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TOC FOCUS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

HULL TRAINS

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Hull Trains (HT) open access operation, which has just successfully completed a £60million fleet transformation.

Chris Milner meets managing director Louise Cheeseman and looks at the company’s origins, its development, and some of its future plans.

Hull Trains managing director Louise Cheeseman.

ESPITE being a city with a population of slightly more than 250,000, Kingston-upon-Hull, to use its correct name, had just one through inter-city passenger service to and from London in 1999.

Hull is famous for its cream-coloured public telephone kiosks, its City of Culture status in 2017, being the birthplace of slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce, aviator Amy Johnson and actor Sir Tom Courtenay, as well as being a key North Sea port.

Railways arrived in the city in July 1840 when the Hull & Selby Railway Company opened a terminus at Humber Docks, extended services to Bridlington in 1846, before opening a new terminus, Paragon station, in 1848. As was the case in Victorian times, the railway blossomed and connectivity widened for Hull.

In the mid-1960s, BR ran two trains each way on weekdays from London to Hull, with journey times ranging from 3½ hours (on the Hull Pullman) to four hours. By the mid-80s,

Anglia Railways, with GB taking an 80% stake, and the entrepreneurs 10% each.

Granted a four-year track access agreement by the ORR, operations began on September 25, 2000, using four three-car Class 170/2s ‘borrowed’ from Anglia. They operated three services per day, calling at Brough, Selby, Doncaster, Retford (some services initially, now all) and Grantham.

In less than two years, the ORR had extended the track access agreement for 10 years, allowing some positive future planning.

Today, Hull Trains has access agreements until 2029, having been granted a further 10 years’ rights last December.

Steady growth on the three services led to a fourth being added from December 2002, followed by a fifth in May 2004 and a sixth a year later. Today that total has increased to seven daily services.

As demand has grown, so has the need for more trains. Soon after the operation began, the then Strategic Rail authority changed its policy over allowing assets for a franchise to

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there were still two trains, but journey time for the fastest train had been cut to three hours thanks to use of InterCity 125s and improved line speeds.

Looking at the winter 2000 timetable, for London passengers, there was just GNER’s 07.05 Up and 17.20 Down ‘Hull Executive’, with a fastest journey time of 2hr 39min. At any other time a change at Doncaster was necessary on a journey to or from the capital.

With the single through train clearly aimed at business people, there was scope for an entrepreneurial operation under open access rules.

Partnership

Enter former BR managers John Nelson and Mike Jones. In 1999, they lodged an application with the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) to begin an open access operation between Hull and London under their Renaissance Trains business.

The pair formed a partnership with GB Railways, which at the time was running

be used by an open access operator. This led to an order worth £14.5m for four three-car Bombardier Class 170s – Nos. 170393-396 – delivered from March 2004 with a brand new livery.

Use of the ‘170s’, as it turned out, didn’t last long. In August 2003, First Group bought GB Railways for £22m and ordered four four-car trains from Bombardier, based on the ‘Voyager/Meridian’ Class 22x, already in service with Virgin and Midland Mainline, which would be called ‘Pioneers’.

Above: Diverted because of engineering work, ‘Paragon’ No. 802301 passes Beggar’s Bridge, near Turves, on January 19 with the 11.19 Hull-Cambridge working. TOBY RADZISZEWSKI Below: Hull Trains ‘Paragon’ set No. 802301 passes Rossington with 1A93, the 10.33 Hull-London King’s Cross on December 11, 2019. GEOFF GRIFFITHS

‘Pioneer’

These sets – Nos. 222101-104 – arrived onwards from spring 2005, and with a 125mph top speed and faster acceleration, cut around 20 minutes off journey times.

Hull named the sets after ‘a modernday pioneer’ with links to city. They are: George Grey, Professor of Organic Chemistry, University of Hull, instrumental in developing materials which made liquid crystal displays; Professor Stuart Palmer, who led a team

Hull Trains bi-mode No. 802304 passes under the Humber Bridge, just west of Hessle station, on March 11 with the 15.08 Hull-King’s Cross train.

ALL PICTURES: CHRIS MILNER UNLESS STATED

applying ultrasound to the diagnosis and monitoring of osteoporosis at University of Hull; Dr John Godber, playwright, writer/ director of Odd Squad (filmed in Hull), and artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre Company; Sir Terry Farrell, architect, MI6 building, The Deep Aquarium (Hull) and Beijing South and Guangzhou South stations.

After an incident at Crofton maintenance depot in January 2007, which resulted in No. 222103 falling from the jacks and two vehicles being substantially damaged, new vehicles were built.

The set was out of traffic for two years, and in the interim a hired-in Class 86 and Mk3s worked between Doncaster and London on selected days.

Use of the Class 86 lasted three months, and in April 2008, two Class 180s were drafted in from sister company First Great Western – one to use, one as a spare.

Eventually, HT switched all its services to ‘Adelantes’, with the ‘Pioneers’ moving to East Midlands Trains to work their new Corby services.

Use of ‘Adelantes’, with their extra carriage, has since been the mainstay of Hull’s

operations, although the sets have not been without problems, as will be mentioned later. Now replaced by new bi-mode trains, the ‘180s’ have followed their ‘Pioneer’ predecessors and at some future point will work services between London and the East Midlands.

In June 2008, the company was rebranded as First Hull Trains, adopting FirstGroup’s corporate blue, pink and white colours; an adapted version of the scheme is still in use today, but the ‘First’ moniker was dropped in 2015.

No subsidy

Running a rail service under open access terms means the company takes the full commercial risk. It gets no subsidy for running trains and has no financial protection, so it is an operation that has to make money to succeed.

Being open access allows scope for innovation, personal touches often said to be lacking in the prescriptive franchise regimes.

Small things can go a long way to win the support and custom of a passenger.

Hull Trains is a small company too, headed by managing director Louise Cheeseman. The company has just 126 employees, 51% are April 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 21

TOC FOCUS PAST HULLTRAINS FLEET

‘Turbostar’ No. 170394 passes Balderton, near Newark, on April 22, 2005, forming the 06.18 HullKing’s Cross. ROBIN STEWARTSMITH

Replacing the ‘170s’ were the ‘Pioneers’. Here, No. 222103 (which later fell off jacks) calls at Retford on June 16, 2005 with the 15.33 from Hull.

ROBIN STEWARTSMITH

‘Adelante’ No. 180111 speeds north past Frinckley Lane, north of Grantham, on May 23, 2019.

female and so are many of the drivers who have risen through the ranks. The majority of the executive team are female, too.

The rise for Louise though, in what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry (but changing fast), is one of remarkable achievement, and a journey that others can aspire to.

From Louise’s perspective, the rail industry needs more women and more equality. “I sit in a room full of guys and I’m sure they’ve all been to university, and as I haven’t, it can be quite intimidating at times.

But that just makes me even more determined to show them what we can do here at Hull Trains, what we can offer.

“I want us to be trailblazers for trends.

I want us to be trailblazers as an employer for diversity. But equally, I want us to be trailblazers, to be really unique in the industry and offer little bit extra, something a bit more special, where people will want to travel with us. It’s not just about price, it’s about quality, the experience.”

Back in 2000, Louise was a single mum with no qualifications, but wanting to support her daughters through university, so she applied for a job as a guard with Northern Rail. Despite scoring the highest of the other 25 candidates she was bluntly told “it’s no job for a woman.” Fighting her corner on why she should get the job at a time when there was little equality, the recruiter said “he’d give her three months.”

Not only did she succeed in what can be a tough, public-facing role, after seven years Louise was a conductor team manager, and later became safety standards manager, based in York.

Moving to Newcastle, Louise took a role as operations delivery manager, before being asked in 2012 to move on secondment to the Docklands Light Railway on its Olympic delivery plan. The secondment became a permanent appointment of more than three years during which she supported Serco’s bid for Sydney Light Rail and later the Dubai Metro.

Returning to the UK in 2015, Louise worked for Manchester Metrolink, before joining Hull Trains as service delivery manager in 2017. It was a homecoming for Louise, born and growing up in Hull, and less than a year later she became managing director. With an impressive career path, it is not surprising Louise is often asked to talk to schools and colleges about career choices and the importance of considering the rail industry – something students often dismiss.

Last summer, there were times Louise could be found on the platform loading bottles of water onto a train, “because we have to,” she says.

She’s a firm believer of ‘walking the job’, helping colleagues on the front line when short staffed, and it’s a managerial trait that commands far more respect than being unapproachable in an ivory tower.

“I used to be a guard for seven years. So when people try and say to me, you don’t know what it feels like to be on a train full of football supporters or race-goers, I absolutely do.

“I’ve been a woman on my own and sometimes in very challenging situations, but it’s really helped me to understand what my people do at four o’clock in the morning or midnight, what that feels like and the need to get people – passengers and staff – home safely.”

Today, Hull Trains is a far different company than it was, and that exciting transition has taken place in the past six months. Gone are the troublesome ‘Adelante’ units which generated so much bad press because of their reliability issues. Problems hinged around engine failures and an exhaust problem which was creating a lot of heat.

Louise explains: “It’s been well documented that the ‘Adelantes’ were a challenging unit to maintain. We lost a couple of units and with it the resilience of contingency. There was negativity from the customers, from the press and from some of our key stakeholders. I know how impacting it has been on the people involved “These trains are renowned in the industry for just generally being very complex. There’s a lot to learn in them and there’s a lot hidden so it’s hard to get to things.

Problems

Set No. 802301 waits at platform 2 at King’s Cross on December 15 to depart with the 18.48 to Hull.

22 • The Railway Magazine • April 2020

“Often, if something needed replacing, it was a case of dropping an engine and then putting it back up again only to find another problem such as a leak, and having to drop it again. Every time you touch something, you could end up damaging something else!

“I’ve always been really clear these problems are not one person’s fault, it’s something that we work through collaboratively with our stakeholders and with our maintenance providers, and it was a tri-party agreement. So rather than finger pointing, my approach has always been very much collaborative.”

She continues: “You know, this is only going to get better by working together and getting that message across to the teams into different parts of the business.

“The problems were a shame as from a customer point of view, the ‘180’ gives them everything they want – space, comfort, they’re bright and airy. They were a good product and customers did like them, but ultimately

The driver of the 15.08 Hull-King’s Cross on March 3 sits in the cab running through various checks before departure.

customers want to get from A to B reliably and punctually. In the end, we did get the sets to a much better place, but it did take a lot of effort.”

Clearly proud of her Hull roots, Louise acknowledges the city isn’t particularly well known in terms of visitor numbers or tourists compared to York 30 miles away, but to have ‘Hull’ on the side of a train in the setting of King’s Cross is huge for its population. It’s a sense of identity and everyone in Hull Trains is proud of it, she tells me.

Appointed managing director in February 2018, it quickly comes across in our interview how much of a people person Louise is. “As MD of the business, it’s a massive weight of responsibility to get back to where it deserves to be, what the people of Hull deserve to have as a business.

“A lot of the work I had to do was to go out and try and educate councillors and MPs, Lords, and some of the really big influencers in the city about what it means to be open access and what’s the difference to a franchise.

“People asked why we couldn’t get another train. It’s trying to make them understand there’s some real benefits to open access, in terms of how we can be innovative, but equally, when things aren’t going quite so well, it isn’t that simple just to go out and get another train.”

At the height of the problems with the ‘180s’, Hull took on a surplus HST set from sister company GWR, and that wasn’t without its difficulties.

“We introduced an HST, which you’ll know, is not that simple. We had to gauge the route, we have to familiarise drivers and on-board crew, but also there’d been incidents with slam door stock.

Education

“Our customers had never used slam doors and sadly a person was killed just as we were introducing it, so we had to do a whole piece around education. Using the HST ultimately saved us more than 300 cancellations, but introducing that one train with all the effort

Graphics on one end of the ‘Paragon’ sets show London landmarks.

involved, not many people understand how hard that was.”

While an HST was being prepared for introduction, efforts were being made to resurrect the Class 180 fleet, and plans were also being made for the introduction of the new Class 802 bi-mode trains, so there was a focus on several fronts simultaneously.

Working long hours is nothing new for Louise and her hard-working team, especially when Class 180 reliability hit rock bottom.

“There were many occasions where we’ve worked through the night, working on plans trying to get trains ‘off deck’. But I think that’s probably one of the key differentiators for us. Most of our people here are from Hull and incredibly proud to work for Hull Trains.

“We don’t get a huge turnover of staff and they’re very proud of the brand, so to get the negative feedback over fleet problems did hurt.”

There’s mutual respect between staff and management. Louise acknowledges her team frequently go the extra mile when the situation

Trailer coach graphics show intermediate destinations, such as Selby, Howden and Brough.

April 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 23

TOC FOCUS demands. In return, she makes sure staff can view their family as a priority, and are able to take time off so as not miss a school sports day or Christmas nativity play.

“It’s two three hours out of out of our time, but if I need them to do anything when things go wrong, they never disappear.”

At the time of writing, Hull Trains had four of its new ‘Paragon’ bi-modes in service.

It’s slightly more than three months since the first ‘802’ began working between Beverley, Hull and London, and they are beginning to revolutionise performance figures for the company.

Punctual

From one of the poorest performing operators because of the troublesome ‘180s’, Hull Trains is now one of the most punctual of longer-distance operators. However, like any operator, punctuality can be impacted by a train or infrastructure failure, and sadly, a fatality.

Leading the charge into a new decade for Hull Trains are its five Hitachi bi-mode Class 802 trains. They were ordered in September 2015 and built at Pistoia in Italy at a cost of

£60m. The first was introduced to service in December, and by early March, four sets had been accepted.

Calling the units ‘Paragon’ not only means ‘something which is the very best’, it also reflects Hull’s history. Paragon Street is opposite the station, with the Paragon name being adopted when the new terminus opened in 1848.

Today, the station and the nearby bus terminal are known as Paragon Interchange, though it would be nice for ‘Hull Paragon’ to appear as such on timetables. Louise says the name of the fleet aligns perfectly with the company’s core values.

Planning for the new trains was a complex business, with the contract for the trains having been signed before Louise took the MD’s position. Early in the process she visited Hitachi’s factory in Italy, which was building the AT300 model trains. One of the reasons Hull chose ‘802’ included the rescue ability between ‘Paragons’ and the LNER ‘Azumas’ on the East Coast Main Line.

“When I went to Italy, one of the first things I did was sit in a seat because I’d heard all the comments about the seats,”

Louise recalls.

“I’m tall and when I travel by air I have to put a leg either side of the seat in front, so the seats was one of the first things I tested. In fact there was a gap between my knees and the seat in front, and on a modern transport, train or bus, that’s a bonus.

“As for the delivery of these trains into service there was no plan, what colours they were going to be, or what the interior would look like. So for me what was absolutely critical for business and our Hull Trains culture was to get peoples’ opinions – from the external colour to the colour of the carpets, seats, tables, walls, everything.

“We ran it past people in the business, and said ‘what do you think?’, ‘Do you like this colour?’, ‘Do you like that colour?’. We’d give them five pieces of carpet and say ‘what does everyone think?’.

“The culture of this business is all about the people here and their engagement, so when it first arrived, it was their train, it was the train that they’d designed and it was the first time they’d ever seen it.

“So in terms of the interior and the colour of the seats, it was agreed among us all, and the selections blended together. We also wanted to be a bit different to sister company TPE, which is having some of the same bi-mode trains. Their colour scheme is blue, so we were mindful we had to be a little bit different.

“My aspiration for this business is to be the number one train operating company in the UK and people will choose to use us not just on price, but on the product and what they know they will get. And when you hear the name Hull Trains, the first thing that springs to mind is quality.”

When the first ‘Paragon’ was shown off to staff at Paragon station, it was an emotional occasion as some people shed tears; that’s how much the new trains meant to them personally.”

After the trials and tribulations of the ‘Adelantes’, here at last was a train with proven reliability and one to give the business a strong foundation.

Consistency

Above: The First Class section in Coach E, with its 2+1 seating style. Below: The standard Class in Coach B. Inset: The main socket and USB charging point between a pair of seats.

24 • The Railway Magazine • April 2020

Louise adds: “With a state-of-the-art fleet, we can say ‘what’s our plan for the next three years’ because we’ve got that consistency, we’ve got the reliability, and it gives us the opportunity to build this business and grow it.

“When it comes to the on-board catering offer, we’ve specced it up more. For example, we’ve had different sandwich companies coming in and sharing the sandwiches with the head office staff and getting opinions.

“We’ve done a crisp test, putting lots of different types out for staff, but not saying which was which. We’ve also spent money employing a company that would detect a different demographic of customers, inviting retired passengers, students, families, to the Station Hotel in Hull where we gave them various menu samples, found out what they liked, what they didn’t.

“For us, this was our big opportunity to reinvent ourselves and to put behind us all the problems that we were better known for at the time.

“It’s almost like drawing a line under the past. I want people to fall in love with Hull Trains again. For us, it’s a new beginning, an

Making the station call at Grantham on March 3 is ‘Paragon’ No. 802304 with the 07.53 Beverley-King’s Cross. Despite a late start, the service was right time at Grantham, partially helped by the superior acceleration of the sets.

amazing opportunity and how many other training, a TPE Class 802 was used. companies can actually say they’ve got brand Louise explains: “For us it was a challenge new fleet?” because we’ve only got 32 drivers, 22 onThe new trains have a greater capacity than board managers and 32 on-boars hosts and the Class 180s they replace, with 60 additional we’ve got to run trains at the same time as seats, and will provide an extra 5,500 seats per driver training. It was a real challenge to put week. together a roster that would allow us to still Carriages A and E (First Class) have be able to run services and yet undertake the accessible toilets, while coach B has space for driver training as well. cycles. One coach, D, is a composite, with 18 “As part of the process, we introduced an first and 58 standard class seats. Passengers instructor role which we hadn’t had before. get at seat charging points, free wi-fi, an atSo at any one time, we’d have three drivers seat trolley service and an even greater choice training, two in the classroom and one practical and improved quality of hot and cold food. handling.”

Feedback from passengers so far has been very Even before training began, Hull Trains positive. arranged with Hitachi for an ‘802’ to visit the Another change is services will use city so staff could take a look around it and get platform 7 at Hull instead of platform 2.

For Louise, it’s more than seeing Hull Trains as merely a train operator serving the North Riding of Yorkshire. She views the company as an employer and educator, a business which supports charity, offers locally produced and sourced products, such as gin, chocolate and pies.

The company supports the city pantomime, works closely with Hull Children’s University and takes groups of them to London several times per week. The company will also provide rail tickets for women who need to escape from violent partners. an idea of what was in store.

In respect of local produce, Louise says: I asked Louise about the impact the “With these trains, you’ve the attention of 250- ‘Paragons’ had started to make. “Comparing 350 people for two and a half hours, and I’m MTIN (miles per technical incident) to the saying to local businesses and producers, if other Class 800 fleets, I think we’re top at the you want to impress them with a product from minute.”

Hull, bring it on board and we’ll do it for you.”

She also adds that the trains are maintained When it came to staff training for the at Bounds Green depot, which was taken over ‘Paragons’, the decision was for drivers to get

by Hitachi last year. familiar using simulators in Bristol first before An external design feature of the ‘Paragons’ driving the real train in a two-week traction is the multi-coloured graphics below the training session. window, showing destinations and nearby Louise brought in Northern’s former places of interest or iconic buildings, structures safety and standards manager Steve Pugh, and or features associated with destinations served. because sister company GWR had completed So if HT changes its future stopping its training plan for the bi-modes, Hull took patterns then the train graphics can be easily their plan and adapted it. For the practical adapted.

“For us, this was our big opportunity to reinvent ourselves and to put behind us all the problems that we were better known for at the time.”

One of the small things the company has done is put battery packs on trains so passengers can recharge mobile phones if they’ve left chargers at home. They also have connecting cables, and for Louise, it’s an inexpensive win.

Another open access operator on the ECML is Grand Central, with trains from Sunderland and Bradford to London. Louise says the two companies work closely together, and at times of disruption, carry each others customers.

The new ‘Paragon’s’ are expected to grow the business even further, so there is scope for adding a sixth vehicle. As more and more new houses are built along its route, with scope for commuting, the company is working with local councils and looking at where it can expand car parks.

In the background, the company is now looking at how best to utilise its fifth train; one opportunity is to run peak-time services as 10-car trains. Other options under active consideration are extra services, particularly weekends, and HT is also looking at opportunities for additional services during the week, in particular a working arriving in London before 09.00.

Along with these extra train aspirations in the three-year business plan, there is the possibility of serving new locations and the aim of expanding the fleet further.

Still awaiting the outcome of the Williams Review and the future of rail at the time of my interview, Louise has pragmatic views. “I think we just need to get back to basics. Whatever the Williams review says, it has to benefit the customer.

“We’ve got to get customers falling back in love with rail, but the industry needs to work together better, as it did for Storm Ciara travel advice.”

In 20 years Hull Train has come a long way from three services with a three-car DMU, but there are clear signs the operator is not resting on its laurels and wants to expand and attract more customers.

■ April 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 25

EAST COAST HSTs

East Coast memories

A look back at the changing face of HST operations out of King’s Cross to the North and Scotland.

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HE arrival at King’s Cross of Nos. 43206/312 at 15.09 on December 21, 2019, having worked from Leeds with LNER’s farewell special, marked the end of an association between HSTs and the London terminus that lasted more than 41 years – longer than either the A4 steam locos or ‘Deltics’ appeared in regular service on the East Coast Main Line.

Six days previously, Nos. 43257/318 had departed with the last booked working for an HST from the station,

the 1D30/19.35 King’s Cross-Leeds (see page 15). Coincidentally, No. 43257 had, under its previous identity of No. 43057, also been used on the first such working over 40 years earlier.

It was on March 20, 1978 that a HST formed a timetabled train out of King’s Cross for the first time. On the day in question, power car Nos. E43057/061 formed the inaugural working on the East Coast Main Line, the 1S12/07.45 King’s Cross-Edinburgh, returning later that day with the 1E20/15.00 Edinburgh-King’s Cross.

Although HSTs had already been running on the East Coast for more than two years when this shot was taken, original-liveried power car No. E43066 was still new enough to cause excitement amongst the young enthusiasts at Darlington on August 27, 1980.

The writing is on the wall for HST dominance on the East Coast route at Thirsk on August 13, 1988, where an unidentified set in Executive livery speeds south as masts for future electrification go up.

Intercity Swallow grey/white livery took over from Intercity Executive grey/yellow, as shown by Nos. 43102 and 43049 respectively at King’s Cross on February 2, 1988.

18 RAIL EXPRESS February 2020

This was not the first HST into or out of King’s Cross with people on board though, as just under 12 months earlier on April 26, 1977, Nos. W43040/041 had worked a press special to Peterborough and back. A few weeks later on June 13, 1977, Nos. W43052/053 (set 253026) arrived on a one-way private charter from Gleneagles, conveying dignitaries from the fourth Commonwealth Heads of Government conference. The set had run north from Old Oak Common the previous day, stopping off at Heaton for refuelling.

The same pair of power cars also worked a Lea Valley Railway Club charter from King’s Cross to Edinburgh and back on July 23, 1977, marking the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and raising money for the Prince’s Trust. This was the first HST out of King’s Cross that members of the general public were able to travel on.

The Privatisation era started a series of new liveries, beginning with GNER navy blue in 1996 – as worn by power car No. 43096 at Inverness on July 26, 2000 after arriving with the down ‘Highland Chieftain’ from King’s Cross. The Class 47-hauled overnight sleeper to Euston is on the left.

EAST COAST HSTs LIVERY CHANGES

HSTs settled down as the main traction out of King’s Cross through the 1980s until electrification of the East Coast Main Line, which reached Leeds in 1988, York in 1989 and Edinburgh in 1991. The bulk of the East Coast fleet was cascaded elsewhere following the introduction of Class 91s and Mk.4 sets, but a number were retained to serve the ‘off-wire’ destinations such as Hull, Aberdeen and Inverness.

They entered service in the 1970s in yellow/blue/grey livery, which gave way to InterCity Executive grey/yellow colours from February 1985, then Intercity Swallow grey/white in the late-1980s. Privatisation saw GNER take over in April 1996, with repaints following into navy blue/red/gold.

National Express took over in December 2007, which saw HSTs carry silver/white livery, but it was not long before the Government-run East Coast had to step in to run the franchise from November 2009, simply applying new logos to the fleet but also experimented with a silver/purple variation.

When the contract was re-let it was Stagecoach/Virgin Trains that won the bid from March 2015, and the fleet began to gain VT’s flamboyant red house colour scheme, which was carried on (with new logos) when the Government had to step in again from June 2018 under the LNER brand.

“The last booked departure from King’s Cross in 2019 featured No. 43257, which had also worked the first booked working in 1978 as No. 43057”

National Express followed GNER at the end of 2007 with a silver/white livery. No. 43208 sports the look at York on May 30, 2009.

Now that the last LNER HST has run, will it be possible to travel on one to or from King's Cross again? Given that Locomotive Services Ltd plans to acquire a set and three power cars, and the 125 Group hopes that the two power cars it will get from Porterbrook (Nos. 43048/089) will remain certified for main line use, we suspect the answer is yes!

■ Thanks are due to Kevin Daniel, 125 Group archivist, for information on the early workings into King’s Cross. E

When National Express handed back the keys to the franchise at the end of 2009, the Government-run East Coast took over, adding its new branding to the existing livery.

No. 43300 pulls into Leeds from Neville Hill depot on April 24, 2010.

The franchise was re-let in March 2015 when Stagecoach/Virgin took over using the latter’s red house colours and branding. Reliveried No. 43308 arrives at Edinburgh on September 3 that year at the head of a rake of coaches still in previous East Coast colours.  The final look for East Coast HSTs was when the Government-owned LNER took over from Stagecoach/Virgin in June 2018 – although the red livery was retained with new branding, as shown by No. 43307 at King’s Cross on April 12, 2019 alongside NRMliveried classmate No. 43238.

February 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 19

INDUSTRY ISSUES What it’s all about: an immaculately restored steam locomotive at the head of a smart rake of heritage carriages in beautiful scenery on a lovely line. Oliver Edwards began volunteering at the Keighley & Worth Valley as a young member aged 13 through what he calls ‘a particularly well managed young members group’. BR 2MT 2-6-0 No. 78022 approaches Oakworth with the 12.30pm Keighley to Oxenhope service on Saturday, January 18. BRIAN DOBBS

JUST HOW

SUSTAINABLE ARE HERITAGE RAILWAYS?

In 2021, it will be 70 years since the world’s first volunteerrun railway was established on the Cambrian coast.

Now, steam trains criss-cross the United Kingdom on a multitude of lines which, if combined, would stretch from London to Glasgow. But is this really sustainable in the long term, asks Oliver Edwards.

E

arly last year, I began writing a comprehensive study about the sustainability of heritage railways in the UK. I have been involved in the sector for seven years, across a wide range of projects and organisations, and steam traction is a huge part of ‘who I am’. Therefore, it’s fair to say I had a vested interest in uncovering the underlying issues which may cause trouble in years to come.

The study culminated in a 9000-word research paper, using over 30 pieces of reference material and including interviews with senior managers within our sector. This article will probe the challenges I found in bite-sized chunks. There are, of course, many exceptions to the ‘rules’ laid out, but heritage railway volunteers and managers should objectively reflect on whether any suggestions in this article would be of benefit to their organisation.

Where are we today?

IT’S worth remembering that in the 70 years since the opening of the Talyllyn, heritage railways have grown into distinct sectors of the UK tourism and heritage conservation arenas. There are approximately 140 sites, running lines and museums in Great Britain themed around railway history, generating an estimated £400 million for the economy each year, giving pleasure to 22,000 volunteers and providing income to 4000 members of staff.

For a group which, in the vast majority of cases, does not receive any local authority or government subsidy to run day-to-day, that is pretty impressive. While these figures are pleasing, can we carry on in eternal growth and expansion, as has been the case up to now?

Locomotives, carriages, stations and track are not cheap assets to maintain, particularly to increasingly stringent legal standards. Paid staff, who are often essential because of the volume of work now involved in both the safe management and fierce promotion of heritage railways, have wages to be paid each month, and a raft of other costs are continually eating into revenues.

One thorny issue in the sphere of finances are the level of donations needed to sustain our railways. Some lines have been particularly successful in their fundraising efforts, notably for locomotive overhauls. These are attractive to donors, who are excited by the prospect of a ‘fan-favourite’ back on the line, are easy to explain to the ‘joe public’ visitor and can free up cash for investment in less glamorous essentials like trackwork.

The legacy of legacies

IT is unlikely that a railway which currently relies on legacies, for example, will be able to sustain these donations when the end of steam in the 1960s has been largely erased from living memory. Sad and blunt as this may sound, we have to ready our commercial operations to bear a greater strain of our ever-increasing costs.

An area in which finances may be better managed is in reducing the number of train services we operate. Many readers will be familiar with half- or near-empty trains, particularly at the start or end of the day. To run an additional two services on a 10-mile railway each day is likely to require the use of another steam locomotive. If this is done over 20 days or more a year, it might be considered wise to overhaul another steam locomotive

“While the trains run may generate a seemingly reasonable revenue stream, do they come anywhere near meeting their true cost? It is fair to say that if our railways made great swathes of cash that they would not have closed, but most of our visitors would happily come an hour later or earlier to catch a train if that was what was offered.

For many railways, the savings these changes would bring about could be the difference between survival or closure.”

Heritagerailway.co.uk 45

Above: “Coal provision, the lifeblood of heritage railways, is perhaps the most pressing challenge of this new decade to ensure the continuation of our sector,” writes Oliver Edwards. GARETH EVANS Right: Crucial to the sustainability of the heritage railway sector is the recruitment and retention of volunteers. A well-known and long-standing model of best practice can be found at the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways, which has engaged with a range of groups and demographics to deliver a host of projects, establishing a skills base essential for the railways’ future well-being. Volunteers are seen during one of the popular seasonal ‘bash’ working parties carrying out maintenance at Porthmadog Harbour Station. ROGER DIMMICK

to run them. In an era of £300,000 overhauls, that luxury costs £30,000 per annum, to say nothing of the additional coaches needed.

