Flying Pigs on the Stainmore Route?

[1165Valour]

I've recently become fascinated by the Ivatt 4MTs, better known as Flying Pigs/Doodlebugs/Mucky Ducks. One of their most famous stomping grounds was the Stainmore Route, and I wanted to know more about their duties and reliability on that line.

 

If anyone has numbers for the locos that worked there the most, I'd be very grateful.

[pH]

This website indicates how many Ivatt 4MTs were allocated to work on the Stainmore line, and where they were shedded:
http://www.stainmore150.co.uk/stainmore_story/BR_standards.html

 

The “BR database” site shows engines allocated to the two sheds mentioned ( Kirkby Stephen and West Auckland):
http://brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=depots&subpage=arrdep&id=289

http://brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=depots&subpage=arrdep&id=591

 

These are historical lists, so you’ll have to scroll through to find the Ivatts - they’re just described as “4MT”. There may be a cleaner way of listing just the Ivatts, but I don’t know of one.

 

 

[stovepipe]

I've long been interested in the Stainmore line, and have many articles, photos and books on the line, though not much immediately to hand. There was quite a turnover of engines at KSE, with often newly  overhauled locos being sent there for a period, when they were capable of their best and reliable work on these most arduous of lines.

 

It was only in the post war period that analysis methods became advanced enough to allow class 4 engines over the iron viaducts, and the 4MTs allowed double loads to be taken over the summit compared to the class 2 engines used previously. They worked freight almost exclusively, with all mineral trains banked westbound and loaded eastbound trains too. After the NER origin locos had departed,  regular passenger trains used Ivatt 2mts and standard class 3 tanks, but their reign was short before the DMUs arrived. The mineral traffic was diverted away by 1960, and the remaining 4MTs were only seen on the summer Saturday excursion trains, which they had also worked in previous years.

 

 

[1165Valour]

On 23/09/2020 at 18:37, stovepipe said:

I've long been interested in the Stainmore line, and have many articles, photos and books on the line, though not much immediately to hand. There was quite a turnover of engines at KSE, with often newly  overhauled locos being sent there for a period, when they were capable of their best and reliable work on these most arduous of lines.

 

It was only in the post war period that analysis methods became advanced enough to allow class 4 engines over the iron viaducts, and the 4MTs allowed double loads to be taken over the summit compared to the class 2 engines used previously. They worked freight almost exclusively, with all mineral trains banked westbound and loaded eastbound trains too. After the NER origin locos had departed,  regular passenger trains used Ivatt 2mts and standard class 3 tanks, but their reign was short before the DMUs arrived. The mineral traffic was diverted away by 1960, and the remaining 4MTs were only seen on the summer Saturday excursion trains, which they had also worked in previous years.

 

 

I had noticed from BRDatabase that engines seemed to spend a summer (or about that length of time) at KSE before being moved elsewhere.