Innehållsförteckning för Vol 36 No 10 - October 2022 från Backtrack

An editorial holiday this month! Instead we have a classic photograph by John Spencer Gilks which looks forward to our ‘Pendragon Archive’ feature on JSG’s travels on ‘Southern Lines’ but also harks back to our ‘Island Odyssey’ article in September’s issue. The scene is Ventnor station on the Isle of Wight on 19th April 1959, with London & South Western Railway 02 0-4-4T No.W30 Shorwell moving forward to take water having just arrived with the 3.25pm from Ryde Pier Head. The station’s presence is announced by a Southern Railway sign probably dating from before the war, when the Island’s railway system was more extensive. For example, the line from Sandown to Newport had closed in 1956, those to Bembridge and Freshwater three years earlier. But still, this was where the…

When Richard Maunsell took up the appointment of Chief Mechanical Engineer of the South Eastern & Chatham Railways Managing Committee, his first task was to reorganise Ashford Works whose efficiency had fallen right away following the transfer of staff and equipment from the Chatham’s ‘factory’ at Longhedge in 1911. Experience gained in Ireland on the Great Southern & Western Railway at Inchicore as Works Manager and then Locomotive Superintendent, and his proven administrative ability – something his predecessor Harry Wainwright did not exercise effectively – might well have been among the reasons the SECR board offered him the post It followed, too, the arrival from the London & North Western Railway of Francis Dent as General Manager in 1911, probably at the instigation of Sir Frederick Harrison, a former General…

Introduction “On the morning of October 8th 1952, the 7.31am local passenger train from Tring to Euston crossed from the up slow to the up fast line at Harrow & Wealdstone Station and came to a stand at the up fast platform ” And so begins the relatively brief narration of the UK’s second worst rail disaster, England’s worst and the worst-ever in peacetime, in L. T. C. Rolt’s definitive account of such calamities Red for Danger, first published in 1955. This accident on the London Midland Region of British Railways would be the worst disaster of the BR era and as far as fatalities were concerned would only be surpassed by the infamous events at Quintinshill in May 1915 (Backtrack, May 2015). In the index to Rolt’s book, Harrow…

The Snow Hill station which I knew was everything that New Street was not elegant, spacious and, as far as was possible during the ‘Golden Age of Steam’, clean. Furthermore, since it was built as recently as 1906-1912, it was designed with the benefit of nearly three quarters of a century of experience in running trains in this country. Its layout, logical and easy to understand, was created with ease of operation in mind. It was a typical product of the Edwardian age, which was one of opulence and optimism and which for the Great Western Railway (GWR) was probably its finest hour. In the 1870s and ’80s the Great Western had been for many people something of a joke, the most backward of the great railway companies, certainly of…

Prologue The construction of HS2, the high speed railway line between London and Birmingham, has involved the boring of tunnels, the preparation of cuttings, the destruction of historic sites and ancient woodland, the deployment of aerial photography and the exhumation of ancient troves – from coins to human remains. The stimulus for this article arises from a news item recently reported in the media, which referred to extensive preparations for the HS2 in West London, the so-called Hillingdon Hoard of coins, vases and glassware, unearthed by excavators at work. During the nineteenth century development of railways, there were many examples of the exhumation of ancient burial sites and troves. The following list is not a complete one, but will serve to illustrate the collections of items which might have lain…

Almost as traditional as excursions to Blackpool, but on a smaller scale, were those to Southport, and particularly for the annual Flower Show. This article concentrates on the special traffic run for that event during the last years of steam. Although Southport generated its own summer-long holiday traffic, it tended to peak during the Flower Show. In 1966, ‘67 and ’68 this then world famous floral festival was held on the last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of August. Certain selected towns seemed favoured with special trains as if British Rail had found out where the greatest interest lay. Stalybridge in particular benefited each year, though the train picked up elsewhere too. In 1966, the year for which I have the fullest documentation, the afore-mentioned train, 1T44, ran on the day…

The 0-6-2 tank had become well established on the South Wales railway companies by the time of the grouping and the Great Western Railway persevered with this type with its ‘56XX’ Class which it introduced in 1924. 200 of this class were built up to 1928 and although there were enclaves in the West Midlands, Bristol, Swindon, Westbury and London areas, the majority of the ‘56XXs’ served in South Wales where they became the mainstay of much of the goods and passenger work on the valley lines.…

The London Midland Region era Following nationalisation, it was proposed that Bidston shed should be included in the Western Division of the British Railways Eastern Region and coded 45D with Gorton as its main district depot. However, this proposal was overturned and it was decided that Bidston should be attached to the London Midland Region and coded 6F with Chester as the main district depot. The existing allocation at Bidston was transferred from the ER to the LMR in May 1949.18 Post-1948 there was a steady decline in freight traffic resulting from increased competition by road haulage companies and the increased use of oil as fuel by the shipping companies. This was reflected locally in the closure of several depots on the Birkenhead and Wallasey Docks including the former Great…

While all this scientifically based modernisation was happening on the London & North Eastern Railway, what was the London Midland & Scottish Railway doing? The ‘Claughton’ Class four-cylinder 4-6-0s had been the pinnacle of express locomotive design on the London & North Western Railway and 130 of these elegant locomotives, to many eyes the epitome of Edwardian style, had been built between 1913 and 1921. They suffered from all the worst features of Crewe design philosophy – cheapest construction costs, short-travel valves, lack of attention to detail components, poor lubrication, relatively low boiler pressure (175psi.) and a dreadful ashpan configuration, as mentioned in the previous article. Substitution of the wide Schmidt piston rings (part of the package that came with the superheaters) by multiple narrow ones had improved fuel consumption…