While the trains run may generate a seemingly reasonable revenue stream, do they come anywhere near meeting their true cost?

It is fair to say that if our railways made great swathes of cash they would not have closed, but most of our visitors would happily come an hour later or earlier to catch a train if that was what was offered.

For many railways, the savings these changes would bring about could be the difference between survival or closure.

Is it possible for your dining train to have limited capacity for standard passengers, increasing the options available with a disproportionately small cost comparable to running an additional service. The conclusion of this line of thinking may be fewer operational steam locomotives, which may sound less exciting to crews but gives your railway a better financial future. Do not be tempted to cut down to the extreme, with no room for failures, as the hire locomotive market is difficult to predict, but be sensible. You’d save on volunteers, too, which we’ll discover are a cornerstone of our continued success.

Manning our railways

Perhaps unlike any other industry, volunteers are critical to the economics of steam railways.

Most railways, even those particularly large names, employ only 10% or fewer of their workforce. Finding a paid member of staff who isn’t office or workshop based, and is instead involved in the actual operation of trains, is rare. Upsetting this fine balance would make many railways financially unsustainable. Our volunteers, though, are aging.

We all know the benefits of volunteering, including meeting new people and learning new skills, but we must improve our messaging to reach those of working age or to capture people when they are even younger. It is possible.

I started at the Keighley & Worth Valley as a young member aged 13, through a particularly well managed young members’ group, and am now a 20-year-old trustee at the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway. Working with under 18s is now more difficult due to government regulation, but we often forget the universities and colleges nearby that can often provide students to deliver projects to further their own educational aims.

Revolutionise the roster...

At 18 and above, training for many operational roles can begin. For example, just four new guards a year could be revolutionary for your roster. We must not forget, either, the substantial efforts of those who man our shops, tea rooms, bookstalls, buffet cars and a whole plethora of other public-facing roles. Training for these takes less time, and is more open to those who are not as agile as others.

Think about your local rotary clubs or Women’s Institutes, who may be able to help. It is important to remember, though, that volunteers in these roles have to have interpersonal skills or can easily upset visitors.

Retention is key, and to do this railways should actively promote social events and gatherings that make volunteers friends as well as colleagues. Running a DMU on a summer’s evening and giving every (off-duty) volunteer a drink may cost a couple of hundred pounds, but it will give them a priceless sense of worth and camaraderie.

We should consider what is feasible in terms of volunteer effort. Dozens of railways

“Trials in the US by the Coalition for Sustainable Rail were carried out in 2019 on a standard gauge locomotive of a wood-based biofuel, moulded into cobbles similar to coal. The trials found that the fuel burned hot, and needed minimal extra shovelling by the fireman to be maintained. With no certain future for coal, and the real possibility that we may not be able to access it in five years’ time, real efforts should be made to embrace this technology in the UK.” 46 Heritagerailway.co.uk

cancelled running days in 2019, often at very short notice, which is the worst possible news for visitors. Many cancelled more than one day, and some over five. While some of these may have been because of unfortunate events, our timetable planning should reflect a service level that is realistic and achievable. If you have to be unrealistic in your timetabling to be financially viable and then cancel running days anyway, your railway may not be sustainable in the long term.

The demands of visitors, much like the demands of customers in every industry, are ever-changing. We must keep up with these changes in order to continue to attract them to our railways. Several disparaging comments were made on social media when the Welsh Highland’s new station at Caernarfon was opened, but this facility has provided benefits like a changing places toilet for those with disabilities, which will revolutionise the area’s tourism credentials. A more traditional building, particularly of stone, may have been much more expensive and would not have been as eye-catching to potential visitors.

Getting the basics right

Little things can mean a lot to visitors, so get the basics of train cleanliness and appearance right in order to provide the ‘chocolate-box’ Railway Children image of a steam railway that popular culture has built in the minds of the public. What does a full bin or dirty toilet have to do with sustainability? Put simply, if your visitors have a poor experience and do not return to empty their wallets again, telling their friends how poor their visit was, there is less cash in the system to run your railway.

Increasingly, tourism is talked about in terms of ‘experience’, namely the unique memories that an attraction can provide to visitors. In this, heritage railways have a clear advantage.

We can offer footplate rides, dining on board, driving experiences, tours of hidden gems, family-friendly trips such as Santa trains and so much more. These products, by diversifying our audiences and enabling premium pricing, spread the risk of our operations.

Coal provision, the lifeblood of heritage railways, is perhaps the most pressing challenge of this new decade to ensure the continuation of our sector.

In 2018, the UK burned 12 million tons of

Number Crunching £400 million

The estimated sum generated for the UK economy each year by heritage railways

140

The approximate number of running lines and museums in Great Britain themed around railway history

22,000

The number of volunteers in the UK heritage railway sector

150

The number of ‘Barry Scrapyard wrecks’ restored

9

The number of gauges in use on running lines in Great Britain

Open weekends can provide a valuable opportunity to persuade would-be volunteers to get their hands dirty. A group of visitors is seen in front of Hunslet 0-6-0ST Jacks Green (No. 1953 of 1939) enjoying a tour of Wansford sheds during the Nene Valley Railway open weekend on March 23, 2019.

GARETH EVANS

coal, of which just 26,000 was used by steam locomotives.

As coal mines close around the UK, and power stations cease to use this fuel, our buying power for this ‘black gold’ will be significantly reduced, alongside the leverage we have at present to piggyback on industrial users. Public concern about climate change is well covered in the media, though fortunately no railway has yet been hit with a demonstration as far as I’m aware.

We shouldn’t brush off concerns as ‘nambypamby-liberalism’, as hard legislation such as the Clean Air Act will soon enforce strict guidelines and targets on the burning of household coal. Trials in the US by the Coalition for Sustainable Rail were carried out in 2019 on a standard gauge locomotive of a wood-based biofuel, moulded into

While this may sound frantic, there is no bigger issue which seriously threatens our existence in the near future, and while assurances have been made by government that there will be no ban of coal use by steam locomotives, sourcing fuel will be more difficult.

The Kent & East Sussex Railway’s coaches are extremely well kept and are a pleasant place to spend an hour or two. Dirty coaches can have a severe impact on your reputation and are frequently mentioned on TripAdvisor. OLIVER EDWARDS

The entrance to your railway sets the scene for a visitor’s whole day out. Clean and well-presented spaces like this at Cheltenham Racecourse on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway are great examples.

OLIVER EDWARDS

cobbles similar to coal. The trials found the fuel burned hot, and needed minimal extra shovelling by the fireman to be maintained.

With no certain future for coal, and the real possibility we may not be able to access it in five years’ time, efforts should be made to embrace this technology. A trial as soon as possible would demonstrate its suitability for British steam locomotives, and would give time before the demise of coal to implement larger scale production.

Securing the fuel

Few examples of a ‘failed’ heritage railway exist, but they include the Derwent Valley Light Railway in full form, whose steam services in the 1970s failed to take off (though we now have a shorter, well-preserved station and section). As steam trains are an ingrained part of British culture and family interest is kept alive by Thomas the Tank Engine, we should not worry that interest is dwindling in steam. Indeed, many of my study interviewees highlighted television programmes that put railways on our screens every week as having a positive effect on their traffic figures.

That said, a great number of railways serve the same population base as several others, which leads to questions about whether they can all not just continue, but grow into thriving destinations. Sometimes, the historic and tourism nature of railways

Heritagerailway.co.uk 47

Running a train offering a mix of dining and standard passenger accommodation can increase the options available with a disproportionately small cost comparable to running an additional service. GWR Collett 7800 Manor classs 4-6-0 No. 7802 Bradley Manor is seen at the head of the Severn Valley Railway ‘Venturer’ train, which provides a mix of both dining and standard class seats. IAN MURRAY

which are close to each other provides ample justification in their continuation as separate entities.

The UK domestic tourist generally travels an hour from their home to a visitor attraction for a day out, so there is plenty of scope for a good number of heritage railways across the country. It is possible, though, that a small rationalisation of 10-15 locations would enable the remaining dozens to solve many resource shortages and boost visitor numbers.

The findings of this research point to a natural slimming down, as a small number of lines suffer acute difficulties in certain areas.

Many of the issues highlighted above are ‘established challenges’, meaning we have known they will prove an issue for some time.

About the author Oliver Edwards has volunteered and worked on heritage railways for more than seven years, at far-flung locations such as the Bodmin & Wenford in Cornwall and in Wales on the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, where he is the marketing and audience trustee. He has contributed to and managed projects such as Home from the Front, a two-week commemoration of the end of the First World War in Yorkshire and the creation of the Llanfair Connections pop-up museum. He has studied tourism and business management at degree level, is on the Heritage Railway Association’s Business Development Committee and is co-founder of a business (Fox & Edwards Events, www.foxandedwards.com) which manages events at heritage venues.

Increasingly, tourism is talked about in terms of ‘experience’, namely the unique memories that an attraction can provide to visitors. In addition to a train ride, visitors to the Middleton Railway in Leeds can explore a collection of artefacts, including seeing out of service locomotives, some of which offer access to the footplate. GARETH EVANS

48 Heritagerailway.co.uk

As a sector, we have to be proactive about solving them, often through partnerships.

Reach out, talk and discuss, and then undertake actions that move your organisation forward. This is not simply the role of the Heritage Railway Association, and railways can, through local enterprise partnerships, tourist boards, local government and other forums, better ‘their lot’ in order to ingrain their regional importance in the minds of the public.

Across railways, too, more can be done.

Cross-railway promotion has worked particularly well for the Great Little Trains of Wales, which proves railways need not always be in fierce competition to succeed. Narrow gauge railways snaking through beautiful

valleys to slate mines is seen as a part of Welsh culture and as a must for many tourists, largely because of the work of this body.

Take away from this article this; that we can continue to be extremely successful but we have to face up to the real issues facing us to survive and thrive.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Jonathan Brown’s The Railway Preservation Revolution, which was a ground-breaking text in the record of the history of railway preservation, my interviewees for their help in producing my study and the Heritage Railway Association whose statistics have been useful throughout.

HERITAGE FOCUS

THE BARRY TOURIST The South Wales town of Barry may be more famous in railways circles for its scrapyard, but where rusting hulks of locomotives once stood, steam runs again once more, as Gary Boyd-Hope explains.

The Barry Tourist Railway is not trying to be a ‘traditional’ heritage railway, but instead provide a flavour of steam travel as part of a wider day out.

A typical public train consists of the Sentinel 4wVBT Susan and Class 101 DMU Iris 2, which has been retro-fitted with Mk3 carriage seating. BTR

M

ENTION the name of Barry in South Wales to any railway enthusiast and you can bet a pound to a penny their mind will jump to images of Woodham Bros’ famous scrapyard, with its lines of redundant locomotives quietly awaiting their fate in the salty air emanating from the Bristol Channel.

The role Dai Woodham played in effectively making the preservation movement as we know it possible cannot be understated; suffice to say that through his offices no fewer than 213 steam locomotives have been saved for preservation, 150 of which have since steamed.

What the heritage movement might have looked like without Barry Scrapyard’s influence

can only be guessed at, but one suspects the number of preserved lines would have been fewer, and those that did exist would be heavily reliant on former industrial steam locos.

Regeneration

Yet the scrapyard is no more, and in the years since it closed Barry has undergone many changes as part of a strategic regeneration project.

The sidings where rusting locos once stood are now home to an Asda supermarket. Many historic buildings in the town have been restored and smartened up (including the Hood Road pumping station that features in many scrapyard photos), and an air of prosperity now exists where there was once neglect.

It might not look like it at first glance, but the Barry Tourist Railway’s Barry Main Depot building is the original Barry Railway Co steam shed of 1888. This is the rear of the building, showing the pits that still survive outside. The BTR’s main running line can be seen on the left. GARY BOYDHOPE

20 • The Railway Magazine • June 2020

Perhaps most importantly, however, where steam locomotives once went to die they now live again, and just yards from where some locos were cut up, others are being restored back to working order thanks to the Barry Rail Centre and its operational Barry Tourist Railway (BTR).

Yet the BTR is not the first heritage line to have its base in Barry. In 1979, when Woodham’s yard was still very active, the Butetown Historic Railway Society accepted a lease offered by Vale of Glamorgan Council (VoGC) on Barry Island station building and platform 4, supported by financial aid from the Welsh Development Agency.

The operation eventually became known as the Vale of Glamorgan Railway, working a short

The former Barry shed still retains much of its steam atmosphere inside, and today is the main storage area for the railway’s rolling, including refurbished ex-Gatwick Express Mk2F coaches, a BR ZRA van and a GWR ‘Toad’ brakevan. GARY BOYDHOPE

RAILWAY

section of the former Barry Railway Company/ GWR line as the Barry Island Railway.

The heritage operation was supported by an annual £65,000 subsidy from VoGC which, in December 2007, made the decision to withdraw its funding of the railway. The council granted a licence for the railway to continue operating through 2008, although by now entirely selffinancing, but made it known it intended to find a new backer for the line under a long-term lease.

Ultimately, the Vale of Glamorgan stock was transferred to the fledgling Garw Valley Railway at Pontcymer, including the former NCB Maesteg Colliery Hunslet ‘Austerity’ 0-6-0ST Pamela (3840/1956).

Cambrian Transport

Three sealed bids were received in response to the invitation to tender, with the successful bidder being Cambrian Transport Ltd, which had long been VoGC’s railway consultant and contractor.

Cambrian Transport was established in 1995 by former British Rail manager John Buxton who, as a BR Train Operating Company managing director in the 1990s, had had responsibility for the entire Valley Lines operation. Cambrian’s speciality was, and remains, consultancy and contracting offering expertise in areas such as infrastructure design, construction and maintenance; operations support; traction and rolling stock; public and business planning; and fleet specification and operation. It has worked as

A BRIEF HISTORY OF BARRY’S RAILWAY THE first rails to be laid in Barry were put down by the Barry Dock & Railway Company which opened in 1889, later becoming simply the Barry Railway.

The company was first incorporated in 1884, and was born as a result of the Rhondda colliery owners’ frustration over high charges at Cardiff Docks, and the increasing costs of transporting coal charged by the Taff Vale Railway, which held the monopoly.

The new railway was built primarily to transport coal from the South Wales coalfields, and it wasn’t long before extensions to both Barry Island and Barry Pier (with its scheduled steamer services) were constructed, giving the Barry Railway a total route mileage of 68 miles.

However, it was Barry Docks that provided the main focus of business, which with the construction of a second dock basin, became a principle port for the shipment of South Wales’ ‘black gold’. In fact, by 1910 it had actually overtaken Cardiff Docks as the chief export point for the region’s coal. By 1913 it was the largest coal-exporting dock in the world.

The other railway serving Barry was the Vale of Glamorgan Railway’s line that connected it with Bridgend. An Act of Parliament of 1889 was supported by the Barry Railway, which went on to equip and operate it on the VoGR’s behalf.

In 1922 the Barry Railway Co was absorbed by the GWR, and with it came 148 locomotives, primarily six- or eight-coupled mineral engines, along with other four-coupled types for passenger work.

It is said that not a single Barry Railway loco was scrapped during the company’s existence.

Many of the Barry Railway classes were later replaced by the GWR’s 0-6-2Ts and 2-8-0Ts, but a handful clung on until Nationalisation.

The GWR undertook several improvements at Barry Docks, and built two new platforms at Barry Island to accommodate the increasing excursion traffic.

British Railways sent its first redundant locomotives to Woodham Bros’ Barry Scrapyard in 1959, although it would not earn its claim to fame for several more years.

In 1962 the docks were transferred to the newly formed British Transport Docks Board, the same year that the first passenger services were withdrawn. Line closures continued throughout the next decade, with the Barry Island to Barry Pier section finally closing in 1976.

Barry would go on to write itself a new chapter in the great railway history book thanks to Dai Woodham, and in spite of seeing many changes over the years, one of the Barry Dock basins is still active under the Associated British Ports banner.

June 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 21

HERITAGE FOCUS far afield as Canada and the Middle East, while in the UK the company has contracts across the nation from the Isle of Wight to Scotland. Even closer to home, the firm completed the renewal of a rail-over-rail bridge at the Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway.

Cambrian Transport took over operation of the Barry heritage line in 2009, and on January 1, 2011, signed a 20-year lease with VoGC, which included the two-mile line, 14 sidings, Barry Island station, a ‘new’ shed in traditional style on Plymouth Road, the connected Waterfront Branch and Hood Road goods shed, and the historic former Barry Railway Co steam shed at Barry (88C), in which it established the Barry Rail Centre.

The shed had originally been built in 1888, and at the time of the Grouping, when the Barry Railway became part of the GWR, it was home to 148 locomotives. It closed to steam in September 1964, and later found use as an EWS (English, Welsh & Scottish Railways) wagon repair centre until being taken over by VoGC.

Stock storage

Today, the shed is known as the Barry Main Depot and serves as the line’s main engineering and stock storage area. It is home to the Barry Tourist Railway’s operational steam loco – Sentinel 4wVBT Susan (9537/1952) – as well as a fleet of rolling stock, including BR Class 101 DMU testing unit Iris 2, formed of RDS No. 977963 and RDB No. 977964; Class 101 DTCL No. 6300; Class 488/2 unit No. 8206 (72505+72629); Class 489 unit No. 9110; and unrestored BR ‘9F’ 2-10-0 No. 92245.

The ‘9F’ is in a dismantled state, having donated its boiler to be used on classmate No. 92212. However, the intention is to reassemble the loco and display it as part of a wider exhibition about Barry and the importance of its famous scrapyard.

As an aside, No. 92245 is one of two unrestored ex-Barry Scrapyard locos now owned

by Cambrian Transport, the other being ‘56XX’ 0-6-2T No. 6686. When Vale of Glamorgan Council decided to dispose of the remaining 10 Woodhams locos – the so-called ‘Barry 10’ – it was John Buxton who acted on the council’s behalf and led the negotiations that secured homes for all of them.

On running days the public usually join BTR trains at Barry Island station, which is located directly opposite the Barry Island Pleasure Park.

The station is served by Transport for Wales (TfW) services, but the station buildings are maintained by the BTR. Here a shop, cafe and the Barry at War military museum have been established, all of which are manned by teams of enthusiastic volunteers. Part of the building has also been given over to exhibitions and meeting/ activity space.

Only the western end of platform 1 is available to TfW passengers; a fence prevents access to the main building and a modern waiting shelter is provided instead.

TfW trains cannot run through the station either because a buffer stop has been sited midway along the platform; a far cry from the station’s heyday when services ran through to Barry Pier.

A footbridge g connects the main station

building with bay platform 4, which is used by BTR trains. The main ‘tourist’ trains consist of the Sentinel Susan and the Class 101 Iris 2, which has been re-engined and fitted with comfortable, high-class ex-Mk3 carriage seating of the sort unlikely to be found in any other preserved first-generation DMU. A short distance to the east of the station is the BTR’s current Plymouth Road terminus, with its large shed and canopied platform for BTR trains. In Barry Railway Co days the main line ran beyond here and through the 280-yard long Pier Tunnel to Barry Pier, where they connected with paddle steamers which linked South Wales with North Devon and Somerset.

Rail access to the tunnel ended in 1976, but the BTR has long-term aspirations to one day reopen the tunnel and return trains to Barry Pier.

Museum

There was a plan to create a museum/visitor centre in the Plymouth Road shed, with exhibits including the ‘9F’ and former BR track testing coach No. DW139, which itself is worthy of a slight digression in this narrative.

The vehicle was originally built in 1911 as GWR ‘Toplight’ No. 2360, and in 1928 was selected by the chief civil engineer’s department for conversion at Swindon into the famous ‘Whitewash Coach’, so called because whitewash would be flushed from the toilet cistern onto the permanent way to mark a track fault. Subsequently, a more sophisticated system deposited yellow and red dye: yellow dye indicated a fault that needed repairing within a week,, whereas red signalled a fault that required g q

GWR and Southern locos awaiting their fate at Woodham Bros’ scrapyard on March 30, 1968. The chimney of the Hood Road pumping station can be seen in the distance.

N E PREEDY/RM ARCHIVE

22 • The Railway Magazine • June 2020

immediate action.

The coach was active well into the 1980s, having retained its original bogies into the 1970s.

These were eventually replaced by ‘B4’ bogies to enable the coach to run at more than 100mph.

In 1989 it was designated as an historically significant artefact which should be permanently preserved, becoming part of the National Collection. Unfortunately, after more than 10 years’ storage in the open air at Swindon and the National Railway Museum at York, it was in a sorry state. It was eventually de-accessioned by the museum and acquired by John Buxton for the BTR in 2012. It retains many period features from the 1928 rebuild, and John eventually hopes to restore the coach and equip it for pushpull operation.

The museum plans have since been amended as the Plymouth Road shed is now also to become the home of the railway’s Heritage Skills Centre. This is currently housed in the ‘New Barry Works’ building, next to Woodham Halt, but the railway’s lease on the building is not up for renewal and the facility will move to Plymouth Road.

The current plan is to incorporate the Skills Centre as a working heritage display within the wider museum. Renamed as the Barry Heritage Centre, the BTR’s museum will tell the history of Barry in terms of the railway, the docks and the two world wars.

The Skills Centre is managed by Mike Pearce, owner of Hunslet 0-6-0ST Jessie, who is currently overseeing the restoration of GWR Small Prairie No. 5539 on site for owner Hugh Shipton, as well as working on the BTR’s other ex-Barry Scrapyard loco – Collett 0-6-2T No. 6686. Both locos will move to Plymouth Road, with John Buxton keen to expand this side of the Barry Rail Centre operation. In this regard he has recently taken on two more paid staff and is sponsoring an engineering undergraduate at university.

Rejoining the train at Plymouth Road, BTR services return to Barry Island station then almost immediately cross the 149-yard Barry Island double-track viaduct that is shared with the Network Rail line; the two lines run separate yet parallel.

Barry Island station is the headquarters of the Barry Tourist Railway, which houses its shop, cafe, exhibition space and military museum.

Legacies from previous owners can be found in the form of the GWR ticket window (left) and Regional Railways name board (below).

ALL: GARY BOYDHOPE

The viaduct follows the northern edge of Barry Harbour, with the A4055 Harbour Road running alongside.

The line splits at the western end of the viaduct at Waterfront Junction: one line – the Waterfront Branch – dropping down to Hood Road and the Waterfront station.

This area is currently under development, and the BTR has rationalised its track work, having agreed to cede part of the track layout to the scheme. The Waterfront platform and terminus lie opposite the old Barry Railway’s iconic hydraulic pumphouse.

Attractions

However, the nearby former Hood Road goods shed now has a new lessee. The new development offers a range of visitor attractions and the BTR is working with the developer to ensure the success of the scheme with the aim of attracting more visitors to the railway.

The BTR main line swings sharply northeastwards at Waterfront Junction to run alongside the eastern wall of the former Barry steam shed (Barry Main Depot), in the shadow of Network Rail’s Barry station, immediately to the west.

As the line continues in that direction it

passes the former shed yard – often used for commercial stock storage and maintenance – and proceeds to Woodham Halt, which was erected to serve the nearby Barry New Works/Heritage Skills Centre, housed in a building on the site of the former Barry Railway Works.

The building is rail-connected, and the presence of locomotive wheelsets outside provides an indication of its current use.

However, as mentioned previously, the lease on the building is up and its activities are transferring to Plymouth Road.

Beyond Woodham Halt, BTR trains then pass beneath Gladstone Bridge, which also spans the parallel Network Rail lines, and roll into Gladstone Bridge station next to a Morrisons supermarket and a retail park. This is the present terminus of the BTR, but the railway is currently working on a half-mile extension to a new interchange at Network Rail’s Barry Docks station.

Much of the old trackbed has recently been cleared, and when completed the current Gladstone Bridge platform will be re-sited at Barry Docks.

The railway operates on around 30 steam and heritage diesel days per year, and as well as the train rides a BTR ticket includes shed and June 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 23

HERITAGE FOCUS workshop tours and talks on Barry’s history.

Promotion of the Barry area is actually a key part of the BTR’s marketing strategy, with a goal of attracting more people to visit the town and the island. Furthermore, the line hosts a number of special events annually, including Easter and Christmas services, swap meets, Barry at War and 1940s fashion events, and historic aircraft displays.

John’s company organised, sponsored and funded four of the famous Red Arrows displays in conjunction with the BTR’s Wartime and Vintage Transport events.

The Sentinel Susan is the mainstay of the passenger operation, but in previous years the railway has played host to a number of former main line locomotives. Hawksworth ‘94XX’ 0-6-0PT No. 9466, when still under the ownership of the late Dennis Howells, visited on several occasions, while other guest locos have included Buckinghamshire Railway Centre’s ex-Metropolitan Railway 0-4-4T No. 1, the Great Western Society’s steam railmotor No. 93, and former Turkish ‘8F’ 2-8-0 No. 45160.

This effectively summarises the public face of the BTR, but there is more to the Barry Rail Centre operation, including a number of plans and aspirations for future development.

For example, the BTR has made inroads into becoming Britain’s first carbon-neutral railway. In May 2019, in the face of forthcoming regulations from DEFRA, limiting domestic household emissions, the railway trialled a new low-emission fuel source on the Sentinel Susan.

This followed discussions with the supplier to the operators of the National Trust’s 1859built steam yacht Gondola, which currently plies its trade on Coniston Water in Cumbria, and which was converted in 2008 to burn logs made from compressed wood and sawdust. The logs are said to burn more efficiently than coal, giving off little smoke with a low sulphur content.

The BTR is home to former GWR ‘Toplight’ No. 2360, which was later modified to become a track-testing coach, and remained in use until the 1980s as No. DW139. The coach will eventually be restored and equipped for push-pull working. The grille to the left of the picture belongs to Class 08 No. 08503.

GARY BOYDHOPE

During the initial experiment the time it took to get from lighting up to full pressure was under two hours, which is a typical time for a Sentinel loco of this type.

Firing was also undertaken at the same frequency as would normally be done with coal, with a bag of the biomass logs going into the firebox, rather than five or six shovelfuls of coal.

Electro-diesels

During shunting manoeuvres the loco proved to be just as effective as when fired by coal; pressure was maintained throughout as the loco worked with train weights of up to 210-tonnes in high gear.

Costs of the biomass fuel are higher than coal, but the overall fuel consumption was lower, making a ‘cost per day’ of using biomass on a par with a day on coal.

As already mentioned, stock storage is something that the railway already undertakes, aided by its Class 73 electro-diesel No. 73118, which was one of the class that worked on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and was modified to be able to haul Eurostar stock. Restoration of Class 08 No. 08503 is nearing completion and

the railway can also call upon its second Class 73 – Eastleigh-based No. 73133 – if needed.

However, John Buxton would like to expand that relationship with the ‘big railway’ operators and make the BTR available as a test track.

Once the Barry Docks extension has been completed, it is hoped to upgrade the permanent way and increase the maximum speed limit to 40mph to facilitate traction and rolling stock testing.

The railway is very fortunate in this regard in having Major John Poyntz, the former principal inspector of railways at Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate, on board as one of the advisory team.

In tandem with this, Barry shed (Barry Main Depot) is being developed to become a fully operational depot, capable of carrying out inspection maintenance, testing and commissioning work.

One of the prime drivers for this is to make Barry a destination for the steam railtour market, with the BTR having full facilities for both locomotive and train servicing. It has been used for loco servicing on previous occasions, but the aim is to make this a much more regular feature

Diagram of the Barry Tourist Railway infrastructure. BTR

24 • The Railway Magazine • June 2020

of the whole operation.

To this end, the the former Bricklayers Arms depot turntable has been acquired from the Mid-Hants Railway, which is now under restoration for installation in the Barry Main Depot yard. Track next to the former coaling stage area is also being reinstated to permit the railway’s Ruston-Bucyrus 22-RB grab to perform loco coaling duties.

By having a facility capable of serving both the modern railway and heritage sector, it is hoped the railway will be able to expand its range of training and employment opportunities.

This would include the Heritage Skills Centre, and training initiative with main line operating companies. Already the railway has provided realistic training opportunities for rail engineering firms Colas and Amey, while the South Wales Fire & Rescue Service has performed practice scenarios using the BTR facilities.

Vivarail recently announced it will test and commission the Class 484 trainsets at the BTR. These converted ex-LU D78 trains are replacing the ageing Class 483 trains currently operating services on the Isle of Wight.

One of the more surprising sidelines that the BTR has nurtured is the provision of filming locations. With both BBC and ITV having a strong presence in Cardiff, the railway has provided locations for many episodes of Doctor Who and Casualty, together with other locally made series, including Being Human and Stella.

Barry itself is also the location for the popular comedy series Gavin & Stacey.

The man with the vision: John Buxton has been behind the BTR operation since it took over the lease of the line, and he is seen here at Woodham Halt with Class 73 No. 73118. GARY BOYDHOPE

Covid-19

Although the BTR is currently closed to passengers because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the operation at Barry remains financially secure thanks to John Buxton’s foresight in recognising from the start that the railway needed to have a number of strands to its bow if it was to thrive as a business. While all heritage work has currently stopped, the important main line railway services together with the regular consultancy and contracting work continues.

The railway has always been self-reliant and remains on a firm financial footing. It has never received any outside funding and is the only standard-gauge heritage line not to appeal to the public for financial assistance during the current crisis. Furthermore, as a statement of its commitment to the future, the railway procured four Mk3 carriages direct from main line service in April. Three will improve the railway’s fleet of carriages and the other will become a retail unit at the Waterfront development.

In addition, ecological site surveys are presently underway as part of the Transport and Works Application (TWA) that Cambrian Transport is preparing for the proposed extension of the line to Barry Dock station.

