The Railway Magazine September 2014

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Contents

September 2014. No. 1,362. Vol 160. A journal of record since 1897

Headline News

On the cover

MAIN IMAGE: ‘Jubilee’ No. 45699 Galatea climbs towards Blea Moor with‘The Waverley’excursion on August 24.

PETER AINSWORTH

INSET 1: A‘yard shunter’with a difference! See p57.

New Class 68 Nos. 68010/011 double-head a test train from Carlisle to Crewe on August 20. GORDON EDGAR

Shortlist for two franchises announced; Fares to rise by 3.5%; Labour to allow public sector to bid for franchises; EU to provide £17million for Irish projects; New owner for Mayflower; Landside derails Swiss train.

INSET 2: Colas Rail Class 60 No. 60087 has become the first of the 100-strong class to carry anything other than BR or EWS/DBS livery. It is seen near Chipping Sodbury, Gloucs. JAMIE SQUIBBS

Track Record The Railway Magazine’s monthly news digest 82 Traction Portfolio

84 Traction Update

Scrapped, sold, renumbered, repainted? Full details here.

86 Freight 88 Network

Investment for Blackpool North; Dawlish repairs continue; Another GN/GE Joint section upgraded.

90 Narrow Gauge

GBRf‘re-power’No. 73962 outside Brush works - see p79.

Palmerston returns to the Ffestiniog; Seven locos and a steam shovel star at Threlkeld; Russell steams at WHHR.

64 Steam & Heritage

92 Metro

Going Underground - steam brings in the crowds; Another bid for J21 lottery cash; East Lancs will not test‘Scotsman’.

72 Steam Portfolio 74 Railtours

West Coast and Network Rail at loggerheads; GWR Railmotor for‘rubbish’branch; Mayflower mainline poser.

79 Traction & Stock

GBRf annouces Class 59 purchase via Facebook; Class 68 teething issues over; FGW unveils new first-class interiors.

95 Classic Traction

Class 14 gathering for 50th anniversary; Rare diesel works on Island line; Vandalised‘Grid’to be restored.

100 World

Rail revival in Cambodia; Veteran diesels haul Hungarian holiday trains; Adler works on DB mainline

102 Operations

News from the train and freight-operating companies.

Regulars 28 Subscriptions Offer 34 Readers’Platform 50 100Years Ago What The RM was reporting 20, 50 and 100 years ago.

54 Multiple Aspects 56 Panorama Our regular showcase for creative railway photography.

60 Reviews 108 Meetings Details of railway society meetings near you.

The Railway Magazine’s audited circulation of 37,853 copies per month makes it by far the

UK’S TOPSELLING RAIL TITLE!

21 All Change

A look at how the railway has changed at Mirfield,Yorkshire.

54 Railways in Parliament

The incongruous combination of a new silver-liveried Class 68 and a ballast train. The sight was seen on August 26 when No. 68011, destined for use with Chiltern Railways, was tested on a Mountsorrel-Crewe Basford Hall working, seen approaching Rugeley Trent Valley station. A further three Class 68s were due for delivery to the UK by the end of August. BOB SWEET

More steam on the Underground - see pages 58 and 71 for additional pictures.

109 Heritage Diary

A comprehensive listing of dates when heritage railways and steam centres will be open.

113 Reader Services 114 Prize Crossword and Where Is It?

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Features

16 The Northern Hub

Paul Bickerdyke explains the major changes taking place around Manchester to improve services and link the city’s two largest stations.

loads, as shown in this selection of bizarre pictures.

36 Once more into the breach

22 British freight today - Metals

To coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Second World War, Keith Farr remembers the Herculean efforts by locos and crew on long, heavy trains in the early 1940s and the effect on performance.

30 Out of Gauge

43 Over Woodhead in the cab of Tommy

Freight expert Paul Shannon takes a close look at the steel traffic running on the network today.

As a common carrier, British Railways was obliged to accept any traffic offered ...including some immense

Christopher Nicholson recalls the unrepeatable day

he was offered a cab ride over Woodhead in LNER-built protoype electric No. 26000.

