Saltburn to London Kings Cross

YoucannowtravelbyraildirectlyfromMiddlesbroughto London, but there was a time when you could do that journey starting in Saltburn. You took your seat in the carriage at Saltburn and didn’t disembark again until you were at King’s Cross. Although it was possible to do this at various times until the mid-1960s, the particular service we are looking at here is one we know a great deal about anditgivesagoodportrayalofsuchajourney.

The service was called The Tees-Thames and it ran every day, though only once a day, leaving Saltburn at 7.05am. The first part of the route involved stopping at Redcar East, Redcar Central, Middlesbrough, Thornaby, Eaglescliffe and York. A ‘feeder’ service allowed passengers from West Hartlepool Station (as it was called then)tojoinatEaglescliffe.

At York there was a pause while five more coaches were added – there being sufficient joining passengers fromYorkanditsenvironsandconnectionsfromthenorth to warrant those extra coaches. This doubling of the train meant the locomotive was changed and the ‘medium mixedtraffic’enginethatwassufficientfromSaltburnwas replaced by a much more powerful mainline express type. The train then ran almost non-stop to King’s Cross, with one stop at Welwyn Garden City. It was scheduled to arrive in London at 12.28pm, meaning passengers from Saltburn would have been on the train 5hrs 20mins. The same journey today, changing at Darlington, would take about3hrs40mins.

The Tees-Thames left King’s Cross on its return journey at 2pm, but on its way north toYork it didn’t stop at Welwyn Garden City. Instead, it stopped at Peterborough and then at Grantham. At York there was a change of engine and removal of five carriages, so passengers for any of the stops from Eaglescliffe to Saltburn needed to be in the correct carriages when boarding the train at King’s Cross. Saltburn passengers wouldstepoutintoStationSquarejustafter7.30pm.

For an extra two shillings (the equivalent of £2 nowadays) you could reserve your seat on the London-bound train if joining it at Saltburn, Redcar Central, Middlesbrough or York. For the return journey youcouldreserveyourseatatKing’sCrossforanystop.

It’s difficult to imagine just who the timetable would appeal to in the Cleveland/Teesside area, and indeed the service didn’t last very long. The Tees-Thames left SaltburnforthefirsttimeonMonday2ndNovember1959 and the final one seems to have been at the end of the summer of 1961 (Saltburn’s Centenary year), less than twoyearsaftertheservicehadcommenced.

All the locomotives used on this service were steam to start with. But the change from coal to diesel electric on British railways was already underway even by the time this service commenced, and in February 1960 the trains ontheYork-Londonpartoftheroutewerepulledbydiesel electrics.

Although the types of steam engines used on this service are well documented, our records are not sufficiently clear to show whether diesels were eventually usedalongthewholeofTheTees-Thamesroute.

As always, many thanks indeed to Ian Colclough for his research – further information is, of course, very welcome.

Paul Sanderson

sanderson-by-the-sea@hotmail.com