90XX Duke's and Dukedogs on the St. Ives Branch

[Kris]

Does anyone know of any photos showing 90XX class locos working over the St. Ives Branch line. Apparently they were specially authorised.

[The Stationmaster]

Definitely listed as 'Specially Authorised' in the 1949 STT

[Wickham Green too]

My reprint of the 1950 Locoshed book shows only St.Blazey's 9008 & 9010 allocated anywhere near - so visits were probably not very common ........ unless there was some particular working they were rostered for, of course.

[Miss Prism]

I don't see the purpose of using these engines on the St Ives branch.

 

[Ian Hargrave]

The St.Erth branch line was worked by Small Prairies and at least postwar the only longer train over the branch was the summer Saturday Riviera which was worked by a pair of the same. Why would anything else have been necessary given the curves and restrictions on the line and at St.Ives 

[Kris]

7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Definitely listed as 'Specially Authorised' in the 1949 STT

There are also listed in the 1953 STT. It was seeing this that raised the question of whether they were ever used. They were also listed as being allowed over the Helston Branch. 

[Ian Hargrave]

Just now, Kris said:

There are also listed in the 1953 STT. It was seeing this that raised the question of whether they were ever used. They were also listed as being allowed over the Helston Branch. 

 
That seems even more strange.  August of that year was when I saw the down Riviera arrive at St.Ives behind a pair of Small Praries. Appropriately enough the ensemble was viewed from the beach. I wonder if these recordings were just paper transfers to satisfy WR accounting. 

[Wickham Green too]

Perhaps we've got to find out exactly what was meant by "Specially Authorised" ...... I suspect it just meant they could be used IF there was absolutely nothing else suitable in the vicinity for some reason.

[Ian Hargrave]

Although something else has emerged  now from the back of my mind.  1953 was a special year. Well if like me you remember it…still a few around….was Coronation year.  After her event her Maj.toured the UK by Royal Train and some unusual places were traversed by the train,The Vale of Neath line Castle hauled for one ( Think it was Canton’s 5080 Defiant ). So then could it be that such a journey was planned to West Cornwall involving these two branches. ?

The Helston Branch was near to FAA Culdrose for instance and St, Ives very photo opportunish .I don’t believe these journeys ever occurred but maybe they were planned just in case ? A thought 

 

 

[Miss Prism]

15 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

My reprint of the 1950 Locoshed book shows only St.Blazey's 9008 & 9010 allocated anywhere near - so visits were probably not very common ........ unless there was some particular working they were rostered for, of course.

 

What did they do at St Blazey?  Pickup goods on the Newquay branch?

[justin]

There was an article on the Dukedogs in Back Track Vol 4 No. 5 but it makes no mention of their use on the St Ives branch, neither does the RCTS Volume 7 locomotive history. I was under the impression that being listed as cleared for a particular route did not imply that a class was used on that route. It just mean't that the paperwork exercise (and possibly a gauging trial?) had been undertaken to permit it to occur. If there were Dukedogs allocated within Cornwall perhaps it was thought wise to tick the box on whether they could be used. 

 

I am not familiar with the history of the St Ives & Helston branches but on the 1931 GWR route map there are both uncoloured ( I know this predates the Dukedogs). There is a printed instruction on the map 'No engines [in red, blue of yellow colour route availability] may travel on any line or branch not coloured on this map unless special permission has been obtained'. The Dukedogs were yellow route availability so perhaps it relates to this (though my theory probably falls down as the 45XX locos were also yellow and possibly the St Ives branch was later upgraded to yellow) 

[Kris]

This is a photo of the relevant page in the 1953 Service Time Table. 

 

[Wickham Green too]

7 minutes ago, justin said:

...... listed as cleared for a particular route did not imply that a class was used on that route. It just mean't that the paperwork exercise (and possibly a gauging trial?) had been undertaken to permit it to occur.  ......

Indeed ............. though I think the likelihood of a Stanier 8F having to shunt Roskear siding is even more remote than a Dukedog to St,Ives !

[Kris]

46 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Indeed ............. though I think the likelihood of a Stanier 8F having to shunt Roskear siding is even more remote than a Dukedog to St,Ives !

I suspect the 8F was included (extensively in notes, not just at Roskear) as some were built at Swindon. No. 8431 (48431) was shedded at Newton Abbot and Gloucestershire from 1944 until 1947 before being sent to Yorkshire until 1955 when it returned to Bristol (St. Philips Marsh) then at other W.R. sheds until scrapping. Given this it would be possible for an 8F to have been in Cornwall in revenue service.

 

https://kwvr.co.uk/locos/48431-lms-class-8f/

[The Stationmaster]

14 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Perhaps we've got to find out exactly what was meant by "Specially Authorised" ...... I suspect it just meant they could be used IF there was absolutely nothing else suitable in the vicinity for some reason.

It means exactly what it said.  90XX were not compliant with the route availability for the two Cornish branches now mentioned in this thread so they were 'Specially Authorised' as a particular class in an exception to the normal criterion.

