BR Times 1 - Full

BR TIMES ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

THE HISTORY PERIODICAL FOR STUDENTS AND ENTHUSIASTS OF THE BRITISH RAIL ERA

BR TIMES JULY 2025

ISSUE 1

Contents Introduction

3

Auld Reekie to Dear Green Place: Scotland's Glasgow to Edinburgh Route, Part 1 - The DMUs

4 - 11

BR's Most Successful Type 3 - Pip Dunn

12 - 19

The Cans that Could: Class 86s on the West Coast Mainline

20 - 23

Goyles of Many Colours: The Liveries of the Class 31

24 - 29

A Crooked View: Observations of Trains Through Chesterfield in the Late 1980s

30 - 35

The Diesels of Penzance: Penzance Diesel Depot

36 - 41

Heading up West: Activity at Aller Junction

42 - 43

The Trunking Controller: A Personal Account of Freightliners from Southampton - Richard James

44 - 51

The Final Whistle: The First and Last Withdrawals of the Class 40s Part 1

52 - 57

Deltic Delights: The Life of 55002

58 - 59

Powering a Nation - BR's Merry Go Round Operations: Part 1 - The Impetus to Build

60 - 69

Getting the Boot: The Market Harborough to Northampton Line

70 - 79

Your Comments

80

1

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

▲ 45016 heading a freightliner service at Lockleaze Road on 6 June 1979. (Arthur Turner) Front Cover: 31309 is seen at Bedford, on 16 May 1987, with larger than normal cabside numbers and is named Cricklewood. The loco had been named earlier in the month as a tribute to the staff at the Cricklewood depot as it was the last to receive maintenance at the north London depot before it ceased its association with locomotives. The name was carried until 1990, with the locomotive being withdrawn the following year.

(John Tolson) Rear Cover: 26001 and 26004 with an MGR train passing through Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh on 18 April 1979. The use of MGR hooded wagons was almost unique to Scotland. (Arthur Turner)

© Images and design: The Transport Treasury 2025. Text: Alex Fisher ISBN: 978-1-917776-12-7 First published in 2025 by Transport Treasury Publishing Ltd., 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe HP13 7PJ The copyright holders hereby give notice that all rights to this work are reserved.

Aside from brief passages for the purpose of review, no part of this work may be reproduced, copied by electronic or other means, or otherwise stored in any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the Publisher. This includes the illustrations herein which shall remain the copyright of the copyright holder.

Copies of many of the images in BR Times are available for purchase/download. In addition the Transport Treasury Archive contains tens of thousands of other UK, Irish and some European railway photographs. www.ttpublishing.co.uk or for enquiries and contributions email: BRtimeseditorial@gmail.com phone: (01494) 708939 Printed by Short Run Press, Bittern Road, Sowton Industrial Estate, Exeter, EX2 7LW.

2

INTRODUCTION

Introduction H

ello and welcome to our first issue of ‘BR Times’, the new history periodical for students of the British Rail era.

As a rail enthusiast of 40 years and a railwayman now in my third decade of service, I have a deep appreciation for the British Rail era. I grew up in Westhouses, an innocuous Derbyshire village which owes its existence to the Midland Railway. They built an engine shed and rows of employee inhabited terraced houses, each on a street named after a director of the Midland Railway. They even built the school where I went as a child.

Westhouses, much like 'BR Times', is a microcosm of interest to the railway enthusiast, the modeller and the social historian.

Unlike the existing Times series, 'BR Times' will cover the epoch roughly spanning 1965 to 1997.

During that time BR undertook an immense amount of change.

Steam was usurped by diesel and electric locomotives, lines were closed and DMUs and EMUs of the modernisation plan proliferated. The corporate image became omnipresent and with the HST, BR decreed that this was, ‘the age of the train’. Against this backdrop, we will examine its everyday activities through carefully chosen pictures and illustrated articles pertaining to the three decades and five regions of BR. Additionally, as I am also inquisitive and questioning of the esteem in which it is held, we will also be asking, was BR really as bad as many remember and do we give it the credit it really deserves for its many successes?

Over this and future issues we will look at a range of areas and aspects of BR. There were the great successes of: electrification, Speedlink, the Gatwick Express and of course the HST. There were however the less appealing points such as the basic railway concept and the failure of the APT program. You also may have an area of interest in BR and a story to tell. Thus, we welcome your contributions to the future issues of 'BR Times' and especially your feedback and comments on our first instalment.

In our first issue of 'BR Times' we have sought to cover a balanced range of BR related topics and as coal was the catalyst for the railway’s rapid growth, it is fitting therefore that it is examined here in part one of our look at the merry go round coal network. Observing a diverse range of trains in action was a great pleasure for many and here we will see a spread of pictures from the 1980s of services through Chesterfield.

Also included is a sample log of the immense variety of services BR were operating at the time. While not on the scale of the Beeching era, BR closed a number of lines. One such route was that between Market Harborough and Northampton on the London Midland Region.

We take a look at the line to depict its signal boxes and its workings through to closure.

Depot visits were enjoyed by many enthusiasts, especially those epic trips involving long, often overnight, excursions to multiple depots. We begin our

3

look at BR’s depots with its farthest flung establishment, that at Long Rock, Penzance. From its Warships and Westerns to its Peaks and HSTs, the depot went from a steam shed hovel to a modern marvel. In Scotland we look at the Glasgow to Edinburgh route and its motive power. In part one we look at its early adoption of the DMU followed in part two with a look at their unique push pull sets powered by top and tailed Class 27s and in part three, the Class 47s with their Driving Van Trailers. Pip Dunn takes a look at the life one of BR’s most successful locomotives, the Class 37 and their many sub Classes and variations. David James gives us a personal insight into his time at the Southampton Maritime facility and how containers were transported from there across the country. The Class 40s were held in high regard by many enthusiasts and over two parts we consider their withdrawals and how they fared in their final years.

Alex Fisher - Editor

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

Auld Reekie to Dear Green Place

Scotland’s Edinburgh to Glasgow Route, Part 1 - The DMUs

▲ Shortly before the end of Class 126 DMU operation, a set is seen passing Haymarket on an Edinburgh to Glasgow InterCity Service sometime in April 1971. In the far distance are the spires of The Cathedral Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, commonly known as St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Behind the running lines are coal wagons serving the staithes of Bruce Lindsay Waldie coal yard. Note the proliferation of bags for domestic coal deliveries. (TOPticl)

B

ritish Rail’s services between Scotland’s capital and its second city, never quite attained the true InterCity status that they really ought to have done. The Scottish Region (ScR) however certainly regarded them as its premier service and it went to some inventive lengths to ensure that trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow were the best that it could provide with the limited equipment at its disposal. Over a series of three articles we will look in part one at the DMU

era, part two will examine the Class 27 top and tail services and finally part three will analyse the Class 47s and their driving van trailer operated trains.

As Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh was its administrative and cultural centre. Some 47.25 miles to the west, was Glasgow, its main commercial and trading conurbation. In linking Scotland’s two largest cities, the route enjoyed patronage from business travellers, who made great use of the first-class facilities and

4

standard class passengers who used the trains for commuting, shopping, sporting events, tourism, and holidaying.

Thus, with heavy and wellbalanced passenger traffic between the two, the LNER had been operating an hourly service, on a regular departure pattern as far back as the 1930s.

Come nationalisation, British Railways were also keen to see the route’s services improved and even more patronage attracted. At the

AULD REEKIE TO DEAR GREEN PLACE: SCOTLAND’S EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW ROUTE, PART 1 - THE DMUS

start of the route from Glasgow Queen Street was a climb at roughly 1:45 for just over a mile.

At its maximum it was 1:41, and it meant that departing trains required a banker. Once clear of Cowlairs, there was a short 1:600 gradient near Polmont but overall nothing greater than 1:880 on a near level and straight run for almost 45 miles towards Edinburgh.

The British Transport Commission report of 1952 identified the route as an early candidate for dieselisation.

As this was too soon for a readily available mainline diesel loco, BR’s Swindon Works were chosen to design and build a diesel multiple unit (DMU) to express standards.

Swindon Works built 64 vehicles which would later be classified as Class 126 under TOPS. There were 46 vehicles for the ScR and 18 for the Western Region. In 1955 the cost of the ScR units was estimated to be around £650,000. It was noted however in 1961 that the actual cost had nearly doubled to £1.284M. Of the 46 vehicles for the ScR, 31 were motor vehicles and 15 were unpowered trailers. All were “White Circle” coupling code but were otherwise conventional sets with two 150hp AEC-BUT engines per powered vehicle.

At first, they were designated as ‘Inter-urban’ but soon gained the title of ‘Inter-City’ well before the title was used for main line express services.

In common with the then ‘Standard’ passenger vehicle, the MkI coach, the DMU vehicles were of an all steel design with Pullman gangways and buckeye couplings. Interestingly, as the steam trains they were replacing

included a restaurant car, it was decided to include a buffet car in the new unit’s design.

As the units were intended to be three car units which could be joined to form six-car sets, somewhat oddly, there were two different front-end designs for the powered vehicles. The driving/motor vehicles were given the 79083-79111 number range with 79091-94/96-111, as Leading Motor Second Brakes (LMSB) having a full width driving cabs, with no end corridor connections and the others, 79083-90/5, having a half cab design as Intermediate Motor Brake Seconds (IMBS). The full width driving cab was a stylish looking affair, while the half cab design, was far from pretty.

The inclusion of the full central gangway connection at least meant that the sets could run either as an independent threecar unit or as would later be the norm, a six-car set with public access throughout. The gangway

fitted driving vehicles had a basic illuminated box, for a single character display, mounted either side of the gangway to show either A, B or C, but later 1, 2 or 3.

The full width driving cab had only a single such stencil. Overall, the difference between the two cab designs was only the front few inches and behind them both was a Guard’s/luggage area, 52 second Class seats and two water closets.

The first vehicles for the ScR worked north via the Waverley route during mid to late August 1956. Initially at least, they were allocated to St Margarets (64A), but when Leith Central was given over to diesel servicing and gained its own depot code of 64H, they were reallocated there.

Examples of the new units were available for inspection at Queen Street and Waverley on Friday 4 January 1957 and they commenced public services on Monday 7 January 1957.

With 45 years of railway service

▲ Grounded 'white circle' Swindon built 'Intercity' ex Scottish Region DMU cars No SC79105

and SC79109 stand at Mayer Newman's Scrapyard, Snailwell, Cambridgeshire on a snowy 29 November 1980. (Martyn Hilbert)

5

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

to his name, 63-year-old Driver John McPherson was in charge of the first service, the six-car 08:00 departure which was about two thirds full and carrying near 200 passengers. A reporter for the Glasgow Herald newspaper was there for the first service train and he remarked that, “with a staccato blare on its two-tone horn” “it glided smoothly out of Queen Street Station”. The DMU had soon attained an assured speed which steadily increased during the five minutes it took to climb the 1:45 gradient to Cowlairs. A time which was a minute less than its banker assisted steam forbearer was scheduled.

The route had nine notable permanent speed restrictions varying from 15 to 60mph.

The refuges for permanent way staff inside Falkirk and Winchburgh tunnels meant that they were restricted to 60mph while several viaducts, numerous incidents of subsidence due to colliery workings along with two speed-restricted junctions at Falkirk Grahamston also impeded full linespeed. Nevertheless, while they were restricted to only 75mph, for their time, the DMUs offered excellent

performance thanks to their relatively good power to weight ratio.

Upon reaching Waverley, at 09:00, driver McPherson certainly had no complaints about the DMU’s performance and was also considerably less taxed than he previously was with the open cab of a steam locomotive and the harshness of a Scottish winter.

With only two six-car sets and three two-car sets available, all without buffet, they formed only six services each way per day, the rest of the services, to a near half hourly timetable, were provided by steam locomotives.

The latter covered the 47.25-mile route in 55 minutes. The DMUs however were being eased into their new workings. They were taking exactly one hour and the two-car sets were undertaking just one return trip per day.

Together, the six DMU trains and existing steam workings offered 23 express services from Edinburgh, 24 on Fridays, and 22 from Glasgow.

While many of the trains started at hourly intervals, on the hour, it was not possible to introduce a full regular interval service due to the disparity in performance

DMU Operated Services in January 1957 Westbound services

Eastbound services

Edinburgh Waverly

Glasgow Queen Street

Glasgow Queen Street

Edinburgh Waverly

08:30

09:30

08:00

09:00

09:30

10:30

11:30

12:30

14:00

15:00

12:30

13:30

16:30

17:30

16:50

17:50

19:30

20:30

19:30

20:30

23:00

00:07

22:00

23:00

6

between the steam trains and the DMUs; the latter kept for the time being due to them carrying through Anglo-Scottish connections.

The first two buffet cars weren’t available until February 1957, followed by three more, which were operational from 15 April 1957, and were inserted into the formations and were operational from 15 April 1957.

Later, the buffet car was available on all trains except for the 19:30 from Glasgow to Edinburgh and the 23:00 return as they were three-car turns. The buffet cars served snacks and refreshments with an attendant also offering trays with pastries, bread and butter, cakes, toasted tea cakes, tea and even toast. Also noted was that from Sunday 6 September 1957, a regular Sunday service of six buffet car trains in each direction was being offered.

In June 1956 some 162,516 passengers were carried between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but with the new DMU service in place, that figure had increased by 27,717, up 17%, to 190,233 in June 1957.

Passenger receipts had also increased by £5,268, an increase of 20.71%, from £25,438 to £30,706. These impressive figures had been achieved despite only six DMU worked services running in each direction before the additional DMU services from 17 June. Increases of above 30% may well have been recorded had the full service operated from the beginning of June.

Mr G. Smith, the Queen Street Stationmaster, noted that Sunday traffic in particular had substantially increased between the two cities. He also commented that the DMUs were the station’s “salvation” and that

AULD REEKIE TO DEAR GREEN PLACE: SCOTLAND’S EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW ROUTE, PART 1 - THE DMUS

he looked forward to the eradication of steam.

He especially appreciated the swift turnaround times that a DMU afforded as they were often able to detrain passengers, entrain a fresh cohort and depart well before a steam train was ready for its next service. Over at Edinburgh, Mr. T Arnott, the Edinburgh Waverley Stationmaster, noted that businessmen were questioning whether to drive or take the train thanks to the latter’s reliability and comfort.

At the end of July were the Glasgow Fair holidays, a time when factories would close so local families could enjoy a holiday, many of whom would travel by train to resort towns along the Clyde and on the west coast with Rothesay, Dunoon and Largs among the most popular.

By the summer of 1957 it was often impossible, except in first class, to get a seat at Falkirk, on a weekend. In all, over their firstyear revenue on the route increased by 28% thanks to an

additional 700,000 passengers being carried. Increases of a further 5% and 8% were recorded in the following two years.

Between 1957 and 1970 growth averaged 7% per annum, a figure which was double the InterCity average. Market share over its first ten years had grown from 42% to 59% and with 80% of the journeys being end to end, the service enjoyed a good flow balance between the two cities

▲ Passing Princes Street Gardens is a Class 126 on 27 March 1971. (TOPticl)

with total passenger journeys second only to those between Brighton and London.

Some early pictures of the DMUs show them running as two three-car sets of: power car (PC), centre car (CC) and PC, without a buffet car (BC), as opposed to one six-car set of: PC, PC, CC, BC, PC, PC layout, that they would later run as.

▲ A westbound Class 126 DMU heads for Glasgow Queen Street near Saughton Junction in June

1958. The junction is to the west of Edinburgh and sees the line for the Forth Bridge and the north of Scotland diverge from the mains lines to Glasgow. At this point the line was quadruple track to Edinburgh and was controlled at the junction by the 1894 built signal box. The box lasted until 1975 when Haymarket power box took over the area. (Transport Treasury)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

DMU Worked Services from 17 June 1957 Eastbound services

Westbound services

Set No

Stops

GQS Dep

EW Arr

Set No

Stops

EW Dep

GQS Arr

2

8

06:30

08:03

1

9

06:00 SX

08:19

4

5

07:30 SX

08:45

5

4

06:30

07:38

5

2

08:00

09:03

1

4

07:40 SO

08:51

1

3

09:00 SX

10:07

2

3

08:15

09:21

1

1

09:30 SO

10:30

6

1

08:30

09:28

2

3

10:00

11:08

5

1

09:30

10:28

6

4

10:30

11:36

4

2

10:00 SX

11:50

5

1

11:30

12:27

1

2

11:00

12:04

1

1

12:30

13:27

2

1

11:25

12:24

2

2

13:00

14:00

6

1

12:00

12:58

6

2

13:30

14:31

5

1

13:00

13:58

5

2

14:30

15:30

1

1

14:00

14:58

1

2

15:30

16:30

6

2

15:00

16:10

6

1

16:52

17:49

5

1

16:00

16:59

4

3

17:00

18:00

2

1

16:30

17:28

5

4

18:00

19:14

6

4

18:00

19:00

2

3

18:30

19:37

4

1

19:00

19:58

6

1

19:30

20:27

2

9

20:30

21:51

4

2

20:30

21:30

3

4

22:20

23:27

2

5

22:15

23:23

1

1

23:00

00:08

Sunday Eastbound Services

Sunday Westbound Services

Set No

Stops

GQS Dep

EW Arr

Set No

Stops

EW Dep

GQS Arr

3

3

09:00

10:22

4

3

09:00

10:21

4

3

11:00

12:21

3

3

11:00

12:26

3

3

13:00

14:22

4

3

13:00

14:28

4

3

16:00

17:52

4

3

18:00

19:28

4

0

19:50

21:00

3

3

18:40

20:40

3

3

21:00

22:27

4

3

21:40

23:04

8

AULD REEKIE TO DEAR GREEN PLACE: SCOTLAND’S EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW ROUTE, PART 1 - THE DMUS

Three more steam services were dispensed with on 23 June 1958. From Edinburgh they were the: 07:35, 10:00 and 16:35 departures along with the 08:30, 12:10 and 16:40 departures from Glasgow. Come the start of July 1958, other than through services from England, only eight weekday steam services between Glasgow and Edinburgh were still operating.

In 1961 the enthusiast magazine, Trains Illustrated, undertook a review of BR’s trains which were running at an average speed of above 60mph from start to stop. The Edinburgh to Glasgow featured strongly thanks to the DMU’s 75mph top speed and stretches of continued running at 70mph. Ten services featured portions of over 60mph and they were: • Haymarket to Dullatur 33.25 miles in 33 minutes at 60.5mph (11:04 service) • Falkirk to Lenzie, 15.5 miles in 15 minutes, 62mph average (five services) • Polmont to Lenzie, 18.65 miles in 18 minutes, 62.2mph average (19:31 service) • Lenzie to Falkirk, 15.5 miles in 15 minutes, 62mph average (three services) In 1962 there were 12 portions of the Edinburgh to Glasgow services averaging over 60mph and they were: • Croy to Falkirk High, 10.3 miles in 10 minutes, averaging 61.8mph (two services) • Falkirk High to Croy, 10.3 miles in 10 minutes, averaging 61.8mph (19:04 service) • Falkirk High to Lenzie, 15.5 miles in 15 minutes, averaging 62mph (four services) • Lenzie to Falkirk High, 15.5 miles in 15 minutes, averaging 62mph (two services)

Remaining Steam Worked Services In July 1958 Ex Edinburgh at:

Ex Glasgow at:

04:05

12:10 (SO)

05:43

17:35

10:00 (SO)

20:00

12:15 (SO)

21:30

17:15 17:54 20:30 • Polmont to Lenzie, 18.65 miles in 18 minutes averaging 62.2mph (10:28 and 19:41 services) • Haymarket to Dullatur, 33.25 miles in 33 minutes averaging 60.5mph (11.04 service) Thanks to an increased frequency and regular interval departures the DMUs were a vast improvement over the steam locomotive hauled services that they replaced. The double shifted bankers at Glasgow were no longer required and nor were shunting staff at the terminus stations to affect uncoupling and recoupling of locomotives running around their stock. Passengers numbers were substantially increased and overall, the introduction of DMUs had been an unqualified success.

