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The furthest East working of Swindon steam


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Lying in bed with 'man flu' under a ceiling that seemed to spin, I set myself to the above task to which I was surprised there was no previous data in a subsequent Google search.

I exclude latter day transfers of panniers for Folkestone Harbour, the use of one on the Highland branch and the handsome maroon painted locos sold to London Transport .

 

Specifically would Swindon condenser fitted tanks have worked through Marc Brunel's ELR Thames Tunnel to New Cross/ New Cross Gate on occasions?

GW locos also, I understand were to be seen at York - but York is well to the west of Paddington, so it has to be somewhere east of the Widened Lines.

 

dh

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Lying in bed with 'man flu' under a ceiling that seemed to spin, I set myself to the above task to which I was surprised there was no previous data in a subsequent Google search.

I exclude latter day transfers of panniers for Folkestone Harbour, the use of one on the Highland branch and the handsome maroon painted locos sold to London Transport .

 

Specifically would Swindon condenser fitted tanks have worked through Marc Brunel's ELR Thames Tunnel to New Cross/ New Cross Gate on occasions?

GW locos also, I understand were to be seen at York - but York is well to the west of Paddington, so it has to be somewhere east of the Widened Lines.

 

dh

 

Redhill.

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And I bet there were GWR locos at Temple Mills, too, on Cross-London transfer freights. They may also have reached Hither Green.

 

Definitely Temple Mills as a 94XX was allocated there for trials at one point.  What is unclear is whether or not GW engines worked to Poplar and Victoria & Albert Docks as it's far from clear who worked those trains from Acton.  GW engines definitely worked to South Lambeth but, from the information I have, it does not look as if they went as far as Hither Green in the days of cross-London yard transfer trips.  They did of course work to Smithfield GWR goods depot which was, as near as I can estimate their most easterly regular destination and certainly the most easterly in the final years of steam operation.

 

 

As far as passenger working were concerned the most easterly destinations in the London area were Aldgate and Victoria.

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I read somewhere that at least one Dean Goods possibly went as far as Folkestone in 1940 (but not en route to France, as it was post-Dunkirk), but it was probably one that had been acquired by the War Department, as it was hauling rail-mounted (?) big guns.

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Actually, it raises an interesting question. How far East did the MoD locos work?

There is a well known picture of a Dean goods in Wien (Vienna). Presumably some made it into Germany either in the final days of the war, or immediately post war. Maybe some made it into Poland and Czechoslovakia? And, as above, several Dean goods made it to China. I feel there's a story out there waiting to be told.

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There is the probably apocryphal story of the time Stratford attempted to borrow a 47xx for a summer Saturday Norfolk Coast extra:

 

"Hello Stratford. This is Liverpool Street here. You know that loco you send down for the Cromer? Well, get it out of here. You know 8-coupled locos aren't allowed in the Street. And another thing.. " "Yes." "You know loco reporting numbers have 5 digits?" "Yes?". "Well this one doesn't . It's got a big brass plate on the cabside with 4 numbers".

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I believe there was a regular steam working in the 1950's and 60's from the Western Region via Acton Mainline, over the North London Line to Temple Mills, and return.  I believe the same route was used for Southern Region from Feltham.

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Wasn't a 52xx trialled on empty stock out of KX - something about lifting the sleepers over Harringay flyover?

 

Sorry my ER knowledge is a bit sketchy but something in "The Eastern SInce 1948" rings a bell...

 

Phil

Edited by Phil Bullock
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Did they never go further on towards Tonbridge?

 

The panniers banked the Golden Arrow and other boat trains out of Folkestone towards the end of SE steam and would have gone through Tonbridge to get there.

 

You could always imagine someone forgot to uncouple them and they panted all the way to Victoria....

 

 

 

Seriously, I have the image in my head of one on Ashford shed but no idea where I saw the photo.

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  I believe the same route was used for Southern Region from Feltham.

 

Oh yes, I spent many a happy hour  'spotting at Old Oak West Junction, in the early 60's,and watched the Southern stuff regularly go over the NLL .

Edited by bike2steam
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Depends on definition of 'east': WR loco's made it to Leicester, via GC. One Dean Goods (ex.WD 160/Wermacht) made it to Minsk (now Belarus), and No/ 180 was photographed 200 miles from Moscow in 1943 (ex.WD 180). One of the documented 'Polish' Dean Goods (ex WD132) was running around with the number OKH TN10, which seems to be a mish-mash of German and Polish classifications.

An unidentified one was numbered in German stock 53 7607.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Added additional information about 53 7607

Edited by DavidR
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Yes, they were sent there in 1946 after the end of European hostilities.Initially, 22 were selected by UNRA, later a batch of 3 were sent from Longmoor.  The Chinese classified them XK3 and numbered them from 61 upwards. Nothing appears to be known of them later, bearing in mind the Chinese civil war happened in 1949

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We all seem to have forgotten 4079 Pendennis Castle..

 

It lived 10000 miles from Swindon for 2 decades before it came back. I think that’s the winner, unless anything Swindon went to the Kiribati islands ?

 

Whilst the poster asked about East, West is easier and clearer to answer...

