Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Evan Green-Hughes

When British Railways replaced steam engines with diesels in the mid-1950s the new traction was brought into use on a system largely unchanged since Victorian times. The situation was to radically change within a few years as the Beeching cuts decimated the network, in the process removing the duties for which many of the new diesels had been intended. As a result many of the smaller or more unsuccessful classes were removed from the network and prematurely scrapped, in some cases even before the end of the steam era. This book celebrates those lost classes and the lost lines on which they once operated.

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

ISBN 978-1-913251-22-2

£14.50

Evan Green-Hughes

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Evan Green Hughes

Reviving the memories of yesterday… © Images and design: The Transport Treasury 2022. Text Evan Green Hughes.

ISBN 978-1-913251-22-2 First published in 2022 by Transport Treasury Publishing Ltd., 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe, HP13 7PJ www.ttpublishing.co.uk Printed in the UK by Henry Ling Limited at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD The copyright holders hereby give notice that all rights to this work are reserved.

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

Front Cover: On August 12th 1961 D6101 and D6127 head the 12.05pm Oban to Glasgow stopping passenger service on the shores of Loch Lubnaig, on a section of the Callander and Oban Railway that was opened to traffic on June 1st 1870 but which was closed in September 1965 after a decision had been taken to route all Oban-bound traffic via Crianlarich. This section of line is now completely abandoned and much of it has been incorporated into cycle path NCN7, the ‘Lochs and Glens Way’. The locomotives are examples of the North British Type 2 diesel-electric class which was later to become designated as Class 21 and which had a notoriously short life span due to their unreliable power units and generally poor design. They often worked as pairs, even when loadings were very light, but here they appear to be in charge of one of the heavily-loaded holiday trains that once were very frequent on this section of line.

Frontispiece: British Railways ordered a large number of diesel locomotives off the drawing board, but many of them proved to be unsuccessful. Amongst these was the 44-strong BTH Class 15 fleet, which suffered issues with its Paxman power unit and which was underpowered for the duties it was to perform. First making an appearance in 1957 the class was extinct by 1971. Most were employed on the Eastern Region, where they worked secondary freights and branch lines, duties that were to disappear as lines were closed as a result of the Beeching review. A typical duty would be similar to this seen on the Framlingham branch, where D8220 hauls a short train of mixed goods stock. Both the locomotive and the branch line it is seen on are now but a distant memory. ICAD391 Rear Cover: The days of the remote branch line, with its lightly-loaded train, are now firmly consigned to history but in reality such lines were unlikely to survive in a world that was increasingly turning towards more flexible and cheaper road transport. In misty conditions on December 14th 1965 English Electric Type 1 (later Class 20) D8030 is hauling a single brake van on the Maud to Peterhead line in the North of Scotland. This route was opened in 1858 and closed in 1966, while the locomotive was new in 1959 and was to enjoy just over 30 years in service, being finally withdrawn in 1991 and cut up at Springburn works in Glasgow. In later life it was renumbered as 20030. SM332 Page 3: In an attempt to improve the finances of remote branch lines British Railways ordered 22 four-wheel diesel railbuses from various manufacturers from 1957 onwards, including five from Wickham of Ware. Of these one, Sc79966, arrived in Aviemore, Scotland, in August 1959 to work the Speyside line and is seen here calling at Grantown-on-Spey East the following year and shortly before it had to be taken away having suffered from a broken frame. The line closed in 1965, while the unfortunate railbus had succumbed the year before. Many of these railbuses put in less than 10 years’ service with the record for a short working life being held by 79969, which managed only four years. WS2743 2

Contents Introduction

4

Chapter 1 - Passengers No more

6

Chapter 2 - Forgotten Freight

20

Chapter 3 - Stations

34

Chapter 4 - Yards

48

Chapter 5 - Short Formation

57

Chapter 6 - Shunting Byways

72

Chapter 7 - Terminus

84

Chapter 8 - On Shed

94

Chapter 9 - Demolition

100

Chapter 10 - A Second Life

104

3

Introduction In 1955 when British Railways took the decision to modernise the railway system the network was largely as it had been for many years, with thousands of miles of line, countless stations, goods yards and other facilities.

by developers, many of whom had no time for what they saw as an outdated railway system.

While the railways had a virtual monopoly of inland transport the system could sustain all these facilities and services by cross-subsidising them from more profitable routes but as use of the motor car and lorry grew, what small profit British Railways was making overall soon grew into a small loss. The deficit then become larger and larger each year, until it reached the point that something had to be done. It was at that point that Dr Beeching was appointed and it was on his recommendation that the country lost a third of its rail network, removing forever many towns and villages from the railway map.

It was onto this network that the company introduced a fleet of brand-new diesel locomotives and multiple units, which for a few years afterwards operated on what was essentially an unmodified Victorian railway system, penetrating as they did so the extremes of branch and secondary lines which would shortly be closed under the Beeching axe.

Britain had, at that time, a huge number of lines which did not cover their costs, with many of them having failed to attract sufficient traffic for many years previously. Although some served urban areas, in some cases providing unnecessary duplication, the majority of unprofitable lines were in rural areas, with many serving towns and villages which had only a handful of residents and little or no businesses.

At one time these had been kept going by a steady flow of agricultural traffic but road transport had proved to be more flexible and cost effective, especially for the small loads that many farmers and rural businesses wished to move.

The competitiveness of such rural lines had been seriously undermined by successive Governments which had imposed on the railway the requirement to publish full details of their charges in advance and also to promise to move any form of goods, no matter how uneconomic that might be, both of which gave road a competitive edge.

In the mid-1950s it had been hoped that losses could be eliminated by introducing more efficient and modern traction, but this was not planned as part of a radical overhaul of the railway system but was merely a change in the policy as regards motive power. The plans that were drawn up included not only the replacement of engines used on the more major lines but also those which fussed to and fro on our many branch and secondary lines, and as a result there were huge orders for locomotives and multiple units for which there would soon be no work.

The original plan would have seen small batches of locomotives ordered from different manufacturers with trials carried out between the classes to see which would be best for future production. As has been well documented this never happened and instead British Railways went headlong into ordering hundreds of engines, many of completely untried designs, and some of which were totally unsuitable for the work for which they were intended.

Some of the more populated areas had seen their suburban traffic move onto motor buses and into private cars and there were many stations in built-up areas which only saw a handful of passengers each day. Nevertheless, most of these retained extensive goods yards and warehouse facilities with most locations being served by one or more freight trips each day, an operation that saw expensive locomotives, wagons and crews tied up for many hours in many cases only to handle a handful of wagons.

Many of the new designs were intended for pick up freight work or for branch line passenger duties, while hundreds more were constructed to service freight flows that were by then in terminal decline. A large number were in the least powerful classes, of 800hp to 1,000hp, which were really only suitable for the lightest work and had been envisaged as replacements for small to medium-sized tank engines, while many were in the 1,000hp to 1,500hp range and were intended for the sort of wagon-load freight operations that would be abandoned only a few years later.

On major routes there were many towns which were served by stopping passenger and goods trains but which became a nuisance in the pathing of expresses. Many of these had extensive facilities with large buildings and impressive staff numbers and many had large tracts of land which were being eagerly eyed up 4

Inevitably this policy was to lead to monumental waste, as many of the engines were simply laid aside as the duties for which they were intended were eliminated. Other types simply failed to make the grade at all, being woefully inadequate for railway use, and, despite some of them receiving expensive and comprehensive rebuilds, represented very poor value for money.

Many of these issues were sorted out when British Railways undertook a rolling stock review, and decided to eliminate many of the smaller and less-successful classes and from then on traction policy was centred round the use of fewer types of diesels. This was, of course, possible due to the reduced requirement for motive power caused by line closures.

There was therefore a very short period of time when the railway network was still at its preBeeching levels and where many of the lines that were eventually to close were operated by the new diesels. Within a few years not only the lines had gone, but also many of the diesel classes that were built for them, including some that have not survived into preservation.

Using a unique collection of photographs, most of which have not been seen before, this book looks back at those lost diesel classes and at the lost routes that they used to work.

Evan Green-Hughes 2022

On October 24th 1953 one of British Railways’ ACV/ British United Traction lightweight railcars calls at Cliffe station on the Hundred of Hoo Railway in Kent. Opened in 1882 this station was closed completely in 1961 and today nothing remains, although a single freight-only line runs through the site. Numbered M79740-42, this was a prototype set that was at the time being trialled at various locations all over the country, being in Kent for only a few months at the end of 1953. Withdrawn by 1959, it was cut up at Derby by the end of 1963. Apart from this set eight more vehicles were produced in 1955 but none had a long-term future. RCR4848

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Chapter 1 - Passengers No More As a result of the Beeching cuts of the early 1960s, 2,363 railway stations were closed down in England, Scotland and Wales. Many of these were on little-used branch lines but others served areas with considerable population. With these closures went passenger services extending over 5,000 miles of line. These ranged from little-used backwaters such as the Bala branch in Wales to fairly major main line routes such as the Waverley between Carlisle and Edinburgh.

Above: A ruthless campaign of disposals and demolition saw most of these local landmarks eliminated within a short space of time, leaving only a memory of what once was an important community facility.

Below: Perhaps one of the most unsuccessful locomotives of the early British Railways diesel era were the 20 Crossley-engined Metropolitan-Vickers Co-Bos which were built in 1958 and which had a working life of only ten years due to their unreliability. This design was the only Modernisation Plan type to employ a two-stroke power unit but this proved to be both extremely noisy and to emit excessive smoke. In original condition on April 21st 1960 D5719 is seen passing through Chinley on the former Midland main line with a stopping passenger train from Derby to Manchester. The locomotive has its original wrap-round cab windows which had to be changed fairly soon after as they had a habit of falling out while a train was in motion! The Midland’s route through Derbyshire was a victim of the Beeching axe and closed in 1968 but a much-rationalised Chinley remains as an unstaffed commuter halt on the Hope Valley line. H50-4 Opposite Top: NF274-36 Another design that was very unsuccessful was the North British built Type 2 with diesel-electric transmission, which was to become the Class 21. Introduced in 1958 this class was fitted with a MAN power unit of 1,100hp that proved to be very unreliable. As a result, a number of these locomotives were fitted with Paxman replacements of 1,350hp, including the one pictured, D6102, which received its new engine in 1966, and became a member of Class 29, receiving at the same time a four-character headcode box. The work did not prolong their life, with this one being scrapped in 1972 after 12 years’ service. It is seen at Alyth Junction station in Perth and Kinross, where a branch to Alyth diverged off the main Perth to Arbroath line. The station closed in 1967, but the line remained open for freight until 1982. Today there is no railway but the remains of the station, including parts of the main platform, can still be seen. NF274-36 Opposite Bottom: SM007-6 In contrast to the North British Type 2s, locomotives of a similar power rating produced by Derby works and fitted with Sulzer power units proved to be much more reliable, and in consequence had longer lives. The second variant of these was a 1,250hp version that had a top speed of 90mph which was to become the Class 25 and it is one of these, D5190, which is seen calling at Forfar Station in Angus, Scotland, shortly before its closure in 1967. Forfar was an important station on the Perth to Aberdeen line with two through roads and also bay platforms but today the site is covered by a housing development.

D5190 was built in 1963 and spent most of its life allocated to the Midlands, finally being withdrawn from Bescot as 25040 in 1980. SM007-6 6

Passengers No More

7

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

8

Passengers No More Opposite Top: The English Electric Type 1, or Class 20, was one of the success stories of the Modernisation Plan and once ran to 228 examples. Although the bulk of them were withdrawn in the 1980s, a handful soldiered on for many years after that and even today a few are still active on the national network. The locomotives were intended for light freight work but did occasionally find themselves on other duties, such as here where D8110 is captured on August 25th 1962 while working an empty coaching stock train of Pullman vehicles at Saughton, near Edinburgh. Saughton station opened in 1842 and at one time had two platforms on the Edinburgh to Glasgow route and a further two on the lines to the Forth Bridge. However, it closed as early as 1921 but the site remained busy as it had goods yards at both sides of the line. The locomotive avoided the fate of many of its classmates and has enjoyed a long career both in preservation and also back on the main line, being currently based at the Battlefield Line. GM Staddon Opposite Bottom: Central Station was for many years the terminus used by trains from London to Leeds.

Opened in 1854 as a joint effort between the North Eastern, Great Northern, Lancashire and Yorkshire and London and North Western railways, the cramped station was mainly above street level. Closed completely in 1967, its services were transferred to Leeds City and the site was levelled and redeveloped, and today houses a mixture of offices and apartments. Express trains to London were often worked by the famous ‘Deltic’ locomotives, the final member of which, D9021 Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, is seen here dropping onto its stock ready for another Southbound working. The ‘Deltics’ revolutionised East Coast travel and were the first engines capable of consistent 100mph running. They first appeared in 1961 but all were gone by 1982, having been replaced by new High Speed Trains. D9021, as 55021, was scrapped at Doncaster in September 1982.

D9021 Below: Two of the notoriously-unreliable North British-built Class 21s, D6141 and D6150, call at Maud station in Aberdeenshire on March 1st 1965 with only two coaches of a local passenger train in tow. Maud was a junction where the line from Aberdeen split into two routes, one to Peterhead and one to Fraserburgh, and opened in 1861 as part of the 29-mile route from Dyce to Mintlaw. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1965 but freight continued for a few more years before total closure. Today the site houses a small railway museum. Both of these locomotives had very short working lives, being built in 1960 and being cut up only eight years later, their early demise being due to the poor availability record and their flawed MAN power units. SM539

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Above: To mark the end of steam-hauled expresses over the Great Eastern main line the RCTS ran a railtour from Norwich Victoria to Trowse Upper Junction on March 31st 1962, in which six Gresley coaches were hauled in the main by ‘Britannia’ 70003 John Bunyan. However, for a short distance to enable a reversal the tour was hauled by Class 05 shunter 11168, while the ‘Britannia’ remained at the rear. This Hunslet-built shunter was delivered in June 1957 and was allocated to Norwich Thorpe, where it remained until 1966, at which point it was transferred as D2565 to Wigan Springs Branch and withdrawn a year later, when only 10 years old.