Nevertheless, the units soon fell from favour with the paying public.

The unpowered first-class coaches were very steady, but when compared to diesel locomotive hauled coaching stock, the vibration in some of the second-class vehicles was very bad. Overall, they were noisy, smoky and their heating system was referred to by passengers as ‘on board furnaces’ which often made sitting in them uncomfortably hot. Finally, given journeys upon

9

the trains were an hour at most, end to end, the buffet facilities eventually became a loss-making extravagance due to the amount of space they took up and the associated staffing cost.

Compounding BR’s issues with the units were the late 1950s plans for a 60-mile M8 Motorway. The road was designed to replace the A8, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, as part of Britain’s core motorway network as a highcapacity alternative to intercity travel. The first sections of the M8 opened in 1965 and at this time, the 70mph DMUs were taking 56 minutes westbound and 55 minutes eastbound with calls at Falkirk High and Haymarket only, or calling at Lenzie, Croy, Falkirk Grahamston, Polmont, Linlithgow and Haymarket in 70-71 minutes.

The road became extremely popular with commuters, but naturally lead to traffic jams and delays. Consequently, BR capitalised upon driver’s disdain for the road with an advertising campaign slogan of “I hate the A8”. BR implored the drivers to leave their car at home and encouraged the passengers to partake in a glass of whiskey as a perk to shunning the car and taking the train.

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

▼ Grounded 'white circle' Swindon built 'Intercity' ex Scottish Region DMU

cars No SC79105 and SC79109 stand at Mayer Newman Scrapyard, Snailwell, Cambridgeshire on a snowy 29 November 1980. (Martyn Hilbert)

10

AULD REEKIE TO DEAR GREEN PLACE: SCOTLAND’S EDINBURGH TO GLASGOW ROUTE, PART 1 - THE DMUS

An interesting footnote in the history of these DMUs was their ability to carry consignments.

Heavy mail traffic carried between Edinburgh and Glasgow along with mail for Falkirk and the areas around Stirling and Grangemouth. The manual loading and unloading of sacks often delayed departure, but the DMUs were quite capable of making up the lost time. More valuable items were carried by the 15:00 service from Edinburgh which was known as the ‘Bullion Train’. Not wishing to draw too much attention to themselves were Police officers and two Post Office officials who would guard a specially constructed safe which would be safely ensconced inside the locked guard’s compartment.

The overall reliability of the units was quite good. The type’s first recorded failure came on 9 January 1957 when a threecar set forming the 19:30 from Glasgow Queen Street failed completely. Overall, failures were rare and in a 1961 review of BR’s DMU performance, the Class 126s, at 2,036 miles, were achieving the highest weekly mileage of any sets in the review. While fuel consumption was higher than expected, it was a testament to BR’s Swindon Works that they were achieving 88% availability, a figure higher than many of the DMU designs which came later.

The ScR was aiming for a 45min schedule with two intermediate stops and in 1965 some consideration was given to either uprating or replacing the power units. This proposal came to nought, but there were some small service improvements in 1966 with the DMUs then scheduled to take 56 minutes westbound, calling at Falkirk

11

High and Haymarket only and 55 min eastbound. Services with additional stops at: Lenzie, Croy, Falkirk Grahamston, Polmont, Linlithgow and Haymarket were taking 70-71 minutes. Finally, as part of its drive to increase the line speed and ride quality, 75% of the route had been re-laid with continuous welded rail and the ScR board was assured that the rest would be completed by the end of 1967.

After ten years intensive use, several fires and failures at the start of 1967 led to a serious shortage of replacement engines for the DMUs. Locomotive haulage returned to the route and everything from EE Type 1s (Class 20) to Finsbury Park Brush Type 4s (Class 47s) were pressed into service.

At this time the DMUs were ten years old and with a 75mph maximum speed, they were beginning to fall below the standard of what was expected from InterCity comfort levels.

Compounding the failures was the growing competition from the private car and bus operators applying for 70mph express licenses. With public appreciation of the units having fallen and the imminent improvements in the competing road, the ScR needed to improve the service between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Part two of our look at the Glasgow to Edinburgh services will focus upon the DMU’s demise and the innovative use of Class 27 diesel locomotives in a unique push/pull operation top and tailing MkII coaches.

The third and final part will look at the use of Class 47s and the driving van trailer operation.

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

BR's Most Successful Type 3 Pip Dunn

▼ Looking somewhat naked in its original livery of BR Green with no yellow warning panel is D6714 at Stratford MPD in the earliest days of the Class. (TOPticl)

Probably the most successful diesel type ever to run in the UK, the Class 37s celebrate 65 years of continuous operation.

Pip Dunn looks at their lives up to the privatisation era.

Value for money

T

he Modernisation plan of 1955 led to lots of different designs of diesel locos, some more successful than others. Some types won small, conservative, repeat orders, but others won several repeat orders and the EE Type 1, BR/Sulzer Type 2, BRCW Type 2, EE Type 4 and BR/Sulzer Type 4s were all successes.

While these extra production runs were being manufactured, the major loco builders were already devising new and improved locos. In amongst those was English Electric’s Type 3. This used a new 12 cylinder engine – so sat in between the 8-cylinder engine used in the Type 1s and the 16-cylinder units used in the Type 4s.

The 12CSVT generated 1,750hp and gave British Railways a competent locomotive that could work the majority of trains solo, but could also be used in multiple for heavier duties.

With a top speed of 90mph, a steam heating boiler and a low

12

Route Availability classification of 5, it was the new standard go anywhere Type 3 design which would prove to be an undisputed success, so much so that 65 years on, several are still in traffic with main line operators today.

Build batches

B

etween 1960 and 1965 EE built 309 of the Co-Co EE Type 3 which were numbered D6700 to D6999, with the last nine locos numbered D6600-08. They were built by EE’s Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows and the Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns

BR'S MOST SUCCESSFUL TYPE 3 - PIP DUNN

(RSH) site at Darlington. ▼ The May 1963 built D6825 is seen at Doncaster Works. The gleaming The former built 242 locos, those loco is in a new condition. (TOPticl) numbered: D6700-68, D6796-6818/29-58/69-78, D68996999 and D6600-08 while the latter built 67 locos numbered D6769-95, D6819-28/59-68/79-98.

There were three types of Class 37s – D6700-6818 series 1, D6819-6957 were series 2 and D6958-99 and D6600-08 were series 3 – the latter had a revised wiring bringing better reliability.

The first 30 locos were sent to East Anglian depots for freight, express and local passenger trains. D6700-04/09-20/25to Hull Dairycoates (50B), mostly At D6819, the communication 29 were new to 30A, Stratford, for freight work, and were joined doors were done away with and D6705/07/23/24 to March (31B)

by D6779-83. centre single piece headcode and D6706/08/21/22 to Norwich panels fitted and 180 of these (32A). The Class had a cab design Sent to 41A, Darnall, in Sheffield, were D6742-51/96-99, D6800were sent to the Western Region similar to that used on the Type 18, and later joined by centrewith Cardiff Canton (86A) taking 4 Class 40 and Class 23 'Baby D6819-36/38-51/57/59/60/68Deltic', with a nose which housed panel D6959-68 by which time all 41A locos were based at the 72/74-79/81-83/89/99equipment like traction motor new Tinsley depot. Thornaby, 904/14/19/20/37/38/43-58/69blowers. Like the Class 40 these 51L, was given D6752-78 while 82/84-99, 6600/02 and Swansea locos featured four-character nearby Gateshead (52A) saw Landore (87E) took D6837/52headcode panels split into two D6784-95 delivered to it.

56/58/61-65/69/70/73/80/83boxes either side of nose end The NER locos were used almost 88/90-98, 6905-13/15-18/21-36 communication doors.

6601/03-08 while four locos, The next batch, D6730-41, went exclusively on freight work.

D6939-42, were delivered new to Worcester (85A), but only lasted a month based there before moving to Canton. They were predominantly used on coal trains in the Welsh valleys, but also worked passenger trains into South West Wales and a host of other freight duties.

◀ In an innovative move by the Scottish

Region, they combined freight services with passenger services and as seen here, 37422 is shunting out two full oil wagons and three empties at Fort William before continuing with the 18.50 passenger service to Mallaig on 12 August 1986. (William Sharman)

13

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

Transfers and Withdrawals

T

he final Class 37 was delivered to the Western Region on 9 November 1965.

The full complement of 242 locomotives lasted only a month however before D6983 became the first withdrawal.

It was written off in a collision with D1671 Thor at Bridgend on December 16 1965, when the locomotive was just seven months old.

In August 1966 D6837-57 were transferred to Scotland, first to 64B, Haymarket, though soon moved over to Eastfield (65A) within a couple of years. These were freight locos, with no boilers, although in 1971 a few were used on the EdinburghGlasgow push-pull trains and they also worked some holiday extras in the summer.

Main reallocations of Class 37s in the 1960s were the Hull locos transferring to Healey Mills, in Wakefield, from October 1969 but most of the split box locos moved between depots across the Eastern Region (the NER being part of the ER from 1967), especially when locos had their boilers removed. Immingham gained its first Class 37s in 1972, many coming from the Western Region, which also lost some locos to Tinsley, Gateshead, Hull and Thornaby.

In 1973/74 the locos were renumbered under the TOPS scheme. This was fairly straightforward with D6701999 becoming 37001-299, the exceptions were D6700 which became 37119, and D6819 became 37283. This was to keep the split box locos numerically together as one block and to do the same for the centre panel locos, D6819 was able to take the

▲ The large logo livery was a firm favourite for many and it is seen here adorning 37431 on 4

August 1987. Earlier that day the loco had taken over 1V54, at Bristol Temple Meads, the 10:10 Portsmouth Harbour to Swansea service. It worked to its destination and then worked 1O46, the 16:05 Swansea to Portsmouth service, on which it is seen here passing though Lockleaze Foot.

It came off the service at Bristol Temple Meads and was put onto 1V79, the 16:10 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central service, which it worked through to the Welsh capital. The loco performed similar duties for the rest of the week notably on, 1O40, 1V54, 1O46 and 1V79.

(Arthur Turner)

vacant 37283 as D6983 had been scrapped. D6600-08 became 37300-308.

In January 1978, 37108/111 moved from Tinsley to Eastfield - the first boiler-fitted locos based there - for trials to replace Class 27s on the West Highland line (WHL). The following month 37142/267 moved to Plymouth Laira, to replace Class 25s on Cornish freight turns.

In December 1978 some ScR locos were moved to Motherwell shed for iron ore traffic in Inverclyde and North Ayrshire.

Bristol Bath Road received its first allocation of the Class in July 1979 for working stone trains in the Mendips. Laira received more locos in 1980, to allow all its 25s to be redeployed or withdrawn.

In early 1980 several ER boilerfitted Class 37s transferred to Eastfield and these were followed by many more in 1981,

14

including some from Wales.

The influx of Class 37s facilitating the ousting of the Class 27s from the WHL in May. Late 1981 also saw trials of Class 37s at Inverness to replace Class 26s on the lines to Wick and Kyle of Lochalsh. More arrived in 1982, although the 26s were not finally eliminated from Far North passenger workings until 1985.

A regular job for Class 37s in the early 1970s was for a pair of WR locos outbased at Bromsgrove to act as bankers up the 2½ mile, 1-in-37 Lickey incline, the steepest main line incline on the network. In addition to banking the 16-coach Bristol-Glasgow ‘sleeper’ train, they were there for any freight service or ailing passenger train which required assistance.

BR'S MOST SUCCESSFUL TYPE 3 - PIP DUNN

Refurbishment

W

ith the longevity of the Class 37s a key part of BR’s traction plan, a refurbishment plan was drawn up in the mid1980s. An Achilles heel of the Class 37s, and indeed all EE locos, were their generators.

They were prone to flashing over far more frequently than those built by Brush or Crompton Parkinson and mated with Sulzer engines. Thus replacing the EE822 main generator with an alternator, as employed on all new build locos since the Class 56s, offered a solution for improved reliability. Most locos received Brush BA1005A alternators, but a few did have GEC G564AZ equipment.

Additional work also included re-gearing the bogies to 80mph rather than 90mph and upgrading the electrics along with other reliability modifications. The most notable change affected the first 31 locos selected as they received electric train heating (ETH) equipment and became the Class 37/4s.

The auxiliary generator would also be swapped for a Brush or GEC example.

All refurbished locos were renumbered to differentiate them. Those with ETH would

be 37401 upwards while any refurbished loco in the Series 1 batch, without ETH was numbered from 37501 upwards.

Those in the Series 1 batch which were to have ballast weights fitted would be 37701 upwards. Those Series 2 and 3 locos would be renumbered 37699 downwards or 37899 downwards if fitted with ballast weights. There would be no differentiation between Series 2 and 3 locos and they were all classed as the same so far as the refurbishment plan was

scoped. Just to confuse matters further, those locos with GEC equipment would be 37599 downwards if Series 1 and 37600 upwards if Series 2/3, and for heavyweight locos – those with additional ballast weights 37799 downwards if Series 1 and 37800 upwards if Series 2. The only Series 3 locos refurbished were Class 37/4s. Only eight, heavyweight, locos were fitted with GEC equipment, 37796-799 from Series 1 and 37800-803 from Series 2. Finally, six locos, 37901-4 were fitted with trial

▲ With a rake of steam heat MkIs in tow,

37021 calls at Stratford on 6 May 1978 with 1G23, a Southend to Spalding special.

Note the enamel sign, perhaps today it’s a prized possession in some enthusiasts collection. (G H Taylor)

◀ The east coast resort of Skegness once

enjoyed a veritable feast of locomotive hauled services. Seen here at Skegness, with the 19:00 Skegness to Cambridge service, is 37109 on 7 July 1974. (John Tolson)

15

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

engines from Mirrlees while 37905/6 were fitted with a Ruston engine.

The refurbishment programme saw just 135 locos modified as budget cuts prevented any more. They were 37401-431 from Series 3, 37501-521, 37701719 and 37796-799 from Series 1 and 37667-699, 37800-803 and 37883-899 from Series 2 and the aforementioned re-engined Class 37/9s.

The Series 1 locos had their headcode boxes ‘shaved off’ to give flush fronts while the series 2/3 machines had white lamps in their headcode panels, which were retained.

With the refurbishment plan cut back, BR overhauled a batch of 37/0s and fitted them with regeared 80mph bogies.

These became Class 37/3s and numbered 37350-359 for Series 1 locos and 37370-381 for series 2/3 locos.

Later renumberings were a batch of 12 Class 37/5s being fitted with standard Class 37/0 bogies, to allow them to run at 90mph as they were intended for Eurostar’s Nightstar ‘sleeper’ services. They became Class 37/6s, 37601-612 of which 37601609 were Series 1 and 37610-612 were Series 2. The Nightstar service never happened and the locos were sold to DRS from 1997-2007.

Their 80mph CP7 bogies were fitted under some Class 37/0s, and these became 37340-345 for Series 1 locos and 37330-335 for series 2 locos.

Later 37145/167/258 were also fitted with CP7 bogies and became 37382-384, while some 37/3s were returned to their original 37/0 identities when 90mph bogies were refitted under them.

JULY 2025

Train heating

T

he 37s were fitted with steam heating boilers, up to D6938 but from D6939 onwards, the locos were fitted with the pipe work to allow fitting of a boiler if required, but no boiler was fitted. D6700-D6938 were built with Clayton boilers but circa 1963 boilers were removed from many locos as some were reused in Class 47s. In 1967/68 the boilers from D6701-10 were fitted to D6947/60-68. They had time at Stratford, Tinsley and in South Wales. They were regular locos to work the Harwich Boat train to Manchester via Woodhead until January 1970.

The use of steam heating slowly declined in the early 1980s and more boilers were progressively isolated and then removed with the last

operational boilers being in use in the spring of 1987 in Scotland.

After 1976, when displaying train reporting numbers was discontinued, the roller blinds were first wound round to display 0O00 and then later removed and domino headcodes panels fitted in their place on both split and centre panel locos. In 1979, a start was made to replace the glass panels with yellow metal panels.

37073/074/091, and 37072 at No. 1 end, were converted to centre panels after accidents.

Later, in 1989, Laira depot changed 37031/047/053 to centre panels. Other 37s also lost their split headcode boxes at one or both ends end after corrosion or collision, namely 37006/019/065/ 075/099/100/102/116.

▲ In Trainload Metals livery 37903 at Doncaster on 14 October 1990. In 1986, four Class 37s, Nos 37150/148/249/124, were re-engined to test the Mirrlees MB275T engine and Brush alternator for the proposed Class 38, and were numbered 37901–904. These were followed in 1987 by 37905/6, converted from 37136/206, which were fitted with the alternative pairing of a Ruston RK270T engine and GEC alternator. All six locomotives were fitted with new bogies, and had ballast weights to increase their overall weight to 120 tons. Although intended as a testbed for the proposed Class 38, the two power units fitted were those considered for the Class 60, which was eventually delivered with an enlarged version of the Mirrlees MB275T. (Transport Treasury)

16

BR'S MOST SUCCESSFUL TYPE 3 - PIP DUNN

◀ Stabled on Stratford depot is 37034 on 8

September 1974. Also seen is the front end of 37264. (Trevor Davis)

▼ Working a rake of Presflos, through

Narroways Hill, on the Great Western mainline, is 37306 on 26 August 1983.

This portion of line lies between Ashley Down Station to the north and Stapleton Road station to the south. The line curving off to the right in the background is the route to Severn Beach. (Arthur Turner)

Apart from D6983, all Class 37s were later dual braked from 1967 to 1978 before a lull in the upgrade programme which then restarted in 1982 and was not concluded until 1986.

In 1986, a dozen Motherwell locos dedicated to iron ore trains were renumbered 37310-314/320-326. Because of the new 37/3 subclass with regeared bogies it was decided to renumber the Motherwell 373xx locos back to their original identities. Also, with original 37/0 locos 37303/304/306/308 having not been selected to become 37/4s, to avoid any confusion among operating staff these were renumbered in the vacant 37271-274 series, the original locos to carry these numbers having been converted to 37/4s. Finally, four 37/0s were reclassified as Class 97/3s and were numbered 97301-304.

To all intents and purposes however they were still 37/0s fitted with the in-cab European Rail Traffic Management System equipment.

The liveries

A

ll 309 locos were outshopped in green. The first 32, D670031, were new in all over British Railways’ green with a grey roof and red bufferbeams. From D6732, yellow warning panels were applied under the headcode boxes, and these were retro applied to the first locos.

Full yellow nose ends were applied from the mid-1960s,

17

some with D prefixes and some without, but not all locos received them. Some of these locos ran in green with TOPS numbers. The first 37 repainted blue was D6845 in 1966 and progressively all were repainted in this livery, the last was 37244 in October 1976.

Livery variations grew in the 1980s, beginning in 1981 when

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

Eastfield painted 37111/112 with yellow noses and cabs and black window frames, while 37027 had the yellow extended to cover the cab doors as well. In December 1983, 37025 became the first to have full ‘large logo’ livery with full body-height BR insignia, large bodyside numbers and black bonnets as well. Between 1983 and 1987, this livery was seen on 68 Class 37s including most notably all of the 37/4s.

