Indholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2023 i Traction

Whilst the cover date of this issue of TRACTION is January and February 2023, publishing schedules dictate that actual publication date is well before the end of 2022. I’d like therefore to wish all our readers and advertisers an enjoyable Christmas and a successful 2023. We start with an article by Jonathan King about the evenings he spent watching trains on Rattery Bank in Devon with a surprising amount of freight action. David Hayes concludes his two part article about milk traffic to London, whilst a related photo feature by David Ratcliffe turns the spotlight on the milk tankers used on these services. Adrian Willats recalls his travels using a North Western Rail Rover in 1993 and reminds us just how much has changed in this part of the country…

Six-wheel milk tanks were amongst the most notable types of rolling stock to be seen on British Rail, both in appearance but also in the distinctive noise they made when running at speed over jointed track for, although some four-wheel milk tanks had been built in the early 1930’s, by the end of the decade the Big Four railway companies had all settled on using six-wheelers for their bulk milk traffic. Eventually over seven hundred would be constructed while BR would add a further eighty-two six-wheel milk tanks to the fleet in the early 1950’s. The great majority of these tanks measured 20ft 6in over headstocks with an overall wheelbase of 13ft and they were able to run at 60 mph. All were vacuum-braked and the underframes built by the…

in partnership with On the lookout for a second-hand layout to adapt and repurpose, Mark Thatcher discovered an ideal end-to-end layout with the track already laid and DCC-controlled and key buildings already in place. Looking to relive memories of an early commute into Liverpool Street, he set to work creating ‘Upham Market’. At the start of this particular model railway journey, Mark had a vision of what he was hoping to achieve, based solely on his recollections of the line. The layout is simply a 3D-picture of what he witnessed during his frequent rail commute, as only he remembers it. The track is all Peco Code 100 and features 13 express points, which give a gentle flow to the movement of the stock across the various roads. All the points…

Irish Railway Models has announced the Irish Rail Mk. 2B and 2C Intercity coaches in OO/4mm gauge as its next rolling stock project. The announcement was made at the Dublin Model Railway Exhibition organised by the Model Railway Society of Ireland. The coaches are already tooled and have been part of IRMs plans from the outset of its Mk. 2 coach project. A total of eight coaches will be offered in IR livery and eight in later IE livery, sold in sets of four coach ‘rake builder’ packs. Each pack will be priced at €269.99 each. Delivery is slated for Q4 2023 and demand is expected to be high. Accurascale added, “while these are an Irish-outline model, it does offer a key indicator to a future Accurascale product.”…

DC Rail is a subsidiary company of Cappagh which specialises in infrastructure maintenance and renewals. At the time of writing DC Rail operates Class 60 locomotives Nos. 60028, 60029, 60046 and 60055 to power various spoil and aggregate workings around the south and midlands, alongside its fleet of Class 56 locomotives. A further fourteen Class 60s have been purchased from DB Cargo with 60099 moving to UKRL at Leicester in April 2022. The remainder were moved to Loughborough in June 2022 for storage or evaluation for repair. These were 60008, 60009, 60013, 60022, 60038, 60057, 60061, 60064, 60070, 60075, 60080, 60090, 60098. Gavin Morrison’s photographs show a selection of the locomotives at work doing the job they were designed to undertake.…

I grew up in Tigley just west of Totnes and next to the steeply graded Rattery bank. This was one of the infamous ‘Devon banks’, presenting a continuous 4.5 mile uphill climb for all westbound (Down) trains leaving Totnes. In steam days Down trains were regularly assisted up the bank by a pilot engine (or banking engine in the case of goods trains). Even in the late 1990s Rattery bank still created a challenge for Down trains. The 1999 sectional appendix even included special instructions for HST sets running on one power car. It was doubtful that HSTs on one engine with eight trailer cars would manage to get up Rattery bank if calling at Totnes, the sectional appendix stating that such trains“… must not stop at Totnes or be…

