Innehållsförteckning för Vol 36 No 5 - May 2022 från Backtrack

HI-DE-HI HOLIDAYS Holiday Camps served by train (Colour-Rail.com 362014) (Colour-Rail.com SC1577) (J. S. Gilks/Colour-Rail.com 126741)…

PART TWO STRIKES, OVERCROWDING, FISHWIVES AND A ZEPPELIN THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF THE NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY’S TYNESIDE ELECTRICS BY ROB LANGHAM (North Eastern Railway Association) Accidents As an electric train running about five minutes late entered New Bridge station on the morning of Tuesday 10th March 1908, the passengers who got up to leave as soon as possible soon lost their balance, some falling over, as the three-car train hit the buffers at the end of No.4 platform. The shock of the collision caused panes of glass to be broken and although “every one in the train received a more or less severe shock” most continued to travel to work, although two returned home - both suffering from shock and one of them with a bruised elbow. The damaged…

WORKING THE WENSLEYDALE STONE The Wensleydale branch, heading west from Northallerton on the East Coast Main Line, was opened in stages from 1848 until eventually joining the Settle-Carlisle route at Garsdale in 1878. Most of the branch closed to passengers in 1954 apart from the Garsdale-Hawes link which lasted until 1959. Until 1992 limestone traffic from Redmire to the Teesside steel industry ensured the line’s continued survival after which the heritage Wensleydale Railway took it over, though the occasion transport of military vehicles for the Ministry of Defence in connection with the Catterick garrison continues as required. These photographs of the limestone trains were taken in 1989 by KEITH DUNGATE…

A SUPERSEDED IDEA THE FOUR AGES OF THE STRATFORD & MORETON TRAMWAY BY DAVID ANDREWS (R. K. Cope/R. S. Carpenter Collection) The First Age: 1826 to 1852 Bringing the Industrial Revolution to Moreton-in-Marsh One of the earliest railways in one of the most unlikely locations, the Stratford & Moreton had an ambition unfortunately unmatched by the economic potential of the small towns it linked. Stratford-upon-Avon instead of Stockton- on-Tees or Liverpool. Moreton-in-Marsh and Shipston-on-Stour instead of Darlington or Manchester. Despite this the railway persisted for many years, lingering to the dawn of the twentieth century. Its long bucolic existence belied the fact that it started as one of the most advanced railways in the country. Long rolled malleable iron rails were used throughout, unlike the Stockton & Darlington that still…

OUT WITH THE ‘COUNTY’ SET The Great Western Railway ‘County’ Class 4-6-0s, introduced by F. W. Hawksworth in 1945, were that railway’s most powerful two-cylinder 4-6-0s and may be considered an enlargement of the already successful ‘Halls’, in particular Hawksworth’s ‘Modified Halls’ of 1944. Although never rivalling the status of the ‘Castles’ and ‘Kings’, they were fine performers not least on the demanding routes in the West of England. The ‘Counties’ totalled no more than 30 locomotives, making them perhaps not the most widely photographed of GWR main line classes, but here is a selection at a range of typical locations. (R. Patterson/Colour-RaiLcom 314359) (P. M. Alexander/Colour-Rail.com BRW1030) (G. Parry Collection/Colour-Rail.com 313118) (Trevor Owen/Colour-RaiLcom/390182) (C. Hogg/Colour-Rail.com BRW1252) (Trevor Owen/Colour-Rail.com BRW419) (J. M. Cramp/Colour-Rail.com BRW2034) (Colour-Rail.com 320906)…

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES BY STANDARD GAUGE TO BLAENAU FFESTINIOG Blaenau Ffestiniog is best known today as the terminus of the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway but access to the Welsh slate capital was also sought by the mighty London & North Western and Great Western Railways. The LNWR was first into Blaenau, its branch from Llandudno Junction opening in stages to 1879. The GWR branch from Bala Junction (on the Ruabon-Barmouth route) to Festiniog opened in 1882, with the narrow gauge Festiniog & Blaenau Railway being purchased and converted to standard gauge the following year. JOHN SPENCER GILKS visited both these branches.…

A PHILADELPHIA STORY The story of the Lambton, Hetton & Joicey Railway and its locomotive works and shed at Philadelphia, Co. Durham, was set down in our May 2017 issue (Vol.31 No.5). The Lambton Collieries railway system, of course, passed to the National Coal Board in 1947 and the Philadelphia works closed towards the end of 1989, the mining industry by then being in decline. However, long before that DAVID SUTCLIFFE paid a visit on 8th June 1961.…

PART ONE FROM RUGBY TO PETERBOROUGH THE HEYDAY AND DEMISE OF A CROSS-COUNTRY ROUTE BY STEPHEN G. ABBOTT (Colour-Rail.com 302117) It seems to the writer that in order to achieve due (or even disproportionate) coverage in railway literature a line needs to be short, jointly-owned, narrow gauge, run through spectacular scenery or have unusual engineering features, locomotives or rolling stock. Little has been written about certain secondary routes which meet none of these criteria, one such is the former London & North Western Railway (LNWR) line from Rugby through Market Harborough to Peterborough. This article attempts to redress the balance, with particular reference to the decline from an established position in the 1950s to eventual closure in 1966. It also describes the background to a typical Beeching-era closure and the…

THE LNWR’S GLASSON DOCK BRANCH A PROMISE UNFULFILLED BY JEFFREY WELLS (John Alsop Collection) Background This is an account of an insignificant port on the Lancashire coast: Glasson Dock, situated where the waters of the River Lune empty into Morecambe Bay. Nationally unimportant though the port was, the mighty London & North Western Railway Company (the ‘Premier Line’) considered it important enough to connect Glasson Dock by a line of rail to the county town of Lancaster. The line was just over five A long and represented a tiny portion of Richard Moon’s empire in 1883. Before Glasson Dock became a port, it was known by the name of Old Glasson, a simple settlement of farmers and fishermen. Nearby Lancaster had long been a river port but the Lune was…

THE CAREER OF JAMES ROBB SCOTT REASSESSING ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE ON THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY BY MURRAY TREMELLEN (John Alsop Collection) The attribution of locomotive designs is problem often discussed among railway enthusiasts. It is well-known that, although railway companies officially attributed their locomotive designs to their Chief Mechanical Engineer, the gentleman in question often took little, if any, part in the detailed design work. A similar problem arises in architecture: whilst buildings are often attributed to a single, prominent architect, such individuals usually work at the head of a large practice, with a team of draughtsmen to support them. The extent to which the architect takes a personal role in the design process varies considerably between different practices and often between individual commissions. Thus there is considerable scope for debate about…

THE BRIDGE HIGH ABOVE THE FORTH Britain’s most famous railway bridge photographed by GAVIN MORRISON…

THE WYMINGTON D EVIATION BY PETER BUTLER Photographs from the author’s collection George Hudson, despite all his faults, was also a visionary It was his foresight which saw that by getting the three railway companies that met at Derby, namely the North Midland, the Birmingham & Derby Junction and the Midland Counties to merge, the outcome could only be of benefit to all three. So in 1844 we have the birth of the Midland Railway with Hudson as Chairman By now the use of railways to transport large amounts of coal around the country was increasing. One of the largest markets was London. With no local coal supplies in the immediate area, the majority of the capital’s coal came down the North Sea in a fleet of small, usually overloaded,…