One oddball livery appeared in July 1985 when 37093 was painted all over white with an orange and yellow band to represent a Police ‘car’ for a tv commercial.

The next major livery was the Railfreight grey applied to 50 Class 37s. It was similar to the large logo blue livery, but had small black cabside numbers, grey bodysides instead of blue and full body-height BR logo.

An enhanced version of this livery saw the addition of a red solebar stripe and this livery was applied to 54 locos.

The Railfreight grey was superseded by a new twotone grey livery with symbols to denote specific parts of the freight business. These were: Railfreight General (red and yellow horizontal blocks), seen on 37104/673, Trainload Coal (black and yellow diamonds) was applied to 46 Class 37s, Trainload Petroleum (blue and yellow wavy lines) seen on 42 locos, Trainload Construction (yellow and blue squares) applied to 24 machines, Trainload Metals (yellow and blue chevrons) on 74 locos, including 37381 which had its logo put on in reverse in error and finally, Railfreight Distribution (red diamonds on yellow) which was bestowed on 54 locos. Additionally, 51 locos

JULY 2025

ran in the plain two-tone grey with no symbols mainly after they been removed in the run up to privatisation.

The Departmental sector devised its own livery and this consisted of all over dark grey, unveiled on 37025 in June 1989.

Over the next 12 months it was applied to 22 Class 37s, with 37092 the last repainted in August 1990. The livery didn't wear especially well and was somewhat drab, so in 1990, it was revised to have a yellow upper bodyside, this earned it the name ‘Dutch’ livery as it was very similar to the livery of the Dutch national railway. 66 locos were outshopped in ‘Dutch’ livery.

The InterCity ‘Mainline’ livery was applied to 18 Class 37/4s from 1989 to 1990. Then, in May 1992, the InterCity sector started to use pairs of Class 37s with generator vans to work the Edinburgh-Inverness/Aberdeen ‘sleeper’ trains and the new operation was launched with 37221/251 unveiled in April in InterCity livery with Swallow logos and InterCity branding, and 37152/505/510/683/685 followed suit quickly afterwards. With the Class 37/4s also finding gainful employment on secondary passenger services, eight of them received the attractive Regional Railways livery between 1993 and 1996.

When the three shadow freight companies - Mainline Freight, Transrail and Loadhaul were formed in the spring of 1994, all inherited Class 37s and soon devised their own liveries.

Transrail kept the Trainload two tone grey and replaced the sector symbols with its own ‘Big T’ red, white and blue logo, and that was seen on 48 Class 37s.

Ten 37/0s it inherited in Dutch

18

livery had the ‘Big T’ logo applied on their yellow and grey livery.

37116 also appeared in BR blue with Transrail logos.

Mainline Freight opted for a smart aircraft blue livery. This was unveiled in November 1994 and later seen on 23 locos of which 37375 was painted in the livery but did not have logos added. Several two-tone grey 37s had their sector symbols replaced with Mainline Freight logos and this was seen on 29 Class 37s.

Perhaps the most attractive livery of the three was Loadhaul.

Unfortunately, however only seven refurbished Class 37s were painted in its black livery with orange cabs.

After D6983, the first 37 withdrawn was 37011 after a collision in early 1987 followed by accident victims 37062/260 in 1989, but the first intact 37 condemned was 37096 in August 1989. July 1992 saw 37209 as the next non-damaged locos to be laid up and thereafter withdrawals were steady from 1993 to 2005, but remarkably around 60 examples have been in use recently with operators such as: Colas, Europhoenix, Harry Needle Railroad Company/ Swietelsky, Locomotive Services Limited, Loram UK, Network Rail, UK Leasing, Vintage Trains, Rail Operations Group and West Coast Railways. Additionally, there are over 30 preserved examples across the nation’s heritage railways meaning a third of the indomitable Class 37s are still intact.

BR'S MOST SUCCESSFUL TYPE 3 - PIP DUNN

Specifications TOPS number range:

37001-308, 37310-384, 37401-431, 37503-521, 37601-612, 37667-699, 37701-719, 37796-803, 37883-899, 37901-906 1957 BR number range: D6600-08 and D6700-D6999 Former class codes: D17/1, then 17/3 Built by: English Electric, Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Years introduced: 1960-65 Wheel arrangement: Co-Co Multiple working: Blue Star Weight: 102-108 tons, 120 tons (37/7 and 37/9) Height: 13ft 1in (3.96m) Length: 61ft 6in (18.74m) Width: 8ft 12in (2.73m) Wheelbase: 50ft 8in (15.44m) Bogie wheelbase: 13ft 6in (4.11m) Bogie pivot centres: 37ft 2in (11.32m) Wheel diameter: 3ft 7in (1.14m) Min curve negotiable: 4 chains (80.46m) Engine type: English Electric 12CSVT 37901-904 - Mirrlees MB275T 37905-906 - Ruston RK270T Engine output: 1,750hp (1,304kW) 1,800hp (1,340kW) – 37901-906 Power at rail: 1,250hp (932kW) 1,300hp (940kW) – 37901-906 Tractive effort: 55,500lb-62,680lb Design speed: 90mph (144km/h) (later 80mph) Brake force: 50 tons 60 tons (37/7 and 37/9) Boiler Type: Clayton RO2000 Route availability: 5 (7 Class 37/7 and 37/9) Main generator type: EE822-10G, EE822-13G or EE822-16J Main alternator type: Brush BA1005A (37796-803: GEC G564AZ) Auxiliary generator type: EE911/5C Auxiliary alternator type: Brush BA606A (37796-803: G658A, 659AZ or 658BY) ETH alternator type: Brush BAH701 Traction motor type: EE538-1A or EE538-5A No of traction motors: 6 Gear ratio: 60:27 (37/0, 37/6) 53:18 (37/3, 37/4, 37/5, 37/7, 37/9) Fuel tank capacity: 890gal (4,046lit) or 1,690gal (7,682lit)

19

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

The Cans that Could

Class 86s on the West Coast Mainline T he Class 86s were the very backbone of BR’s electrified services over the West Coast mainline. An order for 100 locomotives was placed in 1963 and this had been split between two manufacturers, with the English Electric Vulcan Foundry in Newton-le-Willows building 60 locomotives and BR own Doncaster Works producing 40.

Capacity problems at Doncaster however meant that this split was pretty much flipped. The fleet were numbered E3101 to E3200, and while the first three Class members, E3101-3, weren’t officially introduced to service until 21 August 1965, examples from each manufacturer were noted on test in January 1965.

The entire fleet was built quite rapidly over the ensuing two years with the last of the Class to enter service being E3160 on 14 October 1966.

From the onset, their workings were incredibly varied and here at 'BR Times' we would like to hear which of the workings included in this selection you feel is the most unusual. You may have an even more unusual view you may wish to see featured in the next issue of 'BR Times' (contact details on page 2).

Workings not depicted but which perhaps could be in contention for the oddest Class 86 working are pictures of: the two Class members which worked the first Class 86 hauled passenger

service, a football special in May 1965, examples on pick-up goods trains, views of them working with the ex-LMS 40-ton hoppers used on services to Stonebridge Park and record shots of E3173 when it was fitted experimentally with a streamlined fibreglass nose cone to assist BR’s research into aerodynamics and highspeed running for their new Advanced Passenger Train and High Speed Train. In all, for any Class, let alone one confined to the electrified lines of BR, they had a remarkably varied work schedule and turned up on some of the most unlikeliest of workings and we look forward to seeing the best of them.

▼ In a scene from their earliest days, E3200 (86029) is seen at Coventry in around 1966 with an all matching rake of near a dozen Maroon liveried MkI vehicles. (TOPticl)

20

THE CANS THAT COULD: CLASS 86S ON THE WEST COAST MAINLINE

◀ With a rake of around 30 mineral wagons

plus brake van, E3170 (86002) powers 8A28, an Up freight, through Cheddington station, just south of Leighton Buzzard, sometime in 1967.

(Chris Lodington)

▼ AL6 E3171 (86011) is seen passing Basford Hall Yard on an Aintree to Parkestone Quay freightliner on 19 September 1969.

(Tim Stubbs / Online Transport Archive)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

◀ 86224 arrives at Bletchley on 29 May 1977

with the ‘Great Western Envoy’ railtour from Euston. The Class 86 started the tour at Euston and ran via: Rugby, Coventry, Aston and Soho South Junction to Birmingham New Street.

From there Class 20s Nos 20178 and 20188 took over for the leg to Saltley Junction via Bescot. Steam engine No 4079 took it to Didcot and back to Birmingham New Street from where 81015 took the tour on its final leg back to Euston. The ‘Pendennis Castle Farewell’ headboard refers to the tour being 4079’s final outing on BR metals prior to export to Australia.

In 1977, 4079 was sold to Hamersley Iron, based in Western Australia, where it was shipped in the following year and operated until 1994.

Upon returning to England in 2000, the engine awaited restoration at Didcot Railway Centre, its new base, which took volunteers 16 years to complete with the loco returning to steam in August 2021. (Trevor Davis)

▲ With the ‘The Manchester Pullman’, 17:20

Euston to Manchester Piccadilly service is 86205 at Crewe on 11 July 1978. On the righthand side are locomotives stabling in the sidings adjacent to Crewe Diesel Depot.

(TOPticl)

▶ Speeding past Wigan Springs Branch is

86314 on 13 July 1984 with what is probably a Glasgow to Birmingham service. A uniform rake of BR blue stock like this was soon to become a rare sight as the Intercity livery became ever more prominent.

(Triangle Publishing)

22

THE CANS THAT COULD: CLASS 86S ON THE WEST COAST MAINLINE

▶ Belying their Intercity livery are 86424 and 86421 London School of Economics with a southbound steel coil train on 24 June 1987.

(Triangle Publishing)

▼ Heading southbound at Winwick is 86229

Sir John Betjeman on 19 May 1987. The consist at this time is notable for its MkI and MkII variety with a MkI BG at the front, still in BR blue and grey, then the contrasting first class MkII in Intercity livery with that on the third vehicle again is still in BR blue and grey.

Despite its Intercity livery, the MkI buffet car in the formation was far from the image and quality Chris Green would wish to see from his sector’s services when he took over in 1992.

These legacy MkI vehicles required special maintenance to run at the speeds required on the WCML and some were plated for 110mph running, which might have been quite lively in a MkI restaurant car! (Triangle Publishing)

▼ Viewed from a passing train is 86256 Pebble Mill with Royal Mail vans at Crewe on 13 April 1991. (Triangle Publishing)

23

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

Goyles of Many Colours

The Liveries of the Class 31 T he longevity and, once their engine issues had been sorted, overall reliability of the Class 31 seems for many to have been overshadowed by their reputation for being an underpowered locomotive.

Perhaps it was their A1A axle arrangement which gave the appearance of a larger locomotive lacking the guts of their Co-Co equivalent, for the Class 24s and 25s seem not to have the same level of criticism levelled at them. The locomotives were numbered in two series, D5500-D5699 and D5800-D5862 and with construction of the first locomotive completed in the final week of September 1957 a handing-over ceremony of the first locomotive took place on 31 October 1957.

With the first of the type entering service in November 1957, a retrospective analysis perhaps ought to appreciate that other than the LMS twins of 1948, 10000 and 10001, these locomotives, alongside what would become the Class 20 were the Pilot Scheme locomotives ordered by British Railways to replace steam traction.

In contrast to the much larger Class 40 and Class 44s which were later delivered, these first forays into large scale diesel locomotive construction proved remarkably good purchases for BR. A fact born ought by so many examples running on the mainline well into their 50th birthdays.

Of the 263 locomotives, all were built by Brush Traction at

their Loughborough Works.

The first 20, originally numbered D5500–D5519, were always easily recognisable as they did not have the headcode box mounted on the roof above the cab as per the rest of the Class. The full fleet was in service by 1962 and initially the first 20 locos, D550019 were fitted with a Mirrlees engine of 1,250hp while those that came after them had the 1,365hp Mirrlees engine with Brush electrical equipment.

Together these locomotives would have been classified as Class 30s but sadly the engines proved unsatisfactory.

In 1964 an English Electric engine of 1,470hp, same as in the Class 37, but without the intercooler

was fitted as a trial and having proved successful, the other 262 locomotives were re-engined between 1965 and 1969, a move which resulted in them being reclassified as Class 31s.

With a 1,470hp engine in a loco weighing 106.7 long tons, as opposed to the Class 25 which, while rated slightly less at 1,250hp, was over 30% lighter and weighed just 73 long tons.

This weight differential getting on for near one MkI coach.

What the Class 31 far outdid the Class 25 on however was livery variation, and seen here is a collection of some of the most colourful liveries worn by the venerable machines during their time with BR.

▲ Where it started for the Class 31, the BR green livery seen here with the addition of a small

yellow warning panel as worn by D5847 (31313) at Shirebrook depot on 28 March 1965. The loco had been new to Sheffield Darnall on 28 June 1962 and was re-allocated to Tinsley on 26 April 1964. (William Wright)

24

GOYLES OF MANY COLOURS: THE LIVERIES OF THE CLASS 31

▶ Enhanced nicely by the domino blind and

miniature snow ploughs is 31304 in standard BR livery at Gloucester depot in April 1983.

(Barry J Nicolle)

◀ The austere Departmental Grey livery is seen upon 31568 at York sometime in September 1990 York (Barry J Nicolle)

▶ Looking rather uncared for is Railfreight liveried 31299 in April 1992 at York.

(Barry J Nicolle)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

▲ In a combination of the full yellow cabs and partial Railfreight Redstripe livery is 31413 seen at York on 4 October 1990. (Barry J Nicolle) ▼ Arguably looking better for the addition of the red stripe is 31285 at York in April 1988. (Barry J Nicolle)

26

GOYLES OF MANY COLOURS: THE LIVERIES OF THE CLASS 31

▲ Offering only a marginal improvement over the bland all-over grey livery was the new ‘Dutch’ livery of grey with a yellow band as seen on 31541, the first Class 31 to carry the livery, at York Carr Works on 2 July 1990. (Barry J Nicolle)

▼ Looking rather smart in Intercity livery is 31405 at Doncaster Works on 10 April 1991. (Barry J Nicolle)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

▼ Several Class 31s gained the Trainload freight Coal sector livery for their work in hauling nuclear flask trains. Their use didn’t last too long however before Direct Rail Service took over their operation. One such liveried loco was 31276 and it is seen here stabled at York on 16 June 1993. (Barry J Nicolle)

▼ Railfreight Distribution livery sits quite nicely upon

▼ Trainload Construction livered Class 31s are represented

31160 at York on 9 July 1990. (Barry J Nicolle)

here with 31271 at York in May 1991. (Barry J Nicolle)

▼ Prior to the Class 60 take over, Immingham depot had a number of

Class 31 in Trainload Petroleum livery for double heading these heavy services. One such loco is 31238 at York in February 1989.

(Barry J Nicolle)

28

GOYLES OF MANY COLOURS: THE LIVERIES OF THE CLASS 31

◀ Repainted into an approximation of BR

Green is at Stratford ADB968013. The loco had entered service as D5513 on 3 July 1958 and after renumbering to 31101 it was withdrawn on 5 March 1979 as ‘life expired’.

It was converted to ETS generating unit and entered Departmental Stock as train heating unit No. ADB968013. It was used in the GE area, principally at Great Yarmouth and finally at Cambridge. Following a period in storage at March it was noted being hauled north over the Lincoln avoiding line by a Class 37 along with ADB968015 on 11 April 1983 en route to Doncaster Works where it was scrapped in July 1983. (Barry J Nicolle)

▶ Certainly, one of the most attractive liveries worn by the Class was that of Regional Railways as seen upon 31410 at Doncaster Works on 16 June 1992. (Barry J Nicolle)

◀ The refurbished BR livery with orange

cantrail stripe and high intensity headlight as worn by 31563 at York in November 1991.

(Barry J Nicolle)

If you have an interesting BR era view of a Class 31, especially in an unusual livery, that you would like to see published, we’d like to hear from you. We would also like to hear your views on what was the most attractive livery worn by the Class 31.

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

A Crooked View

Observations of Trains through Chesterfield in the Late 1980s

30

A CROOKED VIEW: OBSERVATIONS OF TRAINS THROUGH CHESTERFIELD IN THE LATE 1980S

D

uring the BR era, Chesterfield was one of the most interesting spots to spend time observing trains. The Derbyshire town sits between Clay Cross Junction and Tapton Junction, the former being where the Derby lines with the Erewash

Valley route converge and the latter where the Barrow Hill/Tinsley freight lines and Sheffield passenger lines diverge.

Consequently the enthusiast could always rely on Chesterfield to produce a heavy and varied selection of trains. Postal and

parcels trains, copious amounts of freight mixed with north east to south west expresses and the Midland Mainline passenger services meant that even in the late 1980s, one never had to wait too long for something interesting. Most passenger trains called at the station but for many it was freight on the Up and Down Goods lines, to the rear of platform two, which provided the real interest. Photographing trains on a platform however can soon bring unwanted attention and while there was a well used footbridge just north of the station, better views were afforded just south of the station, nearer to Hasland, and the site of the former Midland Railway engine shed. Sadly it was also nearer to the infamous Avenue Coking Plant which if one had the misfortune to live near, or spend any time in the vicinity of, certainly knew about it from its dubious odour. What follows is a spread of pictures taken around the Hasland and Wingerworth areas in May 1989. Also given are a couple of fairly accurate records of the variety of trains which were observed passing through Chesterfield station on those specific days.

Even in these short records, the diversity is clear to see, especially

◀ Earlier in the day on 19 May 1992, 47827

worked north through Chesterfield with 1E25, the 09:05 Poole to York. It is seen here heading south at Chesterfield at 18:06, with 1M81, the 16:50 York to Derby service. By the early 1990s there were few locomotive hauled services through Chesterfield and all were booked for Class 47/8s and only the occasional locomotive failure brought something more exotic to the head of these services. (William Sharman)

31

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

with the freight. Chesterfield’s main freight flows were: steel, Speedlink, coal and aggregates.

The steel trains were of great note thanks to the employment of double headed Class 37s.

The services also made use of the dwindling number of Class 20s on the Wolverhampton/ Etruria and Scunthorpe steel trains. At the time, Trainload Metals sector were keen to dispense with their Class 20s and concentrate their motive power resources upon the Class 37 and the newly introduced Class 60. The end was also near for the Speedlink trains which made their way towards Tinsley before the cessation of the Speedlink network in 1992.

The same was also true of the Trainload Construction sector which were keen to use the Class 60s on their cement and stone trains from Earles Sidings and the Peak Forest areas respectively.

Other freight highlights included multiple Freightliner services and occasional MGR coal trains.

Passenger trains were equally as numerous, but their appeal to the enthusiast had diminished somewhat due to the withdrawal of the Peaks and the preponderance of the HST. Thankfully, there were still some locomotive hauled trains on the Cross Country workings but these were firmly in the hands of Class 47s. Providing perhaps more interest were the Class 31/4s and Class 47 hauled mail and parcels services for which several trains a day thundered through the station serving locations as far afield as: Leeds, London St Pancras, Manchester Piccadilly, Newcastle, Penzance and Plymouth. Noted within the record however, and no doubt travelling at a more sedate pace

JULY 2025

was the Class 101 DMU, formed of vehicles E51441 & E51430 on 1M50, a Leeds to London St. Pancras parcels train.

