FREE 2020 GALA AND EVENTS GUIDE
BRITAIN’S BEST-SELLING RAIL TITLE March 2020
HS2 GETS THE
GO AHEAD
■ DfT takes control
of Northern
CAMERAMAN
Brian Morrison:
90 NOT OUT NOSTALGIA AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
MISSION CONTROL: FREIGHT & CHARTERS
£20,000 NEEDED TO COMPLETE ‘PENDENNIS’
CORONAVIRUS IMPACT ON INTERMODAL TRAINS
The
EDITORIAL
Editor: Chris Milner Deputy editor: Gary Boyd-Hope Consultant editor: Nick Pigott Senior correspondent: Ben Jones Designers: Kelvin Clements, Fran Lovely, Tracey Markham and Tim Pipes Publisher: Tim Hartley Production editors: Nigel Devereux and Sarah Wilkinson Editorial assistant: Jane Skayman Classic Traction News: Peter Nicholson Operations News: Ashley Butlin Narrow Gauge News: Cliff Thomas Metro News: Paul Bickerdyke World News: Keith Fender By post: The Railway Magazine, Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR Tel: 01507 529589 Fax: 01507 371066 Email: railway@mortons.co.uk © 2020 Mortons Media ISSN 0033-8923
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This issue was published on March 4, 2020. The next will be on sale on April 1, 2020.
HS2 project will need diligent cost and project management
C
ONFIRMATION HS2 is definitely going ahead will be seen by RM readers as both good and bad news, depending on your point of view. What is clear is HS2 will provide the springboard for increasing rail travel to levels never seen before. Marketed properly – which hasn’t been the case until recently – and HS2 has the capability of winning over more air and road users as well as cutting pollution. It is merely one of a number of solutions to the climate emergency, and while the arguments continue over possible costs, even at an oft quoted £100billion, the outlay is less than is spent on the NHS in a year – and HS2 is a project costed over many years. Even though Prime Minister Boris Johnson has given HS2 a green light, the scheme’s critics remain active, still proffering crazy route alternatives, claiming it’s a vanity project and a waste of money, and even suggesting it will drive expansion of more domestic flights! Some of us will unfortunately not be around when it opens to voice a view on who was right and who was wrong, but there are still a few who work in the rail industry unable to see the benefits to be enjoyed for many future generations. As someone who can see the need and benefit HS2 will bring in respect of connectivity, future capacity and greener travel, I still have concerns on how tightly a lid can be kept not only on costs, but on how efficient and effective HS2’s project management will be. The industry has an inconsistent record on cost and project management, particularly when it comes to completing station projects on time and on budget. For example, it’s two months short of two years since Kenilworth station opened in 2018, and while the cost of construction soared from £11million to £13.6m for what is a singleplatform station, it may surprise you to learn the station structure has not been formally signed off and handed over to Network Rail as an asset. What’s also shocking is electric heaters were installed in the waiting areas, but have never been connected! Just a few miles away at Stratford-upon-Avon, the £1.5m refurbishment of the station also awaits sign-off. A project that is now six months late, the delay and prevarication has so annoyed the local
One of several concept designs for an HS2 train.
rail user group, they have raised the matter with Sir Peter Hendy, Network Rail’s chairman. An unresolved issue over some electrical wiring meant two men coming from 150 miles away to check it out, thus ticking a box. Just why projects are not using local contractors is a mystery. More recently, during the last weekend of February, the new Worcestershire Parkway station was formally opened, but it has cost £22m, and is two months late. As I have said before, is it any wonder rail and station projects cost so much money when contractors are being used from hundreds of miles away – probably with the addition of hotel rooms – rather than using local contractors at a far more preferential rate? And why does it seem so difficult to finish projects properly and on deadline? Is it because the taxpayer is footing the bill? HS2 has the potential to be a pinnacle of UK rail development for the 21st century, but it also has the potential to be an albatross around the necks of successive Governments and contractors if costs, delays and slack project management are allowed a free rein and spiral out of control.
TRAIN OF THOUGHT
Editor’s Comment
Complex coupling problems: Is this really progress? WHILE we often criticise British Rail for what it did, or in some cases didn’t do, when it came to locomotive and unit couplings, things tended to be simple, and in emergencies, the good old screw coupling often came to the rescue. Now it’s more far complex. The introduction of many new trains, with different couplings, has
created a situation where rescue other than by the same type of train is proving very difficult. It has, in one extreme case, led to substantial delays because rescue units don’t have adaptor couplings, or other technical issues prevent the brakes being released. CHRIS MILNER, Editor Progress, eh?
