The Railway Times - Issue 3

A SPECIAL PUBLICATION DEDICATED TO THE HISTORY OF RAILWAYS, FROM THE ARCHIVES OF

Railway Times

Issue 3

1938 Southern Railway 1899 Notable stations: Suburban line Liverpool Street

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2002 Harry Potter: Behind the scenes

2015 City of Truro – The final answer?

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1941 The death of Sir Nigel Gresley

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1899 An accident at Preston

1953 Brighton electrification

New Southern Railway Suburban line

Above: Main entrance to the Malden Manor station, the platforms of which are on the embankment on the right.

Reprinted from the July 1938 issue of The Railway Magazine: On Sunday, May 29, the first section of a new line between Motspur Park and Leatherhead on the Southern Railway was opened to traffic.

Right: Platforms at Malden Manor station with Chisarc reinforced concrete awnings, free from pillars.

Note the fluorescent lighting system.

When completed the total length of the railway will be 71/4 miles, but at present only the first 33/4 miles to Chessington Grange are being built, and the line is now open as far as Tolworth, the second station, two miles from Motspur Park. The country traversed is undulating and has a heavy clay subsoil, such that only the cores of the embankment can safely be formed of this material, the remainder, above 12 ft. high, being made up with dry filling. For the same reason special drainage has been installed in the cuttings, and the track has been laid above either a 6-in. slab of concrete or a 15-in. bed of ashes. There will be a depth of about 8 in. of broken stone ballast between the bottom of the sleepers and the ashes or concrete.

Excessive sulphates in the soil have necessitated the use of aluminous cement in all drainage works where there will be running water. There are seven underbridges on the line, all of the same general type,

namely steel plate girder spans encased in concrete and carried on mass concrete piers and abutments.

At Chessington Grange there is a road overbridge. Special wire mesh fencing, with three strands of barbed wire above it, has been adopted wherever there is the risk of trespassing by children or cattle. The permanent way is of the standard Southern Railway type, with 95-lb. rails in cast iron chairs coachscrewed to creosoted wooden sleepers. The rails are joined by two—bolt short fishplates, with welded copper bonds to carry the return traction circuit. The 600— volt supply for the electric trains is carried in the usual third rail.

The stations are of striking and attractive appearance, with spacious booking halls and the usual offices. One of the most characteristic features is the Chisarc type of cantilevered reinforced concrete platform roofing, which although only CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

about 3 in. thick has four layers of reinforcement. Small circular glass lenses are let into the roof to give lighting by day and fluorescent tubes provide illumination by night. The stations as a whole have been designed with the idea of minimising maintenance work.

Tolworth and Chessington Grange have extensive goods yards. Signals and interlocking are to Southern Railway standards, the former being of the upper quadrant pattern. The train service consists of three electric trains an hour between Tolworth and Waterloo. •

Above: Double-span bridge over Ewell Road.

Right: Key map showing the position of the new line relative to other sections of the Southern Railway.

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Welcome I am writing this in the middle of what will surely go down in history as one of the hottest summers on record. It's 31ºC outside (that's approaching 90ºF in old money), and not much cooler indoors. Luckily, The Railway Magazine Archive has a very effective climate control system, so it has been an absolute pleasure spending time in there, picking out the gems for issue 3 of Railway Times.

On the front page we have a beautiful image of Malden Manor station – reprinted from the July 1938 issue of The Railway Magazine – on Sunday, May 29, the first section of a new line between Motspur Park and Leatherhead on the Southern Railway was opened to traffic. The new stations "are of striking and attractive appearance, with spacious booking halls and the usual offices.

One of the most characteristic features is the Chisarc type of cantilevered reinforced concrete platform roofing".

Malden Manor in 1938 (above) and today (right).

The station was designed by James Robb Scott and is built in the concrete style of the 1930s. It opened on 29 May 1938. It is 11 miles 5 chains (17.8 km) down the line from London Waterloo.

On page 4 you can read Scott Damant's overview of Liverpool Street Station from November 1899.

Turn to page 8 for the 'Hogwarts Express' story – an exclusive, behind-the-scenes report by James Shuttleworth, first published in January 2002.

The death of Sir Nigel Gresley on April 5, 1941 deprived the railway mechanical engineering profession of one of its most distinguished personalities, and one whose career has no parallel in the locomotive history of this country. Read The Railway Magazine's obituary, originally published in June 1941.

As a special treat on page 15, we have reprinted the first ever Railway magazine crossword from August 1995, along with more fiendishly difficult puzzles. Have a go before turning to page 23 for the answers!

City of Truro: The Final Answer?

Yorkshire man John Heaton FCILT blows the lid off one of the railway world’s greatest ‘did or didn’t it’ mysteries on page 10 – first published in The Railway Magazine in 2015.

If you missed issues 1 and 2 of Railway Times, you can read them online here: www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/ railwaytimes.

To access all these stories, articles and features, plus thousands more, subscribe to our archive – it's quick and easy to do. Turn to the back page for more details.

A summer evening in Edinburgh (1953) From the January 1953 issue of The Railway Magazine: View of the west end of Waverley Station, showing the departure of the 5.10 p.m. train for the Fife Coast. The station covers an area of 18 acres, and the length of the longest platform is 1,608 ft. (From a photograph by E. R. Wethersett)

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Notable Railway Stations

Liverpool Street, Great Eastern Railway

By Scott Damant, General Manager's Office, Great Eastern Railway.

First published November 1899.

IN an interesting article which appeared in The Daily Telegraph on August 8th last, the author, after graphically describing the scenes enacted at the various London termini on the preceding Bank Holiday said, “But at Liverpool Street is to be seen the most impressive illustration of the vast efflux from London. Let the man who has never witnessed it go on a Bank Holiday morning to the iron foot-bridge that spans its score or so of plat-forms, and he will never forget the spectacle. Below is a crowd which must at any time of the day run into thousands, flowing in obedience to ubiquitous placards and direction boards towards the various starting points, while the stout bridge itself vibrates and sways under the ceaseless stream which flows over it.”

The description is an accurate one, except, perhaps, with regard to the alleged swaying of the footbridge.

On the day in question, 40,300 tickets were issued at Liverpool Street. Of course that number by no means represents all the traffic dealt with at the station ; many who journeyed that day had taken the precaution to procure their tickets beforehand at one of the many London booking-offices, and the up traffic was not to be despised, for just as the tired cockney hies him forth to the country or the seaside upon a Bank holiday, so his country cousins come in goodly numbers to the great metropolis.

Tuesday October 18th, 1898, when very careful countings were made.

It was then found that 67,210 persons arrived at the station, and 69,335 left. Thus in all, 136,545 passengers made use of it during the day, or, to speak accurately, day and night, for it must be borne in mind that Liverpool Street is open for the entire twenty-four hours, except for a short time early on Sunday mornings.

The average amount of work performed at the station can better be gauged by taking the number of passengers passing through it on a normal day. Such a day was

This gem of “ English as she is spoke,” overheard late one evening near the barrier of N0. 3 platform, describes the state of affairs with admirable accuracy if due allowance

“Porter, what time does the last train go to Walthamstow?"

"Lor’ bless you marm, there aint no last train to Walthamstow.”

Passengers entering a workmen's train, early Saturday afternoon, West Side Suburban, Liverpool Street Terminus.

be made for a redundancy of negatives.

Therein lies the initial difficulty in describing the day's work at Liverpool Street Station; it is not a day's work of twelve hours, but one of twenty-four hours, and the point arises where to begin. The timetables start at 1.0 a.m.; but, taken all round for the purposes of this article, it would appear better to start at two minutes after midnight, “an hour when all good little boys and girls should be in bed; ” and, if it comes to that, their parents also.

12.2 a.m. has been selected because then the earliest train leaves for Chingford, and all stations on the way thereto. It is well filled with those who have been to theatres and other places of amusement, or “detained late at the office, my dear.”

Equally full are the 12.10 to Palace Gates (Wood Green), the 12.15 to Snaresbrook, the 12.20 to Romlord, and the 12.25 to Enfield Town. Three minutes after the departure of the last-named train the last train from Chingford arrives. One may call it the last train, not the first train, because although it arrives at Liverpool Street at 12.28 a.m., it leaves Chingford at 11.55 p.m. the previous day. Then it returns to Wood Street, Walthamstow, after a four minutes stay at Liverpool

Street, passing, between Hackney Downs and Clapton, the first train from Wood Street, which leaves that place at 12.34 and arrives at Liverpool Street at 12.58.

Thenceforward for four hours two trains an hour journey either way between Liverpool Street and Walthamstow.

The question is often asked by officials of other Companies, by journalists, and by those of an enquiring mind generally, Does this all-night service pay?” This is one of those questions much easier to ask than to answer. Probably it will be some time before the service pays directly, but there is always an indirect profit as well as a direct profit to be reckoned with when considering whether any given travelling facility offered by a Railway Company to the public actually pays the Company. In this case it is known that the all-night service is greatly appreciated by a large number of newspaper men, persons employed in the various cattle, meat, fish and vegetable markets, and others whose avocations necessitate their working when the rest of London sleeps. Now, many such have undoubtedly moved into the Hackney and Walthamstow districts in consequence of this service, and have taken season tickets; but, as it

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is impossible to earmark the season tickets, the exact number cannot be ascertained. Then such men have not, as a rule, moved singly; they have brought wives and families with them who travel more or less during normal hours. Moreover, the additional families who have thus moved into the district all help to add to the building operations constantly going on; and, as Sir William Birt has more than once pointed out, they do not live on air. Their food, and the thousand and one necessities of more or less civilised life, are carried by the Railway Company; so that the indirect profit derived from the service may well be fairly considerable. But the direct return is not to be gainsaid. Thus the service commenced at Mid-summer 1897, and during the six months ending December 31st of that year, the total number of tickets issued for use by these trains was 160,834.

For the six months ending June 30th, 1898, the number was 194,045, and for the six months ending lune 30th of this year the number had risen

to 234,855. Of course, in estimating the profit, it must be borne in mind that the bulk of the passengers using this service travels third class, using “half fare tickets,”with a minimum charge of fourpence.

The monotonous arrival of trains to and from Walthamstow is broken by the getting in and out of certain goods trains. “ What ! goods trains in Liverpool Street Station!” the reader may well exclaim ; and their existence is, indeed, anomalous. The trains in question are those to and from the East London line, and till the completion of the hoist now in process of erection at Spitalfields, goods from the Great Eastern district for the South Eastern, Chatham and Dover, and Brighton lines, or vice versa, have to be taken into Liverpool Street, and thence out again on to the East London line. The process only takes a few minutes, but it is to be deprecated, and, although the hoist is intended primarily for coal, it will be also available for general goods traffic, and on its completion, which should

take place very shortly after this article appears, the partial user of a purely passenger station for goods traffic will practically, if not entirely, cease.

At 3a.m. some diversion is caused by the arrival of the mail train from Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cromer and Norwich, and a little stream of heavy-eyed passengers is generally to be observed ascending the stairs leading to the hotel. This mail train travels by a somewhat unusual route. Of course the direct route from the places named is via Ipswich, Colchester, Stratford, and Bethnal Green: but there is the alternative route, via Wymondham, Thetford, Ely, Cambridge, Tottenham, Clapton, and Bethnal Green. This train does not exactly take either route, but travels via the Cambridge line as far as Tottenham, continuing eastwards over that line, so little used for passenger traffic, through Lea Bridge to Stratford (the main line of the Northern and Eastern Railway), proceeds thence to London on the

Left: Mr. G. Keary, Assistant Station Master, Liverpool Street Terminus. Right: Mr. F. G. Randall, Station Master, Liverpool Street Terminus.

Colchester line. Time was when that was the recognised route from the Cambridge line to London; but since the line through Clapton has been built, with its connecting loop with the Tottenham and Stratford line, the number of trains so travelling have been gradually lessened, and now they are few and far between.

