Bromsgrove Lickey Incline Question

[D854_Tiger]

Visted Bromsgrove station for the first time this week, by car, passed through by train plenty of times but never visted the station and been able to take a look at that hill.

 

Have to say it looks formidable but the modern motive power, mostly not stopping, I saw seemed little troubled by it.

 

I can't rememeber ever having been up Lickey on a stopping service and I wondered just how much difference it makes to a train not being able to take a run at the bank.

 

It's a heck of a place to put a station and it occured to me in the past, albeit when the service was somewhat megre, that both locomotive hauled (Peak) and first generation DMUs were required to stop there and therefore would have had to take the bank from a standing start

 

How much of a slog was it, what kind of speed could a stopping train get up to, by the time it reached the summit at Blackwell.

 

Was banking ever resorted to, in the days when bankers were readily available on a twenty four hour basis, if only to speed things up a bit.

[Rivercider]

A 3-car DMU being assisted by the two class 37s in 1979, the following correspondence suggests this was not a one-off

https://www.flickr.com/photos/invader1009/20217153162/in/photolist-wNwchf-uGXHfF-wWq32B-eNuj6R-ryEb3h-BjCCKu

 

I remember being banked up the Lickey in the northbound overnight sleeper on one occasion,

 

cheers

[Robert Shrives]

Hi 

Bankers did help with DMUS if stopping and engines out or wet rail - not coupled just a great shove and you were off ! like a rocket.

 

In sprinter days much more exciting for sake of a word. On a good day a 150 from a standing start might get to 30 - 40 mph flat out. 170 being a clumsy cousin much slower and 20 on the top and known several on LM and XC sets stall - given a push by next 170 after coupling up and running as a pair to New st. - other stuff would have to wait or sit in loop to allow a 170 to be worked past.

 

220s on less that 3/4 or 3/5 clear runs are requested from Oddingley to be able to take a run - I have had a fully loaded 5 car running on 3/5 stall with driver able to see over the summit from his seat. - Recovery was a right mess as it was on the zonal boundary...

 

HSTs on one power car were the same game with a special clear run form issued to driver at Cheltenham - they still exsist and are still marked Virgin trains! However a good benefit from the rebuilds and new engines are more horses under the bonnet and a set of switches that allow a powered bogie to be isolated and thus hopefully provide 3/4 power.

 

We are waiting for the first electric winter and see how many 323s can be knackered before some common sense applies Hopefully the wires go far enough that downhill fun and games can be self recovering! At least the new station not at the foot on the incline now.       

[Rugd1022]

I've seen photos of three car DMUs being banked by pairs of 37s in the '70s and '80s, from a standing start I'd imagine they'd struggle all the way to the top without assistance in rear. I've worked heavy freights up the bank many times, mostly with a run up from at least as far back as Stoke Works Junction when coming off the Worcester line. The 30mph restriction at the junction means giving it the beans as soon as the rear wagon is clear of the points, usually this meant hitting the foot of the bank at 60mph on full bore, and often by the time I'd get to Blackwell I'd be down to around 20mph passing the cottages at the top. Obviously if you're coming up from Gloucester and not Worcester you get a better crack at the bank with a lot more momentum, but you'd still be down to around a third of your maximum speed by the time you'd reached the top.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I remember riding up on a 116 in poor condition from Worcester on one occasion after the resident bankers had been removed. We had a run from Stoke Works and were not stopping at Bromsgrove.  It just about made it over the top and had taken about 10 minutes for the climb.

[young37215]

Back in the late 70's and well into the eighties, many a train both passenger and freight was banked by the resident bankers (invariably a pair of western region class 37's).

 

For example the following were usually banked as was any train where the driver was uncertain about his charges capacity to get to the summit:

1S19, the northbound Glasgow and Edinburgh sleeper 

The erstwhile 1M60, (15.15 or thereabouts Plymouth to Manchester) which was a freight loco diagram from Gloucester and resulted in many a type 1 or 2 being shoved up the Lickey 

 

[D854_Tiger]

Back in the late 70's and well into the eighties, many a train both passenger and freight was banked by the resident bankers (invariably a pair of western region class 37's).

 

For example the following were usually banked as was any train where the driver was uncertain about his charges capacity to get to the summit:

1S19, the northbound Glasgow and Edinburgh sleeper 

The erstwhile 1M60, (15.15 or thereabouts Plymouth to Manchester) which was a freight loco diagram from Gloucester and resulted in many a type 1 or 2 being shoved up the Lickey 

 

The sleeper service was regularly loaded with more vehicles than was the limit for an unassisted ascent of the incline so was a booked banking duty.

