Metropolitan 'sarah siddons' main line workings 80's and 90's.

[Dan Griffin]

The metropolitan electric loco 'sarah siddons' works trains on the surface lines, but ive seen a couple of pictures of it on the main line in the 80's and 90's. I have recieved a metro electric 'john hampden' for christmas so my reality is that siddons is in covent garden and hampden is servicable.

 

My question is was dispensation given for this loco to run with out yellow warning panels on br tracks? Or was it 'grandfather' rights?

 

Also did these electrics ever pull goods trains? All the pictures ive located are either light loco or coaching stock.

 

Any pics would be a great help too.

 

Thanks in advance

[phil-b259]

The metropolitan electric loco 'sarah siddons' works trains on the surface lines, but ive seen a couple of pictures of it on the main line in the 80's and 90's. I have recieved a metro electric 'john hampden' for christmas so my reality is that siddons is in covent garden and hampden is servicable.

My question is was dispensation given for this loco to run with out yellow warning panels on br tracks? Or was it 'grandfather' rights?

Also did these electrics ever pull goods trains? All the pictures ive located are either light loco or coaching stock.

Any pics would be a great help too.

Thanks in advance

These locos were built not for freight, but to take over from steam engines at Rickmansworth and haul former Metropliton short length, close coupled compartment stock, fitted with extra collector shoes to help avoid gapping and the necessary cables to transfer the power to the loco (of which there is nothing out there on the RTR market that comes close) into the City via Baker Street from Amersham and Aylesbury. Once the new 'A' stock EMUs was delivered in the 60s and the LU services stopped at a newly electrified Amersham, most examples of the locomotives were scrapped quite quickly - the only reason a couple survived was the retention of a couple for braking systems testing / research.

 

You also need to remember that upon formation of London Transport in 1933, responsibility for servicing the goods yards at Metropolitan stations and responsibility for hauling the Aylesbury trains to and from Rickmansworth were, along with most of the steam fleet given to the LNER as the LPTB regarded itself as a strictly electrically operated passenger railway only. The Metroplition electric locos would thus have had no involvement in freight services after this date - and precious little before it too as most yards lacked any conductor rails necessary for electric operation of goods services.

 

Although the LPTB retained small number of steam locomotives, these were for engineers trains only, and this was mainly to facilitate works when the power was off or there were no conductor rails in the first place - so the Met locomotives would rarely be used on these services.

 

In the 1980s number 12 was modified so as to allow it to work on 3rd rail lines (it being a 4 rail only loco when in revenue service) and a number of rail tours were undertaken on the Southern region using BR blue and grey MK1s. It was given permission to run by the SR without a yellow front end in the same way that BR gave exemptions to steam locomotives - (note like steam locomotives it never ran with a yellow front end in service where every single BR diesel locomotive now preserved did carry a yellow front end before withdrawal).

 

In the 1990s versions of steam on the met, no.12 was used with a couple of MK1s and one of the two 4TC sets LU purchased off BR in the run up to privatisation.

 

So to come back to the model, no you cannot run it with goods stock if you wish to be true to the prototype - the best you will be able to do is to either run it with some blue and grey MK1s on the Southern region on a rail tour or have it running about light engine alongside the S stock as if had done occasional in the past couple of years in positioning moves for the various steam on the met runs. There also might be the option of bending history slightly and assume the 1990s steam on the met runs used conventional MK1s throughout and have number 12 / number 5 on one end and an appropriate steam engine on the other.

 

If however you are willing to compromise on authenticity then the items of rolling stock that would probably look the best behind it are some Greasley designed teak suburban coaches as produced in RTR form by Hornby, and pretend that as well as divesting all responsibility for goods work to the LNER in 1933, the LPTB also passed on the responsibility for providing coaching stock for Aylesbury trains to the LNER.

[SRman]

There have also been some tours (mostly on LT's own lines) using BR mark 2 air conditioned stock in blue and grey.

In the absence of any suitable ready to run coaches, I have used a couple of very old Graham Farish suburban coaches painted in LT brown with red brake ends. Not accurate but purely representative, until something better comes along.

I did have a running session on DougN's layout, where we used some of his Hornby LNER teak Gresley non-gangwayed coaches, confirming entirely what Phil suggested above: they did look right at home (IMHO)!

[Dan Griffin]

Thanks fir the replys. I was just curious about the goods traffic. My example will be raiktour only and my layout is third rail so thats great. Not accurate to 100% but i think im going to paint a Hornby vep up in maroon to represent the TC stock

[PhilJ W]

There was a goods train of sorts that they operated, this was the 'rubbish train' which collected the ash from the boilers of the block of flats over Baker Street station. This consisted of between two and four open wagons and a brake van. If you have the wartime grey version you could legitimately run a train of warwells with Sherman tanks behind it as in a published photograph. London Transport turned many of their railway workshops over to war work. The electric locomotives were ideal in some respects, they were available outside of the rush hours at very short notice. Unlike a steam locomotive they were instantly available and had no emissions to attract hostile aircraft.

[DY444]

Iirc Sarah also hauled the green 4SUB 4732 on the SR a few times in the 80s

[Nearholmer]

http://www.ltmcollection.org/photos/photo/photo.html?_IXSR_=FQREUU8z77w&_IXMAXHITS_=1&IXinv=1998/55890&IXsummary=results/results&IXsearch=Chiltern%20court&_IXFIRST_=39

One of several photos of the Chiltern Court coal and rubbish train in the LT museum collection.

 

I suspect that these locos were also used on the runs to Vine Street goods depot in the City. There are photos of an earlier Camelback on that working.

 

Kevin