At 3.50 the Ipswich mail arrives, and then, at 4.43, a half-fare train from Enfield comes in. It returns to Enfield at 4.50; a train from Walthamstow arrives at 4.58, and leaves at 5.6, and then, 19 minutes after that time, the first “Twopenny train” from Enfield steams in. Then follows a succession of workmen’s trains, by which a uniform fare of twopence for the return journey is charged from Enfield, Edmonton, Walthamstow, and stations intermediate between those places and‘ London. Altogether twenty such trains are run, not to mention twelve more from Stratford and Stratford Market.

These trains are nearly all packed, as might be expected, and the sight of the crowds of workmen and workwomen elbowing their way through the barriers, once seen, is never likely to be forgotten. It is absolutely unique. No other railway station can show a sight approaching it, which fact is probably viewed by the authorities responsible for working the traffic of other stations with wonderful resignation.

It is now over thirty years ago, since, after the lowering of the franchise, Robert Lowe gave vent to his famous dictum: “We must educate our masters.” Since then it has been ordained that “our masters” should be educated free, gratis and for nothing, at the expense of the ratepayers. But the generous magnanimity of our lawgivers has not stopped there.

To judge from recent legislation, railway companies will soon be compelled to convey “our masters” on the same remunerative terms; indeed, if the utterances of certain labour leaders and the vapourings of a section of the press be heeded, the end will not be reached until the bloated and blood-sucking railways

are compelled to pay a handsome royalty per head for the honour and privilege of being permitted to carry such of the horny—handed sons of toil as condescend to use the rail.

Until July 1st last the twopenny trains were followed by halffare trains ; but the Railway Commissioners, in their wisdom, recently decreed that threepenny trains should be sandwiched in between the twopenny and half-fare trains. This was done to the extent of seven trains; and from October 2nd a further extension of these threepenny trains has taken place.

In order to cope with the everincreasing workmen’s traffic, new coaches have been lately designed and built by Mr.Holden, which seat six passengers on either side. The last half-fare train arrives at 7.59, and thenceforward for a couple of hours train after train steams in, laden with the vast Army of the Uncomplaining, the hordes of city clerks. No doubt they are all engaged in “keeping up appearances,” but at least they are pleasanter to deal with than their working-men predecessors, for they do not smoke foul cutties and they do not spit.

Before leaving the subject of the morning arrivals, mention should be made of the two Continental expresses, the one from Antwerp being due in at 7.35, and that from the Hook at 8.10. The scene during the Customs’ examination is an animated one ; there is much hand-shaking and kissing amongst old friends long parted, and the embracing is not confined to the sterner sex; bearded foreigners hug and kiss one another with an apparent appreciation of the odour of cheap tobacco and garlic. Similar in some respects, and yet in direct contrast to the foregoing, is the scene enacted when the “P. and 0.

Special” leaves Liverpool Street for Tilbury. Then we stay-at-homes may obtain some faint, far-away notion of what our Indian Empire is. There are middle-aged sun-burnt officers and liver-cursed civilians going back to their duties; young subalterns, about to join their regiments, saying farewell to fond

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Notable Railway Stations mothers and sisters; wives and children going back to join husbands and fathers; calm, impassive orientals, fez-topped or turban crowned, and brightly-attired ayahs, crooning some old-world heathen lullaby to the young Christians in their charge.

But we are getting somewhat out of chronological order. The first important main line train to leave the station is the 8.40 fast train to York; there are several earlier main line trains, but they do not call for special comment. The 8.40 is followed by the 9.0a.m. slow to Ipswich, the 9.42 to Cromer, and the 10.15 to Yarmouth and Lowestoft. This latter is always a very well-patronised train, taking just over three hours on the journey. It is followed by the 10.20 train which serves many places en route, has connections with all the smaller seaside towns, and finally steams into Yarmouth 55 minutes after its immediate predecessor. At 11.0 another fast train leaves on the Cambridge line. This is probably the train most used by passengers travelling by the Cathedral Route to the North, although the 4.30 p.m. takes six minutes less on the journey to York, and does the trip to Cambridge in one hour and thirteen minutes.

At 11.22 the Restaurant train arrives from Cromer, followed ten minutes later by that from Yarmouth. On Mondays two Restaurant trains precede these at 9.41 and 10.45 from Clacton and Cromer respectively. The success of these trains carrying first and third class Restaurant cars has been undoubted. Instead of an early, hurried, and unsatisfactory meal at the seaside, passengers now breakfast at ease en route.

Equally appreciated are the Table d’hote dinners served on the 4.55 and 5.0 p.m. trains to Cromer and Yarmouth respectively. On Saturdays, luncheon is served on the 1.30 express to Cromer. This train is the most popular one to Cromer throughout the summer. It only stops once on the way, at North Walsham, for the convenience of Mundesley passengers, and does the journey to Cromer in two hours and fifty-five minutes. During the winter months it stops at Ipswich and Norwich, and of course takes longer on the journey. Perhaps it is as well to remark that, unless otherwise specified, the times given throughout this article are those in force during the summer months. In October considerable modifications take place, and in November the winter service proper commences.

Main line departure (left) and arrival (right) platforms, Liverpool Street Terminus.

Apart from the trains already referred to, there are one or two other important trains leaving the station of an afternoon, but towards the end of the season more life and bustle is to be seen at the arrival platforms, especially when the 1.0 p.m. express from Cromer, the 1.45 from Norwich, the 1.45 from Lowestoft, and the 2.10 from Yarmouth come in. These trains arrive at 3.55, 4.18, 4.33, and 5.0 p.m. respectively. The amount of luggage carried by these trains is phenomenal, for although many passengers avail themselves of the cheap charge for luggage in advance, others, elephant like, prefer to carry their trunks with them. Then there are the bicycles to be considered; over 1,300 have been dealt with at Liverpool Street in a single day. The amount of labour entailed in getting such a number of machines in and out of the trains can only be appreciated by those who have practical experience of working a railway. Mention the word “bicycle” and the habitual smile momentarily leaves the face of Mr. Randall, the station master at Liverpool Street. Breathe the same awful word into the ear of Mr. Keary, the assistant station master, and he “wears a worried look.” He is, however, better off than his famous

prototype of the song, whose clothes having been stolen whilst he was bathing, had nothing else to wear.

Mr. Keary has a gold braided cap to wear, and very nice he looks in it.

At about 4.0 o'clock the daily exodus from the city commences. holders of workmen's tickets are allowed to travel home by any train between 12.0 noon and 4.25, but thenceforward they are restricted to certain specified trains until 8.55 after which time they may use any train that is booked to call at the stations from which they started in the morning. Some few of the return workmen's trains only carry third class coaches. The last train to Norwich, Yarmouth, and other seaside places, via Ipswich, leaves at 7.15, but there is a train to Norwich and Yarmouth via Cambridge as late as 10.2. This is the mail train, and lands its passengers at Yarmouth at 3.0 a.m. the following morning, so anyone desirous of enjoying a nice long day at that salubrious watering place is certainly in a position to do so.

Of course the two most important trains of an evening are those conveying passengers to the Continent, the 8.30 in connection with the boat to the Hook of Holland and Rotterdam, which conveys Her

Majesty’s mails to the principal stations in Holland, and the 8.40 in connection with the boat to Antwerp. After 10.0 o'clock nearly all the outgoing and incoming trains journey to and from the suburban district, the latest to leave being the 11.56 to Enfield, and the latest to arrive the 11.18 from Romford, which gets to town just a minute before midnight.

Altogether during the summer months this year 556 trains have left Liverpool Street during the twenty-four hours, and 547 have arrived. These figures, of course, do not include “specials.” During the winter months the number was 525 and and 512 respectively.

The number of men employed to cope with this heavy traffic, who are under the control of the stationmaster, is over 300.

As stated in the RAILWAY MAGAZINE last December, Liverpool Street Station was opened for traffic on the 2nd of February 1874. The portion then opened is now known as the West Side. The other portion of the station, which was opened on the 1st of April 1894, is known as the East Side. The area of the West Side and approaches is 9 a. 3 r. 10 p., and of the East Side 6 a. 1 r. 9 p.

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Circulating area, East side suburban, Liverpool Street Terminus.

In order to build the East Side, no less than 150,000 cubic yards of earthwork had to be excavated, 10,715 cubic yards of brickwork being used. There are 20 “roads” and 18 platforms in the entire station, the area of the latter being, on the West Side 105,703 sq. ft., and on the East Side 65,425 sq. ft., and the length 7,610 and 4,380 lineal ft. respectively.

The area of the circulating space on the West Side is 16,016 sq. ft., and on the East Side 21,730 sq. ft.

Now to turn our thoughts heavenwards, or, at all events, skywards. The area of the roof on the West Side, measured flat, is 180,000 sq. ft. At its widest part, clear of the station buildings, it consists of four spans, measuring 45 ft., 109 ft. (space between central columns 5 ft.), 109ft., and 43 ft. respectively. There" is, in addition, a central transept. No less than 1,079 tons of cast iron and 1,460 tons of wrought iron are used in this roof. The East Side roof, measured fiat, has an area of 88,000 sq. ft., and consists of four spans, running longitudinally with the railway measuring 49 ft. 7 in., 42 ft. 3 1/2 in., 42 ft. 3 1/2, in., and 51 ft. 7 in. respectively, supported on cast iron columns, with a roof running cross-wise to the line over the circulating space of 88 ft. span. The weight of cast iron used in the East Side roof is 340 tons, and of wrought iron 1,235 tons.

On the East Side are large parcels sheds, occupying an area of 11,500 sq. ft., exclusive of 11,600 sq. ft. of roadways leading to them.

These sheds are of a particularly substantial nature, as may be imagined when it is mentioned that the weight of cast ironwork in the sheds, substructure, and roadways is 634 tons and of wrought ironwork 1,496 tons.

The need of such accommodation is evidenced by the fact that during the twelve months ending July last 3,797,016 parcels were dealt with at Liverpool Street, exclusive of the enormous number sent as “luggage in advance." The parcels sheds, which are situated over the lines on the East Side, are connected with the West Side by a subway and an overhead gallery, the subway, gallery, and sheds having hydraulic lifts from the various platforms. The plant for working the

hydraulic power for these lifts and for the engine turntable, as well as other machinery at the station, is situated at the Bishopsgate Goods Station.

The station, offices, and hotel at Liverpool Street are, of course, lighted by electricity, as are the Bishopsgate and Bethnal Green Stations, the company's generating station for all being situated within the “Liberty of Norton Folgate," a portion of the metropolis which, although outside the city walls, and even beyond Bishopsgate Without, is yet under the jurisdiction of the City fathers.

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The station is approached by six lines of way, which, as already stated, develop into twenty lines of way in the station, the whole being controlled and worked from two signal-boxes, having 136 and 240 levers respectively. The length of permanent way in the station yard is about 7 miles, there being close on 150 points and over 200 crossings.

Although not so handsome, from an architectural point of view, as St. Pancras, the “West End" terminus of Great Eastern trains, Liverpool Street Station, with its offices and its hotel, is decidedly imposing looking. After all, it has been designed chiefly for use, and the millions of travellers who have trodden its platforms during the twenty-five years of its existence witness to the fact that it has well served its main purpose.

But the very latest addition to Liverpool Street Station is of a distinctly artistic nature.

This consists of a large clock, having four faces, which is suspended from the roof of the main line in such a manner that it can be seen from all parts of the station.

It is worked entirely by electricity, on a plan devised by Mr. Hollins, the company's electrical engineer, and a contributor to the Railway Magazine. In appearance it resembles what in certain ecclesiastical circles would be termed a pyx surmounted by a corona. In spite of its vast size, it is most chaste and elegant in design, and a standing proof, if such be needed, that the useful and ornamental may be advantageously combined, even in so utilitarian an institution as a great railway station. •

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'Hogwarts Express' Story

How the rail scenes were made

This exclusive behind-the-scenes report by James Shuttleworth was first published in The Railway Magazine in January 2002.

There are events which have a profound effect on one’s life or business — from West Coast Railway’s point of view, the Harry Potter film is one of them.