 

The whole question of Route Availability is a complex area and the ways of checking and publishing have changed over the years.  Generally an exception - usually listed as 'Specially Authorised' - would be published if the operating/traffic dept had expressed a wish to use a larger engine or tender engine for some specific reason.  For example on the Helston branch they might well have had in mind military specials but I can't think of any reason why they would come up with such an idea for the St Ives branch.  But that takes us to the next situation because of the west Cornwall passenger branches St Ives and Helston were the most restricted for motive power being limited to only one class of engine and that suggests that 'somebody' considered there was need to make sure an alternative was available even if that alternative was very unlikely ever to be used.  In reality I suspect that St Ives was added for 90XX because there was a faint possibility of them being used to Helston and 'they might just as well be assessed for the St Ives branch as well' as it would be minimal extra work.

 

Provided the Civil Engineer was happy with the loco weight diagram there would normally be no need to carry out a test unless there was a specific intention to use a particular class of engine for some specific upcoming reason, i.e. something more than just a 'possibility').  But even in the latter case if the engine diagram showed it to be within normal clearances there would still be no need to test;  tests were expensive and only used when there was no real alternative or some doubt existed. 

 

Similarly on the GWR the mention of particular engines or classes being banned from particular lines or sidings normally meant that there was a curvature or clearance problem on paper and nobody was prepared to pay for tests to prove otherwise or  that the class had not even been assessed for various sidings and yards (a practice which continued on the WR into the 1970s as we fond out on one occasion, literally, by accident).   And if various engines were barred or had not been tested you had to say so in case one of an otherwise appropriate Route Availability colour turned up - for example an LMS design 2-8-0 which did of course operate on the GWR/WR but invariably had never been tested on various lines over which its RA colour Blue, which was generally permitted as GWR 28XX except where shown otherwise).

 

So when reading route availability information in official publications you need to consider the above points.  Just because a class is mentioned doesn't necessarily mean that it ever ran on a line over which it was permitted - even if it was 'Specially Authorised'.  And that never really changed -  for example in the very late 1980s/early 1990s when I was in charge of freight Route Availability on the WR we had locos and heavy axleload vehicles cleared over various diversionary routes and into sidings and terminals  'just in case' and they sometimes never ran over those routes or into those places for years at a time.   Equally we had also had an 'ideal' clearance test loco which we used for clearance tests and if it fitted we knew that every other class (in pre Class 60 days) would also fit.

[Steamport Southport]

I remember in one of the threads about the Cambrian where we were discussing the locomotives used.

 

Along with the usual suspects it had the Stanier 3 cylinder 2-6-4Ts as being authorised. Apart from a couple of examples they never left the London area. But it seems there might have been a plan to move them to North and Mid Wales.

 

Just because they were authorised, don't necessarily mean it happened.

 

 

Jason

[TheSignalEngineer]

The Cornwall Railway Society has a lot on its website about the working of the branch with personal recollections from staff and users. I don't think there is any mention of a 90xx, but  there are two witnesses to a 57xx being used double headed with a 45xx and a photograph of 5545 at St Ives near the end of steam in the far west.

[Mike_Walker]

I seem to recall that only the small tank version of the small Prairies, 4500-4574, were used on the St Ives branch but if a 4575 had to be used the tanks could only be part filled because of weight restrictions.

 

It's still the same today.  A look through the NR sectional appendices (available on line) will show some interesting anomalies.  For example, Class 170s are barred from the Chiltern main line despite being basically identical to a Class 168 apart from the paint and wiring of the coupler - Chris Green started that when the 165s were new to avoid Provincial/Regional Railways nicking them!  This was explained to me as being "because nobody had asked" and it seems today everything is banned from everywhere unless it is required to operate over a given route.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Another Cornish anomaly is that 9700-9710 are shown as permitted between Liskeard and Looe in the Plymouth freight WTT in 1957.

[Kris]

1 hour ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Another Cornish anomaly is that 9700-9710 are shown as permitted between Liskeard and Looe in the Plymouth freight WTT in 1957.

Bizarrely I came across a thread, from 2013, mentioning this earlier this afternoon whilst hunting about for further information. 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Another Cornish anomaly is that 9700-9710 are shown as permitted between Liskeard and Looe in the Plymouth freight WTT in 1957.

That is what we used to call a clergical error (although no vicars were involved).  Basically somebody had a list of engine numbers and he knew no more than his family cat that the condensing panniers weren't the same as the non-condensing version  and he thought they were just another number series in the class. despite teh fact that their RA was Blue, not Yellow.

 

But errors did happen especially when cuttings (from old Notices etc) were used in paste-ups for new Notices and whoever put them in hadn't checked.  On one occasion we had a temporary lad in the Train Office at Reading and he booked 3 DMU sets to stable in Aldin's Sdgs at Slough - notwithstanding that said sidings had been removed six months previously.   When teh diversionary planning for Paddingto resignalling in 1967 was being down the two chaps planning the train alterations used the Notices from the 1930s Paddington alterations and resignalling for guidance on which services should be moved out of Paddington.