Railways Illustrated magazine - January 2021 preview

BLUE PULLMAN RESURRECTED!

Carl Watson

WALES & BORDERS NATIONALISED

Wikimedia Commons

THE RAILWAY WORLD – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

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CLAYTON EQUIPMENT

Aiming Higher

New for e Futurerton Wolv rks Wo Model Spot

Taunton Cider Traffic

Britain’s Depots – Coalville RHTT 2020 season UK action Salisbury Sojourn – chasing Cromptons Second bailout for Transport for London

GBRf 2021 tour passenger debut for Class 69

JANUARY 2021 £4.80

PLUS

Contents

EDITOR: Mark Nicholls CONTRIBUTORS: Mel Holley, Evan Green-Hughes, Ian Furness, Mark Hare, Al Pulford, Andrew Watts, Alistair Grieve, Colin J Marsden, Paul Biggs, Ian McLean, Bill Pizer, Martin Loader, Gavin Morrison, Pip Dunn, Gordon Kirkby, Paul Shannon and Simon Bendall.

Regular 3 Welcome

32 Steam News

DESIGN: Daniel John Design ART EDITOR: Kelvin Clements PUBLISHER: Tim Hartley PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Dan Savage

6 Headlines

42 Pictorial

10 News

60 From The Front Coach

EDITORIAL ADDRESS RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED magazine, Mortons Media Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ WEBSITE: www.railwaysillustrated.com EMAIL: rieditor@mortons.co.uk

16 Fleet Review

70 Traction Action

22 Heritage News

73 Railwayana

28 What’s Happening To…? 74 Reviews

ADVERTISING Advertising representatives Craig Amess 01507 529537 camess@mortons.co.uk Fiona Leak 01507 529573 fleak@mortons.co.uk Group advertising manager Sue Keily skeily@mortons.co.uk CUSTOMER SERVICES General Queries & Back Issues 01507 529529 Monday-Friday 8.30am-5pm Answerphone 24H help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk MORTONS MEDIA GROUP LTD Sales and distribution manager Carl Smith Marketing manager Charlotte Park Commercial director Nigel Hole ARCHIVE Enquiries Jane Skayman 01507 529423 jskayman@mortons.co.uk Origination and Printing Printed at Acorn Web Offset Ltd, Normanton, UK. Distribution Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 Poultry Avenue, London, EC1A 9PU Enquiries Line: +44 (0)207 429 4000 EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTIONS CONTRIBUTIONS TO this magazine should be clearly typed and ideally sent by email. Photographs, which should be clearly marked with the contributor’s name and address, are submitted at the owner’s risk. Mortons Media Group Ltd cannot be held responsible for loss or damage, however caused. All postal submissions must include an appropriate SAE for the return of all material. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or his staff. © MORTONS Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Advertising deadline December 7, 2020 4 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021

7

FEATURE RHTT 2020 Action

RHTT 2020 Action FEATURE

RHTT 2020

FEATURE Clayton – Building on success

Clayton – Building on success FEATURE

LEFT: To improve adhesion and eliminate contaminated railhead conditions the seasonal RHTT diagrams have been in autumnal action.

In East and West Sussex such workings are formed

by Multi-Purpose Vehicles. In appalling conditions MPVs DR98978 and DR98928 approach Goring by Sea on the Coastway West line with the 0553 Horsham to Horsham via Brighton and Hastings on October 27. (John Vaughan)

Action

Undergoing testing at Wirksworth on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in April 2019, the first of five Clayton CDB90 hybrid locos for Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant. The final two, which were placed as an additional order, are due to be delivered next year.

(Clayton)

BELOW: Colas Class 66s no 66846 and 66850 pass Flax Bourton heading towards Bristol Kingsland Road on October 22 with the 3S59 RHTT diagram during a return trip to Weston-super-Mare.