Norwich Victoria was originally the terminus of the Great Eastern main line, and one of three terminus stations in the city, but was not conveniently sited and closed to passengers in 1916. Used as a goods facility until 1966 and then for coal traffic until final closure in 1986, its site is now a supermarket. D104 Below: Although primarily a freight engine the English Electric Type 1 (Class 20) did find itself used on passenger trains from time to time, although such activities were confined to summer as the locomotives were not fitted with a steam-heating boiler. April 22nd 1962 is day three of a BLS/SLS (Scottish area) tour and D8028 is pictured unusually running nose first as it leaves the site of Inverbervie station, which was formerly the terminus of the Scottish North Eastern Railway’s line from Montrose and which had closed to passengers in 1951, though had remained open for goods. The line finally closed in 1966 and all traces of the railway were removed. The locomotive is in original condition and is complete with its ladder to the bonnet top, which was soon removed due to the dangers to railwaymen from overhead live wires. It still has its disc headcodes and lacks a yellow warning panel. WS5923

10

Emitting a good volume of ‘clag’ from its MAN engine, an example of the spectacularly-unsuccessful North British Type 2 works a Kirkintilloch to Glasgow Queen Street passenger train on an unspecified date in September 1964. The train is on the double-track Campsie branch which was constructed by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and which opened in 1848, and which closed the same month that this picture was taken. As well as passenger traffic the line saw freight for Kirkintilloch gasworks as well as local collieries and foundries, some of which had private sidings. As with many abandoned railway routes little survives of this one today, with the same being true of the locomotive, no example of which lasted long enough to be considered for preservation. WS7763

Passengers No More

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

11

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Below: Another of the NB Type 2s, D6126, is seen at the old Falkirk (Camelon) station on a stopping passenger train. This was an island facility that was opened in 1850 but which closed in September 1967. It was originally named simply Camelon but became Falkirk (Camelon) in 1903, the name it retained until closure. The area was without a station then until 1994 when a new building was opened, although this is situated about 250 yards to the East of that depicted and has two platforms on either side of the tracks as opposed to an island platform.

Originally allocated to Ipswich D6126 was soon moved to Scotland where it spent the rest of its short life, lasting only 12 years in service before being cut up at Glasgow works. WS8569 Opposite Top: Before the closures of the 1960s there were many alternative routes across Yorkshire available to trains travelling on East-West routes, with one of these being the line between Wetherby and Cross Gates, near Leeds, which was used by trains that were required to call at Harrogate and which due to its route avoided a reversal at Leeds. This section was opened in 1876 and was originally envisaged as part of a direct route to Scarborough which never came to fruition. However, the line became an important alternative to the other more direct lines in the locality. One station on the line was Collingham Bridge which was a substantial North Eastern Railway structure equipped with its own goods yard with sidings on both sides of the main line. On Christmas Eve 1962 Derby-built Class 46 ‘Peak’ D188 is seen with the 9.45am Newcastle-Liverpool service passing the station goods yard. This locomotive was then only a few weeks old and it lasted, as 46051, until December 1983. The Cross Gates to Wetherby line itself closed in 1966. MM2038 Opposite Bottom: Padiham in Lancashire was situated on an offshoot of the East Lancashire Railway that ran from Burnley to Blackburn, officially known as the Great Harwood loop, and one of its major features was the Padiham power station, which boasted its own extensive railway system and which received thousands of tons of coal each year. The line opened in 1875 but the power station was only commissioned in 1925. When the loop was closed as a through line a section was retained to serve the power station, with this lasting until 1993.

On June 1st 1968 English Electric type 4 (Class 40) D252 passes the power station sidings which exhibit an interesting collection of rolling stock, including an Andrew Barclay fireless locomotive and some ancient wooden coal wagons. D252 was to become 40052 and was withdrawn in June 1983 and cut up at Crewe works.

MM3498

12

Passengers No More

13

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

14

Opposite Top: One of the most popular of the short-lived Western Region diesel-hydraulic locomotives was the ‘Western’, a 2,700hp design that was introduced into traffic in 1961, but which had a very short life, being displaced by the more common diesel-electrics during the 1970s. The type saw extensive use on all the region’s principal express trains, including those which ran on the doomed route from Paddington to Birkenhead. On March 23rd 1963 D1008 Western Harrier hauls a London-bound train past Wolverhampton Stafford Road, a station that had been closed as long ago as 1849, being a temporary structure erected until a permanent station was available. The locomotive was scrapped at Swindon in October 1975 after a life of only 15 years. N12-3 Opposite Bottom: Although Hatfield remains an important station on the East Coast main line the view has changed completely since this photograph was taken, as the layout is now much simplified, the signalling has been changed to colour light and the overhead wires have now been added to the infrastructure. Trains today are now almost exclusively worked by multiple units but at one time were always locomotive-hauled, with for a period the spectacularly-unreliable ‘Baby Deltics’ being employed on local trains. One of these, D5908, was captured as it shunted empty stock, with the locomotive being in original condition, without a yellow warning panel and retaining its disc indicators. D5908 was built in May 1959 and only lasted in service until March 1968, being cut up two years later. No examples of this class were saved but a project is now in full swing to assemble a replica, using an original ‘Deltic’ engine and components from a Class 37. D5908 Above: The 58 members of North British-built Class 21 spent most of their lives in Scotland where they were conveniently near the Glasgow works of their builders, which had to be visited on frequent occasions for modifications and maintenance. First introduced in 1958, so unsuccessful was the design that 38 were withdrawn by the end of 1968 – the rest were rebuilt with Paxman engines replacing the original MAN design, but this only prolonged their existence for a further couple of years. The locomotives often worked in pairs as seen here as D6130 and D6133 take on water for their steam heating boilers while pausing at Balquhidder station while working a Glasgow Buchanan St-Oban train on April 3rd 1961. Balquhidder was a small station on the former Callander and Oban Railway which opened in 1870 and was closed in 1965, along with the rest of the route. Balquhidder was unusual in that it was rebuilt in 1904 slightly to the South of its original site so as to accommodate a branch to Crieff. D6130 and D6133

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Above: Ardrossan Montgomerie Pier station was opened by the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway in 1890 to compete with facilities provided by the Glasgow and South Western Railway on the other side of the harbour.

Trains mainly connected with steamers to Arran although there were also services to places such as the Isle of Man. On July 12th 1963 one of the short-lived ‘Clayton’ Type 1s, D8518, is seen leaving the pier with a boat special conveying passengers from the IOM bound for Glasgow Central while English Electric Type 1 D8086 waits for the road back down to the harbour after having used the turntable so as to avoid having to run bonnet first on its return journey. The pier station closed in 1967 and the site is now given over to waterside apartments while the ‘Clayton’ lasted a mere five years in service, being scrapped at St Rollox works, Glasgow, in 1968.

WS6897

16

Above: When the London and North Western Railway wanted to expand the number of tracks between Huddersfield and Leeds in Yorkshire it found that expansion through Dewsbury was impossible due to the builtup nature of the area, and due to mining subsidence around Morley, where another tunnel would be required.

Their answer was to provide an alternative route, the ‘Leeds New Line’, which ran via the Spen Valley. Although slightly longer this route was favoured by expresses that did not have to stop at Dewsbury and this remained the situation until the 1960s when the Beeching report identified the line as a duplicate and therefore liable for closure. On August 3rd 1964 English Electric Type 4 D271 heads downhill towards Cleckheaton with the 3.16 Newcastle-Liverpool train, shortly after leaving the Gildersome Tunnel. The locomotive, as 40072, was broken up at Swindon in 1978 while the ‘New Line’ is now largely abandoned and built over, although with parts being used as a greenway footpath. Gildersome tunnel still exists although one end has been obliterated by the later M62 motorway. MM2612 Below: Welford and Kilworth station was opened in 1850 as one of the principal stops on the Rugby and Stamford Railway on its route from Rugby to Market Harborough. Originally single track at that location the line was doubled in 1878 but by the mid-20th century was failing to attract sufficient traffic to keep it open. As a result, the station closed in 1966 along with the line and today little trace of it can be found. The service depicted is the 1.50pm Rugby to Peterborough which is seen on March 27th 1965 in the charge of Brush Class 31 D5618, a locomotive that was to last for 47 years, being cut up as 31427 in August 2007. MM2782

17

Type 2s built by the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company for many years personified the railways of Scotland, with the type working most of the country’s routes on all forms of traffic. There were two distinct batches, which were to become the Class 26 and the Class 27, with the latter easily identifiable by the fitting of the four-character headcode box above the cab windows. Here 1961-built D5359 heads an Oban-Glasgow Buchanan Street passenger train and is seen on September 11th 1965 arriving at Callander station, only a year before the entire Callander to Crianlarich (lower) section of line was closed. Today this site is the inevitable car park while the locomotive was withdrawn in 1976 and cut up shortly afterwards. WS8305

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

18

Above: The English Electric Class 40s were one of the first types of express passenger locomotive produced under the Modernisation Plan of 1955, with the first taking to the rails in 1958. As built they had a plain green livery, with a yellow panel being added to the front a few years later and in this early view D345 (40145) is seen in that condition hauling one of the London-Yorkshire Pullman trains past the now long-demolished Sandal Junction signal box, just South of Wakefield. Although the line shown is still in existence as part of the East Coast main line, this view has changed beyond recognition and is now devoid of all period fittings. The locomotive has, however, had rather more luck as, following withdrawal in June 1983 it has found a home in preservation at the East Lancashire Railway, and is still main line registered. D345 Below: Identified as a ‘duplicate’ by the Beeching report, the Great Central’s main line from the Midlands to London was destined to close as a through route in 1966 but in fact it had been in steady decline since 1958, when it had been transferred to the Midland Region from the Eastern, and thus became a direct competitor to the Midland main line. In its later days the line hosted a number of local passenger trains, with one of these being a service from Manchester Victoria to Leicester, an example of which is seen at Nottingham Victoria station on April 8th 1962. The locomotive, D5805, was to become 31275 and was scrapped in 2005, although some of its classmates do still exist. Nothing remains of Nottingham Victoria station, which has long since disappeared under a shopping centre. MM1770

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Chapter 2 - Forgotten Freight For around a century almost every city, town and village in the country was served by our railway system. The service that this system provided was not limited to passenger trains but also encompassed all manner of freight traffic, from single parcels to trainloads of minerals or coal. Every day thousands of wagons were moved from where they had been loaded to the point at which the goods they carried were required. To achieve this the railways had a comprehensive system of trip workings that would move individual wagons to other points where they would be sorted for onwards despatch to their final destination. Although some of the freight traffic carried covered hundreds of miles, much of it was only moved to the next town or village, with this situation continuing until after the First World War, at which point motor lorries came more to the fore for short journeys.

Above: The pre-Beeching railway handled every sort of non-passenger traffic and this included everything that needed moving to support its own operation, including out of service locomotives, which nowadays are conveyed by road. Here London and North Western ‘Coal Tank’ 1054 is hauled past the long-forgotten Menai Bridge signal box by British Railways Derby-built Type 2, 5077. The steam locomotive had been on display at Penrhyn Castle but was moved to the Dinting Railway Centre in 1973 where it was restored to operational condition once again. The only thing remaining from this picture is the ‘Coal Tank’ which is still in working condition today. The Type 2, as 24077, was scrapped in 1978 while the signal box was decommissioned in December 1973. The line, however, is still open as part of the main Crewe to Holyhead route. KN1135 Opposite Top: A line that might perhaps have survived long-term had the Scottish oil boom started just a few years before was that between Dyce, Fraserburgh and Peterhead. In the event during its lifetime it serviced a rural area and carried light traffic, although it could become busy in the herring season. The line was opened in 1861 and closed to passengers in 1965, although goods trains continued to Peterhead until 1966 and Fraserburgh until 1979. One of the latter is seen near Udney on June 18th 1966. It is hauled by North Britishbuilt diesel electric type 2, later Class 21, D6104, which was built in 1959 as one of the pilot scheme engines, but which was withdrawn in 1969 when it was only ten years old, largely because much of the work in which the class was employed had disappeared with line closures and also because the type was extremely unreliable.

D6104 20

Forgotten Freight

Above: North British also supplied a diesel-hydraulic version of its type 2 design, all examples of which went to the Western Region and which was known as the Class 22. Here, on August 17th 1966, a pair of these locomotives is seen at Plymouth North Road with one of the express milk trains which were once a common sight as they ran between Devon and London. Although the station still survives it is no longer known as North Road, but became so following the closure of the London and South Western Railway’s Friary station, and it has been much modernised and altered today. The locomotives were produced at the same time as their diesel-electric cousins, with D6310 and D6323 both appearing in 1960. The design was another failure and both engines had gone to the scrapheap by 1971, with their duties being cascaded to classes received from other regions and made available due to line closures. Also long gone are both milk trains and the wagons that used to be used within them. D6310 and D6323 21

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

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Forgotten Freight

Opposite Top: Chipping Norton’s first station was opened in 1855 as the terminus of the Chipping Norton railway which linked to the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway at Kingham. In 1887 a new extension was opened towards King’s Sutton and this meant that the original terminus was by-passed, being subsequently demolished. However, the site became the new goods yard and remained so until 1965 when the line closed. One of the once-numerous English Electric Class 08 shunters, D3107, is seen at Chipping Norton on April 2nd 1966 hauling a short goods train. This locomotive was built as 13107 and entered service in 1955, being allocated to Banbury. It lasted in traffic until 1980 but was cut at Swindon in 1982. A handful of the 996 examples of this very successful class still remain in traffic, with others in use at industrial sites all around the country. GS2-4-6 Opposite Bottom: It was coal that spurred the development of railway systems in the early days and this commodity remained an important traffic until comparatively recent times. Here, on July 1st 1967, one of the first series of Derby works-built ‘Peaks’ hauls an extensive load of coal from Toton heading for the Southern Region.

It is seen passing Brixworth on the Northampton and Market Harborough Railway, on a stretch of track that was opened in 1859 but which closed to all traffic in 1981, though it had only been used on a sporadic basis since 1964. The ‘Peak’ was delivered new to Camden as D5 in October 1959 but was quickly superseded on top-link duties by later, and more powerful, builds. The type was then congregated around Toton for freight work, with this example, named Cross Fell, being taken out of service in 1978. MM3355 Above: The Western Region’s flirtation with diesel-hydraulic transmission arguably produced some of the finest looking engines of the modernisation era, with perhaps one of the best being the ‘Warships’, an example of which, D816 Eclipse, is pictured hauling a rake of four-wheel clay empties near Par Sands on July 20th 1960.

Although intended for passenger work the ‘Warships’ were often employed on freight duties, despite their light weight. Par was once the site of an interchange between the Cornwall Mineral Railway and the Great Western but because the former was standard gauge and the latter broad all freight had to be transhipped on the site.