These vehicles had been new to Hull Botanic Gardens and Darlington respectively in 1959 and after near 30 years service had found a final lease of life thanks to reallocation to Cambridge and the Parcels sector in 1986. They were converted to parcels units in March 1987 and gained a red and yellow strip along with ‘Express Parcels’

branding to their blue and grey livery as they eked out a few more years services before final withdrawal in July 1989. Finally, travelling at an equally sedate pace were the DMU trains which called at Chesterfield on their mainly north west to East Anglia services.

In all, while the days of Peaks, Rats and even HSTs have long gone, Chesterfield was, and still is, a most interesting place to spend a few hours observing trains.

▲ 156401 forms the 12:57 from Norwich as it heads towards Chesterfield and ultimately Blackpool on 22 May 1989. The late 1980s were a time of revitalisation for the Provincial network. As a business sector it was dispensing with the expensive to operate locomotive hauled services and replace them with a more frequent DMU operation. At this time, the north-west to East-Anglia route served a multitude of points with: Liverpool, Manchester and Blackpool sending trains to Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich and Harwich Parkeston Quay. These trains had a variety of routings which included some running via the Dore curve and missing out Sheffield, while others served Derby before rejoining the main routing at Nottingham and heading east via Grantham.

Eventually these services were standardised upon a near hourly service running along a Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street axis. They also enjoyed a much improved comfort level and journey time reductions thanks to the enhanced performance of the Class 158 compared to the 156’s which launched the services. (William Sharman)

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A CROOKED VIEW: OBSERVATIONS OF TRAINS THROUGH CHESTERFIELD IN THE LATE 1980S

▲ Forming ‘The Northumbrian’, the 07:49 Newcastle to Poole service is an HST with 43040 bringing up the rear, on 22 May 1989. The red HEA coal

wagons in the background are serving the former Avenue Coking Plant, which when it closed in 1992, was once one of the most polluted sites in Europe. In the mid-1950s it was the largest fully integrated coking and chemical works in Europe. It employed around 800 people and at its height, amidst the acrid smoke and choking sulphurous fumes, it carbonised over 2,000 tons of coal per day, producing 1,400 tonnes of coke, smokeless fuel, sulphuric acid, ammonium sulphate, crude Benzol, tar and about 765,000M³ of manufactured gas per day. Unfortunately, these products came with some rather nasty by-products which included: acid tar, pure benzene and toluene, naphthalene, nickel, zinc, thiocyanate, phenols and other acids and organic compounds. Amazingly the site has now been recovered after some 2.5M³ of earth were excavated and 600,000³ of contaminated sludge were treated. After a prolonged period of rest, clean soil was then applied and ultimately land for 1,100 properties, 12 acres of business use and a range of facilities including a new primary school and shops were created. (William Sharman)

◀ With one of the few MGR trains to work

through Chesterfield is 56008 heading northwards with an empty MGR set.

Chesterfield once saw heavy coal traffic from Yorkshire for the London markets, but into the MGR era, it was seeing comparatively little coal workings. This was due mainly to its isolated position between the two stools of the North Nottinghamshire power stations of: High Marnham, Cottam and West Burton, and the South Nottinghamshire and south Derbyshire ones of: Ratcliffe, Staythorpe, Willington, Castle Donington etc. The MGR trains which did run through Chesterfield tended to be ones from Oxcroft open cast, usually for Ratcliffe power station or from Markham colliery for Didcot power station. (William Sharman)

◀ On 2 May 1989 37513 approaches

Chesterfield with a loaded steel train. There were heavy flows of steel from the northeast to the West Midlands distribution centres and Corby. The latter was famed for its coil trains which came from Lackenby. In 1981 two trains a day, between Lackenby and Corby, began running with Class 31 haulage. 60 coils per trains were transported and when this was increased to 80, in 1983, Class 37s took over.

The Class 60 supplanted them shortly after their introduction but their reign lasted but ten years when this well known working ceased to run in 2001. (William Sharman)

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JULY 2025

Trains Through Chesterfield on Friday 26 August 1988 Code Train Line

Time

Loco/Unit

18:19 18:21

142004 2Y10 20026 & 20085

18:28 18:29 18:30

Down Main

43082/43043 1M64 20064 & 20093 6E66 43058/43083 1E15

18:19 Chesterfield to Sheffield 55545/95 Chesterfield Goods Yard to Tinsley Yard, scrap steel (Ex Bryan Donkins) 18:15 Sheffield to London St. Pancras Etruria to Scunthorpe, steel loads 16:05 London St. Pancras to Sheffield

18:40

37518

Mixed air-braked freight, Speedlink

18:42 18:47 18:56 18:56

43---/43036 156420 156404 31113

Down Up Main Up Main Down Main

19:03

47344

19:05

43052/43072

19:13

1V65 1L77 1M61 6M76

1E16

17:08 York to Plymouth (DNS) 16:14 Blackpool North to Cambridge 15:31 Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street Tinsley Yard to Willesden Brent Yard, Speedlink ICI ammonia tanks

Up Main/Up Goods Up Main Down Goods Down Main

Up Goods Down Goods Down Main

56019

17:00 London St Pancras to Sheffield, The Master Cutler Light engine

19:26

20108 & 20215

Light engines

Down Goods

19:26

31405

1M25

Up Main, via Derby

19:33 19:35 19:40

47580 43029/43184 47019

1V66 1E37 4O62

19:47 19:51

156423 56019

1L79

17:56 Manchester Piccadilly to London St. Pancras, parcels 17:10 Newcastle to Cardiff Central (DNS) 14:44 Paignton to Newcastle Leeds FLT to Southampton Maritime, Freightliner 17:35 Liverpool Lime Street to Ipswich MGR coal empties

19:52

37073

Mixed air-braked freight, Speedlink

Down Goods

19:58 19:59 20:08 20:10 20:13 20:14 20:29 20:33 20:41

43083/43058 43098/43068 47533 47483 31453 156418 43179/43172 43150/43180 31458

19:45 Sheffield to London St. Pancras 17:50 London St. Pancras to Sheffield 16:41 Reading to York (DNS) Tinsley Yard to East Usk Yard, Speedlink 16:10 Newcastle to Bristol Temple Meads, mail 16:57 Ipswich to Blackpool 17:44 Newcastle to Bristol Temple Meads 16:23 Exeter St. Davids to Newcastle 16:08 London St. Pancras to Leeds, parcels

Up Main Down Main Down Main Up Goods Up Main Down Main Up Main

1M46 1E17 1E41 6V06 1V68 1M20 1V67 1E38 1E49

34

Down Goods

Up Main Down Main Up Goods Up Main Up Goods

Down Main Down Main

A CROOKED VIEW: OBSERVATIONS OF TRAINS THROUGH CHESTERFIELD IN THE LATE 1980S

Time

Loco/Unit

Trains Through Chesterfield on Friday 5 May 1989 Code Train

22:20 22:24

47662 156418

1Z10 1M55

22:25 22:35 22:36 22:43 22:44 22:50 22:57 23:10

56027 43178/43177 47237 & 47631 47528 156401 37512 & 37506 47297 & 31164 20044 & 20009

23:22 23:24 23:27

47435 150101 37212 & 56101

23:41

58047

23:43 23:48

150117 37098

1E39 1E06 1M54 6E37 6E96 1V25 1E24

2M61 7M85

Notes

London St.Pancras to Mallaig, excursion 18:27 Harwich Parkeston Quay to Manchester Oxford Road Loaded MGR coal 21:30 Birmingham New Street to Leeds Speedlink 14:28 Plymouth to Newcastle, parcels 20:14 Blackpool North to Derby BSC Corby to BSC Lackenby, Steel empties Light engines Wolverhampton Steel Terminal to Scunthorpe, Steel empties 21:56 Leeds to Penzance, parcels 22:43 Nottingham to Sheffield Light engines

Down Main

Empty MGR coal

Down Goods Up Main Up Goods

22:43 Doncaster to Derby Tees Yard to Bescot Yard, Speedlink

Up Main Up Goods Down Goods Up Goods Down Main Down Main Down Goods Down Goods Down Goods Up Main Down Goods Up Goods

Trains Through Chesterfield on Saturday 6 May 1989 Time 00:05 00:07

Loco/Unit 47566 37517 & 37514

Code 1M59

00:07 00:18 00:07

43060/43038N 1E21 E51441 & 1M50 E51430 37517 & 37514

00:28

47336

Notes Train 20:22 Newcastle to London St. Pancras, postal Up Main Up Goods Steel loads Down Main 21:40 London St. Pancras to Sheffield Leeds to London St. Pancras, parcels

Up Main

Steel loads

Up Goods

Norsk Hydro vans

Up Goods

▶ One of the delights of viewing trains at

Hasland was the unexpected and seen here is a delightful view which modellers may wish to take inspiration from. It’s often a cliché to model a guard stood on their veranda, surveying the line behind, but here we have such a scene and three brake vans to boot. Heading north, perhaps for Beighton Permanent way depot or most probably Tinsley Yard are 31299, 31221 and 37667 on 19 May 1989. Standing proud on the horizon is Chesterfield’s famous land mark, its crooked spire. Building the church began in 1234 and was complete by the 14th century. Notably in 1994 it became the UK’s only representative in the Association of the Twisted Spires of Europe. (William Sharman)

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The Diesels of Penzance Penzance Diesel Depot ▼ Catching the southwest autumnal sun is 1050 Western Ruler (Class 52) on 10 November 1975. (Roger Geach)

O

f all BR’s depots, Penzance with its warmer than average climate, sea air and the relative serenity of country life, was perhaps one of the more attractive places to call one's home depot. What follows is a brief history of the depot and its time as BR’s most westerly diesel facility.

Railways came early to Penzance with the opening of a narrow-gauge line for mining traffic in 1839. Parts of the line were later converted to broadgauge as a single line through to Penzance where a one-track dead-end wooden shed was opened by the West Cornwall

Railway in 1852.

In 1866 a two-track dead-end shed was added and, when the first broad-gauge service from Paddington to Penzance ran in March 1867, these sheds became part of the Great Western Railway. Just ten years later they were both closed and were replaced by a dead end, two-track stone built shed in 1876. Coded PZ, it was much larger, but it too was soon deemed inadequate and a new shed was opened in June 1914.

Its four roads stood two under each of its two gables in a shed measuring 210ft long by 66ft wide. Aside it was a single-road

36

lifting shop of 84ft by 40ft while other buildings included a 125ft by 15ft office building down the rear side of the shed and a 30ft by 22ft boiler house.

In the 1940s the shed was visited by a variety of steam engines including 4-6-0 Castles and 4-6-0 Halls. Its own allocation included 4-6-0 Grange locomotives and come 1948 its total allocation stood at 24 locomotives. From 1 February 1950 it became 83G, as a sub shed of 83A Newton Abbot and it was from there that its first diesels came.

When, No D3514 (Class 08) was re-allocated to Penzance

THE DIESELS OF PENZANCE: PENZANCE DIESEL DEPOT

from Laira in August 1958 it was Penzance’s first diesel allocation.

In September D3596/7 were both new to Penzance but were soon re-allocated, with D3596 going to Cardiff East Dock and D3597 to Old Oak Common in October 1958.

The depot’s first visit by a mainline diesel locomotive was probably Warship D600 which was noted at Penzance station in Mid-1958. D600 had been allocated to Laira in May 1958 along with D601 in June 1958.

No D800 (Class 42) was added to Laira’s allocation in October 1958 and soon took up duties on the “Cornish Riviera Express” from Penzance to Paddington.

The shed’s steam allocation peaked at 34 in 1959 but from this point onwards, Laira’s growing diesel fleet began to take over their workings. D6300/1 (Class 22) came to Laira in February 1959 and the first Western, No D1000 (Class 52) came in December 1961. April 1962 saw D4161, (Class 08) allocated to Penzance from new and while the depot never received a mainline allocation, Laira’s diesels became regular visitors through to the shed’s closure.

Penzance was at the forefront of the Western Region’s drive to dieselise and thus it lost its steam allocation by March 1962, a relatively early year and this was followed by official closure to steam on 8 September 1962.

From 1 September 1963 it was recoded as 84D as it came under Laira which had been given the code 84A. The vagaries of locomotive reallocations are sometimes baffling, like why after ten years at Penzance was D3514 (Class 08) sent to Derby Diesel Depot only for D4013 (Class 08)

▲ A view across the depot, sees 1040 Western Queen stabled alongside 1070 Western Gauntlet on the right, 25215 behind and 50014 behind it on Saturday 27 December 1975. (Roger Geach)

to come from St Blazey as its replacement. The Class 08 being needed to shunt the station of postal, parcels and the overnight services.

With no mainline diesel locomotive allocation to maintain and a hospitable climate in which diesels stabled, the shed was an overly large affair for BR’s requirements. Rationalisation came in 1968 when two of the depot’s four roads were removed. By this time broken windows, spilt diesel fuel and a general look of decay gave the depot a forlorn look.

The end of the 1960s marked a real change in the motive power Long Rock was seeing.

Newton Abbot and Laira train crews had learned the Class 46’s in early 1969 and they were running through to Penzance by December 1969. Naturally they soon visited the depot for fuel and light servicing. Conversely while pairs of diesel-hydraulic locomotives (Class 42) were still working the “Cornish Riviera Express” through to the May 1970

37

timetable change after this time their visits became rarer.

In February 1971 D4181 (Class 08) came from Ebbw Junction and D4013 (Class 08) was sent to Bristol Bath Road. Laira gained its first Class 50s, 50003/27, in March 1974 and the latter was the first of its Class on Penzance depot when it was noted alongside D1053 Western Patriarch, D1068 Western Reliance and 1665 (Class 47) on 12 March 1974.

At this time Penzance still saw predominantly loco hauled services with heavy holiday traffic, cross country services to North East, Intercity services to Bristol and Paddington along with long distance parcel, postal and travelling post office services. Another interesting vehicle on shed at that time was the Park Royal viaduct inspection unit which was operated by Liftec. Thus, while the early 1970s saw the withdrawal of the Baby Warships (Class 22), with Classes: 08, 25, 46, 47, 50 and 52 regularly on shed, Penzance was still seeing a good variety of motive

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

Booked Locomotive Hauled Services from Penzance in May 1980 H’code

Days

Time

Destination

2B09

M-F/SO

06:20

Plymouth

1M85

M-F

07:40

Liverpool

1M85

SO

07:57

Liverpool

1M22

SO

09:15

Manchester Piccadilly

1M39

SO

09:32

Wolverhampton

1E21

M-F

10:23

Leeds

1M83

SO

10:23

Bradford

1A25

M-F

11:20

Paddington

1E21

Sun

12:15

Leeds

1M52

SO

12:35

Manchester Piccadilly

1M74

FO

13:50

Birmingham

1M74

SO

14:00

Birmingham

1E61

M-Th

18:08

Sheffield

1E61

FO

18:08

Sheffield

1B79

SO

18:08

Taunton or Bristol

1A03

Sun

18:35

Paddington

2B47

Sun

19:55

Plymouth

1A07

SO

20:45

Paddington

1A07

Sun-F

21:35

Paddington

power and was an interesting place for the railway enthusiast to visit.

In 1973 Penzance gained the TOPS code of PZ. Also, under TOPS, D4181 was renumbered to 08951 in February 1974 and was transferred to Bristol Bath Road in May 1974. Replacing it was 08954 coming from Laira.

A further swap took place in December when 08840 came from St Blazey with 08928 going the other way. This was followed by 08954 going to Laira with 08643 in April 1976.

As a depot, Penzance may have had the sun, but it certainly didn’t have the investment.

By the early 1970s that forlorn look had become an even greater eyesore. Windows were broken, discarded brake blocks and oil drums lay scattered around along with a glib deposit of oil across near every surface.

Salvation came with plans for a new depot to service the HSTs soon to be introduced on WR service to Paddington. Thus, with the new HST depot still only a steel frame, the steam shed was vacated in June 1976 and loco stabling was transferred to the new purpose-built facility.

The old steam shed was demolished during the summer of 1977 and was gone by the end of the following year.

The new HST depot inherited the PZ shed code and was sited between the old steam shed and the Main Line thanks to the singling of the two running lines into Penzance station. At a cost

◀ With copious amounts of diesel having found its way onto the track 47026 stands aside the depot’s fuel pumps on Sunday 9 February 1975.

(Roger Geach)

38

THE DIESELS OF PENZANCE: PENZANCE DIESEL DEPOT

of £1.5M it was fully completed in October 1977 and consisted of: a single road 750 ft long maintenance shed which could accommodate a full length HST undercover, a carriage washer, two lean-to buildings to facilitate simultaneous refuelling of the HST power cars, some shorter sidings for DMU stabling and straddling six long stabling roads for HSTs were overhead lighting gantries.

HST services to Paddington were introduced in 1979 and from April 1982 Cross Country services between Penzance and Leeds were also employing the HST. Consequently locomotive hauled services were much reduced and so too were the visits from mainline locomotives.

The new depot simply took on the Class 08 allocation of the steam shed and in the late 1970s it required just two Air Braked Class 08s. One shunted Ponsandane Goods depot along with the oil tanks it received and the other acted as station pilot covering the carriage and parcels sidings. On busy Summer Saturdays the Ponsandane shunter was put to use as a second station pilot and it also made occasional weekday trips to Hayle Harbour if the usual Class 25 was unavailable.

By 1981 it was part of the Class 08’s diagram to make trips to St Erth and Hayle Harbour with a spare dual braked Class 08 being kept at St Blazey to cover any failures. By the early 1980s, Penzance needed only one Class 08, with duties including: station pilot, shunting the Motorail siding, HST depot, Carriage sidings and Ponsandane Goods Depot.

▲ A wonderful view of Penzance station sees the depot’s early diesel locos at work. On the

right-hand side with the signal cleared for the road eastwards, in platform one, is D814 Dragon departing the station. Note the walk boards ahead of the loco and the nonchalant walk in the four foot of the train crew member, complete with billy can and flat cap, as he heads towards a pair of Baby Warships awaiting their departure time. The station was enlarged in 1937, further into the Mount's Bay, and it doubled the number of platforms, the fourth face being seen here outside the overall roof. It was used for mail and parcels traffic as access to the road was provided and adjacent to it are parcels and postal vehicles. Further again to the left are goods vehicles which used the facility until they were removed in 1987 and the land levelled for use as a car park.

(R C Riley)

▼ With a glimpse of the shed buildings just noticeable, D603 Conquest (Class 41) is seen stabled at Penzance TMD, Long Rock, sometime in 1967. (Chris Lodington)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

From 4 January 1982 BR was reorganised into sectors and this meant that PZ was taken on

by Intercity as a Level 2 depot capable of carrying out A and B exams. While locomotive hauled passenger, parcels and postal trains were reducing during this time, Classes: 45, 46, 47 and 50 were still to be found on shed, with HSTs serving: Bristol, Dundee, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Paddington, Wolverhampton and York.

The May 1982 timetable saw turns for the Class 45s and Class 46s generally booked no further west than Plymouth and Paignton. The Class 45s were however regularly called upon for additional summer services, especially on a Saturday and the Class 46s were occasionally noted upon them as well due to failures. The odd Class 46 even getting called upon to drag a failed HST. Notably 46018 found itself on 1C52 the 11:50 Penzance to Cardiff Central train on Saturday 4 September 1982 along with 46044 on Tuesday 14 September 1982 with 1B59, the 13:45 Penzance to Bristol Temple Meads service. What booked locomotive hauled services remained were in the hands of Class 47s and Class 50s.

