Western Times Issue 2 Preview

Contents Introduction

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Moretonhampstead in 1955

by Gerry Beale

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Locomotive Miscellany from the Archives of R C Riley Castles by the Sea

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Winchester Booking Hall May 1911

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The Scottish Twins

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Experimental Motive Power: The Crocodile

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Remembering (bits of) the MSWJ

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The GWR and Wagon Pooling

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Colwall New Tunnel

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Book Review

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Home with the Milk

by R C Riley

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Modernising the Western: Part 2 - Laira and Plymouth (North Road) Modern Traction

by Paul Cooper

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The GWR Traffic, Locomotive and Engineering Divisions: Part 2

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The Humble Distant Signal with due acknowledgement to Peter Squibb Partners with Planes

by Amyas Crump

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The Great Western Trust (GWT) - Bulletin No 1

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The Guard’s Compartment

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CASTLES BY THE SEA Another member of the class to be fitted with a double chimney late in its career (May 1959) was No 5032 Usk Castle, built May 1934 and withdrawn September 1962. On Friday 18th July, the engine was bereft of Train Reporting Number and headboard but Dick Riley recorded this Up service as “The Devonian” (TRN 563, 8.45 am Monday to Saturday Kingswear-Bradford). The train consists of eleven coaches, apparently all BR Mark 1s of which all but two are in maroon livery. The locomotive had been transferred from Stafford Road to Newton Abbot in April 1958.

R12332

The “Torbay Express” was another prestige service, the Up working of which was captured on 17th July 1958 (11.25 am Saturdays Excepted, Kingswear-Paddington, TRN 521). The motive power was No 5034 Corfe Castle of Old Oak Common, built May 1935, and withdrawn September 1962. It had been fitted with a double chimney as recently as February 1961. The train is an orderly rake of nine BR Mark 1 coaches, all in the post-nationalisation version of chocolate-and-cream but lacking the variety so typical of many Western passenger services. R12322

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Crossing the River Fleet Bridge, the only major permanent way structure on the branch, No.1649 climbs the final approach to The Mound branch platform with a typical mixed train formation comprising an ex-LMS Period 1 Corridor Brake Composite (Dia.1755) and a pair of 12T vans. 1 September 1959. Douglas Twibell (3-7).

No.1646 on arrival at Dornoch in the capable hands of regular driver Tom Fraser on 1 September 1959. He was to have the sad duty of operating the final passenger train on the branch just over nine months later on 11 June 1960. Douglas Twibell (3-13).

ISSUE 2

Opposite top: One of the ‘short’ workings referred to above. In this case, a service from Swindon to Savernake and the former Low Level station is in the hands of a grimy pannier tank although small prairies were also regularly seen on these turns. The train is running ‘wrong road’ through the platform but which was common practice here on the local down workings.

Opposite bottom: The same engine as shown on Page 31 and probably the same train, this time recorded at Marlborough – the former Low Level site. On the opposite platform the children are sitting outside what was the ‘licensed’ Refreshment Room. After closure this hostelry remained open for some time being popular in a part of Marlborough otherwise bereft of a drinks establishment. Years later the former landlord would take every opportunity to berate Dr Beeching for the closure of the line, notwithstanding that 1961 was a full two years before publication of the Beeching Report! Graham Smith courtesy Richard Sissons Above: A personal favourite with one of your editors even if in later years. Savernake Low Level (west end) with a Hymek diesel stabled on the short engineer’s siding that ran off the Up Berks and Hants (Extension) railway on the trackbed of the former Marlborough branch. The history of Savernake and its railways convoluted and indeed Tom Sands referred to it as ‘Savernake – a railway crossroads’. The first railway at Savernake was the Berks & Hants Extension railway from Hungerford to Devizes in 1862. This was followed in 1864 by a branch to Marlborough from Savernake. Then in 1881 the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover company opened their line from Swindon as far as Marlborough where a junction was made into the Marlborough branch to reach Savernake. On the east side of Savernake, the SMA continued an independent route through to Andover from 1882. Relations with the GWR however were not good and the result was an independent line from Marlborough running to the north of the GWR branch and then an independent station at Savernake. Here what was the nominally independent Marlborough & Grafton railway linked in with the original SMA route to Andover. The connection between the GWR and SMA at Marlborough being severed and only an interchange siding for goods being left at Savernake. Amalgamation of the companies involved (excluding the GWR) resulted in the MSWJ. There matters rested until post grouping when all was absorbed into the Great Western. In the 1930s the two independent routes between Savernake and Marlborough were combined with all passenger traffic being concentrated at a single station in each town.