My mobile rang early one morning in June 2000 as I was passing through Castleton, en-route to Fort William and another season of ‘The Jacobite’. WCR chairman David Smith asked me to return a call from Warner Bros, who were looking to do “some filming with a steam train".

Keith Hatcher, Warners’ location manager, explained that the director of the forthcoming Harry Potter film, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone would be looking at the West Highland line for suitable locations (Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches was located "somewhere in the Highlands”).

After I'd told him that West Coast was unique in being a train operating company that owned and operated its own steam locos and vintage coaching stock, I was invited to the art department at Leavesden studios, Watford.

I'm afraid I'd paid precious little attention to the developing Harry Potter phenomenon, so art director

Cliff Robinson gave me an inkling as to how huge it was becoming. J.K. Rowling's meteoric rise is well known, but railway content of the books is not so.

Central to each book is the ‘Hogwarts Express’, a maroon-liveried steam-hauled train which takes the children to and from school and departs from the mythical platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross.

Bloomsbury, publisher of the books, had earlier made a low-key book launch at King's Cross, using ‘West Country’ Pacific No. 34027 TawValley. For the fourth book's launch, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, No. 34027 was to be used again, but this time painted maroon and hauling a nationwide tour train (using the ‘Queen of Scots’ trainset), with Joanne Rowling herself on the train signing books and giving interviews.

Just wizard! GWR 4-6-0 No. 5972 Olton Hall – the loco which landed a starring role in what looks as though it will be the most profitable movie of all time, 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' – storms up the WCML to Scotland in September.

West Coast had been approached to operate that train, but was unable to do so. I did, however, manage a short ride from Manchester Piccadilly to York, via Bradford, during the tour and that is when the popularity really hit me. The press coverage in that Sunday's papers was extensive and the crowds at Manchester, given that it was early on a Sunday morning, were extraordinary. Even intermediate stations were lined with people.

Back at Leavesden, I found that Taw Valley had been discounted for the movie by the director, Chris Columbus. Warner Bros felt it was ”too modern” and were looking for a more classic British steam loco.

We were discussing the possibility of West Coast's 8F, No. 48151, when Cliff said: "What the director really wants is something like this”, pointing at a photo of a GW ‘Hall’.

With that, I was able to produce the last picture in my briefcase — that of No.5972 Olton Hall. And that, as far as selection of loco goes, was that!

Colour selection for the loco and stock was made on the basis that the shade of red chosen had to show up with least variation under all lighting conditions.

Lining was BR-style orange and black, with a large totem on the tender in the late 1950s BR-style, proclaiming ‘Hogwarts Railways’ and featuring the school crest. Len

Clark, who had also repainted Taw Valley into red, painted our engine too, while lan Castledine produced the superb WR-style ‘Hogwarts Express’ headboard.

Stock comprised two SKs and two BSKs (one being the support coach), repainted into the standard West Coast maroon with yellow and black lining, although with circular Hogwarts Railways.

The first session of filming was at Goathland, on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, in September.

Although Scotland was in the original brief, it had not proved possible or practical for a first shoot and something closer to London was required.

With No. 5972 arriving by road, as Railtrack gauging clearance could not be undertaken in time, and the stock arriving by rail, virtually straight from the paintshop, filming took place during the last week of September, in glorious weather and supposed great secrecy. The crews took much delight watching the security teams frustrating the assembled tabloid paparazzi, who appeared to go away with little more than fuzzy shots of Robbie Coltrane’s double.

It was then intended to take the whole train to Kings Cross for the platform 9 3/4 scenes. Railtrack had been sceptical as to whether filming could in fact take place at the ’Cross, suggesting several other lesser-used termini, such as Hull, but persistence, plus recognition of the public relations benefits by the then Railtrack LNE zone director, Nick Pollard, paid off. No. 5972 was gauged to run all the way down the East Coast Main Line from Grosmont!

However, the Hatfield crash in October 2000 and the subsequent descent into national chaos meant the schedule went awry. All thoughts of filming at King's Cross were cancelled until early in 2001 and our train returned to Carnforth

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The first 'Hogwarts Hall' was 'West Country' Pacific No. 34027 Taw Valley, seen at Manchester Piccadilly in July 2000, but the film's director thought it looked "too modern". until late January, when it made its way to WAGN's Hornsey depot, our London base.

The ECML run was memorable not least because it was new territory for 5972, as well as being at night and in freezing fog.

Arrival in London was right in the morning peak, drawing astonished looks from bleary-eyed commuters!

The late arrival meant it was not possible to turn the loco as planned, so on the Saturday afternoon, an extraordinary working of 5972 and two Class 31s set off to Camden Road & Canonbury for turning.

This move was necessitated by the Bounds Green depot engineer

declaring the Ferme Park turntable allegedly unfit for use. Again, startled looks came from North London's shoppers and passers-by.

Filming required the train to be on set by 06.00 and following an 05.15 departure and a swift shunt at King's Cross, loco and coaches came to rest in platform 4 on the dot of 06.00 (platform 9 3/4 is actually between platforms 4 and 5 of the real station!).

King's Cross was where the media interest really got a hold. Warners had insisted on tight security and screened off most areas from outside view, making everyone do with ‘approved’ shots issued by

GWR 4-6-0 No. 5972 Olton Hall runs past Tallington on the ECML at night.

Warners a few weeks later. After rehearsals, shooting took place in the afternoon, although departure shots were left to the final day's filming, two Sundays later. Sadly, these did not reach the final edit.

One thing not many people know is that Warners also went to the Bluebell to make sound recordings of Standard 4-6-0 No. 73082 Camelot, so if you ever wonder why a ‘Hall’ has a chime whistle now you know!

After our return to Carnforth, planning for the second Harry Potter movie began immediately, for which we had to take No. 5972 up to Scotland.

HORNBY Models has produced a souvenir version of the ‘Hogwarts Express‘ loco (above), using a ‘Castle’ body. The model features 18-carat

gold plating to the valve gear, wheel rims, buffers and whistle, and there is also a section of gold plated track to display it on. It retails for £125. •

Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) says farewell to Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) as he boards the 'Hogwarts Express'.

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www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

2015

City of Truro: The Final Answer?

At the risk of upsetting GWR aficionados, Yorkshire man John Heaton FCILT blows the lid off one of the railway world’s greatest ‘did or didn’t it’ mysteries – first published in The Railway Magazine in August 2015.

It is more than 111 years since Great Western 4-4-0 City of Truro is claimed to have achieved 102.3mph descending Wellington bank with an ‘Ocean Mails Special’ from Plymouth Millbay to Paddington.

Ever since the exploits were made public, there has been dispute about whether the account of journalist and train-timer Charles RousMarten was entirely accurate or even physically possible. It has even been uncharitably suggested that it was a fabrication.

The spurious decimal point of ‘102.3’ is of course a simple calculation from Mr Rous-Marten’s stopwatch timing of 8.8 seconds for a quarter mile and a lot depends on one’s view of statistics; whether it should be arbitrarily rounded or whether the recording that was taken should be presented without tampering.

There has been much speculation concerning the precise manner in which the timings were taken and the accuracy of the published log leading up to the high-speed section. Whatever the reason, perhaps secrecy or even deference to authority, the contemporary opportunity to establish or challenge the sequence of events was not taken. Critics calculate that the steaming and acceleration rates necessary between Whiteball summit and Wellington, where the brakes are believed to have been applied for what has become the legendary story of platelayers standing on the track, are impossible.

In the years following the run’s centenary in 2004, the two

camps have tended to polarise and entrench their positions, but Railway Performance Society member Bill Hemstock refused to take sides. As befits a retired British Airways engineer, he scrutinised the evidence and spent hours testing different accounts on spreadsheets until he discovered what he considers to be the critical fact... which seems to have been either missed or disregarded.

Thanks to his research and analysis, it is now fair to say that City of Truro did not achieve a speed as high as 102.3mph – probably not even 100mph – despite what Great Western devotees continue to claim.

In the search for hard evidence, Mr Hemstock scoured back numbers of The Railway Magazine, the Great Western Railway Magazine, The Engineer, The Times, the Western Morning News and the Western Daily Mercury. He found plenty of opinions and theories, much conjecture, some partisanship and even a few personal attacks, but little in the way of fact; simply, RousMarten’s disputable log and eight quarter-mile timings of 11.0sec, 10.6, 10.2, 10.0, 9.8, 9.4, 9.2 and 8.8 before a brake application for the trackworkers.

Bill took Rous-Marten‘s original log publication from The Engineer of May 1904, which was reprinted in The RM of May 2004, and calculated the average speeds to find any errors. This was also done for a Cecil J Allen log that appeared in The RM for July 1922. There are some reproduction errors and the 1922 version contains some slightly different distances (probably from

more recent official documents) but, apart from that, no obvious disagreement.

It is not the intention here to defend or prove the early part of the log, so Table 1 shows only the critical Tiverton Junction to Bridgwater section, but Bill claims that figures such as a 60.3mph uphill average speed from Cornwood to Wrangaton, 69.1 down to Totnes and 64.1mph from Stoke Canon to Whiteball summit indicate high steaming rates, a degree of intent from driver Moses Clements, and an even higher discretion threshold from Newton Abbot loco inspector George Flewellen.

The averages of 72.7mph from Whiteball summit to Wellington and 82.5mph thence to Norton Fitzwarren, with 78.8mph then to pass Taunton, certainly offer no direct support for a 100mph claim.

Against the ‘Wellington’ entry in Rous-Marten’s log published in The Engineer is the statement ‘slight check afterward’. In his RM Practice & Performance articles of June 1904, Rous-Marten refers to “foolish platelayers on the track” but by May 1905 they had become “idiotic”.

The recorder’s actual report says, “...when we topped the Whiteball summit, we were still doing 63mph, when we emerged from the Whiteball tunnel we had reached 80; thenceforward our velocity rapidly and steadily increased diminishing from 11.0 sec at the tunnel entrance.... to finally 8.8 sec.”

Already there are a couple of anomalies. The 63mph is widely accepted as a misprint for 53mph

from the averages, although it appeared twice in The Engineer report. Acceleration from Whiteball summit to the tunnel ‘entrance’ (presumably actually the exit in this direction) from 53mph or even 63mph to 80mph in this time is physically impossible and so the 11.0 sec quarter must be either an error or have occurred some time after the tunnel exit. In any case, the first quarter mile that could have been timed after leaving the tunnel at 173m 13c was MP173 to MP 172 3⁄4.

Power output expert Doug Landau wrote to The RM in 2004 assessing the output required to accelerate from 80mph at MP173 to 102.3mph at MP171 to have been 1,600 indicated horsepower (ihp) or higher,

which was beyond any degree of mortgaging the locomotive’s boiler.

Bill Hemstock freely admits that in 2004 he was on the brink of joining the ‘fabrication’ faction, but three points continued to nag him.

• The quarter-mile timings represented a logical progression.

• The original published actual log shows the platelayers’ intervention as being after Wellington not at Wellington.

• The elapsed time of 3min 7sec from Whiteball to Wellington does not fit the claimed speeds.

I would add a fourth: why would a writer with three possible contradictory footplate eyewitnesses risk his reputation by indulging in fiction?

Staying with the 3min 7sec discrepancy, acceleration from 53mph to 80mph between MP174 and 173 would take about 52sec at a 69.2mph average. Adding 52sec to the eight subsequent quoted quarter-mile timings would make a time of 2min 11sec between MP174 and 171. Subtracting this figure from the 3min 7sec recorded time leaves 56sec for the remaining 62 chains to Wellington requiring a desultory 53.7mph average speed.

Eight consecutive quarter-mile stopwatch timings would probably have needed two stopwatches in 1904 and, although it was widely assumed this was indeed the case, there seems to be no such direct contemporary evidence. And if they were not consecutive, where were they taken?

Carrying the number 3717, which it bore between 1912 and withdrawal from normal service in 1931, City of Truro is manoeuvred into the Great Western Museum at Swindon on April 15, 1962.

