WD 2-8-0 on the Cornish Riveria in late 1947 - also, other unusual engines on emergency stand-ins?

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

Sorry - for us laymen or not born during that time, what was the Wiltshire incident? 

 

In one of the 'Signalman's Morning' book series, the third one IIRC.  As I can't recall the full details of a fairly intricate story, I'll not attempt to tell it here but I do recall reading it and thinking 'no, that doesn't make sense'.  It as a fairly serious mistake on his part which he freely owns up to, but no harm was done.  IIRC he was disciplined; Mike would know the details.

[pH]

A couple from the Carlisle-Glasgow route through Carstairs, as recorded in ‘Steam Days’:

 

- Beattock banker Fairburn tank 42693 arriving in Carstairs at the head of a Manchester/Liverpool to Glasgow express in May 1964. The Brit working the train had failed at Beattock. The train appears to have only 7 carriages (maybe 8) - based on personal experience of the capabilities of Fairburns, the engine would not have any great problems with that load.

 

- Duchess 46230 pictured having failed at Abington on the down ‘Royal Scot’ in July 1954. The caption says the train was taken forward by a combination of a Caley ‘Jumbo’, taken off a local goods, and (again) a Fairburn banker sent forward from Beattock Summit after a banking turn. That would have been worth a picture!

Edited August 14, 2023 by pH

[johnofwessex]

I have seen a photo of a 2-6-4T not the Fowler version hauling one of the LMS Diesels and its train (Euston to Inverness) after the Diesel failed.

 

I gather that the LMS/BR 2-6-4's were good engines

[Matt37268]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

In one of the 'Signalman's Morning' book series, the third one IIRC.  As I can't recall the full details of a fairly intricate story, I'll not attempt to tell it here but I do recall reading it and thinking 'no, that doesn't make sense'.  It as a fairly serious mistake on his part which he freely owns up to, but no harm was done.  IIRC he was disciplined; Mike would know the details.

I’m thinking of the one of the wire snapping, setting the signal to danger just as something with a Thousand went past at full chat and the driver coming back to berate him?

I too like Mr Vaughn and his passion for railways, but I’d agree that his version of events can be a little bit biased. 

[Hal Nail]

On 13/08/2023 at 12:37, OnTheBranchline said:

Also I just wanted to open the floor to any other unusual engine diagram or stand-ins in your research? Not necessarily only GWR.

One of my books has a photo of a class 58 dragging a failed HST somewhere down in the west country.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

Sorry - for us laymen or not born during that time, what was the Wiltshire incident? 

I don't know either as he wrote several things including references to places in Wiltshire.  The one I mentioned was not in any of his books but only appeared in a newspaper article.

[kevinlms]

On 14/08/2023 at 16:57, rodent279 said:

Has a departmental loco ever assisted a passenger train? I'm thinking primarily of the class 23 5905, 24 97201, etc, but there were of course numerous departmental shunters such as class 08 97801 Pluto, and the WR PWM shunters.

The vast majority of departmental locos don't have automatic brake equipment (air or vacuum), so rather restricted. Except for locos that used to haul passenger trains, such as the first 2 you mentioned. Plus of course the equipment would need to be still maintained.

[The Stationmaster]

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

In one of the 'Signalman's Morning' book series, the third one IIRC.  As I can't recall the full details of a fairly intricate story, I'll not attempt to tell it here but I do recall reading it and thinking 'no, that doesn't make sense'.  It as a fairly serious mistake on his part which he freely owns up to, but no harm was done.  IIRC he was disciplined; Mike would know the details.

I only knew him directly when he was working in Somerset.  I don't think that he ever worked in Wiltshire - his only railway jobs I know anything about were in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and finally,  after he rejoined the railway and before he departed to Ireland, in Somerset.

[bécasse]

Back in the late-1980s I worked for Passenger Marketing Services and we shared the fourth floor at Euston House with InterCity. I often used to travel to work with Mike who was responsible for overseeing InterCity's rolling stock, although it was a strategic role, he was treated almost as if he were the sector's chief controller during business hours and was therefore always up-to-the-minute with anything that was going wrong on InterCity's network.