50 Ten minutes, ten questions

This month, Steven Knight fires the questions at Ian Yeowart, the man who started the open access pathfinder Grand Central.

51 Now lets finish the job!

Gordon Rushton explains the importance of the Ffestiniog Railway’s diamond jubilee appeal to complete the Welsh Highland Railway.

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September 2014 • The Railway Magazine • 5

‘UNITING’ MANCHESTER

THE NORTHERN HUB Work is underway on a huge scheme to increase rail capacity through Manchester and thus improve services right across northern England.

Paul Bickerdyke explains.

O

N February 7, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne unveiled a plaque at Manchester Airport station to signal the start of work on a fourth platform… and to officially launch the £600million ‘Northern Hub’ project.

For a long time, Manchester Victoria was the main station for long-distance services to the east, west and north of the city, while Piccadilly handled those to the south. The two are about a mile apart, however, so the situation has never been ideal for passengers in terms of connections.

Over the years, various schemes and methods have been put forward to provide Manchester with a ‘united’ arrangement by connecting the two stations. One of those, the ‘Picc-Vic’ scheme (see picture at foot of page 17), proposed an underground line, but in the late-1980s it was decided to concentrate all long-distance services at Piccadilly.

In 1988, the Windsor Link opened between the Eccles line and Salford Crescent (which had itself opened only the year before), allowing north/south services to be routed via the through platforms at Piccadilly to and from Preston via Bolton.

The following year, trans-Pennine services – still loco-hauled at the time – were diverted away from Victoria, travelling instead via

Guide Bridge, Piccadilly and Oxford Road.

That left Victoria with only local services to the north of the city – and when the former Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway edifice was rebuilt in the early 1990s, much of its former fine Victorian atmosphere was swept away and replaced by concrete. The new station essentially formed the basement of the Manchester Arena concert venue, the 14 platforms of what had been one of the largest stations in Britain being reduced to just four through lines and two bays.

Extensive track renewal and electrification work is being undertaken in connection with the Northern Hub scheme.

Freightliner’s No. 70013 is at the head of the 6Y09/18.00 Huyton Junction-Crewe Basford Hall ballast train on March 9, in connection with track work at Prescot, on the Huyton Junction-St Helens Central line. DOUG BIRMINGHAM

16 • The Railway Magazine • September 2014

The scheme to make Piccadilly the focus of rail travel in Manchester worked well in pre-Privatisation days, when there were fewer trains and passengers, but during the last 20 years the growing number of inter-city, local and freight services has created a bottleneck – particularly at Piccadilly and on the corridor through Oxford Road.

One of the main problems is the conflicting movements caused by the various trans-Pennine flows. East/west services using Piccadilly have to cross all the main approach tracks to connect the Oxford Road and Guide Bridge lines. Similarly, services between Manchester Airport (which opened in 1993) and the east have to cross over via a reversal in the main terminal platforms. These movements take up valuable train paths and constrain capacity.

Eventually action was needed and the seeds of ‘Northern Hub’ were sown in 2009 as ‘Manchester Hub’. The main idea was to divert through east/west trans-Pennine services back to Victoria and build a new chord near Deansgate station that would allow airport services to use the through platforms at Piccadilly before curving round the west of the city into Victoria.

This completely new section of line – the Ordsall chord – would have the spin-off benefit of joining the two main Manchester stations by rail for the first time in their history. A non-underground alternative to the abandoned ‘Picc-Vic’ scheme, it has since been linked to a wider programme of infrastructure improvements in the region to create the Northern Hub plan.

The increase in the number of trains that

Key to the entire ‘Hub’ scheme is a new chord line at Ordsall enabling trains to run direct between Manchester’s Piccadilly and Victoria stations for the first time – but as this computer graphic shows, it would sever the Manchester Museum of Science & Industry access line unless permission can be granted on appeal for an occasional-use flat crossing.

will use the through lines between Piccadilly and Oxford Road will need two additional platforms to be built alongside Nos. 13 and 14 at Piccadilly. These will be built on a new viaduct over Fairfield Street, while improvement works at Oxford Road will see the station remodelled to handle eight-car trains. These two schemes will allow 14 trains an hour through Manchester compared with the current 10.