Thus they were noted on shed alongside coaching stock, DMUs and HSTs. In 1987 the Class 50 still had a few booked diagrams which took them all the way to Penzance. There were the loco fill in turns such as turn No: 50022 consisting of 1V12, the 12:03 SX Penzance to Plymouth and 2C72, the 15:57 SX Plymouth to Penzance return. Class 50s were also booked to work portions of much longer distance services

JULY 2025

▼ The peace of a Sunday afternoon sees 1013 Western Ranger stabled on shed amongst two

other Westerns (Class 52), 47031, a Class 25, a Class 08, a Class 50 and a DMU rasping away on 12 May 1974. (Roger Geach)

such as the 21:00 SX departure for Bristol Temple Meads which the Hoover would work as far as Plymouth and the FO 10:50 from Glasgow Central which a 50 would take over at Plymouth for a 20:35 departure to Penzance.

Other booked turns to Penzance included services from Swindon, Newton Abbot and Paddington.

The 1990s withdrawal of the Class 50s however left just Class 47s as the sole mainline diesel type to still be visiting the shed on a regular basis.

The Class 47 workings to Penzance in 1987 included: Old Oak Common allocated machines on linked diagrams

40

from Hereford to Paddington, Paddington to Penzance and Penzance back to Paddington and Bescot based locos working from Birmingham to Penzance with services ex Liverpool Lime Street.

Under privatisation Penzance depot was taken on by Great Western Trains (GWT) from February 1996. The company’s name was soon changed however to First Great Western (FGW) in December 1998. By this time fuel to the storage tanks behind the maintenance shed was switched to a daily delivery by road but the depot was still shunted by Laira allocated 08641.

THE DIESELS OF PENZANCE: PENZANCE DIESEL DEPOT

Postal services had been a celebrated feature of Penzance for over 100 years, but they came to an end on 9 January 2004 with the cessation of 1C01 the 19:30 Penzance to Bristol and the 1C02 the 00:58 Bristol to Penzance Travelling Post Office services. Locomotive haulage remained however thanks to the sleeper train services to and from Paddington. A Class 08 was also retained in order to drag the

stock into and out of Penzance station.

In the 2000s the depot was usually stabling five HST sets for FGW, two for Virgin Cross Country and three DMUs for Wessex Trains. Latterly with the withdrawal of the HSTs and introduction of Class 800 and 802 diesel/electric bi-mode units, for services to Cardiff Central and London Paddington, £20M was spent to upgrade

the depot. 16 December 2018 saw the first Class 802 worked evening service to Paddington and work on the new depot was completed on 13 April 2019.

Ultimately, while the depot is now a far cry from the halcyon days of Westerns, Warships and Hoovers, for those that work there, it is a facility near second to none.

◀ 50018 Resolution awaits its departure time

at Penzance on 26 August 1985 with 2C86 the 11:35 Penzance to Plymouth service. Note that despite being a relatively short run, the train includes a GUV and a BG parcel van at the head of the train. Prior to the introduction of Class 155 Sprinters into the South West loco haulage on such trains was commonplace.

50018 had previously worked the overnight Sunday 25 August 1C02 23:59 sleeper train from London Paddington to Penzance service.

It would have visited the depot for fuel and servicing before working 2C86. It returned to Penzance on 2C72, the 15:05 from Plymouth to Penzance and its final train of the day was 1C86, the 18:15 Penzance to Bristol Temple Meads service. (Martin Buck)

▼ With the diesel depot having closed, locos

were stabled either at the new facility or, more conveniently, at the station itself. Seen here on a spur road is 50006 Neptune at Penzance 9 November 1985. (Martin Buck)

▲ In the left hand platform is 1030 Western

Musketeer as it awaits its departure time of 07:40 with a Penzance to Liverpool service on 27 May 1974. On the right is a fellow class member with an erroneous headcode from a previous freight train. (Bernard Mills)

41

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

Heading up West Activity at Aller Junction J

ust west of Newton Abbot lay Aller Junction and its associated signal box. In its time it controlled the extremely busy Great Western mainline towards Plymouth and the junction and splitting route for Paignton. While the latter saw heavy holiday traffic, especially on a summer Saturday, the former also saw freight traffic, especially china clay, along with postal and parcel services from Plymouth and Penzance. Seen here is a collection of views of its varied motive power and changing times through to the abolition of the signal box and control from Exeter Power signal box.

▲ Right back at the start of diesel services to the West Country, we see D6332 piloting D858 Valorous on a Down service at Aller Junction sometime in 1960.

(Owen Gattey-Windeatt / Lens of Sutton Association)

▲ At the humbler end of the variety through Aller Junction is this DMU set headed for Paignton on the evening of Saturday 25 July 1970. (Bernard Mills)

▲ Whizzing passed Aller Junction is 1051 Western Ambassador (Class 52) with 1M01, the St Austell to Kensington Olympia motorail service on 25 July 1970. (Bernard Mills)

▲ A smartly turned out 33008 powers an eight coach MkI rake on a Plymouth to Clapham Junction service on 12 April 1980.

(Bernard Mills)

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HEADING UP WEST: ACTIVITY AT ALLER JUNCTION

▲ Heading westbound with a very lightweight Speedlink service is

45042 at Aller Junction on 29 May 1984. (TOPticl / Digital Memories)

▲ Working wrong line is Network Southeast liveried 50017 Royal Oak

on 1A77, the 16:10 Paignton to Paddington service on 20 September 1986. The loco had arrived at the south west resort earlier that day having worked west on 1C38, the 11:35 London Paddington to Paignton service. (Bernard Mills)

◀ With the signal box here having closed

in 1987, the junction looks rather sparse.

Providing a splash of colour however is RES liveried 47722 The Queen Mother, as it hurries what is probably 1S93, the 15:01 Paignton to Glasgow Central service. It was known to have worked this train on Saturday 19 August 1995 as far as Birmingham New Street and had taken over 1V41, the 08:10 Liverpool Lime Street to Paignton train, from Birmingham New Street, earlier that day. (Bernard Mills)

▼ Aller Junction signal box stood on the Great

Western main line between Newton Abbot and Totnes, approximately 195 miles from Paddington. The Great Western Type 8A box had opened on 24 May 1925 and contained a 46 lever GW VT3 frame. It controlled the junction with the branch line to Paignton and the junction where the Up and Down main lines became a four-track railway with main and relief lines in both directions into Newton Abbot station. Beyond Aller Junction, in the Down direction, was the infamous climb to Dainton Summit. It was key to the punctual running of Down trains that the Aller signalman was able to obtain acceptance from Dainton Summit SB and then be able to clear his signals before the train reached the Down Main Distant. This indicated a clear road ahead and drivers could “open up” in order to attack the bank which had gradients as steep as 1:34 in places. Aller Junction SB was closed with the introduction of the panel box at Exeter in May 1987 and post closure the lever frame was originally purchased by G.M. Kitchenside, author of several railway books including “British Railways Signalling”. He intended to use it as part of a garden railway project at his home in Newton Abbot. When this didn’t come to fruition it was sold some ten years later to the GWSR where it was then restored for use in Broadway signal box.

(J G Smith)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

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The Trunking Controller A Personal Account of Freightliners from Southampton - Richard James ▼ Working through Reading is 47035 with

4E66 the 08:30 Southampton to Ripple Lane Freightliner on 24 July 1980. (Barry J Nicolle)

44

THE TRUNKING CONTROLLER: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF FREIGHTLINERS FROM SOUTHAMPTON - RICHARD JAMES

C

oming from a railway family I suppose it was inevitable that I would pursue a career in transport. Not the railways directly however but the brave new world of containerisation.

In the summer of 1978 I joined Overseas Containers Limited (OCL) in their Southampton Terminal Office. My job title was ‘Trunking Controller’ with responsibility for the movement of containers between the port

and six inland depots by rail and road. The job coincided with the arrival of the first container ship from South Africa, adding volume to that already generated by the then firmly established Far East trade.

In March 1972 Freightliner opened their Southampton Maritime terminal built for the exclusive use of OCL and ACT, another container operator, with a ten-year rail contract in place

45

for the movement of seven block trains a day.

Ten years on and plans were formulated to mark the passage of the one-millionth container through the facility although predicting which box (container) would carry that honour proved so elusive due to various factors, not least the rail unions dispute over flexible rostering that all parties agreed the date of 16 December 1982 with the hope

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

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▶ With the 12:36 Southampton Maritime to

Birmingham Lawley Street service 47343 is seen at Southampton on 17 April 1982.

(TOPticl / Digital Memories)

▼ Heading for Southampton Maritime is 47252 at Southampton on 17 April 1982.

(TOPticl Digital Memories)

▲ Proving that it was not all Class 47s on the Freightliners are Class 33 Nos 33105 and 33119 as they power the 01:45 Coatbridge to Millbrook Southampton freightliner on Saturday 19 July 1980. (Bernard Mills)

that normal service had by then been resumed.

By that time the ten-year rail contract should have expired but as the suspension clause had been triggered more than once due to various strikes by dock workers over the intervening years there remained plenty of life left in it.

The Trunking Controller’s lot was not always a happy one, particularly in the troubled 70’s and 80’s. You would have

thought the ’bulk’ movement of containers between the port of Southampton and the inland container bases would be a simple task. In reality it was anything but! ‘Events dear boy’ was the phrase used by Harold Macmillan in answer to the question about the perils of the PM’s job. The same phrase was relevant to the more humble task of shifting metal boxes around the country by rail. The best laid plans could quickly unravel

46

thanks to equipment failures, bad weather or the whims of the Southampton docker.

OCL (otherwise known as Overseas Containers) commenced its far east container service from Southampton in 1972. Due to the scale of capital investment required to set up such a service five shipping lines-including OCL- pooled their resources and formed a consortium called ‘trio’.

The British Lines, OCL and BEN

THE TRUNKING CONTROLLER: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF FREIGHTLINERS FROM SOUTHAMPTON - RICHARD JAMES

Line were joined by the German operator Hapag Lloyd and the Japanese in the shape of NYK and MOL. The service would be operated by seventeen vessels with OCL’s contribution being the five ‘bay’ class ships. Tokyo Bay was to be the first trio vessel to depart from Southampton’s new 204 berth on 8 June 1972.

The original container berth 201202 was used for the inaugral trio call, the honour falling to NYK’s Kamakura Maru on 29 January 1972.

Apart from the investment in ships - each ‘Bay’ class cost £11.3 million - OCL was part owner of Solent Container Services (SCS) which operated the new 204/5 berth complex and also the six inland container bases.

To facilitate the movement of containers between the port and the container bases. OCL and ACT (as agents for BEN Line) signed a contract with Freightliner to provide a pattern of daily ‘block’ trains originating from the newly constructed maritime terminal adjacent to the new berths. OCL and ACT would have exclusive use of this facility whilst other operators bought space on the common user services which were handled at the Millbrook terminal (commissioned in 1968).

Containerisation spread to the Europe South Africa service in ▲ The first container train ready to depart from Southampton Maritime terminal, 27 March 1972. Right to left are: Jack Wickens, Assistant Terminal Manager; Nick Scarley, Terminal Manager; Leslie Leppinton, Freightliner General Manager; Geoff Body, Freightliner Area Manager.

Sadly the driver’s name was not reported. (Richard James Collection)

▶ Work progressing on the new terminal, 1972.

(Richard James Collection)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

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▼ Just four months after services commenced all is quiet thanks to strike action from 4-18 July over ‘flexible Rostering’. In the distance behind the straddle crane the ‘QE2’ is in dry-dock following her return from the Falklands war. (Richard James Collection)

1978 with Southampton being chosen as the UK port, with a new berth - 206 - being brought into service to handle the new throughput. It was at this point that I joined the ‘beefed up’ trunking team in the OCL office on the ground floor of the SCS building.

Our task was to plan the trunk movement of import containers to the bases at Coatbridge (Scotland); Aintree (Liverpool); Barton Dock Road (Manchester); Stourton (Leeds); Perry Barr (Birmingham) and Barking (East London). Containers were moved under customs bond for clearance at the relevant containerbase with final road delivery being arranged by the local planning team. In the jargon this was ‘FCL’ traffic-full container loads. The container bases were also built with warehouse sheds to handle small consignments

▲ A five-set special that had worked from Bristol is recessed in the holding siding at Southampton Maritime on Wednesday 17 November 1982. The 15 x 20’ containers had been discharged at Felixstowe from an East African vessel Victoria Bay. They were loaded with tobacco for delivery to Bristol. Once unloaded at Bristol the empties were to be repositioned to Coatbridge. Freightliner moved the boxes to Bristol, delivered them, and forwarded the empties to Southampton Maritime for transfer to the 10:36 service to Coatbridge. However, as more urgent empties had to be moved on the Coatbridge service the five-set was stabled ‘out of the way’ until the following day when it was forwarded on to destination. (Richard James Collection)

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THE TRUNKING CONTROLLER: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF FREIGHTLINERS FROM SOUTHAMPTON - RICHARD JAMES

known as ‘LCL’ traffic. This went under the title ‘groupage’ or less than container load - LCL. The first priority was to get the LCL’s away to the container bases for unstuffing to satisfy the myriad of customers who would be after their individual consignment within the container. FCLS’s could not leave the containerbase until they had been cleared by HM Customs staff on site. LCL’s boxes could be unpacked on to the shed floor prior to customs clearance, thus releasing the box back into stock to cover export bookings.

Having delivered the imports to the container bases, the trains returned to the port with loaded export boxes or empties.

Again, road transport for the export bookings would be arranged locally with the box returning to the relevant container base for the trunk leg to the port.

The UK still possessed a good manufacturing base back in the 1970s and 80s and hard to believe now but some areas were actually export dominant particularly Birmingham, Leeds and of course Coatbridge with huge quantities of whiskey being shipped out. With this interregional imbalance between imports and exports the Southampton train network was used heavily to convey empty boxes around from surplus to deficit areas. Scotland in particular hoovered up empties, and the southbound wagons from the north west would regularly convey empties for transfer to the SouthamptonCoatbridge train. It certainly was one way of boosting the train utilisation figures!!

The arrival of the South African trade injected a big slug of 20’

▲ Having received my invitation to attend the 1,000,000 box ceremony, I popped into the Maritime Traffic Office early and probably just as well I did as I noticed the headboard read ‘OCT-ACT’ instead of ‘OCL-ACT’. Oops! Hurried alterations with paint brush followed before OCL Operations Director John Duggan turned up! (Richard James Collection)

▲ An unidentified Class 31 has halted on the arrival/departure road by 963 signal, at the

Redbridge end of the Maritime Freight Terminal, 08:05, Wednesday 22 June 1983. The train is a ten-set special from Stockton carrying 20 x 20’ containers from the ICI Wilton Works. The train was brought to a stand by the signal in order for the Freightliner Shift Manager to advise the driver the berthing arrangements. When this had been done Eastleigh panel was informed, 963 signal cleared and the train proceeded as far as the appropriate marked board. Once Eastleigh had been informed that the train was clear, the route was reset for a propelling movement into the terminal.

Each 60’ wagon can carry a payload of 61 tons. The gross weight of each of these 20’ containers is 22 tons each and so only 2 x 20’ boxes can be loaded to a wagon , hence the gap in the middle.

(Richard James Collection)

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◀ 3 March 1983, No 47079 G J Churchward is about to exit from the Redbridge end having worked the 09:53 from Barking.

(Richard James Collection)

boxes to move which blended in well with the large number of 40’ boxes prevalent even then on the Far East trade.

Thus, the aim of fully utilising the twenty 60’ wagons on each contract train was boosted by this helpful mix of 20’ and 40’ traffic. South African fruit arrived in 20’ insulated boxes in very large quantities starting in about January. The majority of it was destined for London and

the South East and during the ‘fruit season’ extra rail capacity was required, resulting in special trains running to the terminal at Barking.

The Achilles heel as far as the OCL/ACT rail contract was concerned was that one-third of a mile that separated the SCS berth and the Maritime railhead.

A tug and trailer operation by internal movement vehicles (IMV’s) conveyed boxes between

50

the two and as long as the feed or ‘circuit’ was maintained at the appropriate pace all went well. Inwards trains got stripped of exports and the wagons reloaded with imports in time for the relevant booked departure. Any protracted break to the circuit would soon lead to problems with export boxes backing up at the railhead and import boxes stranded on the berth missing the cut-off for the train departure. Unfortunately as the circuit was in the hands of Southampton’s somewhat stroppy dockers such stoppages were alas all too common and the phone would soon be ringing asking the trunking controller what priorities were there in terms of import or export boxes over the next few hours as the feed was falling behind.

Whatever decisions were taken were joint as both OCL and ACT were partners in the contract and as each often had opposing priorities interesting discussions often took place ... . Whilst OCL had a two third share of the rail capacity the decision making process was very ‘democratic’.

As it was a 24 hour continuous operation these phone calls and subsequent discussions could take place well into the night.

To be fair it wasn’t just the jolly Southampton docker who could effectively wreck the train plan. Bad weather, particularly the dreaded fog, or crane failure would also disrupt the flow of boxes and often with the same results - some compromise had to be reached as to the quantity of boxes that could

THE TRUNKING CONTROLLER: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF FREIGHTLINERS FROM SOUTHAMPTON - RICHARD JAMES

▲ Southampton Central 30 December 1982 sees No 47050 approach platform 1 with the 08:58

Maritime to Barking service. The leading 40’ is OCLU1031442 discharged from the Benavon which had arrived on Christmas Day. (Richard James Collection)

be moved as opposed to the volume required to be moved.

Straddle carriers which moved boxes from the stack to the LMV trailers could be switched by SCS to help ‘ship side’ in order to complete a vessels loading and getting her out on time.

Our own management was often compliant in this decision, knowing full well the impact on the flow of boxes to the railhead.

However when it came to the crunch the cost of delaying a ship for 12 hours or so far outweighed the cost of a few imports missing delivery. Of course it wasn’t the ‘management’ who had had the job to ring the importer and apologise for missing their booked delivery.

Having got the boxes to the railhead and loaded to wagons it was helpful if the rostered loco turned up and managed to work the train through to its destination. Alas, as the rail contract matured so did the class 47 work-horse and as they became long in the tooth failures became an ever present

threat. During the mid 80’s if a full day’s pattern of trains reached their destination on time a collective sigh of relief went up in the office. The credibility of rail as the main mode for distribution of containers took a battering during bouts of poor loco reliability. The end customer didn’t really care how we moved his box from the port as long as he got it at his premises at the booked time- usually 0800. A stranded train somewhere often meant a whole raft of 0800 deliveries missed that then had to be rebooked with all the operational difficulties and cost that entailed.

Marooned perishable boxes were a particular concern. Alas, it sometimes seemed to us that in the eyes of the railway operators bulk movement of containers were no different from any other flow such as coal or steel. Time sensitivity didn’t seem to register despite umpteen meetings over the years. Perhaps this was a consequence of dealing with a (then) nationalised industry

51

with its own constraints and attitudes. A private outfit like OCL lived and died by its customer service and if we couldn’t provide a satisfactory and reliable level of service customers could – and did - switch to another carrier. Mind you the dear old Southampton docker didn’t much care about customer service in the days prior to the abolition of the National Dock Labour Board Scheme. His was a job for life and to get the most money for doing the least amount of work and if overmanning meant the port was uncompetitive, so what?

The quiet growth of a certain port called Felixstowe and the inevitable consequences of the loss of trade from Southampton never seemed to register with the unions as they fought one another over pay differentials.

Privatisation of both docks and railways, certainly has concentrated the mind a bit and today both offer a level unheard of back in 1972.