John Buxton is rightly proud of what he and his team have achieved to date, but says it has only scratched the surface of its full potential. He knows the line itself will never be a big league player in the wider heritage movement, but with the multpile facets of the whole Barry Rail Centre operation, he believes Barry has the ability to leave its mark on the industry for a second time.

Certainly the addition of a genuine South Wales loco, in the form of No. 6686, will only serve to enhance the railway’s offering, and if the various strands of the Barry Rail Centre business grow as John intends, it will have a very good future ahead of it.

■

Collett ‘56XX’ 0-6-2T No. 6686 is currently under restoration at the BTR’s Heritage Skills Centre. The frames are pictured in March 2019, and the hope is to have it at the rolling chassis stage by 2021. GARY BOYDHOPE

BR ‘9F’ No. 92245 awaits reassembly as a museum exhibit at Barry on March 11, 2019. The loco will eventually be used to tell the story of Barry’s famous scrapyard. GARY BOYDHOPE

June 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 25

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Four-car No. 777003 is the first of the 52-strong fleet to arrive on Merseyside, and is pictured inside Kirkdale depot for commissioning work. Note the unit number is above the cab side window. All photos taken on January 28 by Paul Bickerdyke

First ‘777’ arrives The days of Merseyrail’s ageing Class 507/508 fleet are numbered as the operator takes delivery of its first Stadler-built Class 777.

THE first of the 52 Stadler-built Class 777 EMUs ordered by Merseyrail arrived at Kirkdale depot on January 16 for commissioning to begin. The four-car units will replace the network’s existing three-car Class 507 and 508 fleets, which are now more than 40 years old.

The new fleet was ordered in February 2017, the £700 million

contract including servicing and maintenance throughout the projected 35-year service life and a purpose-built depot at Kirkdale. The deal includes an option for up to 60 more units if required by future expansion of the network. The trains are being built at Stadler plants in Switzerland and Poland, then transported to the UK by rail via the Channel Tunnel.

The cab with driver's position to the left, which offers more room than the current Class 507/508 units, and the emergency exit door to the right.

The passenger saloon behind the cab.

The doorway should usually feature clear glass to give passengers a forward view, although electronics allow it to be made opaque by the driver if required.

There is space for two wheelchair users, while the gangway is wide enough for prams and wheelchairs to pass.

A general view of the passenger saloon and gangway wide enough for wheelchairs.

8 RAIL EXPRESS March 2020

Some areas feature tip-up seats.

The bike area can hold up to three cycles.

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A close-up on the automatic coupling. The emergency exit door is above to the left.

The units are powered by 750V DC third-rail, but there is provision to fit an overhead AC pantograph or underfloor batteries if required. As supplied, the EMUs feature small roof-mounted batteries that allow low-speed movements within the depot area.

The four-car ‘777s’ weigh 99 tonnes, some five tonnes lighter than the existing units, but are rated at 2100kW (versus 656kW) which should lead to much quicker acceleration from stops. To enable this increase, Network Rail is upgrading the power supply across the Merseyrail network, which should be completed this year. The new units are also capable of regenerative braking, which would either feed back into the power supply or charge up on board traction batteries if fitted.

One of the inter-car articulated bogies.

A quick-action ramp slides out at platform stops before the doors open. This gives level access for wheelchairs and prams.

There is room under one of the driving cars for traction batteries to be fitted in the future if required.

The individual vehicles feature full UIC numbering – here driving car 430004 is prefixed by the type code 94 (EMU) and country code 70 (UK), and is followed by check code 6. GB-MRE is the keeper code for Merseyrail

A view of Kirkdale station looking south from the adjacent station. The new buildings were completed at the end of 2019 and comprise (from left) the two-road servicing shed, the single road maintenance and wheel lathe building, and the office block. Siding space is off to the right where the previous now-demolished shed was.

No. 777003 inside the servicing shed, where both roads have pits with the one on the left also having high-level gangways for working on the roof-mounted equipment.

The two driving cars feature one pair of sliding doors on each side, while the two trailer cars each have two pairs per side. There are 182 seats, slightly lower than the 192 of a three-car ‘507’, but there is a significant increase in standing space with room for 300.

Passenger features include CCTV, wide gangways, power points and wi-fi.

Quick-acting boarding ramps slide out at stations before the doors open, and these have sensors to ensure nothing ever becomes trapped between the train and platform. Work has been done across the Merseyrail network to standardise platform heights at 960mm above rail height for use with these ramps, and some platforms have also been lengthened for eight-car trains.

The delivery of No. 777003 was around four months behind schedule, which means the planned entry to service in May has been put back. It is still hoped the first of the new trains will be in passenger service by the end of the year once testing, commissioning and crew training has been completed. E

No. 508139 inside the single-road maintenance shed, which features lifting equipment and a wheel lathe (just visible in the foreground).

March 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 9

A ‘MULTIPLE ASPECTS’ SPECIAL

NOSTALGIA AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE! The hobby of railway enthusiasm has evolved in many ways since the end of steam half-a-century or so ago. Nick Pigott muses over some of the changes.

“O

K lads. Take care near the open pits and let me know when you’re leaving.” With those cheerful words, the depot foreman would wave us into the inner sanctum and another shed-full of engine numbers would find their way into our notebooks.

Astonishing though it might seem today, that was the sort of response my friends and I received at many places in the ’sixties and early ’seventies as we toured the nation’s main line depots in a battered old minibus… yet only rarely were we in possession of official permits.

Just occasionally a foreman would call after us: “If anyone says anything, I’ve not seen you!”, but most of them were totally relaxed about it.

Compare that attitude with the ‘militarybase’ situation prevalent today. In the highly unlikely event of half-a-dozen teenagers getting past a forest of cameras, spiked fences and electronic gates, the manager would be

so worried about health and safety issues he wouldn’t dare grant permission in a month of Sundays.

Even if the visit had been officially approved in advance, bright orange jackets, hard hats, safety boots and special glasses would be de rigeur. Suitably kitted out, the visitors would then have to sit through a safety briefing (during which they’d almost certainly be told the ‘customer’ won’t allow photography) and when the time finally came to actually set eyes on a traction unit, they’d be closely chaperoned all the way round the site by at least one senior member of staff.

One of the great ironies of all this is that most of the locos seen recently on such visits were stationary with their engines switched off in clinically clean buildings and brightly lit yards, posing no threat – whereas in BR days regular movements would be taking place all around as we made our way along full sidings.

Even among the static locos, steam engines

would be dripping scalding hot water while the big diesels idled loudly through the night, wreathed in exhaust fumes and more often than not surrounded by pools of spilt oil.

In today’s environmentally-conscious world, nobody would seriously try to defend such a situation or pretend everything was better in the old days, but the point is that people were trusted far more then with responsibility for their own safety.

At the majority of sheds, it was possible for anyone to wander off a street or cinder path and find themselves in the yard, yet I don’t recall masses of incidents in which spotters were injured while bunking such sites, either surreptitiously or with the foreman’s blessing.

Most of us had far too much respect for the railway to treat it with anything other than the utmost caution and common sense.

It was while being shown round one of today’s spotlessly clean and eerily quiet depots the other day that I began thinking about One thing that hasn’t changed too much over the decades is the fascination of a final run. With HSTs having been part of the East Coast scene for more than 40 years, big crowds turned out to witness LNER’s farewell special, seen at Peterborough with power car 43312 (as 43112) on December 21. HAYDEN SHEPPARD

the various other ways in which the hobby of rail enthusiasm has altered over the past halfcentury or so. ‘Quite how’ was the subject of an animated discussion with some similarly aged friends afterwards and it was surprising how many changes we came up with. Some for the worse… some for the better.

STATION ATMOSPHERE: It was virtually impossible in the heyday of the steam age to be bored while standing on a platform. Even at a wayside station, a shunting engine was likely to be fussing with a few wagons in the goods yard or the local coal merchant would be using a crane to load sacks from a wagon into a lorry, or a farmer would be herding livestock into cattle trucks or trackside pens.

On a still summer’s afternoon, there would be the comforting sounds of signalbox bells and signal wires sliding through the undergrowth.

At a large or medium-sized station, intervals between trains would be filled with the comings and goings of the station pilot as it moved coaches from bay to bay, marshalled parcel vans or made up rakes in the carriage sidings.

If the station was next to a major motive power depot, light engine movements would be a constant feature, locos would be constantly whistling, safety valves might well be lifting with a roar - and there would be a whoosh of a different kind as a load of coal shot from the mechanical tower into the tender of a waiting engine.

Even at stations without a depot, constant sounds would be pervading the atmosphere – sounds of carriage doors slamming, of guards’ whistles, of clanking coupling rods, of crashing buffers, of shunters’ shouts, of squealing flanges, of wheels on rail joints and of rattling brake levers as loose-coupled goods trains rumbled through. To the non-enthusiast, these sounds might have been perceived as noise, but to the railway buff they were ‘music to the ears’.

It would be no exaggeration to say that a platform was a place of ‘entertainment’ for a railfan, especially at stations with adjoining marshalling yards, where the fascinating bonus of gravity hump-shunting could also be enjoyed for the price of a platform ticket.

Today, a station can sometimes seem a quiet and soulless place, devoid of ‘stack talk’ and lacking in interesting activity. No longer are there porters, barrows, milk churns, pigeon baskets and big sturdy trunks marked ‘Luggage in Advance’.

It’s all rather weird really because the network is busier than it’s been for years and yet there somehow seems to be less activity, apart from the movements of fellow passengers, most of whom are engrossed in their own little world anyway. There are still arrival and departure announcements but they’re among the few audible aspects common to both eras.

The only other sounds you’re likely to hear these days are infuriatingly repetitive public address messages telling you to ‘be careful on the stairs today’ and ‘see it, say it, sorted!’

Night-time at big stations has changed too; no longer the excitement and frenzy of newspaper trains being loaded or unloaded, no longer postal workers with mailbags, or the fascination of travelling post offices calling in the small hours and the chance to peep inside and see the letter-sorters at work.

The newly electrified South Wales station of Newport still has many trains, including freights, and there’s a refreshment room and

Shed visits, either official or unofficial, were high on an enthusiast’s agenda. Former LBSCR ‘E6’ class 0-6-2T No. 32418 and BR ‘4MT’ 2-6-4T No. 80087 take centre stage at Brighton shed. Health & safety requirements make depot visits today very difficult, with visitors needing to wear PPE (personal protective equipment) and undergo a safety briefing. It’s not known whether the third-rail was live on this occasion. G PARRY COLLECTION/COLOURRAIL

Notebooks poised, spotters congregate at the west end of Reading General station in August 1962. Many enthusiasts of that age would bring sandwiches in a duffle bag or old gas mask bag, and were likely stop at the corner shop on the way home for a ‘Jubbly’. RAIL ONLINE

As part of the‘Rainhill 150’anniversary celebrations in 1980, BR ran steam specials between Manchester and Liverpool. Here, No. 6201 Princess Elizabeth is surrounded at the Newton-le-Willows photo stop, with passengers being allowed off the platform and onto the ballast, such was the more relaxed regime at the time. FERNDALE MEDIA

March 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 15

A ‘MULTIPLE ASPECTS’ SPECIAL

No shortage of spotters waiting to ‘cab’ workstained ‘Britannia’ No. 70007 Coeur-de-Lion at Lancaster – it’s not always so easy today. M CHAPMAN/COLOURRAIL

a small newsagent shop, but like many similar places, it just seems to lack the bustle of old.

The adjacent loco stabling point at Godfrey Road was once a source of interest, but it’s moved elsewhere, and even the freights barely announce themselves any more. In the days of regular Class 37 and 47 operation, the approach of a heavy coal, steel, oil or iron ore train would have been audibly obvious, but I was recently caught unawares as a refurbished ‘Super 60’ hurried through with barely a murmur, the all-welded track muffling the sound of the wagons’ smooth-running wheels.

Even the architecture has changed at many locations. Splendid Victorian buildings with nooks and crannies could often help an enthusiast kill a few minutes in the absence of rolling stock, but although the likes of Preston, Wemyss Bay and Birmingham Moor Street have survived, ultra-modern stations like Reading are more akin to airports, while others are basically glorified bus shelters. Even a young railfan who’s never known the steam age would surely struggle to find something to hold his attention at such places.

The most important thing, of course, is that so many stations and halts are still open, and for that we must be grateful.

FREIGHT ANNIHILATION: Probably the saddest and most worrying development of the last 50 years has been the massive reduction in freight movements.

One of the most graphic locations in which to witness the result of this is Sheffield. In 1970, the ‘steel city’ was an absolute mecca for enthusiasts. Its vast gravity marshalling yard at Tinsley was heaving with wagons around the clock, the adjacent traction depot was one of the busiest in the country and its huge army of 350hp shunters could be found out-stationed all over South Yorkshire.

Today the shed and hump yard don’t even exist!

A similar story can be told in cities and towns the length and breadth of the nation, especially in former areas of mining and heavy industry, and the majority of revenue-earning freights that do still run convey only containers, so even those provide little in the way of variety to interest an observer.

‘GREEN TUNNELS’: A further big change concerns lineside overgrowth, for the proliferation of trees and bushes not only affects photographers trying to find a suitable location but passengers hoping to enjoy a view from their seats too.

When I was growing up, I was blessed with a vista of the East Coast Main Line from 16 • The Railway Magazine • March 2020

Tinsley depot was popular at weekends for spotting, many locos stabled or undergoing maintenance. This mid-1980s view shows Nos. 08880, 08870, 08492, 08671, 37029, 31450, 31155 as well as Class 20s and 56s in the distance. A car showroom stands on the site today. FERNDALE MEDIA

my bedroom window and was able to follow the unobscured passage of trains along an embankment for almost a mile. Whenever a slow ‘O2‘ or ‘WD’ 2-8-0 plodded by with a long rake of coal or ironstone wagons, the marvellous free spectacle could last two minutes or more.

Today, the most anyone could expect to see from my childhood window is a split-second flash of colour between trees and walls in the housing estate and linear forest that’s sprouted there in recent years. I’d go as far to say that if I’d been growing up in that home now, I might not even have become interested in trains at all – because I’d barely be aware of them!

It was the fascination generated by regular sightings of different types of motive power that sparked my passion and many other boys in their formative years must have had their curiosity pricked by seeing trains steaming through the landscape… so the opposite must be the case for thousands of vista-deprived youngsters today.

As for passengers, the situation is equally frustrating. My own experience of British train travel in the 21st century has been (dare I say it?) a little on the boring side, especially in summer. Because for much of the time all I can see out of the window is solid greenery.

No wonder the linesides are often referred to these days as ‘green tunnels’. To all intents and purposes they might as well be brick-lined.

Yes, there are plenty of exceptions and it’s still perfectly possible to obtain clear views across fields and moors in numerous places, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that 50% of the views available to passengers and cameramen 50 years ago are no longer possible.

Trees are obviously essential to the climate of the planet and a programme of mass felling would cause public outrage, but a sensible lineside management policy is vital to redress unchecked growth and maintain signal-sighting and other aspects of rail safety.

DEMISE OF SIDINGS: While on the subject of what can be seen from a train window, it’s necessary to mention goods yards. Until the rationalisation of branches and freight facilities, which took place with a vengeance between the 1960s and 1990s, a typical train journey

through the industrialised regions of Britain would be enlivened by the enormous number of sidings, yards, collieries and factories one would pass en route.

In steam days and even to a lesser extent in the 1970s, it was usual for a shunter or privately owned industrial loco to be lurking in these little-known backwaters and even if not, the sidings were packed with wagons and vans of various vintages and pedigrees.

Today, such places have almost all been wiped off the face of the map, 98% of industrial locos have disappeared and even the ex-BR Class 08 shunter is an endangered species. This homogenisation of the nation’s rail routes has rendered a typical journey rather bland and anodyne, with civil engineers’ sidings such as Wellingborough often the only relief from tedium unless one counts yards full of ‘demics’ such as Burton and Leicester, LACK OF LOCOMOTIVES: We are living through a period in which the network is busier than it’s been for years in terms of services and passengers, but with the exception of a few push-pull and sleeping car train locos, every new passenger train built this century has been a multiple unit.

The writing has been on the wall since the first BR DMUs arrived in the 1950s, of course, and the former Southern Region has long been a locomotive desert, but at least during the latter half of the 20th century, haulage bashers and those in search of traction action could enjoy their passions at will.

Fast and reliable though the new trains are (and thank heavens for the fantastic levels of investment that have produced so many of them!), it’s a fact that for the majority of hardcore enthusiasts, units are simply not ‘sexy’.

Words such as ‘thrash’ and ‘hellfire’ are what turn those ‘gricers’ on; modern locos have more in common with ‘whisper jets’.

So unless you happen to live alongside a freight artery or a heritage line, you’re unlikely to see a locomotive at work these days and, from an enthusiast point of view, that has to go down as one of the saddest changes of the last few decades.

SPOTTING BY PROXY: The tiny size of

digits on the sides of multiple units and even some locos is in stark contrast to steam days when cabside numbers were easily visible from many yards away. This, coupled with the ‘green tunnels’ mentioned earlier, has made lineside spotting much more difficult and far less fun.

As a result, another form of the hobby has evolved – ‘photospotting’.

This involves ploughing through every book and magazine you can lay your hands on and using an old Ian Allan combined volume to underline the engines portrayed in the photos therein!

I haven’t succumbed myself as I’m told it can become as addictive as the real thing and cost a fortune in second-hand book purchases, but apparently it’s possible to ‘clear’ entire classes of BR passenger and mixed traffic locos. And once you’ve done that, you can, if you wish, move onto 1970s and 80s modern traction or even go back in time to Big Four and pre-Grouping days – although clearing classes that far back is going to be more challenging and probably impossible.

Not only is this ‘spotting by proxy’ a nostalgic pastime, but for older men perhaps too old or infirm to trek the linesides anymore, it has added appeal insofar as it can be practised in the comfort of a cosy armchair.

As there’s no ‘rule’ that you have to be physically present, an alternative form of armchair fun can be derived from visiting websites such as Railcam or the various webcams erected at important stations and junctions, and copping whatever you see passing the cameras. It’s not as good as doing it for real, but it’s a lot cheaper and you stay dry!

LANGUAGE: Even the way we speak is

“It was the fascination generated by regular sightings of different types of motive power that sparked my passion, and many other boys in their formative years must have had their curiosity pricked by seeing trains steaming through the landscape…” evolving. In his chilling novel ‘1984’, George Orwell coined the phrase ‘Newspeak’ to describe the language of the fictional state of Oceania, and during the past few years we seem to have sleep-walked into a whole new lexicon of weird words and phrases.

For example, a ‘platform’ is now no longer just somewhere you stand and wait. For some reason, rolling stock manufacturers have coined the word to describe the various options train operators and other customers are given when ordering a new multiple-unit fleet or whatever.

So, Bombardier has the ‘Aventra’ platform, which comes in several styles and sizes (such as Classes 345, 701, 710 etc), Siemens has the ‘Desiro’ platform (Classes 185, 700, 707 etc), Stadler has the ‘Flirt’ platform, CAF has the ‘Civity’ platform and so on.

Another bizarre phrase is ‘special purpose vehicle’. This vehicle has no wheels, in fact it’s not even a vehicle at all! It’s a subsidiary business created by a parent company to isolate financial risk and several have been set up within the rail industry over the past few years.

When it’s considered that English is considered the richest and most diverse language in the world, with new words being added constantly, why on earth was it necessary to cause confusion by adopting

What a wonderful shot of ‘V2’ 2-6-2 No. 60841working hard through Grantham on a mineral train on December 21, 1962, much enhanced by the presence of two trainspotters, poised to note the loco’s number. A J CLARKE/COLOURRAIL

two words already in widespread use throughout the rail industry? Ridiculous!

Other vocabulary changes include: bimode (what was wrong with electro-diesel?); intermodal (meaning containers); signallers (surely a military term); traincare facility (it’s a depot for heaven’s sake) and the most irritating of all… train station.

The less said about that the better!

NAMING POLICY: One of the best things about the early diesel period and the ‘Big Four’ steam era was that most locomotives carried a name for life. Their appellation was usually more permanent than the running number and became an integral part of an engine’s identity. It’s true that several ‘Castles’ and ‘A4s’ underwent renamings, but such cases were the exception rather than the rule and, in BR days at least, the vast majority of steam locos kept their names.

Would Flying Scotsman be as famous now if it had been renamed, say, Andrew K McCosh in 1942 and been known only by that name throughout its entire life as a BR loco?

Would it even have been saved? Would the iconic Western Enterprise or Royal Scots Grey have retained their reputations had they been saddled with appellations such as Top of the Pops

A ‘MULTIPLE ASPECTS’ SPECIAL or St Margaret’s Church of England Primary School City of Durham Railsafe Trophy Winners 1997?

Some diesels and electrics have even suffered identity crises by being renamed as many as four or five times, some titles lasting only a few months. If such a piecemeal policy had been in effect in the pre-Internet years of the 1950s, spotters would have been totally bamboozled, for by the time a name change had been notified in the slow-moving periodicals of the time, a loco could already have lost it and be carrying the next one!

So three cheers to DRS for the sense of occasion it’s displayed in returning to ‘proper’ names for its Class 68 and 88 fleets. All but two of the latter are named after Woodhead electrics (including all seven Class 77s) and six of the ‘68s’ are named after Western Region ‘Warships’.

The company has resisted the temptation to curry favour with customers and celebrities and has done what BR did when choosing a themed policy for the Class 60s three decades ago. Unfortunately, some of those names were unpronounceable and many of the locos were later renamed or de-named in a mishmash manner anyway, but at least the idea was right.

PHOTOGRAPHY: The paranoia that saw railway photographers having their bags searched by British Transport Police and various self-appointed ‘jobsworths’ a few years ago seems to have subsided, but could rear its ugly head again if there’s a return to international terrorist alerts. Regardless of that, though, lineside photography has become more challenging of late.

One of the main drawbacks is the vegetation mentioned in a previous section, but another concerns the raising of bridge parapet heights as a result of increased electrification.

With many hundreds of miles of track having been wired in recent years, particularly in Scotland and Great Western territory, it’s become harder to find vantage points off bridges – and even if you have a box or ladder to stand on, there’s still the problem of catenary.

The other big change since steam days has been the introduction of high-visibility clothing for rail staff. This is necessary to enhance safety, and cannot be criticised, but from a few track workers wearing little pale orange vests in the 1980s, we now have whole ‘Orange Armies’ wearing brilliantly vivid full-length overalls.

RAILTOURS: There was a time when an enthusiasts’ charter could be spotted half a mile away by the number of heads and video cameras sticking out of every window the whole length of the train. If it was a dieselhauled special, then not just heads but arms fully outstretched in the strange sort of salute - the ‘flail’ - that modern-traction ‘gricers’ seem to have made their own.

Nobody would condone such behaviour (in fact some sections of the media even likened it

In the current climate of orange overalls and draconian health & safety regulations, it's hard to recall that scenes such as this were commonplace as recently as the 1990s. The two ladies standing in their summer dresses and open-toed shoes on the main line ballast at Stratford are Gwenda Hardy (wife of ex-shedmaster Dick Hardy) and her friend Pat Carden. Dick said: "I took this photo in 1991 in the days when sensible photographers and passengers were allowed to walk off the platform-end and take pictures such as these. You can see a few of them in action in the left background, and good luck to them as such a picture could never be taken today."

to football hooliganism), but it was harmless bravado and the lads concerned were seasoned travellers who could perfectly well see potential hazards such as oncoming trains or signal posts.

The exception was the recent tragic accident in which an experienced railfan travelling alone lost his life while leaning out of the window of a normal service train – and the political fall-out from that single incident is bringing a rash of new restrictions to effectively deny other enthusiasts the simple pleasure of standing at an open window enjoying the sight, sound and smell of a hard-working locomotive.

As it happens, the increased use of airconditioned stock on main line specials is doing much to kill that particular branch of the hobby anyway. A friend who recently travelled on a Crewe-Chester-Shrewsbury charter formed of Mk2d stock said he was unable to hear the steam loco at all during the entire journey and that he might as well have been on a diesel train.

The good news for tour operators, though, is that when he mentioned this feeling of insulation from the outside world to his three non-enthusiast companions, they said they hadn’t even noticed!

FRONT-ENDS: It used to be said in jest that all Great Western engines looked the same.

They didn’t of course, even though Swindon standardisation was legendary – but half a century or so later, the old joke seems to have come full circle with GWR’s Class 800s, 801s and 802s looking almost indistinguishable from

“I do see a few youngsters on platform-ends these days, but not many. Most frequenters are the wrong side of 60, passing the long days of retirement and perhaps, in their own minds, living the life of carefree schoolboys again.”

18 • The Railway Magazine • March 2020

a distance with their all-over green livery and Hitachi front-ends.

The latter design of nose is fast becoming the norm elsewhere too as the look first seen on Southeastern’s ‘Javelins’ spreads throughout the country with LNER, Hull Trains, TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast all ordering virtually identical units. Only the liveries will differ.

Compared with this chronic homogenisation, even British Rail’s ‘blue period’ seemed full of diversity!

Such matters are of no importance to operators and passengers, obviously, but variety is the spice of life and plays a big part in germinating and sustaining an enthusiast’s interest.

PLATFORM-ENDS: I’m not suggesting it was ever acceptable to wander off a platform end, but it’s an inescapable fact that many did and there are some wonderful low-angle photographs to prove it. People in those days also somehow managed to do it without getting themselves killed or maimed because the vast majority were sensible and didn’t stand on the tracks!

A photo in one of the books written by the late, great shedmaster Richard Hardy even shows his wife standing with a female friend on the ballast of a main line, having walked off a platform ramp during a main line steam railtour in the early-1990s. Both women were wearing summer dresses – and open-toed shoes – and although leaving the platform was officially against the rules, Dick had no qualms about publishing the picture as it was just so normal at the time for railtour passengers to do such things!

Today, all new or rebuilt platforms on the network are devoid of ramps. Instead, they have a sudden drop protected by a locked gate leading to a short flight of steps. If these developments really do help reduce suicides

Before the advent of the smartphone, information was obtained by the printed GB Timetable. With the latest Middleton Press printed version being the last, timetable information is accessed in a variety of different ways using a computer or smartphone. Spotters books are still around, but sell in lesser quantities, and a rail atlas is always useful to keep up-to-date with changes. In the 1980s and 90s, books containing lists of loco-hauled diagrams were popular, and while Ordnance Survey maps have lots of detail, again smartphone maps or access to the OS via streetmap.co.uk has rendered them less popular.

they can only be praised, but it’s yet another example of the way aspects of the old hobby are being steadily closed off.

I do see a few youngsters on platform-ends these days, but not many. Most frequenters are the wrong side of 60, passing the long days of retirement and perhaps, in their own minds, living the life of carefree schoolboys again.

Other enthusiasts, tired of units and unwilling to begin logging the numbers of wagons or yellow plant, have turned their attentions overseas, where attitudes are generally more tolerant and relaxed. In many countries, it’s still perfectly normal for members of the public to wander along the tracks and they rarely come to any harm.

After all, it’s no different (and probably a great deal safer!) than crossing a main road.

The ‘Ian Allan’-style books of loco numbers published by Platform 5 and covering many major European nations have helped ‘export’ this peculiarly British hobby to the rest of the continent.

COMMERCIAL GIMMICKS: The heritage railway movement has not escaped the changing world. Originally established to ‘accurately and faithfully preserve and conserve’ the railway of the past, steam lines have had to resort to ever-more extreme ways of attracting hard-to-please 21st century punters and their kids.

These gimmicks began fairly mildly in the 1980s with ‘Santa Specials’, ‘Thomas the Tank’ weekends and ‘Rail-Ale Specials’, then came the rather less innocent ‘Second World War reenactments’ and ‘Murder Mystery Trains’.

Then the ‘Polar Expresses’ arrived on the scene, providing the impetus for the recent huge leap into a scenario unimaginable only

a few years ago – trains festooned with multicoloured light bulbs!

These ‘Winter Wonderlight’ specials run in darkness in order to increase the effectiveness of their displays, some of which can stretch the full length of the train and give the impression of ‘Blackpool illuminations on wheels’! As spectacles, I have to admit they’re pretty impressive and I wouldn’t criticise the vision and enterprise that has created them – for any business has to keep re-inventing itself if it’s not to wither and die through lack of income.

Whether it’s good for nostalgists or in the spirit of preservation’s pioneering aims, however, is another matter entirely.

Now for the more POSITIVE CHANGES:

THE INTERNET: There is little doubt that the greatest development of modern times is the Internet. It’s almost impossible to fully appreciate what this digital phenomenon has done for railway enthusiasm.

In just two decades, millions upon millions of facts and figures relating to railway history have made their way onto the worldwide web, to be immediately accessed at the touch of a finger by any railfan anywhere on the globe.

If you were to travel back in time even as recently as the 1980s and tried to explain this to someone, they simply wouldn’t be able to grasp the enormity of it.

It will probably never be possible to get absolutely every fact or photo on-line, of course, but I never cease to be amazed by the arcane, nebulous and virtually prehistoric

Mobile phone technology has radically changed, too. Left is a Motorola 8800X, a speech-only, brick-sized device from 1988. Later came the Blackberry, this one from 2011 which would allow speech, text messages and emails and, on the right, the iPhone 8 (smartphone) which provides the user with vast computing power through a range of apps (applications).

March 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 19

A ‘MULTIPLE ASPECTS’ SPECIAL

The availability of drones costing from £100 upwards provides new opportunities too, even more so as drones under 250gm do not need licensing. Here, an East Midlands Trains HST crosses the Trent and is about to plunge into Redhills Tunnel on April 10, 2019. GEOFF GRIFFITHS

subjects that do come up on my screen, some of which I’d previously had no idea even existed! It’s not just history either; every heritage railway and specialist group now has its own dedicated website, while Network Rail and the train operating companies virtually live on the net these days. Many of their passengers book their tickets that way too.

