Industrial Railways Pt 1 - Full

Arranged by type of system, the book allows readers to compare different practices and designs across various industrial settings. The photographs capture the intricate details of these now long-forgotten railways, offering a rare look at the infrastructure that once powered Britain’s industries. Many of these images have never been published before, making this collection a valuable resource for enthusiasts and historians alike.

Industrial Railways - Part 1: Docks, Coal, and Ironstone

‘Industrial Railways’ offers a compelling glimpse into Britain’s industrial railways of the 1950s and 1960s through the lens of RC Riley.

Known for his meticulous composition and attention to detail, Riley’s black-and-white photographs capture the essence of a bygone era.

Industrial Railways Part 1: Docks, Coal and Ironstone

Compiled by Charles Milner

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Compiled by Charles Milner From the R C Riley Archive

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Industrial Railways From the R C Riley Archive Part 1: Docks, Coal and Ironstone

Compiled and captioned by Charles Milner

1

Copyright: Images and Design: The Transport Treasury. Text: Charles Milner ISBN: 978-1-915281-07-4 First published 2024 by Transport Treasury Publishing Ltd. under the Turntable Publishing imprint.

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Front Cover: No 11 is seen running light engine through Pye Hill Colliery yard on 12 May 1964. In the background, on the left, is the locomotive shed and in the further distance No 19 can be seen. This was a modern 14-inch cylindered Andrew Barclay built locomotive, works number 2366 of 1955, supplied new to Pye Hill Colliery and scrapped on site in 1967. The portholes in the cab of No 12 were a characteristic feature of locomotives built by Andrew Barclay at the end of the 19th Century. Pye Hill Colliery eventually closed in August 1985. (RCR 17607) Frontispiece: Special trains to carry miners to the coal mine from the village where they lived were a feature of several industrial railway systems serving coal mines. Typically, they ran at shift change and featured ex-main line railway coaches, though some systems used 12-ton goods vans fitted with crude window openings and bench seats. Colloquially, these trains were often referred to as ‘paddy’ trains. The most extensive miners’ passenger train service was that operated on the Ashington Railways in Northumberland between Ashington and Linton and Ellington collieries.

As late as June 1965, 95 passenger journeys were operated Monday to Friday, and 42 on Saturday. Two side tanks were specially built to the order of the National Coal Board to work this service. Other well-known miners’ passenger trains were operated to Talywain Colliery and Graig Merthyr Colliery in South Wales and to North Walbottle Colliery in Northumberland. This picture, taken on 1 May 1963, shows the miners’ passenger train operated between Hednesford Station and Cannock Wood Colliery on the once extensive railway system developed by Cannock and Rugeley Colliery Co. Ltd. The locomotive hauling the train is Progress, a Peckett and Sons Ltd built 18-inch Class Q saddle tank, works number 786 of 1899, originally built for the Swansea Harbour Trust and acquired by Cannock & Rugeley Colliery Co Ltd in 1915. The coach is an ex-LNWR six compartment brake third acquired by the National Coal Board from British Railways. The passenger service ended by 1965, Progress was scrapped in 1964 and Cannock Wood Colliery closed in June 1973. (RCR 17010)

Copies of the images within this and volume 2 (along with tens of thousands of others on UK, Irish and some European railways) are available direct from The Transport Treasury.

To order copies of images within this volume please quote the ‘RCR’ reference number shown at the end of the relevant caption.

2

Introduction

R

C (Dick) Riley was one of a select group of railway photographers, including Ivo Peters, WJV Anderson, Derek Cross, RJ Blenkinsop, and Dr Ian C Allen whose images helped define how we now see British Railways in the 1950s and early 60s. Their pictures were primarily black and white, carefully composed to highlight the train, and printed with great care. Later, their work was complemented by a more radical school of photography, whose work was much more impressionistic, and was championed by Colin Gifford and RC Riley’s namesake, Paul Riley. It is hard to imagine a greater contrast between RC Riley, a “charming man who wore a suit and worked in the City, an urbane middle-aged man of impeccable style and manners” to quote Ian Krause; and Paul Riley, who, by the account of his friend Ian Krause, lived life on the edge, and to the full.

However, like his namesake, RC Riley was a prolific railway photographer; a master of the art of black and white photography and had a particular gift for taking pictures set in the countryside of the British Isles. In many respects, Paul Riley’s earlier work mirrored that of RC Riley, but he later developed a much more immediate style of photography which exploited telephoto lenses and the use of light. RC Riley did not use telephoto lenses; the tele mashed shot was not his style, and he rarely made a feature of the lighting conditions. The difference between RC Riley’s style, and of many of his contemporaries, and that of Paul Riley and the devotees of the ‘New Image’ led by Colin Gifford, was in part driven by their very different temperaments, and in part by the very different equipment they used.

about printing his images. For him, taking the image was everything, whereas RC Riley belonged to that older tradition where printing the image and making it the best that it could be, was as important as taking the image.

RC Riley’s images are noteworthy for their meticulous printing.

There is one other curious similarity between the approach to photography of Paul and Dick Riley. When the occasion demanded it both were willing to go for the unusual point of view; a signal gantry or scaffolding adjacent to the line, to get the picture they wanted.

Looking through RC Riley’s black and white pictures, it is remarkable how many were taken on what used to be described as ‘cloudy bright’ conditions; weak, diffuse sunlight without pronounced shadows. This was partly a function of when he could take pictures; he held a fulltime job unlike his namesake, but it also meant that his images are full of detail even in the less well-lit areas. This seems to have been a deliberate choice; there are very few ‘glint’ shots in the body of his work.

According to Jeffery Grayer in ‘The RC Riley Archive, 1955 - 1962, Vol 2’ published by Transport Treasury, RC Riley commenced taking pictures with a Box Brownie, but soon graduated to a Kodak folding camera with a shutter speed of 1/100 seconds. Good, but not good enough to capture moving trains, so after the Second World War he experimented with a Zeiss Ikonta with a shutter speed of 1/250 seconds. In 1955, he acquired a second-hand Agfa Isolette with a shutter speed of 1/500, which was followed by an Agfa Record 3 which gave 2 1/4 x 3 1/4-inch negatives rather than the 2 1/4-inch square negatives of his earlier cameras.

Paul Riley and his contemporaries tended to use 35 mm cameras, which meant they could quickly shoot roll after roll of 36 images. RC Riley and his generation tended to Nowadays, medium format cameras are often thought use medium format cameras, which meant that there of as bulky and cumbersome, but the folding cameras were typically only 12 or eight images per roll of film, RC Riley used were surprisingly compact when folded and changing film was a longer and fiddlier process than up: they would easily fit into a jacket pocket. They also switching 35 mm cartridges. This difference meant that had excellent lenses; especially the Record 3, which if RC Riley and his generation took less risks with their properly set up could produce exquisite images, and is photography than the latter generation; often they would regarded as one of the best cameras of its generation. RC only have one chance to capture a particular image. This Riley claimed never to have paid more than £20 for any of in turn meant that their pictures had to be carefully the cameras he used to take black and white images: the composed and considered before they were taken, which quality of the images in this book and the others in this accounts for the meticulous composition of so many of series show that he bought extremely well. their images; there was no choosing the ‘master shot’ from a half dozen or more images fired off in quick succession. His preferred film was Ilford FP3, a reasonably fast (64 ASA Another significant difference between RC Riley and Paul 1951, 125 ASA 1960) fine-grain film, which he developed Riley was their approach to printing their images. For using Promicrol developer. This combination, plus the much of his career, Paul Riley was notoriously careless 3 use of medium format negatives, allowed him to produce

very detailed images with subtle tonal gradations, which are so characteristic of his work. In 1954, according to Jeffrey Grayer, RC Riley joined the Railway Photographic Society, lead by Maurice Earley and this encouraged his development as a photographer of trains in their different environments: countryside, goods yard, engine shed and station. The mid-1950s also coincided with his starting to print his own images; with the results that we can all enjoy today, thanks to the work of Transport Treasury in bringing the best of his black and white work to a new generation of railway enthusiasts.

To talk only about RC Riley’s work as a railway photographer fails to do justice to the man. The various contributions to ‘Steam in England’ by Dick Hardy, Nicholas Owen and his widow, Christine Riley, paint a picture of a devoted family man who was very proud of his two children, David and Philip, and of his grandchildren; who was a friend of John Coiley and was involved as a consultant to the National Railway Museum during its early years at York after retiring from RBS; who was involved with the Heritage Railway Trust and Heritage Railway Association, and from its inception was a supporter of the Bluebell Railway. As well as working full time and being a husband and father RC Riley was a prolific author, though much of his work is long out of print. Above all, as the contributions in ‘Steam in England’ made clear, he was a gentleman, unfailingly courteous and willing to share his vast knowledge of railways with his fellow enthusiasts. He made a point of writing letters of thanks to railwaymen who had helped him photograph a particular engine or gain access to a shed and would send them copies of his pictures. This in turn led to lasting friendships with professional railwaymen and, proving the truth of the saying kindness begets kindness, would lead to footplate trips, engines being turned to face the sun and that extra shovel full of coal at the critical moment. Dick Riley’s life was a life well-lived.

Although RC Riley is justly praised for his black and white work, he also took colour pictures of exceptional quality. These were taken using Kodachrome 25 ASA film which accounts for their longevity and excellent colour balance. Some of the best of these were published many years ago in a volume titled ‘Steam in England, the Classic Colour Photographs of RC Riley’ and copies of some of them were reproduced in the much-lamented CCQ range of duplicate colour slides. Although Riley is best known for the pictures that he took of trains in the South East and South West of England, he also, like his friend and contemporary, Ivo Peters, had a love of narrow-gauge and industrial lines, and took the time to search out many interesting and now long forgotten industrial railways in the Home Counties, West Country, and the Midlands. This album features some of the best of this work and gives an insight into the now forgotten world of heavy industry which helped define the British Isles for the 150 years up to the 1960s.

It is now more than 14 years since Dick Riley passed away, and more than 50 years since most of the railways shown in this book were dieselised and then closed.

This book is both a tribute to this most distinguished railway photographer and a tribute to the long-forgotten railways he photographed. As a lifelong industrial railway enthusiast, it has been a special privilege and a pleasure to choose the images which have gone into this book and to compile the captions for these images. Now, turn the pages and immerse yourselves in the world of heavy industry.

In total, some 190 pictures from RC Riley’s black and white images of industrial railways are shown in this volume. These illustrate several different railway systems, feature locomotives from numerous different builders and show various different designs of locomotives which highlights the variety of steam locomotives to be found on the industrial railways of the 1950s and 60s. Most of these photographs have never been published but there are some which have featured in previous publications.

No apology is made for including these pictures; the books they featured in are long out of print and their excellence and their contribution to telling stories in this volume justify their inclusion.

The photographs are arranged by type of railway: docks, quarries, process plant, etc, so that the reader can compare the different practices of operators of similar systems. The images are not in date order but are grouped together to try and give an impression of each of the different systems covered in this book.

Charles Milner

4

Opposite: (The Ironstone Quarries - Chapter 4). After crushing, iron ore was transported in conventional iron ore hopper wagons and iron ore tipplers to customers. This picture shows The President a Hudswell Clarke and Co. Ltd 16 inch side tank of the same design as those used by the Port of London Authority (Ref. Chapter 2), shunting on the exchange sidings side of Pinhill Farm Depot. The Oxfordshire Ironstone Co. operated three of these locomotives.

They were very highly regarded by the locomotive crews and by management. The President was supplied in 1923, works number 1419 and was scrapped in 1965. Two sheds were constructed at Pinhill Farm, one with a capacity for six locomotives and a second with a capacity for two locomotives. Workshops were also established at Pinhill Farm. (RCR 17792)

Contents: Volume 1 1

Industrial Railways in the Days of Steam

6

2

Ports, Docks and Wharves

17

3

Coal Mines

59

4

Ironstone Quarries

85

Contents: Volume 2 5

Process Industries

125

6

The Food & Drink Industry

183

7

The Wissington Light Railway

213

5

1 Industrial Railways in the days of steam

W

hen writing a book about industrial railways, it is helpful to define what is meant by the term and some of their common characteristics. Put most simply, an industrial railway is a railway built and operated to serve the business of its owner; it has no obligation to operate as a common carrier like public railways and is usually built on either land owned by its owner, or on land which the owner has secured the right to construct their railway.

mix of self-acting and powered inclines plus horse or later locomotive-worked sections to move coal from mine to staithes on the River Wear at Sunderland or on the South Bank of the River Tyne at Jarrow and Gateshead.

The best known of these included the Hetton Colliery Railway; designed by George Stephenson in 1822, with construction supervised by his younger brother Robert, the Bowes Railway, and the Pelaw Main Railway. Remarkably, the Bowes Railway survived until 1974, still using such archaic practices as lighted coal braziers as tail lights and men (known as man riders) travelling with the sets of wagons as they were worked over the inclines. The very last self-acting inclines in the country formed part of the South Hetton Railway and were not closed until 1984.

Readers interested in finding out more about this littleknown aspect of railway history can learn more in ‘Rope & Chain Haulage, The Forgotten Element of Railway History’

by Colin E Mountford, published by the Industrial Railway Society.

The earliest known railways were industrial railways built to serve collieries, quarries, and metal mines in several European countries including Germany and the United Kingdom. Primitive horse powered railways existed in the Germanic countries in the 16th Century, and a wooden railway, or foot-rail, was constructed in 1665 from Pensnett to the River Stour to give the coalfields of south west Staffordshire an outlet to the River Severn and the markets of Worcester, Gloucester, and Bristol.

By the mid-18th Century, a network of wood, later cast iron, tracked railways were built to link coal mines in the North East of England to boat loading facilities on the Rivers Tyne and Wear and in 1758 the Middleton Railway, unusually authorised by Act of Parliament, was constructed to connect the coal mines on the Middleton Plateau to the South of Leeds and coal staithes in the centre of Leeds, near Leeds Bridge. Similar primitive railways were constructed in many parts of the United Kingdom and typically transported raw materials from quarry or mine to canal, navigable river, or the sea; water-borne transportation was the only way in which bulk commodities could be moved economically over great distances.

By the end of the first decade of the 19th Century, owners of some of the larger systems were beginning to experiment with steam power as an alternative to horse power to reduce costs. In 1804, a steam locomotive designed by Richard Trevithick was trialled on the Merthyr Tramway which linked Merthyr to Abercynon; nine and a half miles.

Trevithick’s locomotive was a single cylinder machine with an eight-foot diameter flywheel, like one that he had designed for use at Coalbrookdale in 1802. The locomotive successfully hauled a train from Merthyr to Abercynon but was unable to make the return trip because of the steep gradients, the sharp curves, and because its weight broke the cast iron rails of the tramway.

The earliest railways were mainly horse-powered but by the latter half of the 18th Century, several longer railways used chain or rope haulage to surmount steep gradients.

Either self-acting inclined planes, in which the weight of the loaded wagons travelling downhill pulled empty wagons uphill or powered inclines in which a steam powered winch (stationary haulage engine) would pull loaded wagons uphill whilst simultaneously allowing empty wagons to travel downhill at a controlled speed.

Chain or rope haulage was employed in many parts of the country where a steep escarpment had to be surmounted; for example, at Gedling Colliery in Nottinghamshire, a powered incline was employed to raise loaded wagons to the land sale yard at Mapperley Plains above the Colliery.

They were a particular feature of the Durham coal field, where the route for the inland coal mines to the coast or to navigable rivers crossed a series of river valleys. Some of the larger industrial railways in this County employed a

Nevertheless, this machine, known as the ‘Pen-y-Darren’ locomotive, showed that steam traction was a possibility.

The first commercially successful steam locomotives in the world were introduced in 1812 on the Middleton Railway in Leeds and were successfully employed to move coals from the coal mines on the Middleton plateau.

These locomotives were designed by John Blenkinsop, the overseer of the Middleton Collieries, and employed a cogged wheel attached to the locomotive which pulled it along by engaging in teeth cast into the side of the rail. This arrangement was adopted because Blenkinsop realised that the cast iron rails of the day would not support a locomotive heavy enough to generate the tractive effort required to draw a commercially viable load by reliance on the adhesion between wheel and rail alone, as demonstrated by the ‘Pen-y-Darren’ locomotive.

6

Fig 1. Kenneth, North Staffordshire Railway L Class Locomotive, No. 22 of 1921 seen in ex-works condition on the 12 April 1959 near Walkden Shed on the Walkden railway. The locomotive was taken out of service some time in 1961 and was scrapped in 1964. (RCR 13188)

The Middleton locomotives were twin-cylindered machines with double acting cylinders, which obviated the need for a flywheel, and were a significant advance in design on the ‘Pen-y-Darren’ locomotive. Four of these locomotives were built for the Middleton Railway at Matthew Murray’s Round Foundry between 1812 and 1815, and their design was so successful that two of the later members of the class remained in service until 1832. They were the first successful industrial locomotives. Three locomotives of the same design were built at the Haigh Iron Works, with the approval of Blenkinsop, for use at the Orrell Colliery near Wigan. A further locomotive to the same design was supplied to the Kenton and Coxlodge Railway near Newcastle and was named Willington.

cost of the rack rail mitigated against their widespread adoption. As rail quality improved, enabling heavier locomotives to be used, the capabilities of Blenkinsop’s engines were soon eclipsed by pure adhesion locomotives.

In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway was built; the first modern common carrier railway, and in 1830, the first trunk railway linking major towns was built: the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Within a few decades, the United Kingdom was criss-crossed with a network of common carrier railways and for the most part, these provided the most economical means of moving bulk commodities and manufactured goods over long distances. The industrial railway became a feeder for the national railway network, its pioneering role in the development of railways almost over.

This was followed by a second locomotive of similar design. The operation of Willington was witnessed by George Stephenson who remarked that he could “make a better engine than that to go upon legs”. Subsequently, Stephenson’s first locomotive, Blucher, was trialled in 1814, and could draw a load of 30 tons at four miles per hour using adhesion, not a cog wheel like the Blenkinsop locomotives.

Whilst at the time these were more successful, regularly hauling 90 tons at the same speed, the complexities and

The typical industrial railway provided for the internal movement of goods and materials within a factory, gas works or power station, metal works, mine or quarry, and connected the factory, utilities plant, metal works to the national railway system. The one major exception to this generalisation were the railways built to serve the great harbours of the British Isles, where the railways would move goods from dockside to warehouse, between 7

Fig 2. Port of London Authority No. 84. A Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns built ‘Austerity’ Saddle Tank, works number 7105 of 1943 seen at Custom House on 21 September 1957. This locomotive arrived at the docks in 1944 and was scrapped in 1958. (RCR 11218)

warehouses and to connections with the national railway network.

locomotives and crews operating over the national railway network had to be certified as being fit to operate over the public railway and had to conform to national railway standards.

Whilst the route mileage of most industrial railways was quite short, except those serving the major harbours, there were some railways with lengthy runs such as those linking the larger ironstone quarries to the steelworks at Scunthorpe and Corby. There were also some extensive industrial railways serving groups of coal mines in Scotland, Lancashire, South Wales and, most notably, the North East of England. They included the Lambton Railway which took coal from the mines around Philadelphia in County Durham to coal staithes on the River Wear at Sunderland, the Bowes Railway, which moved coal from the mines near Byermoor in north western Durham to staithes on the River Tyne at Jarrow, the Backworth and Cramlington Railways which moved coal from mines in the centre of Northumberland to staithes at Percy Main on the River Tyne, and the Ashington Railway which linked six large coal mines in the north of Northumberland to each other, and to a national railway network connection at Ashington.

Whilst most industrial railways only carried freight, a small number carried employees to their workplace.

These included the miners’ ‘paddy’ trains on the industrial railways serving Graig Merthyr and Talywain collieries in South Wales and North Walbottle Colliery in Northumberland, which were difficult to access except by rail for many years, and the timetabled passenger trains taking miners from Ashington to the coal mines served by the Ashington Railway system. These trains usually employed ex-main line stock, and indeed were responsible for the preservation of several pre-First World War coaches; though some trains were composed of 12-ton wooden vans with simple bench seats, as used at Talywain in South Wales. The operation of passenger trains was not restricted to the standard gauge systems; the two feet six-inch gauge railway serving Bowater’s Sittingbourne and Kemsley Mills operated a regular passenger service composed of purpose-built coaches.

Some of the larger systems, including the Lambton Railway, the Cramlington Railway and the Haydock Collieries railway in Lancashire, enjoyed running powers over the national network to link outlying collieries to the main system, or in the case of the Lambton Railway to bridge the gap between the network of lines linking the company’s collieries and the company operated staithes. This gave rise to the unusual spectacle of industrial railway locomotives working over the national railway network and passing through passenger stations and major junctions. The

Most industrial railways were built to the standard gauge of four feet eight and a half inches, so that wagons could be transferred directly from industrial railway to national railway network, but some were built to narrower gauges such as four feet ten and a half inches or three feet zero inches to reduce construction cost. These narrow-gauge lines were often built to serve quarries and would move quarried stone to some central processing plant from 8

which the processed materials would be transferred to standard gauge wagons for onward movement.

stroke are similar, explains why cylinder diameter is such a useful, if crude measure, of an industrial locomotive’s capability.

Others, such as that at Bowater’s Sittingbourne and Kemsley Mills, were built purely to provide internal movement of goods so the reduced cost of using sub-standard gauge track, wagons and locomotives was of far greater value than the loss of simple interchangeability of stock with the national railway network. A very small number of railways were built to larger than standard gauge – these were mainly to be found in metal works and were constructed to meet the requirement of the melting shop.

Industrial steam locomotives employed in the British Isles used saturated steam because there was no economic justification for the expense of superheating steam in an engine used for short periods at slow speeds. This meant that almost all industrial steam locomotives had slide valves and most employed Stephenson’s link motion because it was robust and easy to maintain. A very small number employed Walschaerts valve gear, some smaller engines Hackworth valve gear, and some engines built

by WG Bagnall employed a variant of Walschaerts valve gear known as Bagnall-Price valve gear on their smaller locomotives.

Industrial railways usually operated in confined spaces which meant that rail curvature was tight, and the runs were relatively short, rarely more than a few miles. This largely dictated the design of steam locomotive employed on these railways; short wheel base, four or six coupled tank locomotives. These carried their own fuel and water, and all their weight was available to provide adhesion and hence the ability to move trains. The one exception to the use of tank locomotives was to be found in the North East of England where the larger railway systems employed six coupled tender locomotives on the longer runs, some second hand from main line railway companies, others were purpose built until the mid-1950s. They also employed 0-6-2 side tanks, many originally built for constituent companies of the Great Western Railway to haul coal from mines to the docks of South Wales, though some were newly built until 1968. It is worth noting that the largest industrial railway serving the coal mines of Lancashire also employed 0-6-2 side tanks for the longer runs, though these were of North Staffordshire Railway origin. One of these locomotives is shown in Fig 1. The use of these ex-main line tank engines by industrial railways was ultimately responsible for their preservation as the only examples of locomotives built for their main line railway owners.

Most industrial locomotives had round top fire boxes and wrapper type smoke boxes in which the tube plate and front smoke box wall are extended to form the boiler support. Locomotives built by Andrew Barclay of Kilmarnock, and the other Kilmarnock located builders, had cylindrical smoke boxes resting on a cast iron saddle which is much easier to keep air tight and less likely to fail because of build-up of corrosive ash in the corners.

Almost all industrial locomotives built by the firm of Manning had raised round top fire boxes which meant that the top of the inner fire box was less likely to become uncovered when working over the rough track common on construction sites and quarries and had better steam raising properties than conventional fire boxes though more expensive to manufacture. This type of fire box was also employed by the locomotives built by other manufacturers, which were destined for use on construction projects; a type of locomotive generically referred to as ‘Contractor’s Locomotives’. Very few industrial locomotives had Belpaire fireboxes though they were common on the main line railways.

The capability of an industrial locomotive is usually defined by cylinder diameter. Typically, standard gauge industrial locomotives were built with cylinder diameters ranging from 10 to 18 inches. The tractive effort of a railway engine is derived from the square of the cylinder diameter, the stroke of the piston, the steam pressure and the inverse of the driving wheel diameter and is a measure of the maximum weight of a train which can be put in motion by the engine. It is not a measure of the engine’s power or ability to move that train at speed over long distances for which steam raising capacity is a better measure.

Almost all four-coupled locomotives had cylinders mounted outside the frames and saddle tanks to provide easy access to the valve gear for lubrication. Most six coupled tanks were also provided with saddle tanks, tanks of roughly semi-circular configuration built around the upper half of the boiler, but a significant number of the largest machines were built with side tanks, tanks built on each side of the boiler, to improve their stability, though this was at the expense of making access to the valve gear much more difficult.

The larger industrial locomotives had a tractive effort like main line freight locomotives and because all their weight was available to provide adhesion, could start the same size of train, sometimes even heavier trains, but they could not move that train at any speed because the boilers were too small to generate the required power. The fact that cylinder diameter is such an important factor in determining tractive effort and that for most industrial locomotives, boiler pressure, wheel diameter, and cylinder

A few engines were built with tanks between the frames, well tanks, and some were built with tanks suspended on each side of the boiler; pannier tanks. This last variant was very widely used by the Great Western Railway and was seen on locomotives sold by the GWR into industrial service. Most of the smaller six-coupled saddle tanks, and especially the so called ‘Contractor’s Engines’, were inside cylindered, but most larger engines were outside 9

cylindered; the big exception being the products of the Hunslet Company.

Typically, the description of an industrial locomotive would be in the form-builder, number of coupled wheels, cylinder diameter, location of cylinder and configuration of water tank, saddle, pannier etc. So, for example, the locomotive shown in Fig 2 would be described as a Hunslet Engine Co 18-inch inside cylinder saddle tank. In some cases, where it was obvious from the photograph whether or not the engine had inside or outside cylinders, or a saddle or side tank, this description could be shortened to builder name and cylinder diameter followed by tank engine. Thus, the locomotive in Fig 2 would be summarily described as Hunslet Engine Co 18-inch tank engine. This way of describing an industrial locomotive is employed in all subsequent chapters.

The best tribute to the simplicity,robustness and operational flexibility of the typical industrial railway locomotive came in 1942. The largest of the Hunslet Engine Company’s standard designs, the 18-inch cylindered 4850 class, was adopted in preference to main line railway designs to form the basis of a standard heavy shunting engine, to support the war effort in both the United Kingdom and in the countries of Europe as they were liberated.

by fitting a mechanical stoker. This was the last serious attempt to improve the performance of the conventional steam engine in Europe and was a technical success.

Unfortunately, the stoker required a higher standard of maintenance and operation than was common on industrial railways at this time and so the stoker often had a relatively short life. Nonetheless, 58 Austerities were retrospectively fitted with this equipment as well as some other locomotives and a further three new build Austerities were constructed to the revised design.

These engines were built in 1964 and were the last steam engines built in the British Isles for commercial service.

Despite their improved draughting and construction features intended to simplify and speed up manufacture, they in essence were an improved version of Robert Stephenson & Co Ltd’s Patentee locomotive of 1833; the world’s first modern steam locomotive which says much about the essential conservatism of industrial locomotive design.

Although most steam engines built for industrial service conformed to the classic Stephenson pattern and as such were not dissimilar to steam locomotives built for the main line railways, for shunting and short haul work there were three important variants which were mainly to be found on industrial railways. These variants were crane locomotives, fireless locomotives and the Sentinel vertical boiler, chain driven, locomotives.

These locomotives were the famous Austerity class saddle tank and included several design features to reduce cost and time of manufacture. Fig 2 shows the appearance of these locomotives. Construction was split between the major UK locomotive manufacturers and by the end of the War, 379 locomotives had been built and had found employment in military depots, coal mines and dock railways and in the railway systems of liberated Europe and North Africa.

