Railways Illustrated June 2021 - preview

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HERITAGE LINES WELCOME BACK!

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THE RAILWAY WORLD – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

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Back on

Track

• Passenger comeback • Rolling stock turmoil • Rail Tours return

More t Governmen funding for TfL and light rail

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A Caribbean Break - scenic wonder Aire Valley Power Stations story pt2 Britain’s Depots – Welsh stabling points Dutch National Rail Museum

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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.

Contents 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

8 News

56 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

59 Railwayana

22 Heritage News

72 Traction Action

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

28 What’s Happening To…? 74 Reviews FRONT COVER: Locomotive Services’ D6851 (37667) leads D05 Preservation’s 37688 Great Rocks through Totnes on April 4 with the 1Z32 Bristol East Yard to Penzance private charter. (Colin Wallace)

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 May 10th 2021 4 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

FEATURE A Caribbean Break

A Caribbean Break FEATURE

A Caribbean Break

Aire Valley Coal - Part 2 FEATURE

David Staines reports on the fascinating tourist trains that take cruise passengers around St Kitts using part of the old sugar cane network.

T

he coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the UK’s railways, but its effects on the wider travel industry are all the more devastating. International leisure travel is strictly off limits. Armchair travel is the only item on the agenda, so sit back and take a trip to the Caribbean. Not to the idyllic beach scenes familiar from so many stock photos, but to the only original railway in these legendary far away islands still to carry passengers regularly. Welcome to tiny St Kitts & Nevis (smaller than the Isle of Wight and sitting in the chain of islands that make up the eastern Caribbean) for a particularly unconventional trip on the remains of its sugar cane plantation system.

Sugar industry

In the 18th century sugar was one of the most valuable commodities in the world and tiny St Kitts, with 200 such plantations, was claimed to be one of the wealthiest islands in British possession. The railway’s survival is down to two very different events nearly a century apart. First was a decision back in 1912 to create one centralised sugar mill and factory for the entire island at its capital, Basseterre.

In dispensing with a myriad of small scattered privately owned mills a transport system was needed to convey the harvested crop to the factory and this was provided by building the 2’6” gauge railway. This was completed in 1926, with a ‘main line’ running a 30-mile

Aire Valley Coal PART 2

circuit around the entire circumference of the island. Ten transfer sidings were provided for loading cut cane. This economy of scale saw the industry on St Kitts far outlive that of any of its neighbours.

The 1950s saw steam eliminated, with new diesels supplied to the island by Hunslet.

At its busiest the railway worked incredibly hard, delivering 950 loaded wagons to the mill each day utilising a fleet of only 650 wagons. In the face of spiralling losses, antiquated infrastructure and competition from imported sugar beet, the entire industry (by now nationalised) closed at the end of the 2005 harvest. On July 31 that year a flower-garlanded Hunslet No 15 brought the last load of cane into the factory at Basseterre. The island’s main industry in future would be tourism. J

38 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

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38 A Caribbean Break

TOP: Lyd No 2 passes the broken remains of a mill chimney at Belmont siding.

ABOVE: No 2 at Needsmust station.

James Skoyles continues his story of the Aire Valley coal workings and how the industry changed leading up to and just after the Millennium.

LEFT: Lyd No 2 passing La Vallee level crossing.

T

he decade from 1987 to 1997 was one of big change for both British Rail and the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). The Railway had been split into discrete business sectors in 1982: Intercity, Provincial, London and the South East, Mail and Parcels, and Railfreight. In 1987 the

MAIN PICTURE: Lyd No 2 arrives at La Vallee.

(All photos David Staines)

June 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 39

46 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

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sectors were divided again into subsectors and Railfreight was split into Coal, Construction, Petroleum, Metals and Distribution. The Knottingley area came under Railfreight Coal’s portfolio. Each business sector was responsible for its own destiny. It had its own management, planning and operations team and its own

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allocation of locos, wagons, maintenance facilities and train crew depots. Each sector was also under pressure from the Railways board and HM Treasury to eliminate wastage, find efficiencies and deliver an 8% profit on all trains that ran. It was expected that the sub-sectors would have a cash surplus by 1993. J

MAIN PICTURE: Class 60 60059 Samuel Plimsoll rounds the curve at Newton Hall, County Durham, at the head of 6E11 0555 Millerhill Yard to Milford West Sidings MGR.

June 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 47

46 Air Valley Coal part 2 www.railwaysillustrated.com

James Skoyles continues his examination of the Aire Valley Power Stations.