Forty years on, the OCL ‘bay’ ships are tiddlers compared to the leviathans that use the port today (2,600teu v 13,000teu, where a ‘teu’ is a twenty foot equivalent unit). The maritime railhead now despatches thirty wagon trains and route clearance has allowed the ever growing proportion of 40’ hi-cube (9’6”) boxes to be conveyed on standard wagons. The gradual demise of the 20’ box means ironically that train utilisation is probably somewhat worse than back in 1972.

Train punctuality however has been vastly improved since the arrival of Class 66 locos from the USA, something else that would never have been predicted back in 1972.

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

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The Final Whistle

The First and Last Withdrawals of the Class 40s - Part 1

▲ On 28 August 1970, heavily damaged 368 still languishes on the Granton Branch the day after its collision with 363. For some time there was

considerable uncertainty surrounding what exactly had happened to this Class 40. Some even questioned if it was an elaborate hoax. The details seem to be that due to a breakdown in communication, regarding the signalling on the Easter Road to Granton branch, near Edinburgh, which was then being worked as a single line section with ‘one engine in steam’, somehow two movements were authorised. The two green liveried Class 40s, Nos 363 and 368 were travelling light engine in thick fog and badly collided at a closing speed around 40mph. The two locos were taken to Crewe Works where they spent the latter part of 1970 and into 1971. Amazingly, they were both noted as back in traffic by March and April 1971 respectively.

(TOPticl / Digital Memories)

T

o the railway enthusiast of the 1970s and 1980s, the Class 40s were held in high regard. To British Rail however, they represented a hangover of a past era in which the drive to eradicate steam had seen 200 of the lumbering, overweight and underpowered locos take to the rails. The reason for this

reputation was their English Electric 2,000hp 16SVT Mk 2 medium-speed power unit in a locomotive weighing a colossal 133 long tons. The locomotives utilised a proven design and they benefited from a conservative power rating which reduced stresses and help ensure long term reliability. Nevertheless,

52

with an unadventurous design came uncomplimentary comparisons as the loco was soon eclipsed by the Class 45’s 2,500hp, for the same weight.

When the Class 47 came with its 2,750hp engine, albeit later reduced to 2,580hp, but weighing only 112 tons, the Class 40s lost their top link work and was

THE FINAL WHISTLE: THE FIRST AND LAST WITHDRAWALS OF THE CLASS 40S - PART 1

◀ A fine study of the Class 40 is seen here with

40084, in tandem with 40057, at Evesham on 8 May 1982 with 1Z78, the Severn Valley Railtours ‘Cotswold Venturer’. The special was booked from York at 08:12 and headed for Paddington, via Leeds, Normanton, Wath Road Junction, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Derby, Birmingham New Street, Galton Jn, Smethwick West, Kidderminster, Worcester Shrub Hill, Evesham, Oxford, Didcot Avoiders and Reading. The return ran from Paddington at 16:23 to York via: Reading, Swindon, Stroud, Cheltenham Spa, Lickey, Birmingham New Street, Derby, Sheffield, Wath Road Junction, Normanton and Leeds. (Martin Buck)

▼ Showcasing the considerable damage

to 40189 is this view of it residing at Crewe Works on 20 September 1975. Post withdrawal the loco had been dumped at Tinsley from February 1976 to the end of May 1976 when it was taken to Crewe Basford Hall. From there it made the short trip to Crewe Works in July 1976 but wasn’t cut up until the following April.

(Rail Online)

consigned to heavy freights and secondary passenger services.

Over a four-year period from March 1958 to September 1962, 200 of the 90mph, English Electric Type 4s entered service, 20 built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn Ltd and 180 at the English Electric Vulcan Foundry.

Notable amongst them was D255. It was delivered in 1960 and alongside its steam heat generator, it had an auxiliary generator for electric train heating (ETH). After running trials this equipment was removed and as no other Class 40’s ever received ETH, it was an absence which contributed another reason for the early curtailment of the Class.

When introduced, the Class 40s found gainful employment on workings out of Kings Cross, but by June 1961 they were being displaced by the faster and more powerful Deltics (Class 55).

They found work on the Great Eastern but from January 1965 the new, more powerful Brush Type 4’s (Class 47) had took over the East Anglia express passenger services. They worked

out of London Euston to the North until electrification in the mid-1960’s saw all services south of Crewe hauled by electric locos. By 1967 the more modern 2,700hp Class 50’s had taken over accelerated services north of Crewe to Glasgow. Even on the Trans-Pennine services where high speed running was less of a priority, they lost out to the more powerful Sulzer Type 4’s (Class 45’s and 46’s) during the late 1960’s.

With their reign as top link

53

locomotives being painfully short, they did go on to provide near two decades solid work on secondary passenger services, along with parcels and postal trains and heavy inter regional freights. Some of the displaced LMR Class 40’s found a redoubt stronghold powering North Wales Coast passenger services.

They also found favour powering the heavier freights in the Midlands, North West, North East and southern Scotland, where they could slog away on more

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

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▶ In this September 1976 view is 40005

dumped at Crewe Works. The locomotive would never make it out of the Works and was cut up in the following month. (Rail Online)

generous timings.

The first Class member withdrawn was D322, due to its accident in 1966 and it was the only member of the class not to be renumbered. D322 was working the 20:00 Euston to Stranraer express when it collided with the runaway rear portion of the 23:00 Northwich to St Helens freight, of 30 loaded vans, with soda ash, hauled by a Stanier 8F 2-8-0. The coupling between the second and third wagon had come off, as the screw was not correctly adjusted. The loco was heavily damaged and both its enginemen died as a result of the accident which happened just before midnight at Acton Grange near the village of Moore on 13 May 1966. The loco was subsequently withdrawn on 29 May 1966. For nearly ten years, the remaining 199 locomotives continued intact until the next withdrawal took place.

While working, 6F52, the 21:30 Runcorn to Wallerscote freight, 40189 collided with the 18:05 Coatbridge to Southampton Freightliner at Weaver Junction

on 6 Aug 1975. By the following month it had been taken to Crewe Works where its damage was assessed. The loco had been dual braked and re-numbered during an overhaul in May 1974 and consequently it was a fairly prized asset by BR. Nevertheless, is was put into store in November 1975 as BR deliberated its future. Withdrawal came on 4 January 1976 and it marked the beginning of the end for the Class.

40005, 40039 and 40102, were withdrawn on 24 January 1976, along with 40043 on 31 January 1976, the locos were all vacuum braked only and regarded as being in poor overall condition which meant that they were deemed surplus to requirements.

40190 had been involved in a collision on 25 October 1975 when it ran away from Caverswall, on the Derby to Stoke line, while working 9F04, an unfitted coal train from Bestwood Park to Ellesmere Port.

It collided with 3M20, a Yarmouth to Liverpool Lime Street parcels train at Stoke Junction. By January 1976 it had been taken to Crewe

54

Works for collision repairs.

With repairs estimated to cost up to £16,500, BR deemed it a cost too far and thus it was withdrawn on 31 January 1976 with final demise coming in its scrapping during May 1976.

Another collision, this time at Fordown during a T3, an Engineer’s line possession, saw 40053 struck by another ballast train which was propelled by a fellow Class 40 on 12 June 1976.

It was dumped at Laurencekirk station on 15 June 1976 and despite having been dual braked on 19 June 1971, it wasn’t enough to save it from withdrawal which came on 18 June 1976. It was taken to Crewe Works on 28 July 1976 and was swiftly cut up by November 1976.

July 1976 saw three withdrawals. Vacuum braked only 40021 was retired on 17 July 1976, and 40041 along with 40089 succumbed on 18 July 1976 to make a total of 11 Class members withdrawn in 1976.

Only four Class 40s were withdrawn in 1977, 40059 and 40072 on 8 and 17 August respectively, 40048 on 27

THE FINAL WHISTLE: THE FIRST AND LAST WITHDRAWALS OF THE CLASS 40S - PART 1

October 1977 and 40054 on 31 December 1977. Of these four, 40054 was the most notable.

It had been dual braked on 16 October 1971 and sustained only superficial damage after running away off the fuel point at Birkenhead Mollington Street and colliding with buildings, on 18 November 1977. Nevertheless, it was enough to see it withdrawn, the other three were merely deemed as surplus or in need of

maintenance.

40051 was withdrawn on 29 January 1978 and amazingly it was the only Class member that year. Even more surprisingly, none were withdrawn in 1979 and none were scrapped during the year either. The speed with which the first withdrawals were cut up slowed considerably in the late 1970s with 40048 for example being left at Crewe Works from December 1977 to

June 1980 before it was cut.

Much to the chagrin of the Class 40 follower, the lull in their cutting and withdrawals wasn’t to last and as the Class 56s and later Class 58s arrived, a cascade of locos which facilitated the swifter withdrawal of the Class 40s. In part 2 we look at those subsequent withdrawals and the demise of a much-revered Class.

◀ Also seen at Crewe Works is 40102 in

September 1976. The loco was withdrawn at Healey Mills depot on 24 January 1976 and at some point, was taken to Tinsley by April 1976.

It resided there until July 1976 when it was taken to Crewe Works and lasted intact for nearly a year until being cut up in January 1977.

(Rail Online)

▼ In happier times, D322 is seen at Wembley

Hill, with 1T74 a Rugby cup final special from Wigan on 8 May 1965. The loco later became the first Class 40 to be withdrawn after an accident, just before midnight at Acton Grange near the village of Moore, on 13 May 1966. D322 was working the 20:40 Euston to Stranraer express, when it collided with the runaway portion of a soda ash train that had been hauled by a Stanier 8F 2-8-0. The coupling between the 2nd and 3rd wagon had come off as the screw was not correctly adjusted. The damage to the locomotive was very severe and both enginemen died but the guard of the freight jumped clear before the collision.

(Alec Swain)

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◀ Between 1970 and 1981 wagonload freight

fell from 93M tonnes to 17M and the majority of what was left had been transferred to the air braked only Speedlink network. The working of wagon load vacuum braked trains was in the twilight of its years as 40176 is seen at Ais Gill, on the Settle to Carlisle line, working 7A09, the 11:31 Carlisle Yard to Willesden freight on 4 June 1980. (Martin Buck)

▼ Seen at Crewe Works are 40137 on the left

and 40190 on the right on 6 March 1976. 40190 was involved in a collision on 25 October 1975 and was seen on Cockshute depot the following day. By January 1976 it had been taken to Crewe Works where it languished until being scrapped during May 1976.

(Barry J Nicolle)

▶ Doing what a Class 40 did best, is 40053

near Seamer with the 11:15 Newcastle to Scarborough service on 29 June 1974. The loco was withdrawn on 28 July 1976 and cut up in November 1976. (Bernard Mills)

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THE FINAL WHISTLE: THE FIRST AND LAST WITHDRAWALS OF THE CLASS 40S - PART 1

▲ Looking rather forlorn is withdrawn 40051 as it awaits its fate sandwiched between some vintage wagons in the sidings at the North end of York

TMD on 15 September 1978. The loco had been new from Vulcan Foundry as D251 in December 1959 and was withdrawn, as surplus to requirements and in a worn condition, in January 1978 with scrapping coming at Doncaster Works in December 1978. (Martyn Hilbert)

◀ Oh Dear! 40044 is dumped on Reddish

Electric Depot, on 24 September 1978, awaiting assessment and removal following a runaway and subsequent collision at Chinley in early September 1978. The loco had run away at Chinley while working 7Z20, a stone train from Peak Forest to Whitemoor Yard on 9 September 1978. The stricken 40 had been re-railed at Chinley and fitted with a pair of replacement front buffers before being moved by rail to Reddish for assessment. It was later moved to Crewe Works from where it didn’t emerge until March 1980. It would seem that there were two reasons for its repair, firstly it was dual braked and also that there was a severe locomotive shortage in early 1979 due to a huge maintenance backlog brought on by the extended severe winter. After re-entering traffic the loco remained in service until January 1985. Considering the withdrawals which had taken place earlier, it's remarkable that such a heavily damaged loco was repaired, but then this incident was at a time of acute locomotive shortages for BR. (Martyn Hilbert)

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Deltic Delights The Life of 55002 9 March 1961 4 April 1963

Wearing BR two tone green, enters service allocated to Gateshead (52A/GD).

Named “THE KING’S OWN YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY” at York.

18 October 1966

Released from Doncaster Works, after General repair, in BR blue as the first of the class to be painted in blue.

4 November 1967

Dual braked at Doncaster Works during a General repair.

23 December 1968 4 May 1971

Released from Doncaster Works following a General repair and D prefix subsequently dropped.

ETH equipment fitted at Doncaster Works during a Light repair.

8 December 1973

Renumbered to 55002 at Doncaster Works.

January 1979

Decision made to repaint the locomotive into original two-tone green livery.

Transferred to York TMD.

13 May 1979 2 January 1982

Withdrawn from service and preserved as part of the National Collection at York.

27 January 1982

Exhibited at Doncaster Works Deltic farewell open day. Later ran light engine back to York under its own power.

▼ With a mixed assortment of Pullman vehicles and

MkII coaches, D9002 races through Headingley on 6 June 1964. (Neville Stead Collection)

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DELTIC DELIGHTS: THE LIFE OF 55002

▼ Coming to the end of its journey from the north is 55002 as it slows into King Cross station on 14 September 1974 with the 15:15 arrival from Newcastle. (Barry J Nicolle)

▲ 55002 stands at Newcastle with the 07:45 Kings Cross to Edinburgh service on 19 August 1977. The loco is carrying the 'Silver Jubilee' headboard to mark Queen Elizabeth II's 25 years on the throne. (Bernard Mills)

▼ 55002 is seen at St. Neots on 2 August 1977 on 1L16, the 13:08 Kings Cross to Bradford. It took the train as far as Leeds where it then took over 1A35, the 17:40 Bradford Exchange to London Kings Cross between Leeds and London Kings Cross. (Trevor Davis)

▼ Carrying the retro livery of BR two tone green is 55002 at Gateshead on 20 June 1981. (Barry J Nicole)

▼ Delighting Deltic fans old and young alike

is 55002 at Doncaster Works on 26 February 1982 during the Deltic Tribute Open day after the end of service of the Deltics.

(Trevor Davis)

▲ In powerful view, 55002 is seen at North

Cowton, near Northallerton, with 1V93, the 11:25 Edinburgh Waverley to Plymouth service on 14 June 1981. The loco worked this service as far as York from where, after a short lay over, it dropped onto 1S27, the 09:00 Plymouth to Edinburgh Waverley. Its final working of the day was 1E39, the 22:30 Edinburgh Waverley to London Kings Cross service.

(Barry J Nicolle)

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

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Powering a Nation BR's Merry Go Round Operations Part 1 - The Impetus to Build

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POWERING A NATION - BR'S MERRY GO ROUND OPERATIONS: PART 1 - THE IMPETUS TO BUILD

▼ BR’s MGR workings were its prized asset and seen here is 56092 leaving Eggborough power station with an empty HAA set on 4 April 1990. (Ian Edmondson)

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B

ritish Rail’s ‘Merry Go Round” with coal trains were a simple, but revolutionary concept which efficiently carried its most lucrative traffic, coal from pit to power station. Coal transportation is as old as the railways themselves and yet it took the driving force of the Modernisation plan and ironically, more than a little input from the infamous Doctor Beeching for this game changing method of operation to come to fruition. Over several parts we will look at the inception, development and ultimate contraction of the MGR network on BR. In this first part we look at how coal was moved before the MGR system came into operation and why there was imperative need for a more efficient method of operation to feed Britain’s new power stations.

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

In 1929 the Government had set up a Standing Committee to look at the problem of low capacity coal carrying wagons. It found that of the 580,000 coal carrying wagons, 97% were wooden bodied and some 300,000 carried a 10 ton or less payload, the rest carried either 12 or 15 tons. The GWR had some steel bodied 20-ton box wagons, but only the LNER made significant use of the 20-ton hopper wagon, with bottom discharge doors, to allow their contents to drop through the rails, down shoots and directly into coal carrying coastal ships either for export or headed for London etc.

The report also found that 20-ton wagons couldn’t be unloaded at near half of all docks with mechanical facilities and nor could they be loaded at 42% of the inland terminals.

Moreover, at the collieries the loading of each wagon was done singularly, or in very small rafts, and the unloading by lifting or tipping each wagon individually.

A most laborious activity which often meant that wagons were lucky to make two round trips a month, an incredibly poor utilisation of such assets.

In September 1939 an order was made to requisition all 583,789 privately owned coal wagons ‘for the duration’.

The Second World War took its toll upon them and many were barely serviceable towards the end of the war when a start was made upon their replacement.

Contracts for the construction of 2,500 16-ton, all-steel, end door mineral wagons were let on 29 December 1944 to: Hurst Nelson, P&W MacLellan, Butterley Engineering, Metro Cammell, Birmingham C&W and Cambrian.

By the end of the war 6,652

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▲ Mercifully marked up as ‘condemned’ is a 13-ton coal wagon, No M600588 which is seen here at Cohen’s scrap yard, in Kettering, on 14 March 1965. (Transport Treasury)

▲ Former LMS class 3F 0-6-0T No 47445 shunts a single NCB hopper wagon onto the coal staithe

at the NCB Opencast Executive's British Oak Disposal Point, near Crigglestone, Wakefield in October 1969. British Oak is located in West Yorkshire, alongside the Calder & Hebble Navigation canal at the Eastern end of the Denby Grange colliery line. Coal was transported from the pits to the canal, from where it was loaded into barges for onward transportation to Thornhill Power Station. Even when the MGR network had been well established, this was a surprisingly long lived enterprise which saw coal brought to the power station via the Calder and Hebble Navigation until 1981. (Rail Online)

wagons had been produced and additional contracts saw a further 48,499 wagons ordered by the time of Nationalisation in 1948. This meant that around 70,000 had been built between 1945 by 1949.

Alongside the new wagons

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were some very tentative steps towards a more efficient method of working. A notable example included the LMS’ order for a fleet of 40-ton bogie coal hoppers from the Birmingham C&W Co Ltd in 1929 to LMS diagram D1708, lot no. 457,

POWERING A NATION - BR'S MERRY GO ROUND OPERATIONS: PART 1 - THE IMPETUS TO BUILD

numbered 189301-189330. They were still loaded individually, normally from Shipley Colliery, Nottingham, but were tripped to Toton to form a block working to Stonebridge Park generating station. At Stonebridge they were placed over an unloading gantry so their manually operated, top hung, side opening doors could deposit their loads to a pit alongside the track rather than between the rails. A more refined method of operation was provided for the iron ore traffic between Tyne Dock, in Jarrow, to Consett steelworks.

Some 30 vacuum braked bogie wagons were delivered in 1952 and they utilised semi-automatic discharge doors operated by airdriven motors.

Between 1940 and 1950, the demand for electricity had risen by 52% and was only set to continue its rapid growth. Thus, the nationalisation of the coal industry, on 1 January 1947, the railways on 1 January 1948 and the electricity supply industry on 1 April 1948 should have been the firing gun for the start of a new collaborative approach to the supply, transportation and consumption of coal. Wheels of change in nationalised industries turn very slowly however.

After two years of deliberation by the Railway Executive’s appointed Ideal Stocks Committee, a toe in the water of change came with their March 1950 report. In it was the recommendation that “the most important first step towards increasing the efficiency of the wagon stock is the elimination of the 253,500 grease lubricated wagons in existence at 31 December 1949”, an aim for which 1956 was the target. With that deadline in mind, further

▲ Breaking no speed nor efficiency records is a Clayton Type 1 with its rake of empty mineral

wagons at Dundee. The picture is taken from what is today the Riverside Approach road and while on the far left is the Firth of Tay, the carriages are stood where several car dealerships now stand.