Crane locomotives, as distinct from steam cranes, were designed to be able to haul goods wagons as well as lift materials and load them onto wagons. In many respects, they filled the same materials handling role as is now filled by a lorry mounted loader (colloquially known as a Hiab) on a flatbed truck. The majority were conventional steam locomotives onto which was mounted a slewing jib and winch. The largest builder of crane locomotives of this type was Andrew Barclay Sons & Co of Kilmarnock.

Eventually, 75 of these machines were sold to the London and North Eastern Railway and became their class J94. 90 were retained by the Ministry of Defence, some stayed in the Netherlands, some in North Africa and the others were sold into industrial use. The biggest user by far of these versatile and powerful locomotives was the National Coal Board and some of the operating divisions of the Coal Board, notably the North Western Division, centred on Lancashire, and the South Western Division, centred on South Wales, adopted this design as a de facto standard and ordered them as new build locomotives.

The crane locomotives operated by the Consett Iron Co were essentially a hybrid steam locomotive/steam crane; they had a conventional locomotive chassis with outside cylinders onto which was mounted a rotating assembly with vertical boiler jib and winch as per a conventional steam crane. Most of these machines were built by the Gateshead firm of Black Hawthorn and Co and its successor Chapman and Furneaux. One of them survived to be preserved at the Beamish Museum.

In total, 106 Austerities were built after the war for use by the National Coal Board, the ironstone and steel making industry, and the Ministry of Defence, giving a class total of 485: one of the most numerous classes of locomotive ever constructed in the British Isles.

Hawthorn Leslie built both conventional crane locomotives and an unusual design which was also built by their successors, Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns. The locomotives were equipped with a slewing jib which could be raised and lowered and was fitted with fixed hooks along the length of the jib for lifting loads of different weights, which eliminated the need for a winch as per other crane locomotives. The jib was raised and lowered using a piston at its rear working within a cylinder atop the boiler. Boiler

In the early 1960s, the Hunslet Engine Company undertook a series of modifications to the design to improve thermal efficiency and boiler output by fitting a Kylpor blast pipe and introducing secondary combustion air to the firebox 10

Fig 3. Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. Ltd built fireless locomotive, works number 1472 of 1916 seen at Procter & Gamble’s West Thurrock Works.

This locomotive was one of many four-coupled fireless locomotives built by Andrew Barclay for use in munitions works during the First World War. (RCR 8137)

pressure steam was constantly applied to the top of the cylinder and by regulating the steam pressure supplied to the underneath of the cylinder, very precise control of the position of the jib could be achieved.

installed beneath the end cab, but instead of a boiler were fitted with a large pressure vessel. This was charged with a mixture of steam and water at elevated pressure from a stationary steam supply and then the steam was admitted to the cylinders via a pressure reduction valve and then a regulator as per normal practice. As steam was drawn from the boiler the pressure dropped and the sensible heat stored in the water caused more water to vapourise thus replenishing the steam supply. By this means a single charge of steam and water could suffice for half or even a whole shifts work.

The most famous fleet of these machines was employed at the Pallion Shipyard of William Doxford & Sons Ltd. in Sunderland, moving materials from the reception areas to the slipways where ships were constructed. In many respects, they were a rail mounted analogue of the modern City Crane. The last of these machines was retired in 1971 and four of them survived into preservation.

The second group of unconventional steam engines peculiar to industrial railways were fireless locomotives.

As the name implies, they were unfired, and so were particularly suited to working in areas which might have a flammable atmosphere such as oil refineries and chemical plants, as well as those for producing explosives. They were also employed in facilities where there was an abundant supply of high-pressure steam such as power stations and steel works, as well as some manufacturing plants where cleanliness was particularly important such as biscuit makers.

They had a conventional rolling chassis with cylinders, wheels, and valve gears though the cylinders were usually 11

This type of locomotive came into prominence during the First World War when they were built for use in munitions factories. Andrew Barclay Sons & Co Ltd built a total of 114 fireless locomotives, starting in 1910 and finishing in 1961, with the last of a pair of large six coupled engines with Walschaerts valve gear for Dorman Longs Lackenby Works on Teesside. 15 were also built by WG Bagnall and R & W Hawthorn Leslie & Co. Ltd and their successor built 18 locomotives.

Both four and six coupled locomotives were built of this type and unusually for industrial locomotives, many fireless locomotives, including those from all the major builders, were fitted with Walschaerts Valve Gear. Fig 3 illustrates a typical post-First World War example of a four

Fig 4. R15100-846 100 HP Chain Drive Sentinel Works No 9374 of 1947 at work at the Vallis Vale Quarry of Roads Reconstruction (1934) Ltd on 20 October 1962. (RCR 15957)

coupled Andrew Barclay built fireless locomotive. ‘Fireless Locomotives’, by Allan Baker and Allen Civil published by the Oakwood Press, provides the best account of this steam locomotive yet published.

The final category of locomotive primarily built for industrial use were the vertical boilered twin or fourcylinder steam engines constructed by Sentinel Waggon Works Ltd of Shrewsbury. These employed high pressure steam; typically 275 psi. Drive to the wheels was by chain from the vertically mounted cylinders. The majority were equipped with a two-speed gear box. They were designed for one man operation and could raise steam much more quickly than a conventional locomotive but were a complex and sophisticated machine and so required more care than was normal for an industrial locomotive.

Over 130 locomotives were built by Sentinel after the Second World War for industrial service in the British Isles.

The last was delivered in 1958 for the National Smelting Corporation in Swansea; a 200 HP four-cylinder engine which happily survives in preservation on the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway. The last working examples were four 100 HP two-cylinder machines operated by RB Tennent Ltd of Coatbridge until May 1984. Despite their complexity, the 100 HP machines proved to be a very successful and long-lived design. Fig 4 shows a typical example of a postSecond World War built 100 HP Sentinel locomotive; part of the well-maintained fleet of 100 HP Sentinels operated

by Roads Reconstruction at Vallis Vale in Somerset in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is an interesting fact that the most powerful locomotive built for industrial railway service in the British Isles was a 400 HP articulated oil fired double six coupled engine built in 1957 for Dorman Long’s South Bank Works on Teesside.

This massive machine had a Woolnough water tube boiler pressed to 335 psi, rather than the normal vertical boiler operating at 275 psi to provide the necessary steam raising capacity to feed four twin-cylinder engines. Although successful, this locomotive was swept away by the arrival of diesel in the early 1960s and was out of service by the end of 1962.

The latter versions were built in two sizes, 100 HP and 200 HP, most were four wheeled with wheels coupled by chain but some of the last built had six wheels coupled by connecting rods. Although the majority were standard gauge, several narrow-gauge examples were constructed. In appearance, the earlier machines were unkindly described as looking like a garden shed on wheels having a very boxy superstructure which enclosed the boiler, engine, water tank and coal bunker but the post-war examples looked much more like an end cab diesel engine with a rectangular structure in front of the cab housing the water Although most Sentinel built locomotives were employed tank and engine. in industrial service, the London & North Eastern Railway 12

operated a fleet of 56 of the pre-Second World War 100 HP type CE and CEDG machines on light shunting duties; one of these survives on the Middleton Railway in South Leeds, and two of the pre-War 200 HP DE machines were purchased by the Somerset & Dorset Railway. No less than 28 Sentinel built locomotives have been preserved.

‘Sentinel Locomotives and Sentinel-Cammell Railcars’

by John M Hutchings provides a comprehensive account of the design and development of these unusual but successful steam locomotives.

Many builders of locomotives for the industrial railway market developed in the United Kingdom, each with their own design characteristics as indicated in the previous paragraphs. The major builders of industrial locomotives included Andrew Barclay Sons & Co Ltd of Kilmarnock, the Avonside Engine Co of Bristol, Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd of Leeds, The Hunslet Engine Co Ltd of Leeds, Manning Wardle & Co Ltd of Leeds, Peckett & Sons Ltd of Bristol, Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd of Newcastle (an amalgamation of Robert Stephenson & Co Ltd and R & W Hawthorn Leslie & Co Ltd who acquired the goodwill of Kitson & Co Ltd of Leeds), Sentinel of Shrewsbury and WG Bagnall of Stafford.

There were also a host of minor builders such as New Lowca Engineering Co Ltd, Chapman & Furneaux Ltd and E Borrows & Sons, and some of the builders of locomotives for main line use such as the North British Locomotive Co and its predecessors also built locomotives for use on industrial railways.

There was also an interesting sub group of operators who designed and, in some cases, even built their own locomotives. Some purchasers of industrial locomotives specified the engines they required so highly that in effect, they played a significant role in their design. An engine in this category would be the 56 Class saddle tanks built for use in Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals Ltd’s Ironstone quarries in the 1950s; the first member of which class is illustrated in Fig 5 on page 15.

The Wigan Coal & Iron Co designed locomotives based on contemporary London & North Western Railway practice for their own use, and these were built both in their own shops and by established locomotive builders. Most remarkably, Richard Evans & Co Ltd.’s Haydock Foundry designed and built six locomotives for their own use between 1868 and 1887, which were in some respects at the leading edge of locomotive design; featuring the use of directly driven piston valves which later became the standard for main line locomotives.

front of the saddle tank marked out a locomotive as being built by Peckett & Sons.

They also had distinctive house liveries; unless the customer specified otherwise, locomotives built by Peckett & Sons were green with orange and black lining, like that of the Great Western Railway, whilst Hunslet Engine Co locomotives were usually painted green with yellow and black lining and a black top to the saddle tank.

The large number of builders based in Leeds is a direct consequence of the pioneering work of the Middleton Railway and of Matthew Murray; their development in one tightly defined geographic area is like the cluster effect seen in the development of related hi tech companies in locations such as Silicon Valley.

The pioneering era of industrial railways was almost over by 1825 and steam locomotives built for industrial railway use became very conservative in design, except for the locomotives built by Sentinel. Purchase price, ease of maintenance, and delivery were the key factors driving purchase decisions.

However, in the 1930s the economic factors which had first led industrial railways to develop steam power, the operating costs of the then current motive power; the horse, led them to become pioneers of the application of internal combustion engines for rail traffic. The potential advantages in terms of reduced manpower, lower fuel costs and increased availability were immediately apparent; by the mid-1920s the management of the Hunslet Engine Co in Leeds recognised that the future lay in diesel powered locomotives, and started to develop a range of diesel locomotives for industrial railway use as did their competitors across the road, Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd. By the start of the Second World War, diesel locomotives were becoming well established on many narrow gauge and standard gauge industrial railways. The first diesel locomotive to be employed on the National Railway network, LMS 1508, was a six coupled diesel mechanical locomotive designed by the Hunslet Engine Co. This locomotive survives to this day, along with contemporary diesel locomotives designed by Hudswell Clarke & Co and John Fowler & Co of Leeds, on the Middleton Railway.

Not long after the end of the Second World War, diesel locomotive design had advanced to the point where designs were powerful enough to undertake any steam locomotive duty and were being bought by the cost-conscious operators of steel works, docks, and power stations. Many of the largest industrial railway systems, such as those serving docks and steelworks, were fully dieselised long before the national railway network eliminated steam locomotives.

Each of the major builders of industrial railway locomotives had a distinctive house style. The shape of the cab sides of a Hunslet built saddle tank immediately marked it out as being a Hunslet, the flat sides of the tank of a Barclay built locomotive was a good identifying feature and the use of smoke box wing plates and a second lower hand rail at the

A very small number of industrial railways employed electric locomotives, mainly narrow-gauge battery electrics.

However, there were a few industrial railways which drew 13

their power from overhead wires. These ranged in size from the 2 ft gauge system at Llechwedd Slate Quarries, Blaenau Ffestiniog which employed two locomotives converted from steam engines to the standard gauge Harton Electric Railway at South Shields on Tyneside, which was built to transport coal from Westoe and Harton Collieries to staithes on the River Tyne for shipment. This highly successful system operated for over 80 years, finally closing in July 1989, and at its peak had a fleet of 19 purpose built four-wheel and Bo-Bo overhead electric locomotives.

public road, a crossing keeper would be employed if there was more than one or two trains a day. Crossing keeper’s shelters with their warm fires often provided a welcome refuge for an industrial railway enthusiast on a cold wet winter’s day. A handful of industrial railways were fully signalled; the best-known examples being the Lambton Railway at Philadelphia, the Derwenthaugh Railway, the Wemyss Private Railway in Fife and the Ashington Railway.

These railways provided a microcosm of classical 19th century signalling practice.

Most of the rolling stock used on standard gauge industrial railways was designed for use across the national railway network, and was either owned for the industrial railway operator, or more commonly owned by the national railway system operator, latterly British Railways. Almost any wagon seen on the national railway system in the 1950s and 60s would be seen on industrial railways: 12-ton vans, 16-ton mineral wagons, 21-ton hopper wagons, fourwheel oil tanks, etc.

Industrial railways, by their very nature, created extra costs rather than value; economy was always a factor in their owners’ approach to them. Nevertheless, most industrial railways provided covered accommodation for their locomotives: engine sheds. The world’s first engine shed was constructed in 1815 on the Middleton Railway in Leeds and the oldest surviving working engine shed in the British Isles is the former Bowes Railway engine shed at Marley Hill in Co. Durham, which is now used by the Tanfield Railway.

However, there were a few specialist wagons which would only be seen on industrial railways. These were mainly side body tipping wagons of which the best known were the V-shaped side tipper developed by Robert Hudson & Co Ltd though built by other companies including Charles Roberts of Horbury. These wagons were used in quarry service to move quarried rock from quarry face to grinding plant and were also widely employed to move the slurry and dirt from coal cleaning to colliery waste tip. The ironstone quarries of the East Midlands were home to a different kind of side tipping wagon; the dump car which was used to move iron ore from quarry face to the calcine banks where the iron content was concentrated by the process of calcination. These 15-ton capacity wagons were built by Gloucester Carriage & Wagon Co., Metropolitan Cammell and others.

The early engine sheds were usually substantial brick or stone built one or two road affairs with slate or corrugated iron roofs. The engine sheds of many of the early iron stone railways of the East Midlands were of corrugated iron construction and latter engine sheds clad in asbestos cement sheeting became common. As the years passed, some engine sheds fell into a degree of disrepair: roofs fell in and were not repaired, windows broke and were not replaced, but many engine sheds survived in good order to the end of steam. The ultimate in industrial railway sheds was probably the eight-road shed built in the early 1950s at Gretton Brook near Corby to house the steam engines working on the iron stone quarries serving Stewarts & Lloyds Corby Steelworks, though similar well-appointed sheds were to be found at the United Steel Companies ironstone quarries and steelworks.

Part of the charm of many industrial railways in their later years was their use of superannuated main line rolling stock on internal duties. Many coal mines used seven plank coal wagons with wooden frames for internal movement of coal from screens to land sale yard. In the North East, wooden bodied hopper wagons like those built by the North Eastern Railway before the First World War were used to move coal from colliery to staithes on the rivers Tyne and Wear or to central coal washing plants until the end of coal mining in the area. Other archaic wagons to be found in industrial service included pre-War iron ore hopper wagons, and wooden framed tar wagons at coking plants. A few of the larger industrial railways with extended runs, either over their own lines or by virtue of running power over the national railway network, employed guards and brake vans; examples included the railway linking Littleton Colliery in Staffordshire to the national railway network and the Cramlington Railway in Northumberland.

Most industrial railways were signalled: train control was by hand signals and line of sight. Where the Railway crossed a 14

Outside the shed would be the water tank; often an old Lancashire or Cornish boiler shell raised up on brick pillars from which the locomotive tanks would be filled by a hose. More modern sheds employed purpose-built water tanks made from steel sections bolted together, the engine shed at Hams Hall Power station had a water tank of the GWR umbrella style and several sheds in the North East employed North Eastern Railway Style Water Cranes.

Provision of a facility for coaling the locomotives seems to have been an afterthought on many industrial railways.

Often the locomotive was coaled by hand from a coal wagon parked on an adjacent siding and in later years, a JCB with a front shovel might be used to fill the bunker of the locomotive with coal. Some locations had a raised coaling platform, similar though smaller in scale than those used at branch line termini, onto which coal was transferred by muscle power from coal wagons and from which coal was shovelled into the bunker of the locomotive. In a very few places, mainly in the North East, mechanised coaling

Fig 5. No 56, the first of the ten members of the 56-class designed and built to work in the ironstone quarries of Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals Ltd. The locomotives were constructed by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd. No 56 was built in 1950, works number 7667, and the last of the class, Achilles, was built in 1958, works number 8051. This engine was the last conventional steam locomotive supplied to the UK market

by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns. Five members of the class have been preserved. This picture shows the raised firebox of the locomotives, which was a characteristic of the smaller Manning Wardle designed locomotives, liked by Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals, and specified by them for this design. (RCR 15957)

facilities were provided. These ranged from an elevated hopper filled with coal by conveyor belt and from which coal was dropped into the locomotive bunker, as employed at Backworth, to the large coaling gantry at Philadelphia on the Lambton Railway where wagons loaded with coal were pushed up a ramp and then were discharged via a hopper directly into the bunkers of the locomotives parked below.

This type of coaling stage would have not seemed out of place in South Africa on the state railway system, or on the narrow-gauge railways of the Rio Grande in Colorado.

All the best loco sheds had a bothy: a lean-to structure housing a few chairs and tables, a good fire, and a plentiful supply of hot sweet tea for the crews and for the visiting industrial railway enthusiast. RC Riley would have been a welcome guest at more than one bothy and more than one crew would have been sent pictures of themselves and their locomotives after a day of good photography. A particularly good source of information about industrial railway locomotive sheds is provided by the eponymous series of books edited by Adrian Booth and published by the Industrial Railway Society.

Often the repair of industrial railway locomotives was carried out in the sheds using the most basic of tools; locomotives jacked up and then supported on wooden 15

cribs to remove the wheels for tyre turning or replacement: boilers retubed by local contractors working by the light of tallow or paraffin lamps. In these circumstances, repair work was little better than breakdown maintenance with the addition of the statutory inspections dictated by the requirements of the boiler insurers.

At the other end of the spectrum, some industrial railway operators had large well-equipped workshops where steam locomotives could be properly overhauled on a planned basis. Some of these workshops were of some antiquity, such as the Lambton Engine Works at Philadelphia or the former Manchester Collieries Workshops at Walkden. Some, such as those at Philadelphia and the Haydock Workshops of Richard Evans & Co had even built new locomotives in the 19th century. Most large iron and steel works had well equipped central workshops and had preventative maintenance programmes; for example, the Appleby Frodingham works in Scunthorpe required 78 per cent of their fleet to be in operation on any day, with just seven per cent stopped for overhaul and the balance being prepared for work or stopped for routine inspections. This high level of availability was achieved by a planned maintenance programme which provided for light overhauls every 12 to 18 months and heavy overhauls every 24 to 30 months.

As well as overhauls being conducted in house, locomotives were also sent to the major builders such as Peckett and Sons and the Hunslet Engine Co for overhaul. Despite the presence of a large central workshops at Allerton Bywater, the Hunslet Engine Company continued to overhaul and rebuild steam locomotives for collieries in the Yorkshire coal field until the late 1960s.

None of the above explains why photographers such as RC Riley and his friend Ivo Peters, and other railway photographers of their generation, took such an interest in industrial railways at a time when steam power on the main line railways was in its final flowering and the dead hand of Beeching had yet to fall on the country’s branch lines and secondary main lines. Partly, I am sure this was due to the self-contained nature of many industrial railways: they were a world within a world, obeying their own rules and norms, and they were a secret world; little known to most railway enthusiasts, let alone the public.

pride in their locomotives, and they were kept in spotless condition; just look at the pictures of the engines that worked in the brewing industry, the ironstone railways of the East Midlands and the collieries of the West Midlands at the time when RC Riley photographed them. There was also the appeal of the rusty, decrepit, and ill maintained struggling against the odds to do a day’s work: a perverse charm but a charm, nevertheless. The steam-worked industrial railway that RC Riley and his contemporaries knew has vanished; apart from a few systems serving cement works, steelworks, and quarry loading points, the industrial railway itself has almost vanished.

There are a few heritage railways where something of the character of these lost railways can be found; the Foxfield Railway in Staffordshire, which includes a closed colliery in its estate; the Tanfield Railway in Co Durham which uses the old Bowes Railway locomotive shed at Marley Hill; and the Middleton Railway in South Leeds: the pioneer railway. All feature industrial locomotive, steam and diesel, and capture something of what RC Riley, Ivo Peters and their friends knew and loved. For now, let us take a journey through this lost world as seen through the lens of master photographer, RC Riley.

Part of their appeal lay in the sheer variety of motive power, wagons and structures and their small human scale, unlike the great monolith of British Railways. Some of their appeal, as Ivo Peters has written, lay in the way that many industrial railways blended into their rural and urban setting and complemented it, rather than simply cutting through it. The image of wavering, uncertain, grassgrown tracks meandering through wood and meadow was more than a cliché: for those who sought it out, it was a reality.

Fig 6. Seaham Harbour was created in 1828 by the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry to facilitate transport of goods from local industries, primarily coal mining. By the late 1880s the harbour had become inadequate to cater for the large steam colliers then being built.

The then owner of the harbour, the 6th Marquis of Londonderry, embarked upon a reorganisation of his industrial interests in Co Durham and as part of this the Seaham Harbour & Dock Co was created, with the Marquis as Chairman and largest shareholder.

A major expansion of the docks started in 1899 which led to the creation of a new South dock with three coal berths.

Some of the appeal lay in the way that many of these railways were run; owners and crews often took great

In time, the older North berths were closed to coal traffic and the South Dock was further expanded in 1925 with a further expansion in 1939 to give a total of five coal loading berths.

The docks principally served the large collieries sited on the Durham coast, including Dawdon, Vane Tempest and Seaham as well as South Hetton Colliery. In addition to the lines serving the coal staithes, a network of lines existed beneath them to enable spilt coal to be collected and recovered and for maintenance purposes. These lines extended out onto the North pier and were accessed via two small bore tunnels and a very steep bank from the upper level of the docks known locally as Dogger Bank.

The existence of this lightly laid network of lines meant that the company maintained a small fleet of very small industrial shunters of which the most famous was No 18 later known as The Lewin; a well tank built in 1877 by Stephen Lewin’s Pole foundry, later converted to a saddle tank and now preserved in working order in its 1930s condition at the North-East Open-Air Museum, Beamish.

Another of the small engines was No 17; seen on 8 June 1958. This engine was built in 1873 by Head Wrightson of Thornaby on Tees (works number 33). This company was once a large and important builder of process plant such as distillation columns, boilers, and bridges; as late as 1968 they still employed nearly 6,000 persons.

No. 17 is one of the few industrial shunting engines they built and has also moved to the North-East Open-Air Museum at Beamish, where it is on static display. There it has been joined by another preserved Head Wrightson locomotive; happily, back in working order. (RCR 12003)

16

2

Ports, Docks and Wharves T

he earliest intermodal transportation hubs were the places where goods were transferred between land and sea. Harbours, ports, docks or wharves are as old as history. The earliest known docks were those dating from c 2500 BC, which are believed to have been built during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu and were discovered in Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea coast. Harbours have had a huge influence in the development of many countries; most notably the United Kingdom, which as an island nation has always had to conduct its trade with other countries by sea.

importers, and exporters. Large umbrella organisations were formed to take over the major docks in these towns, bring them into a unified management structure and raising the capital needed to fund the hugely ambitious dock expansions necessary to cater for the increased trade.

Most ports grew up around the estuaries of major rivers; the Thames, the Severn, the Humber, and the Mersey, which provided sheltered moorings for ships and easy access by land. There were harbours built in sheltered bays or coves, but they were usually modest in scale because access by land was difficult, often over cliffs or steep hills.

The earliest harbours grew up in a piecemeal fashion; individual ship owners or merchants built their own wharves, or quays, or jetties along the banks of a river where boats could tie up for unloading. As trade developed, they would add warehouses to store goods waiting to be loaded onto ships or awaiting distribution after off-loading.

Some of these privately owned facilities became quite extensive and encompassed enclosed docks accessed via lock gates. The Royal Albert Dock in Liverpool, opened in 1846, is a late example of a privately funded enclosed dock and featured fireproof warehouses designed by Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwick, built from cast iron, brick, and stone, with no structural wood.

Similar docks and warehouse complexes were constructed in Bristol and London, notably the West and East India Docks. Gradually, the docks came under the control of Local Authorities; most notably in Liverpool and Bristol where the Councils funded dock construction in the mid and late 19th century. These docks were all designed in the age of sail and when land transportation was largely governed by the power of the horse or ox.

Chief among them were The Port of London Authority (PLA), a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London; Mersey Docks & Harbour Board (MD & HB), a public body formed in 1858 to take over the interests of Liverpool Dock Trustees, a Council controlled body which had run the docks, and the Port of Bristol Authority (PBA), established in 1848 as a Bristol Corporation body under the Bristol Dock Act, and until 1926 known as The Bristol Corporation Docks Committee, to manage the assets of the Bristol Dock Company and later the Avonmouth and Portishead docks, too.

These organisations set about major programmes of dock expansion and created, or in the case of the PLA, developed, extensive industrial railway systems to link the docks and associated warehouses to the national railway system. The wealth and power of these organisations is reflected in the grandeur of their headquarters; notably The Port of Liverpool Building, one of the ‘Three Graces’ on the banks of the River Mersey, and The Port of London Authority Building at Tower Hill.

The history of Southampton docks was like those of Bristol, London, and Liverpool up to the year 1892, when they were acquired by the London & South Western Railway who, with their successors, funded the development of the docks. This meant that the railway system linking the docks and warehouses to the national railway system became an integral part of a main line railway and thus fall outside the scope of this book.

The major coal exporting ports in South Wales, Port Talbot, Barry, and Cardiff, were largely developed by main line railway companies and so their dockside railway systems also fall outside the scope of this book, as do the railways serving the port of Hull, which were also largely owned by main line railway companies.

The development of steam ships led to an exponential increase in the size of ships in the 19th Century. The development of railways meant that large quantities of goods could be moved to and from harbours and these two developments facilitated an enormous increase in goods being imported to and exported from the British Isles.

The somewhat piecemeal way the docks at the great maritime cities of London, Bristol and Liverpool had developed no longer met the demands of ship owners, 17

Whilst the docks mentioned thus far were built on the banks of estuaries, the last major dock system to be constructed in the British Isles was built inland: 40 miles from the sea. This was the Port of Manchester, opened in 1894 and linked to the sea by the Manchester Ship Canal.

For a period after the Second World War, Manchester was Britain’s third busiest port but with the development of

Fig 7. Dick seen in the open-air stabling point on 8 June 1958, was a tiny Hunslet Engine Co built saddle tank, works number 628 of 1895. With cylinders just ten inches in diameter, this was amongst the smallest standard gauge locomotives built by Hunslet. The low set central buffers are for use with the chaldron or ‘black wagons’, four-ton capacity unsprung wooden wagons dating back to the earliest wagon ways in the North East. They remained in use on the lower-level railways at Seaham until the very early 1970s. Apart from its eclectic collection of steam engines from a variety of builders, most purchased second hand, Seaham Harbour was also famous for operating the last two steam paddle tugs in the British Isles, the Reliant, built in 1907 and the Eppleton Hall built in 1914. Both were preserved; the Reliant by the National Maritime Museum, though it was later scrapped in controversial circumstances, and the Eppleton Hall by the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. (RCR 12002)

very large container ships which could not traverse the ship canal, it is now greatly reduced in size.

A feature of all the great port systems of the British Isles were their extensive internal railway systems. The greatest of these, and the largest industrial railway in the British Isles, was the Manchester Ship Canal Railway which, according to ‘The Railways of the Manchester Ship Canal’

by Don Thorpe, employed 75 locomotives, had almost 2,700 wagons, operated 231 miles of track and had a labour force of 790 people at its peak.

