"Steam Days" article on the West Highland Line

[Sandpiper]

If anyone is interested the March edition of "Steam Days" has a decent length article about Fort William shed and the locomotives of the West Highland Line. I haven't read the article yet but there are lots of interesting photos most of which I haven't seen before.

[pH]

Since I'm not likely to be able to see it (the one local bookshop that used to carry it stopped doing so a couple of years ago), can I ask - does it say anything about when 4F 44255 was withdrawn? It was the showplough engine, and I saw it dead in the shedyard in August 1962, pointing away from the loch. I've seen a picture, taken in 1963, of it pointing towards the loch, with a newly-painted smokebox. I've often wondered if it had one last winter of snowplough duties in the hard winter of 1962/3. 

[Torper]

According the the BRDatabase website, it was withdrawn on 29th December 1962 and scrapped 11 months later.

http://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=locodata&type=S&id=111801&loco=4255

 

DT

Edited February 23, 2019 by Torper

[Sandpiper]

According to the article the 4F remained at the Fort over the winter of 62/63 and was still present in June 63 despite having been withdrawn by then. However it sounds as though it was pretty much life expired and did not actually do any work over the 62/63 winter. A Black 5 was brought in from Perth for snow plough work. The 4F was later seen at Connell's scrapyard, Coatbridge in December 63.

 

Going back a couple of years, the article has a photo of the 4F at Mallaig with the 0510 from Glasgow in July 1960. The train was double headed with the pilot engine being the Standard 4MT 76001 although the 4MT doesn't feature in the photo having been removed presumably for some operational reason. 

 

 

[pH]

14 hours ago, Sandpiper said:

According to the article the 4F remained at the Fort over the winter of 62/63 and was still present in June 63 despite having been withdrawn by then. However it sounds as though it was pretty much life expired and did not actually do any work over the 62/63 winter. A Black 5 was brought in from Perth for snow plough work. The 4F was later seen at Connell's scrapyard, Coatbridge in December 63.

 

Going back a couple of years, the article has a photo of the 4F at Mallaig with the 0510 from Glasgow in July 1960. The train was double headed with the pilot engine being the Standard 4MT 76001 although the 4MT doesn't feature in the photo having been removed presumably for some operational reason. 

 

 

 

Thanks for that. 

 

Here are the two photos I referred to:

 

August 1962 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/80572914@N06/7384057814/in/photolist-cfve8C

July 1963 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/tcs-pics/5759439502/in/photolist-9LWCH5You 

 

 

You can see the repainted smokebox and numberplate in the second one. It looks as if the engine was worked on after it had been stored. (There were 5 other engines stored there in August 1962. Two J36s were already withdrawn, a Black 5 was transferred away in August/September, and two K1s were transferred away in December.)

 

I had never seen anything before about a Black 5 being transferred in to Fort William in winter 1962/3. I looked on the 'BR database' site, and in the relevant 'Locoshed Book', "...correct to January 19, 1963" and there it is in both - 44960! I wonder if they had kept the 4F in case it was needed for snowplough duties during the coming winter, then found problems when they tried to prepare it for use.

 

On a wider topic, I've always wondered why 44255 was ever sent to Fort William. 4Fs were not known as having the most efficient bearings, and the West Highland isn't the straightest route in the country. Also, since Fort William was an ex-NBR/LNER shed, why not a J35 or J37? - ex-LNER engines were being sent to ex-Caledonian sheds around the same time.

[Stevebr]

It is indeed a good article. For the last few years I have downloaded the e version onto the iPad which solved availability