Other schemes linked to the hub include electrification of the trans-Pennine route from Liverpool to York, quadrupling of the line through Huyton and Roby (Merseyside), extra platforms at Leeds and Dore & Totley, and reopening of the west-to-north curve at Todmorden to allow through trains from Burnley Manchester Road to Victoria.

The Government gave approval for the funding of the Ordsall chord in March 2011 and for the full hub scheme in July 2012. The chord is central to the whole scheme and the first trains are scheduled to run on it in 2017, with the other works being completed by 2018.

There is, however, a problem with the proposed route of the chord, for it is planned to cut across the rail link into Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) on the level; there being insufficient room to gain elevation for a bridge. This would not only cut off the museum from the outside world in railway terms, but have a deleterious effect on its internal steam shuttle service, which is one of its main attractions.

MOSI and others have lodged objections, saying there are alternative routes for the chord that would retain the museum’s rail

link. One possible solution might be to install a Newark or Porthmadog-style flat crossing – for occasional stock transfer and railtour use only – but the results of the planning inquiry were still awaited as this issue went to press.

Once the works at Piccadilly, Oxford Road and the Ordsall chord are complete, key benefits will include: n Two freight paths per hour into Trafford Park container terminal instead of one. n Two additional fast trains per hour

between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool. n A rise from four to six fast trains an hour between Leeds and Manchester. n Four new direct services an hour through Manchester city centre from Victoria to Manchester Airport. n The potential for direct connections to the airport from other routes such as the Calder Valley Line from Bradford and Halifax.

It is claimed that up to 700 additional trains per day could run, with the capacity for 44million extra passengers a year. There will

An earlier proposed scheme to link the two main Manchester stations: This 1970s artist’s impression shows how underground trains could have looked at a proposed Royal Exchange station. The line was never built; instead a shuttle bus service was introduced between the two stations by Greater Manchester PTE in July 1974, using a fleet of 19-seater Seddon Pennine IV buses.

September 2014 • The Railway Magazine • 17

STEEL TRAINS In the second part of our series reviewing current UK railfreight operations, Paul Shannon examines steel and other forms of metals traffic.

All pictures by the author.

T

HE steel industry produces the right kind of freight for a railway – regular, heavy loads often covering considerable distances – yet a number of plant closures and the fluctuating state of the economy have led to several major traffic losses over the last decade.

The amount of steel moved by Britain’s rail system in the 12 months to March 2014 was 1.77billion tonne-kilometres. That’s well below the typical annual figure of 2.5billion tonne-kilometres achieved a decade ago, but there are hopeful signs as steel manufacturing in the UK has begun to recover and some rail routes are even carrying increased volumes.

The multi-national company Tata Steel Europe is the UK’s biggest steel producer, with integrated steel plants at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe and more specialised operations at another 13 sites. The origins of most of the plants go back to the nationalisation of the industry in 1967 when the British Steel Corporation took over the assets of numerous firms. The BSC was privatised in 1988 to become British Steel plc and 11 years later merged with the Dutch producer Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus plc, which in turn was acquired by Tata Steel in 2007.

Stainless

Other metals customers for UK railfreight include Celsa – which operates the Cardiff complex once owned by Allied Steel & Wire – and Outokumpu, the Finland-based owner of the Tinsley stainless steel plant, which formed part of the British Steel portfolio until the early 1990s.

The steelmaking process at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe begins with the smelting of raw iron in blast furnaces using a cocktail of iron ore, coke and limestone. At Port Talbot, the iron ore is transferred from ships to the steelworks by conveyor belt, so no rail transport is necessary… but the lines around Scunthorpe are a mecca for rail enthusiasts.

Frequent trainloads of imported iron ore run from the port of Immingham, using a fleet of 102-tonne rotary tippler wagons (TOPS code JTA/JUA), which has been in continuous service since the early 1970s. Similar wagons were supplied in the 1970s to deliver iron ore to the steelworks of Ravenscraig, Consett and Llanwern, but were either withdrawn or transferred to aggregates traffic when the iron ore flows to those locations ceased.