The railways operated by the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board totalled over 104 track miles and in 1945 employed 37 engines, according to ‘Locomotives and Railways of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board’ by Dave Marden. Again, in 1945, 52 steam locomotives were allocated to the PLA’s Tilbury, Royal, Millwall and India docks, according to ‘London’s Dock Railways’, by Dave Marden.

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The Port of Bristol Authority operated the railways serving Avonmouth and Portishead Docks, and in 1945 was operating 32 steam locomotives. These very extensive railway systems had multiple running sheds, sections of double track running lines, sophisticated signalling and control systems and extensive maintenance facilities.

Two of the larger operators, the Manchester Ship Canal Railway and the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board, had engineering departments with their own allocation of locomotives for construction and track work. They tended to standardise one or two suppliers of locomotives and one or two designs of locomotive, for commonality of parts and minimised maintenance costs.

Most of the locomotives employed by the Manchester Ship Canal Railway were six coupled side tanks with 15 1/2 inch inside cylinders built by Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd plus a

small group of 18 inch inside cylindered six coupled side tanks built by Kitson & Co Ltd of Leeds for the heavier duties.

latter type of locomotive with the PLA, that locomotives of this design became colloquially referred to as ‘PLAs’.

The Mersey Docks & Harbour Board railway initially standardised on Avonside Engine Co class B3 locomotives: six coupled saddle tanks with 14-inch outside cylinders, and after the Avonside Engine Company ceased trading in 1934, primarily purchased Hunslet Engine Co 15 inch inside cylindered six coupled saddle tanks; Telegraphic Code AIRDAL. The Port of London Authority railway was a very large purchaser of Hudswell Clarke built locomotives, 14-inch outside cylinder four coupled saddle tanks for working in the older docks with tighter curves and 16 inch outside cylinder six coupled side tanks for use all over their system.

Indeed, such was the strength of the association of this

The Port of Bristol Authority railway predominantly bought locomotives from Thomas Peckett and Sons Ltd of Bristol; latterly 16 inch outside cylindered six coupled saddle tanks of class OX1 and successor classes. They also operated five similarly sized locomotives built by Peckett’s great rivals, the Avonside Engine Co. An unusual feature of the locomotives operated by the PBA was that several were vacuum fitted to enable them to work passenger trains from the connection with the Great Western Railway to the passenger terminal in Avonmouth docks.

The scale of the larger harbour railway systems bears comparison to many of the smaller main line railway companies; the Cardiff Railway, for example, bequeathed just 34 locomotives to the Great Western Railway at

Fig 8. Though not the best picture, the cramped layout of the stabling area at Seaham was to blame, the locomotive shown, No 1, is of considerable interest. It was originally ordered for the Marquis of Londonderry’s Londonderry railway, which linked Seaham to Sunderland.

Construction was started in 1900 in the Londonderry Engine Works but was halted after the sale of the Londonderry Railway to the North Eastern Railway in October 1900. The locomotive remained the property of the Marquis, construction was completed by the Seaham Harbour Engine Works by 1902 and in 1906 it was sold to the Seaham Harbour & Dock Company. The locomotive has the characteristic side window cab of the later Londonderry Railway locomotives and retained this until scrapped in May 1962.

Around this time, the Harbour Company was replacing its older locomotives by more modern second hand four coupled steam locomotives made redundant by the dieselisation of the big iron and steel works at Consett and Middlesbrough, Dorman Long South Bank Works. This picture was taken on 8 June 1958 and behind No 1 is one of the two 200 HP Sentinel steam locomotives purchased by Seaham Harbour after trials with demonstration locomotives. In practice, the Sentinels were not robust enough for the heavy duties and rather rudimentary servicing facilities at Seaham Harbour and had short working lives. (RCR 12005)

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grouping, and the Brecon and Merthyr Railway 47 locomotives. Apart from the very large port systems, many of the smaller ports and wharves in the British Isles had internal railway systems operated by small fleets of locomotives; typically, second hand and from a range of builders. A very different scenario from the large highly organised fleets of the major ports.

Photographing the major port railways was not easy; by their very nature ports are particularly dangerous places with railway tracks crossing and criss-crossing, electric powered dockside cranes moving quietly along their own tracks carrying loads high overhead, large unguarded drops to the harbour waters and a constant stream of road vehicles moving goods about. Visitors were not encouraged, partly because of the obvious dangers but also to control pilfering; high value goods such as wines and spirits, furs and leather goods could find a ready market outside the dockyard gates.

and dockers; the era when loading and unloading ships involved a great deal of hard physical labour.

Today most manufactured goods are packed in containers at the point of manufacture; moved by road or rail to specialist deep water container ports and are loaded by computer-controlled cranes into enormous container ships.

These sail across the oceans to similar looking container ports where they are off-loaded, and the containerised goods are moved forward by the reverse of the loading process. Ruthlessly efficient, and deadly dull compared to dockland scenes known to Dick Riley and the ocean-going tramp steamers and coasters such as that immortalised

by John Masefield in his poem “Cargoes” - “Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays”.

The images of port and harbour railways taken by DickRiley take us from the coal port of Seaham through the great west coast ports of Liverpool and Manchester, down to the West Country and finally to the docks and wharves of the Thames estuary. The pictures of the railways of the PLA are particularly important because this was an underphotographed railway system for all the many reasons outlined above.

Dick Riley was fortunate to be able to gain access to several of both the larger and smaller port railway systems of England at the very end of the era, when manufactured goods were predominantly stored loose in the holds of cargo ships in crates, sacks, drums and kegs. They were transported out of the docks by railway, in 12-ton vans, and 12 and 13-ton capacity open wagons: the era of stevedores

Fig 9. Seaham, a standard Peckett built class B2 14-inch saddle tank, works number 1052 of 1905 was supplied new to the Harbour Company.

The locomotive was scrapped in 1961. Seaham Harbour dieselised in 1967, ending one of the most interesting steam worked railway systems in the North East of England. For more information about the Railways of the Marquis of Londonderry and the Seaham Harbour & Dock Company, ‘The Industrial Railways & Locomotives of Co Durham, Part 1’ by Colin E Mountford, and Dave Holroyde, published by the Industrial Railway Society in 2006, is essential reading as is ‘Industrial Railways of Seaham’ by AJ Booth; also published by the Industrial Railway Society.

Much of the information in this section is drawn from these two sources. (RCR 12004)

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Fig 10. No 26 is one of the 31 Avonside Engine Co. Ltd built 14-inch class B2 saddle tanks operated by the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board. This example was built in 1918, works number 1810, and is seen on 11 April 1959 at Princess Dock in the company of a British Railways 12-ton open wagon. No 26 is one of two surviving Mersey Docks & Harbour Board locomotives and is now in store in the Ribble Steam Railway and Museum’s workshop awaiting restoration to working order. A feature of these locos was the use of external spark arrestors. These are seen to good effect in this picture. They were fitted because of the prevalence of combustible materials around the docks and because the locomotives often worked inside the dockside warehouses where even a tiny fire, as might be caused by a stray spark, could lead to catastrophic consequences. The magnificent building in the background is Waterloo warehouse which was the world’s first automated grain warehouse when completed in 1868. This brick and iron Grade II listed building has now been converted to luxury apartments. (RCR 13141A)

Above: Fig 11. Clarence Dock was the site of Clarence Dock Power Station, which was constructed by Liverpool Corporation in 1931, expanded in the early 1950s and finally demolished in 1994. The power station chimneys were known locally as the Three Sisters: a challenge to the ‘Three Graces’! No 8, a Hunslet Engine Co built 15 inch inside cylindered saddle tank, Telegraphic Code AIRDAL (refer back to the top of page 19) , works number 1828 of 1937, is seen on 11 May 1959, shunting British Railways Coal Hoppers near the entrance to the power station.

No 8, which was scrapped in 1964, was one of two Hunslet 15 inch saddle tanks supplied to the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board in 1937. They were later joined by four other locomotives of this design built in 1940 and 1941, together with two slightly smaller inside cylinder Hunslet built locomotives, Telegraphic Code FORST. These engines were all supplied to support the war effort. Following the fall of France, the West Coast Ports became more important than the East and South Coast Ports and were extremely busy; hence the need for more engines.

Liverpool was the main destination for the Atlantic convoys and it is estimated that nearly 75 million tons of war materials entered the United Kingdom through the Port during the Second World War. This came at a heavy price for the citizens of Liverpool: over 4,000 people were killed in air raids on Liverpool and a similar number were seriously injured. In additon to acquiring new and second hand engines, Mersey Docks & Harbour Board was also loaned two engines by the Port of London Authority and an Avonside Class B2 tank came from the Tyne Improvement Commission. (RCR 13145A) Opposite top: Fig 12. No 31 was photographed on 11 May 1959 standing outside the shed at Huskisson Dock. The locomotive is a 15 inch saddle tank built by the Hunslet Engine Co, works number 2080 of 1941. No 31 remained in service until 1969 when it was scrapped by JD Spencer & Co Ltd of Bootle. It is painted in the green lined black livery adopted by the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board after the Second World War. Huskisson Dock was the primary dock for Cunard ships sailing on the Liverpool to New York and Liverpool to Montreal to Halifax services; sailings which were held down by the RMS Carinthia and RMS Sylvania of the Saxonia class for many years. After the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway in 1959, Cunard developed a seasonal freight service from Huskisson Dock to the Great Lakes Ports using chartered ships built with ice reinforced bows; many chartered from Scandinavian shipowners. (RCR 13146) Opposite bottom: Fig 13. No 7, Avonside Engine Co works number 1523 of 1907, standing beside the coaling stage outside Huskisson Dock engine shed on 11 May 1959. No. 7 survived until 1962, when it was sold to MJ Routledge and Sons for scrap. The cranes in the background appear to be the products of Stothert and Pitt of Bath. Cranes of this type were once a familiar site in docks and harbours throughout the country; now either displaced by the adoption of roll on and roll off ferries or replaced by container cranes.

The ship in the background is the MV Eva Jeanette of the Lion Steamship Co of Halmstad, Sweden, which was then on charter to Cunard for the Great Lakes service. A remarkable man, Leonhard Niit, was its master at this time. Leo was an Estonian by birth, who escaped war torn Estonia for Sweden at the age of 15 in 1944 by sailing across the Baltic in a seven-metre fishing boat. He came from a seafaring family and initially worked as a deckhand, but with the financial support of Nordstjernan attended the Merchant Marine Academy in Malmö to gain his mates and then master’s tickets.

In parallel with this, he attended The Swedish Royal Naval War Academy and followed a career in the Swedish naval reserve with focus on submarines. He eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander (Örlogs Kapten). In 1956, he was poached from Nordstjernan by Erik Kekonius, a former submarine officer, who was now managing Lion Steamship. Nordstjärnan were reluctant to release Leo, especially since they had financed his studies, so Erik wrote them a cheque for the full amount and got his man. After working on Lion Steamship’s deepsea ships for several years, Leo transferred to the North Sea and Baltic Ferries run by a subsidiary of the same company and built a house in Halmstad. He took early retirement in 1982 and moved to Tonga to help set up a local fishing industry. Leo passed away in 2003, after a long battle with cancer and was buried in Tonga, a much loved and respected member of the local community. A life well lived. (RCR 13147)

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Above: Fig 14. No 21 was photographed by RC Riley on 11 May 1959, whilst working at Alexandra Dock. Another Avonside Engine Co Class B2 locomotive, No 21, was built in 1913, works number 1671. Delivered to the traffic department of the Docks, it was commandeered for war service during the First World War and was sent to Benchley, Gloucestershire, to work in what was to become National Ship Yard No 2. It remained there until 1919, when it returned to Liverpool. It then gave good service to the Docks Company and survived to be one of their last steam engines, not retiring until 1966. An attempt was made to preserve this engine, but it was not successful, and it was scrapped in 1970.

The British Railways train in the background is composed of wooden containers loaded on flat wagons; an example of the earliest attempts in Britain to develop intermodal transportation. Alexander Dock was built between 1874 and 1882 and was primarily involved in the grain and frozen meat trade; when built, the cold store was the largest in Europe with a capacity of 75,500 cubic metres. The Dock is still in commercial use; mainly handling scrap metal. (RCR 13149) Opposite top: Fig 15. No 2 was not the second of the Avonside Engine Co Ltd class B2 saddle tanks supplied to the the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board; that honour belonged to No 3 which was built in 1904. The first No 2 was something of a mystery reportedly having Manning Wardle wheels, a Black Hawthorn Frame, Fox Walker motion and a Peckett feed pump. This melange was assembled in 1904 by Avonside Engine Co and was discarded by 1913 after a short and not very successful life. The later No 2 was built in 1918, works number 1813, and was scrapped in November 1961. The first three Avonside built engines looked different from the later ones shown in these pictures; they had a much lower pitched boiler which gave them a rather feeble appearance. (RCR 13142) Opposite bottom: Fig 16. No 2 is seen again on 11 April 1959; now working a train composed of British Railways 12-ton vans at Herculaneum Dock. This was the Easternmost of the Liverpool Docks and was adjacent to the Dingle Oil Terminal. It was built in 1864, on the site of the former Herculaneum Pottery, producers of creamware and pearlware pottery as well as bone china porcelain. From 1873 the dock started to handle petroleum products and specialist casements were built to store this, and other volatile cargo in the sandstone cliffs abutting the dock.

The entrances to these casements are seen to the right of the train and still exist as a grade II listed structure. (RCR 13144)

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Opposite top: Fig 17. In 1925, the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board acquired an Andrew Barclay Sons & Co Ltd built six coupled fireless locomotive to work in the Dingle Oil terminal next to Herculaneum Dock. This locomotive, works number 1573, built 1918, was originally supplied to the Ministry of Munitions Amatol factory at Bradley, Huddersfield. As No 43, it worked at the Oil Terminal until February 1969 when it was scrapped. Unlike the other Mersey Docks & Harbour Board locomotives, No 43 was painted maroon with yellow, black and yellow lining.

(RCR 13143) In 1926, it was joined by a new built Andrew Barclay fireless locomotive, No 44, which differed from its sister primarily in having a more angular cab. This locomotive was destroyed when a bomb fell on Brunswick Dock Loco shed, where it was stabled, on 25 June 1941. Much of the information about the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board Railway is taken from Dave Marden’s book ‘Locomotives and Railways of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board’ published by Irwell Press; very highly recommended for all readers interested in this subject.

Opposite bottom: Fig 18. The Manchester Ship Canal Company operated the largest industrial railway in the British Isles and as the following pictures indicate, had many of the appurtenances of a main line railway; an extensive workshop complex able to undertake complete overhauls of locomotives and rolling stock, locomotive sheds and sub-sheds, extensive marshalling yards and substantial civil engineering works, including a double track swing bridge across the canal in Salford. The main entrance to the system was in Salford and this led directly to No 1 Grid; a large marshalling yard between Nos 8 and 9 docks and surrounded by multi storey warehouses. The total capacity of No 1 Grid was 1,450 wagons; divided between the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway and the Manchester Ship Canal Railway. This picture, taken on 12 April 1959, like all the others in this sequence, looks towards the warehouses fronting No 9 Dock. The engine is No 52, Hudswell Clarke built side tank with 15-and-a-half-inch diameter cylinders, works number 940 of 1911 and it is hauling Cashiers Coach No 2. Originally, wages were paid to staff along the canal from a launch but when this was laid up in 1945, a second-hand main line coach was obtained for the same purpose and was pulled along the Railway on pay days and staff were paid from this. No 2 was the second cashiers coach acquired by the Manchester Ship Canal Railway. (RCR 13164) Above: Fig 19. No 52 with Cashiers Coach No 2 at the end of No 9 Dock. The coach was an ex-Midland Railway four-wheel passenger brake built by the Central Wagon Company and was painted in red oxide livery. It was replaced by a newer vehicle in 1965 and scrapped. An interesting feature of this vehicle was the use of Mansell Wheels; a composite wood and steel wheel patented in the 1840s and designed to lessen noise. No set of pictures of the Manchester Ship Canal Railway would be complete without at least one with a ship in the background; the raison d’etre for the railway. The ship in this picture is the Pacific Stronghold built in 1958 by Vickers Armstrong on Tyneside for Furness Withy and Co Ltd. It was a single screw steam turbine powered refrigerated cargo ship of 11,650 dwt and was built for the UK to the Pacific Coast of North America route: sailing through the Panama Canal and as far North as Vancouver. (RCR 13170)

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Opposite top: Fig 20. In 1897, the first two members of what was to be the first significant group of locomotives owned by the Manchester Ship Canal Railway were delivered. These were built by the Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds, were six coupled inside cylinder side tanks with 15 ½ inch cylinders and were fitted with Cartazzi leading axle boxes and vertically hinged forward coupling rods plus flangeless centre driving wheels to enable them to traverse short radius curves. These locomotives were very successful though they tended to jig all over the place when taking a heavy train which led to their being nicknamed ‘Jazzers’.

In total, ten locomotives of this design were supplied between 1897 and 1902 and they were withdrawn between 1956 and 1966. No 19, seen standing outside No 9 Dock Shed, was built in 1900, works number 721, and was scrapped in 1963. Originally built with Salter safety valves, the Jazzers were later rebuilt with Ross pop safety valves as seen. The Jazzers were first named after ports with nameplates mounted on the side tanks; No 19 was named London. Between 1914 and 1915, the entire Manchester Ship Canal Railway locomotive fleet was numbered, which must have made the job of the traffic clerks much easier, and the names were removed from the tanks. However, as a nice gesture to the locomotives’ identity, one of the nameplates was retained and bolted on the inside cab back plate. (RCR 13161A) Opposite bottom: Fig 21. No 15, Hunslet Engine Co. works number 699 of 1899, was the third of the ‘Jazzers’ to be delivered and was photographed by RC Riley near Mode Wheel Shed. This picture, like that of No 18, shows very clearly the classic Hunslet Engine Co cab side profile, which would be found on even the very last steam engines they built for the UK market in 1964. The ‘Jazzers’ were built to a Hunslet standard design which was first intorduced in 1886 with works number 396 and was last built in 1914; works number 1151.

As well as working for the Manchester Ship Canal Railway, they found employment in coal mines and three even worked for the Admiralty; helping construct the Peterhead harbour southbreakwater between 1892 and 1912. Remarkably one of the Manchester Ship Canal Railway locomotives survives. In 1963 No 14 St John was sold to Imperial Chemical Industries, Dyestuffs Division for use in their Blackley Works in Manchester. There it swapped its drab black livery for a glorious lined crimson livery and was named The Lady Armaghdale.

With the cessation of rail traffic at the Blackley Works in 1968, it was acquired by the Warwickshire Industrial Locomotive Preservation Group and on 14 July 1969, was delivered to the Severn Valley Railway. It has subsequently seen extensive service; some spent touring the country as a ‘Thomas’, but from 2009, after restoration to ICI condition, it has been on display in the Bridgnorth Engine House pending overhaul. (RCR 13165) Above: Fig 22. In 1902, despite the success of the ‘Jazzers’ the Manchester Ship Canal Railway stopped ordering from the Hunslet Engine Company, and started to order engines of very similar capability from the Hunslet Engine Co’s great rivals, Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd. The new locomotives were very similar in design to the ‘Jazzers’: they were also six coupled side tanks with 15 ½ inch cylinders, Cartazzi leading axleboxes and vertically hinged front coupling rods. The boiler heating surface and overall length were the same; the main difference was the bunker capacity which, at one ton ten cwt, was 20% greater.

Despite the design similarities, in appearance they were a much more finished engine, with countersunk tank and cab rivets, and neatly curved cab openings and bunker. These engines and their latter variant with longer side tanks became synonymous with the Manchester Ship Canal Railway and in total 48 locomotives of this design were operated by the Railway; about 68% of the post-war steam fleet. No 24, works number 642 of 1902, was photographed outside the shed and workshop complex at Mode Wheel. Engines of this design were not just supplied to the Manchester Ship Canal Railway; examples could be found working in coal mines in Yorkshire and in iron and steel works; most notably John Summers Plant at Shotton on Deeside. (RCR 13170)

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Above: Fig 23. The one disadvantage of the Hudswell Clarke and the Hunslet Engine Co side tanks was their restricted water capacity, so in 1911 the design was modified to increase the water capacity from 580 to 840 gallons. This was done by extending the tanks to a point level with the front of the smoke box. The makers referred to these engines as the Sweden type, but to the crews on the Manchester Ship Canal Railway, they were known as ‘long tankers’ and their predecessors became known as ‘short tankers’. (RCR 13172) The locomotive illustrated above, also seen outside the Mode Wheel workshops, was built in 1921, works number 1464, and was delivered in an attractive lined slate blue livery. No 70 escaped the scrappers’ torch, and was preserved; initially on the East Lancs Railway at Bury. Currently it is undergoing a major overhaul; including extensive boiler work, at the Swindon & Cricklade Railway. It is one of two long tankers to survive; the other being No 67 which is now on display in the Middleton Railway’s Exhibition Hall.

Opposite top: Fig 24. Although the Manchester Ship Canal Railway fleet was dominated by six coupled side tanks, it operated a small fleet of four coupled saddle tanks; most notably four 14 inch cylindered locomotives built by Peckett and Sons of Bristol. The last of these to be supplied was No 77, seen outside Mode Wheel Shops. This locomotive was a class W6 engine, works number 1724 of 1927, and survived until 1959. Like its sisters, it spent most of its time working the tightly curved tracks around the Ordsall and Pomona docks in Salford. (RCR 13171) Opposite bottom: Fig 25. All major overhauls of Manchester Ship Canal Railway locomotives and other equipment was carried out in the Mode Wheel Workshops; seen behind No 30, Hudswell Clarke Works Number 6630 of 1903. This picture gives some impression of the scale of the Mode Wheel complex, the building on the left is the boiler shop, the pitched roof building in the middle ground is the wagon shop and behind this is the fitting shop; also two road like the wagon shop. Two ‘short tankers’ remain, No 31 which is now on display in the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway’s display hall at Oxenhope and No 32, which is in working order on the East Lancs Railway, and periodically masquerades as Thomas. The ‘short tankers’ were delivered in an attractive lined green livery with polished brass domes and up to the start of the First World War were kept in immaculate condition. (RCR 13166)

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Above: Fig 26. This is the three road Mode Wheel running shed; a notoriously draughty building, and the principal running shed of the Manchester Ship Canal Railway. Standing outside is No 62, Hudswell Clarke 1060 of 1914 and the last Manchester Ship Canal Railway locomotive to be named, St Petersburg. Next to it is No 90, Hudswell Clarke 1867 of 1954; the very last steam engine to be supplied to the MSC Rly. ‘No. 90’ and its two sisters were very large 18 inch cylindered six coupled saddle tanks designed and built specially for the Manchester Ship Canal Railway. In working order, they weighed 52 tons 10 cwt. The weight in working order of the ‘long tankers’ was just 33 tons 19 cwt.

Essentially conventional steam engines, they unfortunately suffered from bearing problems which were attributed to inadequate lubrication though the bearing design itself was poor. Once the lubrication problems were resolved, they proved to be useful engines well suited to the heavy work at Partington and Ellesmere Port. All three were scrapped in 1964. (RCR 13169) Opposite top: Fig 27. Partington Shed of the Manchester Ship Canal Railway was built to service locomotives working the connection to the Lancashire Steel Co’s Irlam Works, seen in the background, and the Partington coaling basin. No 74 was one of the seven large 18 inch cylindered six coupled side tanks built by Kitson and Co of Leeds for the Manchester Ship Canal Railway between 1904 and 1929. They were employed on trip working and on the heavier duties at Partington and Ellesmere Port. No 74 was built in 1923, works number 5371, and was scrapped in 1963. Locomotives of this design were employed in coal mines in the Midlands, as seen in Fig 98 on page 82. The first four built carried coal in a small bunker to the front of the cab, the last three built had a conventional rear bunker which increased coal capacity from one ton four cwt to two tons five cwt.

(RCR 13177) Opposite bottom: Fig 28. Another oddity in the Manchester Ship Canal Railway fleet was ‘No. 78’, a 12 inch cylindered six coupled Hudswell Clarke contractors type locomotive, works number 1584 of 1927, scrapped 1962. It was photographed at Partington, where it was latterly based.

There were two engines of this design in the Manchester Ship Canal Railway fleet plus two Hunslet Engine Co built locomotives of the same size. The first of the Hudswell Clarke locomotives was originally ordered for use at Ellesmere Port on some of the more tightly curved sections but was not a great success; it had a slightly longer wheelbase than the side tanks it was intended to replace – and so was transferred to Salford.

The second No 78 was purchased for the Salford Resident Engineer’s department where it was employed to take train loads of rubbish collected from the docks to the waste tip at Statham. In 1938, both engines moved to the Manchester Ship Canal Co’s Bridgewater Department Railway at Runcorn Port, where they proved to be very useful but No 78 was back at Mode Wheel by 1952. The two Hunslet Engines were, respectively, ordered for use by the Resident Engineer at Partington and by the Mechanical Engineers Department at Mode Wheel. The Engineers Department locomotives were delivered in a maroon livery to distinguish them from the traffic engines, but years of being rubbed down with Colza Oil gave them a black appearance. (RCR 13179)

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Above: Fig 29. No 52 and No 74 seen standing outside Partington Shed. The two-road locomotive shed with North Light Roof, the parachute water tank, the large rectangular prefabricated water tank, and the purpose-built coaling stage to the left of the shed are all reminiscent of a main line railway sub shed and are very different from the typical industrial railway shed. The Manchester Ship Canal Railway engine shed at Ellesmere Port was built to a similar design. Much of the information about the Manchester Ship Canal Railway was culled from ‘The Railways of the Manchester Ship Canal’ by Don Thorpe; the ‘must have’ book on the subject, though sadly long out of print. (RCR 13182) Opposite top: Fig 30. Par Harbour was constructed by JT Treffry between 1829 and 1840. A 450-foot breakwater encloses 35 acres of water which is tidal, with only 16 feet depth of water. Unlike nearby Fowey, it cannot accommodate large, ocean-going ships. It became an important port for the export of locally mined china, was leased by English China Clays in 1949 and acquired by them in 1964. The harbour was served by an extensive railway network and at one time claythe dock railways ran beneath the GWR main line in a low headroom tunnel. This dictated the use of specially designed locomotives. The last two were built by WG Bagnall Ltd of Stafford, Judy, works number 2572 of 1937, seen on the left and Alfred, works number 3058 of 1953, seen on the right outside the loco shed.

The locomotives, which were identical, had ten-inch cylinders, Bagnall Price valve gears and weighed approx. 16 ½ tons. From 1961, when a low-profile Sentinel built locomotive was scrapped, these tiny engines shared the duties at Par Harbour. Usually one was in steam, the other was spare or under repair. As this picture and the following images show, they were beautifully kept. (RCR 15153) Opposite bottom: Fig 31. Alfred working a set of loaded British Railways 12-ton open wagons from the exchange sidings into the harbour on 1 September 1954. The varnished sliding doors at the back of the cab are shown to good effect in this picture. The building in the background with the smoking chimney is a clay drying shed where the mined clay was dried and packed into bags for despatch. (RCR 5372)

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Above: Fig 32. Alfred is seen on 8 July 1955 shunting British Railways 12-ton vans loaded with bagged china clay on the docks railway system. In the background can be seen two steam cranes and a miscellany of old-time coasters. The lightweight flat-bottomed track is of interest. (RCR 6333) Opposite top: Fig 33. Judy seen on 1 September 1954, shunting empty British Railways 12-ton open wagons which had been used to carry china clay from the mines to the harbour. The vessel in the centre is the Spontaneity, an FT Everard and Son Ltd motor coaster. It was built

by Gebroeder Van Diepen in Holland as the Remmet for KP Bosma of Groningen, was acquired by Everard in January 1954, and sold out of Everard’s service to Greek owners in November 1964.