A clue presented itself in The RM of September 1934 when yet another extensive City of Truro debate was in full swing. C J Allen quoted extensively from an unattributed letter (but believed to be from performance writer R E Charlewood) that he had received.

The critical sentence reads: “In spite of his great accuracy in most respects, Rous-Marten was very

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came in 1957 when driver Veale had charge of City of Truro on eight bogies weighing 263 tons tare/280 tons gross on a return KingswearSwindon excursion following the locomotive’s restoration.

I have used the Railway Performance Society electronic archive copy of the late Mark Warburton’s run, which shows acceleration from 38 1⁄2mph at Whiteball summit to 80mph at Wellington station and 82mph thereafter. O S Nock, travelling in somewhat difficult timing conditions on the footplate, showed 83mph, or 84mph on occasions, but was believed not to have been using a separate stopwatch.

Left: Preserved partly as a result of its alleged 102mph exploit (it was also the 2,000th loco built at Swindon Works), City of Truro hauls a Stephenson Locomotive Society Special through Princes Risborough on September 4, 1960. prone to establish ‘records’ over odd quarter miles – that is to say, he would suddenly bring a stopwatch into action and take alternate quarter miles with it – so that the liability of error, which in my view attaches to quarter-mile timings, was considerable.”

The word ‘alternate’ is significant.

Charlewood knew Rous-Marten personally and is believed to have travelled with him when both were recording performance.

Mr Hemstock has reviewed all Rous-Marten’s RM contributions and finds he never referred to his quarter-mile timings as consecutive, but regularly used

the word ‘successive’, which is not necessarily the same. The next month, C J Allen amplified his comments with the following statement: “From a correspondence in The Times during May 1931, to which a reader draws my attention, a letter from Mr G H Flewellen, who as locomotive inspector was travelling on the footplate on this historic occasion, makes it clear that the speed was reduced near Bradford crossing...”

Question Bill Hemstock then considered whether it would be possible to reconstruct Rous-Marten’s original

log to encompass both the writer’s eight quarter-mile timings and the speed claims, although this might effectively place into question some other claims such as the 53/63mph acceleration location.

If the final ‘8.8 quarter-mile’ terminated at MP168, just before the Bradford crossing 167m 52c location, and the other quarter-mile timings were ‘successive’ yet alternate, then the passing times can be calculated back to MP173 at, say, 10h42m42s (see Table 2).

Bill half-apologises for using a half-second estimate at MP169, but points out that using 35 or 36 seconds for the mile does not work well, whereas 35 1⁄2 does. The resultant MP168 time is 10h46m12s.

Could the platelayers’ check now be accommodated in the remaining time to Norton Fitzwarren by 10h48m29s at an average of around 78mph?

Bill has modelled his results on driver Clements closing the regulator and making a full brake application at MP168, releasing the brakes just before MP167 1⁄2 – a wait of 10sec for the brakes to release, then opening the regulator and restarting acceleration. Using 7%g braking from say 100mph, the resultant minimum would be 67mph at MP176 1⁄4.

Now for the crucial question about the 102.3mph 8.8sec quartermile claim. Statistically, an uncorroborated single reading that might contain an error on both the first and second stopwatch click needs, at least, supporting evidence from the reconstruction. The best that can be derived is no better than 9.1sec, 99mph or a conservative 98mph.

Table 3 shows what might have been published in conventional log form on the basis of Mr Hemstock’s calculations.

Contemporary reports claim speeds of more than 95mph with other locomotives on those trains, but the nearest we came to getting a reconstruction of the 1904 run

Bill does not lay claim to be a professional at judging braking and power outputs rates of either ancient or modern steam locomotives but his calculations suggest that his reconstruction between Whiteball and Wellington would have required steaming rates similar to those of the Stoke Canon to Whiteball climb, although marginally higher – further mortgaging the boiler – between Wellington down a maximum gradient of around 1-in-170 to MP168.

Some theorists have even suggested that there never were any platelayers and that the braking occurred at Wellington in the ‘low 90s’ due to the locomotive vibrating alarmingly. There seems to be no such suggestion in the annals of The RM (there is no reference to the train running anything but smoothly, so any vibration was not passed into the train) and the proposition would require railway staff to have been making false allegations about the platelayers.

Does C J Allen’s quotation of the letter to The Times offer any further corroboration?

Mr Hemstock enlisted my help to make a search of the newspaper’s

on-line digital archive, which failed to uncover a letter from Inspector Flewellen. It did, however, unearth two letters from John Phillimore of London SW1. On April 9, 1931, his first letter stated “...in connection with the City of Truro record that near the bottom of Wellington bank when the time was taken and the train was actually accelerating, the engine had to be slackened down to some 50mph because (of) some platelayers on the track....”

It is worth mentioning that both this 50mph estimate and Mr Hemstock’s 67mph calculation constitute more severe braking than Mr Rous-Marten’s ‘slight reduction afterward’ note in The Engineer, but it is worth bearing in mind that the printed account of 1904 was attempting to disguise the maximum speed.

Annoyed Then, on May 23, Mr Phillimore amplified his original comments by saying that Inspector Flewellen had written to him saying that his (Phillimore’s) “statement about the platelayers near the Bradford crossing was quite correct and that when he told the late Mr Rouse Martin (both names sic) the cause of the check, Mr Martin was very much annoyed”. As well he might have been!

It is important to state that Mr Hemstock has submitted his findings for consideration in The RM in the hope that it solves many apparent inconsistencies, both in terms of geography and speed, that have exercised RM readers for more than a century. He also expects that there will be denials from steam locomotive engineers, refusals

by GW aficionados to accept the reconstruction, and disputes with Mr Rous-Marten’s notes.

Nevertheless, both Bill and I would welcome any comments that throw further light on the discussion. •

No. 3440 makes an interesting comparison with another preserved classic – Caladonian Railway 4-2-2 No. 123 – at Old Oak Common in 1960.

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www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

1941

The death of Sir Nigel Gresley The death of Sir Nigel Gresley at Hertford on April 5, deprives the railway mechanical engineering profession of one of its most distinguished personalities, and one whose career has no parallel in the locomotive history of this country. Originally published in June 1941.

The death of Sir Nigel Gresley at Hertford on April 5, deprives the railway mechanical engineering profession of one of its most distinguished personalities, and one whose career has no parallel in the locomotive history of this country. For nearly 30 years he held the chief executive position on the mechanical engineering side of an important railway, first as Locomotive Engineer of the former Great Northern Railway, to which post he was appointed at the unusually early age of 35, and, secondly, as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & North Eastern Railway.

Herbert Nigel Gresley, son of the late the Rev. Nigel Gresley, Rector of Netherseale, was born on June 19, 1876, and went to school at Marlborough. He began his railway career at the Crewe works of the L.N.W.R. where he served his apprenticeship under F.W. Webb. He was subsequently a pupil of Sir John Aspinall at Horwich, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, and after varied experience achieved the position in 1902 of Assistant Superintendent of the Carriage & Wagon Department.

In 1905 he was appointed Carriage & Wagon Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway, which appointment he held until October, 1911, when he succeeded H. A. Ivatt as Locomotive Engineer at Doncaster. On January 1, 1923, he became Chief Mechanical Engineer of the newly-formed London & North Eastern Railway, the only technical officer whose authority covered the the whole railway, as the L.N.E.R. adopted the divisional system, with chief technical officers for each division.

Gresley’s long association with locomotive and rolling stock design, and the responsible positions he held in the course of his career provided him with ‘ample scope for the exercise of his outstanding abilities, among which was enterprise combined with energy and courage that enabled him to tackle with success the many problems that must always confront the chief mechanical engineer of a great British railway.

Although he was conservative in the best sense, he had the breadth of mind to consider new ideas put to him both inside and outside the railway, and to have those of them

which held promise investigated and often tested in practice. Thus, he never rested on his laurels, but was always seeking and finding improvements. He had inventive genius as well as administrative ability, and his strong advocacy of three-cylinder single-expansion propulsion was accompanied by an important factor in its success on the L.N.E.R. in the form of his own design of conjugated valve motion.

This, he contended, was preferable on grounds of economy of weight and maintenance to providing each cylinder with its own individual motion. Nevertheless, the success of the Gresley gear did not prejudice the trial of other gears, as witness his numerous three-cylinder 4-4-0 locomotives,‘ fitted with poppet valves which continue to give reliable service on the northern sections of the line.

Gresley was a great believer in the principle of the big boiler, including, where possible; a wide firebox and large grate area ; he also gave much attention to the question of comfort and often discussed this and other; kindred matters with the enginemen. Nothing was too much trouble to him if in the end it might lead to some improvement in the locomotive, and it was this ceaseless activity on his part which led to his promotion of the plan for setting up a stationary locomotive testing plant. His advocacy of this scheme was strengthened as a result of the tests on his 2-8-2 express locomotive Cock o'the North which, with characteristic enterprise, he sent over on the train ferry to France, where it ran under its own steam to the Vitry testing plant at Paris in 1937. As a result certain features of the new engine were shown to be susceptible of improvement, and the subsequent locomotives of the class were modified accordingly. But for the war this advocacy would by now be nearing fruition by the completion of the plant which was in course of construction jointly by the L.N.E.R. and the L.M.S.R. Reference must be made, in mentioning major experiments, to locomotive No. 10000, with its Yarrow water-tube boiler carrying a pressure of 450 lb. per sq. in.

This engine, originally constructed in 1929 as a four-cylinder compound with the idea of securing reduced coal consumption, failed to achieve its object and was

converted in 1937 to a threecylinder simple with a normal boiler. Meantime modifications to the valve setting of the Pacifics, indicated by comparative tests with Great Western locomotives, resulted in their giving highly successful and economical service.

Gresley’s further development of the Pacific type bore evidence, in their internal streamlining, of his observation of French locomotive practice.

In the meantime the call had come for higher speeds, and Gresley, who, although impressed by his journeys on the diesel FlyingHamburger in Germany, was a strong advocate of steam for his country, had responded with trial runs which showed that his earlier pacific were capable of putting up performances hitherto regarded as beyond the normal capacity of standard locomotives. The faster travel required by the Operating Department to attract additional traffic demanded sustained speed in so high a range as to justify external streamlining, and the introduction of the Silver Jubilee between King's Cross and Newcastle in 1935 led to the inception not only of other streamlined steam trains on '3‘;g. the L.N.E.R. but also the Coronation Scot on the L.M.S.R. How successful were the modifications Gresley made to his Pacific design to cope with the requirements of highspeed is shown by the fact that one of his streamlined Pacifics, N0.

4468, Mallard, attained on test a momentary maximum speed of 126 m.p.h., the highest reached in Great Britain, and probably a world record for steam traction. A contribution to this achievement was the use of alloy steel to lighten the moving parts, a practice introduced by Gresley with his fine "K3" 2-6-0 mixed traffic engines.

When the decision was reached to run trains non-stop between London and Edinburgh, Gresley built corridor tenders to enable engine crews to be changed on the way. Among other notable experiments may be mentioned his use of the locomotive booster fitted experimentally to various types of locomotive. Although successful, experience showed that, except for such locomotives as hump shunters, the additional complication and expense of the boosters was not justified in British practice. The last innovation made by Gresley was the fitting to one of his new 2-6-2 general utility locomotives of a Nicholson thermic syphon.

Gresley was responsible for the electrification schemes of the L.N.E.R., including those covering the Sheffield-Manchester and London-Sheffield lines, and the first of a number of electric locomotives for the former was only recently completed.

Gresley had been Carriage & Wagon Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway until he assumed authority over the whole of the Locomotive, Mechanical and Rolling Stock Department on the retirement of H. A. Ivatt, and

he always took a lively interest in the design of rolling stock. His enterprise was exemplified in the double-bolster bogie which he designed and standardised for use on passenger vehicles.

Although this type of bogie was rather more elaborate and costly than the more orthodox design, it was justified by the very steady running it gave and its thoroughly satisfactory service.