The structure in the park is the 1890 Magdalen Green Bandstand and sits in the 400 year old Magdalen Green, Dundee’s oldest park. (Sandy Murdoch)

orders for new, ‘standard’, 16-ton coal wagons were placed on 28 July 1950. The orders were across 13 Lots for 14,161 wagons and they were to be built by a large group of outside contractors in order to expedite their delivery.

With British Railways on a mission to eradicate the former Private Owner wooden bodied wagons by April 1955, some 127,159 standard 16-ton mineral wagons had been produced across 55 Lot numbers. The bulk of the new ‘standard’ wagons were built to one of two diagrams, Lot No 1/108 with welded bodywork and 648³ capacity and Lot No1/109 with riveted bodywork and a 646³ capacity. Both standard designs utilised Morton two-shoe brake gear and side top-flap doors while the end doors were either fabricated, or pressed steel, depending on the contractor.

In choosing the unbraked 16 ton all steel wagon as the standard replacement for the wooden

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bodied wagons, the Ideal Stocks Committee had baulked at mandating the adoption of fitted brakes. The British Railways’ 1955 Modernisation Plan however did dictate that wagons should have an automatic brake and the first ‘new’ vacuum braked 16-ton wagon was delivered by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Co. in 1957. The wagon had clasp brakes but also being built were wagons with: double brakes, single cylinders, double cylinders, inner veehangers fitted without cylinders and even clasp brakes without cylinders. With such variety came problems and barely 12,000 entered service before the programme was suspended.

Subsequently the unfitted 16-ton wagon dominated and between 1951, and 1959 some 221,123 such wagons were built to diagrams 1/108 and 1/109 out of a total of around 320,000 16-ton mineral wagons. Conversely, little effort was expended upon building

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

larger hopper wagons. Even by mid-1956 a pitiful 500 24½ ton wagons, (TOPS code HUO), had been built. Additionally, just 8,550 21-ton wagons had been added to the former LNER’s fleet of 25,000 21-ton wagons and in all, BR built only 20,000 21-ton wagons. One of the reasons for continuing production of the low height 16-ton mineral wagon was that colliery screens were relatively low due to the mineowners, and later the NCB, trying to limit the height which coal was dropped from during loading in order to reduce degradation.

Other reasons included the use of tipplers to lift and tip the wagons being unable to accommodate the 21-ton hopper wagon.

In the post war era a more holistic approach to electricity generation was being taken.

The CEGB calculated that for distances over 45 miles it was cheaper to transmit electricity in bulk throughout the national grid from power stations, located in the coalfields, than it was to transport the coal to them. Thus, the CEGB set in motion a new policy of creating, new and much larger power stations in order to replace the traditional, small scale and mainly corporationowned power stations.

The 360MW Keadby PS, near Scunthorpe, was authorised in 1947. Work began in July 1948 and it came into operation in April 1952 with coal fed to it by steam hauled trains of 16-ton wagons, and to a degree, the 21-ton wagon, which brought coal from the South Yorkshire coalfield.

A turning triangle for the steam locomotives was even installed while wagons were individually unloaded.

At the 360MW Richborough

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PS, the new 24.5-ton hopper wagons were kept as a train and while the doors were still manually operated, the whole train was unloaded in just 35 minutes. By late 1964 there were seven 28 wagon trains, made up

of disc braked 24.5-ton hopper wagons permanently coupled, except during loading. The trains were hauled by 1,600/600hp electro diesels (Class 73) from the Kent pits of: Betteshanger, Tilmanstone, Snowdown and

▲ Midland Railway 0F 0-4-0T No 41528 is seen shunting wooden bodied mineral wagons at

Mapperley Colliery sometime around 1955. While far from the ideal looking set of screens for rapid loading, amazingly these small buildings did see the loading of HAA coal wagons for power station coal. Opencast coal was brought to the West Hallam disposal point and throughout the 1970s into the 1980s there were up to three trains a day, with departures around the time of: 08:00, 12:00 and 16:00. Given also that there was no need for slow speed control to load, locomotives of a variety of classes were noted here including Classes: 20, 25, 31, 37, 40, 44, 47, 56 and 58. The last day of loading was 11 October 1985 and 08814, which was on hire from Toton and had the honours of shunting the final wagons ready for 58014 to take it, and the train away to Toton. (Rail Online)

▼ A typical BR marshalling yard is seen here with Stoke Gifford playing host to a few of BR’s vast 16-ton mineral wagon fleet in the early 1960s. (Transport Treasury)

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POWERING A NATION - BR'S MERRY GO ROUND OPERATIONS: PART 1 - THE IMPETUS TO BUILD OFFICIAL

movements and shunts took time, but eventually, a driver, fireman and guard would depart with an empty train for one of the local collieries. Meanwhile, CEGB staff would be busy uncoupling the wagons into small rafts. One of their own shunting locomotives would then position them over underground hoppers ready for staff to manually lever their bottom discharge doors open and close them after unloading. Even at the best of times this was a gruelling job, but in wintery conditions, when the hopper house was effectively a wind tunnel, it was a punishing task.

In 1961, British Railways had 944,270 wagons, 510,832 of them being for coal or other minerals traffic. Their average load was a paltry 13.5 tons and they were managing just 33 loaded wagon miles per week, this equating to barely a single round trip. At the end of 1962 the British Railway’s wagon fleet stood at 848,591 across all types, a creditable reduction of near 100,000 wagons. Nevertheless, the total annual cost of providing wagons for coal traffic exceeded that of the haulage cost, which itself was about £30M. The NCB’s use of the wagons as mobile bunkers came at a cumulative cost to the railway of 22M wagon days a year. This, coupled with an allowance for covering peak demand, cost the railway £1 for each wagon supplied, or about £11M a year. Countering this cost was the NCB’s paltry £1M demurrage payment.

During 1962 some 34M tons of coal were carried by rail to CEGB power stations in England and Wales. Thankfully with a general move to larger capacity hopper wagons, it was expected that the

65

BLACKWELL ‘A’ WINNING COLLIERY To Blackwell ‘B’ Wining Colliery & New Hucknall Colliery

ge Lane Fordbrid

Empty Wagon Sidings

Weighing Machine

Colliery Screens

To spoil tip Loco Shed

Loaded Wagon Sidings

Weighing Machine

Blackwell Sidings

Chislet and with no spare train set in use, a total of 17,000 tons a week was being transported.

Several power stations were planned for the lower Trent Valley and in 1954 British Railways and the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) agreed on its first site, an area adjacent to Fledborough station off the Chesterfield to Lincoln line, the former Lancashire and Derbyshire & East Coast Railway (LD&ECR). Construction site clearance began in November 1955. The 945MW High Marnham PS started receiving coal in 1959, initially at a rate of 10,000 tons a week before building up to 10,000 tons a day. No 1 Unit commenced power generation in October 1959, and the station become fully operational in June 1962 followed by official opening on 5 October 1962.

In May 1963 High Marnham was selected for trial use on 42 wagon trains of 24½ tons hauled

by BR Sulzer Type 4s (Class 47).

More commonly however trains consisted of 34 wagons hauled by 9Fs. An arriving train would leave the mainline thanks to a new signal box and a facing junction. The junction led to the ‘Inwards Road’ and a run round loop to its left which allowed a loco to run around its train.

The loco would then propel its train into one of the 14 sidings, each capable of holding two 34 wagon trains, giving a colossal capacity of 952 wagons. The train loco would then push its brake van into the inclined ‘brake kip’ road and then collect a rake of empty wagons, draw forward onto the ‘Outwards Road’ and come to a stand in order for a brake van to free roll out of its inclined siding onto the rear of its train. These stop start

To Westhouses Shed & Blackwell East Junction

▲ A typical colliery layout is displayed here

with a diagram of Blackwell A Winning Colliery, Derbyshire. An arriving train would split its train and shunt its empty wagons into the empty wagon sidings at the top of the colliery.

These would then be gravitated, one at a time or in a raft of only a couple of wagons, over the weighing machine and then under colliery screens. They would then proceed over another weighbridge for their wagon card to be written out and attached. It would then be deposited in the loaded wagon sidings from where the mainline engines would assemble a train and take it to a nearby marshalling yard, in this case Blackwell East Sidings, for later onwards movement. (Alex Fisher)

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▲ The ubiquitous 16-ton mineral wagon is seen at the top of the loco coaling plant at Thornaby in July 1958. While this particular wagon tippler hoist

was for steam engine coal, the principle of physically lifting and tipping the wagon was one found across many industrial plants and older power stations. To unload hundreds of wagons a day in this manner would have proved hopelessly uneconomic as wagons stood for days and made barely a round trip or two a week from colliery to power station and back to the colliery. (Rail Online)

◀ Unloading the standard 16-ton

mineral wagons was achieved either by tipping the whole wagon near upside down, as seen here at Leicester Power Station, in on 20 May 1973, or by lifting one end so the coal fell out the end door.

Either way, it was a laborious, and time consuming task which gave exceptionally poor wagon utilisation. As the power station dated from 1922, it was never destined to join the MGR network, nevertheless it did continue in operation until 1976. Note ex-MR Burton line bridge over canal in background. (Horace Gamble)

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POWERING A NATION - BR'S MERRY GO ROUND OPERATIONS: PART 1 - THE IMPETUS TO BUILD

wagon fleet would drop to under 750,000 by the end of 1963.

A further 348,000 wagons were also expected to be scrapped over the next three years.

A meeting was held on 27 August 1957 between British Railways and the CEGB regarding the new Thorpe Marsh PS, near Snaith, north of Doncaster. Prior to the meeting, G. F. Fiennes, the Eastern Region’s Line Traffic Manager for the Great Northern, suggested to the railway’s deputation that ‘the ideal permanent way layout would be a circle or oval’. The premise being that a permanently coupled set of wagons would run around the loop and discharge its content and depart immediately.

The distinct problem with this operation was that generally, only one train would be on site at any one time. Collieries however had dropped from a six-day week to a five-day week, and thus the railways would build up a stock of loaded wagons towards the end of week and fill the power station’s sidings on a Friday and Saturday for them to empty over the weekend.

For Thorpe Marsh at least, it seems that the use of these wagons as mobile storage bunkers was preferable to them stacking the coal for a weekend burn. Thus, sadly for Mr. Fiennes, Thorpe Marsh was laid out in a similar manner to High Marnham with an arrival and run round road, 16 loaded and empty sidings, two brake van roads and a cripple siding.

With a planned coal consumption of 3.15M tons per year, equating to 65,000 tons per week, 578 vacuum-braked and 1,157 unbraked 24.5-ton hopper wagons were required, a total

▲ The unfitted 21 Ton hopper and BR 9F No 92146 are bringing coal to High Marnham power station whose cooling towers can of course can be seen in the background. (Tony Smith)

▼ Having arrived at the power station and ran around its train, 9F No 92146 is now pushing its

loaded train under the road bridge and into the 14 road exchange sidings which may be glimpsed through the bridge. Once deposited, the loco will then place the brake van into one of the brake kip roads. The loco then worked light engine as 0T52 High Marnham to Thoresby colliery.

(Tony Smith)

of 1,735 wagons at a capital cost at the time of over £3M. Given these gargantuan numbers, it was no wonder that if one was to examine a British Railways accounts book from the late 1950s, then in terms of ‘mobile capital investment’, freight rolling stock (FRS) was by far the company’s greatest asset.

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There was more money tied up in wagons and containers than in locomotives, coaching stock or road vehicles.

As part of an overall effort to speed up coal workings in the East Midlands area, the ER introduced what it called Class 7* services. These trains ran with a quantity of vacuum brake fitted

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

▼ The curse of the unfitted wagon was their lack of continuous brake, an omission which

made stopping them much more of a problem than actually getting them to move. Seen here is a Class 37 as it propels a brake tender and hauls a southbound coal train of empty wagons passed Blackhall Colliery, Durham coalfield, sometime in 1966. (Rail Online)

21-ton hopper wagons at the head of the train, the rest being unfitted wagons. The number of fitted wagons being those required for the train to run at 35mph and be safely controlled on the route’s steepest falling gradient. The total weight limit also needed to be within the capability of the diesel loco’s short-term rating of its electrical equipment on the steepest gradient. Conversely, the NER noted that with the cost of vacuum fitting brakes to a

24.5 ton wagon being £550 (in early 1963), on a wagon costing £1,250, the investment just wasn’t worth the outlay.

Between 1958 and 1960 planning meetings were held between the CEGB and the British Railways Eastern Region regarding the building of a new West Burton PS, east of Retford. With an estimated coal consumption of 1M tons from March 1965 to March 1966, building up steadily to 5.3M tons from 1968, and the possibility of

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7.5-8M tons of coal per annum being required, both parties were determined to design a far more efficient method of transportation. Therefore Part two of our look at the Merry Go Round system will analyse the design of West Burton PS, the wagons that served it and how the system developed into BR’s greatest asset.

POWERING A NATION - BR'S MERRY GO ROUND OPERATIONS: PART 1 - THE IMPETUS TO BUILD

▼ Hams Hall power station consisted of a

series of three large installations. A station opened on 6 November 1929 and was noted as the first power station in the UK to burn pulverised coal, rather than lumps of coal. Site B began generating electricity in 1942 and as the station expanded between 1946 and 1949, by 1947 station B had the highest thermal efficiency of any plant in the UK. Station B had a generating capacity of 160,500 kW and upon completion of the expansion works, together the two stations formed the greatest concentration of electricity generation in Europe. Station C was commissioned between 1956 and 1958 and together Hams Hall was the largest power station in Europe, with a combined generating capacity of over 900MW. Together the three power stations burned around 1.25M tonnes of coal a year. The track layout of Hams Hall long predated the concept of the MGR system and thus seen here is CEGB 9 shunting unfitted 21-ton wagons on 22 April 1978. The power station eventually acquired 13 steam locomotives with No 9 having been built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd, at their Forth Bank Works, Newcastle. Normally six to eight locos were required to be in steam, with a smaller number at weekends.

(John Tolson)

▲ Leaving the Welbeck Colliery is D5808 (Class 31) with a typical coal train made up of 16-ton

mineral wagons. In the foreground are the mainline of the former LD&EC route which ran to Lincoln and serviced the highly productive coalfield of north Nottinghamshire and High Marnham power station on the river Trent. (Rail Online)

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Getting the Boot

The Market Harborough to Northampton Line

▲ A wonderful shot of Market Harborough station, on Saturday 28 December 1974, shows a Class 45 heading 1P10, a London St Pancras to Derby service. Curving off to the right are the Up and Down lines of the route to Northampton. (David Blower)

T

he Sectional Appendix is the bible of the railway, it tells everyone who works upon it the details of each route and the method of working over it. In the BR Times we will be using various Sectional Appendices in order to look at a line of route and how it was worked. Our first line is that between Market Harborough and Northampton from its opening through to closure.

The Northamptonshire line owes its existence to the discovery of large iron ore deposits in 1851. Consequently the London and North Western

Railway (LNWR) proposed a new line between Northampton and Market Harborough. George R. Stephenson, the nephew of ‘the’ George Stephenson, and George Parker Bidder designed the line but five years elapsed between proposal and construction beginning after Richard Dunkley, of Blisworth had been awarded the building contract in March 1858.

The line’s zero mile post was at what became Duston West Junction on the LNWR’s Northampton to Peterborough line, of 1845 through to a junction near Little Bowden, just south

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of Market Harborough on the LNWR’s Rugby to Stamford line of 1850.

To say that the line was built on the cheap, is fairly accurate, for initially it was only a single line, worked by a staff between Northampton and Lamport and another to Market Harborough.

It was also plagued by level crossings, most of which were provided with crossing keeper’s lodges and later a signal box or crossing attendant.

There were single bore tunnels of 531 yards at Kelmarsh and 462 yards at Oxendon.

The first passenger train ran

GETTING THE BOOT: THE MARKET HARBOROUGH TO NORTHAMPTON LINE

▲ Controlling the start of the north end of the route, at Market Harborough station, was the former

L&NWR signal box as seen here on 9 July 1978. Points to note for the modeller are the bright yellow sacks of coal for the signaller, the former Midland Railway lamp hut and the classic LMS style light and wooden post. Note also infrastructure changes following the closure of Market Harborough No 1 on 24 July 1966 and then Market Harborough No 2 signal box from Sunday 20 August 1968 which then meant that No 3 controlled all of the station and its junctions. Market Harborough No 3 became simply Market Harborough, note the name board with the space at the end being where the suffix 'No 3' was once displayed. The Class 1 box was incredibly busy and in January 1962 it was noted as having seen 217 trains in a typical day. The figure doesn’t include light engine movements such as banker which accompanied every train on the Northampton line as far as Oxendon or Kelmarsh, the latter being 400 feet above sea level. Several locos were based at Market Harborough for banking trains through to the transfer of 2-8-0 90237 to Toton on 25 January 1964. (G H Taylor)

on 16 February 1859 and just two trains ran each way per day from Blisworth to Market Harborough serving the intermediate stations at: Northampton Castle, Pitsford, Brixworth, Lamport, Spratton, Kelmarsh, and Clipston & Oxendon.

Note that Northampton Castle had been built specially for this line as the inspectorate had effectively banned the LNWR from propelling a train out of Northampton Bridge Street station and then taking the line to Market Harborough line at

Duston West Junction.

The line’s traffic was constrained by the use of just two staffs and thus they were soon augmented with tickets. In April 1860 a decision was taken to double the line’s southern section as far as Lamport and the running of four trains each way per day commenced in June 1861.

The tunnels had notoriously restricted clearances and were duly christened “the rat holes” by train crews and after twenty years traffic the whole line was doubled with new bores added

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in 1879. The original tunnels became the Down line while Up line tunnels were added at Kelmarsh, 531 yards long and Oxendon at 453 yards long.

Thankfully at least, these new bores had ventilation shafts.

The Up and Down Oxendon tunnels had adjoining tunnel portals, each with an imposing and architecturally attractive structure built mainly in brick with substantial buttresses either side of the entrances and curved wing walls. The detailing was in stone, including the parapet, associated string course and oversail around the arch ring face that protected it from water penetration. Above the parapets are lengthy drainage channels, also brick built. The Kelmarsh tunnels were quite a way apart and ran effectively as two separate lines.

With the line now double throughout, the Absolute Block (AB) signalling method was introduced on 4 August 1879, in place of staff and ticket working, between Market Harborough and Boughton level crossing.

Between 1875 and 1885 the LNWR’s Northampton and Rugby lines connected into the MR’s line at Market Harborough before heading east towards Stamford.

The two company’s lines were separated at Market Harborough after the MR opened a new flyover on 28 June 1885. Three new boxes were built at Market Harborough: No 1 controlling the junctions of the Northampton and Rugby lines, No 2 the goods yard and the south end of the exchange sidings while No 3 controlled the north end and the Stamford line. The Midland line and the Northampton/Rugby line were reconnected with a proper junction in 1924 when a new REC

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

frame was installed in No 3 box.

The sectional appendix of 1937, which with amendments applied until 1960, showed a line-speed of 50mph with lower limits of 35mph round the curve at Little Bowden, 40mph through Brixworth station and 45 mph through Lamport station.

Lie-by-sidings of 33 and 77 wagons were provided on the Up side at Kelmarsh and Lamport respectively.