Most of the Everard coasters had names ending in ‘ITY’ and were a common site around the ports of Devon and Cornwall in the 1950s and 60s, loading china clay from Charleston, Par and Fowey, granite from Berry Head and Penzance and general cargo from Barnstaple, Falmouth, and other harbours. Two steam cranes can be seen in this picture at work loading the ship. (RCR 5376) Opposite bottom: Fig 34. Judy seen on 1 September 1954, working empty BR wagons on the dockside with the FT Everard and Son boat Spontaneity in the background. Everards was a family company which came into being in 1922; its founder Frederick T Everard having a background in traditional Thames spritsail barges. In 1924, the company acquired a tanker which was named Agility. This was the first of the long series of ship names ending in ‘ITY’.

Originally, ship names were selected by Miss AE Everard from a pronunciation dictionary belonging to her mother. Since the series was started, over 100 different names have been used, many more than once. The shortest was City, some reflected the times such as Austerity and Scarcity which were built just after the 2nd World War, and some show a sense of humour. Captain Ken Garett in his book ‘Everard of Greenhithe’ tells the story of ship number 333 which was built by Fellows at Great Yarmouth. “Progress was very slow. On one of his regular visits to the yard Mr WJ Everard, on being asked if he had decided upon a name for the ship, replied that it would be an antique before it entered service. On his next visit he found the name Antiquity painted on the stern.” (RCR 5377)

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Opposite top: Fig 35. Judy, seen in the exchange sidings on 20 June 1960, looks as if it was ex-Works, Stafford. The care with which these little engines were looked after was remarkable; even the wooden cab back was highly varnished. Sadly, regular locomotive work at Par Harbour ceased in August 1977 but fortunately both Judy and Alfred were preserved and are now to be found on the Bodmin and Wenford Railway in Cornwall, though they occasionally make visits to other heritage railways. (RCR 15154) Opposite bottom: Fig 36. Western Pride is an example of the smallest design of industrial locomotive built by Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns. With ten-inch cylinders and weighing just 17 tons, it is comparable in size with Judy and Alfred at Par Harbour, though it looks much larger because it has a full-size cab. Western Pride, along with its sister Bonnie Prince Charlie, was built in 1949, works numbers 7645 and 7644 respectively, and supplied new to the Ballast Wharf at Hamworthy, Poole harbour.

Whilst Western Pride was sold for scrap in March 1966, Bonnie Prince Charlie had a more fortunate existence being transferred to Corrall Ltd’s Dibles Wharf at Northam, Southampton and then passing to the Great Western Society’s Didcot Railway Centre where it remains on static display. The large structure in the left background is for unloading coal destined for the local gas works and power station. (RCR 15980) Above: Fig 37. Purfleet Deep Wharf and Storage Co Ltd operated wharves and warehouses at Purfleet on the banks of the River Thames and were importers of timber and sawmill operators. Their wharves and facilities were served by an extensive industrial railway system on the south side of the ex-London, Tilbury and Southend Railway line at Purfleet. In the 1950s, the railway system was operated by a motley collection of four and six coupled saddle tanks from five different builders. No 2, a Peckett and Sons built class RI 12 inch cylindered four coupled saddle tank, was one of two engines of this design operating at Purfleet Wharf when this picture was taken on 23 March 1957. The locomotive was fitted with a rather extravagant spark arrestor; a necessary feature of locomotives working in facilities where timber was stored and cut to size.

(RCR 8141)

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Opposite top: Fig 38. Also seen on 23 March 1957, was No 1 of Purfleet Deep Wharf and Sawmills Ltd. This engine has a good claim to be the most interesting locomotive in this volume. It was built by Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd in Leeds, works number 823 of 1908, for the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway where it carried the name Walton Park and was a conventional 14 inch outside cylindered saddle tank. (RCR 8141) It was reportedly transferred to the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway by April 1913 and then transferred to the East Kent Railway by February 1916 though other sources indicate that it was on the East Kent Railway by April 1913. In October 1943, it was at Thos W Ward Ltd’s site in Grays, Essex and from there it was sold to Purfleet Deep Wharf Ltd, arriving 7 December 1945.

After 40 years working for the Colonel Stephens light railways, its travels were not yet over. Its boiler failed and so the well-equipped workshops at Purfleet rebuilt No 1 with the boiler and tank off Thornewill & Warham built locomotive works number 420 of 1876. This was a small four coupled saddle tank like those operated by Bass, Ratcliffe & Gretton in Burton-on-Trent and so the boiler and tank was not a very good fit.

What appears to be the rear section of the tank on close examination was just plating to cover the hole at the back of the tank and provide a sort of cave for the boiler backhead. In this form No 1 lasted until July 1957 when it was scrapped. Given his wonderfully improvisatory nature, one cannot help but think that the Colonel himself would have approved of this way of getting a few more years’ service from one of his former engines.

Opposite bottom: Fig 39. Samuel Williams (Dagenham) Dock Ltd was established in 1855 and in 1887 purchased a large plot of land on Dagenham Marsh. The site was filled with waste materials and over time an extensive wharfingers business was created, which included the building and repair of barges, lighterage, provision of towing services, coal storage, fuel oil storage, sawmill operation, dredging and the supply of roadstone. An extensive railway system was created to serve these various enterprises and the factories which were built on the site.

The company primarily employed second hand contractors’ locomotives- mainly built by Manning Wardle. The oldest locomotive owned by the company in later years was No 4, a Manning Wardle class K six coupled saddle tank with 12-inch cylinders, works number 641 of 1877 and originally supplied to Charles Deacon of Kettering. The locomotive’s design was an early example of the design and exhibits many features characteristic of the designs of EB Wilson, Manning Wardle’s predecessors, such as double boss wheels, flat sided saddle tank, Salter valves and wooden brake blocks acting on front and rear wheels only. (RCR 12899) Above: Fig 40. No 4 is seen in this picture at work on the Wharf. In the background is one of the many steam cranes operated by Samuel Williams and to the left of the engine is a selection of clamshell buckets used for off-loading coal, roadstone and aggregates from coasters and lighters. In later years No 4 became something of a corporate pet, though still in regular use until 1959, and was painted in a modern corporate livery which did not complement its mid-Victorian lines.

This picture was taken shortly after it was repainted in corporate colours in 1958 and it looks spotless, with highly polished brass work. Initially, it was preserved under cover on site but then moved to Alan Bloom at Bressingham Hall in 1970. It is now to be found on the Bluebell Railway where it carries the name Sharpthorne which it carried when employed on the construction of the Lewes to East Grinstead Railway.

(RCR 10314)

41

Above: Fig 41. No 1 of the Samuel Williams fleet was a modern example of a class K 12-inch cylindered Manning Wardle, works number 1590 of 1903. The class K locomotives were the most numerous of the Manning Wardle locomotives; over 250 being built between 1864 and 1950.

No 1 was built for W Pattinson & Sons of Yaxley and acquired in 1931. It was sold for scrap in July 1961. At the time of the picture, it was painted in Samuel Williams’ attractive lined maroon livery. The large brass plate on the cab side carried the running number of the engine as well as the name of the owners, and was a feature of many Samuel Williams’ engines, though usually mounted on the tanks as in the case of No 4.

The total mileage of railway operated by Samuel Williams was 22 miles in 1955 and to help control the movement of the locomotives’ radio telephones were introduced on all locomotives in 1954. Despite dieselisation five or six locomotives were regularly at work on this system in the mid-1950s. (RCR 12898) Opposite top: Fig 42. Several of the Samuel Williams locomotives carried their number painted in black on a white background on the cab to make them easily identifiable from a distance. No 7 is an example of such an engine. It was built by Manning Wardle in 1900, works number 1488, and is a member of class L. These were 12-inch cylindered locomotives, slightly larger than the class K, and over 100 examples were built between 1874 and 1919. Although No 7 went for scrap by July 1959, examples of a modern class L like No 7, and an earlier version with EB Wilson features, are to be found on the Middleton Railway in South Leeds.

An interesting feature of this locomotive is the battery box mounted behind the front sandbox and the conduit running along the footplate and up the front of the cab for the radio telephone installation. The most modern steam engines used by Samuel Williams were a 12-inch cylindered six coupled Hudswell Clarke like No 78 on the Manchester Ship Canal Railway, see Fig 28, and a 13-inch cylindered six coupled Hudswell Clarke like Wissington on the Wissington Light Railway, see Fig 259. Dieselisation of this fascinating system started in 1949 with the delivery of three Hudswell Clarke built locomotives and was completed by 1963 when the last of six FC Hibberd locomotives was delivered.

(RCR 12896) Opposite bottom: Fig 43. The Port of London Authority was established in 1909 to take over London Docks, St Katherine Docks, the Surrey Commercial Docks, the East & West India Docks, the Royal Group of Docks, and Tilbury Docks. It inherited the railway systems serving the West India & Millwall Docks, the Royal Group of Docks and Tilbury Docks; the other docks were not rail served. The largest of the dock railway systems was that serving the Royal Group of Docks which comprised Victoria Dock, Royal Albert Dock, and King George V Dock.

When completed the Royal Docks had 246 acres of enclosed docks making it the world’s largest area of impounded water, 12.75 miles of quays and extended over 11,000 acres. The King George V Dock also contained London’s largest dry dock. Railway operations were centred on Custom House shed which was built adjacent to Victoria Dock and at the Eastern end of the main dock railway system exchange sidings and Victoria Docks traffic was monitored from a control room built on a bridge over the exchange sidings. Custom House shed is seen on the right of this picture, taken on 25 September 1957, with the railway workshops on the extreme right. The picture also shows Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns built Austerity No 80, works number 7103 of 1943, running light engine past the shed followed by Hudswell Clarke built side tank No 73, works number 1598. A second Austerity can be seen in the distance and a second Hudswell Clarke side tank is standing outside the shed. (RCR 11250)

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Above: Fig 44. Typical of the trains operated by the Port of London Authority past Custom House Shed is this long train of 12-ton vans and containers which is being taken from the exchange sidings towards the Royal Albert Dock on 25 September 1957. The train is most likely composed of empties which would be loaded with foodstuffs and meat; the Royal Docks was famous for handling vast quantities of grain, tobacco, meat, fruit and vegetables which were unloaded onto the quayside and stored in giant granaries and refrigerated warehouses.

The train is headed by Austerity No 88, a 1944 product of the Hunslet Engine Co, works number 3166, which was initially delivered to Tilbury Docks as WD75116. It was acquired by the Port of London Authority in May 1946 and was transferred to the Royal Group of Docks in November 1954. In October 1956, it was sold to No 3 Area of the North East and Cumberland division of the National Coal Board and after going through Ashington Workshops at the start of 1961 became No 47 of the Ashington Railway’s fleet. Subsequently, it worked at Bates Colliery, Blythe, and finished its days at Netherton Colliery, Bedlington, where it was scrapped in September 1974 after the closure of the colliery. (RCR 11257) Opposite top: Fig 45. Austerity No 80 was photographed on 6 June 1959 passing Custom House Shed heading east towards Royal Albert Dock with a short train of Port of London Authority 13-ton wagons. No 80 was delivered in February 1944 as WD75067 and was purchased in May 1946. It was rebuilt by the Hunslet Engine Co in 1956 and after being declared surplus to requirements in November 1960, it was sold to the National Coal Board for work at Hafod Colliery in Denbighshire. Following the cessation of rail traffic at Hafod Colliery in 1967, excepting occasional shunts for an adjacent tile works, No 80 was scrapped in June 1967. Unusually for a post-war Hunslet rebuild, it was not fitted with a second buffer beam strengthening gusset. (RCR 13856) Opposite bottom: Fig 46. There is much of interest in this picture taken on 6 June 1959 of a long train of coal wagons heading west into the exchange sidings near Custom House Shed: the wooden bodied meat containers on the right, the 12-ton vans on the left, and the lower quadrant lattice framed signal. The engine, No 79, is also of interest. Superficially looking like an Austerity, it is one of the eight 50550 class 0-6-0STs designed and built in 1941 for Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals Islip Orefield development. These locomotives, unusually for Hunslet built engines, had gib-and-cotter coupling rod ends. They were also built with deep full-length frames and boilers with copper fireboxes and brass tubes, unlike those fitted to the Austerities.

The Islip scheme was abandoned just after the first engine was delivered and the class passed into the control of the Ministry of Supply. The majority were despatched to various ironstone quarries in the East Midlands to help the War effort but the engine which was to become Port of London Authority No 79, works number 2414, was sent on loan to the Royal Group of Docks in August 1943 and was acquired by the Port of London Authority in May 1946.

Whilst a non-standard engine, the PLA acquired 10 Austerities at the same time, the 50550s had a reputation as very strong sure-footed engines, which must have counted in No 79’s favour. Following the cull of Royal Group steam engines in 1960, No 79 was acquired by No 8 Area of the North Eastern Division of the National Coal Board, was renumbered S112 and was sent to Ackton Hall Colliery where it remained until transferred to the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway in June 1976. In 1963 No 79 was overhauled by the Hunslet Engine Co. and was fitted with an underfeed stoker, gas producer system and Kylpor blast pipe despite being a one off in the Area. No 79 is unique; it is the only ex-Port of London Authority engine to have been preserved and is currently undergoing overhaul to return it to its as-built condition. (RCR 13588)

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Opposite top: Fig 47. Custom House Shed was a brick built three road structure. By the early 1950s, it was the base for 22 locomotives: a mixture of six coupled saddle and side tanks. In the 1950s, 18 or 19 locomotives would be in use on a given day with three or four under repair.

No 59, seen on a dull 6 June 1959, was a Hudswell Clarke built 16 inch outside cylindered side tank built in 1917, works number 1245. No 59 was delivered new to the Royal Group of Docks and worked there until the Second World War, when it was transferred to Tilbury Docks and did not return to the Royal Group of Docks until January 1956. It remained there until sold for scrap in 1960, with the dieselisation of the dock railway system. The first locomotives of this design were supplied in 1915 to London Docks as part of the modernisation of the dock railway systems initiated by the Port of London Authority and eventually 26 locomotives of this design worked on the PLA’s railway systems serving the Royal Group of Docks and Tilbury Docks. This design of locomotive was so closely identified with the London Docks that colloquially they were referred to as PLAs. The bunker covers were a feature of several of the PLAs working at the Royal Group of Docks. (RCR 13587) Opposite bottom: Fig 48. No 62 was photographed on 6 June 1959 standing on the ready track at the east end of Custom House Shed. To the right, are the steps leading up to the double-sided coaling stage, behind it is an Austerity and to the left is another PLA class side tank.

The flexible pipe below the front buffer beam of this engine identified it as one of the few fitted with steam heating apparatus to enable it to be used to keep vans loaded with bananas warm before they were handed over to the national railway network. No 62 was built in 1918 by Hudswell Clarke, works number 1323, and worked in the Royal Group of Docks until November 1940 when it was sent to work the Avonmouth Docks of the Port of Bristol Authority to assist with the increased traffic caused by the diversion of cargoes from east to west coast ports. No 62 finally returned to London in January 1946 and remained at the Royal Group until made redundant by dieselisation which led to its sale for scrap in 1960. (RCR 13581) Above: Fig 49. Not just another PLA, the very first PLA acquired for use in London’s Docks and seen in commendably clean conditon on 21 September 1957. Although in later years, the livery of the locomotives working on London’s docks was grimy, in the mid-50s quite a few engines were still kept in commendably clean conditon, and No 45 was one of these. It shows off the attractive dark blue and white lined livery adopted by the PLA in later years. No 45 was built by Hudswell Clarke in 1915, works number 1101, and was delivered to Tilbury Docks, where it worked until June 1957 when an influx of Yorkshire Engine Co ‘Janus’ diesel electric shunters rendered it surplus to requirements.

It was transferred to Custom House Shed and was scrapped on site during the Autumn of 1959. The large rectangular rear windows were a characteristic feature of the Hudswell Clarke locomotives built for the Port of London Authority. (RCR 11221)

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Opposite top: Fig 50. From the first, to the very last PLA built to work in London’s Docks. No 91, pictured on 28 February 1959, was built by Hudswell Clarke in 1954, works number 1874, for work at Tilbury Docks but dieselisation forced its move to the Royal Group of Docks in July 1957. It moved again, this time to Millwall, in April 1960 where it joined a fleet made up largely of four coupled saddle tanks. It was eventually sold for scrap around April 1963. In the years since No 45 was built, the design of the PLAs had undergone some changes; the wheelbase was increased from 10ft 0in to 11ft 0in with proportionate increases in water capacity and weight. Despite the late construction date, No 91 and its sister No 90 retained the classic Hudswell Clarke cab profile and curved bunker, unlike the PLAs constructed after the Second World War for the National Coal Board which had cabs with angular cut outs and a rectangular bunker. (RCR 11217) Opposite bottom: Fig 51. A fine scene of locomotives leaving Custom House Shed to resume work in the Docks. Leading is Austerity No 83, one of the ten Austerities operated by the PLA. This example was built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in 1943, Works Number 7104, and arrived at Custom House in May 1944 as WD75068. Like the other Austerities acquired by the PLA, it was purchased in May 1946. It was sold to No 3 Area of the North East and Cumberland division of the National Coal Board in October 1960, following dieselisation of the Royal Group and, after going through Ashington Workshops at the start of 1961, became No 44 of the Ashington Railways fleet. It was fitted with a Giesl Ejector in March 1961, and worked at both Ashington and Whittle Collieries, ending its days at Whittle Colliery in August 1972. Behind it is PLA No 60 which was built in 1917 by Hudswell Clarke, works number 1254, and sold for scrap in 1960. Behind is another PLA and to the right is the Royal Group breakdown van.

(RCR 11216) Above: Fig 52. No. 71 was built by Hudswell Clarke in 1927, works number 1596, and spent its entire life at the Royal Group. It was taken out of service in 1956, stripped of parts to keep other engines in service and was eventually scrapped in October 1959. It is seen on 25 September 1957 stored at the east end of Custom House Yard outside the PLA’s workshops; the building on the left. Whilst the PLA had well-equipped workshops, maintenance of the locomotives and rolling stock was subcontracted in 1921 to Harland and Wolff who operated the workshops.

Maintenance of the PLA’s track was also subcontracted, to John Mowlem. None of the PLA’s side tanks were preserved but in addition to several of the latter National Coal Board variant, two engines to the original PLA design have been saved, Sir Thomas which may be seen at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre and Richboro, a 1917 built member of the class, which now works on the Aln Valley Railway in Northumberland. (RCR 11259)

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Above: Fig 53. Traffic entering Custom House exchange sidings from the Royal Albert Dock and the King George V Dock was controlled by signal box D which was built beside the workshops. In the background are the warehouses and cranes of Royal Albert Dock. The train of 12-ton British Railways vans, photographed on 25 September 1957, is headed by PLA tank No 51, Hudswell Clarke works number 1154 of 1915. This engine was one of the more widely travelled of all the PLA locomotives. Delivered to Royal Docks in 1915, it was sent in August 1940, along with 3 other PLAs, to Partington Shed on the Manchester Ship Canal Railway (see Fig 24) to help with the increased wartime traffic, then returned to Custom House in 1945 before going to Tilbury Docks in October 1947 and finally, after overhaul at Tilbury, returned to the Royal Docks in May 1955 where it remained until laid off in 1959. In 1957 this engine was fitted with steam heating apparatus for working trains of banana vans; the steam hose can be seen on the front buffer beam. (RCR 11254) Opposite top: Fig 54. No 88, also seen in Fig 44 passing Custom House Shed, is now seen on 25 September 1957 shunting on King George V Dock. Port Wyndham, which is in the graving dock at the West End of King George Dock, was built as a refrigerated cargo ship by John Brown & Co of Clydebank in 1932 for Port Line, a subsidiary of the Cunard Steam Ship Co. It was a twin screw diesel motor vessel of 8,702 gross registered tonnage. Like its sister ships in the Port Line fleet, Port Wyndham was primarily employed carrying manufactured goods between London and New Zealand and Australia and returning with cargoes of New Zealand and Australian produce, notably frozen meat. After an eventful war which included being bombed and torpedoed, Port Wyndham continued in the service of Port Line until it was sold for scrap in 1966. The containerisation of international trade marked the end of conventional passenger cargo ships like Port Wyndham and few ships of this kind now exist anywhere. (RCR 11264) Opposite bottom: Fig 55. In a scene redolent of the mid-1950s, No 59 stands in King George V Dock on 25 September 25 1959. In the midground a dockworker rides past on what may have been his first motorised transport, judging by the L plates, to the side are pre-war Ford cars and, in the background, the Balantia. This ship of 7,210 gross registered tonnage was a Liberty Ship built in 1944 (Hull No 2623) for the Ministry of Transport as the Samfaithfull and was sold to the Royal Mail Lines of London in 1947 for operation on their routes to South America, the West Indies and the Pacific coast of North America. It was sold to a Liberian ship owner in 1958 and was scrapped in 1969. Royal Mail Lines was acquired by Furness Withy in 1965 and finally lost its identity with the sale of part of Furness Withy to the Hong Kong ship-owner Cy Tung. The SAM ships were a group of Liberty Ships built in the US and loaned to Britain during the War on lend lease terms. They consisted entirely of ships of the EC2-S-Cl type; single screw steam ships powered by three-cylinder triple expansion engines and capable of 11 knots. This type of Liberty Ship was a utilitarian version of a 1930s British design specially developed for rapid construction during the Second World War. (RCR 11266)

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Above: Fig 56. On a very wet afternoon in September 1957, No 60, Hudswell Clarke works number 1254 of 1917, is shunting in the heart of the Royal Group of Docks. No. 60 is another of the Royal Group PLAs which spent some time at Tilbury, first in the early 1940s, returning to Custom House for heavy repairs in January 1942, and again between March 1944 and June 1956.

In the background is the Dominion Monarch of Shaw Savill & Albion Line. A quadruple screw motor vessel of 27,155 gross registered tonnage, she was completed in 1939 by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson on the Tyne for service between London, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. When built, the Dominion Monarch was the world’s most powerful motor liner. She was powered by four William Doxford & Sons five-cylinder two-stroke single-acting diesel engines which gave her a rating of 32,000 bhp and a top speed of 21.5 knots. Although primarily a cargo ship, she could accommodate 525 passengers in some luxury; all the accommodation was first class. War broke out not long after the Dominium Monarch was commissioned, and she was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1940, and converted to a troop ship; her luxury accommodation was removed, and she was adapted to carry 142 officers and 1,341 other ranks. She was involved in a few important convoys and, as well as carrying troops, also carried provisions from the Commonwealth countries to help feed the UK’s population during the War years. She was released by the Admiralty in 1947, refitted as a cargo liner by her builders and resumed service between London, Capetown, Australia and New Zealand until replaced in 1961 by the Northern Star, after which she was sold out of service to Mitsui. Her maiden voyage was from King George V Dock, where she is seen in this picture, and which was adapted to suit her. (RCR 11266) Opposite top: Fig 57. The internal railways serving the West India and Millwall docks were the last of the PLA dock railways to be dieselised: the steam engines were replaced in 1961 by six Yorkshire Engine Co diesel electric shunters. The railway serving these docks was characterised by short radius curves and so was predominantly worked by four coupled saddle tanks. This picture, taken on 23 September 1957, shows two of the six Hudswell Clarke 14-inch cylindered saddle tanks which worked the dock railway, No 89, works number 1875 of 1953, and No 55, works number 1177 of 1915, standing outside the five-road dock locomotive shed. This was located near to Millwall Inner Dock and stood adjacent to a small single road maintenance shed. The ship in the background with the unusual chevron funnel decoration is one of a group of six ships built for Strick Line between 1953 and 1959 which traded between Millwall/West India Docks and the Persian Gulf. Strick Line had its origins in the Anglo-Algerian Steamship Co Ltd of 1887, which became known as Strick Line Ltd after one of the founding partners in 1913, and disappeared into P & O in 1972. In the 1950s, they had the reputation of being a progressive and well managed shipping company. (RCR 11246) Opposite bottom: Fig 58. Also taken on 23 September 1957, this picture highlights the excellent external condition of many of the locomotives which worked at the West India & Millwall Docks in the mid-1950s. On a sunny day, the dark blue lined white liveried locomotives going about their business on the docks’ railways would have looked like brilliant sapphires amongst the grime of the dock buildings and the clutter of the dockside. No 89 was the last of the four coupled Hudswell Clarke built locomotives to have been supplied to the West India & Millwall Docks and survived until April 1963, when it went for scrap. The locomotive is essentially the same as the five four-coupled Hudswell Clarke built locomotives supplied in 1915, except that it has a full-length tank and like most of the earlier locomotives, it has rectangular cab windows to provide better visibility for the crews. Although by 1953, the standard Hudswell Clarke 14 inch cylindered four coupled saddle tanks had cylinders with 22 inch stroke, in the interest of commonality of parts No 89 was built with cylinders of 20 inch stroke. The building in the background is a huge grain warehouse which was rail served; for many years, unsprung flat wagons with low set dumb buffers were used to move bags of grain from shipside to the warehouse and the Docks locomotives were fitted with low mounted dumb buffers to work with these wagons. (RCR 11245)

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Opposite top: Fig 59. The engines working on the West India and Millwall Docks railways carried attractive cast numberplates until the very end, as shown in this picture, taken on 23 September 1957, of No 47. This was the very first of the Hudswell Clarke saddle tanks to be ordered for use on these railways, works number 1104 of 1915, and apart from six months between July 1926 and January 1927, when it worked at East India Dock handling foreign coal trade, spent almost all its working life on the Docks railways until scrapped in September 1962. This picture shows the commmendable condition in which these locomotives were kept and also the angular cab windows. Apart from this feature No 47 and its sisters were entirely conventional Hudswell Clarke saddle tanks of their time. In the background are British Railways grain hoppers; grain was once a very important commodity handled by the Port of London along with frozen meat. (RCR 11239) Opposite bottom: Fig 60. Standing on the sidings outside the main running shed at Millwall on 23 September 1957, No 47 and two of its sisters show off their beautiful condition in the sun; even the inside of the cab is polished and clean. No 47 was repainted in 1953 which might help account for its condition. At this time, eight locomotives would be based at Millwall shed with typically six at work during weekdays.

