Innehållsförteckning för Vol 35 No 6 - June 2021 från Backtrack

Editorial Passing Water on Dillicar Troughs You commented favourably on the presentation of an archive photograph instead of an Editorial on several occasions last year, so here we go with another one this month. Dillicar water troughs, south of Tebay, offered welcome refreshment for locomotives heading north through the fells on the West Coast Main Line having completed the Grayrigg bank and now facing the demanding climb to Shap Summit, and for locomotives which had surmounted the southbound ascent. LMS ‘Coronation’ Pacific No.46254 City of Stoke-on-Trent (the subject of an article in our April issue) is replenishing the tank while heading an express from Euston on 10th May 1956 and encounters Class 5 4-6-0 No.45414 on its way down from the summit.…

ON A JOURNEY TO NOWHERE: THE ORIGINS AND EFFECTS OF THE SERPELL REPORT BY GEOFFREY SKELSEY LVO On Thursday 20th January 1983 a colleague and I travelled early to London to collect our copies of the Serpell Report from HMSO in High Holborn, retreating to a nearby café for a preliminary study. Our first impression was of the text itself, dense with statistical tables and – unlike Beeching’s ‘Reshaping’ report, which has a seductive logic – its tone was disjointed. It set out well the reasoning behind the Inquiry and the issues facing the railways and was more thorough and analytical than it is given credit for now. However, a narrow interpretation of its remit meant that it largely presented alternatives, not firm conclusions. Standing out, as we shall see…

MIDLAND WORKERS The Midland Railway was known for its huge stock of 0-6-0 goods engines – over half the total of the company’s locomotives handed over to the LMS at grouping. Many lasted long into the British Railways era. Two types feature here: the Class 3F originated at the end of the Johnson era in 1903 and the Class 4F was introduced by Fowler in 1911 and subsequently perpetuated by the LMS to an eventual total of no fewer than 772 engines, the last as late as 1941. This selection was photographed by GAVIN MORRISON.…

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES WANDERINGS SOUTH AND WEST Station photographs from the JOHN SPENCER GILKS Collection…

STEAMING THROUGH SUSSEX We welcome a new colour contributor GERALD DANIELS who took these views around Sussex in the 1960s. Notes are by Michael S. Welch.…

EXPRESS ELECTRIC RAILWAYS BY ALISTAIR F. NISBET (Wikipedia) At the turn of the nineteenth century there were many great trunk railways from the North and the West of England to London and these tend to have followed roughly the routes of the great roads which also all converged on the same city. From south of the Thames the position was similar with these shorter lines again all terminating in Central London. Neither in the south nor further north was there any equivalent fast way to travel from East to West – from the Eastern Counties the fastest services tended to run via London. There had certainly been routes across the Pennines for many years but none of these could be described as being fast and even in 2020 there is…

PART TWO STEAM RAIL MOTORS AND PUSH-PULL AUTO TRAINS IN THE WREXHAM DISTRICT GREAT WESTERN AUTO TRAINS 1906-1962 BY IAN TRAVERS (H. F. Wheeller Collection/Roger Carpenter) Apioneer Swindon auto train conversion entered traffic on the Great Western Railway less than a year after the first steam railmotors. Deployment in the summer of 1905 was to the Southall-Brentford branch in West London where seating capacity of ‘powered carriages’ had proved less than requirements. For similar reasons push-pull fitted auto sets were soon working through urban Plymouth and Devonport. One of twelve newly-fitted Class ‘517’ 0-4-2Ts went to Croes Newydd shed, Wrexham, in the autumn of 1905. Policies matched those of other rail groups seeking to reduce costs, compete with electric trams yet improve evident shortcomings of steam railmotors relating to available…

POULTON-LE-FYLDE IN FOCUS BY JEFFREY WELLS (Noel Coates Collection) “The town of Poulton-le-Fylde is a small, irregular and old fashioned place, on a gentle eminence, with the tower of the church rising midst of its seven streets.” Edward Baines, The History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, Vol.2 1870 “By the last century [19th], markets for cattle and cloth were being held on 3rd February, 13th April, and 5th November, with a weekly fair on Mondays; such was the importance of the weekly market that it was augmented in 1847 by the introduction of a fortnightly cattle fair supplied by Irish dealers operating through the new port of Fleetwood.” D. Foster, Poulton-le-Fylde – A Nineteenth Century Market Town, February 1878 These two descriptions of the town adequately sum…

JAMES FENWICK - STATION MASTER ROGER JERMY tells the tale of a rural railwayman who met with a sad end (Author’s Collection) James Fenwick was the son of Robert and Elizabeth Fenwick who lived at Greystead in remote, rural Northumberland. Greystead was located almost exactly half way between the villages of Bellingham and Falstone in what became part of the North British Railway territory south of the Scottish Border. (The Morpeth Herald newspaper later described James’s place of birth, in his obituary notice, as ‘Dalby Castle Mill’ near Bellingham; presumably this is near to Greystead). Robert and Elizabeth had five children of whom James was the second-eldest, being born in about 1848. His elder brother was John, born in about 1847 according to the 1851 census records. (This elder brother…

SOUTH EAST BY NORTH BRITISH – TO KELSO BY A. J. MULLAY (J. M. Boyes ARPT) Kelso is a historic town in the Scottish Borders which was reached by branch lines built by two different companies, from opposite directions. Kelso station featured in two major rail operations 22 years apart, but never fulfilled the dreams of the railway builders so determined to reach it. The burgh of Kelso is distinguished as a ducal community with an impressive continental-style central square and a ruined 13th century abbey. Nearby, the impressive Floors Castle overlooks the confluence of the Tweed and the Teviot. Not surprisingly, the Guardian newspaper recently described Kelso as “a mighty fine town”. From the west, the North British Railway built towards the burgh in the mid-nineteenth century, while the…

SIXTY YEARS AGO – FARNBOROUGH HOLIDAY – 1961 ROBERT CASSELDEN recalls some observations on the South Western main line. (C. Hogg/Colour-Rail.com 309858) The summer of 1961 was probably the last opportunity to record the dying embers of the Southern Railway’s classic motive power in main line action. Ruling the roost in the 1930s, the ‘King Arthurs’, ‘Lord Nelsons’ and ‘Schools’ would all be gone by the end of 1962, leaving the ‘West Countries’, ‘Battle of Britains’ and ‘Merchant Navies’ to continue the fight until July 1967. British Railways Standard classes of both the 4-6-0 and 2-6-0 configuration accelerated the decline – unlike their neighbours on the Western Region, the Southern enginemen seemed to get on with the BR classes rather well! At the end of my first year at Yeovil…

SCENES FROM SLIGO NOTES BY DAVID MOSLEY (Colour-Rail.com FIE04801) The railway reached Sligo, ‘the second town of Connacht’ on the west coast of Ireland, in December 1862 with the arrival of the Midland, Great Western Railway of Ireland’s ‘principal’ line – the company’s ‘main line’ went to Galway – from Dublin Broadstone. Access to the Sligo Quays was provided by a steeply-graded branch line. In November 1882 the Sligo, Leitrim & Northern Counties Railway reached Sligo using running powers over the MGWR from Carrignagat Junction, six miles out of Sligo. In January 1923 the ordered nature of operations at Sligo was interrupted by actions in the Irish Civil War. The station and two passenger trains stabled there were destroyed by fire and explosions and a number of locomotives were ‘let…