BLUE PULLMAN RESURRECTED!
Carl Watson
WALES & BORDERS NATIONALISED
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THE RAILWAY WORLD – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
www.railwaysillustrated.com
CLAYTON EQUIPMENT
Aiming Higher
New for e Futurerton Wolv rks Wo Model Spot
Taunton Cider Traffic
Britain’s Depots – Coalville RHTT 2020 season UK action Salisbury Sojourn – chasing Cromptons Second bailout for Transport for London
GBRf 2021 tour passenger debut for Class 69
JANUARY 2021 £4.80
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Contents
EDITOR: Mark Nicholls CONTRIBUTORS: Mel Holley, Evan Green-Hughes, Ian Furness, Mark Hare, Al Pulford, Andrew Watts, Alistair Grieve, Colin J Marsden, Paul Biggs, Ian McLean, Bill Pizer, Martin Loader, Gavin Morrison, Pip Dunn, Gordon Kirkby, Paul Shannon and Simon Bendall.
Regular 3 Welcome
32 Steam News
DESIGN: Daniel John Design ART EDITOR: Kelvin Clements PUBLISHER: Tim Hartley PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Dan Savage
6 Headlines
42 Pictorial
10 News
60 From The Front Coach
EDITORIAL ADDRESS RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED magazine, Mortons Media Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ WEBSITE: www.railwaysillustrated.com EMAIL: rieditor@mortons.co.uk
16 Fleet Review
70 Traction Action
22 Heritage News
73 Railwayana
28 What’s Happening To…? 74 Reviews
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7
FEATURE RHTT 2020 Action
RHTT 2020 Action FEATURE
RHTT 2020
FEATURE Clayton – Building on success
Clayton – Building on success FEATURE
LEFT: To improve adhesion and eliminate contaminated railhead conditions the seasonal RHTT diagrams have been in autumnal action. In East and West Sussex such workings are formed by Multi-Purpose Vehicles. In appalling conditions MPVs DR98978 and DR98928 approach Goring by Sea on the Coastway West line with the 0553 Horsham to Horsham via Brighton and Hastings on October 27. (John Vaughan)
Action
Undergoing testing at Wirksworth on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in April 2019, the first of five Clayton CDB90 hybrid locos for Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant. The final two, which were placed as an additional order, are due to be delivered next year. (Clayton)
BELOW: Colas Class 66s no 66846 and 66850 pass Flax Bourton heading towards Bristol Kingsland Road on October 22 with the 3S59 RHTT diagram during a return trip to Weston-super-Mare. (Stuart Kirkby)
F
rom a site on an industrial estate in the leafy suburbs of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, Clayton Equipment Ltd supplies locos to customers all over the world. When I visited, virtually every inch of shop floor space was in use and work was being carried out for four separate customers. Narrow gauge mining locos, being assembled for shipping to buyers in Canada and Peru, were dwarfed by one of Tata Steel’s new standard gauge hybrid shunters standing alongside them. “If you go back in time to, say, six years ago, our business was probably 80% export and 80% mining. Now it’s 80% shunting or hybrid surface rail and 70% UK, so there’s been a big market shift,” explained Clayton’s Managing Director Clive Hannaford. “The first one we really pushed was Tata. Since then the market has just gone exponential and the interest and demand for our product is great. That’s what’s driving things at the moment.” J
BELOW LEFT: DRS Class 57/0 57002 Rail Express, with 57003 on the rear, passes through a very wet Needham Market on October 21, with the 3S60 0900 StowmarketStowmarket via Shenfield. (Keith Partlow) BELOW RIGHT: Colas Rail Class 56 56087 heads up the Lickey Incline on October 10 powering the 3S32 22:37 Gloucester Horton Road to Cheltenham Lansdown Loop Via Craven Arms, Evesham and Bromsgrove; 56105 is on the rear. (George Browning) MAIN PICTURE: On a cool autumn October 2 morning DRS Class 37/4 37423 Spirit Of The Lakes powers through Habrough near Grimsby working the 3S13 Wrenthorpe Sidings to Grimsby Town RHTT; 37402 was on the rear. (Nick Edmonds) RIGHT: DRS Class 37/4 37425 Sir Robert McAlpine/Concrete Bob, with 37422 on the rear, passes through Stowmarket on October 21 with the 6Z86 1605 Dereham to Stowmarket RHTT maintenance run. (Keith Partlow)
Clayton
A
lthough the pattern of Rail Head Treatment Trains is pretty much unchanged from 2019, the traction used certainly is. Most notable is the absence of Direct Rail Services Class 20s, with the operator standing them down after years of regular use and employing Class 37s instead on the Yorkshire RHTT circuit that the ‘Choppers’ had previously dominated. In Scotland some additional locohauled sets have been used instead on MPVs, but elsewhere Class 57s, 66s, 73s and even 68s have been pressed into use. The 37/4 Growlers in particular have been very popular, with DRS having lost the past few years’ passenger turns and also work on Network Rail infrastructure monitoring trains. We present a pictorial feature of some of the 2020 season’s workings.
38 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021
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38 RHTT 2020 Action
Although best-known amongst enthusiasts for its British Railways Type 1s, Clayton Equipment has a reputation as a global supplier of specialised locomotives. As Graeme Pickering explains, more staff have been recruited and a bigger factory is planned due to demand for its hybrid machines.