Whilst none of the PLA locomotives of this design survive, two examples have been saved. These are Henry de Lacy II which may be found on display in the Middleton Railway’s exhibition hall in Leeds and Waleswood which is in working order on the Chasewater Railway, Brownhills, Staffordshire. (RCR 11243) Above: Fig 61. In 1916, the PLA augmented its fleet of 14-inch cylindered Hudswell Clarke saddle tanks by purchasing two locomotives of a similar size from R & W Hawthorn Leslie of Newcastle. The reason for the change in supplier is not known but is probably due to Hudswell Clarke being very busy in 1916 and 1917 building locomotives for the War Office. No. 47 was the second of these locomotives, works number 3177, and, apart from a year at Tilbury Docks between January 1956 and January 1957, spent its entire working life at the West India & Millwall Docks, until being scrapped in September 1962. This picture was taken near the Millwall running shed on 23 September 1957. A few examples of this design of locomotive have been preserved including Asbestos on the Chasewater Railway, Staffordshire, Marston Thompson and Evershed No 3 on the Foxfield Railway, Staffordshire, and Blythe Harbour Commission BCC No 2 which is now in the Tyseley Locomotive Works, Birmingham. (RCR 11238)

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Opposite top: Fig 62. No 53 was the odd man out amongst the West India & Millwall Dock Hudswell Clarke locomotives because it retained the round front and rear cab spectacle plates originally fitted until it was scrapped in 1962. The locomotive was built in 1915, works number 1123, and spent its entire working life on the Isle of Dogs. This picture was taken on 23 September 1957, in the West India Dock Exchange sidings looking West towards London. The sidings, like much of the Port of London Authority track, was laid with flat bottomed rail and as seen in other pictures, the PLA was an early adopter of concrete sleepers. (RCR 11237) Opposite bottom: Fig 63. No 53 is seen on 23 September 1957, working a train along the quay side of West India Docks. The motor vessel Royal Daffodil was built in 1939 by William Denny and Sons, Dumbarton, for the General Steam Navigation Company of London, and was intended to be used on day trips from the Medway Ports to Calais. The Royal Daffodil had a very distinguished war career. From 15 September 1939 until October of that year, it was used to carry troops of the British Expeditionary Force from Southampton to Cherbourg and then it was one of the ships that took part in Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, and in seven trips rescued 9,500 men. On 2 June 1940, a bomb passed straight through and exploded under her, which caused a hole in the starboard side. The Master ordered everyone to port side, which raised the hole out of the water and enabled a temporary patch of mattresses and wood to be applied, and then she sailed to Ramsgate and disembarked the evacuees. After repairs the Royal Daffodil spent the rest of the war sailing between Stranraer and Larne, carrying military personnel, and remained in military service until 1947. After a refit the it resumed sailing between Gravesend or Tilbury and the French Coast and continued this trade until 1966 when it ceased to be profitable, and the ship was sold for scrap. From 1957, these trips often featured live music which included performances by such luminaries of the early Rock ‘n’ Roll scene as Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. (RCR 11260) Above: Fig 64. The last picture in this series of the Port of London Authority Railways was taken on 25 September 1959 and encapsulates much of what was characteristic of the London Docks in the 1950s: A PLA tank engine, No 59, standing on the dockside in front of a back drop of three island cargo ships, cranes, pre-war cars and a two-tone Ford Consul.

Much of the information used to describe the various pictures of the Port of London Authority Railways was obtained from ‘London’s Dock Railways Part 1 The Isle of Dogs and Tilbury’ and ‘London’s Dock Railways Part 2 The Royal Docks, North Woolwich, and Silvertown’ by Dave Marden and published by Kestrel Railway Books. These two books provide an invaluable introduction to the railways which once served London’s Docklands in the days before it became a world class financial centre and when it was simply the greatest port in the British Empire.

They are highly recommended. (RCR 11263)

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Fig 65. No 26, Hunslet Engine Co works number 1450 of 1935, seen at Coppice Colliery in Derbyshire on 12 May 1964. Coppice Colliery was opened in 1874 and closed in August 1966; the site is now a country park. After nationalisation, Coppice Colliery was placed in Area No 5 of the East Midlands Division. This engine is a 15 inch inside cylindered saddle tank, telegraphic Code AIRDAL. The first engine to this design was Airedale built for Airedale Collieries Ltd in 1923. This engine survives, not yet restored, on the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Railway near Skipton. Engines of this design were a feature of the Yorkshire coalfield to the south of Leeds and several operated in the Lancashire coalfield. No 26 is one of three which were to be found working in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coalfields. (RCR 17595)

3

Coal mines F

rom the early 19th century to the late 20th century, coal mining was the backbone of the British economy. The burning of coal raised steam to power factories, railways, and steam ships and to generate electricity. The carbonization of coal generated gas for lighting and heating homes and coke for domestic heating; coal was the energy source for making cement and many other industrial processes and coke produced from coal was an essential ingredient of iron and steel making. No wonder that coal was often referred to as ‘King Coal’.

Manchester Collieries railway at Walkden also acquired 0-6-2 Tanks to work their longer runs, but these were exNorth Staffordshire Railway built locomotives released by the London Midland & Scottish Railway.

Coal mines were frequently situated in relatively remote rural areas, and from the earliest days, wagonways and later industrial railways were built to move coal from pit to docks for shipment by sea or to the national railway system for transport to customers. Even coal mines built next to main line railways had extensive sidings which were shunted by industrial locomotives owned by the coal mining company. Some of the industrial railways serving coal mines became quite extensive affairs many miles long, linking several collieries to the national railway system, to docks or to central coal processing plants or even coking works, and were operated by large fleets of locomotives.

This was particularly true of the North East of England where, as noted in the introduction, several extensive systems operated but was also true of the area around Manchester where there were several extensive industrial railway systems; most notably that centered on Walkden Yard, Walkden Railway, and that centred on John Pit, Standish Railway. Other significant industrial railway networks operated in South Wales around Mountain Ash and Maesteg, in Ayrshire centered on the former Dalmellington Iron Co works at Waterside and in Nottinghamshire around Barber Walker and Co’s Moor Green Colliery.

The smaller systems primarily employed four and six coupled shunting locomotives built by the various industrial locomotive builders: large and small. A few of the larger systems in the North East employed six coupled tender locomotives and 0-6-2 side tanks similar in design to those operated by the public railways built to move coal from the pits in the valleys of South Wales to the docks at Cardiff, Port Talbot, Barry, and Swansea. Later, following the merger of the various independent South Wales railways into the Great Western Railway, several of the 0-62 side tanks and six coupled saddle tanks formerly owned by these railways became surplus to requirements and were acquired by some of the major North East colliery railways: notably the Lambton Railway, 0-6-2 tanks, and the Bowes Railway, Barry Railway F class 0-6-0 tanks. The

During the 1920s and 30s some of the smaller mining companies merged to form large well financed organisations which could afford to mechanise coal mining, build modern coal preparation plants, and fund access to new seams. These larger companies included Doncaster Amalgamated Collieries, Manchester Collieries, and the Powell Dyffryn Steam Coal company in South Wales. They joined other older but well established and financed companies such as the Ashington Coal Company, the Wemyss Coal Company in Scotland and the Lambton, Hetton & Joicey Colliery Company in Co Durham plus the coal mining subsidiaries of the larger iron and steel companies who were able to take the industry forward.

Outside of these relatively robust organisations, there were many small companies operating one or perhaps two collieries which were poorly capitalised and lacked the resources to mechanise and improve working conditions.

There were also some larger organisations such as the Cramlington Coal Company, formed from the merger of small companies, whose existing mines were coming to the end of their working life. The demands of the Second World War placed huge pressure on the coal mining industry and for seven years there was little investment and assets were worked very hard with minimal maintenance. By the end of the war the coal mining industry was in a poor state.

One of the first acts of the post-war Labour Government was to nationalise the coal mining industry, thus fulfilling a long-standing promise to the coal miners. This occurred on vesting day, 1 January 1947. Shortly after this date, large signs began to appear at the entrances to coal mines carrying the message ‘This Colliery is Now Managed by the National Coal Board on Behalf of the People.’

Nationalisation gave the mining industry access to capital for development, provided the economies of scale necessary to develop modern scientific and H.R. support services and allowed the economic exploitation of coal reserves freed from the constraints imposed by the ownership of reserves by different companies.

The mining industry on nationalisation was administered by the National Coal Board, which was based in London and was split into eight divisions, each corresponding to one of the major coal fields. The Divisions were titled 1 Scottish Division, 2 Northern Division (Northumberland & Durham

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plus Cumberland), 3 North Eastern (Yorkshire), 4 North Western (Lancashire and North Wales), 5 East Midlands (Derbyshire, 6 Nottinghamshire & Leicestershire), 7 West Midlands (Staffordshire, Shropshire, & Warwickshire), 8 South Western (South Wales plus Somerset & The Forest of Dean) and South Eastern (Kent). Each of the divisions was subdivided into areas comprising a group of coal mines in reasonably close proximity to each other and with an aggregate output of approximately four million tons of coal per year and some of the larger areas were further divided into sub areas .

One of the first actions that many of the areas took to address the deficiencies of their locomotive fleets was to acquire newly built, but now surplus to requirements, Austerity locomotives from the War Department. Other locomotives of this type were acquired from the Open Cast Executive as Open Cast Sites created to support the war effort were run down.

The Austerity became the de-facto standard engine in many areas of the National Coal Board and several areas ordered new locomotives of the same design from The Hunslet Engine Company; most notably areas in Lancashire, who ordered 15 new build Austerities as well as purchasing several ex-MoD locomotives, South Wales and South Yorkshire.

The National Coal Board inherited many colliery railway systems and thousands of steam locomotives. Even the largest mining companies had not invested much in their surface railway systems, so this locomotive fleet contained many elderly locomotives,often at the end of their economic life, and even within the larger systems there was little standardisation of design, so there was little commonality of spares. Responsibility for these railways was devolved to the areas with day-to-day operation being controlled at pit level except in the case of the largest systems where there would be a traffic manager controlling day to day operations.

Other areas tended to purchase locomotives from their local builder. For example, virtually every new steam engine purchased by the Scottish areas was built by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co of Kilmarnock and indeed the Fife area ordered a special variant of a standard Andrew Barclay design to suit their requirements. The areas located in the North East ordered six coupled saddle tanks of four different designs from their local builder, Robert

Fig 66. Coppice Colliery converted in style with a Brush Traction 400 HP diesel electric shunter, works number 179 of 1960. This design has clear similarities with the well-known British Rail class 08 and 09 diesel electric shunters, and was a slightly later version of two locomotives built to the same design for Cwm Coking Plant in South Wales by Brush Bagnall Traction Ltd. This engine was built by Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd in Leeds and was very much like two locomotives built by Hudswell Clarke for the Manchester Ship Canal Railway which also featured National Gas & Oil Engines and Brush generators and traction motors. This engine ended its days at Moor Green colliery in Nottinghamshire and was scrapped by March 1976. One of the Hudswell Clarke built locomotives for the Manchester Ship Canal Railway, Arundel Castle, is preserved in working order on the East Lancashire Railway. (RCR 17598)

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Stephenson and Hawthorns, including no less than 20 18inch cylindered saddle tanks, five 18-inch cylindered side tanks and 5 x 17-inch cylindered saddle tanks to replace the plethora of ex-main line engines and superannuated industrial locomotives operated by mining companies in the Northumberland Area. The mining areas in Yorkshire clearly favoured the products of Hudswell Clarke & Co and The Hunslet Engine Co of Leeds, whilst those in Staffordshire favoured the products of Bagnall’s of Stafford.

Except as noted, other areas not located near to a major locomotive builder were much more promiscuous in their purchasing policies and bought small numbers of engines from all the major builders. By the mid-1950s new steam locomotive orders were drying up and some areas were starting to purchase diesel locomotives from both longestablished industrial locomotive builders like The Hunslet Engine Co, Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. Ltd and Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd, but also from new entrants to the field including the North British Locomotive Co, English Electric (Vulcan Foundry) and Rolls-Royce (Sentinel). Despite dieselisation, no less than eight new steam locomotives were supplied to the National Coal Board in the 1960s, the last two being delivered in 1964 to collieries in Area No 3 of the North Eastern Division.

operability of industrial steam locomotives, as described in the introduction. The National Coal Board was a significant purchaser of Austerity locomotives rebuilt with underfeed stokers, etc and purchased kits to retrofit locomotives of various designs with underfeed stokers and/or Kylpor and Giesl ejectors to improve performance.

The 1960s were a very interesting time in the coalfields of Britain for the industrial locomotive enthusiast; there was an extraordinary mix of very old and very modern steam locomotives interspersed with modern diesel locomotives.

RC Riley mainly visited coal mines in the West and East Midlands and Lancashire; none of the pictures in this collection feature locomotives in Scotland, The North East, or South Wales. It is surmised that he preferred the more sylvan settings of the ironstone railways which were very active at this time to the grittier conditions of the typical colliery railway system. Nonetheless, he has bequeathed to us some very interesting pictures taken in coalfields which were not as well covered by other industrial railway photographers.

Our coalfield tour will start with North Derbyshire before swinging through Nottinghamshire, South Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Lancashire before finishing at the little-visited Sherburn Hill Colliery in Co Durham.

During the 1960s the Hunslet Engine Co. made a determined attempt to improve the efficiency and

Fig 67. DE 6 seen at work at Coppice Colliery on 12 May 1964. It is shunting a set of wooden bodied and steel framed coal wagons –the mainstay of coal traffic on Britain’s railways until the early 1950s when they were replaced by the 16-ton mineral wagon. The first wagon is unusual in being an eight-plank end door wagon; most wooden bodied coal wagons were seven plank wagons like the second one in the set.

Many of these wagons survived on internal service duties on colliery railways until the 1980s. (RCR 17597)

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Above: Fig 68. No 16 is a William Bagnall designed 15-inch four coupled saddle tank, works number 2607 of 1939, and built for the Butterley Co Ltd and was originally named Butterley No 50. It is of the same design as Hawardan, the last working steam locomotive at Shelton Iron Works and now preserved on the Foxfield railway. Just seven locomotives of this design were built. This picture was taken on 12 May 1964 at Denby Hall Colliery which was in Area No 5 of the East Midlands Division. A pleasing feature of the locomotives of this area were the large cast National Coal Board plates carried on the tanks and the cast number plates. This feature is also to be seen in the previous three pictures. (RCR 17600) Opposite top: Fig 69. Pye Hill Colliery was sunk by James Oakes & Co of Riddings Collieries Ltd in 1874. The colliery was linked by a private railway to the Midland Railway’s Erewash Valley Line and later was linked to the Great Northern Railway’s Pinxton Branch, which was built in 1875. This branch crossed the private railway’s connection to the Midland Railway by a bridge which afforded limited clearances to the colliery locomotives, and so meant that cut down locomotives had to be employed by the colliery until the Pinxton branch closed in 1964. The colliery eventually passed to Area No 5 of the East Midlands Division of the National Coal Board. This picture shows No 12, a cut down 14-inch Andrew Barclay built locomotive, works number 1010 of 1905, pulling a set of empty 16-ton mineral wagons out of the Midland Railway sidings bound for the colliery on 12 May 1964.

(RCR 17602) Opposite bottom: Fig 70. In this scene, also taken on 12 May 1964, No 12 has been joined by No 11, a 14-inch cylindered product of the Hunslet Engine Co, works number 1493 of 1925. Like No 12 this engine was supplied new to Pye Hill Colliery. Originally, it had a low height cab; standing room for the crew was achieved by dropping the footplate between the frames which meant that the crew were standing in channels in the cab floor. This arrangement was so disliked and so awkward that eventually a footplate was built above the frames as per normal practice, and the cab roof removed. No 11 worked in this form until withdrawn for preservation in 1971. By this time, it was the last cabless steam locomotive in commercial service in the British Isles, and probably in the world. Currently, the locomotive is undergoing a protracted overhaul on the Middleton Railway in Leeds, a mile or so from its birthplace. (RCR 17603)

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Above: Fig 71. Peter, a Hunslet built Austerity design locomotive, works number 2853 of 1943, at Linby Colliery in the Leen Valley, Nottinghamshire on 13 May 1964. Many of the collieries in the Leen Valley were served by both the former Great Northern Railway’s Leen Valley line and the former Midland Railway’s Nottingham-Mansfield line. Collieries would have the GNR line to one side, and the MR line on the other with separate receiving and despatch sidings for both lines with a single set of screens. Because the sidings were so well laid out wagons could run by gravity from both the GNR and MR reception sidings through the screens to the despatch sidings and so there was not much work for the locomotive; delivering wagons loaded with coal to the boilers and rescuing strays and part filled wagons for topping up.

This picture shows Peter in the ex-GNR empties yard. It was known to the children of the neighbouring school, Linby cum Papplewick C of E Primary School, as ‘Puffing Peter’. (RCR 17623) Opposite top: Fig 72. Peter in the ex-GNR reception sidings on 13 May 1964. In the background is St. Michael’s Church, Linby. The Church was built in the latter part of the 12th Century on a site mentioned in the Domesday Book with extensions and alterations made in the 14th and 15th centuries. The village of Linby is a very old farming village; most of the colliers who worked at the colliery lived in the neighbouring town of Hucknall. The Linby Colliery Company began development of the colliery in 1868 with the sinking of twin shafts to a depth of 458 yards to access the productive Top Hard seam. Production began in 1873 and it was worked extensively until exhaustion in 1934. From then main production was from the High Main seam, until exhaustion in 1980. The colliery then worked the High Hazels seam which was difficult to work and had limited reserves. For many years Linby Colliery was one of the most productive collieries in Britain and from the 1960s to 1970 produced over one million tons of coal per year. Peak production was achieved in 1963 when one point three million tons of coal was produced by a manpower of 1,113 giving an Output per Manshift (OMS) of 102.7 cwts; making it the most productive colliery in Europe. This high productivity was achieved whilst using steam winding. One of the two steam winders at Linby, a 1922 Robey and Co built engine, was not replaced until 1983 and was then relocated to Papplewick Pumping Station Trust where it has been reassembled and is steamed on open days.

The other steam winder survived until closure of the colliery in March 1988. This was brought about by exhaustion of the seams accessed from the colliery. (RCR 17622) Opposite bottom: Fig 73. Jacqueline, the spare engine at Linby Colliery seen on 13 May 1964. This 16-inch cylindered saddle tank was built

by Robert Stephenson and Co for the Appleby Frodingham Steelworks in Scunthorpe, works number 4156 of 1937. With the dieselisation of the steel works internal railway system in 1961, this well maintained, relatively modern engine and several of its sisters became available and were bought up by Area No 6 of the East Midlands Division of the National Coal Board. The locomotives came in a very attractive green livery panelled in black with a thin yellow line which was subsequently applied to other engines in the same area including Peter. (RCR 17624)

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Opposite top: Fig 74. Valerie, a Hawthorn Leslie built 16-inch saddle tank, works number 3606 of 1924, is seen in the exchange sidings of Bestwood Colliery on 13 May 1964. The locomotive is painted in a similar lined green livery to Jacqueline. Valerie came to Bestwood Colliery via Linby Colliery and before that it worked for Holloway Bros in London who had the contract to build the seven-mile railway from the Midland Railway’s Nottingham to Mansfield Line to Calverton Colliery in the very early 1950s. Bestwood Colliery was sunk by the Bestwood Coal & Iron Co between 1873 and 1876: production started in 1876. The ironworks closed in 1936 and in the same year ownership of the coal mine passed to B & A Collieries Ltd. In 1947, the mine became part of Area No 6 of the East Midlands Division. At this time 1,623 men worked underground and 521 men on the surface. Like many collieries, it was by the far the dominant employer in its locality. At the time of nationalisation, the colliery worked the High Main Seam as did the adjacent Hucknall and Linby collieries. The colliery closed in 1967 and the washery in 1968.

(RCR 17621) Opposite bottom: Fig 75. Ruth was another of the Robert Stephenson built 16-inch saddle tanks, works number 4150 of 1937, acquired by Area No 4 of the East Midlands Division of the National Coal Board from Appleby Frodingham Steelworks. In this picture, taken on 13 May 1964, it is seen standing in the exchange sidings. Ruth was scrapped in July 1968. The Yorkshire Engine Company Type Eight 16-inch saddle tanks which were such a feature of the ironstone quarries operated by United Steel Company subsidiaries were developed from this design. (RCR 17617) Above: Fig 76. No 39, ex-Appleby Frodingham Steelworks and the third of the Robert Stephenson built 16-inch saddle tanks acquired in 1961

by Area No 4 of the East Midlands Division, spent the rest of its working life at Gedling Colliery where it was photographed on 13 May 1964. It left for the Foxfield Railway in February 1970, but subsequently moved to the Great Central Railway where it was converted to a side tank. No 39 has been in the ownership of the Darlington Preservation Society since 1987. Gedling Colliery was sunk between 1900 and 1902 and finally closed in 1991. Prior to nationalisation, it was owned by B & A Collieries Ltd and before 1937, was owned by Digby Colliery Co. Ltd. At the time of nationalisation, it was working the Top Hard and Low Hazel seams. Gedling Colliery was served by sidings off the Great Northern Railway’s Derbyshire and Staffordshire Extension which was constructed to give the Great Northern Railway access to the coalfields to the north of Nottingham. The section of this line between Basford and Nottingham was closed to passenger service on 4 April 1960 following the collapse of Mapperley tunnel because of mining subsidence; the southern section serving Gedling Colliery remained open until the colliery closed.

(RCR 17610)

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Opposite top: Fig 77. Queen, a 1923 built 14-inch cylindered Andrew Barclay built saddle tank, works number 1784, was obtained from Hough and Sons in 1932 and worked at Gedling Colliery until 1966, when it was scrapped. The locomotive is seen on 13 May 1964, working a set of wooden wooden framed and blodied internal use wagons. The rear four wagons are conventional seven plank coal wagons, the front two are ten plank wagons with cupboard style doors and were probably originally built for coke traffic. (RCR 17613) Opposite bottom: Fig 78. Gedling Colliery produced high quality coal for the domestic fuel market, household coal. Some of this was sold from a land sale yard on Mapperley Plains. This was accessed from the colliery yard by a rope-worked incline. Originally a small shunting engine was based in the land sale yard, but latterly a locomotive was hauled daily up and down the incline to shunt the yard. The engine most often used on this duty was Catherine; an Andrew Barclay built 12-inch cylindered saddle tank, works number 1000 of 1903. Catherine is seen in this picture, taken on 13 May 1964, about to collect two loaded wagons from the top of the incline in readiness for moving to the land sale yard. It was scrapped by March 1966 and the land sale yard and incline were closed in 1985. (RCR 17616) Above: Fig 79. Standing outside the modern engine shed at Donisthorpe Colliery in Leicestershire in May 1963 is No 2 Phoenix; a 1905 product of R & W Hawthorn Leslie & Co, works number 2611. This is an early example of one of Hawthorn Leslie’s longest-lived designs; the last of which was built for No 2 Area of the Northern Division of the National Coal Board in 1950. These engines were distinguished by a particularly commodious cab, later examples, see Fig 226, even had side windows and were a feature of the West Durham coal field. Two examples survive in preservation: Stagshaw on the Tanfield Railway and Isabel on the Epping to Ongar Railway. Sinking of the Donisthorpe Colliery commenced in 1871, it was deepened in 1890 and modernised with new screens and sidings in 1894 and 1918. It was originally owned by Checkland & Son but was acquired by the Moira Colliery Co in 1903 who operated several collieries centred on Bath Road Loco shed and Workshops and passed to the control of No 7 Area of the East Midlands Division of the National Coal Board on 1 January 1947. Rail traffic ceased in 1980 and the colliery finally closed in March 1990. No 2 Phoenix did not arrive at Donisthorpe until April 1962; it was supplied new to Nailstone Colliery and after overhaul in the Swadlincote Workshops between 1949 and 1950, moved to Whitwick Colliery before transfer to Donisthorpe. It went for scrap in October 1968. (RCR 17022)

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Above: Fig 80. The smaller Peckett & Sons Ltd built locomotives, both six-coupled and four-coupled, had a particular charm and elegance unlike their larger locomotives which often looked clumsy and ungainly. With their archaic smoke box wing-plates and attractively curved bunkers and as often as not polished brass dome covers, they were very pretty engines. The charm of this design is shown off by Desford, a Peckett & Sons built 14-inch, class C, six-coupled saddle tank, works number 1175 of 1908, which spent its entire working life at Desford Colliery and was finally scrapped in June 1967. This picture was taken on 14 May 1965 when it was still in regular service. (RCR 17828) Opposite top: Fig 81. Desford No 2, also seen on 14 May 1965, was a slightly larger engine than Desford, being a 15-inch Peckett and Sons built saddle tank, class C1, works number 1733 of 1927. The graceful curves of this locomotive contrast with the angularity of No 26, Hunslet Engine Co works number 1450 of 1935, seen at Coppice Colliery in Derbyshire in Fig 65. Desford No 2 also spent its working life at Desford Colliery and was scrapped in August 1966 following the arrival of two newly built Hunslet Engine Co diesel hydraulic locomotives. Desford Colliery was sunk in 1900 by the Desford Coal Co Ltd and on vesting day passed to No 8 Area of the East Midlands Division of the National Coal Board. Rail traffic ceased in 1982 and it closed in February 1984. (RCR 17827) Opposite bottom: Fig 82. The first shafts at what was to become Measham Colliery were sunk in 1850, layout of use from 1862 to 1894 when production was restarted by W Tait trading as Measham Collieries Ltd. The new company deepened the shafts, built new screens and in 1915 sunk a new shaft, known as Minorca Colliery, which shared the same management and ventilation as the original colliery. On 1 January 1947, the colliery passed to the control of No 7 Area of the East Midlands Division and after merging with Donisthorpe Colliery finally closed in 1986. No 6, seen outside the shed on 14 May 1965, was built by WG Bagnall Ltd in 1954, works number 3061, and was a 16-inch saddle tank.

The design was developed from a design of 16-inch cylindered saddle tanks built before and during the Second World War for the Butterley Company Ltd. It was distinguished from the earlier design by having a flat sided saddle tank which is shown to good effect in this picture and slightly longer cylinders; 24 inch vs 22 inch. In total, 18 locomotives were built to this design: No 6 the only one to work in Leicestershire, was delivered new to Bath Road Loco Shed which served Rawdon Colliery and was transferred to Measham Colliery in April 1964. Of the other locomotives in this class, seven worked for Preston Corporation’s dock railway, nine worked in the North Staffordshire coal mines and one worked for the Birchenwood Gas & Coke Co Ltd. Four locomotives of this design have been preserved including No 6 which, now renamed Empress, can be found on the Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway, where it is currently operational. (RCR 17814)

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Above: Fig 83. No 6 about to return to work after coaling up at Measham Colliery on 14 May 1965. This picture highlights the beautiful condition in which the steam locomotives at Measham Colliery were kept in the 1960s. Measham Colliery was connected to the former Midland Railway Burton-on-Trent to Nuneaton line by a one- and three-quarter mile private railway. This served a wharf on the Ashby canal where coal was transferred to barges until 1966. The line was unusual in so far as the occupants of adjoining National Coal Board owned farms could load sugar beet to rail at three points on this line until the 1950s. (RCR 17815) Opposite top: Fig 84. South Leicester Colliery at Elliston was sunk between 1876 and 1877 by the South Leicestershire Colliery Company whose origins date back to the sinking of Snibston No 1 Colliery in 1831 by no less a person than George Stephenson. The colliery was linked underground with the nearby Elliston Colliery in 1957 and by 1964 was worked as part of Elliston Colliery; the surface railway system at South Leicester Colliery closed in July 1964 and the colliery finally closed in 1983, though latterly the shafts were retained for access and ventilation only. South Leicester Colliery seems to have been little visited by railway photographers, which is a shame as it had an attractive allocation of three inside cylinder 16-inch locomotives from three different builders, Maud from Manning Wardle & Co Ltd, South Leicester No 1 from Peckett & Sons Ltd and Stella from The Hunslet Engine Co. Remarkably, all three engines were present at the colliery on Vesting Day, 1 January 1947 and were the only engines ever to work at the colliery in the National Coal Board era until closure of the internal railway system. Even more remarkably both South Leicester No 1 and Stella spent their entire working lives at the colliery and Maud arrived at the colliery after just one year at Snibston Colliery. The picture shows Stella, Hunslet Engine Co works number 1590 of 1932, being loaded to road transport for delivery to Wm Bush Ltd, Alfreton for scrapping on 14 May 1965. Close examination of the picture shows that the frames were cut away at front and rear to enable loading to road transport. The large concrete structure in the background is a gravity settler employed to remove fines from colliery wash water before discharge to stream or reuse. (RCR 17811) Opposite bottom: Fig 85. Maud was a Manning Wardle 16-inch cylinder saddle tank, Works Number 1861 of 1915, which, as built, was very similar to the 16-inch Manning Wardles working in the East Midlands ironstone quarries of Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals shown in Chapter 4 except that the cab did not have forward bunkers. This picture shows Maud prepared for loading to road transport for delivery to Wm Bush Ltd, Alfreton for scrapping on 14 May 1965. As was the case with Stella the front and rear frames have been butchered to facilitate loading to road transport. Of greater interest is the boiler. At some stage in her career Maud lost its Manning Wardle built boiler with raised fire box and safety valves over the firebox. It was replaced by a conventional locomotive boiler with safety valves mounted on a dome passing through the tank. The front of the cab shows the new platework added to fill the gap created by the removal of the raised firebox boiler. Maud was working in its rebuilt configuration on 28 July 1964; just two days before the railway system closed, so the rebuild must have been quite successful.

