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SOUTHERN FREIGHT BODMIN & WADEBRIDGE IN FULL COLOUR
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PLUS GRESLEY ‘B17’ BRADFORD CITY: ITS LIFE & TIMES LOCAL LINES OF STRATHKELVIN AND STRATHBLANE
LANDORE SHED: A 60 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE
BLACKPOOL’S SUMMER WEEKDAY TRAFFIC
No 382
June 2021
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Trains of thought
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The life and times of Gresley ‘B17’ Bradford City One of the iconic ‘Footballers’, Bradford City, proved to be the last ‘B17’ in traffic, but as Andrew Wilson relates, the lightweight 4-6-0s had a difficult gestation
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Landore shed: A 60 year retrospective Completed by the GWR in 1874 and best known for its top link passenger locomotives, Alan Williams looks back at the engine shed at the heart of Swansea’s main line activities through to its closure on 11 June 1961.
Cover: In June 1960 ex-L&SWR Beattie ‘0298’ class 2-4-0WT No 30586 is seen mid-shunt at Wadebridge while removing a van from the rear of a passenger train, the 9.02am arrival from Bodmin. Built in 1875 and intended for suburban passenger work, No 30586 was one of the last trio of these ‘Well Tanks’ used in the Wadebridge area, the class first operating here in 1893. Keith Pirt, courtesy Book Law Publishing
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After working into Blackpool (Central), Accrington-based Stanier ‘4MT’ 2-6-4T No 42619 rests on the nearby shed in March 1959. Keith Pirt, courtesy Book Law Publications
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Treasure hunt competition
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STEAM DAYS in Colour 198: Southern freight – Bodmin & Wadebridge duties The Beattie ‘Well Tanks’ proved the perfect fit for the specific needs of the lightly-laid and sharply-curved Wenford Bridge mineral branch of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway – we look at their duties in BR days.
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Steam Days subscriptions
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Blackpool’s summer weekday traffic Boasting two termini, Swedebasher considers high season Monday to Friday railway operations into, and out of, this Fylde seaside resort in the days before widespread dieselisation.
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The local lines of Strathkelvin and Strathblane: An NBR perspective In the hinterland of the Edinburgh & Glasgow main line, John Macnab offers an overview of the railways that reached Kilsyth, the Kelvin Valley Railway and Kilsyth & Bonnybridge Railway, and their Blane Valley Railway neighbour.
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Tail Lamp – readers’ letters
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JUNE 2021
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Next month... Carlisle’s LNER engine sheds: North and east The GWR’s ‘Super Saloons’ Recycled ROD tenders End of steam in Kent – 1961 Glasgow suburban steam in full colour On sale Thursday, 17 June 2021
his issue of Steam Days takes us to Blackpool and the everyday workings in this seaside town, a resort with a longer holiday season due to the Blackpool illuminations that generate crowds, mainly from the north. Another attraction of Blackpool for those visiting was the amount of shows you could attend where many regular performers on television had a show, these being advertised on the trams travelling up and down the seafront. For the transport enthusiast in the 1950s and 1960s it was a paradise, with steam-hauled trains in abundance, tramcars (specially decorated in the illumination season), and local buses and coaches. During the illuminations period the parking areas set aside for incoming coaches would house hundreds of vehicles. Many special trains and regular long-distance services converged on Blackpool in its long summer season from far and wide, and their engines would go on shed after arrival, providing an ideal situation for the trainspotter. For visitors, attractions included Blackpool Tower with its famous ballroom, its aquarium and circus. There was also the Pleasure Beach with its rides, and the excellent sandy beach, complete with children’s donkey rides. If you really wanted to spoil yourself you could always take a ride in a horse-drawn carriage along the seafront. With so much for us transport enthusiasts to see, we were torn between Blackpool’s North and Central stations or spotting and photographing those wonderful tramcars on the seafront. One needed to be staying in Blackpool for a few days to squeeze in all that the town had to offer. My last visit to Blackpool was after steam had ended there, but my penultimate visit was on a car trip with my eldest son and friends on the Sunday of the weekend of 18/19 November 1967 when chasing the last of the BR ‘Britannia’ Pacifics in the North West. When we arrived at Blackpool shed, by then just a servicing point, there were three ‘8Fs’, Nos 48609, 48381 and 48386, and two diesel locomotives, Nos D267 and D2863. We had arrived there on that Sunday in the late afternoon from Barrow, and after we had checked what was at the servicing point we warmed our hands around a burning brazier in the yard. The depot near Blackpool (Central) had been home to around 60 steam locomotives in 1955, and nearer to 40 in 1959 including six ‘Jubilees’. It also provided locomotives for a smaller shed at Blackpool (North). We had had two great days chasing steam in the North West on that very cold weekend, visiting Copy Pit and Bolton, Rose Gove, Lostock Hall, Carnforth, Tebay, Carlisle and Workington sheds, seeing 434 locomotives (263 steam), including nearly all of the ‘Britannia’ Pacifics, as related in my ‘Bankers and Brits’ article featured in the August 2002 issue of Steam Days – two tiring days, with me doing all of the driving which, during a ‘pea-souper’ fog when heading south down the M6 motorway from Carnforth to Blackpool, was achieved just inches behind two small tail lamps of a lorry that we were following. Happy days!
Steam Days Magazine Outside Blackpool (North) station on 15 October 1960, a flood of passengers leave a terminating tramcar, a Brush Railcoach, and the conductor reaches up to lower the trolley pole and walk it round to change direction in readiness for the return north along Dickson Road, a tram route that would close from 27 October 1963. Meanwhile, the driver of a Ford Consul waits for the busy street to clear. Talbot Road (which gave its name to the railway station between 1872 and 1932) runs across the view beyond the tramcar. A reduced capacity version of Blackpool (North) brought the demolition of the main part of the station in 1973, and in turn the supermarket that took that site is now, in 2021, being swept away and a new tram connection to the railway station being made via Talbot Road. Colour Rail.com/101470
JUNE 2021
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