time for the ever-dependable staff there to sort them out and make them useable� Another oops moment �

The Cardiff/Portsmouth axis Mark 1 stock situation wobbled from on the brink to a shambles whatever you did, not helped by the fact that Malago Vale sidings were not the easiest of locations to sort stock out in� This was mainly because of its layout, not the staff� Talking of Mark 1s, there would be an almighty rush every Friday to allocate sets to weekend specials and summer timetabled holiday workings. For instance, all the London Division commuter sets had work diagrammed for them, anything from Blackpool Lights excursions to Merrymakers, after their last commuters alighted at Oxford, Didcot or Newbury on a Friday evening. There were many lively discussions at about 17.00pm with Control, who were trying to find locos and men to work them to other regions and retrieve them back on Sunday nights ready to take up where they left off� Occasionally on a Monday morning there would be a tale of woe as an excursion returning to the Eastern Region had stood at Acton Wells Junction for over an hour as a replacement guard had been missed off the incredibly complex temporary weekend re-diagramming�

And so we rolled on, from day to day, ensuring we had plenty of time for relaxation� A non-stop trip to Taunton on the Golden Hind and back one evening after work for beer and checking time-keeping was not unusual whilst being the only passenger on a seven-coach overnight test of Mark 3 Sleepers was plain weird, but all part of the job