 

Most other Peak hauled XC duties were limited to (I believe) 10 mk1s to ensure reliable (fast) unassisted operation up the hill.

 

When Virgin operated the route a WCML mk3 set, normally used on the Manchester - Euston circuit complete with DVT (as it was pushed as far as Birmingham), used to be borrowed for an out and back summer Saturday Manchester - Penzance service.

 

I don't know how heavy that would be but with a single class 47 progress was leisurely over the Devon banks and coming home up Lickey we were down to a crawl but it made for a great noise.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Originally when the Class 45s came in they were allowed 12 unaided. The 1963 Loading Book shows 465 tons for Class 45 and 515 tons for Class 47 up Lickey.  By the 1970s the trains seem to have generally been booked 10 or 11. There were occasional dated exceptions where 12 was booked on summer Saturdays. The Glasgow and Edinburgh sleeper when that ran only from Bristol (before the Poole/Bristol split was introduced) was booked 15. Motorails were another exception, having about 7 passenger coaches and 17 CCTs on the Newton Abbot-Newcastle around the late 1970s.

[Chris M]

Back in the seventies I saw a peak with a full passenger train get stopped by a signal check actually on the bank. It did get re-started and climb the bank but it was slow and there was a lot of clag

[TheSignalEngineer]

The standard test for new classes was to stop at Vigo IB signal with 20 empty coaches on, successfully restart and continue over the summit.

[kevinlms]

Back in the seventies I saw a peak with a full passenger train get stopped by a signal check actually on the bank. It did get re-started and climb the bank but it was slow and there was a lot of clag

Well that would need to be a minimum for counting the maximum load allowed. It is going to be a service destined to fail, if the maximum load was based on a flying run at the bank, because sooner or later, a train would be stopped on the bank, as you described.

 

Didn't the LMS have a few goes at trying to increase the load, that could be taken without a banker? Usually something then failed & they maintained the old limits. Rescuing a failed train, must have thrown the timetable well out and probably not worth the risk.

 

Part of the problem I understand that in steam days days, was that if you flogged a loco up the bank with a heavy train, then much of the fire would go up the chimney by the time you reached the summit. Then you'd potentially have a winded loco, for the rest of the run to say Birmingham New St.

So the preferred practice was for the banker(s) to do the majority of the work and the train loco would be in better condition for the fastish run northwards.

 

Diesel is of course different, as theoretically at least, full power could be applied and it was just brute force, which could be maintained, once over the top, to get back up to line speed.

 

 

I believe I once saw a photo of a failed DMU, hauled by a Class 31, stop for the pair of Class 37 bankers. Now that combination should never stall!

[Robert Shrives]

Banking not always a given to success,  I recall a picture of a banker and a grainflow bogie sat in the ballast as train had slid backward and gone through bottom traps by Bromsgrove station and tore up track, all shut for a couple of days for recovery and rebuild.

 

Coming down was not always a controlled business with tales of sailing to a stand near Stoke works junction.

 

Robert  

[jessy1692]

I only counted 6 coaches but it sounds like it was going absolitely flat out

[LMS2968]

Didn't the LMS have a few goes at trying to increase the load, that could be taken without a banker? Usually something then failed & they maintained the old limits. Rescuing a failed train, must have thrown the timetable well out and probably not worth the risk.

March 1955. There were several tests with a Black Five on seven coaches and a 5X Jubilee on eight. The tests included passing through the station at 20 mph, starting from the station, and stopping and restarting on the incline. The Five succeeded on all the tests, although with difficulty, and the 5X struggled with the station start, and was unable to restart against the gradient, despite three attempts.

 

The descent could be very challenging and the facing points at the south end of the station leading to the loops where the brake levers were lifted were said to be the best maintained such pointwork in the country, to allow for the speed that some trains would pass through them unintentionally.

[Phil Bullock]

https://youtu.be/fZS5Udg4jkk

I only counted 6 coaches but it sounds like it was going absolitely flat out

[D854_Tiger]

Back in the 1970s and 1980s Bromsgrove had a pretty dismal service, there were only about four commuter trains that way on the cross city line out of New St and three of those didn't even reach Bromsgrove because they went to Redditch.