The Mk. 4 was the final design of high-speed passenger rolling stock to emerge from a British Rail drawing board. Their stressed steel bodyshells were built by British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) and Società Italiana Ernesto Breda, and vehicles ran on Swiss SIG BT41 bogies with triple disc brakes per axle. Following introduction, the ride quality of vehicles was found to be unacceptably rough, with coaches jolting side-to-side. Some Derby test workers felt that BREL’s T4 bogie, as fitted under the DVT and the Class 158 and 159 units, might have proved a better option, but BREL was unable to provide a commercial guarantee on their use. A combination of bogie damper changes to the SIG BT41s yielded better results, and after installing dampers between coaches too, the vehicles settled…

The answer is that the last of the first generation or ‘Heritage’ DMUs to operate were the Class 101 and, as they ended their days around Glasgow, some of that fleet were sent south to Manchester to assist in the last rites there. Ian’s involvement was with the owning leasing company and managing a controlled run down of the fleets. In TRACTION 272 the Glasgow area was highlighted but in this issue it is the turn of the Manchester Class 101s. Manchester Locals This fleet was the largest inherited by the leasing company and at the beginning in 1994 it was some considerable size. Even towards the end it was still quite large with twenty two units still based at Longsight in 2000. The fleet was made up of a…

By the late 1970s, milk by rail had a limited future. Forwarding points as of 1978 consisted of Carmarthen (Milk Marketing Board), Chard Junction, Lostwithiel, St. Erth, Torrington and Totnes (all Unigate), and Marshfield (Cambrian Dairies). It’s not too difficult to notice a number of omissions, such as Felin Fach, Newcastle Emlyn and Pont Llanio in West Wales where traffic from all three succumbed in the early 1970s. A well known South West omission is that of Hemyock where traffic ended at the end of October 1975, thus bringing about the closure of the picturesque Culm Valley branch from Tiverton Junction. Another is Seaton Junction. London destinations for milk as of 1978 still included half a dozen locations dotted around the capital: Ilford, Vauxhall and Wood Lane (all Unigate), Cricklewood…

It is a wet and blustery Saturday afternoon, the 26th June, 1993. Trudging along Blackpool promenade are myself and my friend Robert Martin, fellow transport enthusiast and good friend since meeting on a footbridge over the railway near our sixth form college fifteen years earlier. We had travelled up by train from the Portsmouth area, armed with a week’s rail rover, which started the following day. Arriving at our accommodation, we settled in and stoically decided that if it was going to be wet and/or windy all week, then we would simply have to make the best of it. Luckily, things began to improve before the day was out, with our evening tram pictures (print and slide in those pre-digital days) looking like they were taken on a much better…

1980s to date The 1980s seem to have been a period of consolidation with little change to the make up of the CFL fleet, other than repainting in a new, bolder corporate livery of maroon for locomotives, green and cream for hauled stock and maroon and cream for painted multiple units. The latter livery came into its own from 1990 when CFL took delivery of 22 two car EMUs of class 2000. These were almost identical to the SNCF units of class Z11500, a type that interworked with them between Luxembourg and Thionville, for example. The 2000s worked everywhere in Luxembourg where there were overhead wires. From 2006 they were fitted with air conditioning. These useful units still survive, but mainly on branch lines, all of which have now been…

“Play up Pompey!” So go the Pompey chimes which echo around the stadium on football season Saturdays when the Portsmouth Football Club faithful cheer on their team. However, our interest is directed more towards the area adjacent to the football ground where the depot and sidings are located alongside the line that passes by towards Fratton station, Portsmouth and Southsea station and eventually Portsmouth Harbour terminus. The objects of our interest back in the nineteen eighties and into the nineteen nineties were the various freight workings that kept the rails shiny. Fratton Yard received freight train workings from Eastleigh and further along the Coastway lines. Most trains worked into Fratton Yard and had a change of locomotive from diesel to Class 73 power and vice versa, the Class 73 electro-diesels…