Innehållsförteckning för Vol 36 No 1 - January 2022 från Backtrack

FORGOTTEN BRANCHES OF NORTH EAST WALES PART FIVE THE MOLD TO BRYMBO LINE BY TONY ROBINSON (Elvet Pierce Collection) Historical background As in the previous parts of the ‘Forgotten Branches of North Wales Wales’ articles, the initial incentives to construct railways in these areas of difficult terrain were primarily to transport the varied mineral products of the area’s numerous mining and quarrying concerns to their further processing plants and/or for onward shipping to their mainly English markets. The Mold to Brymbo line was certainly no exception as along its final route there existed at least 30 sites which were either producing coal, cannel, * brick, tile, fire clay, terra cotta, limestone, silica, lead and iron ore just to name the recorded products. Coupled to the above outputs there were several…

A DAY AT THE RACES LMS TRAFFIC ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE MEETING AT TOWCESTER ON WHIT MONDAY 1939 BY BARRY TAYLOR (H. Hall, courtesy M. Bentley) Special Trains Notices are a fascinating source of information for the railway historian, providing access to, amongst other things, details of additional trains and alterations to normal services which would otherwise have gone unnoticed. One recently acquired example is a London Midland & Scottish Railway ERO 19102 for the period from Friday 27th May to Friday 2nd June 1939 – the Whit Monday Bank Holiday weekend – and this includes the arrangements made by the Western Division of the LMS for the traditional Whit Monday horse-racing meeting at Towcester in Northamptonshire. Towcester station had been opened in 1866 by the Northampton & Banbury Junction Railway…

THE 1848 ENGINE DRIVERS’ DISPUTE IN THE NEWSPAPERS BY DAVID HIRST The background to the dispute and the first week of industrial action Though short-lived, lasting for less than a month, references to the London & North Western Railway Southern Division engine drivers’ dispute of 1848 can be found both in literature about the LNWR and more general discussion of the growth of railway trade unionism.1 Much of the information about the dispute has been gleaned from LNWR Committee Books, but for the general public newspapers were the main source of information and as the Chairman of the LNWR Board, W. Carr Glyn, said to the 1848 Half-Yearly shareholders’ meeting, which took place while the dispute was in progress, it had “occupied the attention of the public very considerably”.2]. Both…

THIRD RAIL ON MERSEYSIDE Following on from our article last October on the creation of ‘Merseyrail’, these photographs by TOM HEAVYSIDE show some of the late 1970s electric trains introduced in the Liverpool area – modern at the time but now being phased out.…

THE EARL AND THE HONOURABLE LADY THE NOBILITY AND THE RAILWAYS OF HUDDERSFIELD BY DAVID JOY (Kirklees Metropolitan Council Arts & Libraries Division) The 5th Earl Fitzwilliam owned Wentworth Woodhouse, Britain’s longest stately mansion, and had enormous wealth increasing by the week. The Honourable Lady was his sister-in-law Isabella Ramsden, whose family famously claimed to own the whole of Huddersfield except for one house. Without these two aristocrats, the town would never have had one of the finest of all classical stations. Born in 1786, the 5th Earl had a spectacular stroke of luck. The Fitzwilliams’ Yorkshire estates – over 20,000 acres in total – were found to straddle the Barnsley seam, the main artery of the Yorkshire coalfield. The discovery coincided with massive demand for coal fostered by the…

‘KINGFISHER’ IN FLIGHT Following their illustrious careers on the East Coast Main Line a number of the LNER A4 Pacifics found new employment on the Glasgow–Perth–Aberdeen three-hour expresses which they successfully performed with their customary aplomb. One of the last two survivors was No.60024 Kingfisher, photographed here by ALAN REEVE…

IN THE EAST MIDLANDS WITH JSG Photographs from the JOHN SPENCER GILKS Collection FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES…

PART ONE TAKE THE TRAIN FOR THE BOAT THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BOAT TRAIN BY PHILIP BENHAM (Colour-Rail.com 340592) The relationship between trains and boats goes back a long way. In that cradle of railways, North East England, the very earliest plateways and tramways were built to move coal from the mines to either a canal or direct to the coast for onward transport by barge or ship. Even when railways started to be developed for wider purposes, transport by water was still important. The basic roads of the early 1800s were not designed for moving heavy equipment such as steam engines, with the easiest way to move these from the point of construction to a new railway often involving water – be this canal, coastal shipping or…

SKYFALL Photographs by GAVIN MORRISON…

ASPECTS OF THE MANCHESTER & LEEDS RAILWAY PART TWO BY JEFFREY WELLS Photographs from the author’s collection unless otherwise stated. The second opening – Leeds to Hebden Bridge “On Monday last [5th October] pursuant to public notice, the great and important line of railway opened for the conveyance of passengers from Leeds to Hebden Bridge – thus completing, with the exception of nine miles, the entire distance from Leeds to Manchester.” The Standard, 12th October 1840 A traveller from Leeds journeyed ten miles from Leeds by the North Midland Railway (NMR) to Normanton, where the train joined the Manchester & Leeds line to Wakefield, 27 miles from Hebden Bridge. The unfinished nine miles referred to in The Standard’s report lay, of course, between Hebden Bridge and Littleborough, and included the…

‘SCHOOL’ TIES The Southern Railway’s three-cylinder ‘Schools’ Class have been hailed as Britain’s finest 4-4-0s. Introduced in 1930, they were intended to fill the need for express locomotives of modest axleload but still able to work heavy trains at good speeds. R. E. L. Maunsell combined a scaled-down ‘Lord Nelson’ with a shortened ‘King Arthur’ boiler and the result was a design of outstanding capability. (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints) (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints) (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints) (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints) (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints) (Marcus Eavis/Online Transport Archive) (Marcus Eavis/Online Transport Archive) (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints) (Dave Cobbe Collection/Rail Photoprints)…

IPSWICH A HUB FOR SUFFOLK RAILWAYS PART TWO BY BRUCE LAWS (Mike Boakes) In Part One of this article (November) I regaled readers with the story of the lines and routes worked by Ipswich crews which opened up to 1859. In this concluding part I will bring the story of the East Suffolk line up to date and deal with the other lines and routes worked by Ipswich men opened from 1859. Also on 1st June 1859 a six-mile branch line was opened from the East Suffolk Railway north of Wickham Market station to Framlingham. This line crossed what is now the main A12 road on the level at Marlesford. Until the arrival on the scene of the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway almost 50 years later, Framlingham provided the railhead for…