This situation lasted for an incredible 13 years until the main line was converted to standard gauge. The locomotive lasted only until 1972 while the wagons are of a type also now consigned to history. RCR15155

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Above: Cockfield station was situated on the Long Melford to Bury St. Edmunds branch in Suffolk, which was opened in August 1865 and closed to passengers in April 1961, well before the Beeching report. Freight services were officially withdrawn on April 19th 1965 but the last goods train actually ran four days before that, hauled by British Thomson Houston Bo-Bo Type 1 D8221, and it is that service that is seen here shunting at Cockfield. The 44 members of the BTH design were scattered around the Eastern Region but didn’t prove particularly successful, and with much of their work disappearing with line closures they became prime candidates for an early withdrawal, with most barely giving ten years’ service. This particular locomotive was built in 1960 and withdrawn in 1971, being cut up at Crewe. D114 Opposite Top: Up until 1965 a branch line ran from Framlingham in Suffolk to the Great Eastern Railway’s main line at Wickham Market. Built by the East Suffolk Railway it was never particularly successful and suffered badly from road competition from the 1920s onwards. This led to the passenger service being withdrawn in 1952 but goods services continued until April 1965. British Railways/Sulzer Type 2 (later Class 24) D5040 is seen hauling one of these lightly loaded services in the final days of the line, with the actual location being Marlesford level crossing. The locomotive was withdrawn in 1976 and the line has been lifted but the station building in the background still exists in private hands. D151 Opposite Bottom: Hauling a lengthy coal train is production series ‘Peak’ D36, one of the batch built with centre rather than split headcode boxes, and which entered service from 1960, being allocated to most of the main depots on the Midland main line. D36, which was to become 45031, was built the following year and was to last exactly 20 years in traffic, being scrapped at Derby works in 1981. The train is seen passing Spratton on the Northampton to Market Harborough line, a route which closed in 1981. Although there are no trains at this site now there is a possibility that the heritage Northampton and Lamport Railway may one day extend here, as it has permission to extend its operation as far as the site of Spratton station. MM3463

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Forgotten Freight

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Above: Another station on the Long Melford to Bury St. Edmunds branch was that at Lavenham in Suffolk, which was opened in 1865 along with the rest of the line. At one time there were plans for another route into the town, which would have run from Hadleigh, which was already the terminus of a branch line from Bentley Junction on the Eastern Counties Railway but this never came to fruition. During WW2 this line was heavily used by munitions and troop trains and was heavily fortified with pillboxes. The station closed in 1961 but lived on until 1978 as an office block. The locomotive is D8225, one of the ill-fated BTH Type 1s, which was built in 1960 and only lasted for 11 years in service. D154 Below: The final freight service reached Lavenham on April 4th 1965 and consisted of the usual British Thomson Houston Type 1, in this case D8221, and a motley collection of wagons, most of which had been used to deliver coal to the various towns and villages on the route, as well as one van and a brake van. Goods traffic in this area, which had once been the backbone of income, was badly affected by road transport, which proved to be more flexible and economic, and so traffic was more or less non-existent by this date. Like many of its classmates this locomotive was delivered new to Stratford in 1960. However, this one was soon transferred to Ipswich depot where it spent most of its short life, being sent back to Stratford in 1968, where it lasted only three more years before being taken out of service. D474

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The Brush Type 2s, later Class 31s, were synonymous with the Eastern Region and were employed on a wide range of duties. Here D5559, later to become 31141, is seen working a Beccles to Great Yarmouth line freight which is calling at a badly run down Aldeby station. The line was built in 1859 but was closed completely in 1959, with this shot appearing to have been taken after the route was truncated and one of the through roads lifted. Today little remains of the railway at this site except the station house and an overbridge while the locomotive is also no longer with us, having been withdrawn in 1989 and cut up at MC Metals in Glasgow. The site is now occupied by the inevitable industrial units but the railway’s route can be traced in adjacent fields. D223

Forgotten Freight

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Below: Although Halesworth station in Suffolk still survives today the railway scene around it has changed forever. Derby/Sulzer type 2 (Class 24) D5042 is seen shunting milk tankers at the large dairy that used to be adjacent to the station, and which at one time warranted a daily service to Ilford, but which was to cease in the mid-1960s. To the right of the Class 24 and where the small shed is located was originally the terminus of the 3ft gauge Southwold Railway where there was a platform with its own awning which permitted passengers to interchange with main line trains. The station also boasted a small transhipment shed where goods could be moved from narrow to standard gauge wagons. The Derby Class 24 was one of the moderately successful types of the early diesel era with this example, as 24042, lasting until 1976. D497 Opposite Top: British Thomson Houston Type 1 D8220 is seen on the Framlingham branch in Suffolk hauling a typical light freight train in the final years before closure. The BTH Type 1’s main problem was the Paxman 16YHXL power unit fitted to it which became very unreliable, being quite complex but yet developing only 800hp. The manufacturers attempted to resolve the issues by the fitting of replacement pistons and piston rings and by amending the maintenance schedules but very little progress was made before BR, faced with a declining requirement for small diesels, decided to throw in the towel. D8220’s life was typical for the class; delivered in 1960 to Stratford it was then transferred to Ipswich for light duties around East Anglia but found itself back at Stratford by 1968 and was withdrawn only three years later. D391 Opposite Bottom: On June 4th 1969 a series of haulage tests was organised at Cheltenham Malvern Road station which were attended by a large number of railway officials and which involved Brush Type 4 D1938 which at one stage managed to push some of the wagons off the track. The tests were on a section of line that opened in 1908 but which closed to all traffic in 1976. Malvern Road station had unfortunately succumbed prior to that, seeing its last passengers in January 1966. The Brush Type 4 was to become the Class 47 and has been arguably one of the most successful diesel classes produced in this country. D1938 itself was built in 1966 and lasted in service until 2004, latterly numbered 47258, eventually being scrapped at CF Booth of Rotherham the following year. The site of Malvern Road is now a housing estate. Swain Z9-6

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Lenwade, in rural North Norfolk, was on the route of the Lynn and Fakenham Railway Company and is situated some 11 miles North-West of Norwich. At one time its villagers had the benefit of train services to either Norwich or King’s Lynn but like many places in the East the 20th century saw road transport proving to be a more viable alternative to rail. The station closed to passengers in 1959 but a section of the line remained open to serve Lenwade Concrete Works, which produced large beams for the construction industry. The site was very large, being almost a mile long, and used some ex-BR vehicles for internal movements as well as employing a number of diesel shunters, including in later days Class 03 D2118. The Class 31 in this photo is D5523, and this is the only thing which remains from this view, as this locomotive is preserved at the Mangapps Railway Museum in Essex. ICAD811

Lost Diesels, Lost Line

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Forgotten Freight

Above: 02-17 One of the troubled North British Type 2 diesel-hydraulics, D6328, is seen on May 16th 1969 as it approaches Eynsham in West Oxfordshire, which was situated on the Witney Railway between Witney and Yarnton. The line was eventually taken over by the Great Western Railway which enlarged and modernised the station, and it provided a valuable service to the local community until it became a victim of the Beeching axe, closing to passenger trains in 1962 and to goods eight years later. The site of the station is now built over with business units. D6328 was to last, like many of its sisters, only 11 years in service. It was built in 1960 and was cut up only two years after this photograph was taken. Like other locomotives emanating from the North British stable, it suffered considerable problems with its MAN power unit when new. Only about half of the class, including this one, lasted long enough to wear BR blue livery. AS Z6-1 Below: The diesel-electric version of the North British Type 2 had many similarities with the diesel-hydraulic version and the two classes looked very similar to each other at a first glance, although the bodyside grille layout was noticeably different. While the hydraulics were all on the Western Region the diesel-electrics were, after a brief period on the Eastern Region, all congregated in Scotland, where they would be near their builders’ Glasgow factory should repairs be required. One of these, D6154, is seen at Carron station with a down freight.

This station was opened in 1863 and was on the Strathspey Railway which linked Boat of Garten with Dufftown.

It closed to both passengers and goods in October 1965. The locomotive was to have a scandalously short life, being built in 1960 and withdrawn in 1967 and cut up the following year. NF201-07

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Above: In 1962, in an effort to alleviate the sighting difficulties suffered by crews on existing single-cab locomotives such as the Class 20, British Railways commissioned an entirely new design, the Clayton Type 1, later Class 17. This was fitted with twin Paxman six-cylinder engines. BR ordered 117 locomotives off the drawing board and announced them as the new standard type 1 class but unfortunately when they began to arrive reliability was absolutely dire. This design proved to be so bad that withdrawals began only six years after the first one had been built and BR was forced to order an extra 100 English Electric Type 1s to replace them. The class was most prominent in Scotland and the North-East, but they proved entirely unsuitable for heavy trains and so were often moved on by local managers as soon as they could get rid of them. Here, in May 1964, one of the ill-fated class passes Hairmyres station on the Glasgow to East Kilbride line. This station, while still open, is unrecognisable today as the area has been surrounded by housing estates and suburban sprawl. Plans are afoot to close down the existing station and to move it to a new site which is more convenient for modern developments. WS7442 Opposite: White Colne station was situated on the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway and was opened in 1860 but closed again less than 30 years later. It reopened in 1908 but was closed again for a second time in 1962.

Freight trains continued to run for almost three more years but they served a dwindling market and inevitably were eventually withdrawn and the line was then dismantled completely. In the final few years traincrew would work everything from level crossings to signals and points, as seen here, as a railwayman alights from BTH Type 1 D8228 and walks down the remains of the platform. D8228’s life followed the pattern of many of its sisters, alternating its home between Stratford and Ipswich but being withdrawn and cut up following the closure of many of the branch lines that it was built to work. D244

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Forgotten Freight

33

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Chapter 3- Stations At the height of the railway boom Britain had around 5,000 stations, which ranged in size from giant city terminuses to tiny one platform halts. Most were constructed in the mid to late 19th century, and although some were modernised during their lives, many remained just as they had originally been built, and featured such period fixtures as gas lighting and outdoor toilets. Due to the lack of the rail system’s profitability many also became extremely run down, being painted infrequently and maintained only if and when something went wrong. In many ways our stations were a hangover from the Victorian era that was completely unable to satisfy the aspirations of a population keen to shake off the deprivations of the war years, and so failed to attract the traffic that might have kept them open, despite the introduction of modern traction.

Above: Many of the country’s stations were relatively simple affairs with limited facilities, and a typical example of this is Blackford Hill which was on the Edinburgh and Southside Junction Railway, just outside Edinburgh.

Although this line is still open today it is only used by freight services which require to avoid Edinburgh’s congested main stations. The station, however, was closed in 1962 and, despite efforts to re-open it in recent years, remains so today. One of the ‘Clayton’ Type 1s is seen passing the closed station demonstrating one of the class’s less-popular traits, that of ejecting large quantities of black smoke when under load. These locos were also well-known for spontaneously combusting, and several were badly damaged by fire during their short lives. Although a four-character headcode box was fitted Scottish crews seemed to have an aversion to using it, as can be seen here. D85xx GM Staddon Opposite Top: In July 1964, with a sad message chalked on its front buffer beam, BTH Type 1 D8221 hauls the final freight train from Bury St. Edmunds to Lavenham in Suffolk and is seen making a call at the remains of Welnetham station, which had closed to passengers three years previously. In the 1960s many stations that were actually open had become run down to this kind of condition and so it is no surprise that so much traffic was lost to the bus and the car. While the crew seem very pleased with the turn of events, they would, presumably, like thousands of other railwaymen, soon lose their jobs. Welnetham station survives today, however, as the buildings have been converted into a luxury house but the locomotive was not so lucky, being withdrawn in 1971 and scrapped at Crewe works. D109 Opposite Bottom: During the 1960s enthusiasts organised many special trains so that they could take a final journey over one or other of the routes that were being closed down, and the Lavenham branch was no exception with the station being visited on June 4th 1961 by a ramblers’ special hauled by Brush Type 2 D5537 and with the train containing mostly wooden carriages of Gresley origin. The headboard proclaims this as the last train and this may be the case as the line had actually closed to passenger trains six weeks before.

Considering its location Lavenham station was lavishly equipped, the main station building having a two-storey station master’s house and attached station facilities such as booking office, waiting room and toilets. There was also a large goods yard, signal box, cattle dock and goods shed. After closure the site was occupied by a factory but that has now in turn been replaced by housing. D5537 34

Stations

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

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Stations Opposite Top: Another of the very successful Brush Type 2s is seen at Stoke station in Suffolk (not to be confused with its better-known namesake in Staffordshire). This station was opened in 1865 and was on the Stour Valley Railway between Sudbury and Cambridge. Although there were substantial station buildings there was only one platform, but there was a goods loop provided nearby, together with a large goods yard. This line survived several attempts to close it but eventually succumbed in 1967 with the track being lifted three years later. Today the site has been levelled, although the station building still exists. D5630 is likely employed on a summer extra service which would be returning from Clacton to the Midlands, such holiday trains being popular in the 1960s. The locomotive managed to survive in service as 31206 until 2006 and has since passed into preservation, being located at the Rushden, Higham and Wellingborough Railway. Hocquard Opposite Bottom: A much-missed line is the former Midland main line from Derby to Manchester via the Derbyshire Dales, which many argue was closed in haste and which would be of great value today for capacity enhancement. However, in the 1960s, things were different and the whole route was to be sacrificed in 1968, with passenger services being withdrawn the year before. Miller’s Dale station was the junction for Buxton and was opened in 1863. It was extremely large, given its rural location, and boasted extensive facilities and today some of those buildings remain to provide services on the Monsal Trail, a walking and cycling route that has been built on the former railway. At the platform on September 26th 1960 is a local train hauled by Metro-Vic Type 2 D5706, a locomotive that was to last only ten years in service due to its unreliable two-stroke Crossley power unit. D5706 Alan H Roscoe Below: On March 1st 1965 single-line tablets are exchanged at Maud station in Aberdeenshire between a member of the station staff and the secondman of the North British Class 21 diesel-electric locomotive in what looks to be quite harsh winter conditions. Today’s trains no longer have a secondman, there are station staff only at larger locations, the system of trains carrying single line tablets is almost extinct and signalling is by colour lights rather than semaphore. Both the locomotive and the station itself are also now long gone, the station having closed in 1965 and the Class 21s being extinct by the end of 1968. SM516

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Above: What must be one of the most basic railway stations ever built was situated at Stoke Junction Halt which was on the delightfully-named Hundred of Hoo Railway between Middle Stoke Halt and Grain Crossing Halt in Kent. This halt used to be the junction for a short branch line to Allhallows, for which the Victorians had ambitious plans that failed to come to fruition, but which was closed along with the halt in 1961. The main route which runs from Gravesend to the Grain Oil Refinery is still open but there have been no passenger services for the last 60 years. The locomotive is one of the Birmingham Railway and Carriage Company’s Type 3s, later to become the Class 33, and which were peculiar to the Southern Region. D6515, which is pictured on May 13th 1961, was then less than a year old and was to last until 1997, later passing into preservation. LN5-32-4 Opposite Top: At one time it was possible to travel from North Wales to South Wales with the journey being completely within the principality, but that has not been possible since the closure of the route between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen, following the recommendations contained within the Beeching report. This line had been opened in 1867 and served many important rural areas, although it was always regarded as a secondary route. In its latter days passenger services often employed one of the Western Region’s dieselhydraulic ‘Hymek’ locos and it is one of these, D7083, which is seen as it awaits departure from Carmarthen on July 16th 1964, the last day of service over the line. Built in 1963 this locomotive was taken out of traffic after only eight years in service and scrapped soon after, a good example of the waste which permeated British Railways in its early years. D7083 Opposite Bottom: 03-09 Brixworth, Northamptonshire, was a typical country station of the Victorian era, being of generous proportions and providing every conceivable facility, despite being half a mile from the village that it served and thus attracting limited traffic. Located on the Northampton and Market Harborough line it opened in 1859 and closed in January 1960, but a limited goods service continued to use the route until 1981. The site is pictured on July 1st 1967 by which time the station platform had already been cut back and is being passed by D7655, a Derby/Sulzer, Type 2, later to become Class 25. This locomotive is one of the final variants of the type and was not constructed until 1966, lasting until 1983 when it was swept away as part of a general review of motive power. MM3354