January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 39
46 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021
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Building on success January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 47
46 Clayton - Building on success www.railwaysillustrated.com
MAIN PICTURE: East Midlands Railway Class 180 180111, now in full purple and white livery, pulls away from East Midlands Parkway on October 22 with the 5Z50 0951 Etches Park to Etches Park via Leicester training run. (Paul Biggs)
THE £100K
CHALLENGE
Robin Leleux details the winners of the 2020 event.
Alex Fisher charts the history of the small depot at Coalville, once a vital part of the BR freight network.
*
Coalville
Background
The Midland Railway took over the line in 1845 and extended it through to Burton upon Trent in 1848. The MR’s three-track building replaced a couple of smaller single-track engine sheds at Coalville in 1890. It was a typical MR design and post nationalisation its allocation consisted mainly of 3Fs and 4Fs, along with a few 8Fs. The shed’s roof was re-clad in corrugated asbestos sheeting by British Railway’s London Midland Region in 1959 and at the time it had 24 resident steam engines.
Coal formed the majority of the shed’s work, along with a modicum of passenger trains that served the line and its intermediate stations. Drakelow Power Station was a real boon to the line and its A and B generators were commissioned in 1955 and 1959/60 respectively. Work on Drakelow C began in 1962 and, after two years of construction, electricity generation began in 1964. With a prodigious amount of coal to be transported, a new but shortlived manual box was opened to control the east and west junctions into the power J
MAIN PICTURE: Class 56s 56052 and large logo 56036 stabled at Coalville on April 17, 1979 alongside Class 47/3 47357. (Rail Photoprints/John Chalcraft)
FOR CAF NEWP ORT
*Closing date May 4, 2020
THE RAILWAY
AD IS DE S FRO Gro FRANCHISCOINNCGESS IONw leMr1 at
WORLD – PAST,
Closing date September 6, 2019
PRESENT AND FUTURE
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APRIL 202
• 37025 Histo ry • Class 37 Land cruise
60
G Prevala iew 2020
Model Spot
A subscription to Cavalex Steel
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Recreating late 1990s
ern ter Shed North 70 Years of Leices Museum PLU d’s White S head e effort Irelan visits a UK-wid My signal box abandons Blackpool Spanish Class Grand Central
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Central Black pool training s Viaduct Coronavirus begins - a major thre at to railways
Class 37s
offers great savings on cover price. See pages 56 and 57 for details.
FRONT COVER: Built by Clayton Equipment Snowdon Mountain Railway hybrid loco No 14 Glaslyn performs a commissioning run up the mountain on August 13, 2020. (Snowdon Mountain Railway)
Coalville BRITAIN'S DEPOTS
A
WIN! An SVR Driver ExperieDiesel Royal Ope ning nce
PRESENT
76 Nation Rail Heritage Awards
76 Britain’s Depots – Coalville
t the turn of the 20th century the collieries of the Coalville area, which relied upon horse and carts for transportation to Leicester and Swannington, were losing out to those of Nottinghamshire, which came by canal. A railway line was required for which William Stenson, a part owner in a local colliery, surveyed the land between Leicester and Swannington in 1829. With the backing of George Stephenson, the finance was raised and the line opened on July 17, 1832.
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strated.com www.railwaysillu
Network Rai
BRITAIN'S DEPOTS Coalville
484S IOW CLASSPE TAKE SHA AND FUTURE
THE RAILWAY
MAY 2020 £4.80
Clayton Equipment has a reputation as a global supplier of specialised locomotives. Graeme Pickering investigates its plans for the future.
ING HELPIDON ALYC
£4.80
46 Clayton – Building on success
David Ratcliffe and Simon Bendall looks back at the Taunton Cider traffic and the latest Heljan Cargowaggon model.
IBE AND R S SC
E AV
A pictorial look at the 2020 Rail Head Treatment Train season.
64 Model Spot – Taunton Cider traffic
NOVEMBER 2020
38 RHTT 2020 Action
SU B
Features
BLUE PULLM AN RESURREC TED!
Carl Watson
WALES & BOR DERS NATIONALI SED
THE RAILWAY
WORLD – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Commons
CLAYTON EQ UIPM Aimin ENT g Higher
New Future for Wolverton Works Model Spot
Thirty years ago, one of BR’s smallest traincrew depots ceased to be. Coalville, on the Leicester to Burton upon Trent line, had been a busy place handling mainly coal trains, but with a declining coal industry and BR becoming ever more business focused in the era of Sectorisation, it was closed on October 1, 1990. Alex Fisher looks at the BR outpost during its time as a diesel depot.
Taunton Cider Traffic
PLUS
Brit ain’s Dep RHT T 2020 ots – Coa lvill e seas Salisbur y Sojo on UK action urn – chas Seco
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76 Britain's Depots - Coalville www.railwaysillustrated.com
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WHY NOT TAKE OUT A SUBSCRIPTION? ing Crom nd bailout for GBRf 2021 tou Transpor t for ptons London r passenger debut for Cla ss 69
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January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 5
PICTORIAL
42 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED January 2021
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PICTORIAL Looking the part, complete with standard ‘RHTT grime’ livery and an appropriate ‘50A York Leaf Busters’ headboard, DRS Class 37/4 37423 top and tails the South Yorkshire/ Lincolnshire RHTT diagram with 37407 as it approaches Retford heading for Lincoln on November 3, 2020. (Nick Green)
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January 2021 RAILWAYS ILLUSTRATED 43
ENDOFPREVI EW
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