 

Bromsgrove seemed to be served by the odd stopping cross country express (about one a day) and a few Worcester trains sent that way, rather then via the Black Country. Worcester was served in those days by a few stopping XC expresses but those didn't stop at Bromsgrove.

 

All in all a pretty dismal service by today's standard and, apart from those handful of XC trains, Brum to Worcester was invariably a trawl via Kidderminster and invariably stopping at all stations.

 

A journey I did often, I remember consulting the timetable home and only one train in the whole timetable that way was booked non-stop Stourbridge to Smethwich West and too early for me.

 

Though incredibly that one service (from Hereford) went over to mk1s and Hymek haulage for a while, an oasis in a desert of Tyseley DMUs, the times I risked bunking off work early for that.

 

When the electric service starts Bromsgrove will be three an hour to Brum, Worcester to Brum is already three an hour and all services limited stop.

 

A brilliant service really and six cars of class 323 should have over 3,000 bhp to get up Lickey, in my book that's a Deltic, so they should be accelerating all the way up.

 

Then to think Bromsgrove didn't even have two platforms for many years.

[TheSignalEngineer]

March 1955. There were several tests with a Black Five on seven coaches and a 5X Jubilee on eight. The tests included passing through the station at 20 mph, starting from the station, and stopping and restarting on the incline. The Five succeeded on all the tests, although with difficulty, and the 5X struggled with the station start, and was unable to restart against the gradient, despite three attempts.

.

in the 1963 book, between Bromsgrove and Blackwell Jubilees were allowed 200 tons and Black 5s 190 tons. A Royal Scot could have 230 tons. Smaller locos in classes 2,3 and 4 were only allowed 90 tons unassisted.

[LMS2968]

I doubt it ever happened in practice, though. Those are too close to the loads in the 1955 testing foe comfort, loads with which the locos in presumably good nick struggled, and few enginemen would risk stalling on the bank, so would whistle for assistance on the approach.

 

I'm open to correction, but would need some evidence.

Edited July 10, 2017 by LMS2968

[phil_sutters]

I am glad the conversation went back to steam days, so I could add a couple of Dad's photos!

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

I doubt it ever happened in practice, though. Those are too close to the loads in the 1955 testing foe comfort, loads with which the locos in presumably good nick struggled, and few enginemen would risk stalling on the bank, so would whistle for assistance on the approach.

 

I'm open to correction, but would need some evidence.

My memory of steam working was that anything more than three coaches was routinely banked, whatever was on the front, although most of my rides were behind Black 5s.

Edited July 10, 2017 by TheSignalEngineer

[LMS2968]

My memory of steam working was that anything more than three coaches was routinely banked, whatever was on the front, although most of my rides were behind Black 5s.

I never saw the operations myself but have read a lot about them, and that is my understanding of normal practice.

[Titan]

It has to be remembered that it is not just the ability of a loco to lift a train up the bank without stalling that has to be considered, but also the time taken to ascend the bank. There may be a freight or even a passenger train that is capable of getting up unassisted, but if a shove from the banker means that it can ascend the bank 10mph faster it may avoid delaying following trains when traffic is busy.

[Gareth 73]

It has to be remembered that it is not just the ability of a loco to lift a train up the bank without stalling that has to be considered, but also the time taken to ascend the bank. There may be a freight or even a passenger train that is capable of getting up unassisted, but if a shove from the banker means that it can ascend the bank 10mph faster it may avoid delaying following trains when traffic is busy.

Well at the moment the bank aint busy with trains day or nite so that aint an issue. When the electrics have to start off the staion on a single yellow in leaf fall then it ll be busy.

[28XX]

In the 70's and early 80's if you sat behind the driver in the early morning DMU (07:42 ex Worcester) and he didn't have the blinds closed you could often watch him make repeated attempts to start recalcitrant engines. When this failed, a brief pause at Droitwich box would be taken to tell the bobby to telephone ahead to ready the bankers.

[WessexEclectic]

Well at the moment the bank aint busy with trains day or nite so that aint an issue. When the electrics have to start off the staion on a single yellow in leaf fall then it ll be busy.

Under the old interlocking (Gloucester Panel), the Up Main (71) and Up Goods (171) signals at Bromsgrove wouldn't come off for 3 minutes when the forward route was set, if the berth track circuit was occupied. This gave whatever was already on the incline time to crest the summit. Bit of a 'though if you had two close together from Stoke Works Junction...

Edited July 10, 2017 by WessexEclectic