His introduction of electric cooking on trains, a practice now wide spread on the L.N.E.R., also deserves mention. The articulation of vehicles was another innovation of his, and not only saved considerably in total tare weight by making three bogies do the work normally allotted to four, but was of value in economising the length of trains, particularly those used on suburban services where platforms and terminal arrangements were short, such as those in the City of London.

A further advantage of the articulation principle was shown in the remounting of two or more coach bodies, formerly carried on six wheels, on three or more bogies, thus bringing them up to comparatively modern main-line standards. The internal comfort of modern L.N.E.R. main-line stock is well known, and where luxury accommodation was called for, as in the high-speed stream-lined trains, Gresley did not hesitate to call in the decorative and furnishing experts, with results shown by the wide patronage these special trains commanded.

Gresley contributed many papers to the technical institutions, and although he did not write for the technical press, he was always ready to help with accurate descriptions of his works ; so recently as the week of his death he had returned corrected proofs of an instalment of Mr. O. S. Nock’s series of articles on his locomotives.

Sir Nigel Gresley's Successors To succeed Sir Nigel Gresley, the directors of the L.N.E.R. have appointed Mr. Edward Thompson as Chief Mechanical Engineer, and Mr. H. W. H. Richards as Chief Electrical Engineer. Mr Thompson, who was a student at Marlborough and Cambridge, served first with Beyer, Peacock & Co. Ltd., and then with the Midland Railway. In 1906 he joined the Running Department of the former North Eastern Railway, and at the beginning of 1912 was appointed Carriage & Wagon Superintendent of the old G.N.R., since when he has held various positions on the L.N.E.R., concluding with that of Mechanical Engineer, Southern Area (Western Section), which he assumed in June, 1938. Mr. Richards, after experience with various firms concerned with electrification, joined the L.B. & S.C.R. in January, 1913, as Electric Traction Engineer.

He was appointed Electrical Engineer, L. N. E. R. (under the C.M.E.) in 1924. •

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1964

London & North Western Railway 0-6-2 "coal-tank" No. 1054 (British Railways No. 58926) at the gateway to Penrhyn Castle, Bangor, North Wales, where it has joined several old industrial locomotives at the National

Trust Railway Museum. More than 300 enthuseasts contributed ÂŁ600 towards its purchase. No. 1054, which was built by F. W. Webb at Crewe Works in 1885, has been in store at Hednesford, Staffordshire, whence

it was hauled by rail to Menai Bridge Station and then by road transporter to the castle, arriving on March 11. It had to be towed through the archway and reloaded on to the trailer along the main drive.

New resident enters Penrhyn Castle

From a photograph by David E Sutcliffe, first published in The Railway Magazine in May 1964.

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www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

1899

An Accident at Preston

Railway fiction by Jeff Robertson, first published in The Railway Magazine in February 1899.

"AN Accident at Preston." This was surely only too familiar a headline in the newspapers some two years ago, when half a dozen railway accidents, more or less serious, occurred at this unlucky place. During the summer of 1897 the series of mishaps was completed by a contretemps of a character so curious that it is surprising that the facts connected with it have so far failed to find their way into print.

In the spring, the season when, as Tennyson reminds us, “a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” the Honourable Maurice Templecombe had persuaded his bonnie Scotch lassie, who was none other than Margaret, only daughter of the Earl of Lockerbie, to be his bride. The marriage was fixed for July 10th, and, as may be easily imagined, the interval between the betrothal and the wedding day proved none too long for the purchase of those many fripperies which the Lady Margaret found necessary for her change of state from mademoiselle to madame. A visit to London was, of course, indispensable, and many were the hours devoted to Dame Fashion. It is necessary to describe in some detail the charming travelling dress that she ordered from the well-known firm of Rosie et Cie. The dress was of a soft dove-grey material, fashionably embroidered, and the hat was veritably a chef d'auvre, being a large Gainsborough of the same tone as the gown, trimmed With graceful ostrich feathers fastened by a superb paste buckle; but what gave ton to the whole costume was a most perfect imitation in velvet of a large bunch of scarlet geraniums pinned into the waist-belt. To wear artificial flowers on a day gown was a novel and somewhat daring idea, albeit one that an acknowledged beauty like Margaret was well able to realise; the brilliant patch of red arrested the eye, which afterwards dwelt with satisfaction on the fair picture of this pretty blonde so gracefully and becomingly attired.

Now, as luck would have it, Miss Mary Thomas, the artiste whose task it was to design this toilet, had herself promised to make at no very distant date a happy man of one William Judkins, a shopwalker in the establishment of her employers, Rosie et Cie. This fact naturally intensified the curiosity inherent in woman’s nature and will explain why the dressmaker was prompted to inquire, during that mysterious process dimly conveyed to the masculine mind as “trying on," when the marriage was to take place. What was her Surprise when Lady Margaret’s answer disclosed the fact that the two weddings were to come off on the same day! True it was that the nuptials of the Scotch heiress were to be celebrated at her ancestral home in Dumfriesshire, and that the costumiére was to be led to the altar in a corrugated iron edifice in the neighbourhood of New Cross, S.E.; but, nevertheless, the identity of date had a tremendous fascination for the romantic Miss Thomas, and when at length she conceived the idea of treating herself to a gown and hat precisely similar to those to be worn by the earl‘s daughter her self-satisfaction knew no bounds.

Alas for the vanity of human proposals! How dire but too often are their consequences! In this case the sentimental desire of the dressmaker to strengthen in every way the links of association between the fashionable Scotch marriage and her own influenced her to persuade her loving William to choose Rothesay instead of Ramsgate as the scene of their honeymoon. Thus it came about that on July 10th Mr. and Mrs. William Judkins found themselves in a reserved firstclass compartment in the day express from Euston, whilst the Honourable Maurice Templecombe and his wife, en route for the Austrian Tyrol, joined the 10a.m. from Glasgow to London at Lockerbie, at which station the train was specially stopped to pick them up.

To all regular travellers by the West Coast route to Scotland Preston Station is familiar. Here it is that for years past until the recent introduction of travelling dining-cars the morning expresses in each direction between Scotland and London have been timed to stop for twenty minutes to admit of hungry passengers partaking of luncheon. The main platform is, in railway parlance, an island——that is to say, it is a central platform with rails on each side of it—and thus serves the purpose of two side platforms of the usual type. On one side the up Scotch trains load and unload their passengers, and on the opposite side the down expresses call. In the middle of the platform is a large dining—room, and within this, eighteen months ago, when the 10 a.m. from Glasgow to London and the corresponding down train from Euston to Scotland were timed into Preston simultaneously, the passengers from the North and from the metropolis met at the luncheon table.

On the eventful day in which the reader is interested it would almost appear that the actions of the Lady Margaret were destined to govern in some occult manner those of the other nouveau mariée, for at Preston both ladies, overcome either by shyness or fatigue, elected not to accompany their husbands to the refreshment room. The poor men of course could not forego the pleasure or necessity of appeasing their hunger, and so with tender looks they tore themselves away. Mr. Judkins Wasted little time over his lunch, and returned to the platform several minutes before the warning bell rang. Satisfying himself by a glance at the scarlet geraniums that nobody had run away with his dear wife, he turned his back upon the train and proceeded to light a cigar, fully conscious of the dignity imparted by his frock coat and of the conspicuous elegance of his new brown boots, the hue of which proclaimed them altogether innocent of the stain of polish.

Thus stood William Judkins, like

a lion at the entrance of his lair, until the guards flag waved and the train began to move; then, tossing away his cigar, he jumped into the carriage. The Honourable Maurice Templecombe took things much more easily, and it was only on hearing the hell that he arose from the table; strolling across the platform he entered the compartment whither, like an oriflamme, the plumes of the Gainsborough beckoned him.

Whilst the gentlemen were absent it might be imagined that the ladies found the time hang heavily, but such was not the case. Lady Margaret, overcome by the heat, fatigue, and excitement, fell asleep, and Mrs. Judkins, having turned her dutiful attention to one of the many illustrated papers with which her newly-made husband had felt it incumbent on him to provide her, had become enthralled in a description of the very trousseau which she herself had helped to complete. Deeply engrossed in the newspaper comments, she scarcely noticed the return of her lord and master, but no sooner had the train started from the platform than the paper was gently brushed aside and a kiss recalled her thoughts to her companion. Covered with sweet confusion, Mary raised her blushing face to behold not her husband, but a handsome stranger, whose tender gaze gives place to a stare of blank bewilderment as he realises that his wife is lost to him and that a meek looking stranger is arrayed in her apparel. Mary felt very much inclined to faint, but anon recovered a degree of composure sufficient to make mutual explanations possible, and gradually the skein of mystery was unravelled. The remainder of the journey to Carlisle was not altogether unpleasant, at least so thought the fanciful little dress-maker, who rather enjoyed this element of romance on the first day of her honeymoon, and whose merry peals of laughter bore witness more than once to her appreciation of the ludicrous side of the situation.

Far different was the scene that had meanwhile been enacted in the up train. On being awakened from the doze into which she had fallen by her head being held ’twixt two caressing hands, Lady Margaret’s horror and indignation knew no bounds at the familiarity of this frock-coated monster. A storm of words followed, but the one-sided conflict was, like the sea-fight off Manila, short, sharp, and decisive, for the ladies of Lockerbie have ever been Women of action, and the fair heiress did not belie the reputation of her house. The dumfounded shopwalker was haughtily commanded to withdraw into the lavatory; he obeyed, and, the door being promptly bolted on him by his cruel jailor, he remained a prisoner until freed from captivity by the arrival of the train at Rugby, its next calling place.

At Rugby and at Carlisle timetables were feverishly consulted and the telegraph wires largely used, with the result that it soon became apparent that reunion that day could only be brought about by the travellers returning once more to Preston, and this therefore they all prepared to do; but although the four passengers thus abandoned the destinations originally decided on, their luggage got through undisturbed, for in changing trains the ladies forgot all about it.

There is no need to expatiate on the return of the quartette to Preston. Doubtless the reader will guess which two travelled back together and which two did not; his imagination may also be safely trusted to depict the eventual finding of the lost ones on the illstarred Island, and it only remains to be recorded that the manager of the Railway Hotel at Preston and his spouse sat up till a very late hour indeed speculating as to the peculiar freak of fate which necessitated four “ upset- looking individuals” applying to them for the requisite habiliments of night. •

15

Railway Times | www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive

1995

Puzzle page

The Railway Magazine is famous for its challenging crosswords – here are a selection of brain-teasers from 1995 including the very first crossword from the August issue. Turn to page 23 for answers.

"Quadrant" nameplate quiz (June 1995)

Engine sheds boxword (July 1995)

All the clues in the puzzle lead to words with a common theme associated with the nameplate "Quadrant". Using your knowledge of locomotive names, enter the 12 answers in the appropriate vertical columns, reading downwards. Then ‘drop’ the two letters in the shaded squares into the grid below, putting the first onto the top row and the second onto the lower row. Those letters will then spell out two further answers, linked with the others by the same common theme. When you have all 14 correct answers, turn to page 23 for the answers.

A: It helped win the Wild West, in Hampshire (10).

B: Descriptive of a heavy liquid in the Garden of England? (7) C & D: This knight kept the south on the rails from 1912 to 1937 (7, 6)

E: Trip to Switzerland — par avion! (7) F: There’s one of Kent at K (10) G: Battle won in the air (7) H: On Level 5 between Thornton Heath and 73208 (8) Former home of Charles’s

Crossword (August 1995)

favourite uncle (10) J: Descriptive of a corps keeping an eye on things (5) K: Whence came tales on the SE&CR? (10) L: ‘Fast-track’ franchise on the way to the airport (7)

HIDDEN in this ‘boxword’ grid are the names of 55 British locomotive depots and stabling points. When all the locations have been found, there will be 17 letters left over, which, when unscrambled, will form the names of two further depots, both of which share an unusual historical feature related to their usage over the years.