(RCR 17813)

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Opposite top: Fig 86. Noel, Yorkshire Engine Co Works Number 1890 of 1924, was one of the relatively small number of locomotives built for industrial service by this company between the wars. Supplied new to Measham Collieries Ltd, it is seen out of service at Nailstone Colliery on 29 April 1963; not long before it was scrapped by WH Bush of Alfreton. Noel is small for a six coupled engine with 14-inch cylinders and like all Yorkshire Engine Co built industrial saddle tanks has a saddle type smoke box rather than the more common wrapper type; a feature it shares with Andrew Barclay built locomotives. Nailstone Colliery was sunk in 1862 and was extensively upgraded after nationalisation; the work concluding with the construction of a new drift which enabled coal from both Bagworth and Nailstone collieries to be taken to the surface and processed at Nailstone. The railway system was replaced in 1979 by overland conveyors which transported coal from the coal prep plant at Nailstone to a rapid loading bunker located half a mile west of Bagworth and Elliston station. Bagworth and Nailstone collieries merged in 1967 and finally closed in February 1991. (RCR 16985) Opposite bottom: Fig 87. This picture was taken at Bagworth Colliery on 14 May 1965. The first shafts at Bagworth were sunk in 1825 with further shafts being sunk in 1886, coal winding was transferred to Nailstone Colliery in 1967 and it finally closed in February 1991. The colliery was originally connected to the Leicester and Swannington Railway’s Bagworth incline but this was bypassed by a deviation built by the Midland Railway in 1846 and a new connection constructed. The early locomotive history of the colliery is not recorded, though by 1885 the sidings layout would have been impractical to work except by locomotive. The engine shown in this picture was supplied new to the colliery by Peckett and Sons Ltd in 1915, works number 1404, was overhauled at the Swadlincote Workshops of the National Coal Board between 1950 and 1951 and was despatched for scrap to John Cashmore Ltd, Staffordshire in July 1967. The majority of the six coupled outside cylindered saddle tanks built by Peckett were either 14-inch cylindered locomotives of classes B2 and B3 (ref Fig 181) and Figs 150, 152 or 16-inch cylindered locomotives of classes OX to OX4. No 1 is one of the modest numbers of 15-inch outside cylindered tanks of class FA built by Peckett and is comparable in size with the 15-inch Hunslet saddle tank shown in Fig 65, and the 15-inch WG Bagnall Ltd and Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd built saddle tanks shown in Chapter 4, Figs 116 and 146 respectively. (RCR 17809) Above: Fig 88. Joan, photographed at Arley Colliery on 18 May 1966, is typical of the final version of the Avonside Engine Company six coupled saddle tank with its small bunker and rounded cab with small openings and high-pitched boiler. Joan, works number 2048, was built in 1932, two years before the company entered voluntary liquidation. After overhaul and repainting in blue lined yellow livery in 1966 to 1967 it was transferred to Newdigate Colliery in 1968, was out of service by June 1970 and was scrapped by the end of 1973. The longest surviving engine of this design Lord Camrose was supplied in 1930 to the Powell Dyffryn Steam Coal Co’s Mountain Ash Railway where it spent its entire working life until dismantled in the mid-1970s for an overhaul which never happened. In this dismantled state Lord Camrose went for preservation, but unfortunately is recorded as being cut up in 1990. (RCR 17953)

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Opposite top: Fig 89. Coventry No 1 seen standing in the yard at Haunchwood Colliery on 18 May 1966. She was built by North British Locomotive Co Ltd to a Neilson Reid design at their Hyde Park Works in 1939, and was part of an order for two identical locos, works numbers 24563 and 24564, for the Coltness Iron Co Ltd. The locomotives had 18-inch diameter cylinders and were comparable in performance with main line shunting engines. No 24563 went to their Newmains works, Lanarkshire, and No 24564 was sent to Coventry Colliery, which was owned by the Warwickshire Coal Co Ltd; a subsidiary of the Coltness Iron Co. Coventry No 1 was the last industrial steam locomotive built for the UK market by the North British Locomotive Co Ltd. It was transferred to Newdigate Colliery in October 1963 after a heavy overhaul which included reboilering, was at Haunchwood Colliery between 1965 and 1967, was retired from Newdigate Colliery in December 1970 and was then sold into preservation at what is now the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. This picture clearly shows the flangeless centre driving wheels of this engine; a feature intended to permit the locomotive to traverse tight radius curves, despite its long wheelbase. (RCR 17954) Opposite bottom: Fig 90. Success, Andrew Barclay built saddle tank works number 1167 of 1909, and Good Luck Hunslet Engine Co built saddle tank works number 498 of 1890, standing out of use at Haunchwood Colliery on 18 May 1966. Both locomotives were originally supplied new to Griff Collieries Ltd. Above the locomotives is the aerial wire ropeway used to transport dirt for the coal washery to the colliery dirt tip.

The profile of the cab of the Hunslet locomotive is virtually the same as that of Hunslet steam engines built in the 1950s. The shape of saddle tank and design of the smoke box saddle of the Barclay locomotive is the same as that of engines built in the same decade showing how early characteristic design features of the different industrial locomotive builders were fixed. Astonishingly, Good Luck, a relatively small 13-inch cylindered locomotive, was fitted with a new Hunslet Engine Co built boiler in 1952 whilst it was employed at Griff No 4 Colliery and Success was fitted with a new Barclay built boiler as late as 1958. Both locomotives were transferred to Haunchwood Colliery, the former in 1962, the latter in 1960, but were too small for the work there. Good Luck was never steamed at Haunchwood, and Success saw little work there; both were eventually scrapped in 1966. A very similar engine to Good Luck is currently under restoration for use on the Elsecar Heritage Railway in South Yorkshire. Haunchwood Colliery was sunk in 1891 and closed in 1970. (RCR 17955) Above: Fig 91. No 4 was built by Peckett and Sons Ltd, Works Number 1787 of 1933 and was a 16-inch cylindered saddle tank of class X2. It was photographed at Newdigate Colliery, Bedworth, on 18 May 1966 where it spent its entire working life with sister class X2 tank, No 3, works number 1586 of 1922. No 4 was out of use by August 1969 and was scrapped by the end of 1971. Newdigate Colliery was sunk in 1898 and was connected to the LNWR’s Nuneaton, Coventry, and Leamington line by a two-mile-long private line which included a land sale yard at its midpoint. The colliery was extensively reconstructed in 1961, when a new coal prep plant and locomotive shed was built and closed in February 1982. Peckett and Sons were best known for their extensive range of four and six coupled outside cylinder saddle tanks, but they built several inside cylinder six coupled saddle tanks of various sizes of which the best known were locomotives of class X2 and its predecessors. Just one Peckett & Sons Ltd built inside cylinder saddle tank is known to survive, Ackton Hall No 3, a class X2 locomotive built in 1920, works number 1567, which is currently stripped down for restoration to working order on the Foxfield Railway in Staffordshire. (RCR 17952)

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Above: Fig 92. Coventry No 3 is seen standing outside the shed at Birch Coppice Colliery, Dordon, North Warwickshire, on 18 May 1966. This locomotive was built by Peckett and Sons Ltd, works number 1700 of 1925 and was a member of their OX1 class of 16-inch cylindered saddle tanks. Originally supplied new to Coventry Colliery, it was transferred to Birch Coppice Colliery after overhaul by Andrew Barclay in April 1965. By this time, it was wearing the medium blue livery of Area No 4 of the West Midlands Division of the National Coal Board, but when at Coventry Colliery it was painted in an attractive maroon livery with a yellow, black and yellow lining and a polished brass dome cover. The brick built locomotive shed held just two engines but enjoyed the luxury of a full-length pit. The water tank had gone by 1980 and the colliery itself closed in March 1987. (RCR 17956) Opposite top: Fig 93. No 5 Beaudesert, a heavily rebuilt Fox Walker class B saddle tank, works number 266 of 1875, standing out of service at Cannock Wood Colliery, Rawnsley, Staffordshire on 1 May 1963. The locomotive was acquired new by Cannock & Rugeley Collieries Ltd and over the years was rebuilt with new boiler, cab and tank in the central workshops of the colliery company at Rawnsley. The inwardly tapering chimney and the small off-centre smoke box door were a characteristic of rebuilds carried out at Rawnsley. Sadly, this interesting survivor was scrapped in June 1964. (RCR 17012) Opposite bottom: Fig 94. No 2, seen at work at Coppice Colliery, South Staffordshire, on 1 May 1963, was built by Kitson and Co in Leeds in 1921, works number 5358. It was a large 18-inch cylinder side tank and representative of one of Kitson & Co’s most successful industrial railway designs, as seen in Chapter 2. Members of this class of locomotive were the most powerful engines employed by the Manchester Ship Canal Railway until the 1950s. Five locomotives of this design, plus two slightly older versions built in 1889 with straight topped side tanks, were supplied to the Cardiff Railway between 1895 and 1919 and five of these were later sold by the Great Western Railway into industrial service. No 2 spent its entire working life at Coppice Colliery until 1963, when it was sent to Cannock Workshops and scrapped in 1964. Coppice Colliery was sunk in 1892 and closed in the same year as No 2 was scrapped: 1964. A feature of particular interest in this picture is the wooden bodied and framed side tipping wagon which was used to convey dirt to the colliery waste tip. In most parts of the country, Robert Hudson design steel bodied inside framed side tipping wagons were used for this duty by the late 1950s or, in the North East, conventional wooden bodied hopper wagons. (RCR 17005)

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Above: Fig 95. A very extensive industrial railway system developed around Walkden in the Lancashire coalfield to serve the collieries of the Bridgewater Trustees. In 1929, they became the Central Railways and later the Walkden Railways, of Manchester Collieries Ltd; one of the largest and most progressive coal mining companies in the country. The lines extended from a connection with the British Railways Liverpool to Manchester line at Astley Moss sidings, past Astley Green Colliery and Mosley Common Colliery to Walkden Yard, where the company workshops and offices were located. The lines then extended North West to serve Ashton’s Field Colliery with extensions to serve Sandhole Colliery, Worsley Tip, Brackley Colliery and Cutacre Tip. The railway also served several land sale yards and in total made six connections with the National Railway network. The main locomotive shed was at Walkden with sub-sheds at Astley Green, Sandhole and Brackley collieries.

The approximate route mileage of the complete system was 12 and a half miles. Much of it was steeply graded, with the gradients being against loaded trains, necessitating the use of powerful locomotives which included one of the few eight coupled locomotives built for industrial use in the United Kingdom. The system began to contract in the mid-1950s with the rundown of the mining industry and finally closed at the end of 1970 with the closure of Astley Green Colliery. Bridgewater, seen at Walkden on 12 April 1959, was one of two engines built specially for the Central Railways by the Hunslet Engine Company; works number 1475 of 1924. Unusually for British industrial locomotives they had outside Walschaerts valve gear and Belpaire fireboxes. With 18-inch cylinders, Bridgewater and her sister Joseph were powerful machines and initially were assigned to the heavy workings out of Brackley Colliery. In 1948 Bridgewater received a new Hunslet Engine Co built boiler and then spent much of its time working at Astley Green Colliery. Delivered in olive green and lined in yellow and vermilion, it was later painted black with yellow lining and after its last overhaul was painted in maroon with yellow lining. Sadly, firebox problems led to Bridgewater being put aside in late 1967 and it was scrapped in 1968. Both Bridgewater and Joseph enjoyed an excellent reputation for moving heavy loads, though, being outside cylindered, they boxed vigorously when pulling hard. (RCR 8241) Opposite top: Fig 96. Sir Robert, seen on 24 April 1959 at Sandhole Colliery on the Walkden Railways, was one of five ex-North Staffordshire Railway class L 0-6-2 tank engines acquired from the LMS by Manchester Collieries, then owners of the Walkden Railways, between 1936 and 1937. They were designed by John H Adams for heavy freight and passenger work on the North Staffordshire Railway, the first of the class appearing in 1903, and in total 34 engines were built to this design. Sir Robert was built in 1920 at the North Staffordshire Railway’s Stoke on Trent Works. The L class locomotives had 18 and a half inch cylinders, a working pressure of 175 psi, five feet diameter driving wheels and a weight in working order of 64 tons. They were very capable machines, with free steaming boilers and for many years were responsible for the bulk of the longer runs on the Walkden Railways. Sir Robert was named after Sir Robert Burrows (1884 – 1964), who was a member of one of the most important Lancashire mining dynasties. He entered the family mining business in 1904 and, having a particular interest in fuels and fuel quality, was responsible for the establishment of one of the mining industries’ first quality control laboratories at Walkden in the 1930s.

Sir Robert spent most of its working life based at Sandhole Colliery handling heavy traffic on the Eastern section of the Walkden Railways. It received a new Hunslet Engine Co built boiler between 1949 and 1950 and in 1964, its frames, cylinders and wheels were combined with the boiler, cab, and tanks of Princess a 1923 built member of the L class, and unusually the rebuilt engine was named Princess; normal practice is for the identity of a locomotive to be associated with the frames. Princess, then running as North Staffordshire Railway No 2, was taken out of service in 1965 and was placed on display at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire. It now resides on the Foxfield Railway, not far from its birthplace, and there are hopes that eventually it may be restored to working order. It is the only surviving North Staffordshire Railway steam locomotive. (RCR 8242) Opposite bottom: Fig 97. Outwood was an early Peckett & Sons Class B 14-inch saddle tank; works number 923 of 1901. It was built to work at Thomas Fletcher & Sons Outwood Colliery. Eventually, it passed into the hands of Manchester Collieries Ltd and then the National Coal Board and was maintained at Walkden workshops though it continued to work at Outwood Colliery; a washery only from 1931 when an underground fire led to the collapse of one of the shafts. In 1953 it was fitted with a new boiler and then moved to Wheatsheaf Colliery near Pendlebury. It was back at Walkden in August 1956 and from 1957 was used as a stationary boiler and was eventually scrapped in 1962. On the 12 April 1959, when photographed, it was awaiting scrapping. What is noteworthy about this picture is the clock in the background. This is the famous Lady Bourke Clock which once stood beside the National Coal Board and before that the Manchester Collieries office at Walkden. The clock was used to alert coal miners to the beginning or end of their shifts and because workers claimed that they could not hear the clock strike once at one o’clock to mark the end of dinnertime and the resumption of the working day it was altered to strike 13 times. The opening line of George Orwell’s 1949 novel, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, which refers to clocks striking thirteen, might have well been inspired by his time in the area in 80 1937, when he was writing ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. (RCR 13186)

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Above: Fig 98. Robin Hood was a product of Chapman & Furneaux, successors to Black Hawthorn & Co. Ltd. It was built in 1901, works number 1200, had 14-inch cylinders and in working order weighed 23 tons. It was purchased new by the Clifton and Kersley Colliery Company and from 1909 until nationalisation, spent most of its time working in Outwood Colliery and Robin Hood sidings at Newtown. By 1947 Robin Hood was in poor condition; it was overhauled and then became a North West Area 1 spare engine working at various collieries in the Manchester region though it spent most of its time at Robin Hood sidings and was working there when they closed in November 1957. It was sent back to Walkden, where it was photographed on 12 April 1959, and was eventually scrapped at the end of 1961. A Black Hawthorn built fourcoupled saddle tank of the same size and constructed just seven years before Robin Hood is seen in Fig 102. The two locomotives share many similarities, as might be expected given the relationship between Chapman and Furneaux and Black Hawthorn: same cab side profile and saddle tank cross section, same sandboxes. Much of the information about the Lancashire pits is drawn from ‘Locomotives and the Lancashire Central Coalfield, The Walkden Yard Connection’ and ‘Walkden Yard, The Lancashire Central Coal Field Workshops’ by Alan Davies and published by Amberley; both essential reading for anyone interested in the collieries around Manchester. (RCR 8238) Opposite top: Fig 99. Taurus, a Hawthorn Leslie built 14-inch cylindered saddle tank, works number 3384 of 1919, is seen in the yard of Sherburn Hill Colliery on 8 June 1958. The colliery was sunk in 1835 by the 1st Earl of Durham, John George Lambton, and was connected to a southern extension of the Lambton Railway from Fence Houses. In 1911, the colliery and two nearby collieries were sold by what had then become The Lambton, Hetton & Joicey Collieries Ltd to Sir B Samuelson & Co Ltd; the owners of Newport Ironworks, Middlesbrough, and in 1923 ownership passed to Dorman Long & Co Ltd. Following the sale to Sir B Samuelson & Co. Ltd, the southern extension of the Lambton Railway was closed and the colliery’s connection to the national railway network was via a steeply graded two mile branch from the North Eastern Railway’s Leamside to Ferryhill Line. The colliery eventually closed, under National Coal Board ownership, in August 1965. Taurus was supplied new to Dean & Chapter colliery near Ferryhill which became part of the Dorman Long empire in 1929 and was transferred to Mainsforth Colliery sometime in the mid-1940s before moving to Sherburn Hill Colliery in November 1957. It was sent to the Hunslet Engine Company for overhaul in February 1960, went from Hunslet to Hordon Colliery in July 1961, then moved to Thornley Colliery in March 1963 and was finally taken out of service and sold for scrap in December 1968. The peripatetic existence of Taurus is in marked contrast with the quiet life of the locomotives at South Leicester Colliery. (RCR 12009) Opposite bottom: Fig 100. Monty, an apparently conventional Austerity class saddle tank built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in 1944, works number 7146, but note the very robust front frame extensions and the unusual sanding gear operating mechanism. It was acquired in November 1947 by No 4 Area, South West Durham, of the Northern Division of the National Coal Board from the War Department; having seen service with the Belgian State Railways at their Antwerp Depot. For several years after acquisition by the Coal Board Monty carried its old War Department Number 75196 on the front buffer beam. It was the Area spare locomotive and worked in several South West Durham pits including Dean & Chapter, Chilton, Blackhall, and Horden as well as Sherburn Hill Colliery where it was photographed on 8 June 1958. It was overhauled by Andrew Barclay Sons and Co Ltd. in Kilmarnock, between August and December 1963, moved to Horden Colliery for the last time in August 1965 and was sold for scrap in March 1976. The wagon seen in the left background is noteworthy because the brakes are actuated by levers mounted on the ends of the wagon. (RCR 12010)

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Fig 101. No 4, seen on 8 June 1958, was a typical Hudswell Clarke built 16-inch side tank of the design commonly referred to as PLAs. No 4 was built in 1918, works number 1335, for the Ministry of Munitions, Inland Waterways and Docks, and was sold to Sir B Samuelson & Co Ltd in 1919 for use at Sherburn Colliery. It moved to Sherburn Hill Colliery between the wars, had a brief stint at Chilton Colliery and ended its days at Sherburn Hill Colliery under National Coal Board ownership in the late 1950s. At the time of acquisition by Sir B Samuelson & Co, the locomotive fleet at Sherburn Hill was notable for including a six-coupled outside framed tender engine built by Hudswell Clarke in 1866 and supplied new to the Earl of Durham’s Lambton Railway. Sadly, this machine did not survive to come under the ownership of the National Coal Board in 1947. (RCR 12011) Fig 102. No 10 was the gem of the Sherburn Hill Colliery at the time of RC Riley’s visit on 8 June 1958. Built by the Gateshead firm of Black Hawthorn and Co Ltd in 1894, works number 1095, this 14-inch cylindered locomotive was supplied new to Sir WG Armstrong Whitworth Elswick Works in Newcastle. Later, it was transferred to Bolckow Vaughan & Co Ltd.’s Dean & Chapter Colliery then to Mainsforth Colliery before arriving at Sherburn Hill Colliery in 1931, where it remained until scrapped in April 1959. Black Hawthorn was one of the earliest locomotive builders; their Quarry Field Works in Gateshead was opened by John and his son Richard Coulthard in 1835, just 27 years after the world’s first commercially successful steam locomotive was built by Matthew Murray’s Round Foundry in Leeds. In 1865, Richard Coulthard retired, and the firm was taken over by William Black and Thomas Hawthorn. The new owners renamed the company and focused primarily on four and six-coupled industrial tank locomotives as well as steam cranes and advertised themselves as builders of colliery winding and haulage engines. The business was very successful, and by 1896 had built over a thousand locomotives. In this year, the business was acquired by Chapman and Furneaux and produced a further 70 locomotives before closing in 1902. The goodwill passed to R & W Hawthorn Leslie. Several Black Hawthorn locomotives survive including Wellington which is currently undergoing restoration for the Tanfield Railway in Co Durham.

The information about Sherburn Hill Colliery and its locomotives is largely gathered from the late Colin Mountford’s remarkable trilogy of books, ‘The Private Railways of Co. Durham’, and ‘The Industrial Locomotives of Co Durham, Parts 1 & 2’; all published by the Industrial Railway Society. (RCR 12012)

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4

Ironstone Quarries I

ron ore deposits are widely distributed throughout the British Isles. The first to be worked lay near the surface and in areas where charcoal was readily available. From the 14th century, there was a concentration of iron making in the Wealden area of East Sussex. Because many of the deposits of iron ore found in the British Isles contain sulphur and phosphorous, the iron produced was brittle and inferior to that produced in Scandinavia, which enjoyed the benefit of much higher quality ores. This, combined with the high cost of charcoal, inhibited the development of iron making in the British Isles.

The first major technological change was the development

by Abraham Darby in 1709 of a process to use coke derived from coal as the reducing agent in place of charcoal.

The product remained brittle, which restricted its use, though it could be converted to the more malleable and therefore useful, wrought iron by the laborious process of hammering out the impurities.

The next breakthrough, and arguably the more important, came between 1783 and 1784, when Henry Cort introduced the puddling and rolling techniques. These were ways of getting all the impurities out of iron to produce wrought iron on a large scale, which addressed the quality issue.

Cast iron and wrought iron production grew in scale rapidly and was sited in areas where coal was to be found in proximity with black band and clay band iron ores.

This occurred in many places, including the heads of the South Wales valleys, location of the famous iron works at Blaenavon, Dowlais and Ebbw Vale, the Doon Valley in Ayrshire, home of the Dalmellington Iron Company, and the Central Belt of Scotland, home of the Summerlee Iron Works, Gartsherrie Iron Works, and Coltness Iron Works.

In England, the same combination of coal suitable for conversion to coke and adjacent deposits of iron ore also led to the establishment of iron works at Bilston, Shelton, Brierley Hill, Staveley, Renishaw and many other locations, including places not now associated with iron making such as Bradford and Leeds.

Whilst puddling of iron to produce wrought iron could be carried out on a large scale, it was still a labour-intensive process and produced a relatively ductile material. Steel, an alloy of carbon and iron, was harder and less ductile, so was better suited to the manufacture of rails, steel girders and boilers than wrought iron. It could not be mass produced until 1857 when Henry Bessemer developed the process which bears his name. This produced steel economically on a large scale, once the problem of getting the carbon

and oxygen content right was solved by the addition of spiegeleisen, an iron carbon manganese compound.

The only drawback of the Bessemer process in its original form was that it did not remove phosphorous and so most of the readily available British ores could not be used to produce iron which could be converted to steel. Instead, higher purity ores had to be imported from Scandinavia and elsewhere to support the developing bulk steel industry. The final breakthrough came in 1876 when the Welshman Sidney Gilchrist Thomas discovered that by adding limestone, a chemically basic flux, to the Bessemer process phosphorus would be drawn from the iron into the slag. This meant that iron ore from all the major British deposits could be used for steel making and the price of steel started to plummet.

To complete the story of the manufacture of steel from iron, by 1900 the Bessemer process was largely replaced by the Open Hearth process invented by the German Engineer Karl Wilhelm Siemens which could operate on a much larger scale and in the 1960s this was superseded by the Basic Oxygen Process invented in 1948 by Swiss engineer Robert Durrer and first commercialised between 1952 to 1953 by the Austrian steelmaking company VOEST and ÖAMG. The process is essentially a development of the Bessemer process using pure oxygen and operates on a huge scale; a single converter can produce 400 tons of steel in 40 minutes from a single charge of molten iron.

The combination of rapidly increasing demand for iron ore, exhaustion of the iron ore measures adjacent to the coal measures and the developing railway network meant that iron ore deposits remote from the iron works established in the first half of the 19th century could be exploited. Iron ore was shipped from Cumbria to the Scottish iron works, iron ore from the Cleveland Hills was used to support the Teesside iron and steel industry and iron ores from the East Midlands started to be used to supply iron and steel plants in the West and North Midlands and Yorkshire. At the same time, large integrated iron and steel works came to be built adjacent to the iron ore deposits, most notably at Scunthorpe and Corby in the East Midlands. The ability to use high phosphorous content British ores for steel making reduced the demand for imported iron ore, though it remained at about 30 percent of total demand until the Second World War. Most British iron ores are Mesozoic bedded ironstone of marine sedimentary origin, which occur particularly in Eastern and Central England and occur as wide lateral deposits of limited thickness of up to about ten metres. The

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Fig 103. Waltham Quarries were established by the Waltham Iron Ore Co about 1884 to provide Iron Ore for one of the company’s joint owners, the Staveley Iron and Coal Co, based in North Derbyshire. The company worked the Marlstone deposit. For reasons not fully understood, the company chose to build a metre gauge railway to link the quarries to a tipping dock on the Great Northern Railway’s Easton Branch. The earliest locomotives to work on the system were two curious vertical cylinder engines built by Staveley in the 1880s. These appear not to have been very successful and were replaced by a conventional Manning Wardle & Co Ltd built saddle tank, Dreadnought and by a Markham & Co. Ltd built 0-4-0ST, works number 102 of 1889, The Baronet. This locomotive was originally supplied to the Cranford Ironstone Co, another partially owned subsidiary of the Staveley Iron and Coal Co and came to Waltham via Loddington Quarry.

The Baronet was a rugged, simple engine with the characteristic flat sided Markham saddle tank. The lack of a cab made it a less than popular engine. By 1949, it was dumped out of service behind the locomotive shed, where it was photographed on 31 May 1958, shortly after the quarries closed in February 1958. It was scrapped in December 1960. Behind it is a row of the inside frame tubs characteristic of many of the narrow-gauge ironstone railways in the East Midlands. (RCR 11915)

ores are relatively low grade, iron content 20 to 43 percent and have a moderate to high phosphorous content. The other important deposits are metasomatic replacement deposits in Carboniferous Limestone. These are found particularly in Cumbria and South Wales, have an iron content of between 45 and 55 percent and a very low phosphorous content. The latter deposits include the very rich iron ores to be found around Millom and Egremont in Cumbria.

situated in North Lincolnshire, east of Scunthorpe and has a typical iron content of 25 percent. It was amongst the lowest grade deposits to be exploited commercially in the world. The ore was easy to win, which offset its low iron content and its limestone content reduced the need to bring in limestone to act as a flux in the iron making process.

The ore was primarily consumed locally in the three big integrated iron and steel works which came to be established in Scunthorpe: Richard Thomas & Baldwin’s Redbourne Works, Lysaght’s Normanby Park Works and Appleby-Frodingham Steel Co’s Appleby-Frodingham Works. Some iron ore was also shipped from mines in the area to iron and steel plants in South Yorkshire such as Parkgate Iron & Steel Co. at Rotherham. The local demand for ore from this deposit remained at around three million tonnes per year into the 1970s.

Latterly, there were three main regions where iron ore was worked in the British Isles. In the Cleveland Hills and Cumbria, where the ore was extracted by deep mining and in the East Midlands, where it was primarily extracted by quarrying.

