Preview

A Brush Type 2 Class 31 number D5823 (later 31291/31456/31556) heads a loose-coupled freight north through Ashchurch. This is exactly the type of traffic of which British Rail was trying obsessively to rid itself of� At the point where the crossover is visible there were originally two converging branch lines� From the left was a loop line from Barnt Green via Evesham and from the right the line from Malvern Wells that came via Upton upon Severn and Tewkesbury� The locomotive appears to have been involved in some sort of front-end collision given the large dent in the right-hand nose door�

Passengers in this southbound North and West express have just spent a Sunday lunchtime becoming very familiar with the location of the long-closed Bredon station, about two miles north of Ashchurch on the Birmingham-Bristol main line, after their Peak Class 45 failed� Help has arrived in the shape of an English Electric Class 37, presumably from the Gloucester direction on the engineers’ train seen in the far background� Rail ground staff are waiting for the train to cross to the northbound line to pass it by running wrong line � Meanwhile, the theatricals are being enjoyed by a local taking a break from his allotment� The hill on the left takes its name from the village and is Bredon Hill, after which A E Housman wrote his poem On Bredon Hill, after he finished A Shropshire Lad.

With the now closed Ford works in the background a Brush Type 4 Class 47 heads into Leamington Spa with a Birmingham New Street to London Paddington semifast via High Wycombe. These trains, at the time, were of limited load and operated to very tight timings, with speeds often in excess of 90mph required between stops. On the left is one of the long-lived and numerous Birmingham area three-car suburban DMUs waiting to depart, on a stopping train, for the second-city’s Moor Street terminus�

A Brush Type 4 Class 47 heads a varied assortment of freight wagons south through Leamington Spa on one of its centre roads� The loaded bogie Lowmac in the make-up would suggest that it is to be shunted out at Fenny Compton for the Kineton Army Depot, which is also now used to store disused DMUs, EMUs and rollingstock� Leamington Spa station itself has been restored to some of the art-deco glory originally designed by the GWR, in particular the up and down station buffets�

Two Sulzer Type 2 Class 25s pause at the north end of Leamington Spa station� 25 259 seen on the far platform is on a parcels working and is soon to take the branchline to the east towards Coventry and beyond� Classmate 25272 is the leading Class 25 of a pair on a timetabled summer extra which will head to Birmingham New Street and further via Solihull. The loco has a recess in the side of the cab for the fitment of automatic tablet exchange apparatus, as it was allocated from new to 65A Eastfield Glasgow for possible work on the West Highland lines, but that never happened.

Wales

An un-fitted rake of coal hoppers clatters through Cardiff General station on a centre road headed by an English Electric Type 3 Class 37 6988 (later 37288/37427) and watched by a clutch of spotters on the platform. The loco is filthy. So much so that it is difficult to discern the yellow nose. However, the Class 37s were worthy replacements for all the various GWR tank locos when it came to shifting many thousands of loaded and empty four-wheeled open wagons around the valleys and lines of South Wales for the best part of two decades� With the disappearance of vacuum-braked passenger rolling-stock, it was always interesting to check the formation of parcels trains� In the left background can be seen both ex-SR and LM vehicles as part of the consist of just such a working�

A Saturday in the mid-1970s at Cardiff General station and an unusually smart English Electric Type 3 number 6972 (later 37272/37431) trundles empty coal hoppers along the up through centre road, probably returning from Aberthaw, using the triangular junction behind Canton MPD. These locos were numerous in South Wales for many years and as ubiquitous as their predecessors, the 56XX 0-6-2 tank engines. As always, a number of empty Brutes clutter up the platform in the background. Sometimes these left little room for passengers to make their way to their trains�

This is another scene where, if it wasn’t for a diesel loco, the shot could have been taken in steam days, with a fine array of GW drop-arm semaphores on view. One of the very competent, South Wales English Electric Type 3 Class 37s (possibly 37 217) negotiates the trackwork approaching Radyr station, prior to heading off up the valley towards Pontypridd�

Whilst an 08 350hp shunter forms an engineer’s train in the yard, a light English Electric Type 3 Class 37 comes off the Radyr loco stabling point and heads off up the valley� Behind the two locos, the line to the left runs directly to Cardiff Queen Street station whilst that to the right also goes to Cardiff, but it is freight only and, once there, becomes the avoiding line behind Canton depot, 86A, to give access to the Barry line or ahead towards Newport�

For the bobby, it’s all happening one lunchtime at Radyr as two English Electric Type 3 Class 37 workhorses (37225 is seen on the left) of the Welsh Valleys are brought to a stand, ready for the road� On the right, the secondman is on the phone probably making clear the fact that he considers he has priority over the sibling machine on the left and could someone do something about it asap�

During a Branch Line Society tour of South Wales, the DMU formation stops at Alexandra Dock Junction, Newport for the crew to change ends and reverse. Although it looks like imminent disaster might occur with the Class 08 just ahead, it was a Saturday and the latter was shut down and stabled� The then vast site of Newport Docks is clearly visible on the horizon.

From the BLS DMU heading from Park Junction, Newport further up the valley towards Ebbw Vale, we can see two Sulzer Type 2 Class 25s (led by 5181 - later 25031) setting out from Ebbw Junction towards Bassaleg Junction and Newport station and the east with a long train of empty loose-coupled hopper wagons� The sheer scale of British Rail’s continued involvement with loose-coupled wagons can be seen by the number in service in the docks sidings in the background and this was in the 1970s, by which time there had been a considerable reduction in industrial activity in South Wales