When you have found all 55 locations, write them down in alphabetical order on a sheet of paper, add the extra two, and turn to page 23 for the answers. The following points must be borne in mind before attempting to unravel the grid:

1) A number of letters have been used more than once.

2) There are two examples in which two answers overlap each other, in other words they both share two consecutive letters). e.g.

BournemouTHornaby.

3) In some cases, the full name of the shed is used (e.g.

Bristol Bath Road), in other cases the shorter form has been used (e.g. Bath Road). A number of answers consist of the town or city name only (e.g. Carlisle), even though the town or city concerned may have originally contained several sheds of different names.

Across

Down

1

2 3 4 5 6

Great Western branch terminus preserved... and then lost (9) 8 Road/rail bridge spanning the entrance to Loch Etive on the Ballachulish branch (6) 9 Cornish junction for the St Ives branch (2, 4) 12/25 Name given to the GWR arrangement of tank engine and trailer which could be driven from either end (4-5) 13 'Great' preserved 'Peak'... (5) 14 ...and unique GWR Pacific (4) 17 Famous Midland shed in Leeds (7) 18 The 'e' od 'Res' (7) 19 One of the Rainhill trailists, later 'Jubilee' No. 45733 22 L&YR works (7) 24 Word carried at one time by all the nameplates of NOS. 5043-63 (4) 25 See 12 across 26 She was a 1st class EMU Pullman Kitchen Car (4) 29 Powered material carried in 'Presflo' wagons (6) 30 Brit' 15 (6) 31 Aggregate quarried in Northants which the Stratford-on-Avon & Midland Junction Railway was originally built to carry (9)

7 10

11 15 16

20 21 22 23 27 28

4) Although there are 55 location names in the grid, some consist of two words and others of three.

Therefore, the total number of words you are looking for in the grid itself is 68 (including one common two letter abbreviation). Of the two-word depot names, all run on continuously without a space and are in-line, except for one, which has its two words separated (i.e. in different parts of the grid).

6) One of the two-word names, although continuous and in-line, has its second word reversed.

Happy hunting!

Locomotive adhesion aid (4) 50041, the last-numbered 'Western' (7) One of the 'Res' named 47s, 47769 (7) In steam days, Glendower or Tudor? (4) 'West Coast ----', famous mail trail from Euston (6) ---- Road, remote station on the Waverly Route (6) Surname of the current Transport Secretary (9) Device that connects a steam loco's connection rod and piston rod (9) Village after which ARC's 59103 is names (5) Musical form of the company named on 9004 (5) Metropolitan and LNWR junction in Bucks, named after the local landowner (6) GWR Oxfordshire junction for the Fairford branch (7) GNR Locomotive Superintendent commemorated by No. 60123 (1, 1, 5) Arthurian lady giving her name to Standard No. 73116 (6) Railway formed by the joint operation of the SER and LCDR (1, 1, 1, 1) Name usually applied to a line or train heading away from London or other major centre (4)

16

www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

1953

The Brighton Electrification

A Twenty-year Retrospect by P. H. S. Martin, first published in The Railway Magazine in January 1953.

South Coast business service.

It was decided to proceed with the electrification avoiding all expenditure not absolutely necessary.

On July 17, 1932, the first stage (from London to Three Bridges) of the electrification of the Southern Railway main line between London and Brighton was opened to the public, and at 12.5 a.m. on New Year’s Day, 1933, the last steam operated passenger train left Victoria for Brighton.

Today the electrified service which replaced the steam trains remains practically unaltered and is still a model of modern railway operation as well as an outstanding achievement of the “ grouping " period of British railways.

In these days, we are inclined to think that life was easy before the second world war, but the early 1930s were difficult years in many ways. Hitler was not yet an obvious menace, but we were still suffering from the great slump, and had large numbers of unemployed. The railways, too, had their own problems in the enormous increase in competition from the new, fast, passenger coaches and private cars, which were crowding the newly-widened main roads. Nowhere was this competition more acute than in the 52 miles between London and Brighton, and good though the steam train service was, it was quite incapable of dealing with the new menaces. The distance was too short to show the superior speed of the train to advantage, and nothing but a fast intensive service would stand a hope of regaining the lost traffic.

A scheme was prepared, and it was estimated that a very large number of additional passengers would be needed to justify the outlay of about £2 1/2 millions. To say that this target would be passed in a few years is being wise after the event. It was by no means obvious then, for the suburban area, although electrified, ended abruptly at Coulsdon, leaving about 35 miles of country main line, which, in the prevailing economic conditions seemed unlikely to yield much new residential traffic to add to whatever might be recaptured from the road. True there was rush hour traffic from Redhill, and Reigate, and a little from the Horley area, in addition to the long-established Brighton and

Track layout presented no great problems in the first ten miles out of London, as the service was to be divided between London Bridge and Victoria, from both of which four tracks, which had for years carried a heavy steam service, were available. At Windmill Bridge Junction, just north of East Croydon Station, these lines converged, and from this point the whole electrified service, and the steam trains to the Oxted line, Three Bridges, Horsham, Eastbourne and Newhaven had to be carried on four tracks, supplemented by a loop road as far as South Croydon.

It was decided to make no major alterations in the layout through the Croydon area as far as Coulsdon (15 miles from London) and this most interesting section still remains very much as it was when the original line was widened at the close of the nineteenth century. There was, however, some change in the use of the tracks, and several of the fast trains were routed over the suburban lines from Windmill Bridge, despite sharp curves and the blind entrance to East Croydon Station in the up direction. This practice, which is still followed, kept trains to and from the Quarry (fast) lines from conflicting with the trains using the Redhill, Tattenham, and Oxted lines.

At Coulsdon, the suburban lines ended, and the main line divided into two double tracks, which, while maintaining four-

track facilities, followed different routes to Earlswood, 21 1/2 miles from London. The fast tracks had been the Quarry line of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, which reached Earlswood without intermediate stations, but with three tunnels, including an artificial one under the grounds of a mental asylum. The slow lines, with stations at Coulsdon South, Merstham, and Redhill, had belonged to the South Eastern & Chatham Railway until 1923, but had formed part of the original route to Brighton. It was decided to electrify this section, and to include the first 1 3/4 miles of the Reading branch, to cater for the Reigate traffic. Apart from some track alterations at Redhill, few changes were made on this stretch of line, which still has S.E.C.R. equipment in use.

From Earlswood to the entrance to Balcombe tunnel, a distance of ten miles, the four tracks laid down by the L.B.S.C.R. in the first years of the century were quite capable of carrying the new service, and apart from minor alterations no changes in the track were necessary. At Balcombe Tunnel, however, the four tracks converge into two and in the 19 miles from there to Preston Park, on the outskirts of Brighton, the line traversed four tunnels, three of which were of considerable length, and crossed the long viaduct over the Ouse Valley near Balcombe. Duplication was impossible by reason of the great cost which would be involved, but up and down loops were formed from Copyhold Junction, where the Horsted Keynes line diverted, to the station at Haywards Heath, which was reconstructed to give four through lines. Beyond the

station the four tracks converged into two roads. At Preston Park four tracks were again available, and continued to the terminus at Brighton.

between Couldson and Brighton.

It is interesting to note that practically no alteration has been made in the installation in the succeeding 20 years.

Unlike London Bridge and Victoria, Brighton Station had to deal with the entire new service, and had not been modernised to any extent, its layout remaining substantially that of 1881. Opportunity was taken to overhaul thoroughly the various tracks and connections, and to eliminate any which would not be needed for the electrified service. It had to be borne in mind, however, that a large number of steam-hauled trains from the coastal lines to Hastings and Portsmouth, and long-distance holiday traffic from the North and West, would continue to use the station. For the service envisaged, it was necessary to have short signal sections, particularly in or near the bottle neck between Balcombe and Preston Park. The existing installation, while adequate in the suburban area, was quite unable to cope with the new requirements on the remainder of the route.

It was decided to equip the fast lines from Coulsdon, and all running tracks from Earlswood to the coast, with colour—light signalling, which, while largely automatic in operation, was controlled at junction points by new or modernised boxes with illuminated diagrams. There was, of course, continuous track circuiting, but the high cost of this equipment was offset to some extent by the fact that no less than 24 of the old boxes were abolished and nine others were open only at certain times, leaving no more than eight to control normal traffic

In 1933, it was expected that the sections between London and Brighton still controlled by manual signalling would shortly be converted. Colour-light signals were introduced between Streatham Common and Thornton Heath in 1936, and the equipment at Victoria was modernised in 1939, but the remainder of the work had not been undertaken before the outbreak of the second world war. Despite present—day difficulties arising from rearmament and shortage of steel, colour-light signals are now being introduced in the suburban area between London and Coulsdon.

The first stage of this programme, the section of the London Bridge line from Bricklayers Arms Junction to ‘Norwood Junction, was completed in October, 1950, and the second, extending from Battersea Park to Selhurst, on the Victoria line, in October, 1952. The scheme is due for completion in 1955.

In addition to the branch from the main line to Reigate, the electrification was also extended from Brighton westward along the coast as far as West Worthing, to encourage the residential and holiday traffic which had made substantial progress under the former L.B.S.C.R. By the summer of 1938, this had been extended to Portsmouth and the branches to Littlehampton and Bognor Regis as part of subsequent electrification schemes. East of Brighton, the lines to Eastbourne and Hastings were electrified in July, 1935.

The down "City Limited", 5 pm. from London Bridge to Brighton, comprising ten coaches and two Pullmans, passing Hassocks in May, 1934

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The rolling stock for the Brighton electrification was entirely new, and consisted of two types of set trains: 23 six—coach corridor vestibule units, each comprising three compartment coaches, an open third-class motor coach at each end, and a composite Pullman car in the centre; and 33 fourcoach compartment units for semifast and slow trains. In subsequent extensions of the main-line electrification, the types of rolling stock used for the Brighton trains were perpetuated with slight modifications, in that the express stock became a four-car unit with end vestibules, while the four-car non-vestibule units became units of two cars. Mention must be made of what has remained a unique feature, namely the three sets of five coaches built by the Pullman Car Company to operate the long established “Southern Belle” service (renamed the “ Brighton Belle” on June 29, 1934). These luxurious trains still operate the service, though one set was seriously damaged by enemy action, and had to be reconstructed after the war.

Some surprise was expressed that, as the stock was new, opportunity was not taken to adopt the open saloon type of coach throughout, but although the problem has been under frequent review, compartment coaches have been considered preferable for the traffic on this line. The fear also was expressed that the large unsprung weight of the motor bogies would cause heavy track

maintenance and rough riding at high speed. Rough they certainly were at first, but this was reduced by detailed improvements through the years, and considering the speed and intensity of the service, track wear never seemed excessive.

The operation of the new services which provided one non-stop, two semi-fast, and two slow trains between London and Brighton every hour during the day, was in itself a major problem.

The crucial section was the bottleneck between Balcombe Tunnel and Preston Park, with its solitary loop at Haywards Heath, but there was the additional difficulty of interspersing the still considerable amount of steam-operated traffic.

While the electric trains were capable of rapid acceleration and could be given a close schedule between points, the steam trains inevitably varied in length and accelerative power. In practice, the steam traffic was largely non-stop, and the electric service was arranged with departures at fixed times in each hour. Station stops were reduced to the shortest time possible, but there still remained a minimum of time required for a stopping train to clear the bottlenecks. This largely explained the complaint made at the time that the new non-stop trains were no faster than the steam trains of 30 years earlier.

In the first few weeks, enthusiastic drivers revelled in the 75 m.p.h. maximum speed

possible with the new trains, only to find that by Burgess Hill or Hassocks they were getting a succession of “ yellows,” or perhaps even a dead stand, because they were overtaking the slow train in front, and had to continue treading on its heels until it escaped into the loop at Preston Park. The Southern Railway laid down the excellent principle of timetable construction, that times which could be kept under all normal circumstances were far better than a schedule which was possible only with a fair amount of luck.