76 SpoorwegmuseumUtrecht

60 Model Spot – Accurascale JSA steel wagons Simon Bendall examines the latest JSA steel wagons from Accurascale.

Yinka Jan Sojinu pays a visit to the Dutch National Railway Museum and discovers a flexible and fascinating collection.

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46 Aire Valley Power Stations pt2

South Wales was once littered with small stabling points, a hark back to steam days and the coal industry, as Alex Fisher discovers.

IBE AND R S SC

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David Staines reports on the tourist trains that take cruise passengers around St Kitts using part of the old sugar cane network.

SU B

66 Britain’s Depots – Welsh Stabling Points

38 A Caribbean Break

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MAIN PICTURE: DB Cargo 66015, still wearing its old EWS livery, passes East Goscote on the Melton Mowbray Line on March 31 while powering the 4M79 0800 Felixstowe South to East Midlands Gateway intermodal.

(Paul Biggs)

SHOC

AXE FOR CLAK SS 442

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HERITAGE LIN ES WELCOME BAC K! WORL

THE RAILWAY

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D – PAST, PRESE NT AND FUTU RE

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Track Back on

BRITAIN'S DEPOTS Stabling Points of South Wales MAIN PICTURE: Aberdare station goods yard and stabling point on September 16, 1979 with stabled Class 37s 37228, 37281 and 37220.

(Rail Photoprints/ Gordon Edgar)

B

ack when escapades of a full weekend of shed bashing were undertaken, the stabling points of the South Wales Valleys were a real adventure.

Whether it was an organised coach tour, or with mates on trains or in cars, it took some determination and organisation to visit many of the smaller stabling points, especially those hidden away on freightonly lines. Many were a hive of activity that saw millions of tons of coal worked from local colliers to the main docks, steel works and power stations of the South Wales coastline. With so many to detail, just a few will be profiled per article over several issues, starting with Aberdare, Rhymney, Dowlais Cae Harris, Aberbeeg and Pontypool.

Aberdare

Aberdare first gained a steam shed in 1846, and while the GWR added three stone buildings, it was a roundhouse dating from November 11, 1907 that was the main building. Post-nationalisation it was coded 88J and by 1950 it had 52 locos allocated to it; by 1959, 49 locos still remained. While it never enjoyed a diesel loco allocation, Class 14s and Cardiff Canton Class 37s were to be seen there from the early 1960s. In the mid-1960s the Class 37s were sharing the dreary, dank and dark environs of the shed with some of South Wales’ last steam locos, a situation that surely did little for their electrical systems and overall condition.

The roundhouse was closed on March 1, 1965 and, for a while, Class 37s would

oints Stabofling P ales South W Stabling Points of South Wales BRITAIN'S DEPOTS

stable outside the three large and imposing gable ends. When demolition came, diesel loco stabling was moved to Aberdare High Level station.

Class 14s were no longer stabling at Aberdare by the late 1960s, but it could still be counted upon to have a couple of Class 08s and four or five Class 37s over a weekend, making a visit for an elusive shunter a worthwhile trip.

April 14, 1969 saw the introduction of stage two of the Cardiff Block Plan, which aimed to re-organise Cardiff Canton’s coal workings to make them more efficient. Aberdare subsequently required just one Class 08 and four Class 37s. While the small outpost clung on into the late 1970s, the Class 08 wasn’t an ever-present feature, and just three Class 37s were regularly to be found there. J

South Wales was once littered with small stabling points, a hark back to steam days and the coal industry, as Alex Fisher discovers.

• Passenger comeback • Rolling sto ck turmoil • Rail Tours return

More Government funding for TfL and light rail

Accurascal e JSAs

Model Spot

PLUS A Cari bbe an Aire Valley Brea k - scen ic won der Pow Brit ain’s Dep er Stat ions stor y pt2 Dutc h Nati ots – Wel sh stab ling ona l Rail Mus poin ts eum

66 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

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66 Welsh Stabling Points www.railwaysillustrated.com

June 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 67

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PICTORIAL Looking very clean and tidy, CrossCountry HST, with 43357 leading, passes Cats Hill Farm crossing on March 30 having just departed Taunton while forming the 1S51 1227 Plymouth to Edinburgh.

(Stephen Ginn)

42 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

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June 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 43

FEATURE A Caribbean Break

n a e b b i r a AC Break David Staines reports on the fascinating tourist trains that take cruise passengers around St Kitts using part of the old sugar cane network.

38 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

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46 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED June 2021

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