What the next stage will be in this new industrial revolution is anybody’s guess.

MOBILE PHONES: Most of us now wouldn’t know what to do without our smart phones.

How many times in the ‘good old days’ did you stand, soaked to the skin, freezing cold and fed-up on a deserted platform or on the lineside with your camera, waiting for a train that just didn’t seem to be turning up? Unless you were lucky enough to be near a signalbox with a friendly bobby, there was no way of knowing – yet the minute after you’d packed up and set off for home, sure enough the train would appear!

From the early-1990s onwards, we began to enjoy the luxury (if humping something the shape and weight of a house brick around could be called a luxury!) of phoning friends further down the line and finding out whether

trains were delayed or not.

Now websites and apps such as ‘Realtime Trains’ have taken that benefit to a new level, providing a wealth of near-live information about every movement, be it passenger, freight or special.

Mind you, there are some old-time cameramen who feel such developments have changed the hobby for the worse by taking the element of surprise out of it – rather as a special pair of glasses would if they enabled an angler to see beneath the surface and detect the positions and breeds of all the fish.

Smart phones do have another massive advantage, however, and that’s in the use of GPS satellite technology to inform you exactly which direction you’re moving in and how close you are to your intended location… particularly useful if travelling in a foreign country with indecipherable signage.

DIGITAL CAMERAS: If rail-related time travel ever becomes a reality, I’d go back to the early-1920s and the mid-1950s armed with a modern camera!

Film photography had many frustrating disadvantages. First of all, the inability to know for sure whether you’d focused and exposed the film correctly. Secondly, the extremely

limited number of shots per roll, and thirdly the frustrating length of time it took for films to come back from processing. Even if you developed and printed your own, it took skill, time and effort.

Fast-forward 20 years and poor or superfluous shots can be deleted and replaced before you leave the scene. Your videos can be uploaded onto YouTube or similar and be viewed by others before you’ve even got home.

Cameras and scanners have revolutionised the hobby – and manipulation tools even allow unfortunate oversights such as signal posts sticking out of chimneys and steam support crew’s orange clothing to be subtly ‘removed’ if necessary. Not something The RM would condone, but acceptable for private use.

DRONES: Linked to the above is the relatively recent advent of drones. We might not be able to see trains properly from the lineside in many places any more, but we can effectively rise above the trees and housing estates and take a bird’s eye view instead, thanks to drone-mounted cameras.

These have provided a whole new slant on familiar locations and made it possible to take track-level shots alongside viaducts or abovethe-sea shots of harbours and coastal termini.

With easy access to the internet, today’s enthusiast can often check on the accessibility and suitability of a location using Google street view (left), such as here at Colton Jct, York. By using website Traksy.uk (centre) or Realtime Trains (right), the position of a train can be determined with far greater accuracy than 20 years ago, when it was often necessary to wait and wait, not knowing if a working had failed, been diverted or been cancelled.

20 • The Railway Magazine • March 2020

For those of us fascinated by the detail in aerial photographs, these little gadgets have been a godsend… although they can be a damned nuisance in wrong or inexperienced hands.

CLUBS AND SOCIETIES: It’s not much more than the lifetime of a single human being since the first of today’s enthusiast organisations – the Stephenson Locomotive Society – was formed in 1909. Before that there was only the now-defunct Railway Club, a rather high-brow grouping more suited to historians and academics.

The SLS was followed by the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society (RCTS) and the Locomotive Club of Great Britain (LCGB), but the ‘big three’ eventually found themselves competing for members from loosely organised spotters’ groups such as the Northern Counties Transport Society and the Dalescroft Railfans Club, whose typewritten newsletters were churned out on old duplicating machines.

When I established the Engine Shed Society a third of a century ago, one of the national magazines quipped that it wouldn’t be long before there was an ‘Ashpit Society’! Well, it hasn’t quite come to that, but the situation is certainly more specialised these days with study groups dedicated to all the major preGrouping companies and virtually every sizable town in Britain blessed with a local rail society. Not only that, but their journals have become glossy, professionally printed products providing a wealth of fascinating information.

BOOKS AND PERIODICALS: Much the same can be said for the publishing industry generally. In the 1950s and early-’sixties, we considered ourselves well catered for in this regard… even if most of the volumes did seem to come from the Ian Allan or David & Charles stables with five or six ‘plates’ of

When the HSTs entered passenger service in 1976, no one could have envisaged how they’d change inter-city services, nor expect a demand to ‘cab’ them. Here is the penultimate LNER HST working from King’s Cross to Harrogate on December 15, 2019, with a group wanting to cab it. CHRIS MILNER Inset: Modern railwayana has also found a place in the hearts of enthusiasts. Sales of Virgin ‘Pendolino’ nameplates and crests last year realised more than £170,000 for charities and good causes.

illustrations interleaved between hundreds of pages of unbroken text!

We had no idea how much more fortunate we were going to get!

For the 1970s marked the start of a tidal wave of highly specialised hardback books from new kids on the block such as Wild Swan and Oxford Publishing Co, whose deeply

“For those of us fascinated by the detail in aerial photographs, these little gadgets have been a godsend… although they can be a damned nuisance in wrong or inexperienced hands.”

Fifty years ago, few people could have imagined scenes like this! ‘Trains of Light’ such as this on the Dartmouth Steam Railway have brought a dramatic new visual dimension to the hobby. DSR

researched and profusely illustrated books began to move away from general company histories and concentrate instead on individual branch lines or even structures thereof.

Such in-depth coverage has since mushroomed in spectacular fashion, with publishers such as Irwell, Lightmoor, Book Law and Mortons’ own Gresley Books continuing to push back the frontiers of knowledge in ways undreamt of in earlier times. It’s been a similar story with monthly periodicals.

Students of British railway history can indeed consider themselves the luckiest in the world to have so much information and photographic evidence at their disposal.

RAILWAYANA: Half a century or so ago, totems and other items of railway furniture were still being thrown into skips during station modernisation schemes. Such relics were considered junk and although BR had recognised the resale value of name- and number-plates, anyone seeking to buy one before the arrival of Collectors’ Corner had to either contact BR direct or search the classified ad pages of The Railway Magazine, Trains Illustrated or Railway World in the hope of finding a private collector prepared to dispose of one. A wait of several months could perhaps ensue before something suitable turned up.

Now the 21st century collector simply turns to the many full-page colour adverts placed in The RM by the railwayana auction houses and has a veritable cornucopia of plates, totems, lamps, clocks and suchlike to choose from.

To sum up, the modern rail network is fast, smooth and wonderfully well-used and I for one will remain a supporter of railways until the day I die… but with many steam-age spotters now pensioners, I wonder how long the hobby itself will last in its present form? ■ March 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 21

HEADLINE NEWS

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 One of the train wheel-shaped plaques was in English, the other in Welsh.  The Prince of Wales (right) and CAF’s chief executive officer Andres Arizkorreta reveal the bilingual plaques that officially marked the opening of the company’s factory in Newport, South Wales. The unnumbered Class 195 vehicle behind carried a special dragon motif for the day. All photos on February 21 by Paul Bickerdyke

Royal opening for CAF Newport Although the production of DMUs for Northern and West Midlands Trains has been underway since late 2018, February saw CAF’s train building factory in South Wales officially opened by Prince Charles.

THE CAF factory in Newport, South Wales, was officially opened on February 21, when the Prince of Wales toured the plant, met with employees, and unveiled a pair of commemorative bilingual plaques.

Although the factory has been assembling trains since late 2018, it is now close to current capacity turning

out one new vehicle roughly every week. It was built to assemble DMU vehicles, although there is provision to add overhead wiring for EMUs in the future – either new builds or DMU to EMU conversions.

The 15,000m sq factory is on the south side of the South Wales Main Line, east of Newport and just

A view of the three production lines (F, G and H from left) looking from the Newport (bodyshell entry) end to the Llanwern (traverser) end. Class 195/196 DMUs for Northern and West Midlands Trains are at various levels of assembly.

12 RAIL EXPRESS April 2020

west of the adjacent Tata Steel plant at Llanwern. There are three main buildings running parallel to the mainline: a five-road test shed (roads A-E), a three-road assembly shed (roads F-H), and a stores building.

These are connected by a traverser at the Llanwern end, where there is also a separate paint shop and washer

(which is used to check for leaks).

Pre-painted bodyshells arrive by road at the Newport end and enter via doors F-H on wheeled stands for assembly to begin. The first stage is to add glass to the windows, followed by all the complex wiring, seats and other interior fitments. The final stage in the assembly shed is to lower the bodies

Inside the five-road test shed, looking from the Llanwern (traverser) end back to the Newport (vehicle exit) end. Each road can comfortably hold a four-car unit.

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A view of the CAF plant at the Newport end. New bodyshells go through doors F, G and H on to the assembly lines, while completed vehicles leave from doors A-E. The marquee was a temporary structure for the official opening event and the South Wales Main Line runs parallel behind the trees on the left.

 Bodyshells wait outside the plant to take their turn on the assembly lines and become Class 196 DMUs for West Midlands Trains.  Bodyshells are placed on these wheeled supports through the assembly process.

 The first stage is to add the windows, then the complex wiring process can begin.  There are vast amounts of cabling and harnesses inside every vehicle. This is the gangway-fitted cab of a Class 196 destined for West Midlands Trains.

Units are shunted out of the assembly shed onto a traverser so they can access the test shed.

onto their bogies, which is done at the Llanwern end of road F. The vehicles are then shunted out onto the traverser for a leak test, then moved to the test shed before eventually leaving at the Newport end again.

The test shed can easily hold five four-car trains, which is around 50% more than the assembly shed,

The final stage in the assembly shed is to add the bogies, which is done at the end of road F. This Class 196 driving car has just received its wheels.

The traverser also gives access to this paint shop at the Llanwern end of the plant.

but spare land is available to build further assembly lines if required and consideration is also being given to assembling vehicle bodies rather than bringing them in from other CAF sites in continental Europe. There is also a plan to build a 1.25-mile (2km) test track alongside the main line, which would allow units to get up to speeds around

The finished passenger saloon of a Class 195 DMU destined for use by Northern, looking towards the driving cab (with its door open).

Testing underway inside a Class 195 DMU for Northern.

The seats are covered in plastic sheets to protect them from dirt.

40mph, although this would run onto land owned by the steelworks, and so CAF needs to work with Tata for this to go ahead.

Current orders at the plant include the last two and three-car Class 195 DMUs for Northern plus two and fourcar Class 196 DMUs for West Midlands Trains. The ‘196s’ differ from the ‘195s’

mainly by having cab-to-cab gangway connections. These will be followed by similar gangway-fitted two and threecar Class 197 DMUs for TfW Rail.

Beyond these current orders, CAF is also bidding to build trains for HS2, while a contract for new Docklands Light Railway trains could be switched to Newport from elsewhere in Europe. E

The driver’s desk of a Northern Class 195 DMU showing the centrally-positioned seat.

April 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 13

STATION SECRETS

Have you ever wondered why the Monopoly board doesn’t feature Paddington, Waterloo, or Euston among its four stations, or why the four stations are all from the Eastern Region? Gary Boyd-Hope investigates.

O

NE of the conundrums faced by many households during the coronavirus lockdown has been how to keep the kids entertained.

In the first few weeks, before the movement restrictions were eased, families were spending virtually all their time confined within the four walls of their home, so it is not surprising the traditional family board game has undergone something of a renaissance during the last few months.

It’s certainly true of the Boyd-Hope household, where board games such as Cluedo, Scrabble and Monopoly have been extracted from the top of wardrobes, had the dust blown from their boxes, and regular ‘game nights’ become a weekly norm.

It was during a Monopoly session at the end of May that my eldest daughter posed a question to me, which ultimately led to this article being written. You see, it has always been a tactic of mine to acquire the four stations on the board first – King’s Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street – which would often

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30 • The Railway Magazine • September 2020

result in me winning. However, the others in the family have subsequently wised up to this approach, and will all now try and beat me to the stations if the opportunity arises.

During the game in question my daughter had just pipped me to Fenchurch Street and, after rubbing my nose in the fact she now had two stations to my one, she asked: “Why Fenchurch Street? Why not Paddington or Euston? King’s Cross is there, but why not any of the other well-known ones?”

Astute

It was a very interesting question, and quite an astute one from someone who claims to have no interest in ‘trains’.

Not only had she picked up on the fact the four traditional Monopoly board stations only include one that would generally be considered ‘well-known’ outside the Capital, but also unknowingly highlighted the fact all four were formerly London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), and later Eastern Region, stations, with none of the other ‘Big Four’ stations getting

a look in. Why is that? The board has Euston Road, so why not Euston station?

As my daughter noted, King’s Cross is there, and understandably so, but you have to wonder why little Marylebone – the last of the ‘classic’ termini to be built – is there instead of Waterloo or Victoria, or Fenchurch Street instead of St Pancras.

To get a better understanding of why this is, you have to go back to the mid-1930s when Monopoly first appeared on toy shelves across the country.

You might think of Monopoly as a very British institution, yet the game as we know it was invented across the Atlantic Ocean by an unemployed Pennsylvania boiler salesman named Charles Darrow.

His original game (which incidentally borrowed heavily from another called The Landlord Game, patented in 1904) featured streets and stations from Atlantic City, and up until 1934 all sets were made by his own fair hands. As the popularity of the game grew, Darrow couldn’t meet demand, and in January

2 1935 he sold the rights to the game to Parker Bros of New York. The game was a hit, and Parker Bros was soon selling more than 20,000 Monopoly sets per week.

In the spring of that year Parkers sent a Monopoly set to the offices of John Waddington Ltd of Leeds, to see if the well-known playing card manufacturer would be interested in acquiring the UK rights to the game.

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Enthused

The story goes that Waddingtons’ managing director Victor Watson gave the game to his son Norman to try out over a weekend. Watson Junior was so enthused after playing for three days he convinced his father to not only acquire the UK rights, but also those for Europe and the rest of the British Empire. Incidentally, Waddingtons would later go on to sell the American rights to Cluedo to the Parkers.

Having secured the new game, it had to be tailored for British audiences, and this meant replacing the Atlantic City streets and stations with equivalents from our nation’s capital.

Therefore, shortly after signing the agreement with Parker Bros, Victor Watson, together with his secretary Marjory Phillips, set

1: King’s Cross is the Monopoly board’s first station stop, where LNER Ivatt ‘C1’ Atlantic No. 4429 is pictured in 1936 at around the time the famous board game first hit UK toy shelves. C R L COLES/ RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON 2: Gresley ‘A1’ No. 2581 Neil Gow prepares

to leave King’s Cross with a Down express as ‘A4’ No. 4492 Dominion of New Zealand is about to depart with the non-stop ‘Flying Scotsman’ in the adjacent platform 9 on July 22, 1937. ‘A3’ No. 2750 Papyrus is in platform 10. JOHN P WILSON/RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON

3: Lewis Cubitt’s famous King’s Cross frontage following restoration in 2012 and the removal of the 1972 extension in front.

DENNIS LOVETT

4: The four station cards on the author’s 1948 Monopoly board, when the locomotive’s pictured were still of a distinctly British outline. GARY BOYDHOPE

•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?•?

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4

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3

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“If the choice of King’s Cross makes sense, then the decision to include the other three stations is not quite so obvious.”

ARCHIVE STEPHENSON

2: An ‘A4’ at Marylebone: The enamel playing piece from a 1948 Monopoly edition further strengthened the connection between Waddingtons and the Eastern Region. GARY BOYDHOPE 3: ‘V2’ 2-6-2 No. 60876 is about to leave Marylebone with the Down ‘Master Cutler’ on May 6, 1958. T G HEPBURN/RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON

4: Marylebone today is the terminus of Chiltern Railways services from Birmingham, and remains the capital’s only non-electrified terminus. Class 67 No. 67018 awaits departure with the 16.47 service to Birmingham Moor Street on November 26, 2013. GEOFF GRIFFITHS

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1: Former GCR Robinson ‘D11/1’ 4-4-0 No. 5510 Princess Mary on arrival at Marylebone in 1935. The station is exactly how Victor Watson would have found it when selecting stations for the British version of Monopoly. C R L COLES/ RAIL

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out from Leeds to London to select locations to replace the American ones. Yet you only have to look at a Monopoly board to see that they didn’t really know that much about the city, its landmarks, or its railways.

A clue as to how the first of the stations were selected can be gleaned from that first journey, which took Watson to London by way of the LNER’s East Coast Main Line. It is unlikely we’ll ever know exactly why Watson made the choices he did, but he would undoubtedly have been no stranger to the ECML, especially when business took him to ‘the Smoke’.

Waddingtons’ London office was in Charing Cross Road, and Watson would have alighted at King’s Cross whenever he made such journeys, and it is reasonable to suppose this would have influenced his decision to choose this as the first station on the board.

As most will know, King’s Cross was the LNER’s ‘flagship’ London station, although Liverpool Street actually exceeded it in the number of platforms stakes. Built by the Great

STATION SECRETS

4 Northern Railway, King’s Cross was the biggest in England when it opened on October 14, 1852.

The station was originally provided with one arrival and one departure platform, but over the succeeding years this number grew as traffic levels increased. A separate suburban station to the west of the main building opened in August 1875.

At the time Monopoly came along King’s Cross had been under the LNER’s control for more than a decade. The LNER made several improvements to passenger amenities, including the provision of new toilets and dressing rooms beneath what is now platform 8.

Bottleneck

The lines through the notorious bottleneck at the Gas Works Tunnels had also been remodelled, and signalling improved. Watson must have been impressed with what he saw.

At the time the LNER’s crack expresses were in the hands of Gresley’s brand new streamlined ‘A4s’, with the ‘A1’ and ‘A3’ Pacifics also being prominent. It is even possible Watson sometimes travelled to London on an Up ‘Flying Scotsman’, ‘Silver Jubilee’ or ‘Coronation’.

My own Monopoly set belonged to my late father, who had had it since the late-1940s.

Amid the wooden houses and hotels and enamelled playing pieces are a tank, bulldozer, sailing ship, car and a lovely blue Gresley ‘A4’ Pacific, which suggests Waddingtons was well aware of the ‘Streaks’ and the record-breaking 126mph run of No. 4468 Mallard in 1938.

If the choice of King’s Cross makes sense, then the decision to include the other three stations is not quite so obvious.

Watson only had to stand outside King’s Cross to see the mighty edifice that is St Pancras (or George Gilbert’s Scott’s Midland Grand

Hotel, at least), or glance at Harry Beck’s still east end, not far from Vine Street, but nowhere relatively new map of the London Underground near any of the streets that form the ‘red’ or to see that Euston was only one stop away. ‘yellow’ sets that sandwich it on the board.

Paddington was pretty well-known at that time, In his Monopoly-based travelogue, Do too Not Pass Go, author Tim Moore describes the Even the former South Eastern Railway choice of the four stations as “wilfully obscure”, terminus at Charing Cross would seem logical noting in particular the how inconspicuous given Waddingtons’ London office address, so Fenchurch Street station was among London’s why did he choose Marylebone, Liverpool Street, other termini. He likens it to Vine Street, which and particularly Fenchurch Street? although having a prominent position at the You might be forgiven for thinking most expensive of the ‘oranges’, is in reality little geography played a part in the selection. King’s more than a short alleyway-cum-loading bay in Cross is, after all, relatively close to The Angel, the Mayfair district.

Islington; Euston Road and Pentonville Road Oldest (the ‘light blue’ set), which follow it on the Fenchurch Street itself is the oldest address board. However, that theory is instantly dispelled on the Monopoly board, and likewise its station when looking at the next station – Marylebone – – the third on the board – is also the oldest (and which on the board sits between the ‘purples’ with four platforms, the smallest) of the four, (Pall Mall, Whitehall and Northumberland having opened in 1841 to serve the London & Avenue) and the ‘oranges’ (Bow Street, Blackwall Railway (L&BR).

Marlborough Street and Vine Street).

It was subsequently rebuilt in 1854 when A quick glance at a London A-Z reveals the London, Tilbury & Southend Railway that while the ‘purples’ are quite close to one (LT&SR) – a joint venture between the L&BR another geographically, the ‘oranges’ are spread and the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) – right across the city, and none are close to began operating.

Marylebone.

After the ECR was amalgamated into the Liverpool Street is probably closer to Great Eastern Railway (GER) in 1862, the new Whitechapel Road (which with Old Kent Road company continued to share Fenchurch Street forms the ‘browns’) than any of the other with the LTSR until that company was acquired Monopoly streets, but is nowhere near it on the by the Midland Railway in 1912. board, while Fenchurch Street is way out in the

“In his Monopoly-based travelogue, Do Not Pass Go, author Tim Moore describes the choice of the four stations as “wilfully obscure”, noting in particular how inconspicuous Fenchurch Street station was among London’s other termini.”

September 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 33

STATION SECRETS The Grouping saw the station fall into LNER ownership, and at the time of Monopoly’s creation was shared with London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) services until Nationalisation.

Like King’s Cross, the station became part of British Railways’ Eastern Region from 1948, although the old LT&SR network west of Gasworks Junction was under London Midland Region control. However, in February 1949 the whole LT&SR route was transferred to the Eastern Region, which electrified it 10 years later; the first electric services started in 1961.

Today, the 1854 facade remains intact, although the roof was dismantled in the 1980s when the site was redeveloped and high-rise offices built above the station.

If Fenchurch Street is the smallest, then Liverpool Street is most certainly the largest of the Monopoly stations, having almost as many platforms as the other three combined.

On the Monopoly board it sits on the fourth side of the square, wedged between the ‘green’ shopping district (Regent, Oxford and Bond streets) and the ‘dark blues’ of Park Lane and Mayfair, the most expensive properties.

The GER built the station in 1874 to replace the old Eastern Counties’ Bishopsgate terminus, on land previously occupied by the Bethlem Royal Hospital (the infamous ‘Bedlam’). It was constructed on two levels, with a low-level platform serving the sub-surface trains of the Metropolitan Railway.

A major expansion was carried out during the early-1890s, so that by 1895 Liverpool Street had more platforms of any other London terminus, a crown it lost to Victoria in 1908.

Its prominence as a major transport hub saw it targeted by German bombers during an air raid on June 13, 1917, when around seven tons of explosives in three bombs were dropped on the station, killing 162 people and injuring 432 more.

LNER and BR (Eastern Region) ownership

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34 • The Railway Magazine • September 2020

“The fact all four stations belonged at the time to the LNER is conspicuous to say the least. It’s feasible to suggest Watson and Waddingtons made a deal with the LNER to use the company’s stations on the Monopoly board... ” saw the first moves to electrify the lines serving the station, and during the mid-1970s it escaped total demolition as part of a BR redevelopment plan, thanks in part to a campaign led by the poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman.

In subsequent years the station has been remodelled and modified on multiple occasions, again coming close to, but avoiding, losing more of its architectural features, and today is the UK’s third busiest station after Waterloo and Victoria.

Which leaves Marylebone, usually pronounced as ‘mar-lee-bun’ rather than ‘marrylee-bone’.

Newcomer

As the second station on the Monopoly board, Marylebone is a relative newcomer, having opened in 1899 as the terminus of the Great Central Railway’s (GCR) London Extension. As a consequence it never quite fulfilled expectations, and although its trains served population centres like Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, they were also served by well-established rival lines, and Marylebone thus remained one of London’s quieter stations.

Little changed under the LNER (apart from the appearance of ‘V2s’ and ‘A3s’, displaced from ECML services) or even under the Eastern Region, but the transfer of the old Great Central route to London Midland control saw a real rundown as services were cut back, and the Great Central route finally closed in 1966.

By this point Marylebone was a shadow of its former self, having lost its large goods yard to housing, and was left as the terminus for local

services to Aylesbury and High Wycombe. In 1984 it was threatened with total closure, but was reprieved after Network SouthEast took over the station and commuter traffic began to rise, easing pressure on Paddington.

During the early-1990s Marylebone found itself as the terminus of extended Chiltern Main Line services from Birmingham Snow Hill, and in 2006 was expanded with two additional platforms.

Services began between Marylebone and Oxford Parkway in 2015, and Oxford a year later.

Although still quiet compared to the other termini, Marylebone today is thriving under Chiltern Railways, although interestingly remains the only main London terminus without any electrified National Rail services.

Alas, the precise reasons why Victor Watson chose the four stations for his London take on Monopoly may never be fully known, and we can only speculate or make educated guesses as to what influenced his decisions.

Certainly such obscure selections were not limited to the stations: The Angel, Islington being a prime example, as it was a pub, not a street, and in the mid-1930s wasn’t even in Islington. The aforementioned Vine Street and unremarkable Northumberland Avenue, are also good, head-scratching examples?

The fact all four stations belonged at the time to the LNER is conspicuous to say the least. It’s feasible to suggest Watson and Waddingtons made a deal with the LNER to use the company’s stations on the Monopoly board, perhaps in return for season tickets or other reciprocal benefits.

1: London, Tilbury & Southend Railway 4-4-2T No. 27 Whitechapel arrives at Fenchurch Street station as sister engine No. 34 Tottenham waits to take the train out again in around 1910. Note the Great Eastern Railway locos on the right.

RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON

2: LNER ‘B12/3’ 4-6-0 No. 8517 awaits the ‘right away’ from Liverpool Street with a Norwich express on May 22, 1937.

A W CROUGHTON/RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON 3: Fenchurch Street must surely rank as one of London’s most difficult to photograph stations, both internally and outside, owing largely to the many high-rise buildings which new encroach on all sides. RM ARCHIVE 4: Liverpool Street today presents a much brighter aspect than it did in steam days, being ranked as the UK’s third busiest station. DENNIS LOVETT

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2 3

Others have proposed that London-born Watson chose LNER stations to strengthen ties between the capital and Yorkshire, where he had lived since he was a child.

Another touted theory is Waddingtons rushed the game into production, having chosen most of the key properties, but filling the gaps by whatever came to hand. There is a certain amount of credence to this suggestion, as the Watsons received their first Monopoly set from Parker Brothers in the spring of 1935, but had the British version on sale by early 1936.

This would help explain why the balloonstacked, cow-catcher-fitted locomotives that adorned the stations on the Atlantic City version stations were replaced with more familiar British-outline types, but the car on Free Parking remained distinctly ‘Yank’, and the policeman on the Go To Jail square had the look of a New York cop.

‘Rushed’

Note the spelling of ‘Jail’ – Monopoly is often cited as the reason why the traditional English spelling of ‘gaol’ fell out of use in favour of the American spelling. Even the light bulb on the Electric Company retained its American screw fitting.

If this ‘rushed-through’ theory is correct, and the stations were among the last squares to be chosen, it could be someone in the Waddingtons office in Leeds simply grabbed an LNER timetable, and looked up terminal stations in London.

They wouldn’t have known Fenchurch Street and Marylebone were small, only that they were the end of the line.

Whatever the reasons for their selection, the names of King’s Cross (or more precisely Kings Cross, as there’s no apostrophe on the board), Marylebone, Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street have become engrained in the minds of generations of Monopoly players, and will no doubt continue to be so for many years to come.

■ ■ Since Hasbro acquired Parker Bros in 1991 there has been a ‘standardisation’ of Monopoly boards across the world. Modern versions have lost the British-outline locomotives, and King’s Cross et al are now represented by the American locomotives once more.

4

REVIEWS Devon & Cornwall Railfreight

By David Mitchell Published by Silver Link Publishing www.nostalgiacollection.com 208 pages, colour, hardback. £40

RAILFREIGHT in Devon and Cornwall today is a shadow of its former self, and this book chronicles the decline over the last 50 years of various flows now consigned to history. It begins in the latter steam years, but most of the photos used are of diesels through to the current Privatised era.

Examples of lost trade covered include Devon milk trains; Cornish china clay; grain and fertiliser traffic; coal around Exmouth Junction, Plymstock cement works and Falmouth Docks; oil to Exeter, Heathfield, Plymouth and Hayle;

Ministry of Defence trains, including nuclear flasks from Devonport Dockyard; cement, timber and aggregates.

The book uses a mixture of text, maps and photos – the latter mostly in colour with detailed captions, which benefit from being printed on high quality paper. It is fair to say some of the photos have been over-processed after scanning, which gives them an unnatural super-saturated look, but on the whole they are well produced and help tell the story of these lost trains. A good read and useful work of reference.

Branch Lines of East Anglia Harwich Branch

By Andy T Wallis Published by Amberley www.amberley-books.com 128 pages, b/w, softback. £14.99

THE branch off the Great Eastern Main Line from Manningtree to Harwich has long held an importance that outweighs its relatively short length due to the boat connections at Parkeston Quay – being one of the main passenger and freight routes to continental Europe before the opening of the Channel Tunnel.

This book takes a pictorial journey along the branch, starting at the triangular junction at the Manningtree end. There are multiple photos at each location, with some from the steam era but most are in

the diesel and electric period from the 1960s onwards.

The images are laid out in pictureand-caption format, with one or two per page, but surprisingly all are reproduced in black and white – even those clearly taken in the digital age over the last two decades. This is possibly to give a uniform look to the book, but a bit of colour would have lifted the pages where available. That said, there is an interesting selection of photos in the book that tell the history of the line and thus still make it worthy of buying.

British Railway Disasters

By Robin Jones Published by Mortons Media www.mortonsbooks.co.uk 132 pages, hardback. £14.99

THERE seems to be a macabre appeal to read about railway disasters – not least, perhaps, because they have all contributed to the high level of safety we rely on today. Here the author, who is editor of our sister magazine Heritage Railway, describes how Britain’s railway disasters have changed the network for the better through the crucial lessons that are learned.

There have sadly been far too

80 RAIL EXPRESS June 2020

many accidents to cover in one book, so it focuses on a number of key events in railway history, from fatalities on early mining tramways before the dawn of the steam age up to the present day. Many of Britain’s worst tragedies are covered in depth, such as Quintinshill in 1915 and Harrow & Wealdstone in 1952, but others are covered that also had resounding consequences for safety.