March 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 3
Features
14 Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be
Nick Pigott reflects on how the hobby of railway enthusiasm has changed since the days of steam, looking at elements both detrimental and positive to the 21st century enthusiast.
24 Farewell to the DRS Class 20s
32 90 Not Out!
44 A Great Survivor
As renowned railway photographer Brian Morrison reaches his 90th birthday, we present a selection of his images taken during eight decades behind the lens, from GWR‘Saints’to Class 40s.
The Great Western Society’s Richard Croucher and Drew Fermor tell the story of No. 4079 Pendennis Castle’s repatriation and restoration, which is now nearing completion at Didcot.
For this month’s Practice & Performance John Heaton took a trip on January 18’s‘DRS Class 20 Farewell’railtour, which brought the curtain down on the use of the EE Type 1s by Direct Rail Services.
Phil Marsh concludes his visit to the National Operations Centre at Milton Keynes, spending a fascinating shift working with the freight services delivery managers.
38 Mission Control: Part 2
50 Complaints Are Nothing New
ALL CHANGE: A new take on nostalgia - p14
TYPE 1 FAREWELL: Practice & Performance - p24
A LEGEND RESTORED: Pendennis Castle - p44
4 • The Railway Magazine • March 2020
Train delays and passenger complaints are often in the headlines but, as Dr David Turner explains, railway companies have been on the receiving end for more than 150 years.
Contents
March 2020. No. 1,428. Vol 166. A journal of record since 1897.
Headline News
Northern Class 195 No. 195101 powers away from Windermere past Black Moss on a frosty February 7 with the 09.56 WindermereManchester Airport service. PAUL A BIGGS
Northern franchise to be run by Operator of Last Resort, full go-head for HS2, new general manager at West Somerset Railway, East West Rail Phase 3 gets approval, £20,000 to steam Pendennis Castle, Dartmoor Railway in administration, Prince Charles opens new CAF factory.
On the cover
MAIN IMAGES: Two-tone green Brush Type 4 No D1501 headss the 15.02 Ramsbottom-Bury ‘local’ near Springside Farm during g the first day of the East Lancashire Railway’s Winter Diesel Gala on February 7 (see page 95). STEVE SIENKIEWICZ INSET 1: The changing face of railway enthusiasm. INSET 2: Inside the National Operations Centre.
INSET 3: No. 4079: Restoring oring a legend. legend
Track Record The Railway Magazine’s monthly news digest 66 Steam & Heritage
Didcot’s ‘Saint’ for Severn Valley gala, Mid-Hants Railway re-opens to Alton, S&D Trust told to leave Washford, Lancashire & Yorkshire ‘Pugs’ to steam?
Iarnród Éireann-Irish Rail’s retro-liveried 071 Class No. 073 passes through Tipperary with the 09.05 Waterford-Limerick‘Sperry’ultrasonic testing train on February 20. The‘Sperry Wagon’(behind the Mk1) contains track-recording equipment to scan the rails and monitor the integrity of the steel. CHRIS PLAYFAIR
The Railway Magazine's audited circulation of 32,526 copies per month makes it by far the
72 Industrial Steam 74 Steam Portfolio 76 Irish News 78 Miniature 80 Metro 82 Narrow Gauge 84 Network 88 Railtours 93 Classic Traction 96 World 98 Freight 100 Traction & Stock
Class 90s get Grand Central livery, new Clayton shunters
Class 60 No. 60050 is seen at Leeming Bar on February 14 having transferred to the Wensleydale Railway. It is one of the first two ‘Tugs’ to be preserved. NIGEL COCKBURN
for Tata Steel, spring debut for TfW Class 769s, more trains in service with TransPennine.
104 Traction Portfolio 106 Stock Update 107 Operations Three USATC ‘S160s’ pass Longshaw Farm, Bradnop, with the 15.50 ex-Kingsley & Froghall tripleheader during the Churnet Valley Railway’s Super Power Weekend: Take 2 on February 1.