Actually, the working time for the non-stop trains was 57 min., but the public time remained at 60 min., and is so today, though a considerable amount of the other traffic on this route is still steam operated. The Oxted lines are still not electrically equipped, and the only relief to steam operation of the Continental services to Newhaven is that given by the three electric locomotives, which also assist with the goods trains.

The effect of the introduction of so much new stock had some queer effects on the now redundant rolling stock. A few of the oldest locomotives in mainline service went to the scrap heap rather more rapidly than they might otherwise have done, but most of the locomotives found use elsewhere, though in some cases only for a few years until the Eastbourne lines were electrified.

With the coaching stock, however,

it was rather different, as most of the main-line services had been operated with coaches constructed in 1906 and 1907, and, by reason of their shape, usually known as “balloons.” Because of their extreme width and height, they could work only on certain lines of the old L.B.S.C.R. and they could not be used on the former London & South Western and South Eastern & Chatham Railways. Most of these coaches went to the scrap heap fairly soon after 1932, leaving less pretentious, but older, coaches to supply the needs of remaining steam passenger services until more modern steam stock became available from other parts of the system article.

No Consideration of this large scheme of electrification could be complete without mention of the staff involved. Drivers had to become accustomed to an entirely new technique of driving, while the extensive resignalling meant relearning what had been a familiar road. Station staffs had to remember that stops were now very short, and must be rigidly observed. The increased number of men needed for maintenance of lineside electrical equipment had to bear in mind that trains were frequent and speeds high.

Many signalmen had either to learn a completely new signalling layout in the boxes to which they had been accustomed, or to master a new box. The fact that the changeover was accomplished smoothly was something of which all concerned could be proud. Such

mistakes as were made were of minor importance and endangered no one. The “ Southern Belle ” was brought to a stand at Croydon on the second day because the yard shunter had not realised he must now make a quick crossover from the down side to the up. Two days later a non-stop train threaded its way slowly round the loop platform at Haywards Heath while a stopping train stood on the through road.

On a general survey of the whole installation, one is struck, not only by the large amount of existing equipment which was brought into the new scheme of 1932, but by the fact that much of it has since stood up to 20 years of intensive service for which it was never designed. It is all now long past the life for which it was designed, and would, in less difficult times, have been replaced many years ago. At the moment, however, it seems that, where possible, it may have to continue to carry the burden for years to come, although within the limits imposed by the national situation, substitution of more modern equipment will be made. The provision of a new signalbox at Three Bridges in 1952 is a sign that some of the L.B.S.C.R. equipment is now life- expired.

The writer is indebted to Mr. S. W. Smart, Superintendent of Operation, Southern Region, who was closely associated with the Brighton electrification, for assistance in the preparation of this article. •

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The present all-Pullman electric express, renamed the "Brighton Belle" in 1934, approaching Balcombe. This train, composed of two five-coach sets, completes the return journey between Victoria and Brighton three times on weekdays and twice on sundays

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The pre-electrification "Southern Belle" near the south end of Quarry Tunnel, on the down journey to Brighton, headed by one of the second batch of Marsh Atlantics No. 426, "St. Alban's Head"

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www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

2010

50 not out

From The Railway Magazine, December 2010, Paul Bickerdyke looks at the Class 37 Golden Jubilee.

In December, the pioneer Class 37 No. D6700 reaches its half-century.

Paul Bickerdyke takes a look at some of the key moments in the history of the locomotive and the class generally Class 37s are without doubt one of the most successful diesel locomotives born out of the British Railways Modernisation Plan of the 1950s.

These medium-powered locos were intended for mixed-traffic use and over the last 50 years have more than lived up to that role, handling all types of freight and passenger duties in all parts of the network. And that gutsy, go-anywhere, do-anything ability has made them firm favourites with operators and enthusiasts alike.

Perhaps a key to the success of the English Electric (EE) Type 3s, as they were first known, is that they were not a brand new design but drew on the experience of locomotives already in service. The EE 12CSVT engine was a de-rated (1,750hp) version of that used in a similar type of loco EE had built for use in East Africa. Internally, many of the components were based on those used in the company’s Type 4 (Class 40) then in production.

And the Co-Co bogies were to become a company standard type, interchangeable with those used by the later Classes 55 and 50.

First off the production line at the Vulcan Foundry in Newtonle-Willows, Lancs, was No. D6700, which was released into traffic on December 2, 1960 in BR green livery with a light grey roof, red bufferbeams and black undergear.

A further 308 examples were to be built in variously-sized batches over the next five years, the first 118 with nose-end gangway doors and split-headcode box (Phase 1 type) and the rest with sealed noseend and central four-character headcode box (Phase 2).

Liverpool Street-Cambridge and 9.20pm return – a working that heralded a 20-year-plus association with the class on that route.

The doyen of the class was allocated new to Stratford MPD, in east London, where it was put to work on freight and passenger turns on the former Great Eastern lines. Amongst other duties, the pioneer loco and its sisters sometimes substituted for their larger Type 4 cousins on expresses between London and Norwich – schedules they could just about keep if given a clear run – and, in December 1960, D6700 was noted working trains between Liverpool Street, Norwich and Great Yarmouth.

BR’s Eastern and North Eastern Regions were the first to receive EE Type 3s, but eventually they were to spread all over the country and, during the next 30 years, D6700’s allocations illustrated this with spells at Eastern Region depots such as Stratford and Thornaby; on the Scottish Region at Haymarket, on the Western at Cardiff Canton and on the London Midland at Toton.

Then, on January 6, 1961, it had its first passenger working on the Cambridge route when it was taken off a test train in the Stansted area to rescue the up ‘Fenman’, which had failed behind Brush Type 2 (Class 31) No. 5665. Three days later, D6700 had its first official working on the line, hauling the 5.56pm

By the summer of 1961, EE Type 3s had replaced ‘Britannia’ Pacifics on the Harwich- Liverpool Central boat train – first as far as Sheffield Victoria, then later through to Manchester Piccadilly, becoming the only daytime diesels diagrammed over the electrified Woodhead route. D6700 was noted on that working several times.

January 1968 to Derby Research Centre, where it became a testbed for push-pull equipment for possible use on Edinburgh-Glasgow shuttles. In the event, the scheme was abandoned in favour of using two BRCW Type 2s (Class 27s) in top-and-tail formation.

After the end of steam on BR in August 1968, D6700, in common with other diesels, had the ‘D’ prefix dropped from its identity.

Then, from the late-1960s, BR began rolling out its new corporate image and No. 6700 duly received a new livery of standard BR blue with full yellow ends in June 1969.

TOPS renumbering, under which EE Type 3s became Class

37s, began in the early-1970s.

They were largely renumbered in order; thus D6701-6999 became 37001-299 and the final nine locos in the fleet (which had carried the numbers D6600-6608) became 37300-308. However, D6700 presented a problem as 37.000 would not have been a computerrecognisable set of digits under TOPS. Tagging it on at the end as 37309 would also not have been ideal as it was a Phase 1 loco and would thus have been out of sequence.

The solution came as there was a gap in the numbers due to the fact that Phase 2 loco No. D6983 had been written off in a collision in December 1965. Thus D6819 (the

An interesting period was a three-month allocation in

Safely in preservation and sporting its original full BR green livery, No. D6700 shunts at Grosmont on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway on May 30, 2007

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Railway Times | www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive

Sporting standard BR blue livery with full yellow ends and carrying its fi rst TOPS number of 37119, the pioneer Class 37 awaits its next duty at King’s Lynn on June 9, 1986

first of the Phase 2 locos) became 37283 (rather than 37119), allowing D6700 to take the identity of 37119 in February 1974.

Towards the end of the 1970s and into the early-’80s there was a declining need for steam-heat on passenger work as more and more locos and coaches were fitted with electric train heating. So No. 37119 lost its boiler and the water tank was replaced by an additional fuel tank in October 1982.

In the mid-1980s BR considered replacing the Class 37s with a totally new build of locomotive, but eventually decided on the cheaper option of refurbishing them to extend their working life.

For the first time, the common user fleet was to be split up into dedicated sub-classes for freight and passenger work (see table on previous page).

All would receive re-geared bogies, while Phase 1 examples lost their split headcode boxes in favour of simple marker lights and Phase 2 types had their central headcode boxes plated over.

Refurbishment Initially, the whole fleet was planned to be refurbished, but the programme ended early after 135 locos had been treated. However this left a surplus of re-geared bogies, so it was decided to give another batch of locos a standard works overhaul, fit them with these modified bogies, and create a new 37/3 sub-group.

In the late-1980s, BR was split up into dedicated business groups, with most 37s becoming part of Railfreight. This group was then further broken down into sectors for specific traffic flows and, in January 1989, No. 37350 found itself allocated to Cardiff Canton’s South Wales pool for Freight Petroleum and Chemicals, followed by a move to Immingham in October 1992 in the Trainload Petroleum pool.

Then with a decline in traffic and the availability of newer freight locomotives such as Classes 58 and 60, it was put into store in early 1993. It was reprieved by November, but spent much of the next four years in restricted use pools.

No. D6700 poses at Stratford depot, east London, soon after entering traffic. It wears BR green livery with a light grey roof, red bufferbeams and black undergear

When the bulk of BR’s freight business was privatised in February 1996, No. 37350 along with most other 37s, became part of the EWS fleet. However, as the pioneer of the class, it was marked out for preservation and, as a precursor to this, was named NRM National Railway Museum at the NRM in York on November 11, 1998.

Still belonging to EWS at the time, however, it was then allocated to Toton depot in a pool for systemwide use – but the arrival of new Class 66 locos from North America was having a big impact on the 37 fleet and in the dying days of the last millennium, No. 37350 was stored in EWS’s infamous WNXX pool.

On July 17, 2001, it was legally signed over to the National Railway Museum and was first formerly recorded at York on January 30, 2002. In October of the following year, it was involved in a relatively minor collision with classmate No. 37515 at Barrow Hill depot, where it was working passenger shuttles. It went to Derby for repairs at the end of June 2004 and was happily back

doing shunt shuttles at the NRM by November that year.

On the last day of 2004, No. 37350 was officially deregistered from Network Rail – although it was re-registered again ten days later on January 10, 2005, as a private owner diesel. Since then, it has worked at times on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, particularly during the line’s diesel galas, and has assumed its original identity of D6700 in BR green livery. This summer, it received major bodywork repairs in the NRM’s York workshops in preparation for its Golden Jubilee event on October 15/16.

D6700’s future is now secure in preservation. But the fact that, half a century after its debut, many of its classmates are still doing exactly what they were designed for – hauling passenger and freight trains in all parts of the country (and not only on heritage lines either) – is testament to how successful a design the English Electric Type 3 has been. •

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www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

1995

Eye Opener! 1995

A selection of images from The Railway Magazine's 1995 Eye Opener! feature

A sight which once signified a Scottish main line scene, but does so no longer, is that of Class 26s. Nos. 26028 (nearest camera) and an unidentified classmate share siding and arch space at Perth stabling point on May 28, 1977.

Steam locomotives working flat out can produce their own pyrotechnics, but the Embsay Railway's fleet had to take a back seat to the real thing on Guy Fawkes Night! Hunslet 'Austerity' No. 68005 looks on enviously during the West Yorkshire line's November 5 bonfire and fireworks display.

BR 9F 2-10-0 No. 92240 evokes powerful memories of the working steam era as it catches the light at Sheffield Park shed after the Bluebell Railway's 'Starlight' event of November 12, 1994. The soft red glow from the engineman's lamp provides a subtle contrast.

Multiple aspects... or a driver's dilemma? Trick photooraphy at Stafford station produced this intriguing portrait on the night of July 25, 1995. The desired result was derived by the use of three separate exposures over a period of several minutes.

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Proof that a railway photograph doesn't necessarily have to depict a train is shown in this delightful winter study of a bracket home signal at Didcot Railway Centre on December 30, 1992.

Diverted to Victoria from Blackfriars because of engineering work, a local service for Sevenoaks, formed of a four-car Class 465 Networker, passes Factory Junction, Battersea, on February 4, 1995. A view from the top of a nearby tower block.