The East Midlands ironstone deposit is subdivided into three main regions. The Frodingham Ironstone deposit is 86

Fig 104. A foreigner at rest in the English countryside, 31 May 1958. Nantes, a 1903 product of Veuve Corpet and L Louvet, works number 936 of 1903 was originally supplied to the grandly named La Compagnie Francaise des Chemins de Fer a Voie Etroite in Loire Inferieure. This line, which ran south from the prefecture of Nantes to Lege, closed in 1935. At this time Waltham quarries were looking for an additional locomotive, metre gauge locomotives were not readily available in the British Isles, but Thomas W Ward were aware of locomotives of this gauge in good order from recently closed French minor railways. Through their French agents Nantes was purchased.

It was well liked by the crews and worked until about 1957 when, worn out, it was dumped near the tippler. Its replacement, remarkably, was another French built locomotive; Cambrai, a Corpet Louvet built locomotive of 1888, works number 493. This locomotive was built for the Chemin de Fer du Cambresis in the North of France and came to England in 1937 to work in Loddington ironstone quarry. It was of an earlier design to Nantes and was fitted with outside Stephenson valve gear. Cambrai worked with Dreadnought until rail traffic ceased in 1958.

Nantes and Dreadnought shared the same fate as The Baronet, but Cambrai was saved. She went first to the Narrow-Gauge Museum at Tywyn but can now be found at the Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Museum near Wellingborough. (RCR 11913)

The second of the East Midlands deposits, the Marlstone Rock Bed ironstone, is to be found in South Lincolnshire, North Leicestershire, and Rutland and as a separate deposit around Banbury in Oxfordshire. Whilst the iron content is low at 25 percent, the phosphorous content of this ore averages about 0.3 percent, which is low by British standards. Ore from the northern part of the deposit was used to supply iron works in the Midlands, the last customer was the iron making plant at Stanton in Derbyshire, whilst the southern part of the deposit mainly supplied iron works in South Wales. Although of poor quality, winning the ore was relatively cheap because it lay only a few metres below the surface.

The final East Midlands Ironstone deposit to be considered is the Northampton Sand Ironstone which extends from Lincoln in the North to Towcester in the South. The ore’s iron content is variable, but averages about 35 percent and the

phosphorous content is of the order of 0.7 percent. The silica content is higher than in the other East Midlands deposits at about 12 percent, which makes it useful for blending with high calcium content ores to form a self-fluxing blast furnace feed.

The earliest exploitation of this ore deposit was to serve iron works built on or adjacent to the ore body, such as those built at Cransley, Kettering, Wellingborough and Corby, but later many quarries were developed to provide iron ore for iron and steel works in South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Teesside. Here, the local deposits which originally gave rise to the iron works had been worked out, and Northampton ore was used to blend with ore from other sources to form the blast furnace charge.

All the small iron works had closed with one exception: Corby. In the 1930s this was developed on a huge scale as

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Fig 105. Belvoir was a six coupled product of the Hunslet Engine Co., works number 1823 of 1936. It was built for the three-foot gauge railway system serving Eastwell Quarries and was photographed standing outside the shed on 31 May 1958. By this time, it had been relegated to a spare engine and the once extensive quarry railway system was reduced to a short run between Coronation Quarry and the head of the selfacting incline, which took loaded tubs down the Belvoir Escarpment to a tippler which transferred ore to main line wagons in sidings served by the London and North Western Railway and Great Northern Railway Joint Melton Mowbray to Bottesford line.

This incline was the last to operate in the East Midlands ironstone quarries on 21 October 1959, with the remaining sections of the quarry railway. Eastwell quarries were built by another partially owned subsidiary of the Staveley Coal and Iron Co. In this instance, one of the partners was the Bestwood Coal & Iron Co (ref Fig 16, and 17, both in Chapter 2). Of the 12 steam engines to work on this railway, two have been saved; Lord Granby, a four coupled Hudswell Clark built saddle tank which is now in the care of Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mill and Nancy, a six coupled Avonside Engine Co built side tank which was restored to working order in 2019 by Allan Keef for use on the reopened section of the Cavan and Leitrim Railway in Ireland. (RCR 11914)

an integrated iron and steel making plant with attached tube mill and was exclusively based on iron ore taken from the deposits around Corby. Even in the 1970s, about three million tons of iron ore was extracted per year from Northampton Sand Ironstone for use at Corby and elsewhere.

draglines with a bucket capacity of 23 or more cubic yards and a weight more than 1,700 tons.

In many cases, iron ore was moved directly from quarry to adjacent iron works or to a connection with the national railway network for shipment to iron works in other regions of the British Isles. In earlier years, ore was also moved by rail from quarry face to calcination clamps, where it was mixed with coal and the heap was set on fire. This drove off volatiles and part converted the calcium carbonate content of the ore to calcium oxide thus increasing the iron content and reducing shipping costs. Often distinctive dump cars were used for this internal ore movement. Once calcination was complete, the ore was loaded to conventional railway wagons for onward shipment.

The East Midland iron ore deposits were largely worked by quarrying. The overburden, which could be as much as 60 metres deep around Corby, was dug out and then the exposed bed of iron ore was excavated by shovels and typically loaded directly to rail wagons on tracks laid up to the quarry face. Subsequently, the overburden was replaced, and the land restored to agricultural use or planted with trees. In the case of the largest quarries, over burden removal was done by some of the biggest mobile machines ever to operate in the British Isles, giant walking

The earliest railways serving the quarries were typically 88

narrow-gauge and transfer to standard-gauge wagons was affected by directly discharging the narrow-gauge wagons into standard gauge wagons. Some of these railways incorporated self-acting inclines to overcome steep gradients between quarry and standard gauge railway sidings. Later railways were standard gauge, and some narrow-gauge systems were converted. Whilst many quarry systems were one or two miles in length and had two or three steam locomotives, others grew into very extensive systems with ten or more locomotives, lengthy runs between quarry and the interchange sidings with the national railway network and in two cases, even sections of signalled double track. The scale of operations in the Corby quarries developed by Stewarts and Lloyds such that specially designed steam locomotives were commissioned to work the ore traffic, as illustrated in Fig 5, Chapter 1.

None of this describes the charm of these railways. The locomotives working in the East Midlands ironstone quarries represented every major and some minor British manufacturer of industrial railway locomotives plus two French manufacturers. They ranged from the most modern and powerful industrial steam engines built in the British Isles to contractors’ engines left over from the great civil engineering projects of the late Victorian era, such as the building of the Great Central Railway. They came in all shapes, sizes, and colours.

Away from the quarries, the ironstone quarry railways ran through some of the most agreeable countryside in the British Isles: through copses and spinneys, across the edges of meadowland and over small streams and rivulets. They blended into the countryside, were part of it and even

Fig 106. Wellingborough ironstone quarries were established in 1874 by Rixon & Co, who operated a brickworks in Wellingborough, but appreciated the value of the local iron ore. In 1883, they decided to add value to the iron ore they mined by converting it to cast iron and erected two blast furnaces. The new business, which traded as Rixon’s Iron & Brick Co Ltd. was not successful and by 1887 went into liquidation. A new company, Wellingborough Iron Co Ltd, was formed to take over the business. With access to new capital, they built a metre gauge tramway to serve the company’s quarries at Finedon. By 1889 the company had started to develop a close association with Stanton Iron Works of Ilkeston, Derbyshire. The trade depression of the late 1920s caused great harm to the business and by 1932 it had closed.

Stanton Iron Works took effective control, recapitalised the business, rebuilt the iron works on modern lines, took out leases on new parcels of land to secure iron ore supplies for the furnaces, and modernised the narrow-gauge tramway. This was the only sustained attempt in the ironstone industry to modernise a narrow-gauge system; others like those serving Eastwell Quarries were allowed to continue until the quarries were exhausted or were replaced by standard gauge systems. The above picture, taken in May 1964, shows one of the two Peckett and Sons Ltd built locomotives introduced in 1934 as part of the modernisation of the system, hauling a loaded train out of Wellingborough No 5 Quarry towards the iron works. At the iron works site, the ore would be calcined before transfer to the blast furnaces. An ore loading shovel can be seen in the background. (RCR 17560)

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augmented it. Despite being linked to the heaviest of heavy industry, they were far removed from the dirt and grime usually associated with such industries. The locomotives for the most part were clean and well-kept and the crews and local management welcoming to visitors interested in their railways, provided they behaved sensibly.

In this work, they were guided by ‘Ironstone Railways and Tramways of the Midlands’ by Eric Tonks which eventually developed into the nine-volume history ‘The Ironstone Quarries of the Midlands’ by the same author.

This is the definitive history, not just of the railways serving the quarries but of the entire industry and cannot be recommended too highly. Much of the information about specific quarries in the subsequent section is drawn from this work, supplemented by information from the Industrial Railway Society Handbooks covering Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire & Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire & Rutland, Leicestershire, and Central Southern England (Oxfordshire).

Sadly, this rural idyll was not destined to last; the smaller quarries with their charming narrow-gauge systems closed by the early 1960s, new and second-hand diesel locomotives replaced the steam engines on the remaining standard gauge systems in the late 1960s and finally even the largest quarries closed because they could not compete with very high-grade iron ore mined in Brazil or Australia and shipped by bulk carrier to the British Isles. RC Riley was one of a select band of railway enthusiasts including Ivo Peters, Ken Cooper, Sydney Leleux, and Mervyn Leah who knew, loved and documented these railways.

And now let us explore with RC Riley some of the locomotives and railways which served the ironstone quarries of the East Midlands.

Above: Fig 107. Running light engine near the quarries is a Peckett & Sons Ltd ten-inch saddle tank; works number 1871 of 1934. Until the last couple of years of their working lives, the locomotives carried neither name nor number and so the identity of the locomotive had to be determined by reading the worksplate on RC Riley’s beautifully sharp image. In 1942, a third Peckett saddle tank was acquired, works number 2029 and later to be numbered 87. This was a larger engine than the earlier two and had 12-inch diameter cylinders. Typically, two engines were in traffic every day with the larger engine usually working the main line to the iron works and one of the smaller engines working the quarries. By the time this picture was taken, May 1964, Wellingborough Iron Works had closed, and the quarries were being operated as part of Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals Ltd. By this time, the ore was no longer calcined on the iron works site but was sent unprocessed to Lancashire Steel Corporation’s Irlam Works (seen in Figs 27 & 28) on a five-year contract. Once this contract was completed, ore was sent to Corby, but this was not economic and the last of the Wellingborough quarries and the railway closed in October 1966. (RCR 17561) Opposite top: Fig 108. This picture, taken in May 1964, is of No 87 hauling a loaded ore train across the Wellingborough to Finedon road. At this time, 87 had still to be renumbered and repainted. In February 1965, all three locomotives were repainted in Stewart & Lloyds Minerals dark green livery with black top to the bunker and behind the hand rails and white lettering S & L MINERALS No 8x on the bunker. Following closure of the system, all three of the well maintained and cared for engines were saved, initially by different owners. They are now all in the care of the Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Museum. Peckett 1870 of 1934, later to be numbered 85, has been restored to its original lined green Peckett livery and has been in working order. No 86 is in its Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals livery and is currently undergoing a ten-year overhaul and No 87 is a static exhibit in plain green livery. (RCR 17556)

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Bottom: Fig 109. The picture below is of the train shown above but now crossing the River Ise near the iron works, which were entered via a short tunnel beneath the Midland Railway main line from London to the North. This picture illustrates the unique wagons introduced to the railway when it was modernised in the 1930s. They are steel framed flat wagons which carry two demountable skips. The skips could hold a nominal five tons of ore but in practice 12 to 15 tons were loaded into a pair. The skips were emptied by lifting of the wagons by pairs of chains hooked round the trunnions at each end of the skip, again as shown above. By raising or lowering the return set of chains from the trunnions wheel, the skip could be first inverted, and its contents deposited initially on a calcine bank and later directly into a British Railways wagon.

Then the skip would be returned to its loading position and put back on the flat wagon. Later, a specially modified crawler crane was used for this duty. In total, 98 flat wagons were built for the railway. Typically, four wagon trains would be lifted out of the quarries and eight wagon trains worked on the main line to the iron works. This was very different from the tiny steel hopper wagons initially used. These were little better than those used in the Waltham Quarries. (RCR 17558)

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Above: Fig 110. The Park Gate Iron and Steel Co Ltd works was established in 1823, as the Park Gate Iron works just outside the town of Rotherham in South Yorkshire. By 1888, the company was producing both iron and steel and the name was changed to reflect this. By 1908, its entire production was of steel. After the Second World War, the company operated two mechanically charged blast furnaces and ten open hearth furnaces together with rolling mills and finishing mills to produce a range of section bars and strips. Capacity was about 425,000 tons per year.

To secure ore supplies for the furnaces, the company invested in ironstone quarries at Sproxton in Leicestershire, Charwelton in Northamptonshire and in mines working the Frodingham deposit near Scunthorpe. The above picture was taken at Charwelton on 8 April 1958 and shows a train of British Railways iron ore tipplers leaving the quarry. Production at Charwelton commenced in 1917 and operated on a relatively modest scale until 1941, when the Ministry of Supply invested heavily in the quarries and associated railway to aid the war effort. The quarries closed again in 1951, but after further investment in new quarrying equipment reopened in 1951 and operated until 18 November 1961, when it finally closed. Although located in Northamptonshire, this quarry worked the Marlstone deposit characteristic of Oxfordshire and North Leicestershire. (RCR 8199A) Opposite top: Fig 111. The modernisation of the Charwelton quarries in 1951 did not extend as far as the locomotives, which on reopening comprised an 1892 built Hudswell Clarke saddle tank and a 1904 built Yorkshire Engine Co Saddle Tank, Works Number 784 of 1905. This locomotive, No 8, is seen on 13 April 1957, and looks to have been towed out of the shed for the benefit of RC Riley. It came new from Park Gate iron works in 1952. It survived until the end of operations and was scrapped in 1953. Although a diminutive and archaic looking engine, No 8 had 14-inch diameter cylinders and was well up to hauling the normal train of eight loaded 17-ton mineral hoppers from quarry to exchange sidings. In later years, just one engine was steamed daily and worked for a three week stretch and then the other locomotive took over. As can be seen in this and other pictures, the locomotives that worked at Charwelton were kept in fine external condition. They were painted black with single yellow lining. (RCR 8147A) Opposite bottom: Fig 112. Eventually, the elderly Hudswell Clarke locomotive was despatched to the nearby Byfield quarries and was replaced by another curiosity, No 5. This was also a fugitive from Park Gate iron and steel works. This locomotive had 12-inch diameter cylinders and was built with an overall height of eight feet to clear a restricted loading gauge by WG Bagnall Ltd in 1942, works number 2659. After transfer to Charwelton, the safety valves were relocated from fire box to dome, and the cab height was increased to make working conditions a bit more tolerable for the crew. Like No 8, this interesting engine was scrapped in 1963. It was photographed on 13 April 1957. (RCR 8147B)

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Opposite top: Fig 113. This rear view of No 5 standing near the locomotive shed was taken on 8 April 1958 and gives some idea of the delightful rural location of the shed. Whilst in later years just two modestly sized locomotives operated from Charwelton, during the war years one of the six 15-inch diameter cylindered Bagnall built locomotives ordered by the Ministry of Supply for use in ironstone quarries was based here, works number 2654 of 1942, Cherwell, together with a large Hunslet Engine Co Class 50550 saddle tank, works number 2415 of 1941, which later moved to Wroxton Quarries of the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co. A similar 50550 type locomotive is shown in Fig 46, working for the Port of London Authority. The Charwelton System was unique in being the only ironstone quarry railway directly connected to the former Great Central Railway main line, at Charwelton Station near Catesby Tunnel. (RCR 8195) Opposite bottom: Fig 114. Byfield Ironstone Quarries was situated about ten miles to the west of Charwelton Quarries. They were developed

by JW Pain and production commenced in 1915. Byfield Quarries became one of the most important sources of originating traffic on the former Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway (SMJR) and the closure of the quarries on 12 February 1965 brought about the demise of the remaining parts of the railway. The quarries operated intermittently until 1928, when they were acquired by a local farming family and the business was relaunched as the Byfield Ironstone Co Ltd. Apart from the addition of a steam powered dragline excavator and the locomotive shown in the picture, Byfield, operations continued much as before. The outbreak of the Second World War found the company ill-prepared to meet the demands of the wartime economy. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Supply, the business was taken over by the Ironstone department of the Staveley Coal & Iron Co. New excavators were introduced, new quarries opened and a new line to the quarries was built with cuttings and embankments to minimise the grade. These changes left the locomotive shed isolated in the country at the end of the spur line. After a brief period of closure in 1944 to release men to work in the Wroxton Quarries of the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co Ltd, production continued without interruption to closure on 12 February 1965. Latterly the quarries supplied Renishaw Iron Works in Derbyshire. (RCR 11569) Above: Fig 115. This picture, like that opposite bottom, was taken on 8 April 1958 and shows Byfield at the head of a loaded ore train. Byfield was a Manning Wardle & Co Ltd Class K locomotive, works number 1235 of 1891. It was originally supplied to Cardiff Corporation for a waterworks contract, passed to the Westleigh Stone & Lime Co Ltd in Somerset and was acquired by Byfield Quarries in 1929 from Peckett Sons & Co Ltd, after an overhaul. It was repainted to the Staveley Coal & Iron Co Ltd livery of light green in 1955, losing its name in the process, and, as seen, was kept in beautiful condition. A motive power shortage in 1958 resulted in another vintage Manning Wardle locomotive joining the fleet at Byfield. This was none other than Sir Berkeley, Manning Wardle L Class locomotive 1210 of 1891 which was later to star in the BBC adaptation of ‘The Railway Children’ and is currently being restored to its original lined and panelled Logan & Hemmingway livery on the Middleton Railway in South Leeds. In the Summer of 1959, it was possible to enjoy both vintage Manning Wardles working together, but by the September of that year Byfield was withdrawn from service. It was finally scrapped in 1962. Byfield was built to the same design as Samuel Williams (Dagenham) Dock Ltd No 4 shown in Figs 39 & 40. (RCR 11571)

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Opposite top: Fig 116. One of the WG Bagnall Ltd built 15-inch saddle tanks ordered for use in the ironstone quarries by the Ministry of Supply was delivered to Byfield Quarries in February 1942, but was soon relocated to the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co. Its replacement was Cherwell, an engine of the same class which was originally supplied to the neighbouring Charwelton quarries. This arrived in October 1945 and was to remain at Byfield until the quarry railway closed. It later found itself on public display in New Street Recreation Ground, Daventry. The locomotive is seen on 8 April 1958, shunting the storage sidings adjacent to the exchange sidings on the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway main line near Byfield station. (RCR 11568) Opposite bottom: Fig 117. In this picture, taken on 30 April 1956, Cherwell is seen on British Railways track in the exchange sidings pushing a set of loaded British Railways iron ore tipplers up to the waiting ex-GWR locomotive for onward movement. The train is hauled by a 2251 class 0-6-0. After its sojourn in New Street Recreation Ground, Cherwell was rescued by the Rushden Transport Museum & Railway and now awaits restoration on their site at Rushden. (RCR 7200) Above: Fig 118. A very relaxed shunter stands by the front buffer beam of Cherwell after completing its shunt in the Byfield exchange sidings on 30 April 1956. The six WG Bagnall Ltd built locomotives for use in the ironstone industry were popularly known as the Ironstone Bagnalls.

They were a development of an earlier Bagnall design of 15-inch saddle tank with a longer stroke, 22 inch vs. 20-inch, full length saddle tank, Ross-Pop safety valves and mechanical lubricators. Cherwell was the second of the class to be built. The class was very successful and well liked. No less than four of the six have been preserved, two are under active restoration on the Plym Valley Railway and the East Anglian Transport Museum and one, at Rocks by Rail, was in traffic recently but by 2022 was awaiting overhaul and recertification of the boiler.

Information about the Ironstone Bagnalls is taken from ‘Bagnalls of Stafford’ by AC Baker and TDA Civil. (RCR 7202)

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Above: Fig 119. Byfield Ironstone Quarry was not just home to elderly Manning Wardle built locomotives. Also included in the steam engines working on the railway system was a contemporaneous Hudswell Clarke locomotive, works number 347 of 1892. This locomotive had 13-inch diameter cylinders and was an early version of Wissington, works number 1700 of 1938, which is seen in Chapter 7 working on the Wissington Railway. Hudswell Clarke 347 was obtained from Furness Shipbuilding Co Ltd in Haverton Hill, Co Durham in 1920 and apart from a period at the nearby Charwelton Quarry between February 1951 and December 1956, spent the rest of its working life at Byfield. Before return from Charwelton, it was repainted in the standard Staveley livery of light green with red rods and is seen on 13 April 1957 in this livery in immaculate condition. Sadly Hudswell Clarke 347 was finished by the end of 1958, though it was not scrapped until February 1965. This design of locomotive was built as a direct competitor to Manning Wardle locomotives such as Byfield and Sir Berkeley for the contractors’ locomotive market. (RCR 10418) Opposite top: Fig 120. Wroxton Quarries near Banbury were worked by the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co Ltd. This was a joint venture launched in 1917 by Brymbo Steel Co of North Wales and EP & W Baldwin Ltd, who had plants in Stourport and South Wales and in 1948 merged with Richard Thomas & Co to form Richard Thomas & Baldwins. The ore at Wroxton lay very near the surface, which made winning it easy, but the site was several miles from rail access across undulating ground crossed by valleys. A railway was constructed with support from the Ministry of Munitions from sidings on the GWR’s Banbury to Leamington line to Wroxton and from there branch lines extended out to the various quarries. Production commenced in 1919. (RCR 11587) Subsequently, the company merged with Alfred Hickman Ltd who had mineral rights on land accessible by the new railway and were then under the control of Stewarts and Lloyds Ltd. The company invested heavily and became the largest ironstone railway in the country after that based on Corby. The smaller engines in the locomotive fleet worked into the quarries, the larger ones worked the main line from Wroxton to the exchange sidings. Unusually the former carried girl’s names; often linked to the families of officers of the company or owners. The picture was taken on 9 April 1958 and shows Maud a class W5 14-inch Peckett Sons & Co Ltd built locomotive, works number 1937 of 1938, hauling a loaded train of dump cars from the quarry to the yard at Wroxton.

Opposite bottom: Fig 121. The Bursar was a Hunslet Engine Co built 14 inch outside cylinder saddle tank originally supplied to the Haifa Harbour Works contract in what was then Palestine. The locomotive was built in 1929, works number 1645, and once the Harbour Works contract was complete, it was returned to England and after overhaul by the Hunslet Engine Co, was sold to the Oxford Ironstone Co in 1946.

It was photographed on 9 April 1958 shunting dump cars at Wroxton. Cars of this type were to be found in many ironstone quarries and were commonly used to move ore from quarry face to calcining banks.

In the case of the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co, the quarried ore was crushed at Wroxton and then loaded into main line wagons for onward movement to the exchange sidings and then to the customer. The dump cars used at Wroxton were built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Co Ltd and had a capacity of 15 tons. In total, nearly 200 of these cars were employed, the last delivered in 1957. An interesting feature of the dump cars used at Wroxton and elsewhere was the employment of buckeye couplings. Most of the locomotives used on the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co railways were fitted with these, even many of the main line engines. The installation of a buckeye coupling below the conventional hook and chain coupling on The Bursar is seen in this photograph and in other photographs taken of Oxford Ironstone Co 98 locomotives. (RCR 11583)

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Above: Fig 122. The scale of the sidings serving the crushing plant is illustrated in the above picture which was taken on 13 April 1957 and shows The Dean shunting a long rake of loaded dump cars. The Dean was the first of four Hunslet Engine Co 16 inch inside cylinder saddle tanks to work for the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co and was delivered in 1926, works number 1496. It was scrapped on site in May 1969 together with The Bursar and Gwen; a quarry locomotive seen in Fig 124. The crushing plant was brought into use at the start of 1931; prior to this much of the ore was calcined in calcine clamps as per the practice at other quarries. One of the biggest customers for the ore produced by the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co were the Bilston furnaces of Alfred E Hickman Ltd. This company was notable for pioneering the Gilchrist-Thomas development of the Bessemer process, which made possible the use of phosphorous bearing iron ores and later pioneered the adoption of the Siemens open-hearth process. (RCR 10413) Opposite top: Fig 123. The Dean is seen on the crusher sidings head shunt on 13 April 1957. The naming of the mainline engines was somewhat eclectic and as well as boys’ names included Lord North, The Dean, The President, The Treasurer and The Bursar. This harks back to the lessors of the lands around Wroxton leased by the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co. The official titles of the lessors were ‘The President, Fellows & Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Oxford, The Dean & Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Oxford and William Henry John, Lord North, Baron North’ which explains three of the names with the other two being those of senior officers of the colleges. This and the other pictures taken by RC Riley of the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co’s railway clearly shows the flat-bottomed track with which the railway was originally laid.

(RCR 10415) Opposite bottom: Fig 124. The Oxfordshire Ironstone had two separate locomotive depots, one at Wroxton which primarily served the locomotives working in the quarries and one at Pinhill Farm, near the exchange sidings at Banbury, which served the main line locomotives.

Latterly, there were two sheds at Wroxton: the newer capable of housing nine locomotives, the other capable of holding five. The main workshops were also located at Wroxton; Gwen, a Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd built 14-inch saddle tank, works number 1662 of 1936, was photographed on 9 May 1958 standing by the coaling dock and watering point at Wroxton. In the background is a similar Hudswell Clarke built saddle tank, Barabel, and Grace, a Peckett & Sons Co Ltd built class W5 locomotive, works number 1894 of 1936, and a sister engine to Maud.

This picture also clearly shows the combination buckeye and hook and link couplings employed by the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co. (RCR 11584)

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Opposite top: Fig 125. Barabel was one of two 14-inch saddle tanks supplied in July 1953 by Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd for use in the ironstone quarries, works number 1868 of 1953. Whilst essentially built to the same design as Gwen there are a few differences; rectangular sandboxes rather than cylindrical sandboxes, more angular cab cut outs and a rear bunker. Provision of the latter was dictated by the increasing length of the runs to some of the quarries, which meant that increased coal capacity was very desirable. After Barabel and its sister Betty were delivered, only one new steam locomotive was acquired for quarry service; a 200 HP Sentinel built locomotive named Phyllis. This was supplied in 1956 and by December 1960 had been laid aside for good. The reasons for this were a combination of inadequate braking power, inadequate steam raising capacity for the long runs from quarry to crusher and slow running speed: it was the wrong engine for the work at Wroxton. (RCR 11585) Opposite bottom: Fig 126. On the same dull day as the view on page 4 was taken, 16 December 1964, The President is seen taking water at Pinhill Farm. The fleet of locomotives employed by the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co was very well maintained and until the later years was kept in commendably clean condition. The basic livery was crimson lake with various lining arrangements, black edged yellow or black edged scarlet with a yellow line, though some second-hand locomotives retained their original green or other liveries. The Oxfordshire Ironstone Co as an independent supplier to iron and steel manufacturers was very cost conscious and was aware of the potential cost savings if they were to switch from steam to diesel power. They started testing diesel locomotives in 1960 and in 1961 tested a four coupled Sentinel built diesel hydraulic locomotive. This led to the purchase in December 1961 of a locomotive of this type for quarry service and a year later, a second locomotive of the same design was acquired. The decision was then taken to eradicate steam completely by purchasing 11 more four coupled Sentinel built diesels: six of these were of the same design as the first two, the other five were heavier and had a higher gearbox ratio so that they could be used on main line service. In total, 22 steam locomotives were replaced by thirteen diesels with attendant savings in crew costs and fuel. The bulk of the remaining steam locomotives were scrapped by the end of 1965, with three lingering on until 1969. (RCR 17794) Above: Fig 127. The locomotive seen in this picture is another Hunslet Engine Co 16 inch inside cylindered saddle tank, telegraphic code Fitzwilliam. However, it was the very last of its class to be built and was one of the last steam locomotives supplied to the UK industrial locomotive market. It was new in November 1958, works number 3872, and is seen in this picture with a train of British Railways’ iron ore tipplers on 13 May 1965. It was scrapped on site by October 1965 after a working life of just seven years. With dieselization progressing very rapidly by the time this picture was taken, standards of cleanliness had fallen dramatically, and the locomotive looks grubby and tired.