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Stations

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

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Stations Opposite Top: Although Bures station in Suffolk is still with us today it is much reduced from its heyday, at which point it was able to support substantial station buildings and facilities. Located on the Sudbury to Marks Tey branch line, today the station is treated as a request stop and traction is supplied by new ‘bi-mode’ units. In complete contrast Brush Type 2 D5634 is seen hauling a rake of coaches at the station on an unspecified date in the early 1960s, probably with a through train for London Liverpool Street, although displaying a headcode more usually associated with Liverpool to Newcastle workings. This locomotive was new to Stratford depot but gravitated to the Western Region later in its life. It is now preserved. Hocquard 3449 Opposite Bottom: So much of the railway scene in this picture has now gone forever. The North British Type 2 locomotive has a tablet catcher fitted, which enabled it to pick up train staffs on the move, while next to it a fish van provides evidence of traffic that was once commonplace. Railway uniforms have also undergone a complete transformation while the metal teapot carried by the driver is also now a period piece! Four-wheel goods trucks surround the awnings of Peterhead station on August 5th 1965 as Class 21 D6157 and its crew pause for refreshment. Despite the busy appearance in the photograph the station closed to passengers the same year and to goods five years later. Nothing now remains. SM005A Below: An unusual duty for an English Electric Type 1 is this local passenger train that is pictured at Mintlaw on the Dyce to Peterhead line on an unknown date. This station was built by the Formartine and Buchan Railway Company and opened in 1861, being closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts. This picture is a bit of a mystery as the locomotive, D8006, was only allocated to Scotland for a few weeks in 1958 and is of a type that was primarily intended for goods work so perhaps it undertook trials on the Peterhead route during that time, prior to the general introduction of diesel traction. The engine is one of the pilot scheme batch of what was to become Class 20 and completed 33 years in service before being cut up at Springburn works in 1991. SM298

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Above: The area around Edinburgh once contained a large number of stations, many of which were swept away by Beeching in the name of rationalisation. One of these was at Peebles which was situated on a loop line which ran from Eskbank Junction, through Penicuik and then through Peebles to Galashiels. The line had been very popular at one time but traffic suffered a serious decline after the second world war and so in 1958 in an attempt to cut costs and attract more passengers diesel multiple units were introduced. Unfortunately, closure followed in 1962 and the site is now buried under a road. On November 11th 1961 a Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company two-car unit is seen on a Galashiels-Edinburgh working. These units, later Class 100, were one of the least successful of the early DMUs and only two batches of 20 each were built and all were withdrawn by 1988, largely due to the presence of blue asbestos insulation within their bodywork.

WS5775 Opposite Top: Although today there are no railway tracks through Theddingworth station in Leicestershire, the station building has been lovingly restored by its current owners and is in use as a private house. The station was on a branch from Rugby to a junction near Stamford and opened in 1850, being owned by the London and North Western Railway. Passenger services lasted until 1966, freight having been discontinued a couple of years earlier. Following closure, the railway in the area was used for the scenes in the film Robbery. On June 4th 1966 Brush Type 2 D5522 runs through with an express passenger train and passes the small, wooden waiting shelter added to the station when the line was doubled in 1878. This locomotive lives on today as 31418 and is at the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley. MM3144 Opposite Bottom: The substantial buildings of the former Kelvinside station tower over Class 20 D8080 as it exits the Balgray Tunnel in Glasgow on September 25th 1964. By this time the station had already been closed for 22 years, succumbing to the competition provided by tram and bus services but remarkably the building had survived and had been used for a number of purposes, including housing. It eventually became derelict and caught fire but was then restored in 1983 as a restaurant, only to be burned out again in 1995. Since then a further restoration has seen the building become an eatery called ‘1051 GWR’. Nothing remains of the line below apart from a short section of platform and housing occupies parts of the trackbed. D8080 lasted until 1990 as 20080 and was cut up at Springburn works, Glasgow. WS7784

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Stations

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

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Stations Opposite Top: Another remarkable survivor into the 1960s was the small halt at Kingsbarns in Fife which had closed as early as September 1930 but which had somehow managed to remain intact, perhaps because it was occasionally used for RAF personnel. The station had been opened in 1883 by the Anstruther and St Andrews Railway and a passenger service was retained to Anstruther until 1965. In this view a Metro-Cammell unit, later to become Class 101, passes Kingsbarns on its way to Anstruther shortly before the closure of the line. The Class 101s were one of the most successful of the first-generation DMUs, being introduced in 1955 and with the final examples not being withdrawn until 2004. The Scottish Region received 33 of these three-car sets in 1958 and 1959, all of which proved to have a long life. Several examples of this once numerous class have been preserved. WS7914 Opposite Bottom: Perhaps one of the most scenic branch lines in Britain was that which ran from Connel Ferry to the slate mining town of Ballachulish in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The line appeared late on the railway scene, being only opened in 1903, and it lasted until 1966 when services were withdrawn. Creagan was one of the intermediate stations and was on the stores of Loch Creran and must have attracted minimal traffic, even before the advent of the motor vehicle. Here, on March 26th 1966 Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Type 2, later Class 27, D5351 calls with a short passenger train, showing signs that the steamheating equipment was in good order. This locomotive lasted until 1987, and is today preserved as 27005.

WS8450 Below: Caldwell station was near the village of Uplawmoor in East Renfrewshire and in fact took that name when the nearby station which had previously used it was closed in 1962. It was built by the Glasgow, Barrhead and Kilmarnock Joint Railway and closed in 1966. However, for a brief period in its final year the station bore the name Tannochbrae as it was used in the filming of the BBC series ‘Dr Finlay’s Casebook’ for which purpose a J36 steam locomotive was also specially repainted. The station buildings still stand and are in use as a private house while the line is open, but trains no longer call at Caldwell/Uplawmoor/Tannochbrae. The two-car unit calling at the station is one of the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon-built variants, later Class 100, and can be identified as coming from the second batch by the arrangement of the end marker lights. WS8869

45

The Brush Type 2s, or Class 31s, were very successful and long-lived, but only after their original Mirrlees power units were replaced with English Electric products. The type found widespread use on British Railways on a variety of duties and one of them, D5600, can be seen on March 30th 1964 entering Castle Ashby and Earls Barton station on the Nene Valley Railway between Wellingborough and Northampton with a short, stopping, passenger train. This station opened in 1845 and was closed to passengers on May 4th 1964, only a few weeks after this picture was taken. Today only the goods shed remains at this location, with this having been converted into a restaurant. The line itself closed in February 1965 and was removed completely shortly after that date. MM2391

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

46

Stations

Above: The Waverley provided an alternative route between England and Scotland from its building in 1862 until complete and controversial closure in 1969. Hawick was originally the terminus of the line and was served by trains from Edinburgh, but it became a through station when the line was completed to Carlisle. On November 23rd 1968 and only six weeks before the line closed for good the Border Railway Society organised a ‘Farewell to the Waverley Route’ tour, with this being hauled by BRCW Class 26 D5311. The train is seen at Hawick station which today is the next target of those hoping that one day the whole route might be reopened.

So far reconstruction has proceeded as far as Tweedbank, a distance of 31 miles, at a cost of £295m. The Class 26 in the picture has been luckier than the line and was preserved in 1983, although it is currently stored.

WS9423 Below: Locomotives built by the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company were very much a feature of the Scottish scene for many years and this view of East Kilbride station, taken on August 14th 1972, is no exception as it shows D5398 engaged in trip freight work while a Cravens-built DMU calls at the adjacent platform. The goods yard here handled a large amount of coal traffic and this was still the case until very late in the station’s history. In the event this was not enough to save the goods yard, which closed around 1983, with the site subsequently being sold off for housing. The station itself is still open but is at the end of what is essentially a long siding and the portion of line beyond the station that was used for shunting has been abandoned and torn up. The locomotive itself was scrapped in 1977 at St Rollox works, Glasgow, as 27039.

WS9747

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

Chapter 4 - Yards Almost every station in the country had a goods yard attached to it, which came under the control of the station master. Like the stations to which they were attached, these yards varied from those which were extremely large to ones which contained only one or two sidings.Most were served by daily trains that would pick up and set down loaded and empty wagons and vans but also perform any internal movements that might be necessary. In many cases horses were provided to do the shunting, with yards having their own stables and almost every yard had its fleet of horse-drawn carts, later to be superseded by the three-wheel Scammell tractors, which performed final delivery to the customer. Now all these yards are gone, with most having been turned over to housing or other development, with, once again, modernisation being unable to turn the operation from loss into profitability.

Above: Many railway yards served private sidings and works and one of these was at Leiston station in Suffolk which was on the branch line between Saxmundham and Aldeburgh. Here the Leiston Works Railway connected the main line with the premises of Richard Garrett and Sons with this being primarily used for coal deliveries. Originally operated by horses, a steam locomotive was purchased in 1929 and this was replaced by the battery engine which can be seen in this photograph. The works line closed in 1968, with the station preceding it by two years. This picture, which also features Class 15 D8236, may be of the steam crane that was used to dismantle the track between Aldeburgh and Sizewell siding, allowing the railway to continue to serve the nuclear power station while abandoning all other traffic. The battery loco was cut up in 1968 while D8236 went to the cutter’s torch in 1969. D312 Opposite Top: St Blazey The diesel-hydraulic ‘Warships’ were one of the most admired classes from the modernisation era but were destined to have a short life, due to British Railways deciding to standardise on diesel-electric locomotives. The ‘Warships’ came about because the Western Region’s management wanted to have powerful locomotives which were lightweight in design and, to achieve this, integral construction, coupled with high-revving engines, had to be employed. This design was in many respects a scaled-down version of the German V200 which was already being successfully employed on the continent but the policy relied on the widespread introduction of fitted freight trains which in the event did not happen for some years and so was ultimately unsuccessful. Here, on July 22nd 1960, D816 Eclipse shunts china clay wagons in St Blazey yard, Cornwall, its modern appearance contrasting with the ancient wagons it is hauling. This locomotive was cut up in 1972 at Swindon. RCR15191 48

Yards

Below: Woodhall Spa, on the branch line from Woodhall Junction to Horncastle in Lincolnshire, boasted the sort of extensive goods facilities that were once common at country stations, and which included loading and cattle docks as well as coal staithes. Here an unidentified Brush Type 2 is running round its short freight train which is held in the sidings at the east end of the station in a view taken shortly before the yard closed. The branch line itself closed to passengers in 1954 but freight traffic continued in one form or another until 1971, although this yard closed to freight in 1964. Today nothing remains of the yard or of the station and a road runs along what used to be the trackbed. ICAD463

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Above: In contrast to the situation at Woodhall Spa, visitors to Clare station in Suffolk today will find all the buildings preserved and intact, although as part of a country park rather than for railway use. The main station building is a café and the goods shed seen in this photograph is now an exhibition and function venue. The station was situated on the Stour Valley Railway between Sudbury and Mark’s Tey, being opened in 1865 and closed in 1967. Prior to closure goods traffic was considerable and here Great Eastern Railway J17 Class 0-6-0 65578 is shunting the goods shed road and is being passed by another freight train, hauled by Brush Type 2 D5597. The steam locomotive was scrapped in 1962 while the diesel, as 31176, was cut up in 1988. ICA D154 Opposite Top: The extensive, but empty, goods yard at Earls Colne station on the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway near Braintree is visited by a brand new BTH Class 15 Type 1, D8225, sometime in 1960. The locomotive has not yet managed to acquire the all-over grime that was so typical of the railway of the era. It had been built to service a traffic and lines that were shortly to close, and in which case were generating very little by way of revenue, and is perhaps a good illustration of the waste and indecision that plagued BR during its existence. Earls Colne opened in 1882 and was closed to passengers in January 1962, while goods services hung on for another three years before complete closure. The station building still survives but there is little other evidence that a railway was ever on the site. The locomotive was broken up at Crewe in 1971. D257 Opposite Bottom: Peterhead station in Aberdeenshire was a large terminus which had two goods yards attached to it, one to serve the town and the other for the harbour. The main yard had a large shed and a loading bank with two faces and one of its staple traffics was canned goods from the nearby Crosse and Blackwell factory. This was lost to road in 1966 and the yard closed in 1970, along with the rest of the branch.

The site is now a school. Visiting the yard is the last-built of the ill-fated ‘Clayton’ Type 1s, which were predominantly allocated to Scotland and the North-East. D8616 was built in 1965 and allocated to Barrow Hill shed near Chesterfield but moved off to Scotland the following year for the rest of its short life. It was withdrawn and scrapped in 1971 after a scandalously short existence of only six years. SM019-3

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Yards Opposite Top: Mintlaw was one of the intermediate stations on the Peterhead line and for a brief time it was the terminus of the branch, until it was extended to the coast in 1862. The village at that time was only about 50 years old, having been planned and built by the 3rd Laird of Pitfour, James Ferguson. Traffic to its goods yard was primarily coal and agriculture and this justified the pick-up goods stopping there each day and collecting or dropping off wagons. Here BR/Sulzer Type 2, later Class 24, D5070 shunts a 16ton mineral wagon in the yard while the rest of its train remains out on the main branch line awaiting collection. This locomotive dated from 1960 and also had a short working life, being cut up at Doncaster in 1976. The yard closed, along with the line, in 1970. SM389 Opposite Bottom: It has not only been the small country yards that have closed over the last half century but also over this period several huge marshalling yards have seen normal traffic withdrawn. One of these is Whitemoor, near March in Cambridgeshire, which was opened in 1929 and further expanded during the Beeching era as a centralised point where wagonload freight could be sorted and shunted for onwards transit.

There, humps were provided over which wagons would be propelled so that they freewheeled into the correct siding, with their speed controlled by hydraulic retarders, but the abandonment of wagonload freight spelled the death knell for even these modern facilities and so today the yard is used only as a disposal point for rail assets. Awaiting its next turn of duty is one of the ubiquitous English Electric Class 08 shunters which at one time numbered 996 examples but of which only a few survive today, with most of these in the hands of private hire companies or in use at industrial facilities.