Early & First Generation Green Diesels

By Brian J Dickson Published by The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk 128 pages, b/w, hardback. £20

PERHAPS the biggest disappointment to get over with this is that, on opening the book from the cover, which features the word ‘green’ in the title and a colour image of a Class 25, there is then no further colour images within the pages.

Once over that, however, the reader will discover a fine collection of black and white photos from the late-1940s through to the mid-1960s.

The book is laid out in picture-

and-caption format, with one or two images per page, each accompanied by a detailed caption. A nice selection of images has been chosen, covering shunters, main line locos and preBritish Railways railcars at a variety of locations across the country.

So, while the lack of colour is a disappointment, it is not so large as to entirely dissuade the reader from considering this title for their collection.

Swindon to Bristol By both routes

By John Stretton & Tim Maddocks Published by Past & Present Books www.nostalgiacollection.com 128 pages, colour, softback. £20

THIS is part of the publisher’s series of books examining how locations have changed over the years – not quite offering side-by-side comparisons of then and now, but with enough images dating back to the steam era to be able to see the changes.

Swindon to Bristol by ‘both routes’ means via Bristol Parkway and Bath Spa. This picture-and-caption book

takes a pictorial journey along both from the Swindon end. There is an excellent selection of images that are well-reproduced on high quality paper – and it is always fascinating to see where once there were ‘Warships’ and ‘Westerns’, there are now Hitachi IETs. In total there are more than 200 images used, which makes for a fine addition to this series.

British Railways Stinks

By Dave Smith & Colleagues Published by Mortons Media www.mortonsbooks.co.uk 208 pages, hardback. £14.99

JUST when you think every aspect of railway history must have been covered by now, along comes this book to prove otherwise. There cannot be many who would make an obvious connection between railways and chemistry, and yet the first railway chemical laboratory was opened by the London & North Western Railway at Crewe in 1864 and the last ones lost their direct link to the rail industry on Privatisation in 1996.

Whatever their expertise, every railway chemist or ‘stink’ has been asked the same question: “What do you actually do?” That is precisely

the question this book attempts to answer. It covers many aspects of the work, from a BR chemist going to San Francisco to blow up a water melon to declaring an empty coal wagon a confined space; from whitewashing a passenger train, in service, in a couple of seconds, to questioning, on chemical grounds, the mental state of the chairman of British Rail; from gassing weevils to setting fire to a canal in Derby.

This book tells the unusual, astonishing and funny story of the railway ‘nuts’ who decided what exactly the ‘wrong kind of leaves’ were.

Got something to review?

Send any books, DVDs or other items to the editor at: Rail Express, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR

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Middleton marks its 60th during lockdown With its diamond anniversary celebrations on hold due to lockdown, the Middleton Railway ran an empty train on June 20 to mark exactly 60 years of heritage operations.

THIS June saw the Middleton Railway in Leeds pass a remarkable milestone, as it notched up 60 years of heritage operation.

The first standard gauge train to be operated by unpaid volunteers left Moor Road at 4.45pm on June 20, 1960, hauled by Hunslet diesel No. 1697, which was built locally in Leeds in 1932.

That same diesel 0-6-0 is still operational at the line today as LMS No. 7051, meaning it could haul a ceremonial special – albeit with no passengers – on June 20, leaving today’s Moor Road station at 16.45 and doubling up as a crew assessment trip prior to a planned reopening to the public in August.

The train was waved away by Matthew Youell, son of the railway’s founder the late physics lecturer Dr Fred Youell, who led a team of Leeds University Union Railway Society members in saving the line in 1959.

Inspired by the Talyllyn and Ffestiniog railway revivals, Fred was keen to join the railway preservation movement and the Middleton, the oldest continuously

operating railway in the world, became ‘his’ project.

Tram No. 2 was acquired from the then recently closed Swansea & Mumbles Railway, and this arrived on the line in two halves mid-June 1960 (see opposite). It was reassembled and used for passenger trips on the line in the week beginning June 20 that year.

Volunteers then ran mainly freight services to various engineering firms along the route until the early 1980s, but since then it has been a fully passenger operation.

A RAILWAY PIONEER

Built in 1758 to take coal from Middleton pits into Leeds, the Middleton Railway claims a number of railway firsts. It was the first railway authorised by an Act of Parliament, the first to use commercially-successful steam locomotives (from June 1812) and the first standard gauge preserved railway – predating the Bluebell Railway’s first public services on August 7, 1960, although unlike that line, it was never part of the national network.

The planned Diamond Jubilee gala on June 20/21 fell victim to the pandemic. However, on June 20 at 16.45, loco No. 7051 (Hunslet No. 1697) – now refitted with John Alcock nameplates in memory of designer and one-time Hunslet managing director – left Moor Road to officially mark 60 years of operation. It is pictured emerging from the M1 tunnel with the stub of the Dartmouth branch in the foreground; Moor Road station can just be glimpsed through the tunnel. Middleton Railway

12 RAIL EXPRESS August 2020

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Follow us on twitter @railexpress The first train in 1960 marked the start of Leeds University’s rag week, and during that time the line carried around 7700 passengers, showing that a heritage railway could attract paying customers. Three months later it reopened to goods, with trains being worked by students between lectures.

Locos and stock were initially based in the Dartmouth Yard of engineering firm Claytons, which has now been built over for a trading estate, although a section of track towards it remains as the ‘Dartmouth branch’. The M1 was extended into Leeds in the early 1970s, creating a new tunnel for the line just

south of Moor Road station, where the impressive collection of industrial steam and diesel locos – many with a Leeds connection – are now based.

Normal operations are between Moor Road and Park Halt, but the Balm Road branch is still used on special days, although the main line connection

has been out of use since 1990.

■ The Middleton Railway has launched a £25,000 emergency appeal in a bid to cover overheads while the line had been closed during lockdown and unable to generate vital income. Donations may be made at www.gofundme.com/f/ covid19-safeguarding-the-future. E

This sequence shows the delivery of the Middleton's first passenger vehicle, exSwansea & Mumbles Tram No. 2. It arrived in two halves in the upside yard at Hunslet (the site of today’s Freightliner Midland Road depot) after leaving Swansea on June 12, for a two-day rail journey via the Central Wales Line, Crewe and Huddersfield.

A unidentified British Railways Class 08 shunter coupled to the wagons and transferred them across the main line to the downside yard, where Hunslet-built shunter No. 1697 was attached at the opposite end to take the wagons forward onto the Middleton Railway.

No. 1697 hauls the wagons away from the main line and on to the Balm Road branch.

Balm Road itself passes over the bridge.

The train on the Balm Road branch, passing the now-demolished houses of Prospect Terrace where the line starts to curve into today’s Moor Road station.

Coming off the Balm Road branch onto the Middleton’s ‘main line’. This is approximately where Moor Road station and the line’s headquarters are today.

The reassembled tram No. 2 was used with No. 1697 during the first week of passenger operations, this shot taken on June 26, 1960. Middleton Railway

August 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 13

BLUE PULLMAN

Back to the future British Railways introduced the stylish Blue Pullman trainsets 60 years ago and, while ultimately short-lived, they heralded a move out of the steam age into a diesel-powered future.

A London Midland Region six-car Blue Pullman set leaving St Pancras in the 1960s. It ran from Manchester to London in the morning and back at night, with a fill in trip to Leicester during the day. All photos by BR unless stated

J

A publicity shot of a Western Region eight-car set issued by Metro-Cammell, showing the bold Nanking blue livery that would have stood out at the end of the steam age.

76 RAIL EXPRESS August 2020

ULY 4, 1960 saw the first ‘Blue Pullman’ sets enter service with British Railways and, as these publicity shots from the time show, what a vision of the future they must have been in a world still dominated by steam.

The trains came out of the 1955 Modernisation Plan and the need for luxury express services. They were formed in fixed formations of two power cars sandwiching a rake of stock, much like the HSTs of the following decade that are now arguably Britain’s most successful train.

There were two six-car sets for the London Midland Region and three eight-car sets for the Western Region, with the LMR service starting first between St Pancras and Manchester Central via Matlock and the WR sets following in September 1960 serving

Bristol, South Wales and Birmingham/ Wolverhampton. These services all operated Monday-Friday only, leaving the weekends for maintenance and also some charter use.

All were built by Metro-Cammell in Birmingham for the Pullman Car Company, and under British Railways they were later classified as Class 251 (power cars) and 261 (kitchen and parlour cars).

They were only to last in service for 13 years, however, as the demand for such luxury rail travel went out of date. This was especially so following electrification of the West Coast Main Line between London and Manchester Piccadilly in 1966, which undercut the 3hrs 15mins needed for the Midland Pullman to complete its journey and led to the LMR sets being transferred to join the others on the Western.

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BLUE PULLMAN

Pullman staff on the platform ready to greet passengers aboard.

Inside a Parlour Car of one of the LMR sets showing the 2+1 seating and Venetian blinds inside double-glazed windows.

Demonstrating seat adjustments; the Venetian blind being raised by a turning handle. Rounded tables featured a lamp and steward call button.

The interior of a Blue Pullman Kitchen Car. Metro-Cammell

The gangway leading to a First Class Parlour Car. Metro-Cammell

August 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 77

BLUE PULLMAN A six-car Blue Pullman leaves St Pancras in the 1960s. How different this view is today, as the home of Eurostar international travel.

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With two powercars rated at 1000hp, the trains were somewhat underpowered with a top speed of 90mph. They also had a reputation for rough riding at speed, while the small fleet size also

contributed to their demise as BR moved into standardisation in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The last sets were withdrawn from service in May 1973 and sadly all were scrapped. E

A Metro-Schlieren power car bogie featuring hydraulically-damped helical springs.

Metro-Cammell

One of the Metro-Schlieren trailer bogies. Pneumatic braking allowed for controlled stopping. Metro-Cammell  A rare view inside the engine compartment of a Blue Pullman power car showing the 1000hp NBL/MAN V12 power unit. A secondary Rolls-Royce engine and generator beneath the floor provided power for the air-conditioning, fridges and other equipment.

Metro-Cammell

78 RAIL EXPRESS August 2020

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Welcoming back travellers The Severn Valley Railway invited Rail Express along to see how it is reopening for a safe and enjoyable day out.

HERITAGE lines have had it tough this year, with many months of precious fare income already lost due to coronavirus lockdown – and even as restrictions have eased, some have still decided it is not worth reopening.

The problem is mainly one of capacity: how to carry enough passengers safely yet still make it viable for the railway. Some of the shorter lines have opted to offer a straightforward out and back journey, with the train being cleaned between trips. Others, like the Severn Valley, are taking more of a ‘day out’ approach.

The SVR has reopened with three trains a day: two start from Kidderminster and one from Bridgnorth, all covering the full length of the line and all calling at Highley at some point to allow visits to the Engine

House museum. All trains are formed of compartment stock, which is the limiting factor over how many trains can run, and passengers have exclusive use of the same six-seat compartment throughout the day. Compartments typically cost £75 per day, making it good value for a family.

There are queuing and one-way systems in place, while masks need to be worn in all enclosed public areas (including coach corridors, but not in compartments). Station staff show passengers to their booked compartment at the start of the day, and each contains a bottle of hand sanitiser and a bag for rubbish. Passengers are also asked to detrain in an orderly way, under guidance if necessary, and toilets on trains are locked out of use (an end-to end journey taking just over an hour).

Masks need to be worn in all enclosed public areas on stations and trains, but not in train compartments (this shot at Kidderminster was taken before Government guidelines were tightened).

On board toilets are locked out of use.

A queuing system is in place outside Kidderminster station, with ticket checks at the entrance. All photos taken on July 28. Paul Bickerdyke

There is no onboard catering, but toilets, cafes and bars are open at Kidderminster, Highley and Bridgnorth using the same social distancing and safety measures in place at other such outlets in general. Food and

Station staff (in this case Kidderminster stationmaster Geoff Smith) show passengers to their seats. All trains are formed of compartment stock, and a family group of up to six have exclusive use of the same compartment for the whole day.

It is somewhat eerie passing through deserted intermediate stations – such as Bewdley, which is normally teeming with life.

drink can also be consumed within train compartments.

Apart from wearing masks in public areas, which we are all having to get used to now anyway, the experience feels safe and normal, meaning it is possible again to have an enjoyable day out on a heritage line. All services at the SVR are currently steam-hauled, but diesels should return in some form towards the back end of summer or in the autumn. E

Each compartment comes with a guide, hand sanitiser and a rubbish bag.

One of many hand sanitising points readily available, this one between the station and Engine House at Highley.

Severn Valley services in August are steam-hauled, but the diesels waiting at Kidderminster depot should get their chance later this year.

10 RAIL EXPRESS September 2020

T&W 40

Forty years of the Metro The Tyne & Wear Metro was Britain’s first modern light rail system when it opened in August 1980.

T

HE Tyne & Wear Metro has notched up 40 years of operation, the first section from Haymarket to Tynemouth via Benton opening on August 11, 1980.

Often overlooked by enthusiasts as it quietly goes about its routine business connecting Tyneside, Newcastle and Sunderland, the network is full of history and interest – not least the unique Metrocars, which are the twicerefurbished originals and so date back to the late-1970s.

Tyneside was a pioneer in the use of electric traction, with the North Eastern Railway using 600V third-rail traction on North Tyneside from 1904, later expanded to South Tyneside by the LNER in 1938.

Faced with the need to upgrade the trains and infrastructure, however, British Railways withdrew these electric services in 1967 and 1963 respectively, taking the somewhat retrograde step of replacing them with slower DMUs.

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Tyneside electrics date back to the early 1900s, when the North Eastern Railway introduced 600V third-rail units to the North Tyneside loop – and this 1920s-built unit (seen at Newcastle Central in 1938) was transferred to the South Tyneside routes when they were electrified in the late-1930s. Walter Dendy/Creative Commons

The ex-NER units continued on South Tyneside routes until the mid-1950s, when they were replaced by British Railways-built 2-EPB units, which continued until they were replaced by DMUs in 1963 and transferred to the Southern Region. An unidentified 2-EPB runs into Pelaw on August 20, 1962 with a service from South Shields to Newcastle. I S Carr

A train of LNER 1937-built stock at North Shields heading for Tynemouth in 1967, the year they were withdrawn and replaced by slower DMUs. Roger Cornfoot/Creative Commons

A view of Tynemouth station on the penultimate day of ‘heavy rail’ services (August 9, 1980) as a Class 104 DMU prepares to leave for Newcastle Central via Wallsend, with a Metrocar in the background on test via Monkseaton. Dr Neil Clifton/Creative Commons

September 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 83

T&W 40

The new look for Tyneside in the form of prototype Metrocar No. 4001 in action on the specially-built test track in October 1976.

The track’s two-road maintenance building is on the right (now home to the Stephenson Steam Railway).

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This led to the Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority (now called Nexus) proposing a rapid transit system to help regenerate the area, which was seeing much of its traditional

heavy industries, like mining and ship building, disappear. The proposals were approved, and a bill was passed in Parliament in 1973 along with 70% of the estimated £100 million cost.

The former British Rail depot at Gosforth was taken over by Metro to maintain the Tyne & Wear fleet, although there was a handover period when it was used by both BR DMUs and T&W Metrocars. This late-1970s shot shows Metrocar No. 4004 inside the shed building alongside a diesel unit.

Wearing the original yellow and white livery, Metrocar No. 4079 approaches Regent Centre on May 5, 1982 with a working to Bank Foot.

84 RAIL EXPRESS September 2020

CONSTRUCTION AND TESTING

Construction began in 1974, converting existing stations, building new ones and adding overhead wires at 1500V DC. Today there are 60 stations on the network, some completely new, some dating back to the North East Railway (as illustrated by the typically NER footbridge at South Gosforth, where the central control centre is located).

The main part of the project was tunnelling under Newcastle and building a new bridge – the Queen Elizabeth II – over the Tyne to connect the networks north and south of the river (the former heavy line services had used Newcastle Central station). Notably, distances are measured in kilometres rather than miles, the first network in Britain to do so.

After the Haymarket to Tynemouth section opened in 1980, South Gosforth to Bank Foot followed on May 10, 1981; Heworth to Haymarket on November 15, 1981; St James to Tynemouth via Wallsend on November 14, 1982; Heworth to South Shields on March 24, 1984; Bank Foot to Airport on November 17, 1991; and Pelaw to South Hylton (via Sunderland) on March 31, 2002. Services today run as the Green Line from Airport to South Hylton and the Yellow Line from St James to Tynemouth, Haymarket and South Shields.

A 1.5-mile test track was also built in 1975 along the route of a former waggonway north of Percy Main, and this included a two-road shed, station platform, reverse curves and a short tunnel section. Two prototype Metrocars Nos. 4001 and 4002 were built to test out various features over the next five years. Most notable features on test were the doors and couplings, while the prototypes had cab-end doors for evacuation in tunnels – although ultimately the Metro’s tunnels were built with side walkways,

The two prototype trains were each fitted with two different types of coupler, one at each end, to assess the best kind. In the end, the BSI version (lower shot) was chosen for the fleet.

so the end doors were not needed and the prototypes rebuilt to the production run spec.

After the test track closed in 1980 it later became home to the Stephenson Railway Museum and North Tyneside Steam Railway. Both prototype Metrocars are still in service today, however, which at 45 years old makes them some of the oldest trains still running in Britain.

The rest of the 90-strong fleet (Nos. 4003-4090) was built in 1978-81

by Metro-Cammell in Washwood Heath (Birmingham), and all but No. 4022 – which was damaged in a derailment at Gosforth depot in March 2017 – are in service.

FLEET DETAILS

Each Metrocar is formed of two carriages semi-permanently joined by a shared Jacobs bogie, with each car having a powered bogie at their cab end. They have 64 seats per set, with standing room for another 188, and the top speed is 50mph.

A number of special liveries have been carried over the years, but apart from these there have only been three main colour schemes: cadmium yellow and white (late 1970s to mid-1990s); red, green or blue with a full yellow end (mid-1990s to early-2010s); and black and yellow (early-2010s to date).

These changes coincided with midlife and three-quarter life refurbishment programmes, although cost overruns on the latter mean that Nos. 4001, 4002, 4040 and 4083 missed out and remain in 1990s condition. These four do not meet current disability access requirements, and for this reason they are identified on TOPS as Class 599 while the bulk of the fleet is Class 994. A TOPS identification is required because they share tracks with main line services on the eight-mile section between Pelaw and Sunderland.

T&W 40

The control centre at South Gosforth is the nerve centre of the whole Tyne & Wear system, the imposing building seen behind No. 4019 on September 13, 2013 as it heads to St James via Whitley Bay and Tynemouth.

The line from Pelaw to South Hylton is the most recent extension to date, opening at the end of March 2002 and sharing the section of route north of Sunderland with main line passenger and freight traffic. This view of No. 4049 at the single-platformed South Hylton terminus was taken on April 11, 2018.

Chris Morgan/Creative Commons

No. 4065, in mid-1990s red and yellow livery, at Tynemouth on September 13, 2013 – the impressive station having been superbly renovated in 2012.

Wallsend derives its name from being at the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall, the northern limit of the Roman Empire. To mark the Roman past, the station signs are bilingual in English and Latin – such as ‘Platform 1/ Suggestus I’ in this shot of No. 4046, in the most recent black and yellow livery, taken on September 13, 2013.

No. 4026 heads north towards South Gosforth on September 13, 2013 with a service for the Airport branch.

The Metro initially had a small fleet of five dieselelectric shunters for maintenance and engineering duties (Nos. WL1-5), but these were replaced in the late 1980s by three Hunslet-built battery-electric locos No. BL1-3, and the first two are seen ‘top and tailing’ unit No. 4006 at Gosforth depot on June 20, 2013. Andrew Jeffery

The Queen Elizabeth II bridge across the Tyne is a key part of the system linking the routes to the north and south – this recent view of it taken looking east from the King Edward rail bridge, with the High Level rail bridge and road Tyne Bridge behind. Nexus

The fleet is maintained from a depot at South Gosforth, which until 1980 was home to British Rail DMUs. The depot is also home to three Hunslet battery-electric locos, Nos. BL1-3 (97901-903 on TOPS), which replaced the original five Brush diesel-electric locos in the late-1980s (these were not classed on TOPS as there was no shared running then).

The locos are used for shunting, and infrastructure duties.

The ageing Metrocars are due to be replaced in 2022-24 by a new fleet of 46 five-car sets on order with Stadler, although the dates may slip slightly due to the knock-on effects of coronavirus.

To help with the changeover, a temporary servicing depot has been built at Howdon while South Gosforth is upgraded in stages.

There is also growing pressure to extend the Metro further, with lines to Washington and Blyth being the most desired. E  Remarkably, prototype Metrocar No. 4001 is still in service and now sports a hybrid livery depicting the three main colour schemes carried over the last four decades: yellow & white, red/blue & white; and black and yellow. The unit is seen with another at Northumberland Park heading for Pelaw. Nexus

September 2020 RAIL EXPRESS 85

HEADLINE NEWS

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A view of the viaduct from the south end of Bletchley station on May 2 as EMU No. 350369 approaches on the slow lines from Euston. Only spans 17 and 18 (right) had been removed by this date. All photos by Phil Marsh

Bye-bye Bletchley Phil Marsh was given special permission this summer to document the 'deconstruction' of Bletchley Flyover - the infamous ‘White Elephant’ of the 1950s Modernisation Plan - as it is set to be rebuilt by the East West Rail (EWR) project and finally fulfil its intended role as part of a modern link between Oxford, Bedford and beyond.

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LETCHLEY Flyover was conceived in the late-1950s as part of a wider plan to make more use of the Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge for passenger and freight traffic, including greater use of a freight yard at Swanbourne to the west of Bletchley, and as part of a through link from the South Wales coalfields to the East Coast ports.

Through trains had previously needed to cross the West Coast Main Line on the flat, creating conflicting moves and taking up valuable paths, whereas the viaduct allowed unrestricted access between east and west.

The viaduct was built using 37 concrete spans totalling slightly more than a third-of-amile long. To the east it has connections to the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and the Bedford Line (at Fenny Stratford), while the west end ran

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on to Claydon and the junction there to Quainton Road/Aylesbury and Bicester/Oxford.

Sadly, the freight plan never fulfilled its potential, while the end of 1967 saw Varsity Line passenger services cut back to the Bletchley to Bedford section only, meaning the viaduct saw little of its expected traffic.

However, it continued to be used by some freight, diverted passenger services and railtours until 1993, when the Bletchley to Claydon section was mothballed.

The flyover returned to active use in 2006 when track was relaid to a loop at Swanbourne, roughly a mile west of Bletchley. This allowed ballast trains loaded at Forders on the Bedford to Bletchley line to run round, reverse direction, and access the northbound West Coast Main Line.

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The route across Bletchley is now being further upgraded as part of the East-West Rail project, which will see passenger trains link Oxford and Aylesbury with Milton Keynes and Bedford.

Eventually, it is planned the line beyond Bedford will be reopened to connect with Cambridge and other destinations in East Anglia.

Almost half the flyover needs to be replaced, and a new structure across the West Coast Main Line will be built slightly to the south of the previous one.

The affected spans were removed between April and September, which was no mean feat considering around eight of them are over the busy WCML. Engineers first removed the concrete edge-railings before a giant saw cut the spans into 300-ton sections, which were individually removed by a 1200-ton crane and broken up on site.

The rebuilt viaduct will include new high-level platforms connected to the main line station, something that was missing from the 1950s’ scheme.

EWR has said construction is on target to open the route between Oxford and Milton Keynes/Bedford in 2024, initially using diesel or hybrid trains, but the infrastructure will allow for future electrification. E

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1. A photo taken on the viaduct looking west on March 28, 2006, after new track had been laid to a runround loop at Swanbourne, just west of Bletchley, for ballast trains using Forders on the Bletchley to Bedford line. Heading north on the main line below is ‘Tug’ No. 60099.

2. Looking north to Bletchley station on November 15, 1986, as No. 45110 crosses the viaduct with the ‘Red Brick Rambler’ railtour from Marylebone to Hatfield & Stainforth.

3. A historic shot on May 31, 1993, as DMU No. 117420 (with the BLS’ ‘Thames & Chiltern Rambler II’ tour) forms the last through passenger train to cross the flyover. The unit has just passed Flyover Junction and is on the line to Fenny Stratford; Bletchley station is on the right.

4. Looking north-east under the concrete viaduct and across the WCML on April 20.

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HEADLINE NEWS

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❮ BYE-BYE BLETCHLEY CONTINUED:

1. A giant saw was used to cut through the main concrete sections, but a smaller hand-held one sufficed for the railings – as illustrated on May 6 by these socially distanced workers.

2. Bletchley signalbox can be seen on the

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left of this shot on August 3 through the partially dismantled flyover.

5. Freightliner’s No. 66515 passes the former span 25 on August 20.

3. The state of the viaduct looking south from the station platforms on August 4.

6. Piling foundations for the new flyover alignment, as a Class 390 passes on the main line on July 20.

4. The spans over the West Coast Main Line had largely been removed by August 18.

7. The 300-ton span 23 being removed by a

1200-ton crane on August 23.

8. How the viaduct looked on August 31, with just two more spans to be removed.

9. A computer graphic of how the new viaduct’s high level platforms will look – the main station is off to the left.

MODELLING

Illuminating The Flying Dustman A flood of Class 66s has been released by Hornby in the last two years, based on the former Lima tooling which remains popular with modellers. We show how to upgrade the model with an Express Models lighting kit in a weekend project using the model of GBRf No. 66783 The Flying Dustman as an example.

Adding head and tail-lights to the Hornby Class 66s make an interesting weekend project. A four function decoder and lighting kit from Express Models will result in a model with independently controlled running lights.

Among the swathe of ‘OO’ gauge Class 66 models released by Hornby in recent years, GBRf No. 66783 finished in Biffa colours is one of the more striking. It was once EWS No. 66058 which means it fits the former Lima tooling reasonably well.

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CLASS 66 became part of the Hornby range when it acquired the Lima business in 2004. The model was based on the first Class 66s to be built for EWS, GBRf and Freightliner with original ‘Wipac’ running light fittings with two tail-lights, two headlights and rectangular marker light lenses on the outside. This format fits many Class 66s locomotives operational today even though things have become a little more complex with many design variations working their way into the Class 66 design over the years.

Hornby upgraded the Class 66 model with a new underframe moulding, detailing parts and single drive bogie before rereleasing it. It remains a nicely detailed but basic model compared to the Bachmann and Hattons models, lacking working lights, locomotivespecific details and only featuring a single drive bogie. Nonetheless, the explosion of private operator and customer liveries has prompted Hornby to fill both its 2019 and 2020 catalogues with Class 66 models, dressed in schemes as diverse as Biffa red and orange; Freightliner tangerine;

Newell & Wright Transport blue and ‘ONE’ pink. GBRf applied special liveries to many of the early type Class 66s acquired from other operators, including former EWS locomotives, providing opportunity for Hornby to extensively reuse its tooling.

The Hornby Class 66s have proven to be popular with modellers not interested in hi-fidelity models due to cost and complexity. They come with detailing parts, metal nameplates and usually well researched liveries. A 2019 or 2020 Hornby Class 66 generally retails at around £67 for an analogue version and £87-£90 for a TTS digital sound version, making them an attractive model for modelling themes like depots and compact layouts where the single drive bogie is not expected to cope with long rakes of wagons.

The moulded running light fittings match the full-size locomotive along with several others in the GBRf and Freightliner fleet represented by Class 66 models in Hornby’s 2019 and 2020 catalogues. Some modifications for the revised Wipac headlight arrangement is required for some models.

Former Lickey banker

The Express Models four-function DCC lighting kit is relatively simple to install, but a delicate project to complete. The process requires some careful work with drills and modelling knife to avoid damaging the model’s light cluster detail.

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Wiring in the Hornby Class 66 is simple to say the least. The eight-pin DCC socket is not required and may be removed.

An Express Models lighting pack can be added for a little more cash, bringing the model in below the £100 mark with lighting and a low cost decoder such as a LaisDCC type or a Lenz Standard V.2. Express Models offers its kits for analogue and DCC operation, with four and six function configurations available for the latter.

Supplement No. 200

MODELLING

The model is robust, making dismantling a simple case of unclipping the bodyshell from the underframe, releasing the cab mouldings and removing the glazing (carefully). Its simplicity is one thing that appeals to some modellers.

A 0.8mm drill is carefully centred on each light position and a pilot hole drilled through. It is important that new, sharp drills are used for this delicate task.

A weekend was all that was required to compete the running light project alongside a few additional improvements to the model of GBRf No. 66783 The Flying Dustman. It was one of a batch of Class 66s sold to GBRf

by DB Cargo which started life as EWS No. 66058. It was fitted with additional equipment for use as a banking locomotive on the Lickey incline by EWS alongside Nos. 66055-57 and 059.

A small light for illuminating the bufferbeams was installed for nighttime banking operations to allow the driver to see that couplings had disengaged upon reaching the incline summit. Additional remote equipment to disengage the buckeye couplings when banking buckeye-fitted wagons such as HTA bogie coal hoppers was located in the cabs. It retained this equipment as of September 2020, even though the cab side windows have been modified, fitting the Hornby tooling reasonably well since its repainting in Biffa livery in March 2018.

The same project may be applied to

WORKBENCH TOOLS AND MATERIALS: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Sharp scalpel and blades.

Fine nose tweezers.

Jeweller’s screwdriver set.

Solvent cement.

CA glue.

Jeweller’s files.

Pin vice.

A range of twist drills from 0.5mm to 2mm.

Soldering iron.

Four function decoder.

Black acrylic paint.

Mitsubishi Uni-Posca paint pen.