(Stuart Kirkby)

F

rom a site on an industrial estate in the leafy suburbs of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, Clayton Equipment Ltd supplies locos to customers all over the world. When I visited, virtually every inch of shop floor space was in use and work was being carried out for four separate customers. Narrow gauge mining locos, being assembled for shipping to buyers in Canada and Peru, were dwarfed by one of Tata Steel’s new standard gauge hybrid shunters standing alongside them.

“If you go back in time to, say, six years ago, our business was probably 80% export and 80% mining. Now it’s 80% shunting or hybrid surface rail and 70% UK, so there’s been a big market shift,” explained Clayton’s Managing Director Clive Hannaford. “The first one we really pushed was Tata. Since then the market has just gone exponential and the interest and demand for our product is great. That’s what’s driving things at the moment.” J

BELOW LEFT: DRS Class 57/0 57002 Rail Express, with 57003 on the rear, passes through a very wet Needham Market on October 21, with the 3S60 0900 StowmarketStowmarket via Shenfield.

(Keith Partlow) BELOW RIGHT: Colas Rail Class 56 56087 heads up the Lickey Incline on October 10 powering the 3S32 22:37 Gloucester Horton Road to Cheltenham Lansdown Loop Via Craven Arms, Evesham and Bromsgrove; 56105 is on the rear.

(George Browning) MAIN PICTURE: On a cool autumn October 2 morning DRS Class 37/4 37423 Spirit Of The Lakes powers through Habrough near Grimsby working the 3S13 Wrenthorpe Sidings to Grimsby Town RHTT; 37402 was on the rear.

(Nick Edmonds) RIGHT: DRS Class 37/4 37425 Sir Robert McAlpine/Concrete Bob, with 37422 on the rear, passes through Stowmarket on October 21 with the 6Z86 1605 Dereham to Stowmarket RHTT maintenance run.

(Keith Partlow)

Clayton

A

lthough the pattern of Rail Head Treatment Trains is pretty much unchanged from 2019, the traction used certainly is. Most notable is the absence of Direct Rail Services Class 20s, with the operator standing them down after years of regular use and employing Class 37s instead on the Yorkshire RHTT circuit that the ‘Choppers’ had previously dominated.

In Scotland some additional locohauled sets have been used instead on MPVs, but elsewhere Class 57s, 66s, 73s and even 68s have been pressed into use.

The 37/4 Growlers in particular have been very popular, with DRS having lost the past few years’ passenger turns and also work on Network Rail infrastructure monitoring trains.

We present a pictorial feature of some of the 2020 season’s workings.

38 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021

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38 RHTT 2020 Action

Although best-known amongst enthusiasts for its British Railways Type 1s, Clayton Equipment has a reputation as a global supplier of specialised locomotives.

As Graeme Pickering explains, more staff have been recruited and a bigger factory is planned due to demand for its hybrid machines.

January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 39

46 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021

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Building on success January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 47

46 Clayton - Building on success www.railwaysillustrated.com

MAIN PICTURE: East Midlands Railway Class 180 180111, now in full purple and white livery, pulls away from East Midlands Parkway on October 22 with the 5Z50 0951 Etches Park to Etches Park via Leicester training run.

(Paul Biggs)

THE £100K

CHALLENGE

Robin Leleux details the winners of the 2020 event.

Alex Fisher charts the history of the small depot at Coalville, once a vital part of the BR freight network.

*

Coalville

Background

The Midland Railway took over the line in 1845 and extended it through to Burton upon Trent in 1848. The MR’s three-track building replaced a couple of smaller single-track engine sheds at Coalville in 1890. It was a typical MR design and post nationalisation its allocation consisted mainly of 3Fs and 4Fs, along with a few 8Fs. The shed’s roof was re-clad in corrugated asbestos sheeting by British Railway’s London Midland Region in 1959 and at the time it had 24 resident steam engines.