After this further rationalisation slowly took place resulting of course in eventual closure. In this view the line of trees running mid way through the image left to right indicated the course of the former M&G (MSWJ) railway. The signal box was appropriately Savernake West and lasted until the introduction of MAS in the late 1970s. Behind the signal box the line can be seen to drop away, indicatng the presence of the Kennet & Avon canal which passed under the railway at this point.

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BOOK REVIEW Pannier Supplement No 1 by the Great Western Study Group (No ISBN) - £3-00 (plus UK p & p £1-00): Corrections to A Pictorial Record of GWR Coaches Part One (1838-1913) and A Pictorial Record of GWR Coaches Part One (1903-1948) By JH Russell (Oxford Publishing Co) The reviewer can still recall his surprise and delight on discovering Part One of Jim Russell’s classic in a well-known bookshop in Charing Cross Road almost 50 years ago. That and the following volumes remain constant companions, providing a mass of information about a previously under-recorded element of GWR history. However, the jumbled layout is not always “user-friendly”, necessitating detective work to match up photographs, drawings, lot numbers etc before embarking on the next modelling project. This booklet’s introduction includes an explanation on how this may have come about, and then proceeds to list corrections on a page-by-page basis.

Some address straightforward errors e.g. Part One P133 “Drawing 89. Error in last line of text. K9 were numbered 1062-3 only. 1064-5 were K10.” There is also helpful information such as an explanation of the different underframe types used with Toplights (Part Two P63). Further, Part Two (P128-133) dispels the impression given by Russell that the express articulated sets initially worked as complete trains; apparently twins and triplets were invariably distributed in rakes of conventional coaches and examples are quoted of the duties on which they were employed.

There is a tantalising note regarding Part Two P267 stating that telegraph code names for coaching stock must be treated with caution as they were subject to change, and that this will have to be covered in a separate supplement. This is eagerly awaited.

Despite shortcomings, Russell’s volumes were a monumental achievement. They are now complemented by this useful publication which is clearly the result of much assiduous research, thus forming an essential point of reference for any serious student of Great Western coaching stock. Strongly recommended.

See http://gwsg.org.uk/

Have you had a book on the GWR published recently? If so we would be happy to provide an objective review. Speak to your publisher and ask them to send a copy to the address on Page 2.

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HOME WITH THE MILK………R C RILEY he late Dick Riley was a supremely gifted T photographer and his work has appeared in a number of books launched by Transport Treasury

that this was nothing out of the ordinary the next day a "County" was piloting a "Castle". For most of my journeys in the West Country that summer the W.R. had seldom provided anything better than a "Hall", so the milk's privileged treatment seemed to warrant investigation.

Publishing, including Western Times. He was less well-known as a writer but this account of his investigations into the operation of West Country milk trains shows that his literary talents matched his competence with a camera. The article set out below first appeared in Trains Illustrated in 1959; it is presented here verbatim.

On the Western Region, milk trains work up to London from Penzance, Wellington (Somerset), Weymouth, Whitland, Carmarthen and Wootton Bassett, each train making several intermediate stops to attach further milk tanks, and in some cases to shed them. The more I looked into them, the more complex seemed the milk train workings, so I decided to concentrate my attentions only on the traffic from the West Country. Penzance was the best place to start my enquiries, for two trains leave there for Kensington at 12.20 p.m. and 6.20 p.m. each weekday and at 12.35 p.m. and 5.40 p.m. on Sundays. The importance of milk traffic need not be stressed, and it was not surprising to learn that throughout the footplatemen's strike of 1955 a milk train was worked up from Penzance each day. That one train, doing the work of two, must have taken some haulage, because the milk y

HOME WITH THE MILK by R. C. Riley. First published in Trains Illustrated – March 1959 Our milkman is a jovial character, but not one given to yodelling at the customers on his round. Only the resounding "clonk" of bottles advises us that a couple of pints have been left on the doorstep.