Supplement No. 200

Opening out the pilot holes with a 2mm drill bit needs care because the amount of plastic separating each light position is almost minute.

Work commences by shaving off the moulded domed light lenses with a sharp modelling knife.

The body and chassis are clipped together for the next task which is to drill into the framing to mark where clearance for LEDs have to be cut in the underframe.

Hornby's models of Freightliner tangerine No. 66587; GBRf/Cemex No. 66780 (EWS No. 66008); GBRf/Newell & Wright Transport (N&WT) No. 66747 (a former Netherlands based locomotive) and Freightliner/ONE No. 66587.

Running lights The Express Models kit to suit a fourfunction wired decoder was chosen for the project because night-time running light positions were not required. The intended use of the model was for a depot scene which does not require heavy haulage capability and the full range of running light positions.

The kit consists of a central circuit board with wires soldered to it corresponding to the coloured decoder harness wires. Surface mount resisters protect the LEDs which are wired for both ends of the model to provide headlights, tail-lights and illumination of the cab top marker lights.

A headlight LED is provided for both left and right light fittings which is not necessary for a four function light arrangement – only one headlight will be illuminated in an original Wipac light cluster, together with the later Wipac type with LEDs. Furthermore, the cab top marker light LED is too bright.

However, this is easily overcome by soldering an additional resistor into the circuit. A 470Ohm 0.5W resistor did the trick. Heat shrink sleeve is used to insulate the additional soldered connections on the cab top LED lead.

The headlight LED intended for the right hand Wipac light fitting of the updated LED type as fitted to Freightliner Nos. 66587 and 66623 and GBRf/N&WT No. 66747 can be modified to illuminate the tail-light position as a marker light if desired.

Trimming the underframe framing above the lower section of bufferbeam to clear the LED bodies.

Drilling out The Hornby Class 66 is robust and easily dismantled by unclipping body and cab mouldings from the underframe and unscrewing the 8-pin DCC interface socket – it is not required! The cab glazing pops out after some gentle persuasion.

Drilling out the light positions in the moulded Wipac fittings is a delicate little job needing care and time to do it right. The curved lens surfaces are pared off with a sharp scalpel first to make a flat surface. The drill is now less likely to wander off to the edge when the 0.8mm diameter pilot hole is drilled through. Repeat for the other lenses, taking care to keep the tip of the drill centred. When satisfied with the position of the pilot holes, open out with a very sharp 1.5mm drill and follow

up with a 2mm drill. Sharp, ideally new, drills are essential so they will cut the plastic and not rip it. To achieve a neat finish, the holes have to be clean.

The rectangular marker lights are very carefully drilled through with a 0.8mm drill, one hole at the top and one at the bottom of each. The drill’s cutting edge can be used as a file to complete the slot in the plastic. Finally, the cab top marker light is drilled out in the same manner as the other light positions, taking care not to lose the tiny moulding if it comes adrift from the model.

Finally, the black finish applied to the light fitting mouldings is restored using a Mitsubishi Uni-Posca paint pen, an accurate painting tool which is also invaluable for painting window frames, black cab window surrounds and other features.

December 2020 RAIL EXPRESS Modeller M15

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MODELLING  Installation of the Express Models lighting kit is very simple once the model has been prepared. There is ample room in the model for decoder, circuit board and wiring.

 Test fitting the LEDs from the outside of the bodyshell. This will also check internal clearances without risking damage to the LEDs.

❮ Underframe modifications

Some modifications are made to the underframe moulding behind the light fittings to clear the LEDs. To begin, the body is clipped in place and a 2mm drill slotted through the front of each light lens hole until it touches the underframe framing immediately above the bufferbeam.

Holes are drilled through the light holes into the framing which, when the body is removed, will show where the framing has to be trimmed to clear the LEDs. Furthermore, some plastic is removed from behind the framing at the trailing bogie end to provide clearance for the LED bodies. Care is required not to remove too much framing that a hole becomes visible around the Wipac mouldings.

Installing the running lights

When the preparatory work is completed, the LEDs should neatly plug into the holes from the inside, secured with CA glue. A strip of clear styrene or acetate is fitted through the marker

light slots until it touches the white LED bodies. A curve in the strip ensures it touches the LED and a touch of CA glue will secure them.

When modelling the updated LED Wipac fittings, it is worth noting that the tail-lights are bi-colours, showing white as a marker light when the cab is leading.

To achieve this is difficult with the Express Models kit unless the lens of the red LEDs are shortened back to the body allowing a piece of 2mm diameter optic fibre to be fitted which will collect light from both the red and white light LEDs. The front of the right-hand white LED is covered so it does not show as a headlight. The same is true with the original Wipac light moulding, so that only the side marker light is illuminated on the right side of the cab (when facing it).

Wiring up

There is plenty of room for the lighting circuit board and decoder in a Hornby Class 66. Use the short circuit board leads for the decoder connections as

 Decoder harness leads are soldered to the circuit board rather than to the short leads provided on the circuit board using the lead colours as a guide.

reference to directly solder decoder harness leads to the circuit board for a neater installation. The red and black decoder leads are connected to the track supply wiring whilst the motor bogie leads are hooked up to the orange and grey harness wires in the usual way. Testing is completed using a DCC service track first to test the installation and track power next to check the lighting. Any light leakage is dealt with in the usual way, either with black

paint or black flexible sealant putty.

If the installation has been completed correctly, the forward running lights will work on function F0 using the reversing switch to change direction. Tail-lights will be independent of the direction switch, one of the benefits of this type of lighting installation. They are independently switched using functions F1 and F2, allowing them to be extinguished when hauling a train.

 Clearance modifications to the chassis include the removal of plastic from the chassis floor (A) to clear the LED bodies. A slot is cut in the frame above the lower bufferbeam for the LED lenses (B).  Side marker lights are modelled with a strip of clear styrene which diverts sufficient light from the white LEDs to be convincing.

M16 RAIL EXPRESS Modeller December 2020

The completed installation with the cab built into the body instead of being clipped in the chassis frame (A). A piece of black styrene acts as a light block to prevent light leakage into the cab (B). Some framing may have to be removed from the side of the chassis to accommodate the cab modifications. Note how the wiring is neatly tucked out of the way of the cab space.

Supplement No. 200

MODELLING  Other Hornby Class 66 models suitable for this conversion include GBRF/N&RT No. 66747 which does not require the side marker lights, being fitted with a later type of running light housing, and GBRf/Cemex No. 66780.  Tail-lights are controlled independently of the direction change switch using buttons F1 and F2 on the DCC throttle.

Cab mouldings

The lighting kit instructions suggest that the corners of each cab moulding are removed to clear the LED bodies before refitting to the underframe moulding. This leaves the LED leads intruding into the cab space and visible holes in the cab mouldings that are quite visible through the cab windows.

The alternative is to fit the cab mouldings to the body instead of the

underframe. This is best done after the LEDs and cab glazing have been fitted.

Firstly, the cab top marker lights are checked for light leakage and black paint applied to the inside of the body and the LED accordingly. The cab front glazing and cab side windows are refitted in the correct order, effectively trapping the top light leads up into the roof of the cab.

A piece of 20-thou black styrene

is cut 8mm wide and long enough to fit along the top of the LEDs to act as a light barrier. This prevents light from illuminating the cab interior.

The cab is filed down a little from the base and then glued to the top of the light barrier strip. It may be necessary to add pieces of 60-thou styrene to the sides to further support the cab mouldings. Complete any cab detailing, addition of train crew and other jobs before committing the cabs to glue!

Other enhancements

The explosion of private liveries on Class 66s has been used to the fullest by Hornby.

A fun but clashing pair of Freightliner liveries are applied to the Class 66 model which can be enhanced by the running light project and simple detailing.

The former Lima models offered

by Hornby bring back memories of modelling techniques used to enhance quite basic models so to achieve the character of the real thing, which is not necessarily a bad thing! The model can be simply detailed by adding the metal nameplates and details supplied with the model. Painting the inside of the window openings black using the painting pen for accuracy also mitigates the thick appearance of the bodyshell, an old but useful technique.

A small lamp can be applied

above the bufferbeams of No. 66783 alongside bufferbeam detail including the buckeye coupling and uncoupling bar if one of the tension lock couplings is not needed. It does have potential for good modelling, including subtle weathering, although the subject locomotive is kept very clean by GBRf despite its association with refuse.

Putting it back together

They key to successfully completing this project is to ensure that sufficient room for the LEDs and any cab modifications is made in the underframe moulding.

As the conversion progresses, the body should be test fitted to check clearances and changes made where appropriate. This should avoid any nasty surprises when the model is put back together at the end of the project.

Assuming that all the slots have been correctly cut in the underframe framing at the front of the model and wiring neatly secured in the bodyshell, the shell will drop straight back on to the underframe moulding with a satisfying click.

MINI-D&E FILES: CLASS 66 RUNNING LIGHTS

 No. 66783 made a driver familiarisation run between Inverness and Aberdeen on September 17, 2020. Note the small additional bufferbeam lamp only used to illuminate the couplings when the locomotive was engaged in past banking duties on the Lickey incline.

 The sun rises on the 1S25 21.00 Euston-Inverness Caledonian Sleeper service at Castletown on September 23, 2020 as it completes the last leg of its journey up the Highland line. GBRf/Biffa No. 66783 The Flying Dustman was leading No. 73967, with the brightly coloured Class 66 contrasting with the dull teal livery applied to the coaching stock.

Supplement No. 200

 A similar light fitting to the original Wipac type which can be modelled using the Express Models kit is applied to many Freightliner locomotives including No. 66503 The Railway Magazine which was photographed at Nairn on September 6, 2020. There are no side marker lights and the inner red tail-lights double up as the forward marker lights (bi-colour aspect).

December 2020 RAIL EXPRESS Modeller M17

D&E FILES

A major user of Class 31s in the privatisation period was Fragonset Railways/FM Rail which leased Class 31s to West Coast Railways for use on the ‘Royal Scotsman’ tour train in 2005. No. 31190 Gryphon, painted in Railtrack blue and green, was paired up with No. 31602 Chimaera on May 4, 2005 when photographed at Nairn. The headlight is fitted in the lower middle position of the cab front. No. 31190 was subsequently painted in Royal Scotsman maroon livery.

‘Late life’ Class 31 locomotives W

ITH Bachmann about to release its newly tooled Graham Farish ‘N’ gauge ‘refurbished’ Class 31/1 with cab roof headcode boxes as part of a new batch of six new Class 31/1 models in its winter release schedule, the diverse appearance of the class is given a photographic airing in this issue

of D&E Files. It is a taste of the liveries and condition the locomotives could be found after 1990 until their final days working on the privatisation railway.

The scope for modelling is vast, with the locomotives being found in numerous liveries and wide variation in external condition which can be used

to add character and variety to the new Graham Farish models and forthcoming re-runs of the ‘OO’ gauge Hornby model.

During the 1990s, Class 31/1s were stored and disposed of including locomotives from the Class 31/4 subclass fitted with Electric Train Supply (ETS) for passenger duties which were

Fragonset Class 31s worked Bristol to Weymouth and Cardiff to Brighton services for Wessex Trains in 2004, usually in top and tail formation with four Mk.2f coaches. One Class 31 was repainted in Intercity colours to match the Mk.2f stock used on the service.

ETS fitted Class 31/4 No. 31454 approaches Westbury from the Bath direction with a service for Brighton on March 26, 2004. Note the sealed end doors, cab roof radio aerial pod and headlight fitted to the right side of the cab front.

M22 RAIL EXPRESS Modeller December 2020

displaced by the influx of new diesel multiple units of classes 155, 156 and 158. However, a fair number survived to see the private railway and new liveries.

Heavy general repairs

‘Refurbished’ is something of a misnomer, but a very good way of distinguishing between models of the original body style of headcode box Class 31/1 locomotives (from which the Class 31/4 sub-class was converted) first released as a new tooling under the Graham Farish label and the external condition of those given heavy general repairs in the 1980s for which a new bodyshell tool has been produced.

The ‘Skin Head’ type with smaller cab roof boxs remain to be produced with the new chassis.

During the 1980s repair programme, further Class 31s were fitted with ETS while those chosen for freight duties were modernised with external changes including the removal of the body side beading, plating over of headcode boxes and exposing the bufferbeam structure through the removal of the fairings. Not all Class 31/1s were overhauled and they were progressively withdrawn from service.

Over time, Class 31s received square framed headlights, the mounting of which included the right side of the plated end doors or bottom of the cab front. Overhauled locomotives also received cab roof radio aerial pods which were placed on top of the headcode boxes.

Supplement No. 200

D&E FILES Sectorisation saw the class divided up between different operators including Regional Railways which took advantage of the Class 31/4s and the departmental sector which eventually settled on painting its locomotives in engineers’ yellow and grey livery.

To reduce maintenance costs, Class 31/4s allocated to departmental use saw their ETS capability removed and renumbering as Class 31/5. A popular sector allocation was the Trainload Coal batch which were used on traffic to and from BNFL’s Sellafield site in Cumbria.

Other Trainload Freight companies utilised Class 31s which, along with the departmental locomotives, were allocated to two of the pre-privatisation the new freight companies in 1994 which saw Transrail ‘Big T logos and Mainline Freight branding or its blue and silver livery applied.

Privatisation saw EWS Class 31s pass into the ownership of spot hire company Fragonset Railways/FM Rail which, alongside Railtrack, Network Rail and DCR, saw Class 31s utilised on charters, short term passenger duties (Silverlink Bletchley-Bedford and Wessex Trains) and test trains until FM Rail folded in 2006. The history of the refurbished Class 31s is diverse and only a taste of the locomotive’s utilisation can be described here along with liveries, making the selection of photographs from the extensive choice of material in the archive a hard one!

A close-up of a Class 31/5 cab front showing the lack of bodyside and cab front trim, sealed end door and exposed bufferbeam. This is one cab of Class 31/5 No. 31512, a former Class 31/4 with the ETS equipment isolated and the external equipment removed.

Wessex Trains’ magenta livery was applied to the set of Mk.2f stock and one Class 31 used on the Wessex Trains/Fragonset locomotive hauled operation in 2004. No. 31601 The Mayor of Casterbridge leaves Westbury for Brighton on June 18, 2004.

Upon transfer to Transrail Freight in 2004, Class 31s were adorned with ‘Big T’ logos. No. 31112 was displayed at the Crewe Basford Hall open day in August 1995.

A large number of Class 31/1 and Class 31/4s were stored by the mid 1990s including No. 31180 in Railfreight grey with red stripe livery which was recorded at Toton on August 22, 1995.

Class 31s were regular visitors to Carlisle, often being found stabled in the sidings at the back of the station. No. 31255 was present with No. 31233 Severn Valley Railway on July 25, 1997.

Following privatisation of the freight companies, BR cast double arrows and depot plaques were removed from the locomotives.

A portrait of Fragonset No. 31454 in its heritage Intercity livery at Westbury on April 20, 2004. Noteworthy details include the Fragonset legend and cast depot plaque.

A popular use of Class 31s by Trainload Freight was by Trainload Coal on trains between nuclear power stations and BNFL Sellafield. No. 31319 had been displaced from this traffic when photographed at Great Rocks Junction on August 28, 1995.

Interestingly enough, one of the Graham Farish locomotives is of No. 31319 dressed in Trainload Petroleum livery.

Supplement No. 200

No collection of pictures of late condition Class 31s is complete without a Regional Railways Class 31/4. Fresh from overhaul at Doncaster works, No. 31429 was photographed on July 12, 1992.

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REVIEW

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GAUGE GA 4mm:1ft

2004 to present

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Hornby’s yellow trains Coach PLPR2 No. 5981 was part of a four-coach test train which ran from Mossend Yard to Aberdeen via Inverness and back over the weekend of October 3 and 4, 2020. Former Mk.1 BG No 6264, a generator van, was also present in the train as represented by one of the Hornby models. The train with No. 37407 Blackpool Tower and No. 37038 climbs towards Moy after crossing the Nairn viaduct at Culloden Moor on October 5, 2020.

In the past, transfer to departmental use has saved a lot of redundant revenue stock from the scrapyard and that holds true today in the era of Network Rail. From Mk.2 air-con coaches to former Mk.1 BGs, the frequent Network Rail test and measurement trains continue to provide an interesting variety of rolling stock, not to mention traction, a fact not missed by Hornby.

Mk.2f Plain Line Pattern Recognition PLPR2 coach photographed in the rain at Nairn on October 3, 2020 with the underframe light for track recording clearly visible.

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Hornby’s PLPR2 coach with windows painted over to closer resemble the full size coach. The logos and livery are nicely applied.

CLOSE-FIT models have been offered by manufacturers in the past, allowing a reasonable representation of specialised trains to be modelled. Hornby has pushed the envelope as far as it can with its new Mk.2f stock and a couple of its newer Mk.1 coach models too. Some of the livery to model fits are pretty close, whilst others only have a passing resemblance to the operational coaches.

The problem that mainstream manufacturers have in matching models of revenue stock to departmentals is that the latter rarely remain unchanged.

Adaptations for instrumentation and other fittings can change the outward appearance significantly.

Anything from bogies, windows, the roof and underframes can be modified to suit the vehicles’ new role. Bogies are exchanged, windows plated over to meet the needs for equipment installed in the coaches and roofs fitted with antennae and pantograph wells.

Coach end equipment is added for operational reasons including multiple working cables for working locomotives

in top and tail mode alongside electrical supply, features not fitted to standard models and expensive to tool for oneoff models.

During 2020, Hornby released a number of close-fit models of departmental coaches dressed in the popular Network Rail yellow livery which will ensure their commercial success.

To tool individual coach bodies to match departmental stock would be uneconomical, so the models have to be reviewed in that light.

How useful are they to the serious modeller?

R4993 PLPR2 No. 5981.

Based on the new Mk.2f coach, the model of Plain Line Pattern Recognition vehicle No. 5981 (its original stock number) has been modelled by painting over the relevant windows at one end of the coach, a fair compromise resulting in a model with a well-applied livery which can be detailed with roof antennae and end jumper cables. It features B4 bogies instead of the B5 type fitted to the full size coach.

Supplement No. 200

REVIEW

Former Mk.1 BG No. 6264 was recorded at Tonbridge in December 2018. This view reveals its roof grilles alongside the modifications made to the side windows to blank them off and fit ventilation grilles. End jumper cable detail is also visible.

R4995 Mk.1 BG No. 6264.

Another good match to a standard model is generator car No. 6264 which is modelled using Hornby’s standard BG model. The side grilles for the generators are modelled with printed coach glazing. It lacks the roof cooling grilles, although the ventilators are of the correct type. On the underframe, the modeller will have to fit the additional equipment, replace the vacuum brake with air brake detail and fit B5 bogies.

R4992 Mk2d BSO staff coach

An older tooling from the Hornby range has been utilised for former First Great Western Mk.2d BSO coach No. 9481 which is both a staff support coach and to provide train brake force. It runs in more or less the condition it did for FGW including the blanked off gangway door at the guard/brake end of the coach, a feature not replicated by Hornby, but simple to model alongside the departmental jumper cables.

The large toilet compartment fitted by FGW with the associated plated windows is modelled with painted glazing inserts. In all a fair representation including B4 bogies (friction damper type). It does not have NEM coupling pockets however, and the tooling, being an older one in the Hornby range, is not the best match to the newer Mk.2f coaches.

R4994 Mk.1 structure gauging train coach

It is fair to say that the Mk.1 brake coach used as a basis of this model by Hornby only very loosely resembles No. DB 975081, one of the older

Former FGW Mk.2d BSO No. 9481 remains in traffic with Network Rail where it is used as a support and staff coach. Photographed at Nairn on September 5, 2020.

coaches in the Network Rail fleet until its withdrawal in early 2017.

Formerly Lab 17 Hermes, the coach was extensively modified to work in the structure gauging train and was coupled to a specialised light projection wagon. The black end is to absorb stray light when in operation. A considerable amount of work will be required to accurately model No. DB 975081 using this model, probably ruining most of the carefully applied livery.

R4991 Mk.2f No. 72630.

A number of former Gatwick Express Mk.2f coaches were taken into departmental use including No. 73630, a former Class 488/3 trailer from set No. 8316. The model is a close fit for the former Ultrasonic Test Train coach of the same number. It was converted for use in the Structure Gauging Train in 2013, although appears outwardly little changed from its Gatwick Express days.

One toilet compartment window should be blanked out to model this vehicle.

A standard Mk.1 brake coach has been used, though the usual painting-over of window inserts, to model No. DB 975081. Of all the models released in September, this is the loosest of the adaptations using a standard model in the Hornby range.

Supplement No. 200

It would not take much work to upgrade the Hornby BG model of No. 6264 for a closer match to the full size vehicle without repainting including replacing the bogies, fitting roof grilles and modifying the underframe. Patch painting would be required if etched body side grilles are used to replace the printed glazing.

Hornby’s older Mk.2d BSO model has been used to represent Network Rail No. 9481 by painting over the windows which were plated over when the coach was modernised for FGW locomotive-hauled services in the early 2000s.

Hornby’s model of Structure Gauging Train coach No. 72630 is pretty close.

Again, it can be modelled to a closer match by adding the end jumper cables and the recesses at one end which are a legacy of its Gatwick Express days, depending on the date-stamp of the model. It was subject to numerous modifications by Network Rail including removal of end gangways alongside brake hose and jumper cable recesses, so reference pictures will be important when detailing this model.

R4946 Mk.2f No. 72616 brake force runner coach

The last Mk.2f departmental coach of this batch of departmental releases from Hornby is also a former Gatwick Express trailer from a Class 488/3 set.

In its early days as a departmental coach, this Radio Survey Coach was outwardly unmodified and even retained the end recesses for the brake hoses and jumper cables. Hornby’s model is close, and may be modified to better match the model by removing one lavatory window and modelling

the jumper cable recesses at one end.

As always, reference photographs are essential as changes were made to these coaches over time. However, the bogies are a good match and the roof saw little modification.

❒ Produced by Hornby Hobbies Ltd. www.hornby.com

£

RRP All coaches £34.99

Hornby’s representation of the Mk.2f Radio Survey Coach No. 72616, labelled as a brake force runner.

December 2020 RAIL EXPRESS Modeller M27

PAST PERSPECTIVE

BEECHING: A MAN OF HIS TIME  OR AHEAD OF IT?

Dr Richard Beeching is still considered by many to be the ultimate railway bogeyman. To coincide with the publication of his new book, Britain’s Railway Closures and their Legacy – The Definitive Guide, Robin Jones asks whether Dr Beeching was a man rooted in his day, a scapegoat for a wider malaise, or a visionary who saved the network.

J

une 1 next year will be the 60th anniversary of the appointment of ICI director and physicist Dr Richard Beeching as the first chairman of the new British Railway Board, and despite the passage of time, the name continues to generate debate, discussion and demands.

Indeed, he has been described as ‘the most hated civil servant of all time,’ and is still seen by swathes of the general population as the man who took away our beloved steam engines and closed our portfolio of branch lines.

The month before he began his four-year stint at BR, our future sister title The Railway Magazine commented: “The appointment of Dr Beeching has aroused mixed feelings both inside and outside the railway service. Surprise and concern have been expressed because the choice did not fall on a senior railway officer who could have brought to the new board many years of specialised experience of the intricacies of railway administration.”

History was to record that the term “mixed feelings” may have been a gross understatement.

His report The Reshaping of British Railways, published on March 27, 1963, recommended that 6000 miles of mainly rural lines should be closed entirely, and that some of the remaining routes should be kept open only for freight.

However, contrary to popular mythology, Beeching himself did not close any lines: while he made recommendations, the final decision was made by the man who

70 Heritagerailway.co.uk

appointed him – Ernest Marples.

The Minister of Transport was a roads man: he founded Marples Ridgway, a firm which thrived on road construction at a time when motor transport was soaring in its ascendancy at the great expense of rail, and in 1959, he gave the go-ahead for the M1 to be built, Britain’s first inter-city motorway.

Modernisation

So what was the background to the controversial appointment?

At the start of the 1950s, despite years of wartime neglect and austerity, BR was making a working profit, albeit a small one. However, the county had fallen well behind the rest of Europe – not to mention the USA – in terms of dieselisation and electrification of its railways, and motor transport was soaring in its post-war boom.

The response was December 1954’s report, Modernisation and Re-Equipment of the British Railways, otherwise referred to as the BR Modernisation Plan.

Because funds were critically short, in 1948 the newly nationalised railway opted to stay with steam and built 999 Standard locomotives. However, the 1954 report called for complete replacement of steam by electric, with diesel providing traction on non-electrified lines.

Dr Richard Beeching holds up a copy of his landmark 1963 report, The Reshaping of British Railways. NRM

The Modernisation Plan led to a hurried as opposed to measured response, with manufacturers turning out some diesel classes that were not considered as effective as the steam engines they were designed to replace.

By 1960, despite the regular pruning back of country branch lines and other loss-making parts of the system, BR had a deficit of £68 million, which increased to £87 million in 1961 and to £104 million in 1962.

Clearly, the Modernisation Plan had failed on several fronts, while car ownership rose, and so a fresh approach based on economics was considered essential.

Beeching’s basic strategy was to speed up the eradication of unremunerative lines – a process that had been on-going since the First World War – and to eliminate routes which ‘doubled up.’

The great railway building age of the 19th century had seen rival companies build competing routes linking the same town and cities, whereas in the modern age, only one was deemed necessary, and so Beeching aimed for a streamlined inter-city network.

His study of traffic flows showed that the least-used 50% of stations contributed only 2% of passenger revenue, while a third of all route miles carried just 1% of passengers.

Understandably, the trade unions

loudly objected to the sweeping job losses that the closures brought, and the Labour Party vowed to sack Beeching if they were elected in 1964, and reverse all of ‘his’ cuts.

Labour won the General Election, and not only retained Beeching for a time, but carried on with implementing his programme of recommendations, and then made further closures over and above them – the Midland Railway’s Matlock to Buxton line, part of which is now home to Peak Rail, springs immediately to mind.

One of Beeching’s often overlooked successes is that of the bulk containerisation of freight, allowing the railways to compete with road transport in areas where they could do the job better. His approach was to swim with the tide, not against it.

Car ownership

In the ensuing decades, the motor car reinforced its position as the undisputed king, and what might have been considered a luxury by most families back in the 1950s or even the 60s, now sees many homes today own two or more cars.

The net result has been congestion in urban areas, and the need for both local railways and buses to stop them becoming gridlocked on a daily basis.

It has seemed to me that at every election, one of the candidates promises to reverse this or that Beeching cut, yet very few of the axed lines have reopened as a result.

One classic success is the Borders Railway over the northernmost third of the Waverley route which closed in 1969.

Left: The Hayling Island branch was closed on November 3, 1963, even though it made a small profit. BR gave the reason as the cost of replacing the timber swing bridge which crossed Langstone Harbour being far too expensive. LBSCR ‘Terrier’ 0-6-0T No. 32650 is now being restored at the Spa Valley Railway.

HUGH BALLANTYNE

Left: At just one mile and 64 chains, one of the shortest of Beeching closures was that of Yorkshire’s Barnoldswick branch, where BR Standard 2-6-2T No. 84105 headed the last passenger train on September 25, 1965, watched by a group of schoolboy trainspotters.

HUGH BALLANTYNE

The name Beeching yet again made headlines this year, when transport secretary Grant Shapps announced the new Restoring Your Railway Ideas Fund, offering up to £50,000 of the costs of developing a business case for the reopening of lines – for public as opposed to heritage services – that were closed in the Sixties.

As we reported last issue, the first shortlist of 10 projects announced on May 23 included the East Lancashire Railway’s Heywood branch, Smallbrook Junction to Newport and Shanklin to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, the latter including the island’s steam railway and the Penrith to Keswick branch, for two decades the target of campaigner Cedric Martindale.

Two South Devon MPs have asked the Government to look into the possibility of regular services over the Dartmouth Steam Railway from Paignton to Churston, and now the Transport Minister for Wales, Ken Skates, wrote to the Grant Shapps to reiterate the case for reopening the seven-mile line between Bangor and Caernarfon.

While Beeching recommended it for closure in 1963, it remained open for another nine years.

Reinstatement here would involve rebuilding the former station at Caernarfon which has been demolished and redeveloped as a supermarket and a new station at Felinheli. A bridge at Felinheli, an embankment at Caernarfon and a

tunnel at Faenol would also need major repair work, while part of the trackbed is currently used as Lon Las Menai, a popular cycle path.

Herein lies the nub of the problem with the Beeching era. Beeching did not invent rail closures: indeed, what happened in Britain was taking place throughout much of the post-war western world.

However, his remit did not consider the state of Britain’s transport networks, in say 50 years’ time. Back in 1963, there were many who thought the railway age was approaching its end because of competition from the more versatile car: they did not envisage a 21st century of unbearable city road congestion and air pollution.

Disposal

In Beeching’s day, once a branch closed, its tracks would likely be lifted within days, never to return, and sections of trackbed sold off for development, permanently blocking future reinstatement.

In some European countries, tracks and/or trackbeds were left in place for many years after closure, just in case, but in Britain, in many cases it is now far too late.

Take the East Lincolnshire main line, which closed in 1970 and has been described as the worst of all the Beeching recommendations: back then, towns and village like Louth, North Thoresby and Waltham had a lower population, but subsequent swathes of

housebuilding might well make a daily commuter service into, say Grimsby, attractive.

Also, did Beeching’s initial studies ever fully take into account the passenger and freight traffic that a loss-making branch might nonetheless contribute to the main line it served?

On the other hand, what if there had never been a Beeching, and the cuts had never been made? Would British taxpayers have been happy to subsidise a plethora of remote branches where trains ran with empty carriages for the sake of long-term sentimentality?

In my new hardback, Beeching: Britain’s Railway Closures and their Legacy – The Definitive Guide, these and many more issues are discussed in detail, along with the background to the Beeching era, its aftermath, and the case for rail revival today.