Coal formed the majority of the shed’s work, along with a modicum of passenger trains that served the line and its intermediate stations. Drakelow Power Station was a real boon to the line and its A and B generators were commissioned in 1955 and 1959/60 respectively. Work on Drakelow C began in 1962 and, after two years of construction, electricity generation began in 1964. With a prodigious amount of coal to be transported, a new but shortlived manual box was opened to control the east and west junctions into the power J

MAIN PICTURE: Class 56s 56052 and large logo 56036 stabled at Coalville on April 17, 1979 alongside Class 47/3 47357. (Rail Photoprints/John Chalcraft)

FOR CAF NEWP ORT

*Closing date May 4, 2020

THE RAILWAY

AD IS DE S FRO Gro FRANCHISCOINNCGESS IONw leMr1 at

WORLD – PAST,

Closing date September 6, 2019

PRESENT AND FUTURE

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APRIL 202

• 37025 Histo ry • Class 37 Land cruise

60

G Prevala iew 2020

Model Spot

A subscription to Cavalex Steel

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Recreating late 1990s

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offers great savings on cover price. See pages 56 and 57 for details.

FRONT COVER: Built by Clayton Equipment Snowdon Mountain Railway hybrid loco No 14 Glaslyn performs a commissioning run up the mountain on August 13, 2020.

(Snowdon Mountain Railway)

Coalville BRITAIN'S DEPOTS

A

WIN! An SVR Driver ExperieDiesel Royal Ope ning nce

PRESENT

76 Nation Rail Heritage Awards

76 Britain’s Depots – Coalville

t the turn of the 20th century the collieries of the Coalville area, which relied upon horse and carts for transportation to Leicester and Swannington, were losing out to those of Nottinghamshire, which came by canal. A railway line was required for which William Stenson, a part owner in a local colliery, surveyed the land between Leicester and Swannington in 1829. With the backing of George Stephenson, the finance was raised and the line opened on July 17, 1832.

Wikimedia Commons/ Hfhs47djadshjd

WORLD – PAST,

strated.com www.railwaysillu

Network Rai

BRITAIN'S DEPOTS Coalville

484S IOW CLASSPE TAKE SHA AND FUTURE

THE RAILWAY

MAY 2020 £4.80

Clayton Equipment has a reputation as a global supplier of specialised locomotives. Graeme Pickering investigates its plans for the future.

ING HELPIDON ALYC

£4.80

46 Clayton – Building on success

David Ratcliffe and Simon Bendall looks back at the Taunton Cider traffic and the latest Heljan Cargowaggon model.

IBE AND R S SC

E AV

A pictorial look at the 2020 Rail Head Treatment Train season.

64 Model Spot – Taunton Cider traffic

NOVEMBER 2020

38 RHTT 2020 Action

SU B

Features

BLUE PULLM AN RESURREC TED!

Carl Watson

WALES & BOR DERS NATIONALI SED

THE RAILWAY

WORLD – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Commons

CLAYTON EQ UIPM Aimin ENT g Higher

New Future for Wolverton Works Model Spot

Thirty years ago, one of BR’s smallest traincrew depots ceased to be. Coalville, on the Leicester to Burton upon Trent line, had been a busy place handling mainly coal trains, but with a declining coal industry and BR becoming ever more business focused in the era of Sectorisation, it was closed on October 1, 1990.

Alex Fisher looks at the BR outpost during its time as a diesel depot.

Taunton Cider Traffic

PLUS

Brit ain’s Dep RHT T 2020 ots – Coa lvill e seas Salisbur y Sojo on UK action urn – chas Seco

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January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 77

76 Britain's Depots - Coalville www.railwaysillustrated.com

JANUARY 2021

£4.80

WHY NOT TAKE OUT A SUBSCRIPTION? ing Crom nd bailout for GBRf 2021 tou Transpor t for ptons London r passenger debut for Cla ss 69

76 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021

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January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 5

PICTORIAL

42 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021

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PICTORIAL Looking the part, complete with standard ‘RHTT grime’ livery and an appropriate ‘50A York Leaf Busters’ headboard, DRS Class 37/4 37423 top and tails the South Yorkshire/ Lincolnshire RHTT diagram with 37407 as it approaches Retford heading for Lincoln on November 3, 2020.

(Nick Green)

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January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 43

ENDOFPREVI EW

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