A view from inside the derelict steam shed at Lincoln as Class 37 No. 37699 passes between the condemed ex-GNR depot and the city's magnificent cathedral on August 13, 1994.

SR Q1 class 0-6-0 No C1 has its smokebox emptied at Sheffield Park depot after working trains on the Bluebell Railway’s Starlight special evening on November 12, 1994.

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www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive | Railway Times

1990

The pace quickens

An update on the progress of the Channel Tunnel by P. W. B. Semmens MA, C.Chem, FRSC, MBCS, MCIT from November 1990 THERE were several important developments with the Channel Tunnel and its related Rail Link during the second week in September. Not only did the boring machine in the North Running Tunnel break through into Holywell Coombe, but formal planning protection was given by the government to the route of the high-speed rail link across eastern Kent. As a result, detailed environmental consultations were re-started by British Rail with all concerned. In addition to this, the British North Running Tunnel TBM had broken through into the Cross-Over Cavern at the end of August, while less than two miles separated the two ends of the Service Tunnels underneath the Channel. By the time this appears in print, there will be only days to go before the two boring machines are in contact, ready to meeting November, although the formal ceremony to mark the completion of Britain's first fixed link with the Continent is not scheduled to take place until the New Year.

A walk through the Tunnel In mid-August, just over a year since I had last toured the area, I paid another visit to the Eurotunnel terminal site at Folkestone. Not only were there many changes to be seen on the surface, but I was able to walk through part of the tunnel and note the different types of construction used in the first section which will be traversed by passengers leaving Britain.

Our press party was taken by minibus to Holywell Coombe, where we descended a temporary stairway into one of the TBM dismantling chambers at the west side of Sugar Loaf Hill. These have been constructed where the bored tunnels will finish and give way to

the box-section ones, built in the open, which connect with those through Castle Hill. At the time of the break-through of the Service Tunnel in November last year, the box-section construction extended only part way across the coombe, and guests at that ceremony climbed steps into the open ends to walk towards the point where the TBM would appear. Since then, not only have the concrete boxes been linked up at both ends, but they have been completely covered with spoil, which is now being landscaped to blend in with the remainder of the coombe.

Where the three tunnels emerge from the hillside they are in the normal position. with the Service Tunnel between the two running ones, but, as they cross the coombe, the service one dives under the South Running Tunnel to come up on its outside. This enables all three to emerge side-by-side from the Western Portal, without access to the Service Tunnel being hindered by any intervening rail tracks. Walking up the l in l00 gradient from the point where the TBM was to emerge less than a month later, it was possible to see the three different types of tunnel, produced by boring machine. box construction, and the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM). The last in method had been used through the unstable ground of Castle Hill, and the initial skin of sprayed concrete had already been covered with the main lining, which was cast in situ. It had a roughly circular cross section, like the bored tunnels, in marked contrast to the rectangular box of the stretch originally built in the open.

Even within such a short distance of the portal, cross-passages between the running and service tunnels have still to be provided

The sheer size of the Cross-Over Cavern is apparent from this picture, taken in the summer, looking westwards towards England. The North Running Tunnel TBM broke through into this on 27 August, and has since traversed the cavern to continue eastwards to meet the French TBM in less than a year's time. Now that the cavern is connected to one of the running tunnels, management of the construction trains will be greatly eased, as all spoil removed from the cavern, as well as lining materials, could only travel previously through the Service Tunnel

every 375 metres. and the standard design cannot be used in this stretch because of the different layout of the three bores. The cross-passage directly links the two running tunnels, and there is a connection down some stairs to the Service Tunnel. As our party crossed over from the North to the South Running Tunnel by this means, I was immediately struck by the difference in appearance.

Instead of the bare concrete walls in the former, the southern one had a lovely yellow quilted lining.

However, this was not part of the interior designersĂŤ art, but was the plastics sheeting forming the waterproof membrane between the initial and final linings. This is shown in one of the illustrations, but that was taken after the reinforcing rods had been put in position, obscuring some of the sheeting. The effectiveness of the NATM was demonstrated by the fact that, although the tunnelling through Castle Hill was completed in 1989, it was not necessary to insert the massive final lining immediately, the sprayed-on material giving quite sufficient stability for many months.

Later during the tour we drove into the reversing loop for the shuttle trains at the western end of the site, the concrete box for which had also been landscaped with spoil, while beyond it trees were growing on the noise bund protecting the villages of Newington and Peene. Although this tunnel is only about half a mile long, the safety specification still calls for continuous walkways alongside each of the three tracks for evacuation purposes, and there are smoke vents at the quarter, half and three-quarter points.

With safety standards of this sort being adopted for this project and other similar ones elsewhere in Europe, it is not surprising that an independent assessment of the risks in the tunnel under the

The BR consultation drawing of the proposed high-speed rail link across Kent, currently being discussed. The 450-metre tunnel at Warren Wood is too short to be shown in the diagram.

Great Belt in Denmark has shown that they are less than those of an ordinary twin-track railway, let alone a road.

High-Speed Rail Link ON 13 September the Department of Transport issued its promised directive to protect the corridor earmarked for the BR rail link between Swanley and Dollands Moor. Any local authority now has to refer to BR any planning applications affecting the latterĂ­s zone of interest, which roughly coincides with the existing area where its voluntary purchase scheme operates. BR can then object if the proposed development would interfere with its plans, but the normal appeal procedure continues to operate.

At the same time, BR released its new plans for the alignment of the 140mph link, thus starting the detailed consultation procedure with all interested parties. Some changes have been made to the 1989 plans, and these should

considerably benefit all parties directly involved, as well as the rest of the country, who see how much our future national prosperity depends on a fast link with the continent. Horizontally the maximum change in the alignment is no more than 300 metres, and in the vertical plane it is even less, but the effects of the latter are significant.

First of all, the area of land that has to be acquired is considerably reduced, which is an important consideration at a time when many people are concerned at the loss of our rural acres. Much less spoil will also have to be removed from the area. The 1989 plans would have involved removing 3m cubic metres of material, which corresponds to some 200,000 lorry movements.

The new plans should reduce the volume to 100,000 cubic metres, and some of this might even be absorbed in the construction of noise bunds alongside the line.

In the course of the last year a

A view through the Castle Hill section of the South Running Tunnel. The reinforcing rods for the final in situ concrete lining are being fixed inside the yellow plastic waterproofing membrane

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Railway Times | www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/archive

Four tracks will emerge from the portal of the reversing loop in the middledistance, fanning out to enter eight loading and unloading platforms. In the centre, work progresses on Overbridge No. 1 noise prediction model was being prepared, and this has now been validated by measurements made alongside the TGV-A line in France.

Work has also shown that simple noise fences or bunds will reduce the emissions by up to 10dB(A), thus halving the perceived noise levels. The noise from the link will thus be less than that from existing railways in Kent, supporting the many comments I have made on this subject.

long one beginning at Swanley, a 450ómetre one at Warren Wood remains, between Hollingbourne and Harrietsham. The biggest visual change is that the embankment taking the line across the Boxley Valley in the 1989 plans has been replaced with a viaduct, 750 metres long with a maximum height of 19 metres (62ft) above the ground. The Royal Fine Arts Commission will be asked to advice on its detailed design.

The 1990 plan will also benefit those who will use the line, primarily by eliminating several small tunnels, the pressure pulses from which will inevitably be felt inside the trains. In addition to the tunnel under Ashford, and the

Initially there appeared to be some adverse reaction locally to this idea of a viaduct, but, as Gil Howarth, the BR Project Director, pointed out. many others throughout the country have long since been ëlistedí, including

The western end of the Channel Tunnel earlier in the year. The North Running Tunnel is on the left, the South one in the centre

Out benath the Channel workers prepare to move the North Running Tunnel TBM through the British Cross-Over Cavern, so it can continue towards France the one built by "Concrete Bob" McAlpine at Glenfinnan. That at Boxley will be a relatively low one, but some of the really high ones on the German Neubaustrecke are magnificent additions to the landscape, with massive arches breaking up the succession of vertical piers. Overall, the new proposals in this area will reduce the cost of this part of the Rail Link by 10-20 per cent, but specific figures are not available.

Dollands Moor Channel Tunnel Freight Sidings under construction, showing two temporary access sidings in place for the unloading of material for the Cheriton Passenger Terminal

West of Swanley, the alignment of the Rail Link is still not fixed, and BR will be reporting its preferred option to the government in the spring of I991.

This is after discussions have been completed with the syndicates advocating routes via the north bank of the Thames. These are well under way, and involve, among other things, re-costing the proposed Stratford terminus as a through station, as it has been accepted that the second terminal has to be at Kings Cross to give the necessary interchanges for the rest of the country. For that reason too, the existing voluntary purchase scheme still applies to the Warwick Garden area in South London, which could be the junction point for a connection to Kings Cross from the existing boat-train routes. The implications of the high-speed line for commuter and leisure travel in London were also mentioned, and BR considered that, in addition to being the countryís international rail link, it equally formed ìa new line for the people of Kentî.

Some excellent information material about the plans and

implications is now available, and copies were sent to all households concerned on 13 September. In addition, a mobile information office was to go on a four-week tour of the villages along the line, and parallel consultations were taking place with MP5, the Kent County Council and the district councils, and local pressure groups.

Tunnel breakthrough AT 11.40 on 19 September, the second of the British running tunnel TBMs broke through into the crossover cavern, having covered the 7.8km from Shakespeare Cliff in just I5 months. In addition to the completion of this section of the operating tunnel, the logistics management of the construction transport system will be further improved now the two sets of narrow-gauge tracks have made physical contact in the cavern.

On the same date, the North Running Tunnel TBM was already 150 metres beyond the cavern, heading for the meeting-point in mid-Channel. •

Puzzle page answers "Quadrant" nameplate quiz

Engine sheds boxword

For those stumped by the ‘Quadrant’ quiz, the solution to the clues is prined below.

This contest required some pretty extensive knowledge and sorted the men from the boys! It also caused us some blushes, however - for the surprising number of readers who did manage to complete it found two locations in the grid which even our eagle-eyed compiler had missed, making 57 in all.

A: Winchester B: Kentish C: Herbert D: Walker E: Airtour F; University G: Britain H; Selhurst I: Broadlands J: Royal K: Canterbury L: Express Additional answers: Stewarts Lane The Royal Alex

The two extra depots made up once the spare 17 letters are unscrambled are Barton Hill and Currock, and the correct solution to the unusual historical link between the two — i.e. that both were closed as steam sheds many

years ago and turned over to wagon shop use, only to go back, in part, to locomotive use in recent years!

The full list of 57 sheds and stabling points hidden in the grid are as follows: Aberdare, Ayr, Barry, Buxton, Cambois, Canton, Cathays, Chart Leacon, Chester, Crewe, Derby, Devons Road, Dundee, Eastfield, Edge Hill, Ely, Exeter, Feltham, Gateshead, Goole, Heaton, Hither Green, Inverness, Knottingley, Laira, Landore, Leith, Lincoln, Llanelly, Longsight, Machynlleth, March, Margam, Neath, Newton Heath, Northwich, Old Oak Common, Oxford, Perth, Reading, Ryde, Ryecroft,

St Blazey, Severn Tunnel Junction, Stoke Cockshute, Stowmarket, Stratford, Sunderland South Dock, Swindon, Temple Mills, Tinsley. Toton, Tyseley, Ware, Wath, Yoker, York.

Crossword Across 1 Ashburton 8 Connel 9 Sterth 12 & 25 Auto Train 13 Gable 14 Bear 17 Holbeck 18 Express 19 Novelty 22 Horwich 24 Earl

26 Vera 29 Cement 30 Apollo 31 Ironstone Down 2 Sand 3 Bulwark 4 Resolve 5 Owen 6 Postal 7 Steele 10 Mawhinney 11 Crosshead 15 Mells 16 Opera 20 Verney 21 Yarnton 22 Haivatt 23 Iseult 27 SECR 28 Down

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