So was he the villain of popular legend, or a visionary who helped save Britain’s railways at a time when there were those who wanted to see even more drastic pruning?

You decide! ➜ Beeching: Britain’s Railway Closures and their Legacy - The Definitive Guide by Robin Jones, published by Gresley books/Mortons Book, 256pp, ISBN 978 1 911658 14 6, price £14.99 – is available now at www.mortonsbooks.co.uk Heritagerailway.co.uk 71

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The dawn of standard gauge preservation on a former part of the national network: LBSCR A1X ‘Terrier’ 0-6-0T No. 55 Stepney leaves the crowded platforms at Sheffield Park with the first public Bluebell Railway passenger train on August 7, 1960.

Hayling Island branch veteran Stepney was the fledgling line’s first locomotive and has ever since been one of the most popular. BLUEBELL RAILWAY ARCHIVE

60 YEARS OF

BLUEBELL

SPLENDOUR! BUT THE BATTLE MUST GO ON

This year the Bluebell Railway was due to celebrate six decades since the first green shoots of one of the world’s most popular and successful heritage lines appeared. Sadly, the showpiece anniversary celebrations have been placed on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the railway, for so long a household word for classic steam, is now like the rest of the heritage sector fighting a battle for survival, having launched a nationwide emergency appeal for vital funds just to stay afloat, writes Robin Jones.

M

ay 14, 1951, marked the dawn of a dynamic new era, for it was on that day that the Talyllyn Railway began running services using volunteer labour, marking the start of the British operational heritage railway sector.

Two years later, the hit Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt, the first film shot in Technicolor and inspired by the exploits of the Talyllyn Railway Society, told the story of the villagers trying to stop their local branch line from being closed, and brought the basic concept of volunteer-led railway revival into the public consciousness big time.

On July 23, 1955, the Ffestiniog Railway,

SPECIAL FEATURE Battleaxe Madge Bessemer who forced BR to begrudgingly reopen the East Grinstead to Lewes line.

Her name is remembered in the Bessemer Arms pub and restaurant at Sheffield Park.

BLUEBELL RAILWAY ARCHIVE

under the guidance of the late Alan Pegler, ran its first heritage era train.

June 1960 saw the Middleton Railway, a private freight-only concern that had operated continuously since 1758, become the first standard gauge railway to be taken over and operated by unpaid volunteers, with students from Leeds University under the guidance of their lecturer, the late Dr Fred Youell, running trains for a week using a diesel locomotive to haul a redundant Swansea & Mumbles Railway tramcar.

However, the biggest breakthrough to date came on August 7 that year, when Bluebell Railway volunteers ran the first train on a revived section of the British Railways standard gauge national network – paving the way not only for other ‘Premier League’ lines to follow, but setting world-leading standards in the field of railway heritage Indeed, had the UK heritage railway movement taken several more years to reach that stage, how many now-priceless examples of classic locomotives and rolling stock would have been lost forever?

The Bluebell laid down a blueprint for rail revival, but not necessarily one for plain sailing: indeed it was to be another eight years before the next former BR line to be reopened as a heritage line, the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, would run its public trains.

The market-leading heritage line has its origins in the 1877 Act of Parliament which authorised the building of the Lewes & East Grinstead Railway, which was acquired by operator the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway under subsequent legislation a year later. Both Acts included a clause that “Four passenger trains each way daily to run on this line, with through connections at East Grinstead to London and to stop at Sheffield Bridges, Newick and West Hoathly.”

The clause imposed a statutory requirement to provide a service – and the only way to

Future headquarters: Sheffield Park station in 1959. BLUEBELL RAILWAY ARCHIVE

Clearing weeds from the track in 1959.

BLUEBELL RAILWAY ARCHIVE

remove this obligation was to pass another Act. In 1954, British Railways’ branch line committee proposed closing the line from East Grinstead to Culver Junction near Lewes.

Despite a challenge by local residents, the closure date was set for June 15, 1955, although it took place earlier, on May 29, due to a rail strike.

Local residents were determined not to take it lightly, and battled for the next three years to get the decision reversed. Shortly after closure, Chailey woman Margery ‘Madge’ Bessemer, the granddaughter of Henry Bessemer, inventor of the Bessemer converter for converting pig iron into steel, discovered the clause in the 1877 and 1878 Acts relating to the ‘Statutory Line’ and demanded that BR reinstate services.

Aided by local MP Tufton Beamish, she forced BR to rethink. Faced with this statutory legal obligation, on August 7, 1956 BR extremely begrudgingly reopened the line, but with trains stopping only at stations mentioned in the Acts. It was to be done strictly by the book, and not an inch more. Because of this, the reintroduced timetable became nicknamed the ‘sulky service’.

BR took its case to the House of Commons in 1957, resulting in a public inquiry. BR was censured, but later the Transport Commission was able to persuade Parliament to repeal the special section of the Act that has prevented closure, and so the last passenger train ran on March 16, 1958.

It has been said that while picking spring flowers on the embankment near her estate Madge, who loved wildlife, may have herself invented the nickname of the ‘Bluebell Line’.

On that final day of services, Madge had a chance encounter with Carshalton Technical College student Chris Campbell, who shared his many recollections of travelling on the line while spending school holidays with relatives.

Inspired by her efforts to save the line, Chris,

then aged 18, wondered if it might be possible to win a second round with BR. Meanwhile, Martin Eastland, 19, a telecommunications engineering student of Haywards Heath, David Dallimore, a student at the London School of Economics, from Woodingdean, and Brighton-based Alan Sturt, 19, who was studying at the Regent Street Polytechnic, had mooted the idea of setting up a preservation society for the route, drawing on the examples of the abovementioned Welsh narrow gauge lines.

The students wrote to interested parties highlighting Madge’s campaign and the unexpected level of public support that it had created. They initially hoped to save the entire route, reopening it stages at a time, acquiring a GWR railcar for regular passenger services and adding a two-car DMU which funds permitted, but using steam during the summer months when visitors would flock to the ‘sunny south’.

On March 15, 1959 a group that included future society president Bernard Holden, met in Haywards Heath and formed the Lewes and East Grinstead Railway Preservation Society, but then voted to change its name to the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society.

The society’s very over-ambitious initial aim was to reopen the line from East Grinstead to Culver Junction as a commercial service.

However, when the society failed to raise the money buy the whole line, it was forced to edit its dreams – an experience which would beset many future revivalist groups. The society then settled for using just the line between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes as a tourist attraction, with vintage locomotives and stock operated by unpaid volunteer staff.

As BR still ran the third-rail electrified line from Horsted Keynes to Ardingly and Haywards Heath, the society leased a stretch of track from just south of Horsted Keynes.

The electric services came up from Seaford

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via Haywards Heath and Ardingly to Horsted Keynes. Initially planned to go further north, any extension of the three-rail electrification beyond Horsted Keynes was permanetly halted d by the Second World War and never revived.

The revivalists aimed to maintain the LBSCR heritage of the line by using LBSCR locomotives and stock. Their ideal locomotivee was a Stroudley D1 0-4-2T, but they found that the last one had been scrapped 18 monthss previously. Their second choice was a ‘Terrier’’ 0-6-0T, and for £750 BR sold them No. 32655 (LBSCR No. 55) Stepney, plus two coaches. A legend was born!

Stepney hauled what was the Bluebell’s first train via Haywards Heath to Horsted Keynes and from there onwards to Sheffield Park on May 17, 1960.

Back in servicer

On August 7 that year, the first Bluebell Railway services proper ran from a temporary stop, Bluebell Halt, 100 yards south of Horsted Keynes, to Sheffield Park.

That first operating season lasted until the end of October, running at weekends only, yet more than 15,000 passengers were carried.

Most importantly, the revivalists had shown that a standard gauge steam service using volunteer labour could be viable.

October 29, 1961, saw the Bluebell permitted to work into Horsted Keynes station, even though it was still used for electric services. At first, the Bluebell trains ran into the disused eastern side platform.

In 1962, the society invited none other than BR chairman Dr Richard Beeching to open a second new halt at Holywell (Waterworks).

That was in the year before East Grinstead

Opening day on August 7, 1960: Commander Anthony Kimmins RN, who was also a film producer whose family set up nearby Chailey Heritage School, and his wife Christen SECR P 0-6-0T No. 323, which also worked the inaugural train. It was later painted blue and named Bluebell. BLUEBELL RAILWAY ARCHIVE

resident Beeching published his infamous Report on the Reshaping of British Railways.

Ironically, Holywell (Waterworks) Halt closed within 12 months.

BR withdrew passenger services from Horsted Keynes to Haywards Heath in 1963 and also closed the routes north to East Grinstead and west to Ardingly. Not only did the Bluebell Railway find itself severed

SECR O1 0-6-0 No. 65 simmers at Kingscote in 2004. The locomotive was bought from BR by the late Esmond Lewis-Evans for the long-defunct Ashford Steam Centre project and finally brought to the Bluebell for overhaul, being returned to steam for the centenary of the amalgamation of the South Eastern and London, Chatham & Dover railways in August 1999, and is now a stalwart of the heritage line.

ROBIN JONES

from the BR system, but even hired-in North London Railway 0-6-0T No. 58850 and LBSCR E4 0-6-2T No. 473 Birch Grove to the contractors who were ripping up the track north of Horsted Keynes in 1964.

Seeking new horizons

Looking to expand what had by then become a major visitor attraction, in 1975 the society bought the site of the demolished West Hoathly station, to make a start on a push back north and an eventual return to East Grinstead.

Kingscote station was bought in January 1985, and in the face of opposition from local councillors, a public inquiry resulted in both the secretaries of state for the Environment and Transport giving planning permission and a Light Railway Order for an extension to East Grinstead that year.

Work on the six-mile extension from Horsted Keynes to East Grinstead began in March 1988 with a golden spike ceremony. However, it would not be a quick job.

The extension from Horsted Keynes as far as Kingscote was completed in 1994, including the relaying of track through the 731-yard Sharpthorne tunnel, but planning permission was not forthcoming for the rebuilding of West Hoathly station.

LBSCR A1X 0-6-0T No. 55 Stepney, SECR P class 0-6-0T No. 323 Bluebell and LBSCR E4 0-6-2T No. 473 Birch Grove arrive at East Grinstead with the late running empty stock to form the first departure from East Grinstead. ANDREW STRONGITHARM

BR donated East Grinstead’s spectacular Imberhorne viaduct to the railway in 1992.

However, the trackbed had been sold off into numerous portions, all of which had to be bought one by one, a process that was not completed until 2003, from when physical civil engineering activity on the extension beyond Kingscote began.

The biggest blockage of all was the 30ft deep 1600ft long Imberhorne cutting, which after the original line was lifted was used as a landfill site for domestic waste. The rubbish had to be extracted if trains were to pass through again. Test borings established that the 96,000 cubic metres of waste were not toxic, but would cost £5 million to remove. The track north of the tip was relaid to allow it to be taken out by rail to a landfill site to the north of Aylesbury.

BBC News presenter Nick Owen publicly began the waste removal on November 25, 2008, using heavy machinery donated from the High Speed 1 Channel Tunnel Rail Link which had just been completed through Kent. GB Railfreight's first trial movements of excavated spoil by rail were made in 2009.

The date for the public opening to East Grinstead was set for March 23, 2013, and the first two months of the year saw frantic tracklaying as the wintry weather permitted.

On Friday, March 8, shortly after a GB Railfreight Class 66 made a clandestine latenight run over the extension, the final section of track was formally joined using a white fishplate, with long-serving Bluebell extension catering lady Barbara Watkins tightening the four bolts, bringing the total running length of the line to 11 miles.

A severe last blast of winter on March 23 brought snow to East Grinstead, but it would take more than that to deter the Bluebell battlers, who over the decades had fought far worse... and won. The first public train from East Grinstead was hauled by a trio headed

by E4 0-6-2T No. 473, aka Birch Grove, in Southern green livery, followed by blueliveried SECR P 0-6-0T No. 323 Bluebell and No. 55 Stepney, The first train north from Sheffield Park was headed by U class 2-6-0 No. 1638 and comprised the breakfast Pullman carrying 144 guests who were served champagne.

Shopping triumph

Despite Arctic blasts, a 45-minute service ran to time, with no engine failing. Many of the passengers alighted at East Grinstead and returned hours later with shopping bags – a sight which with pinpointed accuracy boded well for local traders.

Thursday March 28 saw an eagerly-awaited 12-coach UK Railtours charter from Victoria, headed by Class 66 No. 66739 which had taken its turn on the spoil trains, with two BR blueliveried Class 73s on the rear. After running through to Sheffield Park, the train was hauled back by the 73s to Horsted Keynes, where No. 66739 was named Bluebell Railway by GB Railfreight managing director Mark Smith.

Present at that ceremony with more reason than most to be justifiably proud of the completion of the extension was the line’s infrastructure director and locomotive driver Chris White, the driving force behind the project. Unpaid volunteer Chris had organised the removal of around 100,000 tons of waste

Chris White (left), the infrastructure director who moved mountains to make the East Grinstead possible, with preservation society chairman Roy Watts at the naming of GB Class 66 No. 66739 Bluebell Railway at Horsted Keynes on March 28, 2013. ROBIN JONES

from the cutting at the lowest possible cost, sourced £4 million of vital funding and also led the successful challenge against Railtrack’s plans to sell the reserved station site at East Grinstead to supermarket chain Sainsbury’s for a petrol station.

One day, Chris would be found sifting through mountains of legal paperwork, and the next leading a team of contractors.

Society chairman Roy Watts said at the time of the extension’s opening: “Those close to the project will know that there were many, many hours given to planning, execution, and delivery, as well as lots of work to get through the mire of the legislative paperwork. But no one knows this more than Chris White, who probably devoted more time to the project than we appreciate.”

In September 2017, Chris stood down as infrastructure director and handed over to Kevin Beauchamp, former head of infrastructure for High Speed 1, but stayed on the board as safety director. Kevin stood down last year due to personal reasons and Chris took infrastructure back on, and was also assurance director. Since then a new safety director had been appointed.

Chris lost a short battle with cancer on May 12. Yet his legacy is one of the greatest engineering features in the heritage railway sector’s portfolio, one which will be enjoyed by countless generations to come.

The East Grinstead extension, which allows visitors from London to travel to the Bluebell Railway by train, indeed brought a tourist boom to the town. In the first year after steam trains returned to East Grinstead, figures showed that the railway attracted 188,144

44

visitors compared with 146,224 in 2012.

Ticket revenue soared from £1,577,474 in 2012 to £2,294,145 in 2013. In 2019, the railway carried more than 143,000 passengers overall.

East Grinstead tourism manager Simon Kerr said: “All this seems to have been accomplished without any extra pressure on the town’s existing car parking capacity. Most of this extra passenger loading comes from the use of the Network Rail connection from London.”

By 2015, the Bluebell Railway was forced to hire more coaches because of the overwhelming success of the northern extension. Before that extension was opened, 60% of Bluebell trains were formed of four carriages, and only 30% of five or six. It was expected that demand for seats would tail off after the euphoria surrounding the opening to East Grinstead, but the opposite has happened.

The railway now needs five or six-car trains through much of the season.

The society today boasts a membership of more than 10,000. It is the governing body of the line and sets the strategy, goals and objectives for the operating company – Bluebell Railway plc, of which it is the majority shareholder with a 75% stake.

Vital to the line's successful operation is a core of around 50 employed staff supported by and working with an extensive array of more than 700 volunteers – drivers, firemen, guards, booking office clerks, station staff, buffet stewards, shop assistants, museum attendants, guides, tracklayers, lineside maintenance, painters, as well as those working in the carriage and wagon and locomotive works.

Each of the four stations is themed in terms of staff uniform, colour schemes and signage: Sheffield Park in the late 1800s of the LBSCR; Horsted Keynes in the 1930s Southern Railway,

Kingscote in the 1950s of British Railways and East Grinstead in the 1960s – Southern.

Grade II listed Horsted Keynes with its five platforms is one of the largest stations on any heritage railway. Despite its long service with the LBSCR, Southern Railway and BR, today’s operations represent the busiest period in its history of the station.

The passing place on days with a multi-train service, it holds major events ranging from being Santa’s temporary home at Christmas to a very popular venue for weddings. Its size makes it an attractive location for film makers – the versatility of the site and age of station buildings making a excellent backdrop for period drama from Victorian times up to the 1960s. It became Downton (of Abbey fame) on numerous occasions as well being used for several scenes in the Poirot detective series.

Well set for the future

Indeed, the entire railway – all of its stations are in effect ‘walk-on sets’ – has been a prime choice for location filming for hundreds of feature films, TV dramas, fashion shoots and music videos for nearly six decades starting with The Innocents in 1961.

The railway has a team to support filming activities, with personnel representing every railway department – filming liaison officers, loco crews, guards, shunters, signalmen, station staff, infrastructure and lineside staff.

The filming team also has experience working off-site and was able to take a locomotive in steam and with 10 coaches to King’s Cross for scenes filmed for Wonder Woman (2017).

It was also responsible for operational safety and supervised all train movements during the making of Murder on the Orient Express (also 2017) at Longcross Studios.

Revenues from filming, fashion and advertising shoots plus other corporate activity are an essential part of the cash flow required to sustain the railway and its ever ageing buildings, infrastructure, locomotives, carriages and wagons – for which the costs of maintenance and restoration are ever increasing.

On October 19, 2018, the new £200,000 interactive locomotive exhibition, SteamWorks! at Sheffield Park was opened, marking the completion of the first phase of the railway’s three-year £1.5 million National Heritage Lottery Fund-backed ASH (Accessible Steam Heritage) project, which aims not only to improve the display of classic locomotives but also to provide a wider educational and interactive experience for visitors. Taking pride of place on static display is none other than Stepney, alongside which is a full size mock-up of the locomotive where members of the public can get up close and operate the controls, view progress down the track and experience life on the footplate.

Society trustee Roger Kelly said: “SteamWorks! is designed to be both fun and educational for people of all ages, but particularly the young. It is after all they who hold the key to our future success both in terms of visitors and volunteers.”

Indeed, Stepney has been a children’s favourite for generations, if only because of its depiction as a character in its own right in the Reverend Wilbert Awdry’s Railway Series alongside Thomas the Tank Engine.

The railway has established a Stepney club within its children’s section: visit www. bluebell-railway.com/childrens-section/ for more details and to join.

That is not to overlook the enormous

effort put in one weekend a month by the youngsters in the 9F club who are forever cleaning, polishing, repairing and painting.

Aged between 11 and 16, members of the 9F club often use this as source of training and experience for entry into volunteer work – but mainly the idea is to have fun. The club has been the route into a Bluebell volunteering career for many including current plc chairman Chris Hunford.

The youngsters of today are the lifeblood for the success, preservation and continuance of all our heritage railways of tomorrow.

Now for the next 60 years

After the extension of the line to East Grinstead a period of consolidation was required. However, that did not stop the successful completion in the summer of 2016 of the first building phase of Operation Undercover and its Heritage Skills Centre on land adjoining the carriage and wagon works at Horsted Keynes.

This £1 million project will provide cover from the elements for up to 20 carriages awaiting restoration or repair: the Bluebell Railway has long been a market leader in the recovery of Victorian and Edwardian carriage stock, renovating coach bodies used for decades as bungalows, holiday homes or chicken coops to as-built condition.

It has long been the aspiration of the Bluebell to see a second main line connection added, with the restoration of the Ardingly branch, which closed on October 28, 1963.

For a brief spell afterwards, the branch was used occasionally to transport rolling stock to the Bluebell, the final movement along the line recorded on May 13, 1964 when ‘Terrier’ No. 32636 Fenchurch (LBSCR No. 72)

The headboard ‘The Pioneer’ speaks volumes: Stepney heads a VIP special at Kingscote in 2000 to mark the 40th anniversary of the heritage line in 2000. ROBIN JONES

became the last locomotive to arrive in steam before the heritage line was severed from the national network.

BR had given the Bluebell just four weeks to acquire Fenchurch, but Dr Beeching decreed that the locomotive should instead be reserved for six months.

Lifting of the Ardingly branch began on July 15, 1964, and reached Horsted Keynes

by September 21. During the summer of 1968, Sheriff Mill viaduct, the condition of which was one of the reasons for the closure of the branch, was demolished as Mid Sussex District Council wished to straighten the bend on New Lane below. The Bluebell had been invited to buy the line in 1962, but could not afford BR’s asking price of between £25,000£30,000 together with the £10,000 needed to

maintain the viaduct. Options for bridging the Sheriff Mill gap as part of the mooted Western Extension Project by extending the embankments and using two second-hand bridge sections, are being pursued, and another major obstacle is the replacement of a short girder bridge. The branch’s Lywood Tunnel appears to be in good condition.

The western end had a second lease of life for carrying freight. An Amey Roadstone plant was established in Ardingly goods yard shortly after closure of the line, and was served by a daily freight working from Haywards Heath using the former down local line. Access to the up main and up local lines at Copyhold Junction has been severed. The new occupant demolished most of the station platforms, and track in the station was removed and

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Over the past 60 years, the Bluebell Railway has built up a reputation second to none for its reconstruction and restoration of wooden-bodied Victorian and Edwardian carriages. SECR 0-6-0 No. 592, one of the last three members of its class to survive in Departmental service at Ashford, was saved by the Wainwright C Preservation Society, which was formed in 1962. Bought in December 1966, No. 592 moved to the Bluebell in 1970. It is seen heading a rake of classic pre-Grouping stock at Kingscote on July 4, 2010. Scenes like these underline the importance of the railway’s current emergency appeal in raising vital funds to ensure that its ground-breaking work in this field and others can continue. MIKE HOPPS

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a loop installed at the southern end of the former goods yard area. The station buildings remain, used as offices by the firm’s successor, Hanson Aggregates.

After the completion of the East Grinstead extension, Bluebell directors said the line would give itself a breathing space before embarking on such a major project. However, restoration of the Ardingly branch could give the Bluebell a presence in Haywards Heath and do for tourism in that town what it has done for East Grinstead, as well as a potential interchange with the London to Brighton line.

The Bluebell is now securing the asset so that a future extension to Haywards Heath remains a possibility, replacing fencing and carrying out ecological surveys.

Visitors inevitably ask if there is also the possibility of rebuilding the line south of Sheffield Park, over the vacant formation of Lewes that Madge Bessemer and the original revivalists had hoped to save.

The short answer is that the Bluebell now sees no commercial reason for a new push south.

The railway does not own the trackbed, and a major cost struggle to get into Lewes because the land has been built over and the former brick viaduct has gone.

New LBSCR locomotives

As stated earlier, the founders hoped that the LBSCR line they saved would host as much of that company’s locomotive and rolling stock types as possible.

In October 2000, it was announced that a new H2 Brighton Atlantic would be built, replicating the last in service, No. 32424 Beachy Head, withdrawn in April 1958 and scrapped.

The boiler of the new 4-4-2 passed its hydraulic test last autumn, and it has been hoped to fit it to the frames so that the locomotive could be displayed for Bluebell 60th anniversary celebrations that had been scheduled for August 7-9 (see below).

However, Covid-19 has seen all work suspended on the project, and so the new Beachy Head will now appear later than planned.

In the autumn of 2019, the railway’s board, society and trust gave full endorsement to the Atlantic Group’s next scheme, the building of SECR E class 4-4-0 from scratch as a cost of £1.2 million.

The group has chosen No. 516 in original condition to replicate, and it is estimated the project, which will start as soon as Beachy Head is complete, will take 10-13 years to complete.

Group chairman Terry Cole said: “It would add a locomotive type widely used on the

Southern Railway but which the Bluebell Railway currently doesn’t have: The pregrouping 4-4-0. The chosen engine is No. 516 which was used as the ‘royal’ engine and kept in tip-top condition.”

Meanwhile, the railway is lining-up the next locomotives in its overhaul queue.

Work is currently in progress on Bulleid Battle of Britain Pacific No. 34059 Sir Archibald Sinclair. When that is completed, a start will be made on Fenchurch.

Then it will be the turn of the Maunsell Locomotive Society's Schools V 4-4-0 No. 928 Stowe. Members of its owning group have been making progress with work off site while the Sheffield Park workshop is closed due to lockdown.

Next overhaul

The brake gearing has been refitted to the rolling chassis and the steam heating system has been fitted with all new steel piping.

Cladding sections are being cleaned and painted by volunteers while the cab roof is being reskinned.

After that, the Bluebell will look at the next medium-sized overhaul, possibly H 0-4-4T No. 263 when its current running certificate is finished or GWR Dukedog 4-4-0 No. 9017 Earl of Berkeley, a veteran of the Cambrian Coast Line and real ‘odd man out’ in Southern territory but which, since its arrived in 1962 thanks to the efforts of the late Tom Gomm,

has firmly established itself as part of the Bluebell furniture. Indeed, when saved for preservation, the Bluebell was the only line where it could run.

The beauty of the Bluebell fleet is that everyone will have their favourite locomotive, and therefore their own opinion on which should be restored to running order next.

Celebrations suspended

This year, the railway has geared itself up to celebrate its 60th anniversary, with a showpiece Steaming Through 60 gala weekend over August 7-9.

However, those celebrations have been postponed along with all other special events planned to date, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The closure of the line due to lockdown has also placed on hold a planned programme to carry out an in-depth refurbishment and restoration programme to restore the line’s ‘jewel in the crown’, Horsted Keynes station.

The first stage of the project has been to undertake a comprehensive survey of everything from the chimney stacks down to the railway tracks. The 75-page survey has revealed deterioration in the station fabric and the platforms, but concludes that the station is overall basically sound. The full cost of restoring the station to its 1930s glory is estimated to be over £1 million, but plans to launch a Diamond Jubilee year appeal

A 21st century epitome of the Southern Railway: Eastleigh, 1936-built S15 4-6-0 No. 847 heads a rake of matching green coaches through the unspoilt countryside which is a trademark of the Bluebell Railway.

No. 847 is the biggest and most powerful of the Maunsell Locomotive Society’s engines and the last 4-6-0 built by the SR. It was rescued from Barry scrapyard in 1978. PETER EDWARDS

to members and supporters to raise at least £500,000 of the cost have now been delayed because of Covid-19.

Instead, as previously reported in issues 266 and 277, the railway has joined many other heritage lines throughout the UK in launching emergency appeals to cover overheads during the lockdown period, in order simply to survive, following its closure on March 20.

As we closed for press, the Government had started to ease lockdown restrictions, but no firm date had been set as to when places of entertainment including heritage lines could resume operations.

Public support

However, the public has not forgotten 60 years of Bluebell magnificence, for by the end of May, more than £250,000 had been donated towards an initial target of £300,000.

Officials revealed that there had been at least 1500 individual donations ranging from a few pounds from children offering their pocket money to several thousand pounds from members and supporters.

The railway’s fundraising organiser Trevor Swainson said: “The totals include a commitment by two individuals who wished to remain anonymous to jointly donate £5000 including Gift Aid if the total reached £195,000. That has now happened."

The railway set the £300,000 target based on financial modelling. While fare income from passengers is its main source of revenue each year, the railway also relies on sales of food and drink at its cafes and restaurants, shop purchases, weddings, special railway charters and filming location fees to provide enough money to restore its historic locomotives and carriage.

A railway spokesman said: “We are now looking at the logistics and practicalities of reopening. We are examining how to ensure social distancing and provide health protection while operating as a heritage railway.”

Survival instincts

Of course, if the lockdown restrictions continue beyond the summer months, it is likely that the Bluebell, in common with all other heritage lines, will need to raise that target even further. To many, it all but seems that those pioneering times of the late Fifties and early Sixties to see steam and branch lines survive against all odds have now back with us and with a sharp vengeance. *To support the Bluebell’s emergency appeal, visit https://uk.virginmoneygiving. com/fund/support-bluebell

To compensate for thee loss of the Steaming Through 60 gala weekend in August, the railway is to hold a virtual celebration of its fabulous 60 years of operation in August.

Robert Hayward, chairman of the Bluebell Railway’s Diamond Anniversary steering group, said: “The pragmatic decision not to hold the event as previously planned allows the Bluebell Railway to focus its efforts on reopening. We will be holding a virtual event this August and are currently working on various ideas for the event because we are still going to celebrate 60 years of operating ass a heritage line.”

The railway is asking its members with model railway layouts to film locomotives in action to produce a ‘virtual gala’ to replace this year’s cancelled spring and summer events. The virtual gala will be posted on the railway’s YouTube channel to view.

Again, with youngsters in mind, the line’s education department is producing a series of online Storytime videos for children. The railway-related stories have been selected and read by volunteers from the department before being uploaded to the YouTube channel.

The department’s Ruth Rowatt said: “Storytime with Bluebell Railway is a nice way to keep our younger visitors informed and to keep the railway in their hearts and minds. Many children were looking forward to visiting Stepney and all his friends at the Bluebell Railway this spring. I wanted to let them know that we at the railway are thinking of them and looking forward to welcoming them when we reopen.”

The real-life 60th annual gala will now be rearranged for next year. Robert added: “New opportunities may be available to us in 2021 that are not possible now. Next year’s event

will be on a date to be agreed.”

As we closed for press, all events from September until the end of December were under review, includes the planned debut SteamLights season of illuminated trains, as pioneered by the Dartmouth Steam Railway which accordingly won a major Heritage Railway Association award in February. The Bluebell is now working on the practicality of holding SteamLights in addition to its popular Santa specials and festive dining trains. ➜ The timeline has been supplied by the Bluebell Railway. Several of the views from the Bluebell Railway Archive are included in a new book, Bluebell Railway: Sixty Years of Progress 1960-2020, available from the online shop at www.bluebell-railway.com/ product/bluebell-railway-sixty-years-ofprogress-1960-2020/ which is operating during lockdown.