Below: On New Year’s Day 1962, at a time when the railways provided a much more comprehensive service than they do today, BTH Class 15 D8228 is seen in the goods yard at Halstead in Essex with the pick-up freight. Halstead station lay between Colchester and Sudbury on the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway and was opened in 1860, closing to passengers the day before this picture was taken and to freight three years later. The yard handled considerable coal traffic as well as the products from nearby mills but most of what was processed there was to be considered uneconomic by the Beeching review. The railway yard is now the site of a Lidl supermarket. D8228 had a life of 11 years, and was scrapped in 1971 after most of the work it was built for disappeared in the Beeching cuts. D764

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Below: Fowey is at the end of a short branch line from Lostwithiel in Cornwall and its yard handled a large amount of china clay traffic destined for sea transport, so much so that by 1923 there were 23 jetties between the station and Carne Point. Trains to this location were often worked by large locomotives such as here, on July 22nd 1960, where ‘Warship’ D816 Eclipse is seen handling a mixed rake of wagons and ‘clay hood’ open wagons. At this time Fowey also had a passenger station but this was to close five years later. Today the line remains, although with much reduced facilities and only one jetty takes rail traffic, although this has been modernised. RCR15174 Opposite Top: Sudbury station today is a one-platform affair at the end of a branch line but at one time it was a through station, leading to the Stour Valley route, and boasted two platforms, a goods avoiding line and an extensive yard. Here Brush Type 2 D5859 is shunting on the line that led to the goods yard and which involved crossing the road at Goods Junction signal box. This ‘box was provided in 1889 and lasted until 1981, long after rationalisation, because it controlled a road crossing. Its functions have since been automated. The original station is now buried under a leisure centre and the new platform is on the edge of the town centre. The locomotive lasted much longer than the goods yard and was withdrawn in 2000 after a working life of 40 years.

D5659 Opposite Bottom: Another remote location on the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway was Birdbrook in Essex, which was opened in 1863 and which displays the smaller type of yard which once served isolated villages all over the country. The single-road goods shed would hold only a few wagons while the location’s importance in bringing in coal for the local population is well illustrated. The village of the same name was almost a mile away from the station but the daily pick-up goods was an important feature of this location for just short of 100 years.

Here BTH Class 15 D8236, a staple of this area, is seen preparing to drop off wagons. Built in 1960 this locomotive lasted for only nine years, and was transferred to the London area after the mass closures of the Eastern branch lines, but was withdrawn soon after. ICA D399

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As well as the private railway at Leiston in Suffolk seen earlier in this chapter, the town also had a gasworks that was railway connected and which had its own separate siding. Interestingly the gasworks was owned by the same people who owned the works railway and it was recorded as supplying the requirements of 40 street lights. The gasworks siding lasted until August 1972 by which time North Sea Gas was being connected to most homes. Here D5662, one of the numerous Brush Type 2s that worked on the Eastern Region, is seen shunting a load of coking coal which would be fired to produce town gas. Many towns had gasworks connected to the railway from Victorian times until the 1960s. D237

Short Formations

Chapter 5 - Short Formations A feature of the pre-Beeching railway was the large number of trains run on branch and secondary lines that were lightly loaded, in part due to legislation that required a service to be provided to every goods yard and station, however small that was, and however little traffic that it generated.

In many cases passenger numbers and freight tonnages had declined to a completely non- economical level, leading to expensive locomotives and crew being provided for perhaps only one coach or a handful of wagons. However, these workings were perhaps some of the most delightful of the post-war era and provided many unusual photographic opportunities, particularly in the short period that they were worked by new diesels.

Aberfeldy station was at the end of a branch line from Ballinluig in Perth and Kinross and at its height boasted a goods yard and goods shed as well as delightful station buildings. A small engine shed and turntable were also provided in the early days. Passenger traffic was always light and in BR days a single coach was sufficient to cope with what demand there was. The station closed in May 1965, some six weeks after this photograph was taken, and the site is now the inevitable car park. BR Derby/Sulzer Type 2 (Class 24) D5123 seems to provide more than adequate power for its very light load as it waits for the off at the station platform. This locomotive was new in 1960, being allocated to Inverness, and was withdrawn in 1977 as 24123. WS7924

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Short Formation

Opposite Top: The shortest trains to run on the network in the modernisation years were the 22 railbuses which were introduced from 1957 in an effort to copy continental practice by reducing costs and providing more flexible timings. The railbuses were limited in capacity and could not run in multiple with anything else and also proved to be very susceptible to frame and bodywork damage and so were unsuccessful. In January 1968 one of the last survivors crosses the Alloa Swing Bridge at Throsk on the Alloa-Larbert route in Scotland. This will be one of 79970/1 as these were the only two of the five Park Royal vehicles still operating at that time. The Alloa swing bridge itself was taken out of use in the late 1960s then fixed in the open position, before being dismantled in 1971, although the piers still remain today. WS9245 Opposite Bottom: Marlesford station, on the line between Framlingham and Wickham Market in Suffolk, was built by the Great Eastern Railway and opened in 1859. With a population of less than 200 and being only two miles from Wickham Market, this location was never going to be popular with passengers and thus closed in 1952. However, the location continued to attract considerable coal traffic and this was sufficient for goods facilities to last until July 1964, although loads were often of only one or two wagons. Shortly before the line closed BR/Derby Type 2, later Class 24, D5040 arrives with a couple of BR standard mineral wagons for the adjacent coal yard. Of interest is the ancient coach body on the platform and the generally good condition of the station, despite it having been closed for ten years. The building has since been converted to a private house while the locomotive was cut up at Swindon in 1977. D841 Above: By the 1960s many branch line trains were composed of only one or two coaches as demand for rail travel declined, and this is the case at Wadebridge in Cornwall on September 8th 1962 where North British diesel-hydraulic Type 2 D6318 is recoupled to its train. Wadebridge station was on the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway and opened as early as 1834, though it was rebuilt and re-sited in 1888 and further extended about ten years later. Closure to passengers came in early 1967 and freight traffic was withdrawn the following year.

Since then the main station buildings have been converted into the Betjeman Centre and the goods shed is in use as a youth club, while a road runs along what was the trackbed. The locomotive didn’t last much longer than the railway itself, meeting its end at Swindon in 1972, and no examples of this class made it into preservation. LN2327

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Short Formation Opposite Top: In their final days the branch lines of Eastern England were provided with expensive new diesel locomotives and diesel railcars, despite there not being the traffic to justify the investment. This resulted in many unremunerative workings continuing such as this one where BTH Type 1 locomotive D8225 has been provided to haul just one goods van and a brake van, a working that would, at that time, have also involved three men on the train, a driver, secondman and a guard, and which would serve stations that were still amply supplied with booking staff, porters and signalmen. The actual location is not recorded but the scene is typical of how many lines in the area looked shortly before closure. D1442 Opposite Bottom: The Great Western Railway pioneered the use of diesel railcars in the UK and constructed a number of different models in the 1930s and early 1940s, with the variant pictured being amongst the last to be built. It was hoped that these very short trains might result in considerable savings on branch lines, and although they achieved this objective these were not sufficient to save the lines for which they were intended.

Here 1941-built W32W is seen at Woofferton Junction, which was located on the Welsh Marches line at the point where the Tenbury Railway joined the Shrewsbury to Hereford route, as the guard attempts to retrieve his lamp so that it can be placed on the other end for the return journey. This photo is dated April 1960 and was taken just over a year before the station closed, and two years before the railcar was scrapped. The through lines remained and are still open today while the station house was converted into private accommodation.

NF032-11 Below: A delightful view of North British Type 2 diesel-hydraulic D6335, later Class 22, as it hauls a Great Western ‘B’ set of two coaches on the 3.50pm Par-Newquay service in the Luxulyan Valley on April 3rd 1961.

This was the second Class 22 to be built with a four-character headcode box, with the batch D6334-57 all having them from new, while older engines had them fitted at a later date. This locomotive had a ridiculously short working life, being built in 1961 and withdrawn in 1968 and subsequently broken up, largely due to a lack of spares support following its builders going bankrupt. The line has fared better and is still open today, although shorn of many fittings such as the railway telegraph poles. PG2498

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Below: Some locations still used locomotive-hauled trains but even in summer passenger numbers were so low that one coach would suffice. On June 18th 1962 BRCW Class 26 D5336 hauls the 10.46am BallinluigAberfeldy at Grandtully, Perth and Kinross, on the Highland Railway in Scotland. This station opened in 1865 and not surprisingly closed in May 1965 after a life of exactly 100 years. Facilities here were very sparse and the station had only one platform which had a wooden building on it. The small goods yard attracted coal and general merchandise. Class 26s were always synonymous with Scotland and this example was no exception and never worked anywhere else, being allocated to Haymarket when new in 1959 and being withdrawn from Inverness in 1993. WS6088 Opposite Top: This view of BTH Type 1 D8202, complete with non-standard end numbers, is unusual in that it shows the locomotive hauling a six-wheel milk tanker and a Gresley full brake, which would doubtless contain milk in churns. This locomotive was allocated to Devons Road depot in Bow, London, when new, which was at that time the first purpose-built diesel locomotive shed but which only lasted from 1958 to 1964 and is now the location for streets of social housing. It was the third member of the ill-fated class and like the others had a very short life, in this case only 10 years. The location of the picture was not recorded but at that time there were daily trains into London from both Eastern and Western England, some of which involved trip workings when they were nearer the capital. D8202 Opposite Bottom: 05-10 Both forms of traction in this picture had very short lives. The DMU is a two-car MetroCammell, often described as a ‘lightweight’ but in fact not much different from the later and more common production series. The cables for the ‘yellow diamond’ coupling system can be seen on the cab front while the skirt under the bufferbeam makes the type easy to identify. The locomotive is another Class 15, D8220, which is on a short goods train leaving the Framlingham branch and is waiting for the Ipswich-bound unit to clear Wickham Market Junction. Today there is nothing recognisable at this location. The branch to Framlingham closed in 1963 and the main line has been singled, while the DMU was scrapped in 1968 and the locomotive following in 1971. D639

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Above: One coach and one van is an easy load for this Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon company Class 33, D6515, which is seen on May 3rd 1961 as it pauses at Sharnal Street station on the Hundred of Hoo Railway in Kent. The station was opened on April 1st 1882 and was originally the terminus of the line but closed to passengers in December 1961 and to freight the following year. A railway line still exists here but it is only a single track which is used for freight, but this has led to calls for the station to be reopened at some point in the future. The locomotive has been luckier than the station as it remained in service, as 33012, until 1997 following which it passed into preservation. LN2142 Opposite Top: Even amongst the single-car, four-wheel railbuses, those built by Wickham at their factory in Ware, Herts, were tiny, measuring only 38ft from end to end and providing seating for only 48 people. One of these, 79966, spent a year working on the Great North of Scotland Speyside line, arriving in August 1959 and being removed in September 1960 after suffering a broken frame. During this time it worked between Aviemore and Craigellachie, but had to be replaced with steam when there was bad weather as it could not cope. It is seen here at Rothes station which had opened in 1858 and which closed in 1968 and which had, interestingly, staggered platforms. Today this idyllic scene has been replaced by an ugly industrial estate and nothing remains of the railway. The railbus was withdrawn in 1963 after a working life of only four years.

GCB670 Opposite Bottom: The railway scene at Thornliebank, East Renfrewshire, has changed a great deal since this picture was taken. The signal box has gone, as have the semaphore signals and the telephone wires which once provided bell communication between signal boxes. The line still exists though and is used by a half hourly service of DMUs serving Glasgow Central and East Kilbride. An unusual working is seen here on June 25th 1964 consisting of ‘Clayton’ Type 1 D8504 and a single coach, which appears to be an officer’s inspection saloon. The ‘Claytons’ were the only low-power locomotives to be fitted with two engines, and had a Paxman unit fitted at each end. Unfortunately, these were very unreliable, leading to the locomotives having a very short life, this one being built in 1962 and withdrawn in 1971. WS7525

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Opposite Top: Although ‘Clayton’ D8504 had a very short life it managed to appear in several unusual photographs, such as this one where it is seen attached to BR Standard Class 3 77005 which is working the Scottish Rambler No 5 brakevan tour which took place on April 8th 1966. The Standard 3 2-6-0s were another example of waste by British Railways, 20 of these locomotives being built in 1954 and all being scrapped within 13 years, this particular example lasting for only 12, although this beat the nine-year lifespan of the diesel. The ‘Claytons’ and the Standard 3s were both primarily allocated to the North-East and to the Scottish Region, meaning that much of their intended work disappeared with the Beeching cuts. WS8491 Opposite Bottom: The Scottish Region ran many short trains in rural areas on lines that inevitably were soon to face the axe. Here, on April 3rd 1965, one of the later batch of BR/Sulzer Type 2 Class 24s, which can easily be identified due to their being fitted with a headcode box, skirts the River Tay near Grandtully with a single coach of the 4.10pm Aberfeldy-Ballinluig branch service. This line was built by the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway and opened in July 1865, being closed a month after this photograph was taken. This locomotive had a long association with Inverness depot, being based there from new in 1960 and remaining there for 15 years until transferred to Haymarket. It was scrapped in 1976, by then renumbered as 24123. WS7927 Above: Another branch line that often produced very short trains in its final years was that which ran from Wickham Market to Framlingham in Norfolk. At its height this line was served by two well-loaded freight trains each day and could generate special passenger trains for the pupils of an adjacent college but passenger numbers dwindled so much that its stations were closed in 1952, with freight hanging on for another 13 years, by which time demand was almost non-existent. In the final months BTH Type 1 D8223 hauls a single coal wagon near Parham and is pictured heading for Framlingham. At one time the line attracted heavy agricultural traffic outwards and was also used to bring in coal, but most of this had been lost to more flexible road vehicles by the early 1960s. Despite the line being under imminent threat of closure the local permanent way gang look to still be keeping things in good order, with the permanent way being clear of weeds and the embankments clear of overgrowth. D1211

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Short Formation

Opposite Top: A similar situation existed on the Mildenhall branch in Eastern England, which ran from Barnwell Junction to Fordham and then onwards to Mildenhall. There had been great hopes for this line as it ran through a rich agricultural area and for a while it was successful but, again, became badlyaffected by road competition in the 20th century. Burwell station in Cambridgeshire opened in 1884 but closed to passengers in 1962, leaving the branch with only a sporadic and lightly-loaded goods service. Here Brush Type 2 D5581 calls at the by-now closed Burwell station with its light load of only two coal wagons shortly before the entire closure of the line in April 1965. This working was part of a Whitemoor-Bury St. Edmunds trip freight, which worked from Barnwell to Burwell on an as required basis. The station site was subsequently redeveloped as a cardboard factory but this was later knocked down and a housing estate built in its place. D5581 Opposite Bottom: The unusual Y-shaped platform at Ballinluig is the setting for BRCW Type 2, later Class 26, D5336 as it awaits departure for Aberfeldy on an unspecified date during 1963. Ballinluig was on the Perth to Inverness main line of the former Highland Railway and opened in June 1863 but closed, along with the Aberfeldy branch, in 1965. Unusually for this period the train is made up of two coaches, as one was usually sufficient to cope with what demand there was. The recess under the driver’s cab window housed tablet catching apparatus and this enabled line tokens to be exchanged without having to stop at each signal box.