Rationalisation of the line’s stations started early, Spratton closed completely on 23 May 1949 followed by Pitsford which closed to passenger 5 June 1950. The remaining intermediate stations: Brixworth, Lamport, Kelmarsh, and Clipston & Oxenden were closed to passenger traffic from Monday 4 January 1960, well before the infamous mass closures of the Beeching era.

In 1959 there had been only six trains per weekday which ran from Leicester to London Euston and called at local stations.

An additional weekday service came from London Euston and ran nonstop between Northampton and Market Harborough. Extra trains ran on a Saturday including one from Leicester running nonstop

from Market Harborough to Northampton and onwards to Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings until September.

The last local services were run on Saturday 2 January 1960.

In the Down direction was the 18:55 from Euston to Leicester, calling at Northampton at 20:33 and Market Harborough at 21:05, formed of a five coach service hauled by Ivatt Class 2MT 2-62T No. 41218. The last Up train was the 2:45 from Leicester to Northampton calling at Market Harborough at 21:30 powered by Fowler 2-6-4T No. 42331.

Kelmarsh, and Clipston & Oxenden were closed to Goods on the same day with Brixworth and Lamport following on 1 June 1964. This left the line devoid of passenger traffic and the only intermediate traffic at the two ironstone sidings at Pitsford and Lamport. The rest of the traffic was through freight, mainly to and from Toton with coal.

A particularly noteworthy coal train from Toton was the Stonebridge Park former LMS hoppers which were worked over the line.

In the early 1960s there was a pick up goods service known as the “Harborough locals” which brought empty hopper wagons

Seasonal Passenger Traffic 19 June 1965 to 4 September 1965 Up Trains 20:20

FO

Bradford FS to Bournemouth West

08:35

SO

Leeds City to Poole

21:17

FO

Sheffield Midland to Portsmouth Harbour Down Trains

08:55

SO

Bournemouth West to Leeds City

10:34

SO

Bournemouth West to Bradford Exchange

14:02

SO

Portsmouth Harbour to Sheffield Mid

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to Pitsford Ironstone Sidings and Lamport Ironstone Sidings.

It also brought any individual wagons for the local goods yards, such as the odd wagon for Pitsford and Brampton and Brixworth. At these stations were porter signalmen who would open the signal boxes as required. It was around this time that coal trains from Toton to the Southern Region were diverted from their route to Cricklewood and instead over the line to Northampton.

Passenger services to Rugby were still running over the very northern end of the line until they ceased on 9 June 1966.

The closure of the Rugby line allowed Market Harborough No 1 Signal box to close on 24 July 1966 followed by Market Harborough No 2 Signal box 20 August 1968. From this time Market Harborough No 3 worked AB to Little Bowden. Incidentally the LNWR No 1 box had been replaced by an LMR Type box in the 1950s and it ended up being reused at Marylebone.

In the March 1967 report, Railways Network for Development the line was shown as part of the passenger and freight network for development. It was envisaged that commuter services from London would terminate at Bedford the line northwards to Market Harborough would be closed. Through traffic from London to the north would be diverted to run out of Euston to Northampton and then over the line to Market Harborough.

Allegedly, sometime earlier, two road overbridges along the line were rebuilt in order to provide clearances for 25 kV 50 Hz electrification, which was to be carried through to Leicester.

GETTING THE BOOT: THE MARKET HARBOROUGH TO NORTHAMPTON LINE

The possibility of electrification however seems to have quietly disappeared and so did this absurd plan.

It was re-opened to through passenger traffic on 6 January 1969 purely to allow for the routing a new sleeper service.

A 21:15 left St Pancras for Edinburgh, via Nottingham and a 23:30 left for Glasgow, via Derby. They were replaced with a sleeper train departing Euston

at 21:00, under electric haulage to Northampton where a Class 45 would take over for the journey northwards to Glasgow via the S&C, the return journey providing the only daylight passenger service over the line. In using Euston, the sleeper facilities at Cricklewood were done away with. An article in the Chronicle and Echo reported the loss of the sleeper service as being from 1 May 1972 and as this effectively

closed the line to passenger services without having gone through the statutory closure procedure, it technically reopened on 10 July 1972 with 1D26, the SX Northampton to Nottingham newspaper train, leaving Euston at 01:40, 02:53 at Northampton and 03:52 at Leicester having unadvertised passenger accommodation between Northampton and Leicester. Technically this meant

Market Harborough to Northampton Line Mandatory Train Services from 3 May 1971 to 30 April 1972 Up Line Origin Destination

HC

Depart

8B19 4A57 6B01 8B07 5A21 5A21 1M98 5A12

01:10 MX 01:55 MX 04:27 MX 04:20 MX 05:00 (SuO) 06:05 22:50 12:00 TThO

Leicester Nottingham FLT Leicester Toton East Yard Nottingham GY Nottingham Glasgow Central Derby Etches Park

Northampton US (MD) York Way (Freightliner) Northampton (Parcels) Northampton US (MD) Willesden (Empty Stock) Willesden (Empty Stock) Euston (Sleeper) Willesden (Empty Stock)

02:08 03:06 05:19 06:08 06:30 07:42 08:20 13:37

5A12 4A29 4M98 1M98

08:57 20:42 21:30 21:25

Crewe Up Hill Nottingham PCD Sheffield Glasgow Central

Willesden (Empty Stock) Kensington O (Parcels) York Way (Freightliner) Euston (Sleeper)

13:37 22:15½ 23:51 06:48

MO SX SX (SO)

At Kelmarsh

Down Line HC

Depart

Origin

Destination

At Kelmarsh

5K12 5P35 1D26 4E72 4E11 8D39 4D51 4F01 1S24 1D31

01:10 MO 01:10 TThO 01:40 01:30 MX 06:00 MX 08:10 MX 18:19 SX 20:30 SX 21:00 00:40

Willesden New E Willesden New E Euston York Way FLT Northampton Northampton DS York Way FLT Northampton Euston Euston

Crewe South Yard (ES) Chaddesden CS (ES) Nottingham CS (NP) Sheffield (Freightliner) Leeds (Parcels) Beeston (Merchandise) Nottingham FLT (S) Leicester (Parcels) Glasgow C’ (Sleeper) Nottingham GY (NP)

03:03 03:03 03:21 03:45 06:28 08:45 20:33 20:58 22:39 02:21

MD - Merchandise, FLT - Freightliner, PCD - Parcels Depot, GY - Goods Yard, NP - Newspapers

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BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

◀ Taking the Northampton line with a loaded

coal train are a pair of Class 20s at Market Harborough on Saturday 28 December 1974.

Note in the foreground the ground position signal and that on the red horizontal line is a small white diamond, this signifying to a driver that they are on a portion of line fitted with a track circuit and thus their presence is visible to the signaller. In the background are the 75mph mainlines and additional sidings holding various engineer’s wagons.

(David Blower)

that the line still ran a passenger service, albeit in one direction only. The last passenger train ran on Saturday 25 August 1973 with official closure coming from Monday 27 August 1973.

By the early 1970s the UK’s domestic iron ore quarrying was in severe decline and with the Northamptonshire ones closing, coal trains from the Nottinghamshire coalfields to Northampton were the line’s most numerous services.

They continued into the 1970s and there were around 26 workings each way over the line.

Other freight services included a daily Willesden to Derby Etches Park carriage service and numerous parcels service.

There was even a freightliner service along with some short term flows such as in 1979 when a York to Dover train conveyed Dross (the impurities that float on the top of molten metal) for export to Europe. Diverted services were a common feature as well as football specials.

Some of the football specials were DMUs for example from Northampton to Nottingham.

More interesting however were

FA Cup final days on a Saturday when four to eight services were often run. These would usually be hauled by Classes: 25, 45 and 47 with trains from: Leicester, Leeds and Sheffield when they made the final.

In addition to the four tunnel bores, the Achilles heel of the line were its numerous level crossings, and while not all of their associated signal boxes were block posts, they had to be manned/monitored for traffic to run. By the early 1970s the reduction in traffic gave opportunity to cut the route’s costs by shutting the line in the afternoon. Subsequently it opened over two shifts, unusually from 22:00 to 07:00 and 07:00 to 13:15, Mondays to Fridays. The line would open additionally on Saturdays, especially for the football traffic and occasionally on Sundays to clear traffic backlogs or for engineering work.

The line’s fixed costs could have been slashed dramatically with the conversion of the crossings to Automatic Half Barriers, or at least CCTV monitored crossings from perhaps one manned box along the line. The Hixon

74

crash of 6 January 1968 had tempered BR’s and the public’s enthusiasm for such crossings however and any such plan was never seriously considered.

Economies were made however and they included: downgrading Draughton signal box to a crossing box by 1960, the withdrawal of a crossing keeper at Merry Tom on 12 April 1964 and Hanging Houthon sometime later. Kelmarsh signal box was also closed on 31 October 1971 followed by Clipston and Oxenden on 6 April 1977.

Northampton power station ceased power generation in 1976 and consequently coal traffic terminally declined and by the end of the decade, services were few and far between. The line was still considered a useful diversionary route, but as it was expensive to operate, had no passenger service and no contributing freight traffic, it was ripe for closure.

Towards the end of the line’s use the quality of its infrastructure had been allowed to decline with poor track conditions resulting in speed restrictions as low as 15mph with an overall line speed of 30mph with a 20mph line speed through the junction at Market Harborough. Kelmarsh Down tunnel in particular suffered considerable brickwork deterioration over the years which led to open mortar

GETTING THE BOOT: THE MARKET HARBOROUGH TO NORTHAMPTON LINE

joints and spalling. Spring water accumulated behind the brickwork and weep pipes were inserted to allow it to escape.

Consequently extensive repointing and many patch repairs were undertaken, including two lengthy sections of arch replaced with engineering bricks. As BR moved towards sectorisation, each sector was taking a keener look at its infrastructure cost and with Railfreight the sole user of the line, its services were easily diverted to facilitate its closure.

The last day of the line’s use came on Saturday 15 August 1981 and on that day one of Bletchley's four car Marylebone DMUs was charted by the Welland Valley Rail Revival Group as a farewell return trip over the line. Northampton Guard Gerald Ditu, Northampton conductor driver Ron Watts and Bletchley driver Geoff Champkin worked 1L03 over the line. Upon return to Northampton, the signallers had exchanged their 7-5-5 bell codes for the final time, wrote up their train register books, signed off, and locked up for the last time.

From Monday 17 August 1981 the line was taken out of use and for nearly a year it lay dormant until, at Market Harborough, the Up connection and diamond crossing in the Down line along with the associate Home and distant signals were removed on 12/13 June 1982. During that year at least one engineer’s train was sent along the line to lift salvageable rails but even into 1983, much of the line remained in situ along with boarded up signal boxes which were becoming ever more vandalised.

Official closure of the line came on Monday 27 February 1984 with a piece in the Weekly Operating Notice reading as

LMR Nottingham Division 1980

follows: The down and up lines between Northampton No 4 (Market Harborough Junction) and Market Harborough will become Engineers Sidings and all intermediate lines will be abolished. A rail will be removed on each line at 13½mp [between Kelmarsh Tunnel north portal and Kelmarsh Tunnel station] and Engineers trains will work over the line up to this point

75

from either end of the line for the purposes of track recoveries.

Moveable stop blocks will be provided on the down and up Market Harborough lines, 440 yards from the junction at the Northampton end. The Down Northampton line to Down Main line connection and remains of the Northampton line and the final two sidings were taken out of use on 27 January 1985 Finally

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

as part of the re-signalling of the Midland Mainline, Market Harborough signal box was taken out of use 27 April 1986 and closed on 29 June 1986.

With encroaching vegetation, the odd visit from the metal fairies and no doubt railway enthusiasts looking for interesting artefacts, only a few portions of the line were still in place into 1987. The connection at Northampton was still there however and with a heavy frost from the night before and the sun beginning to break through, a tamper machine made its way onto the line on the morning of 10 December 1987. Sadly it wasn’t

with a view to fettling the line for reopening.

With reopening off the agenda, the Welland Valley Revival Group had been set up in June 1981 and preservation of the line began in 1983 with the newly formed Northampton Steam Railway group. Three years later the group changed its trading name to the Northampton & Lamport Railway (NLR).

The 14 mile Brampton Valley Way footpath opened in spring 1993 and the first passenger carrying preservation train ran on 19 November 1995 prior to official reopening on 31 March 1996.

The current line runs for two

miles between Boughton, through Pitsford and Brampton to the former Merry Tom Crossing. Future plans are for the line to be re-laid through Spratton and Brixworth to Lamport.

A Network Rail investigation into reopening the line was undertaken in 2019 but at the moment there are no plans to investigate this further.

Meanwhile much of the route may be walked, including through one bore of each of the tunnels, and more is being reopened for the enjoyment of families and railway enthusiasts.

LMR – Southern Section Sectional Appendix April 1980 Northampton No. 4 to Market Harborough

76

GETTING THE BOOT: THE MARKET HARBOROUGH TO NORTHAMPTON LINE

▶ Little Bowden level crossing is seen

here shortly before the route’s closure. The diminutive LNWR Type 4 box, with a 12 lever LNWR frame, was opened in 1879, when the route was doubled, and was located where the line passed over Scotland Road. Levers 1, 2, 7 and 8 locked the level crossing, No 3 was the Down Distant while No 4, locked by the block, was the Down section signal. On the Up, No 11 was the section signal and No 12 was distant signal and numbers: 5, 6, 9 and 10 were spare.

Post closure the box was still in situ until at least August 1985. It was subsequently saved for use on the Northampton and Lamport Railway under the new name of Pitsford and Brampton. (Stephen Randall)

▼ 25099 and 25254 are heading towards

Market Harborough as they approach the gated road from Arthingworth just before the site of the former Oxendon and Clipston station at 13:10 on Wednesday 10 March 1976. The line was first laid with double headed 21’ rails of 80lb per yard, each fishplate connected to the next and sat on 35lb chairs secured with wooden keys. Probably sometime after the first world war the line was progressively re-laid with bullhead rail. Note here however that while still on wooden sleepers with fishplated track, the rail is at least flat bottom rail at this location. Also of interest for the modeller is that 25099 has its headcode set to 0000. Notices first stating that the displaying of the correct headcode could be dispensed with were published in October 1975. The requirement for the displaying a headcode was dispensed with entirely from 1 January 1976. Locomotives due for withdrawal retained them set to 0000 while those with a future service life initially gained a black film and two white marker dots over the glass panel of their former headcode panels.

(Geoff Robinson)

▲ On 2 March 1973 1855 (Class 47) hauls a

southbound Toton to Willesden service freight service passed Spratton signal box. The signal on the cantilevered signal post is Spratton’s No 11 Down Section signal, underneath it was once Brixworth’s Down Distant signal No 24 until that box was closed on 5 October 1965.

(John Evans)

77

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

▼ Viewed from the track line are the Kelmarsh

▼ Seen passing Draughton Crossing box is

tunnels as the line splits at their south end.

The straight, northbound track on the left is the original route of the single track line, while the curving route to the right, is the southbound tunnel which was built to enable the railway to become double track. Inside these tunnels were tall, thin and built with brick inverts as refuges for the platelayers. White plates were installed on both sides of them to improve their visibility to anyone working inside the tunnels.

(Craig Donald)

1540 (Class 47) with 1M98, the final 22:50 Glasgow Central to Euston sleeper train on 29 April 1972. (John Evans)

▼ Once an everyday scene in the ironstone

▼ Kelmarsh signal box was closed on 31

quarries throughout Northamptonshire.

Here we see a Brush Type 4 at Lamport Ironstone Sidings as it readies its train of rich, red ironstone. On the right are empty wagons which had been left for the next train on 6 April 1966. The signal box here, had a 15 lever LNW Tappet Frame which controlled the quarry's access to the mainline. Note on the right hand side is a Midland Railway crossbar signal, worked by lever No 8, to denote when shunting needed to pause. After the quarry had closed, the box closed on 13 February 1970.

The other quarry at Pitsford was closed in 1965 and the internal railway was lifted in 1966 with the last movement being on 12 July 1966 when the quarry's Pitsford loco made a journey to Lamport Goods Yard from the BR Sidings.

Its associated signal box, Pitsford Ironstone Siding was duly closed on 4 April 1967.

(John Evans)

October 1971 and is seen here sometime shortly afterwards. (Craig Donald)

78

GETTING THE BOOT: THE MARKET HARBOROUGH TO NORTHAMPTON LINE

▲ It's tempting to look back at the 1960s and

▼ Viewed from the road crossing is Brixworth

think that engines like the Peaks (Class 45) were used exclusively on passenger trains, but that certainly was not the case. Here on 11 April 1967 we see No D59 The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers heading north on the Northampton to Market Harborough line with a train of unfitted empty mineral wagons. Lamport ironstone quarry is on the right and the signal box controlling the junction can just be seen behind the engine. (John Evans)

Station on 6 April 1966. (John Evans)

▼ Having traversed the Market Harborough to Northampton line, Class 20s Nos 20178 and 20189 pass Northampton No 4 signal box with a coal train from Toton on 10 May 1978.

(Lewis Bevan)

79

BR TIMES - ISSUE 1

JULY 2025

Your Comments

▲ Stabled on Aberdeen Ferryhill Depot are an unidentified trio of locos at the fuel point, but maybe most interesting is the Deltic just seen inside

the depot building on the right. Perhaps you might be able to help in narrowing down the date of this photo and why a Deltic was noted here in the twilight of the years. (Sandy Murdoch)

H

ere at 'BR Times' we are keen to hear of your experiences of working for or observing BR. Within the issue are a few questions to ponder and enquiries you might be able to help with. We are also most interested to hear from you if you have a story to tell or an interest in a particular aspect of BR's operations or developments.

Of particular interest are the experiences of those who worked with the changing aspects of BR, whether that be from the very top at BR Director level, the driver, or guard or the

shed man who had the allowance to feed the shed cat, please get in touch via the following methods: Email: BRtimeseditorial@gmail.com Phone: 01494 708939

80

In Issue two of 'BR Times' we look at a range of subjects across the breadth of BR era and its operations. Included in the issue is: part two of our look at the Glasgow to Edinburgh services with a focus upon the Class 27s in the push pull operation, we look at the MGR concept and how it was introduced to BR and its operations, Shepreth Branch Junction, in east Anglia and its operations before closure, Bristol Bath Road’s Class 47/8s and much more.

Welcome to the first issue of BR Times, a new history periodical dedicated to students and enthusiasts of the British Rail (BR) era.

As a rail enthusiast of 40 years and a railwayman now in my third decade of service, I have a deep appreciation for the British Rail period. I grew up in Westhouses, a modest Derbyshire village that owes its very existence to the Midland Railway. The railway built not only an engine shed, but also rows of terraced houses for its employees - each street named after a Midland Railway director.

They even constructed the school I attended as a child.

Westhouses, much like BR Times, is a microcosm of interest for the railway enthusiast, the modeller, and the social historian alike.

Unlike the established Times series, BR Times will focus specifically on the era from around 1965 to 1997. This was a time of immense change.

Steam gave way to diesel and electric traction, many lines were closed, and DMUs and EMUs proliferated under the Modernisation Plan. BR’s corporate image became omnipresent - an era symbolised by the HST and the bold declaration that this was ‘the age of the train.’

Against this backdrop, BR Times will examine the everyday activities of BR through carefully chosen photographs and illustrated articles covering the five regions and three decades of British Rail. But we will also be asking: Was BR really as bad as many remember? And do we give it enough credit for its many achievements?

ISBN: 978-1-917776-12-7

£13.50