The iron ore operation between Immingham and Scunthorpe still looks slick even by 21st century standards: it takes only half an hour to discharge a 2,500-tonne

A classic heavy-steel working: DB Schenker Type 5 No. 66046 approaches Colton Junction, south of York, with 6N31, the 07.40 slab train from Scunthorpe to Lackenby, on August 28, 2012.

trainload and two sets of wagons can cover up to 14 return trips in a 24-hour period. The haulier is DB Schenker and the traction is a mixture of Classes 60 and 66.

The Immingham-Scunthorpe route also carries trainloads of coal for a coking plant at Scunthorpe, as described in Part One of this series (coal traffic). This operation is less intensive than the iron ore trains, but can still amount to six or seven deliveries a day, all hauled by DBS. Sometimes, Scunthorpe receives additional coal from South Wales.

Limestone required by both Scunthorpe and Port Talbot is delivered by road, but Port Talbot is also the destination for two regular train flows of lime, which is used as a flux in the second stage of the steel-making process (i.e. during the conversion of molten iron to liquid steel). One flow comes from Hardendale quarry in Cumbria and the other from

“e lines around Scunthorpe are a mecca for rail enthusiasts”

22 • The Railway Magazine • September 2014

Thrislington, in County Durham. Both flows use containers and both are hauled by DBS. Teesside is the location of the UK’s third integrated steelworks – Redcar – which was mothballed by Tata Steel in 2010 but sold to the Thailand-based company Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) and started producing steel again in 2012. The iron ore for Teesside arrives directly by sea, but the railway carries both limestone and dolomitic lime to Redcar for use at the plant. The limestone originates at Rylstone and is carried in HTA hopper wagons with DBS haulage. The Thrislington lime is moved by Freightliner Heavy Haul, using HIA hopper wagons.

The restructuring of British Steel in the late 1970s resulted in several long-distance flows of semi-finished steel, as the different plants specialised in different stages of the steel-making process. Some of those flows still operate today, hauled by DBS and mostly using the same fleet of bogie flat wagons that was introduced some 40 years ago.

When first built, the fleet comprised two

types: the original 40ft design, coded BAA, and the later 50ft design, coded BBA. Both designs featured corrugated decking to help dissipate the heat from slab or coil that was loaded at a temperature of up to 500°C. Over the years, many BAAs and BBAs have been modified with cradles to carry different configurations of coil.

Those derived from BAAs are coded BCA or BZA, while those derived from BAAs are coded BLA. Many trains convey a mixture of 40ft and 50ft types.

Port Talbot supplies semi-finished slab and hot rolled coil to several destinations. All railborne steel from Port Talbot is tripped by Tata Steel shunters to Margam freight yard, where main line traction takes over. A twice-daily path carries hot rolled coil from Margam to Trostre tinplate works, Saturdays and Sundays included.

Corby tube works, in Northamptonshire, receives a trainload of coil each weekday, with a second daily path available when required.

Hartlepool tube works also receives its coil from Port Talbot, with an evening departure

Class 60s – several refurbished as ‘Super Sixties’ – are back in vogue for DB Schenker heavy-haul duties.

On July 24, No. 60020 approaches East Usk Junction with 6H26, the 15.23 Llanwern-Margam empties, comprising a mixture of BAA and BBA wagons.

September 2014 • The Railway Magazine • 23

Pure atmosphere at Baker Street! It’s 3.30 in the morning of July 31 and 1898 built 0-4-4T ‘Metropolitan 1’ is halted (at the special request of The Railway Magazine) for this remarkable photograph at the 151-year-old Circle/Hammersmith & City Line station with a test train ahead of a series of specials on the Underground. Twenty seconds after this picture was taken, the station had filled with steam, making further photography impossible. PETER ZABEK

58 • The Railway Magazine • September 2014

September 2014 • The Railway Magazine • 59

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