D5336 was eventually renumbered 26036 and lasted in service until 1995, being later cut up at Springburn works in Glasgow. LS680 Above: One CCT parcels vehicle and a brake van is hardly a taxing load for BTH Type 1 D8216 which is seen on the approach to Yeldham station on the Colne Valley and Halstead Railway in Essex. Along with the rest of the Colne Valley line stations Yeldham never reached the traffic levels that had been hoped for by its promotors, which was partly due to the local press taking against the company, which was thus forced into administration in its early days. Passenger services ceased at the end of 1961 but freight staggered on until 1965, though often with completely uneconomic levels of load. The railway was torn up shortly afterwards and today a footpath runs through the area. The locomotive met its end at Crewe in 1972, having been withdrawn the previous year. ICA D1136

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Short Formation

Opposite: Between 1958 and 1960 British Railways ordered two series of single-car DMUs for use on lightlyloaded lines and these were later to become Classes 121 and 122. One of these is seen in typical Welsh valley scenery at Blaengwynfi as it works a Treherbert to Bridgend service at an unspecified date in 1963. This station was situated in the upper Afan Valley and originally served a coal mining area. It was opened by the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway in 1890 and closed to passengers in February 1968 due to the tunnel pictured being declared unsafe. The single cars were affectionately known as ‘bubble cars’ after the micro-cars that were popular in the 50s and 60s. This example was built by Gloucester Carriage and Wagon Works and the type, as Class 122, was relatively long-lived, with the last one not being taken out of service until 1994. LS794 Above: It was relatively unusual to see the ‘Clayton’ Type 1s on passenger work, due to them not being fitted with steam heating equipment, but some such workings did occur. On June 25th 1964 D8534 is seen leaving Thorntonhall with the lightly-loaded 5.33pm Glasgow St. Enoch to East Kilbride service. Given that it is on a single-track line it is somewhat surprising to see that Thorntonhall still has a passenger service today and that it is still possible to get from Glasgow to East Kilbride by train. Alas the same cannot be said for the ill-fated ‘Clayton’ which was to enjoy only five years in service, being one year old at the time of this photograph and being withdrawn only four years later. The Scottish Region’s habit of ignoring four-character headcodes in favour of only one number, a 2 to denote a stopping passenger train, can easily be seen. WS7528

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Chapter 6 - Shunting Byways At the height of the industrial era every town and village in the country had its own access to the railway.

In many cases this also extended to industrial facilities, factories, yards and mines with even the most insignificant undertaking seemingly having its own siding. By the time British Railways introduced its Modernisation Plan many of these had ceased to be railserved but there were still enough of them left that literally thousands of diesel shunters were ordered to work them, with many shunters being of the smaller types. Shunting these byways was a time consuming and expensive affair and so it was no surprise that this work soon fell victim to competition from road transport, meaning that large numbers of almost-new diesels had no work to do, thus being consigned to early withdrawal.

Above: The 16-mile-long Derwent Valley Light Railway was unusual in that it was never taken over by a larger company, nor was it ever nationalised. Running between Layerthorpe near York to Cliff Common near Selby it opened in 1912 and closed in sections between 1965 and 1981. Primarily intended for agricultural traffic it also had a sparse passenger service but that ceased in 1926. Attempts were made to reopen it as a heritage railway and steam trains ran between Layerthorpe and Dunnington in 1976-1979 but these failed to attract sufficient custom. Despite the lack of services the stations remained in good condition as can be seen at Elvington where sometime in 1964 British Railways Class 03 D2112 is seen hauling a couple of cement wagons, a van and an ancient four-wheel brake. At this time 03s were hired in to work freight trains but in 1969 the company bought three surplus 04s of its own from BR. D2112 Opposite Top: Another long-closed rural railway was the Wisbech and Upwell, in Cambridgeshire, with this being particularly unusual in that it was constructed to tramway regulations, and this required any locomotives working it to be fitted with side guards and cow catchers to prevent pedestrians coming into contact with the working parts. Opened in 1873 it was worked by Class G15 0-6-0 tram engines, which were later to provide the prototype for ‘Toby the Tram Engine’ in the Thomas books and initially generated considerable freight and passenger traffic. It had specially-designed coaches with end verandas, one of which was later to star in the ‘Titfield Thunderbolt’ film. Passenger services ceased in 1927 and in 1952 the tram engines were replaced by modified Drewry Class 04 shunters, one of which, D2202, is seen ambling along a section of track at Outwell, shortly before closure. The line was taken up in 1966 while the shunter was scrapped in 1968. D2202 72

Shunting Byways

Below: Street running was not restricted to rural areas and there were many other instances where ordinary trains came into close contact with road traffic. One of these was at Weymouth Quay where passengers bound for Channel Islands ferries were conveyed directly to the docks by way of the Quay Tramway. Here, on August 15th 1966 a heavily-laden train proceeds slowly down the line, accompanied by a police constable, and hauled by another Drewry Class 04. The first of the 142 Class 04s was built in 1947 with examples being built by the Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns and there were many differences between individual members. D2295 is from a later batch than the Wisbech engine and therefore has larger driving wheels and an improved cab. Elimination of many of BR’s goods yards meant that these locomotives were disposed of in favour of the later Class 03 and as a result all had gone by 1972. D2295 was withdrawn in 1971 while the Weymouth Tramway finally closed in 1999. D2295

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Opposite Top: Wenford Bridge was the terminus of a lightly-built railway line that ran from Wadebridge, and was intended to carry agricultural produce and quarry products. Later, china clay extraction developed in the area and this was successful in maintaining the railway, with this traffic continuing until 1983. The line was for many years worked by ancient steam Beattie well tanks due to weight and clearance restrictions but these were eventually replaced by British Railways’ standard English Electric Class 08 shunters. Here, on August 3rd 1967, D4166 shunts china clay wagons near the clay dries at the end of the line. This locomotive eventually became 08936 and lasted in BR service until 1992 before passing into industrial use with RMS Locotec. AS W34-4 Opposite Bottom: Before the advent of mass road vehicle movement of goods, many factories and works had their own connections to the railway system. One such was Briggs Tar Refinery in Dundee, which was adjacent to Dundee gas works and which opened in 1931 to process the tar derived from the coal used in gas production. The works railway system required trains leaving the plant to cross a road, with such arrangements being quite common right up to the 1980s. Here Andrew Barclay Class 06 diesel-mechanical shunter D2415 hauls a rake of Briggs’ own tankers from the site, which by this time was also distilling other products, such as fuel oil and bitumen. The locomotive was scrapped in 1968 after a working life of only 10 years while the Briggs plant lives on today as the only place in Scotland where fuel is distilled apart from Grangemouth. SM120 Above: When the first diesels were introduced, they were listed in the 10000 series but it soon became apparent that this would not suffice due to the number required and so a ‘D’ prefix was added, with most being delivered under this new numbering system. Many of the early Drewry Class 04s were put into service with numbers starting with 111, with 11121 being no exception. On March 23rd 1957 this locomotive is seen ambling along the London, Tilbury and Southend line with a lengthy pick-up freight, a duty which must have been somewhat taxing for this little engine. Later renumbered D2215 it lasted until 1969 having been allocated to Stratford for all its working life. RCR10334

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Shunting Byways Opposite Top: The Hunslet Engineering Company supplied 79 0-6-0 shunters to British Railways commencing in 1955, with these being fitted with Gardner power units. These later became Class 05, but all were withdrawn in the 1960s as the requirement for small shunting engines decreased due to the Beeching closures. One of them, D2568, is seen shunting Lowestoft South sidings with a mixed freight train at an unrecorded date, but likely in the early 1960s. The South side docks were reached by a branch from a junction to the East of Oulton Broad South and ran into Kirkley goods station which served a number of businesses, including a cannery and the Co-op. This section closed in 1967 and is today unrecognisable due to redevelopment. Like the yard the locomotive also is no more, being scrapped in 1967. D1294 Opposite Bottom: Southampton Docks had its own extensive railway system and was provided with a unique fleet of diesel shunters to work it. These were the Ruston and Hornsby Class 07s which were speciallydesigned for high power, yet which were able to traverse the severe curves of the dock system. A total of 14 of these were built and one of them, D2997, is seen pushing a single wagon across one of the numerous road crossings that once existed in the docks. Today very little exists of the dock railway system with only one line into the cruise terminal and others to the more modern container port at Millbrook still remaining. As the dock system was contracted the 07s were declared redundant and the last were taken out of service in 1977, including D2997 which happily remains today, having spent 14 additional years with the Dow Chemical Company at King’s Lynn before passing into preservation. D2997 Below: One of BR’s larger shunters, Class 10 D3638, is captured making its way slowly down the very rundown and overgrown remnants of the Kelso branch near Coldstream in Northumberland on July 21st 1970 with what is probably an engineers’ working in conjunction with lifting the line. The double-track branch was opened in 1851 and closed to passengers in 1964 but freight services between Tweedmouth and Kelso continued until 1969, with a single line being retained for this purpose. This class of shunter was similar to the standard 08 but was fitted with a Blackstone diesel engine, but this was not considered to be as successful as the EnglishElectric variant, leading to early withdrawal. D3638 was sold to the National Coal Board in 1970 after a working life of 12 years and was later used on the Ashington system. MM3646

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Shunting Byways Opposite Top: Like Southampton, Aberdeen docks once had an extensive railway system with much of that running on and across adjacent roads. This resulted in some complicated trackwork as can be seen in this view which shows Andrew Barclay Class 06 shunter D2420 hauling a brake van special accompanied by the inevitable police officer on foot. This was likely taken on a dock tour of November 4th 1967 and involved a trip to the electricity works in Milburn Street and also some steam haulage from one of the resident dock shunters.

The docks were changed beyond recognition with the discovery of North Sea oil, and the installation of the services necessary to service that industry, while the Class 06, while generally satisfactory, became a casualty of rationalisation and were all out of British Railways service by 1981. NF275-08 Opposite Bottom: Although the Hunslet-built Class 05s were considered to be well-built and good-looking machines they had one significant drawback, which was the crew access door, which due to its narrow width proved difficult to negotiate for those footplatemen who were of more generous proportions. Here D2575 shunts the yard at Arbroath, which was on the Dundee to Aberdeen line and which was adjacent to the station itself.

The yard boasted a particularly fine goods shed which remained for some years after the yard closed, but this was demolished in 2008. This locomotive was new in 1958 and was initially allocated to Stranraer, and after spells at Thornton Junction and Dundee it was withdrawn in 1968. SM020-3 Below: Guardbridge station was on the St. Andrews Railway and was located near Leuchars in Scotland. Its single platform was used by passenger trains from its opening in 1852 until closure in 1965 while its goods yard served a brick and tile works as well as a paper mill. Goods services continued until 1969 at which point the line was closed completely and today the station site is covered by a housing estate. In those final days Hunslet 0-6-0 diesel mechanical shunter D2575 hauls a rake of mineral wagons past the signal box. This 1958-built shunter started its life at Stranraer depot and remained there until 1967 when it moved to Thornton Junction and then Dundee, before withdrawal and scrap the following year. D2575

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Shunting Byways Right Top: One of the classes of small shunter that had a very short life was the North British built Class D2/10 dieselhydraulic 0-4-0 of which 73 were built for service in Scotland. These were intended for the sort of light goods yard work that was to be eliminated only a few years later by the effects of Beeching’s ‘Reshaping of British Railways’ report. Here, in September 1960, D2754 performs some shunting work at Ravelrig Junction, on the Balerno Loop line on the outskirts of Edinburgh. This junction served various quarries and other industry but these ceased to be rail served in 1963, leaving just the main line which is still in use today and which has been electrified. This shunter was built in 1960 and withdrawn only seven years later. NF059-25 Right Bottom: Another class of shunter that was originally only allocated to Scotland was the Barclay dieselmechanical Class 06, of which 35 were built. D2444 started its life at Corkerhill depot and managed 15 years in traffic, considerably longer than most other of its sisters, by which time it had been renumbered 06010. One of the more unusual duties that this type performed was the adding and removing of buffet cars, which sometimes took place at Aviemore in the Highlands and it is on one of these duties that D2444 is seen, with the locomotive being on the section of line that led to Forres and which was closed in 1965. Happily, a part of this has now reopened as a heritage steam railway, with the rest of the railway yard now being a car park. SM011-7 Left: Class 04 shunters supplied by the Drewry Car Company were used in Norfolk for trip workings from Norwich to Beccles and to Ditchingham as well as between Norwich and Swaffham and Watton, once these lines had lost their passenger services. D2234 is seen here, possibly on the Beccles line, at some point during 1965 with a train of mineral wagons. This locomotive was supplied new to Immingham depot as 11153, but was renumbered as D2234 in 1958. It moved to Norwich in May 1965 and remained there for only 16 months before moving on to Newton Heath in Manchester. It was to become a casualty of British Railways’ desire to cut back on the number of shunters it operated and was therefore withdrawn in 1968 and cut up at Draper’s of Hull. D598

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Shunting Byways Opposite Top: Over a period of time British Railways rationalised its shunter fleet and the decision was taken to standardise on the Class 03 as the standard light locomotive in this category. This was British Railways’ own development of an earlier design from the Drewry Company and a total of 230 were built and it is one of these, D2039, which is involved in a complicated shunting move at Melton Constable Station, having wagons both front and back. This station opened in 1882 and saw passenger services until 1964 and although it served only a rural area it was a very important railway centre, at one time even boasting its own locomotive works. D2039 like many shunters had a short life, in this case of 12 years and 11 months, spending its entire life in East Anglia. D1309 Opposite Bottom: Old Meldrum is a market town near Aberdeen and it received its railway in 1856, although its station was actually some distance from the centre. Partly as a result of this passenger numbers declined rapidly once an alternative bus service became available and the station closed in 1931. Goods services, however, continued on the branch but these were often very lightly loaded, or, as can be seen here, conveyed no paying traffic at all. Services were withdrawn completely in 1965 but there was one surprising survivor which is the station building itself which has since been rescued by the Royal Deeside Railway and has been reerected at Milton of Crathes station. The locomotive pictured, Barclay-built D2414, met its end in 1982 and was cut up at Swindon Works. SM018-4 Below: Typical of the light shunting duties that were intended for British Railways’ new diesel shunters was this yard work at Alloa station in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, where several different types of wagon are being sorted by North British diesel-hydraulic 0-4-0 D2744 for onwards dispatch. These locomotives had only a very limited haulage capacity and thus had no place in the bold new world of block and merry-go-round trains which was to come from the mid-1960s onwards; consequently these engines had a very short life with this example being constructed in 1959 but only lasting in service for just over eight years. Alloa station opened in 1850 and was closed in 1968, although freight continued until 1979. Surprisingly a single line through the site was retained and this enabled a new station to be constructed which opened in 2008, served by trains to Stirling.