PRESERVATION

FROM TINY ACORNS…

Seven decades ago, could the band of enthusiasts who planned to pull off a world first by taking over a dying narrow gauge railway ever have envisaged in their wildest dreams that in a future national emergency, the Government would see fit to spend more than £10 million on keeping 43 similar ventures alive? As the Talyllyn Railway prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary, Robin Jones looks back at the little line that started it all…

I

n 2020, there are more than 150 operational heritage railways in the UK, running services over nearly 600 miles of track, with almost 500 stations.

They welcome more than 13 million visitors every year, and not only are they valuable cultural and educational amenities, but they contribute around £400 million to the national economy. Planks of many a local tourist economy, they provide 4000 full-time equivalent jobs, supported by an army of 22,000 volunteers. Mighty oaks indeed!

Yet each one of our heritage lines owe a massive debt of gratitude to the pioneers who saw fit to give up their spare time to travel to the coast of central Wales to save a little-known 2ft 3in gauge line from closure.

Yes, the Talyllyn Railway is tiny in comparison to the likes of the North Yorkshire Moors, West Somerset, Severn Valley, Bluebell and Great Central railways, but where would any of these magnificent lines be today if the defining seed of the volunteer-led heritage sector had not been planted in Tywyn in 1951?

A line-up of engines at Tywyn on February 11, 2010, to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Talyllyn Railway saviour and heritage sector founder Tom Rolt. From left to right are No. 7 Tom Rolt, No. 2 Douglas and No. 4 Sir Haydn. ROBIN JONES

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I have little doubt that a heritage revivalist movement would have started in Britain at some stage, such was the level of enthusiasm for railways among the general population. Yet if it had not started back then, who knows what might have been lost in the years that followed?

The Talyllyn story of course does not begin in 1951, when the volunteers began running public services, but in the local slate industry.

Origins

In 1843, a slate quarry opened at Bryn Eglwys, in the lofty heights above the village of Abergynolwyn. The slate was carried by packhorse to the wharf at Pennal, transferred to boats for a river trip to Aberdyfi (Aberdovey) and was loaded onto ships, a complicated procedure which limited the quarry’s output.

With Lancashire textile manufacturers looking for new ways of making money following the outbreak of the American Civil War, which cut off supplies of cotton, the lease of the quarry was bought in 1861 by the

McConnells family of Manchester, who then sought a more cost-effective way to swiftly transport the slate. They looked at existing narrow gauge railways like the Ffestiniog and Corris, which has been designed and built purely to carry slate, with passenger traffic being introduced later.

The standard gauge Aberystwyth & Welsh Coast Railway, later part of the Cambrian Railways main line and subsequently the Great Western Railway, reached Tywyn in 1963, so McConnell decided to build his line from the quarry to Tywyn, the nearest point where slate could be transferred to the standard gauge railway.

James Swinton Spooner, whose father had designed and built the Festiniog Railway and whose brother had introduced steam locomotives to it, was commissioned to draw up plans for the new railway. However, this one was to be different from the others that had gone before, in that from the outset it was intended to carry both passengers and freight.

Building of the Tayllyn Railway began

Talyllyn on Dolgoch viaduct in 1888. Dolgoch Falls (right) has been a tourist magnet since the line was first ‘discovered’ by visitors. TR ARCHIVES/ROBIN JONES

in 1864, and under the terms of an Act of Parliament passed on July 5, 1865, a passenger railway was laid between Tywyn and Abergynolwyn with a goods-only extension to what is now Nant Gwernol. From the terminus, three cable-hauled inclines took wagons up to and down from the quarry, and there was also a cable-worked incline down to Abergynolwyn village, which very usefully kept the residents supplied with coal.

Two new locomotives were ordered and built

by Fletcher Jennings of Whitehaven, and were delivered to Tywyn in 1864 and 1866.

They were an 0-4-2ST, No. 1 Talyllyn, and No. 2 Dolgoch, an 0-4-0WT. Four carriages and a guards van were also built, along with several wagons.

Captain Henry Tyler from the Board of Trade inspected the line in September 1866 and made several recommendations, one being that carriage doors should only open on one side because of the tight clearances. This unusual state of affairs remains the case today.

In October 1866, the railway began an unofficial passenger service, despite not being

authorised by the Board of Trade and with passengers being carried ‘at their own risk’ and possibly free of charge until the line was officially sanctioned. In November that year, Capt Tyler reinspected the railway, following which he approved its formal opening for passenger service.

The first public passenger timetable was issued in December 1866 and the first purposebuilt, steam-worked, narrow gauge public railway in Britain opened for service. There were stations at Pendre and Abergynolwyn with the halt at Rhydyronen opening in 1867, followed by Brynglas and Dolgoch Falls in 1873.

The 2ft 3in gauge was shared by only three other public railways in Britain: its ‘sister line’ the Corris Railway, the subsequent but short-lived Plynlimon & Hafan Tramway at nearby Talybont and the Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway which crossed the Mull of Kintyre.

The Talyllyn proved a success in its early years, helping the quarry expand production greatly, and by 1880, Bryn Eglwys employed 300 workers and was producing 8000 tons of finished slate per year – all exported via

A timetable from the Sir Henry Hayden Jones period.

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No. 1 Talyllyn at Nant Gwernol in 1890. Although public passenger trains did not run here until 1976, quarrymen travelled along this mineral-only section of the line. TR ARCHIVES

Rolling stock

the little railway. Passenger traffic was also substantial, rising from 11,500 passengers carried in 1867 to more than 23,000 in 1877.

Late Victorian times saw more and more of the new breed of tourists, wealthier families with more leisure time on their hands, discover the delights of mid-Wales, and used charabancs to bridge the gap taking in the Talyllyn and Corris railways via Tal-y-llyn Lake and Cadair Idris, returning via the Cambrian main line.

Decline

However, in the 1880s, demand for slate declined and brought hardships to many smaller quarries like Bryn Eglwys, where production slumped to 4000 tons by 1890.

Despite a brief flurry of demand in 1896 when strike action at Penrhyn Quarry in North Wales led to a new lease of life for smaller quarries elsewhere, and added investment

by McConnell, the overall downward trend continued, and when his lease on Bryn Eglwys ended in 1910, nobody seemed willing to take it on.

Many families in the locality faced ruin because of the closure of the quarry. Happily, a benefactor was found in the form of local

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landowner Henry Haydn Jones, who bought the company in 1910, the same year he became Liberal MP for Merioneth.

He reopened the quarry in January 1911, but had no money to invest in it, and it had to rely on producing the harder-to-sell hard slate from the broad vein, while resorting to the dangerous practice of narrowing the columns that supported the roofs of the underground chambers of the narrow vein, which was comprised of the more marketable soft slate.

The national housebuilding boom following the First World War saw slate production rise to around 4000 tons a year, while the growing tourist market saw summer passenger levels rise to the point where slate wagons with planks of wood fitted to form crude bench seats were pressed into service to cope with demand.

An unusual tourist service offered by the railway in the Twenties and early Thirties was the hire of a slate wagon, which would be left at Abergynolwyn by an inbound train. At the end of the day, the tourists would return to Tywyn in the wagon, powered by gravity. This service was discontinued in the early 1930s.

Haydn Jones persevered with the railway, even though it never made a profit during his years in charge. Bryn Eglwys quarry finally closed in 1946 when the weakened columns in the narrow vein collapsed and it was deemed unsafe.

Survival

Nonetheless, Haydn Jones vowed to continue operating the railway as long as he was alive and a timetable continued to operate on a hand-to-mouth budget, although it was becoming clear that the locomotives and stock needed attention and the track and infrastructure were fighting a losing battle against decay and the onset of nature.

When Britain’s railways were nationalised on January 1, 1948, the Talyllyn was one of the few operating lines not included – probably because it was all but forgotten by those in high office. However, other eyes were watching from afar.

In 1929, efforts to save Suffolk’s 3ft gauge Southwold Railway attracted the attention of the national press, and had they been successful, it is likely that it would have been Britain’s first heritage line.

Indeed, the idea of running railways purely for pleasure or tourism purposes had by then been well established. Sir Arthur Heywood had a 15in gauge line built on his Duffield Bank estate in Derbyshire in 1874, with the idea of selling it to a wider audience and in 1895 he

Tom Rolt with Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman at the opening of the rebuilt Tywyn Wharf station in 1965.

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Preservation pioneers at the ‘Big Bang’! Tom Rolt alongside No. 2 Dolgoch as it is being driven by David Curwen at Tywyn Wharf on May 14, 1951 when the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society ran its first trains to Rhydyronen and so set in motion today’s heritage railway sector. TR ARCHIVES

built a similar system at Eaton Hall for the Duke of Westminster.

Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke, the most famous modelmaker of the early 20th century, and miniature locomotive engineer Henry Greenly formed a company, Miniature Railways of Great Britain, in 1904, to develop such lines. The derelict 3ft gauge Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway in the Lake District was converted to 15in gauge and operated by miniature steam locomotives in 1915, and the 2ft gauge Fairbourne Railway to the north of Tywyn followed suit a year later.

These cannot in their day be described as ‘heritage’ lines, because they were merely scale replicas or types based on contemporary stateof-the-art main line locomotives.

There is the train of thought that the idea of volunteers taking over an existing railway and running it as such, without alteration, was planted in the letters column of the January 1941 issue of The Modern Tramway, the journal of the Light Railway Transport League.

Headed ‘An Interesting Suggestion’, Manchester reader Arthur E Rimmer, concerned at the Welsh Highland Railway’s imminent prospect of having its track lifted for the war effort, wrote that the line, which

closed to passengers in 1936 and freight the year afterwards, had proved its value during the First World War in carrying timber and slate, while a passenger service could be reintroduced to save petrol supplies.

If the reinstatement of the Welsh Highland on commercial grounds was found to be not possible, he continued, would it be practicable for clubs and societies supplying free labour to tackle such a scheme?

Principle

Owen Prosser, one of the founders of the Talyllyn Preservation Society, once told Heritage Railway: “That established a principle of fundamental importance. As far as I know, it had never been suggested before.”

In the next edition, Birmingham solicitor Stanley Keyse (who later orchestrated the purchase of the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway from British Railways) said that “the line with careful management could be profitably operated for tourist passenger traffic, at any rate on the section between Beddgelert and Aberglaslyn.”

He added: “Efforts will be made to reopen this necessary and picturesque railway and such efforts will be crowned with success.”

Once titled ‘the five conspirators’, the leading officials of the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society are seen together in May 1951. They are, left to right: David Curwen (chief mechanical engineer), Bill Trinder (chairman), Pat Whitehouse (secretary), Tom Rolt (railway general manager) and Pat Garland (treasurer).

Pat Whitehouse later founded Birmingham Railway Museum, now Tyseley Locomotive Works. TR ARCHIVES

No. 2 Dolgoch on an up train in Dolgoch Woods. ALEX EYRES/TR

Owen Prosser then wrote to Minister of Transport JTC (later Lord) Moore-Brabazon in support of the Welsh Highland, who pointed out that the Welsh Highland had run at a loss since its opening in 1923. So that was that: the Welsh Highland was lifted, and Owen joined the Royal Navy after being called up in 1942.

However, on September 2, 1949, an anonymous letter appeared in The Birmingham Post, headlined “Breakdown on Talyllyn Railway.” The writer said that No. 2 Dolgoch, by then the line’s sole operative locomotive, had suffered a fractured frame and had to be withdrawn from service, leading to the then two-days-a-week passenger service being suspended – and therefore the end was in sight.

A reply in the newspaper’s letters column came on September 9 from renowned transport author Tom Rolt, who just two years earlier had taken physical steps to stop the Great Western Railway from effectively closing the northern section of the Stratfordupon-Avon Canal, by insisting to exercise his right of passage at a decaying lock in King’s Norton.

Tom Rolt congratulated the writer, but disagreed with his demand that the

Tom Rolt chats to passengers at Abergynolwyn. TR ARCHIVES

Government or British Railways should step in to save the Talyllyn from closure.

Instead, Tom argued, it was a “sorry symptom of the decline of individual initiative at the present time” that people said ‘why don’t they do something about it?’ rather than getting stuck in themselves.

Owen Prosser wrote to Tom and said that the best medium for success in saving the Talyllyn would be a voluntary society, supplying both cash and free labour.

Individuality

In his reply on September 22, Tom said: “Whether or not we agree with the nationalisation of our railways, we have to admit that the policy must result in an increasing loss of individuality. This inevitable process of standardisation will focus public interest to an increasing extent upon a small historic and highly-individual concern such as the Talyllyn Railway.”

He was right, but by then, he had already done much to set the wheels of transport preservation in progress.

Born on February 11, 1910, Tom trained as an engineer, initially apprenticed to steam locomotive manufacturer Kerr Stuart Ltd in

Stoke-on-Trent from 1926. He later became part-owner of the Phoenix Green garage on the A30 in Hampshire. This became a focal point for owners of sports cars, and in 1935 Tom was active in founding the Vintage Sports Car Club.

In the late 1930s, he converted a narrow boat, Cressy, into a floating home and cruised the English canals, telling the story of his voyages in his landmark book Narrow Boat.

In so many ways Cressy was the precursor of today’s canal cruising boats. Its on-board bath was famous throughout the canal network at a time when living conditions for boatmen and their families was primitive in the extreme. In August 1945, he had a meeting with Robert Aickman at which they decided to found the Inland Waterways Association to campaign for the retention of the canal network, at a time when so many sections were being closed due to lack of trade. He correctly foresaw a more affluent age when pleasure boating would become a significant part of canal traffic.

Before the letter appeared in The Birmingham Post, Tom was aware of the crisis facing the Talyllyn. He had visited it during the Second World War, but when he arrived at Tywyn Wharf a handwritten sign greeted him A modern traction first for the sector! The Talyllyn steam fleet has been supplemented by diesel power from its early days. Tom Rolt is seen driving the line’s first No. 5 immediately after it has been off-loaded at Tywyn Wharf on October 17, 1952.

Built by David Curwen, it incorporated the Ford model T engine and epicyclic transmission previously in Tom’s narrowboat Cressy!

A week later, it was used to rescue No. 4 Edward Thomas, following a derailment on a ballast train. The rear of Tom’s Alvis is visible behind No 5. TR ARCHIVES Heritagerailway.co.uk 67

saying “no train today”. Therefore, he decided to walk to Abergynolwyn along the track to the workshops at Pendre, where he found that the only operational locomotive was being repaired by a frustrated engineer.

Tom returned to Tywyn in 1949 with fellow railway enthusiast Bill Trinder, who owned a radio shop in Banbury and met with Sir Henry Haydn Jones.

On July 2, 1950 Sir Henry died and closure of the Talyllyn Railway seemed inevitable, but it continued to operate for the remainder of the summer season, ending on October 6.

Railway revolution

Tom had by then already been preparing a plan of action. He called a public meeting on October 11, at the Imperial Hotel in Birmingham, to consider the future of the Talyllyn Railway, and 36 people turned up, electing a committee, which met for the first time on October 23.

Then, Owen’s suggestion of the name for the new body, the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, was formally adopted.

The members were risking the ridicule of friends and family, for what on earth was the point?

In 1950, there was no immediate threat to steam traction on the national network or the prospect of wholesale closures of large swathes of it; Dr Beeching was many years in the future, the motor car had not yet become undisputed king and the British Railways Modernisation Plan, which called for total dieselisation and electrification was still five years away.

Britannia class Pacific No. 70000 Britannia, the first of what would be 999 British Standard locomotives, would not appear for another year. The new society’s actions might well have been deemed akin to preserving an example of a brand-new mass-produced car straight out of a showroom purely for historical purposes. Yet

by May 1950, nearly 650 members had joined the Talyllyn society.

Madness? Certainly not, if you have experienced the charms of the Afon Fathew valley and its little bespoke railway!

Through the generosity of Sir Haydn’s widow, the society was effectively given the line in February 1951 – and members ran

Corris Railway 0-4-2ST No. 4 Edward Thomas heads up the valley with a scheduled service. TR

their first train on May 14, 1951, with initial services running between Tywyn Wharf and Rhydyronen. Regular trains began to run on June 4 and continued through the summer.

So history was made by a man who had made a living through writing about it: Tom was especially known for his biographies of the lives of famous engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

He became the railway’s general manager for the first two years of society operation and he told the story in his book Railway Adventure.

The early preservationists faced many uphill struggles. As they had known, Dolgoch was in desperate need of a major overhaul, but Talyllyn was not operational.

Therefore, they turned to the Corris Railway, which had been closed by British Railways shortly after Nationalisation. Two further steam locomotives, Nos. 3 and 4, were purchased from the Corris, along with a substantial amount of track in 1951 and named Sir Haydn and Edward Thomas respectively. Edward Thomas, incidentally, had been one of the railway’s longest-serving staff members, who joined it in 1897 at the age of 17 and continued to be employed until 1950. They became the first ‘new’ Talyllyn locomotives for nearly 90 years.

Birmingham engineering firm Abelsons Ltd donated 1918-built Barclay 0-4-0WT Douglas, which had been built for the RAF Calshot depot railway, and became Talyllyn No 6.

The takeover of the Talyllyn by volunteers was the inspiration for the 1953 Ealing Studios comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt, about a group of villagers attempting to run a service on a disused branch line after closure.

The railway took off as a definitive centre for railway preservation, and in 1956, the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum was set up in an old gunpowder store at Tywyn Wharf.

Narrow gauge items from far and wide were collected in the wake of the arrival of the first exhibit, Spence, an unusual 0-4-0T donated in 1952 by Guinness from its recently-closed St James’s Gate Brewery railway in Dublin.

On May 22, 1957 the BBC produced a live outside broadcast from the railway, during which Wynford Vaughan Thomas and Huw Weldon commentated on a trip from Dolgoch

Falls to Abergynolwyn. Publicity arising from this broadcast, which helped place the railway firmly on the modern tourist map, drew substantial numbers of visitors to the railway that summer, with more than 57,500 passengers carried. The extra revenue in turn enabled the railway to continue to improve its infrastructure, and in 1958, No. 1 Talyllyn returned to steam after a major overhaul.

Another early member of the society was also to have a resounding impact on the future of railway preservation, although less intentionally than Tom Rolt.

The Reverend Wilbert Awdry, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine, worked as a volunteer guard in the 1950s.

Inspiration

On his fictional Island of Sodor he created the Skarloey Railway, a narrow gauge line which runs from Crovan’s Gate to Skarloey, beyond which a mineral extension serves a slate quarry. Indeed, the Skarloey Railway is based more or less directly on the Talyllyn, and is run by a thin controller, a narrow version of the standard gauge Fat Controller!

The Thomas books inspired many generations of youngsters and later became the basis of a £1 billion international brand of toys, TV series, a film and other merchandise. Days Out with Thomas events are held by many heritage railways, and are a major crowdpuller and revenue generator. The Talyllyn has often run No. 6 Douglas in the guise of the identical Duncan.

Passenger numbers increased to 78,500 in 1964, and following a major upgrade of the workshops at Tywyn Pendre, it built new coaches to cater for demand.

It became clear that more locomotives were needed. In 1969, a 3ft gauge Barclay 0-4-2T was bought from the Irish Peat Board. At first it was appropriately nicknamed Irish Pete, but eventually, after regauging and extensive reconstruction with many new parts, it emerged from the workshops in 1991 as No. 7 Tom Rolt.

It was Tom who came up with the idea not only of preserving the railway, but also of extending, bringing the Nant Gwernol mineral extension to the foot of the

Alltwyllt incline into passenger use. Planning for this project began in 1960, but building work did not begin until 1968 when the winding house for the Abergynolwyn village incline was demolished.

The mineral extension, which runs on a narrow ledge on the hillside spectacularly overlooking the village below, had to be relaid, with part of the cutting side blasted away to allow the curves to be eased sufficiently to allow coaches to safely run over the line.

The extension and new station at Nant Gwernol were opened on May 22, 1976 by Wynford Vaughan Thomas who drove in the ceremonial “golden spike”, and regular services to the new terminus began a week later.

A series of footpaths leading from the new station up the old quarry incline and across a new footbridge spanning the Nant Gwernol gorge were created and officially opened on May 3, 1980 by Lord Parry, the chairman of the Wales Tourist Board.

President

Meanwhile, from 1965-70, Tom Rolt became involved in the Bath Conferences on Industrial Archaeology and the University of Bath. These led to the establishment of the Association for Industrial Archaeology at a conference on the Isle of Man in 1973.

Tom was its first president until his untimely death a few months later in May 1974.

Just before he died, the university awarded him an honorary degree for his work in this field, and a Rolt Fellowship was established to encourage senior engineers and retired professionals to undertake research on the history of technology. The annual Rolt Lecture was set up by the association in his memory in September 1975.

After peaking around the 80,000 mark in 1973, the railway’s passenger numbers began to fall. The decline in popularity of Wales as a summer holiday destination was a prime cause, largely as a result of cheap Mediterranean package holidays, and also by then, many other heritage railways were operating throughout the country.

The preservation society celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2001, and launched a £1,170,000 project to extend visitor facilities at Tywyn Wharf. With the aid of a £682,500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant, a new twostorey building to house the museum and an extension to the existing station building to house a new cafe and booking office were officially opened by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall on July 13, 2005.

On February 11, 2010, a special exhibition in the museum to mark the exact centenary of the birth of Tom Rolt was opened by his widow, Mrs Sonia Rolt. Afterwards, she travelled on a special VIP train to Nant Gwernol hauled by No. 4 Sir Haydn, with No. 7 Tom Rolt in steam in the yard at Tywyn Wharf accompanied by Dolgoch. Sadly, Sonia, who was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010 for her own services to industrial archaeology and heritage, passed away on October 22, 2014 at the age of 94.

Sixty-nine years after launching their first services and the operational preservation movement, Talyllyn staff and volunteers have been faced with what could well be their biggest-ever challenge – the coronavirus pandemic and the potentiallydevastating impact of loss of revenue from lockdown closure.

In common with other heritage lines, the

In 2010, the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum, based at Tywyn Wharf station, was awarded Full Accreditation status by the Museums, Archives and Libraries Council. To celebrate the occasion, the museum ran a special train for its volunteers and invited guests on July 11 that year. The train comprised No. 1 Talyllyn with the line’s original rolling stock and three of its slate wagons from the museum’s collection, therefore replicating the typical configuration of a Talyllyn train from the line’s opening in 1865 until the start of preservation in 1951.

DJ MITCHELL/NARROW GAUGE RAILWAY MUSEUM

Above: No. 7 Tom Rolt runs round at Nant Gwernol on August 29. GARETH EVANS Left: No. 3 Sir Haydn passes the blockpost at Pendre with a train bound for Nant Gwernol on December 29, 2018. Hunslet 0-4-0DM No. 9 Alf is just visible parked in the siding next to the cabin. GARETH EVANS

Talyllyn organised its own public appeal to cover overheads at a dire time when no income was forthcoming.

As we closed for press, the appeal at www. justgiving.com/campaign/talyllyn-appeal2020 has raised nearly £120,000 towards its £150,000 target.

Services resumed on August 1, after the railway had implemented strict social distancing measures both on its trains and at its stations and cafes, and which have been applauded by travelling customers. Train services are now pre-booked only, with compartments seating up to six people sold at a fixed price rather than individual tickets.

Passenger uptake has been highly positive in the circumstances, with the railway appearing to benefit from the closure of other tourist attractions in the region. The Narrow Gauge Railway Museum has also reopened.

In the week before we closed for press, general manager Stuart Williams revealed that ticket sales were 8% up on the same period last October, with 33% more revenue across the board. However, those figures are still a long way from making up the shortfall for the loss of the spring and early summer season.

Nonetheless, the railway has extended its 2020 running season in view of the current upsurge in autumn demand – but because of the lockdown announced by the Welsh Government on October 19, it must close from October 23 until November 9. However, as

we closed for press, pre-booked services were planned to resume on November 9, and run until November 29. It is also hoped to run a series of Tinsel and Turkey trains before Christmas and maybe some Santa specials, provided the latest Covid-19 restrictions permit. Visit www.talyllyn.co.uk or telephone 01654 710472 for further details.

Furthermore, it is planned to start the 2021 season as early as February 1. The Talyllyn began the movement in 1951, and is trying its best to lead the way again!

Anniversary

May 14, of course, will be the Big One – the 70th anniversary of Tom Rolt & Co’s first volunteer services which introduced the concept of heritage railways to an unsuspecting and very grateful world. Just as Wales unveiled the steam locomotive to the world with Richard Trevithick’s first public run on the Penydarren Tramroad in 1804, so the principality gave the globe a somewhat different railway package 147 years later, and it too lasted the test of time.

A special event, the ‘Corris Swap’ is planned for May and June, when former resident No. 4 Edward Thomas will revisit its sister line in exchange for 2005-built replica No. 7.

Next year’s Warley National Model Railway Show at the National Exhibition Centre will see the Tywyn museum display no less than the Rev Awdry’s layout, together with a celebration of 70 years of preservation.

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SHOWCASE

AUTUMN BREAKS

AND BACK TO WINTER! Robin Jones and Gareth Evans present a stunning selection of autumn views from the heritage railway sector.

A

cross the Atlantic, we are told that New England is the place to be in the fall, when landscapes everywhere turn to shades of resplendent golden yellows, ochres, scarlets, purples and browns.

However, never for a second write off Old England in the seasonal spectacular stakes.

Autumn is the time over here when the division between Mother Nature and high art becomes equally indistinguishable.

Rarely is that more apparent than in our rich portfolio of heritage lines, in this modern age when modern camera technology that was never universally available in the steam era is capable of producing a masterpiece at every click of the shutter. That is, of course, if you are a seasoned linesider who knows exactly when, most importantly where, to reap

the ripened final fruits of a superb summer, which weatherwise 2020 certainly has been.

Changes

Our hedgerows, cuttings and embankments are emblazoned with colour as the foliage erupts into a final blaze of glory before the winter sets in, and dark nights heralding the Santa season are upon us again.

The dwindling temperatures as the days grown shorter no longer render clag barely visible and our steam fleet will therefore impress with a flourish at a touch as their vapour clouds fill the sky.

Few of our heritage railways and main lines lack locations that boast autumn splendour that loses little of its magic even on the duller days.

Many readers will have had their inspirational spots that for a weekend

or three were transformed into ‘must visits’ spots through October and November.

The sight of a steam-hauled train powering through a wooded landscape at this stage of the annual proceedings can only be described as the greatest free show on earth – but never let it stop just there.

The true beauty of the muchvaried British landscape can in reality be appreciated only from the elevated heights of a railway carriage, allowing passengers to savour every second, and it is little wonder that autumn galas are the perfect way to round off the main running season.

Celebrating autumn steam in action, here is a showcase of this year’s contributions from several of our top photographers revealing their choice locations.

SR Battle of Britain Class Pacific No. 34081 92 Squadron approaches Castor on the Nene Valley Railway on October 25. MICHAEL ALDERMAN

WR Manor Class 4-6-0 No. 7820 Dinmore Manor approaches Hales Abbey at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway on October 25. JOHN LEWIS

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LMS ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0 No. 45305 Alderman A.E. Draper is seen departing Rothley at the Great Central Railway on October 20. ALAN WEAVER

SR Merchant Navy Class Pacific No. 35006 Peninsular & Oriental S.N.Co exits Greet Tunnel on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway on October 26. ANDREW BELL

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway’s former Lambton Colliery Kitson 0-6-2T No. 29 makes an impressive sight powering up to Goathland with the first GrosmontGoathland ‘Rail Trail’ service of the day on October 10. The middle carriage is Thompson TK No. 1623, part of the LNER Coach Association fleet. RODNEY TOWERS Heritagerailway.co.uk 47

Right: BR 9F 2-10-0 No. 92203 Black Prince is seen at Windpump Crossing – the last piece of the climb over Kelling Heath towards Holt on October 30 at the North Norfolk Railway. JAMES KINDRED Below: On October 31, WR 0-6-0PT No. 9466 departs Duffield on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in its first week of running since its arrival.

ROBERT FALCONER

Polish TKh Class 0-6-0T No. 2944 Hotspur is seen at Longshaw Farm on the Churnet Valley Railway with the 1.30pm train from Froghall on October 31. KEVIN WHITEHURST

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Left: BR 4MT 2-6-4T No. 80097 is seen leaving Ramsbottom with the 10am service from Bury to Rawtenstall on October 24. KEVIN WHITEHURST Below: A pocket of sunshine illuminates the autumnal hues on the banks of the River Irwell, as Standard 4MT 2-6-4T No. 80097 makes its way between Irwell Vale and Ewood Bridge on the East Lancashire Railway on October 28.

LIAM BARNES Continued on page 52.

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THE BRIGHTER STEAM NEWS MAGAZINE

With its boiler certificate expiring in December, popular GWR 0-4-2T No. 1450 leads 0-6-0PT No. 7714 with a train of GWR carriages across Oldbury Viaduct, south of Bridgnorth on October 9. Daniels Mill lies on the other side of the Severn Valley Railway. JOHN TITLOW

Bodmin & Wenford Railway-based GWR 0-6-0PT No. 4612 has been working its second stint on the Nene Valley Railway during 2020. On October 28, the 1942-built locomotive is seen heading towards Peterborough as it is about to pass beneath Lynch Farm Bridge, west of Overton. MICHAEL ALDERMAN

Above: Autumn on the Moors: SR Schools Class 4-4-0 No. 926 Repton is seen passing through Moorgates with the ‘Optimist’ service to Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway on October 26.

ROBERT BATTY

Left: BR Standard Class 2MT 2-6-0 No. 78018 is seen at Swithland on the Great Central Railway on October 22. ALAN WEAVER

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Port Talbot Railway/GWR 0-6-0ST No. 813 pilots GWR 0-6-0PT No. 7714 away from the Severn Valley Railway’s Victoria Bridge towards Arley on October 23. JOHN TITLOW

A colourful combination on the Severn Valley Railway: GWR 0-6-0PT No. 7714 climbs the last few yards up Eardington Bank, passing Crossing Cottage on October 25. JOHN TITLOW

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