(RCR 17806)

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Opposite: Fig 128. Taken on the same day as the previous photograph, 13 May 1965, Frank is seen heading down the main line of the Oxfordshire Ironstone railway with a train of empties for Wroxton. The line between the exchange sidings near Banbury and Wroxton Yard was double track with substantial earth works and the line beyond Wroxton to the ironstone quarries was also double tracked for a significant part of its length. The use of double track lines was very unusual on British industrial railways; other examples were the lines of the Ashington Coal Co Ltd around Ashington and the lines of the Lambton, Hetton & Joicey Collieries Ltd between Herrington Colliery and Cox Green Junction.

Not only was the main line double track but also, and again, unusually, in British industrial railway practice, brake vans were used on the main line trains. Prior to their introduction in early 1963, empties were propelled to Wroxton, and loads hauled back; typically, six or seven trips would be worked per day on the main line and the average train size was 14 wagons. The introduction of brake vans plus vacuum brake working enabled 16 wagon trains to be hauled between Wroxton and the exchange sidings. Five of the main line locomotives were vacuum fitted in November 1963 and from then the longer trains were composed of four vacuum braked wagons, 12 unfitted wagons and a brake van. In total, eight ex-GWR brake vans, commonly known as Toads after their telegraphic code, were purchased and on closure of the system, six were saved by various heritage railways. (RCR 17807) Fig 129. Number not used.

Above: Fig 130. Sir Thomas, named after Sir Thomas Pope, who in 1537 purchased Wroxton Abbey following the dissolution of the monasteries and in 1554 bestowed the estate on Trinity College, was the first engine purchased by the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co. It was built by Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd. in 1918, works number 1334, and survives today at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton Road station. This picture illustrates the vacuum brake pipe fitted to the locomotive at the end of 1963 and its elaborately lined and panelled livery. This picture was also taken on 13 May 1965. (RCR 17808)

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Above: Fig 131. Exton Park Quarries was first opened in December 1948. They were constructed by United Steel Co’s Ore Mining Branch who also operated the ironstone quarries serving the Appleby Frodingham Works at Scunthorpe. The quarries closed in May 1973 when demand for the ore produced at Exton Park vanished with the opening of the Anchor Project at Scunthorpe which was based on imported iron ore.

As befitted a subsidiary of United Steel Co, all bar one of the steam and later diesel locomotives to operate at Exton Park were built by the Yorkshire Engine Co, a wholly owned subsidiary. The first six locomotives were Yorkshire Engine Co Type 8 16 inch outside cylinder saddle tanks and were a development of an earlier Robert Stephenson & Co Ltd. design of the type illustrated in Figs 15, 17 & 18.

They were later joined by four six coupled inside cylinder saddle tanks. These were built by the Yorkshire Engine Co to Austerity class designs using castings supplied by the Hunslet Engine Co. There were a few differences from conventional Austerity class locomotives, including the use of 12 spoke cast steel wheels as per a group of Austerity class locomotives built by the Hunslet Engine Co for Guest Keen and Baldwin’s East Moors Works, Cardiff, instead of 16 spoke cast iron wheels and a different design of buffer. Sadly, RC Riley took very few pictures of the immaculately kept engines which worked at Exton Park Quarries. No 11, seen above on 24 June 1958, was built in 1954, works number 2568, was delivered to the quarry in April 1955 and was scrapped in December 1967; replaced with the other steam engines by four Yorkshire Engine Co built 446 HP diesel electric locomotives. (RCR 12179) Opposite top: Fig 132. On the same day, 24 June 1958, RC Riley visited Exton Quarries, he also visited Pilton Quarries. These were another group of ironstone quarries controlled by the Staveley Coal and Iron Co Ltd. They were opened in 1919 and closed on 4 June 1969. The railway system at Pilton was interesting in that it featured a very steeply graded 1 in 25 line from the exchange sidings on the former Midland Railway Manton to Peterborough line to the locomotive shed. The line then continued to a reversing point before extending to the quarries. Between 1930, when the quarry opened, and 1967, the line serving the last quarry to be worked, Ancaster, was accessed by a second reversing point; after 1967 the track layout was altered to permit direct running into the quarry. The locomotive fleet at Pilton changed little over the years and consisted of two 15-inch outside cylinder six coupled Avonside Engine Co built saddle tanks and the first of the WG Bagnall Ltd built 15-inch saddle tanks ordered for use in the ironstone quarries by the Ministry of Supply in 1941. The later locomotive, Stamford, was relatively little used at Pilton and was not as well liked as the other members of the class. Stamford, works number 1072 of 1927, was supplied with a lowprofile rounded cab with open back, so that it could negotiate the narrow tunnel on the Cranford Quarries railway system and so act as a spare for this system. On closure of Pilton Quarries, Stamford went to the Bluebell Railway and is now to be found at Rocks by Rail near Cottesmore awaiting restoration. (RCR 12177) Opposite bottom: Fig 133. Irchester Quarries started production in 1872 under the ownership of Butlin Bevan & Co Ltd. Originally the quarries were served by a narrow-gauge railway built to the unusual gauge of 3ft 8¼ inches. By 1912 the quarries had come into the ownership of James Pain Ltd. and a standard gauge railway was constructed. In June 1922 the quarries were acquired by the South Durham Steel & Iron Co. (SDSI) and from this time the quarries’ principal customers were the Hartlepool and Cargo Fleet works controlled SDSI. By May 1969 the quarries were close to being worked out, the plants at Hartlepool and Cargo Fleet were being phased out and the ore produced at Irchester was not suitable for use in the ‘Anchor Project’ at Scunthorpe so on 6 June 1969 the quarries closed. The quarries were distinguished by a heterogeneous locomotive fleet mainly composed of second-hand steam engines with several originating in latter years from plants owned

by SDSI as they dieselised. The locomotive in the illustration, ‘14’, was photographed on 30 May 1959 outside the engine shed. The picture shows the buckeye coupling provided to enable the locomotive to work dump cars from quarry face to the calcine clamps, an operation which ceased about 1961. The locomotive was built for TW Ward of Sheffield by Manning Wardle & Co Ltd. in 1912, works number 1795, and was a 14inch diameter cylinder engine. It was later owned by Wensley Lime Co., was rebuilt by Ridley Shaw of Middlesbrough in 1936, fitted with a new Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns built boiler in 1948 and transferred to Irchester Quarries in March 1957. What makes this engine remarkable is that it is the only one of the hundreds of four coupled locomotives to have been built by Manning Wardle to survive in the United Kingdom.

Today it is to be found on the Derwent Valley railway near York and is nearing the end of a protracted and rigorous restoration. (RCR 13573)

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Above: Fig 134. Irchester quarries had a large fleet of steam engines - typically around ten in number, to cover five duties for much of the life of the quarries. Many engines languished out of service in the yard for extended periods - some being cannibalised to keep other locomotives working, others slowly going back to nature. One of the gems of the collection was ‘16’, a Chapman & Furneaux built 13 inch outside cylinder saddle tank, works number 1195, of 1900. It came second hand to Irchester from Wn Whitwell & Co. Ltd, Thornaby, in 1937 and was scrapped in June 1963 – about four years after this picture was taken on the 30 May 1959. (RCR 13575) Opposite top: Fig 135. In later years, the ironstone quarries at Desborough in Northamptonshire conveyed a somewhat ramshackle appearance compared to its illustrious neighbours to the north at Corby and to the east at Glendon. The quarries were opened in 1821 by the neighbouring Glendon Iron Co, to help feed their blast furnaces at Finedon. The Glendon Iron Co went out of business in 1891, but the quarries survived, and in 1907 were purchased together with leases and assets by the Sheepbridge Coal & Iron Co, as a source of iron ore for their furnaces near Chesterfield. The ironstone quarrying and iron and steel making parts of the Sheepbridge business were nationalised in 1951 and in 1955; on denationalisation, they were transferred to the reconstituted Staveley Iron and Chemical Co. Initially a narrow-gauge tramway served the quarries but not long after the Sheepbridge Coal & Iron Co acquired the business, a new standard gauge railway was built to link the quarries to the calcine clamps and then to a connection with the Midland Railway Kettering to Market Harborough line; the exchange sidings were near Desborough station. During May 1964, RC Riley photographed No 27, a Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd built 16-inch side tank, works number 1695 of 1938 about to pick up a set of empty British Railways’ iron ore tipplers from sidings near the site of the original locomotive shed. (RCR 17564) Opposite bottom: Fig 136. No 27 was pictured in May 1964 with another set of empty iron ore tipplers, this time near the exchange sidings. No 27 was supplied new to Sheepbridge Iron Works in 1938, and first came to Desborough in July 1942. It made three return visits to Sheepbridge for maintenance, before finally arriving for good in January 1954. The locomotive was out of service by January 1965 and was cut up in May 1966. Until the quarries were transferred to the Staveley Iron and Chemical Co, all heavy maintenance of the locomotive stock at Desborough was carried out at the Sheepbridge Iron Works and there was regular interchange of locomotives between Desborough and Sheepbridge.

After 1954, maintenance was carried out by a Staveley Iron & Chemical Co team based at their Cranford Ironstone quarries. An unusual feature of the workings at Desborough in the post-war era was that the railway system was not extended to serve the newer workings; instead, road transport in the form of dump trucks was used to move iron ore from the quarry to a tipping point on the railway system and then the ore was moved directly to the interchange with British Railways. A total of four separate tipping docks were constructed; not all of which were used at the same time. One took iron ore from Nassington Barrowden’s Rushton quarries which were not rail served. (RCR 17567)

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Above: Fig 137. Sheepbridge No 22 was an early version of the Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd 15 inch outside cylinder saddle tank built in large numbers between the turn of the century, and 1954. It was built in 1909, works number 899, and was a sister to Sheepbridge No 23. An example of the latter version of the class with 15 by 24 cylinders and a longer wheel base is illustrated in Fig 146. The locomotive was delivered new to Desborough Quarries in November 1909 and remained a near permanent fixture of the quarries until 1955 when it was sent to Woodwards Ltd for a rebuild. It was back at Desborough in 1956 and worked until the quarries closed in October 1961, following the closure of the furnaces at Sheepbridge Iron Works. By the time the quarries were re-opened in June 1963 to supply, initially, Lancashire Steel Corporation’s Irlam Plant, Sheepbridge No 22 was condemned with a bad fire box. It was moved to the site of the old locomotive shed where a much older 14-inch Hudswell Clarke saddle tank, works number 431 of 1895, had been stored out of use.

The latter locomotive, which was supplied new to the Sheepbridge Coal & Iron Co in 1895 as their No 15 to work at Glapwell and Langwith collieries, came to Desborough in March 1951. It was moved back to the engine shed, rebuilt with the new smoke box ordered for Sheepbridge No 22 and was back in service in March 1964. Subsequently, it acquired injectors and springs from Sheepbridge No 22 to keep it running until the quarries finally closed. No 15 was then employed on track lifting after closure and eventually passed into the care of the Chasewater Light Railway & Museum Company Ltd, based in Chasewater Country Park, Staffordshire. The locomotive is currently stored, awaiting restoration.

It is the oldest six coupled Hudswell Clarke & Co built standard gauge locomotive in the country and the second oldest of any design, and by virtue of its survival, parts of Sheepbridge No 22 also survive. As far as can be gathered, a gentlemen of the cloth, none other than the Rev Teddy Boston, and a member of the quarry management were caught on camera by RC Riley, propping up the chimney of Sheepbridge No 22 in readiness for a subsequent photograph taken by RC Riley during May 1964. (RCR 17565) Opposite top: Fig 138. No 27, carrying its full name Sheepbridge No 27, was photographed outside the shed on 1 June 1958. It was repainted by the driver and his mate in the Summer of 1961 and lost its name in the process, though it looked much smarter. The locomotive shed was built about 1920 and included parts recovered from the original shed which accounted for its ramshackle appearance. (RCR 11925) Opposite bottom: Fig 139. Loddington Quarries were another group of quarries managed from the start by the Staveley Coal & Iron Co, though the business was initially jointly owned by Staveley, Sheepbridge Coal & Iron Co. Ltd, Bestwood Coal & Iron Co Ltd, and New Cransley Iron and Steel Co. The railway serving the quarries was initially built to the metre gauge and led to a tipping dock at the end of the Midland Railway’s Cransley Mineral Line.

Much of the equipment used at Loddington was like that of the other Staveley managed quarry systems and included several engines which were eventually to find their way to Waltham Quarries including The Baronet and Cambrai. The metre gauge lines were finally replaced by standard gauge tracks in 1957, but the quarry system only survived for another six and a half years before finally closing on 6 July 1963. The closure of the quarries was largely precipitated by the closure of the Cransley Mineral Line which was expensive to operate. The locomotive photographed outside the shed on 1 June 1958 is Loddington No 2, one of the Ministry of Supply procured WG Bagnall & Co Ltd built 15-inch saddle tanks. This locomotive was originally supplied to Byfield Quarries, then moved to the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co’s railway system at Wroxton before arriving at Loddington in January 1947, when the initial section of standard gauge track was constructed. After the closure of the system, it moved to the Cranford Quarries in June 1966 and was subsequently preserved. It is now undergoing a full overhaul at the Plym Valley Railway’s depot at Marsh Mills. The picture illustrates the high standards of cleanliness which prevailed at Loddington until final closure of the railway system. (RCR 11928)

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Opposite top: Fig 140. The locomotive seen under repair in this picture, taken on 1 June 1958, was built by R & W Hawthorn Leslie and Co in 1938, works number 3883. It was supplied to Appleby Frodingham Steel Co and was transferred to Loddington Quarries in June 1957 with its sister locomotive, works number 3884, as part of the project to complete the replacement of the metre gauge railway system.

The locomotive was delivered in poor external and mechanical condition and was part way through a major overhaul when this picture was taken. On completion of the overhaul, it was painted in an attractive green livery with orange and yellow-black-red lining and like the other engines at Loddington, was kept in excellent external condition until the railway was closed. Both Hawthorn Leslies were scrapped in September 1966. The design of this locomotive and its sister is quite different from that of the normal Hawthorn Leslie built 15-inch saddle tanks. The design closely resembles that of the Hudswell Clarke & Co Ltd. built 15-inch saddle tanks such as Rhos seen in Fig 146. Both 3883 and 3884 were built new for the Appleby-Frodingham Steel Co who had inherited 14 locomotives of the Hudswell Clarke design from Appleby Steelworks and acquired a further example in 1934. It appears that the design of 3883 & 3884 was intended to achieve maximum commonality of parts with the earlier Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd built locomotives. (RCR 11927) Opposite bottom: Fig 141. Like the nearby Desborough Quarries, Glendon East Quarries were established by the Glendon Iron Co and were producing ore from 1863. The Glendon Iron Co partnership was wound up in 1885 and the workings of the quarries were taken over by James Pain Ltd, who were already operating quarries near Corby. The business failed to survive the recession after the Great War and ceased operation in 1920. It was acquired by the Stanton Ironworks Co Ltd who bolstered the iron ore reserves by acquiring additional leases and during the Second World War introduced new machinery. From 1950, the quarries came under the control of Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals Ltd (S & L Minerals) and from 1970 were a part of British Steel Corporation, Tubes Division, Minerals. Latterly, they were worked as a part of the Corby Quarries of S & L Minerals and there was much interchange of locomotive stock between Corby and Glendon. The closure of the quarries was brought about by the closure of Corby Steelworks and the last ore was quarried on 31 December 1979.

With a working life of 117 years, Glendon East Quarries were the longest lived of the Midlands ironstone quarries. RC Riley photographed No 80 hauling a set of loaded British Railways iron ore tipplers into the exchange sidings on a dull day in May 1964. The locomotive is one of the Hunslet Engine Co 50550 class engines, works number 2417 of 1941, constructed for the ill-fated Islip Quarry Scheme; see Fig 46. It was supplied new to Glendon in April 1942 and spent the rest of its life at the quarry, apart from a visit to Corby between April and November 1967, when it received a thorough overhaul. It was subsequently used on the Corby quarry system making it the only one of the eight 50550 class locomotives to spend any time working in the Corby quarries. Dieselisation of the quarry railway system was completed in December 1968 and despite its excellent condition, No 80 was sold for scrap in October 1969. (RCR 17570) Above: Fig 142. The locomotive in this picture, taken during May 1964, is No 49 Caerphilly, and was built by Kitson & Co in 1936, works number 5477. It was transferred to the nearby Storefield Quarries in August 1968 and sold for scrap in October 1969. During the 1960s, three steam engines sufficed to work the traffic at Glendon East Quarries; No 80 and two of the very capable Manning Wardle and Co Ltd designed 16 inch inside cylindered saddle tanks which were such a feature of the Corby Quarries system. The first of these was built in 1910, works number 1762, for Lloyds Ironstone Ltd and was followed by two more in 1921. After the closure of Manning Wardle in 1926, the goodwill of the company was acquired by Kitson & Co Ltd of the Airedale Foundry, Leeds.

The development of an integrated iron, steel and tube works at Corby by Stewarts and Lloyds Ltd required a significant expansion of iron ore quarrying which resulted in an order being placed with Kitson & Co Ltd for a further seven locomotives to the same design. These were delivered between 1933 and 1936. Further expansion in the demand for iron ore at the start of the Second World War led to another five engines of this design being ordered. By this time, Kitson & Co had exited the locomotive building business and their goodwill had passed to Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd, who constructed these engines between 1940 and 1941. The engines were characterised by large fireboxes and a free steaming boiler, deep frames and buffer beams fitted with buckeye couplings to work with dump cars and small bunkers to the front of the cab to increase coal capacity. (RCR 17571)

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Opposite top: Fig 143. No 41 Rhyl is seen in May 1964 about to bank a loaded ore train heading towards Corby Works. The train is composed of 30-ton capacity iron ore tipplers, built specifically for use at Corby. The locomotive is the second of the Manning Wardle & Co Ltd 16-inch quarry locomotives built to work at Corby, works number 2009 of 1921. In total, Manning Wardle built 25 locomotives to this basic design starting with works number 1137 of 1889. Of these, six were built to work in the Frodingham ironstone quarries near Scunthorpe and a further example was built by Kitson for the same operator giving a total of 22 engines of this type seeing service in the ironstone quarrying industry.

All three of the Manning Wardle built quarry locomotives supplied to Corby survive together with three of the Kitson built examples and one of the Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns build. Only the latter is in working order and is currently masquerading as a Thomas replicant. The two Manning Wardle built locomotives preserved by the Nottingham Heritage Railway at Ruddington, works numbers 1762 and 2009, are undergoing heavy overhauls, as is the Kitson built locomotive Carmarthen, works number 5477 of 1934, which is based on the South Devon Railway. All the Manning Wardle and Kitson built locomotives supplied to Corby were named after places in Wales in recognition of the Welsh heritage of Lloyds Ironstone. The information about these locomotives is drawn from ‘The Locomotives Built by Manning Wardle & Co’, the three-volume history by Fred W Harman. (RCR 17580) Opposite bottom: Fig 144. Ironstone quarrying around Corby commenced in 1818 and continued under the auspices of Lloyds Ironstone Co Ltd until 22 November 1949, when it became part of Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals and subsequently passed into the control of British Steel Corporation, Tubes Division, Minerals on 29 March 1970. From the start, the quarries were operated on a larger scale than the other quarries in Northamptonshire and were soon working quarries with a deeper overburden than their contemporaries. Development of the quarries was accelerated by the construction of an iron works at Corby in 1907. This led to the development of quarries to the east of Corby which meant that six-coupled locomotives were required to handle the longer hauls from quarry to works.

The next impetus for the development of the quarries came with the establishment of an integrated iron, steel and tube works at Corby by Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd. in the early 1930s. This resulted in increased demand for iron ore, expansion of existing quarries and some new quarry development. The final stage in the development of the Corby quarries came in the very early 1950s when they were placed under the control of Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals Ltd. This led to the development of fewer, but much larger quarries to achieve economies of scale, working of quarries with much greater depth of overburden than hitherto. This in turn led to the use of the huge walking dragline excavators to remove the overburden which became such a feature of the landscape around Corby and to a significant increase in the size of the railway system serving the quarries. The scale of the operations is illustrated by an 18 wagon loaded iron ore train headed by No 57, one of the powerful 56 Class 18-inch saddle tanks built specially for Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals Ltd by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd, pulling out of an area of quarried ground and followed by a permanent way train headed by one of the smaller Manning Wardle built locomotives. No 57 was built in 1950, works number 7668; the train it is hauling is composed of the smaller 20-ton capacity iron ore tipplers operated at Corby. (RCR 17581) Above: Fig 145. A second view of No 57 heading a train from Oakley Quarry towards the steel works. A feature of the 56 Class locomotives was the use of large front and rear electric lights powered by a steam turbogenerator to facilitate night time operation in the steelwork’s reception sidings. This feature was commonplace in locomotives working in the Americas, Africa and Asia, but was very unusual in the United Kingdom.

Other examples include some of the locomotives working on the Ashington Colliery Railway in Northumberland and some of those working on the Shipley Collieries railways in the East Midlands but not on British Railways excepting the ten-coupled Licky Hill bankers.

Of the ten 56 Class locomotives to be built, five have been preserved with two, No 63 and No 62, pending overhaul on the Epping Ongar Railway and the Spa Valley Railway respectively. The last two engines of this class to be built, works numbers 8050 and 8051 of 1958, were the last conventional steam engines to be built for the United Kingdom market by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd. This picture and the other pictures taken at Corby during May 1964 by RC Riley show the excellent condition in which the steam engines at Corby were kept.

(RCR 17582)

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Above: Fig 146. Everything at Corby was on a huge scale, from the quarrying machinery to the locomotives, to the extent of the railway system. Many sections of the lines linking quarries to steel works were double tracked and fully signalled to enable the safe control of the traffic. Heavy trains with up to 27 loaded internal tipper wagons had to be banked out of the quarries; often with a 56 Class steam locomotive at front and rear. Prior to the start of dieselisation at the end of 1967, a typical weekday might see up to 16 steam engines in traffic out of a fleet of 20 steam, plus one diesel locomotive; smaller numbers would be in use at the weekends.

From 1954, the locomotive fleet working the quarries was separated from the locomotives used to shunt the steelworks and were housed in a purpose built eight road shed at Gretton Brook. Following the separation of the quarry and steelworks locomotive fleets, a mid-green livery was adopted for the quarry locomotives with back panels beneath handrails and white lettering. Rhos was a 15 inch outside cylinder saddle tank built by Hudswell Clarke and Co Ltd, works number 1308 of 1918. It was a modern version of the Hudswell Clarke 15-inch saddle tank seen in Fig 137 and had the distinction of being the last quarry locomotive to receive a full overhaul at Corby. (RCR 17578) This occurred in 1963, when it was fitted with a new boiler and new wheel centres and tyres. Following the end of steam working it was preserved and is now at Rocks by Rail near Cottesmore undergoing overhaul. Sadly, this has had to be paused because of the theft of components by metal thieves. Locomotives built to the same basic design as Rhos survive today on the Middleton Railway in South Leeds; Slough Estates No 3, and on the Tanfield Railway near Newcastle; Renishaw Iron Works No. 6. In later years, Rhos was used primarily on permanent way duties. Two permanent way trains operated; usually at weekends and in the afternoons when quarry traffic had ceased and were operated by the smaller locomotives.

Opposite top: Fig 147. No 35, a Manning Wardle 15 inch inside cylinder saddle tank, works number 1317 of 1895, was supplied to Birmingham Corporation for use on the Elan Valley Railway in Wales and was acquired by Lloyds Ironstone in 1912. The locomotive frames were modified to enable deeper front and rear buffer beams to be fitted which carried buckeye couplings for handling dump cars. Originally named Rhiwnant, No 35 lost its name when it was fitted with a new all welded saddle tank. In later years, this locomotive with its sister, No 34, Manning Wardle 1316 of 1895 and a relic of the Elan Valley Railway, together with Rhos were primarily used on permanent way trains. No 35 was sold into preservation and is now reportedly under restoration at a private site.

In 2004, to mark the centenary of the opening of the Elan Valley dams Rhiwnant, now the only surviving Elan Valley Railway locomotive, returned to the valley for a brief visit. A feature of all the steam locomotives working at Corby in later years, which can be seen in the picture, and to better effect in Figs 143 and 145, was the use of large rectangular cab rear windows, rather than the usual circular cab spectacle frames.

This was done to improve visibility when shunting and working in the tight confines of the quarries. (RCR 17584) Opposite bottom: Fig 148. Standing outside Gretton Brook Shed on a day in early May 1964, are two generations of Manning Wardle design locomotives: both with raised fireboxes and inside cylinders. They are No 34 Calettwer, a sister to No 35, and No 63, a Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns built locomotive, works number 7761 of 1954. The quarries at Corby were operated as efficiently as possible and despite having a modern well-maintained fleet of steam locomotives, dieselisation started to be explored in the early 1960s. Trials were conducted with diesel locomotives from a small number of manufacturers, but primarily Rolls-Royce Ltd, who then owned Sentinel Ltd of Shrewsbury. The preferred design was the ‘Steelman’, a sophisticated six-wheel diesel hydraulic locomotive.

A 650 HP engine was purchased, plus three 450 HP engines between 1967 and 1968 and a programme for the progressive dieselisation of the fleet was started. This was suddenly accelerated by the availability of large numbers of the little used Class 14 0-6-0 diesel hydraulic locomotives built at Swindon Works to replace the GWR’s beloved pannier tanks at a time when the work the pannier tanks had undertaken was fast disappearing. Trials using two Class 14 locomotives were conducted at Buckminster Quarries which were satisfactory, and Stewarts and Lloyds Minerals purchased 23 Class 14 locomotives to complete the dieselisation of all their ironstone quarries. Steam working at Corby Quarries was over on 11 January 1969. The mixed fleet of Steelman and Class 14s worked the quarry lines until final closure of the quarries on Thursday 4 January 1981, which was brought about by the end of iron and steelmaking at Corby. (RCR 17577)

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Above: Fig 149. No 63 is seen above taking water at Gretton Brook in May 1964. The modern water tank with insulated feed pipe was typical of those built around the system, though larger than most, and exemplifies the modern and forward-looking nature of the operations at Corby, as do the ash pits on the shed roads seen in the foreground. The turbo generator used to power the electric lights on No 63 is shown to good effect in this picture. It is disappointing that such fine engines should have been nicknamed ‘Uglies’ by the railway enthusiast community when they entered preservation. (RCR 17573)

Opposite: Fig 150. In deplorable external condition, Alan is seen shunting the exchange sidings on 16 December 1964. The locomotive is one of three 16-inch outside cylinder class OX1 saddle tanks built by Peckett and Sons Co Ltd for the Oxfordshire Ironstone Co between 1929 and 1941. Alan works number 1997 of 1941, was involved in a serious accident approximately 12 months after delivery and ended up on its side.

Fortunately, no one was injured but the locomotive’s tank carried the scars of this incident for the rest of its working life. According to ES Tonks, the locomotive staff at Pinhill Farm regarded the Peckett built locomotives as inferior to the Hudswell Clarke built locomotives, higher maintenance costs, not as free steaming but, reportedly, cheaper. (RCR 17790)

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