Their delivery on time was one of those everyday features of life that I took for granted until one day, when I was standing on a Devon station, an up milk train caught my eye. As a train it was rather dull just a string of dirty-looking tanks and a brake but the motive power commanded attention. That day two "County" class 4-6-0s were in charge, and to show

Circa 1929 publicy image showing the number of individual churns (300 + 10 gallons in each), that could be accommodated in a single 3,000 gallon milk tanker. The date is significant as this was two years before the introduction of the 6-wheel tank wagons to Diagram O35, built in September/ October 1931. The location is not given but from the backscape it would appear to be a suburban/ semi-inductrial unloading dock at an existing milk depot. The tank appears to be of the 4-wheel type, soon found unsuitable for milk traffic. Its ‘hunting’ movement at speed tended to turn cream laden milk into butter, hence the move to a 6-wheel underframe. Despite introduction of milk shipments in bulk, short distance movement using the type of churn seen here or those of conical shape was never entirely eliminated.

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MODERN TRACTION..…..PAUL COOPER t the time Paul Cooper took these photographs, A he was a management trainee based at Paddington and his position enabled him to make

turned out, he did not continue his career long-term with BR (WR) but Paul was able to make use of some of his time enjoying these charismatic machines in the best way possible.

footplate journeys with Class D1000. As things

Opposite: An unidentified Class 52 heads the 1400 hrs Paddington-Swansea on the approach to Twyford on 18 March 1972 (this is a compressed 350 mm telephoto shot which distorts the perspective).

Above: Class 52 D1068 Western Reliance is being prepared between turns at Ranelagh Bridge on 1 May 1970.

Right: Class 52’s awaiting their next turns at Ranelagh Bridge on 1 May 1970.

On the left is D1020 Western Hero and on the right D1068 Western Reliance.

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THE GREAT WESTERN TRUST (GWT) - BULLETIN No. 1

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he Trustees are delighted and grateful that the Editors of WT have invited GWT to contribute to this new journal, to explain our purpose, facilities and from our Collection, offer primary source examples to give fresh insights into less well studied aspects of both the GWR and BRWR as transport businesses and their social and commercial impact upon the UK.

across the Railway Centre site, relevant buildings to display our cartage vehicles for better interpretation of the wider transport services the GWR & BRWR once provided.

In Bulletin No1, we should briefly explain GWT, and in future we can then concentrate on exploring our Collection and its insights. Full details are on the Didcot Railway Centre website under Explore; Small Artefacts Museum; Great Western Trust Museum & Archive.

Security of the Collection is ensured through the Trust and affiliated GWS bodies, being bound into the Full Accredited M u s e u m s t a t u s achieved by D i d c o t Railway Centre.

The Trust (Charity 289008) was created in 1984, by the Great Western Society (itself a Charity) this year celebrating its 60th anniversary. This was in recognition that the GWS’s Collection of locomotives and rolling stock and buildings at Didcot Railway Centre, gave only one perspective on the achievements and products of the GWR and BRWR. The Trust very specifically was to own, care for and give public display and study access to all things that were not 4 ft 8 ½ inch or even Broad Gauge operable. Rather a very wide canvas because we range over ALL the GWR & BRWR transport spheres and constituent and joint undertakings. The Core Collection is physically very large, very wide-ranging, and by pure coincidence principally (but not exclusively) spans up to the 1977 D10XX demise, as does WT!

We illustrate one GWR and one BRWR item, reflecting that to run a vast railway business, demanded effective administration and skilled personnel.

First, an official Secretary’s Office internal letter regarding staff attending “Railway Salesmanship Classes”. Beyond its 9th August 1939 date with WW2 declaration imminent, “Session 1939-40” illustrates that this was an annual course of substance. Selling its transport services, was its core activity. If its key staff lacked such awareness, custom would be lost or new custom denied.

Our Collection is focused upon our GWT Museum & Archive building within Didcot Railway Centre, comprising a modest Display Room, coupled to a more recent climate controlled Archive Store Room within our Annexe which also has a Reading/Study/ Conservation room. Our future objective is an Exhibition Hall worthy in scale for the Collection we have, and

Second, to prove consistency of need, we have this February 1963 WR booklet “On Becoming a Manager”. All 8 pages could be republished today, as it really is a clear, concise template for, we quote, “…the first command of men and affairs of British Railways…”

We believe that both GWR and BRWR organisational administration will reward scrutiny.

Peter Rance - GWT Trustee & Collection Manager.

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