 

Furthest west i’d imagine is 6000 King George V’s 1927 trip to the US.

 

Of all UK Resident std gauge locos wandering overseas the winner has to be Flying Scotsman.. it too went 10000 miles east, but it’s made it 5500 miles west too (san Francisco),

2nd-5th position are probably jointly shared between a humble J52 (Sacramento) and an industrial named Dunrobin as well as a Pacer.. 142 049 and 6100 Royal Scot (all Vancouver). Whilst in rolling stock, 2 ex-lner Gresley fullbrakes are at Universal Studios Los Angeles, and the SR “Churchill” baggage can / Devon Belle observation car (as well as the rest of Scotsman’s train) made it to San Francisco.

 

6th probably 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower, whilst it lives in Green Bay, WI, it did make an event in Kansas ? I recall.

7th place is another industrial Meaford no2 an 0-6-0T that my dad help procure the sale of, with 3 mk1 coaches back in 1971, which started in Michigan, but moved south west to Tennessee before its current location in Kentucky. (Its three coaches are still out there, 1 in Kansas 2 in Michigan).

8th/9th joint would be 60010 and Waddon, at the museum in Montreal.

10th i’m Guessing could be 30053 at Scranton, PA, (started in Vermont) though 6000 KGV could well have gone to Ohio and beaten it..I know it got as far as Philadelphia but that doesn’t make the cut.

11th would probably lie with 6229 Duchess of Hamilton in 1939 in NYC

12th probably 30926 Repton, at Steamtown Vermont, and Cape Breton Canada or possibly the Terrier sold to La Plata Tramway in Buenos Aires Argentina.

13th is i’m Guessing the BR LEV2 railbus is which is still abandoned at a tram museum in Connecticut.

 

The unknown one in this lot is the rumoured WD 2-8-0 that went to the US after the war... it’s identity seems unknown as is it’s destination. Given the German “selected” exported locos became well documented in the US, it’s seems odd it’s fate is both unknown and unmatched to those exports... I think it’s a myth that never happened myself.

 

 

For South..

The Terrier in La Plata probably wins that one.

2nd 4079/The exported RODs and 4472

3rd probably Singapore Hawthorne Leslie 3865 of 1936, which made it to Singapore...and back.

4th the 08’s and class 120’s that we’re exported by BR to Liberia.

5th maybe the KCR WD 2-8-0’s

6th Cuban class 47’s (though the wandering of the Dean Goods in China are unknown)

7th J94’s, WDs 8fs and anything else in North Africa during the war.

8th I’d venture the class 141 pacers sold to Iran.

After that we’re into Europe so it’s hard to guess given the wanderings of EX BR diesels, we have 20’s to Kosovo, shunters in Italy, class 37’s/56/58 in Spain etc..plus WW2 wanderings..

 

North is quite hard given we’re a quite northerly country...

 

1st I’d venture is the sunken locos used as boilers on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror

2nd the WDs in Sweden

3rd HS 4000 in St Petersburg

 

Anyone can fill in any gaps ?

Edited by adb968008
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Depends on definition of 'east': WR loco's made it to Leicester, via GC. One Dean Goods (ex.WD 160/Wermacht) made it to Minsk (now Belarus), and No/ 180 was photographed 200 miles from Moscow in 1943 (ex.WD 180). One of the documented 'Polish' Dean Goods (ex WD132) was running around with the number OKH TN10, which seems to be a mish-mash of German and Polish classifications.

An unidentified one was numbered in German stock 53 7607.

 

Any more info on this one ?

Beyond Belarus (at the time of War), was Russian 5’ gauge.., Did it have its own wheels, or had the Nazis started rolling imperial measurement new axles for it ? Or did the Nazis regauge captured Russian tracks as they moved towards Moscow ?

 

I understood the Russians captured one in Belarus, west of Minsk but as this border was pre1939 Poland, it would have been safely standard gauge, probably captured at the pre1939 border. After Russia moved Poland’s border westwards they regauged the lines in their stolen/claimed Polish territory to match today’s 5’ gauge to match the Soviet Union. I read the Belarus one was offered back to the British military, but it wasn’t considered worth returning, and was scrapped.

 

(I don’t have the source with me but recall it was Roger Tourret book).

Edited by adb968008
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Any more info on this one ?

Beyond Belarus (at the time of War), was Russian 5’ gauge.., Did it have its own wheels, or had the Nazis started rolling imperial measurement new axles for it ? Or did the Nazis regauge captured Russian tracks as they moved towards Moscow ?

 

 

In Lokomotiv-Schicksale from Verlag Slezak, there is a photo of WD188 (GWR 2435) at Vienna Hütteldorf MPD in 1948. It also says that there are photographs of WD160 and WD200 in the USSR in Lokomotiven ziehen in den Krieg Vol.3 from the same publisher.

 

RCTS Locomotives of the GWR Part 14 says that WD188 was the one photographed at Orscha in 1943 so presumably this was not re-gauged. It also has a photo of GWR 2308 as TCCD 33041 "derelict somewhere in Turkey in the 1950s".

 

Tony

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