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Chapter 7 - Terminus Nowadays a railway terminus is almost always one of our more major stations, at one end or another of a main line, but in the past the end of the line could equally well be in a country field or some other rural byway. The post-war railway contained many such stations, most of which were hanging on to a precarious existence due to competition from road lorries, cars and buses, and almost all of which were losing money at a considerable rate. There were also some large stations that were effectively wasteful duplicates of others in the same town or city and which were an unnecessary luxury. Diesels arrived early enough to be seen at many of these stations, although their reign was to be short-lived as most of these stations closed as a result of the Beeching review.

Above: The East of England at one time contained a large number of delightful branch lines, and one of these was the six-mile route between Wickham Market and Framlingham in Suffolk, which opened to passengers in 1859. Although substantial station buildings were provided there was only one short platform and passenger loadings were always light, leading to services being withdrawn in 1952. Goods traffic was at one time much more significant and this enabled the branch to remain open until 1963 when all services were finally withdrawn. In the final years these were customarily worked by the BTH Class 15s, one of which, D8220, is seen hitched to a couple of wagons in the former passenger platforms. D177 Opposite Top: The extent of the station buildings at Framlingham can be judged by this view, which shows sister Class 15 D8221 preparing to shunt the almost empty yard. There is evidence of considerable coal traffic even at this late date, while the size of the adjacent warehouses gives evidence to the freight traffic which once flowed from this location. At one time the branch even had its own steam engine and a shed for this was provided at this location. Today the station building still exists although this is used as a retail unit, the same is not true of the locomotive which was withdrawn in 1971 after only 11 years in service, and later cut up at Crewe. D248

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Below: There is a complete contrast in traction at Fowey station in Cornwall on July 22nd 1960 as ‘Warship’ diesel-hydraulic D816 passes Great Western push-pull fitted 14XX 0-4-2 tank 1419, which is working the branch service to Lostwithiel. Passenger services were to cease five years later and the station then closed.

Of interest is the complicated station which is on a curve and has platforms serving both passenger and freight requirements. Although this station was a terminus for passenger services, goods trains ran through to the docks beyond, so not all roads were dead end. The ‘Warship’ only lasted until 1972, after a service life of 11 years, while the last of the 14XX tanks, which dated from only 1932 despite their antique appearance, were taken out of service in 1965. RCR15184

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Above: St. Andrews is a famous university town in Scotland which was at one time served by a branch line that ran from Leuchars and across the Tay estuary. This line had been promoted locally and was problematic for maintenance due to the poor standards used in its construction. At the end of the line was an island platform station which had a considerable area of canopy, and this had been provided in 1887 as a replacement for the original, which became the goods depot. Closure came in 1969 and the site was converted into a car park.

Before then passenger loadings could be considerable, as seen in this undated view of BR/Derby Class 24 D5122 awaiting departure with a lengthy passenger train. This locomotive was scrapped after only eight years, having spent its entire life allocated to Inverness, after being involved in a serious accident at Castlecary in which it ran into a DMU, killing its crew. D5122 Opposite Top: On September 5th 1970 a farewell excursion operated to the end of the Peterhead branch, in Aberdeenshire, some five years after the cessation of timetabled passenger trains. Despite the intervening years the station buildings were still in fairly good condition, although there was some evidence of vandalism.

This station had been opened in 1862 and featured a covered trainshed on one platform as well as a partial canopy, but this has all now been swept away and the site is used as a school. The locomotive used for the tour was Class 26 D5307 which was built in 1958 and was transferred to Scotland in 1960, this lasted a total of 18 years in service, being withdrawn in 1977, and was later cut up at St Rollox works in Glasgow. NF301-02 Opposite Bottom: In its prime Peterhead was a very busy station attracting considerable passenger and goods traffic and like many stations in Scotland it was maintained in good order by the staff based there. In happier times the two-coach branch train is seen under the trainshed awaiting departure for Aberdeen via Maud Junction and with North British-built Type 2 D6157 in charge. This locomotive was the last built of the ill-fated class and was delivered in 1960 to Kittybrewster shed where it was to remain for almost its entire life, before spending three months at Aberdeen before being scrapped. Like most of the other members of this class this engine had a very short life, and was withdrawn after just over seven years in service. SM392 86

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Above: In complete contrast to Peterhead was the terminus at Glasgow St. Enoch, which had 12 platforms and extensive facilities, including a substantial hotel. This had been opened in 1876 and at one time offered express services to many parts of Scotland and also to English destinations, via the Midland Railway’s routes. Closed in 1966, its 250 daily trains were diverted to Glasgow Central after which the site was cleared and was later used for the building of the St. Enoch shopping centre. At the platform in June 1966 and just before the station’s closure is BR/Sulzer Class 25 D7614, which must have only been delivered new to Eastfield shed, Glasgow, a matter of days before this photograph was taken. Two years later this engine moved to the Manchester Division and ended its life in 1980 as 25264. WAC Smith 1501 Opposite Top: Another large terminus in Glasgow that was to fall victim to the Beeching axe was that at Buchanan Street, which was opened in 1849 by the Caledonian Railway and which provided services to Aberdeen, Perth and Stirling. Situated next to Queen Street station in the North of the city centre the station was an obvious duplication of facilities and as such was earmarked for closure or redevelopment several times prior to the infamous Beeching report. The end finally came in 1966 with services transferred to Queen Street next door, and the buildings were then demolished and the site redeveloped. Here on May 28th 1961 English Electric Type 4 D334 leaves the station with an up Sunday diverted West Coast postal train, which includes some Travelling Post Office vehicles. This engine was built in 1961 and had a long career, mainly on the West Coast main line, before being withdrawn in 1981 as 40134 and later cut up. WS5393 Opposite Bottom: Amlwch was the terminus of the Anglesey Central Railway in Wales and was at the end of a branch which ran from Gaerwen. Opened in 1867 the compact station had only one passenger platform, which was more than adequate for the light passenger loadings that the branch attracted. On June 24th 1959 a British Railways Class 108 unit awaits departure with a return working to the main line, a service that was to cease some five years later. These Derby-built units, together with their ‘lightweight’ predecessors, were a common feature of the railways of North Wales, with the 108s destined to become one of the longest-lived of the firstgeneration classes, and with the last one not being withdrawn until 1993. Today, although the station is long gone, studies are being undertaken that might one day result in services returning once again. AS F29-1

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Terminus Opposite Top: Showing the recess in its bodywork that was originally intended to house a tablet catcher is English Electric Type 1 D8121, which is shortly to work a boat special from Ardrossan’s Montgomerie Pier station on July 26th 1963. This station was constructed by the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway and competed with the similar facility built by the Glasgow and South Western Railway on the other side of the harbour. The station closed in 1967 but remained intact into the 1970s before being pulled down and the site re-used for flats. On the adjacent line is one of British Railways’ Standard 2-6-4 tanks, 80047, which were to have a relatively short life, being introduced from 1951 when steam was already in its declining years. D8121 Opposite Bottom: Newtyle (Old) Railway station was at the end of the Dundee and Newtyle Railway in Scotland and was opened in 1831. It lasted for only 37 years before being replaced by a new station, which was on a different site, allowing for the by-passing of an inclined section of line. Remarkably the buildings remained in use for goods traffic and this enabled, on April 23rd 1962, and almost a century later, a joint SLS/BLS special to visit it. The special was hauled by BRCW Class 26 D5339, complete with tablet catcher, which was only about three years old at this time. This locomotive was to become 26039 in 1973 and was to last a healthy 31 years and nine months in traffic, being withdrawn in 1990 and scrapped by MC Metals at Springburn. The station building has been luckier and still survives, although the tracks to it were removed in 1964. WS5948 Below: The first diesel multiple units to be built for British Railways were constructed at Derby Litchurch Lane and made extensive use of aluminium for the purposes of weight reduction. Two of these were turned out as single cars for use on the Buckinghamshire Railway which ran from Bletchley to Banbury, and where traffic was not considered to justify a two-car set, with these arriving in 1956. The first of these, M79900, is seen at the ramshackle terminus of Banbury Merton Street on November 26th 1960 with passengers having to use wooden steps to gain entry due to the low height of the platforms. This service was to be withdrawn at the end of that year and the track lifted shortly afterwards, with the site eventually being used for housing. The DMU, on the other hand, survives having spent many years in departmental service before passing into preservation. It is currently on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in Derbyshire. RCR15493

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Opposite Top: Two-car versions of the ‘Derby Lightweight’ were built for several regions of British Railways with many being concentrated in East Anglia and it is one of these which is seen at Cromer station in North Norfolk.

This terminus is at the end of a line from Norwich and is still open today although all of the infrastructure pictured has been swept away in favour of a simple but modern island platform. Although these DMUs were very successful the design was amended some four years after production commenced to include stronger steel cabs and a revised electrical system, with the result being the Class 108. The Beeching closures left British Railways with an embarrassing number of modern DMUs in its fleet for which there was no work and so the decision was taken to scrap the ‘lightweights’ as they did not couple electrically to later builds. As a result, all 217 cars were withdrawn by 1969, with most being immediately cut up, while a small number remained in departmental use. WS902 Opposite Bottom: Another delightful country terminus was that at Edzell, in Angus, Scotland, which was built in 1896 with an eye on the developing tourist trade. It was at the end of a short line which joined the Caledonian Railway at Brechin but which failed to come up to its promotor’s aspirations, with the result that passenger services ceased in 1931. Goods traffic, however, continued and although the main station building was demolished the rest of the infrastructure remained intact until the line was finally closed down in September 1964 and the site later redeveloped for housing. On April 22nd 1962 British Railways allowed an enthusiasts’ special to run up the branch and this is seen at Edzell in charge of English Electric Type 1 (Class 20) D8028, which was new in 1959 and which managed to last for over 31 years in service, finally being withdrawn in 1991.

WS5920 Above: Grangemouth station in Scotland was a single platform terminus, with a very short trainshed, that had been shortened at some point. Passenger services ran from here to Falkirk and so little was the demand in the final years that anyone wishing to travel could be accommodated on one of the little four-wheel railbuses that British Railways ran for a short period in the 1950s and 1960s. Seen on the last day of service on January 27th 1968 is AC Cars-built W79978, which had been transferred from the Western Region in February 1967 and which was to retain its Western Region prefix to the end. By the time of this photo the Scottish Region was seeking permission to withdraw the railbuses and this duly occurred a few weeks later, with the railbus passing into preservation and being something of a bargain as it was less than 10 years old. It is currently undergoing restoration at the Swindon and Cricklade Railway. The station site is now occupied by a warehouse. WS9247 93

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Chapter 8 - On Shed At one time there were over 400 engine sheds in the UK. These ranged from the very large depots that served main line stations and yards to the extremely small one-engine installations situated at the end of branch lines. Although most of these stayed open as diesels began to arrive, closures were soon set in motion as the new traction spent less time on shed and required less servicing once it arrived there.

First to go were the sheds which served secondary lines, for the new diesels could be centralised at larger depots, but then larger installations began to be taken out of service as steam declined and as new purpose-built depots were constructed.

Now even the specially constructed depots have largely been taken out of service and the country has only a handful of installations, most of which provide maintenance facilities rather than merely stabling for locomotives and multiple units.

Above: One of the largest depots on the Western Region was that at Old Oak Common, which at one time serviced all the motive power requirements for the Paddington area. Opened in 1906 the depot had four turntables with each having 28 tracks and an 11-road repair shop served by a traverser. It was reconstructed as a diesel depot in 1964 and performed this function until 2021 when it was finally closed and the site given over to the construction of HS2. Seen in one of the shed roads is Class 52 diesel-hydraulic D1003 Western Pioneer which spent most of its working life at Laira but which was allocated to Old Oak Common for two years up to 1964. Built in 1962, this locomotive lasted until 1977 when it was scrapped at Swindon. D1003 Opposite Top: In complete contrast to the sprawling depot at Old Oak was the little shed at Fraserburgh in Scotland, which stood immediately next to the station and which could house only two locomotives. Built in 1865 the shed was used to house engines overnight and for basic servicing and it also had its own turntable.

Surprisingly it remained in use right into the diesel era as is seen here on July 21st 1964 when it is being visited

by BRCW Class 26 D5315, a locomotive that was to last some 32 years in service, not being withdrawn until 1991, by which time it was renumbered as 26015. Fraserburgh shed still exists in other uses, although it has had no railway tracks to it now for more than 40 years. D5315

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Below: Although more commonly associated with Scotland, the first 37 of the North-British built diesel-electric Type 2s, later Class 21, were originally delivered to the Eastern Region, with allocations sent to Hornsey, Stratford and Ipswich. Due to reliability issues they were soon packed off North and this one, D6118, was no exception. It is seen here on Stratford shed on April 30th 1960 when less than a year old and only four months before transfer to Eastfield depot in Glasgow. It was condemned in 1967 and scrapped. Stratford depot itself was opened as early as 1840 and was to become the premier depot of the Great Eastern Railway, having 550 locomotives allocated to it at its height in the 1920s. Following dieselisation the site was gradually run down as more trains were turned over to multiple unit working with closure eventually coming in 2001.The site was then used for the construction of the new international station on the HS1 line. AS H67-1

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On Shed Left Top: Perhaps the most spectacular failure of the modernisation era and certainly one of its greatest wastes of money was the British Railways/Paxman Class 14 locomotive, a design that was intended to replace the Western Region’s pannier tanks on light goods duties on rural branch lines and secondary routes.

Unfortunately, no one considered that while these locomotives were being built the work for which they were intended was being steadily removed from the network with the result that many of them had nothing to do when they eventually appeared. D9519 was a typical example, being built at Swindon in 1964 but then being withdrawn after a miserably short service life of just short of four years, a fate that was to befall most of the other 55 members of the class. It is pictured at Pontypool Road shed in May 1965, shortly before the shed itself was closed. D9519 Left Bottom: Shots of the D2/10 Class of 0-4-0 shunters are not plentiful due to their short life, and also limited area of operation but a photograph of three of them together is most unusual. Here D2710/12-13 are seen at Dundee West shed awaiting their next turn of duty.