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56 Meetings 60 Panorama 64 From The RM Archives 121 Reader Services 122 Crossword & Where Is It
Record-breaking ‘A4’ No. 4468 Mallard gets away from Hatton with the Stratford-upon-Avon to Marylebone ‘Shakespeare Limited’ on November 2, 1986. BRIAN ROBBINS/RAIL PHOTOPRINTS
PHOTOGRAPH Y FOCUS
90 not out!
For eight decades, the pictures of Brian Morrison have graced the pages of hundreds of monthly magazines and books. His first picture was published in the October 1951 issue of The Railway Magazine, and over the years Brian has gone on to take more than 220,000 photographs, which he is currently digitising. This month Brian celebrates his 90th birthday, and to mark that achievement, here is just a small selection of some of his work from the pre-Privatisation era.
A busy scene at Kilmarnock station on June 29, 1957, as ‘Royal Scot’ No. 46108 Seaforth Highlander restarts the 10.35am Leeds-Glasgow express, while in the bay platforms former LMS ‘2P’ 4-4-0 Nos. 40612 and 40610 wait with the 3.55pm (SO) to Darvel and the 4.00pm(SO) to Ayr, respectively.
March 2020 • The Railway Magazine • 35
FAMOUSLOCOMOTIVES
4079 PENDE NNIS CASTLE
A GREAT
SURVIVOR
The long-awaited restoration of GWR ‘Castle’ No. 4079 Pendennis Castle is now nearing completion. Richard Croucher looks back over the history of this iconic locomotive, and Drew Fermor recounts the work that has taken place with the restoration and what still needs to be done before the loco can steam again.
I
N four years' time Pendennis Castle (‘Pendennis’) will qualify to receive its centenary birthday card from the ‘Palace’. Like its LNER contemporary Flying Scotsman, ‘Pendennis’ has had an interesting career, a number of different owners, and there is probably a very interesting social history of its life underneath the surface. We are fortunate ‘Pendennis’ has survived in the original ‘as-built’ condition, especially since five of the first 10 ‘4073’ class locomotives received new front ends in the 1950s (Nos. 4074*/76/78/80*/82*). As an aside, I have often wondered if these locomotives, and others of the same period, in addition to receiving new front ends also received new frames and were really ‘70XX’ 4-6-0s, given old numbers for accountancy purposes! *Carried boilers with a double chimney. Looking at No. 4079’s engine records, it could be said the loco has lived a sheltered life for some of its time, being based at Hereford and Gloucester for all the war years up to Storming through Badminton station on November 22, 1959, is Pendennis Castle with the 11.45 Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington train. A westbound stopper has just left the platform loop. HUGH BALLANTYNE/RAIL PHOTOPRINTS
1953, where daily distance covered may be less than at one of the major sheds, although it did have spells at Old Oak Common, Bristol Bath Road, Wolverhampton Stafford Road and Cardiff Canton. Apart from the trials with the LNER ‘A3’ Pacifics in 1925, when it was specially chosen to be the Great Western’s choice to play away, No. 4079 settled down to a routine life on the railway.
Flagship
However, it must have been a rather special locomotive to be chosen right at the end to be the flagship locomotive to take the first leg of the Ian Allan special from Paddington to Plymouth on Saturday, May 9, 1964, celebrating City of Truro’s (much debated) 100mph descent of Whiteball summit. Of course, here fate took a hand, and I wonder but for the failure just before Westbury that day whether No. 4079 would have survived. But survive it did, and there will soon be the chance to see ‘Pendennis’
in action again on British metals. Life after Westbury is a whole story in itself, and one which hopefully will be written in the future. Saved by Michael Higson and his family, ‘Pendennis’ was the first ‘preserved’ locomotive to take up residence at Didcot in the mid-60s, before the Great Western Society arrived in late-1967. By now owned by Stapleford Miniature Railway founder Hon John Gretton and Hon William McAlpine, No. 4079 then moved to Market Overton and took part in the occasional rail tour after the ban on steam had been lifted. But now fate took another hand. After the end of steam a number of BR drivers had emigrated to Australia to drive trains owned by Hamersley Iron into the outback. According to some of the drivers I met when we repatriated ‘Pendennis’ in 2000, the chairman of Rio Tinto (owner of Hamersley Iron) visited them in 1976, and they asked him if he could
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