These were amongst the first batch of these shunters and were delivered to Dundee Tay Bridge new in 1957, then numbered 11710/12-13, but being renumbered in 1961. All were to have quite short lives and were broken up when they were barely 10 years old. Dundee West shed was to become the area’s primary diesel shed but was closed down in 1980 and the site has since been completely cleared of all evidence of the railway. SM31-28-29 Right: Another of the small classes of the shunter that were not common was the Andrew Barclay Class 06 0-4-0, one of which is seen being shunted at Ferryhill MPD in Aberdeen with the motive power being provided by North British-built D6106, which had by this time been fitted with a Paxman Ventura V12 engine in an effort to improve its reliability, leading to its being reclassified as a Class 29. It looks as though the shunter has arrived for repairs as its side rods have been removed, which was common practice as it allowed this type of locomotive to be conveyed for attention within normal freight trains. The Class 29 was scrapped in 1972, the shunter joined it in 1973 and the depot itself closed in 1988. SM273

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Above: Ferryhill depot had originally been built in 1850, and housed only two engines, but by 1882 it boasted a 230ft long shed and turntable along with a fitter’s shop. More buildings were added in 1907 including the long shed seen in this view. The first diesels arrived in 1958 and by 1966 the depot catered only for this form of traction One of the classes synonymous with the depot is the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company’s Type 2, later to become better known as the Class 26, two examples of which, D5308/17, are seen here awaiting their next turn. Both of these engines were originally allocated to Hornsey on the Eastern Region but were transferred to Scotland in 1960 and remained there for the rest of their working lives, latterly numbered 26008 and 26017. SM313 Opposite: The sad sight of two of the unloved and short-lived ‘Clayton’ Type 1s vandalised and parked up pending disposal at the former Ardrossan North shed in September 1972. D8531 and D8548 had both been allocated to Polmadie but were condemned in 1971 when only a mere eight years old. By this time most of the class were stored out at various locations while the scrapyards struggled to deal with them and this included the former Glasgow and South Western Railway shed seen here, where the stored members of the class suffered badly at the hands of local youths. At its peak this location held 28 ‘Claytons’ but these were all cleared

by November 1972 when the locomotives were towed back to Polmadie and were then sent onwards for disposal. Ardrossan North shed had been closed for some years and had become a popular dumping ground for redundant rolling stock but was otherwise derelict at this time. SW9829

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Chapter 9 - Demolition Although there had been some closures before the railways were nationalised, the bulk were to come as a result of the Beeching Report which recommended a drastic pruning of the system.

It was ironic that many of the diesels, that had been intended to turn round the fortunes of the railway, were instead deployed to assist with the dismantling and destruction of routes that had closed.

Although many lines were lifted by British Railways itself and therefore used whatever main line traction was available, some were lifted by private contractors and employed their own locomotives, probably the first and last time that an independent item of motive power had been seen at most of the locations. In some cases also, diesels were to make their one and only appearances on lines that had formerly been all steam.

Above: The railway line between Bangor, Caernarfon and Afon Wen in North Wales was once a vital route for bringing in tourists and for connecting the local population but despite its usefulness it was to become a victim of the Beeching closures, with the last trains running in December 1964. Today there are calls for this route to be re-established, although this would be problematical as part of it has disappeared under road improvements and the section between Caernarvon to Dinas is now utilised by the 1ft 11.5in gauge Welsh Highland Railway.

Here BR/Sulzer Type 2 D5018 is seen at Caernarfon Town recovering track shortly after the line closed. The locomotive was to be luckier than the railway line on which it is operating for it was to last for 16 years in service, finally being withdrawn as 24018 in 1975. KN1132 Opposite Top: Gatehouse-of-Fleet was on the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway in Scotland and was opened in 1861. Its location, at six miles from the town it was supposed to serve, meant that it was very vulnerable to losing trade to alternative means of transport and this proved to be so as motor vehicles became more widely available. As a consequence, the station closed in 1965, along with the rest of the ‘port’ line, with the station buildings becoming a house. The last rites were performed by English Electric Class 37 D6856 which is seen hauling a train load of recovered materials during track lifting operations in 1966. This engine was to enjoy 35 years in service, being finally withdrawn in 2000, before being cut up at Wigan. NF277-34 Opposite Bottom: Another North British product that turned out to be not particularly successful was their Type 1, later Class 16. Only 10 of these engines were constructed, with the performance of their Paxman engines being particularly criticised when measured against other designs. All of them were allocated to Stratford after a short period at Devons Road, Bow, but none lasted for longer than 10 years. Here one example, D8405, is seen in March 1965 hauling a short train that is being used to dismantle the remains of Widford Station on the Buntingford Branch. This little station had been opened in 1863 and only ever had one platform and a small signal box that controlled access to a cattle and goods siding. Little trace of the railway now remains at this location and no examples of the Class 16 have been preserved. D8405 100

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Above: Scotland’s railways were decimated by the Beeching cuts, with over 650 miles of track being culled, which in turn led to hundreds of diesel locomotives and DMUs being sent for scrap. At one time Balquidder in Stirling was the junction of the Callander and Oban Railway and the Comrie, St Fillans and Lochearnhead Railway but it closed in September 1965, slightly before it should have done due to a landslip on the through route, with lifting taking place soon after. The site of the junction was used for a time to store track panels that had been recovered from further down the line and which were destined to be dismantled. Here North British Type 2 D6119 hauls another load of rail wagons to the temporary yard, in what was probably one of the last movements over this section of line. NF259-20 Below: The same train was pictured as it made its way eastwards between Kingshouse Halt and Strathyre on its way to pick up more materials. This area, which is rich in scenery, has been devoid of useful public transport ever since the railway closed, with much of the land it occupied now taken up with either tourist caravan sites or housing. One interesting feature of the railway remains at Strathyre, which is a statue of a stork that once stood on the station and is now in a nearby private garden. D6119 lasted longer than most of its classmates, receiving a Paxman engine in 1967 and becoming a member of Class 29. It was withdrawn in 1971 after a life of just over 12 years. NF260-01

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Not all railways were dismantled by British Railways itself, as in some cases private contractors carried out the work, as seen here at Glassel station on the Deeside route. This station served Glassel House and a scattering of local farms and was opened in 1859. It closed in February 1966, with the entire line between Aberdeen and Ballater following a few months later, Dismantling took place in 1970, with the contractor using various locomotives built by Fowler and Hunslet to haul the materials away. The Hunslet engine company had been very early on the scene with diesel traction and this shunter is a typical example of the company’s products which first appeared in the early 1930s. NF299-34

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Chapter 10 - A Second Life While the 1960s was to see the loss of a third of our railway system, the decade was not all bad news for it also marked an explosion in the number of heritage railways, most of which were founded with the intention of recreating the era of steam.

Many of the lines that had closed were taken over as complete railways while others had to be relaid from scratch, as British Railways had torn up the permanent way. Over the following 20 years further schemes were added, with some of these taking over lines that had survived Beeching but which had only been used for specialist freight to a specific location.

Most heritage railways now fully embrace the use of diesel traction as well as steam, meaning that for some locations lines that would have been lost are now being worked by diesels which also could have been lost for ever, had it not been for the efforts of the preservationists.

Above: Okehampton, on the Dartmoor Railway in Devon, has an almost unique distinction of being a location that was closed, then operated as a heritage line, which then itself closed, before being taken back into state ownership and hosting regular passenger trains once again. Opened in 1871 as a stop on the Exeter to Plymouth route it closed in 1972, only to reopen as a heritage railway in 1997. This operated until 2019 when its owners went into administration and gave up the lease. Since then, it has become the terminus of a rejuvenated public service that runs two-hourly from Exeter, although today only a single line remains. On January 2nd 1965 ‘Warship’ D815 Druid calls at the station with a Plymouth to Brighton working while a steam locomotive simmers in the adjacent goods yard. PG4013 Opposite Top: Although today’s Dartmoor Railway is a fairly basic single-track affair, in its heyday the route was a main artery into Devon and Cornwall and as such most of the stations were provided with fairly substantial facilities. North Tawton is around eight miles from the Dartmoor junction at Crediton and in this view, taken on July 25th 1964, hosts D6342, one of the Western Region’s diesel-hydraulic North British-built ‘Baby Warship’ locomotives, which is on an express passenger train. For a while heritage services did pass the site of the station on their way to Bow, and today the two-hourly main line DMU service also passes this way. D6342 was to have a working life of only six years, being built in 1962 and withdrawn in 1968, while the station buildings and all around them were lost when the track level was raised some years ago. RCR17683 104

A Second Life

Below: Today Bodmin General station is the headquarters of the Bodmin and Wenford Railway, which runs heritage services to Bodmin Parkway and to Boscarne Junction but on July 14th 1961 it was a thriving part of the national network, boasting extensive goods facilities as well as its own engine shed. North British Type 2 D6317 is running round its short passenger train, which is standing on the station’s one and only platform, while to the left can be seen the large number of goods wagons that were once needed to serve this area’s requirements.

Passenger and freight services were withdrawn in 1967, although the line was used by china clay traffic from Wenford until 1983, after which it was closed. Heritage services commenced nine years later. Although the station remains the locomotive was scrapped in 1969 and no example of this type now exists. RCR16085

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Above: Seen at the rear of a Manchester-bound freight train at Rowsley in Derbyshire is British Railways Type 2 (Class 25) D7552, a member of a most successful class, many members of which were to achieve more than 20 years in service. This particular locomotive was built as late as 1965 but was not withdrawn until 1986, by which time it had been renumbered as 25202. After Rowsley the line climbed 600 feet in 14 miles and therefore many trains required banking engines. The original Rowsley station closed in 1967 but today Peak Rail occupies a site just to the South of the original, and which is the terminus of its line from Matlock and is its main depot and workshops. Over the years there have been many schemes to rebuild this line as a through route, but as yet none have come to fruition. D7552 Opposite Top: Peak Rail trains currently run into Matlock station on one platform while East Midlands Trains uses the other as the terminus of its services from Derby. On what is now the Peak Rail platform one of the Class 45 ‘Peaks’ that at one time dominated services on this line calls with an express service, likely for Manchester. Introduced in 1960 the ‘Peaks’ were built by British Railways at Derby and Crewe works, and handled top-link expresses on the Midland main line until 1982 when High Speed Trains took over. All were taken out of service between 1981 and 1989 and 11 have survived into preservation. Matlock station was opened in 1849 and became a terminus in 1968 when the line through Miller’s Dale was closed. Peak Rail extended its operation into the station in 2011.

Opposite Bottom: The extensive carriage sidings at Low Moor, near Bradford, are passed by Class 25 D7571 on August 1st 1969 with its train of vans and parcels cars. The locomotive is leaving the Lancashire and Yorkshire’s Spen Valley line, which was closed in 1965, although a single track was retained until 1981 to allow freight to access Healey Mills marshalling yards, near Ossett. This site was then selected for development of the council-run ‘Transperience’ transport museum, which was to have included a tram track on the Spen Valley line, and which opened in 1995 at a cost of £11.5m but which closed two years later with debts of over £1m.

The site was later sold to a property developer and is today an industrial estate. A new station was built nearby on the Bradford-Halifax line and this opened in 2017. D7571 was withdrawn in 1986 and cut up at Swindon the same year. MM3618

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Opposite Top: Witton-le-Wear station, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham, exists today on the Weardale Railway, although the current platform is on the opposite side of the track and is a simple affair with no buildings. This branch used to serve several villages in the Wear Valley but closed to passengers in 1953, remaining open only to serve a cement plant at Eastgate until 1993. A heritage railway project reopened the line starting in 2004, and in 2016 commissioned a new station at Witton-le-Wear as the original had by then been demolished. The line changed hands in 2020 and a further period of disuse then occurred. There are plans, however, to reinstate a public passenger service over this section of line. On July 4th 1969 English Electric Type 3 D6770 passes the remains of the station with empty cement wagons for the Eastgate site, and will return later in the day with a full train. This locomotive was to survive for almost 34 years and was not taken out of service until 1996, by which time it had been renumbered as 37070. MM3608 Opposite Bottom: On September 1st 1969 Class 25 D7534 rumbles through Shackerstone station, with a freight train of assorted mineral wagons. This was on the line of a railway jointly owned and operated by the London and North Western and the Midland railways and which ran from Moira West Junction to Nuneaton. Opened in 1873 the station was closed in 1965 but a sporadic freight service lasted until 1970. That same year the Shackerstone Railway Society took over the site and they commenced heritage operations three years later.

Nowadays this is the headquarters of the thriving Battlefield Railway, which runs heritage trains from Shackerstone to Shenton, a distance of just over four miles. D7534 has not been so lucky as it was cut up at Swindon in 1984, after a service life of over 18 years. MM3470 Above: The preservationists had originally planned to start their operation at the next station down the line, Market Bosworth, but in the event Shackerstone was found to be more suitable. However, the station did survive and is today served by heritage trains, which use the former platform two, which has had replacement buildings, while the original buildings on platform one are now in non-railway use. On September 13th 1965 two BR/Sulzer Type 2s, D5259 and D7548, pause with a lengthy mixed freight while the crew prepare to shunt what remains of the station yard. D5259 was built in 1964 and was to meet its end at Vic Berry’s Leicester yard in 1987 while 1965-built D7548 was to last until 1986 and was to be scrapped in the same location. MM3046

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Above: Two sections of the former Great Central’s London extension have been turned into heritage railways, with one being based at Loughborough and the other at Nottingham. However, the two come within a short distance of each other at Loughborough and a project is under way to join both together. The point at which this will take place is at the rear of this photograph, which shows English Electric Type 3 D6744 at the head of a Bournemouth to York express in the final days of the line’s use as a through route. This section of track survived as a single line spur off the Midland main line to serve a Ministry of Defence depot at Ruddington and also a Gypsum plant at East Leake before passing into preservation. D6744 was later to be renumbered as 37044 before receiving modifications and ballasting as a freight locomotive, after which it became 37710. It was not withdrawn until 2008 but existed until 2021 before scrapping commenced. MM2158 Opposite: Although heritage trains have not yet reached Grantown-on-Spey in the Highlands of Scotland the Strathspey Railway has a realistic chance of realising its aspiration of making the small town the terminus of its line from Aviemore. It is not planned to use the original station, which is now an industrial estate, but to build a new one just outside the town. This section of line was once the main route between Aviemore and Forres and was used by Anglo-Scottish trains prior to the building of a more direct line via Slochd summit. It reopened as a heritage railway from 1978 and is now ten miles long, completing its journey at Broomhill. On October 8th 1965 English Electric Type 1 D8030 hauls a very mixed rake of goods and parcels stock and has just departed from Grantown-on-Spey East station. This engine was renumbered 20030 in 1973 and was withdrawn in 1990.

D8030

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Today Churston station in Devon is the thriving engineering base of the Dartmouth Steam Railway but from 1868 to 1963 it was the junction for the Brixham branch, as well as an important stop on the line from Kingswear to Paignton. The lines through here were originally to Brunel’s broad gauge but were converted to standard in 1892. Even in British Railways days the line was busy, particularly in the holiday season, and was used by many long-distance services, as in this picture which shows ‘Western’ Class 52 D1052 Western Viceroy calling at the station with the up ‘Devonian’ express on May 9th 1967. Five years after this was taken BR cut services back to Paignton and sold the railway to the Dart Valley Railway company. After a 12-year career D1052 was scrapped at Swindon works in 1975, having covered well over one million miles in service.

D1052 J T Clewley

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Lost Diesels, Lost Lines Evan Green-Hughes

When British Railways replaced steam engines with diesels in the mid-1950s the new traction was brought into use on a system largely unchanged since Victorian times. The situation was to radically change within a few years as the Beeching cuts decimated the network, in the process removing the duties for which many of the new diesels had been intended. As a result many of the smaller or more unsuccessful classes were removed from the network and prematurely scrapped, in some cases even before the end of the steam era. This book celebrates those lost classes and the lost lines on which they once operated.

Lost Diesels, Lost Lines

ISBN 978-1-913251-22-2

£14.50

Evan Green-Hughes