 

Around lunch time one day the driver of an up West Midlands train apparently advised at Birmingham International that he was having problems (probably a shifted tyre) and that the AC loco would have to be replaced at Coventry. The only loco available at Coventry was a 58 but that was readied to take over when the train arrived which it did. The original plan was for the 58-hauled train to be switched fast to slow south of MKC and then placed in Tring Goods Yard to await the arrival of an AC replacement from Willesden, apparently a fairly routine procedure (been there, done that!) but one which had the disadvantage of throwing the route's stock-working out of balance for the rest of the day with a Euston arrival at least an hour late.

 

By chance, Mike can just been given access on his desk computer to the then new TRUST and he thought that this would be a good opportunity to see how it could be used to monitor out of course workings. It very soon became clear to him that the 58 wasn't exactly hanging about, and after discussions with control (and the assurances that HQ would back the course of action), it was decided to allow the 58 to take the train through to Euston, for which it would be given priority, and to take it into platform 1 there which (with the adjacent gates into Eversholt Street) offered better ventilation for diesel fumes than the rest of the station.

 

Mike didn't keep this information to himself and it was soon suggested that the enterprising 58 driver should be given an appropriate reception when he arrived. Consequently, not overly more than an hour later, a fair number of people from IC and PMS, including a good sprinkling of SMGs, gathered by the stops at platform 1 and as the train ran in the driver was given a hearty round of applause. Meanwhile announcements apologised for the late arrival and lack of air-conditioning.

[sandra]

I was on a train from Crewe to Euston hauled by a class 87 when south of Kilsby tunnel the loco hit a bird which shattered the driver’s windscreen. The train then proceeded slowly to Bletchley where a class 31 was placed in front of the 87.

 

The train then continued hauled by the 31. It struggled up the hill to Tring, I think we must have passed the summit at about 10 mph but after passing Tring we fairly bowled along and she took us all the way to Euston.

[Wickham Green too]

11 minutes ago, sandra said:

... we must have passed the summit at about 10 mph but after passing Tring we fairly bowled along and she took us all the way to Euston.

Well, there's the story that a London-bound electric completely lost power somewhere in that vicinity but managed to reach Euston using inertia and gravity alone !

[Steamport Southport]

17 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

I have seen a photo of a 2-6-4T not the Fowler version hauling one of the LMS Diesels and its train (Euston to Inverness) after the Diesel failed.

 

I gather that the LMS/BR 2-6-4's were good engines

 

They regularly pulled expresses as did N1s, N2s, V1/V3s and L1s. The only problem was they were speed restricted due to derailments of the SR 2-6-4Ts and the fuel capacity.

 

Some tank engines on expresses here.

 

https://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/155-bradford-king-s-cross-portions

 

https://www.steve-banks.org/leeds-west-riding/314-yorkshire-pullman

 

Don't forget the LMS 2-6-4Ts were 4Ps and were even fitted with water scoops. Other places they worked expresses was to Liverpool Riverside pulling very heavy boat trains and from Chester to Birkenhead.

 

 

Jason

[kevinlms]

3 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

They regularly pulled expresses as did N1s, N2s, V1/V3s and L1s. The only problem was they were speed restricted due to derailments of the SR 2-6-4Ts and the fuel capacity.

 

Some tank engines on expresses here.

 

https://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/155-bradford-king-s-cross-portions

 

https://www.steve-banks.org/leeds-west-riding/314-yorkshire-pullman

 

Don't forget the LMS 2-6-4Ts were 4Ps and were even fitted with water scoops. Other places they worked expresses was to Liverpool Riverside pulling very heavy boat trains and from Chester to Birkenhead.

 

 

Jason

2-6-4T's also did rather well on the LTSR, where they regularly hauled up to 12 coach trains at good speeds, although the line was rather flat.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Well, there's the story that a London-bound electric completely lost power somewhere in that vicinity but managed to reach Euston using inertia and gravity alone !

 

Possible, but not really likely; that's a long way and, more to the point, a long time, to run without an air compressor to keep the train brakes from leaking on. Train brakes are not a sealed system and there are inevitable losses of air pressure at pipe joints and the hoses between carriages, as the air pressure is employed to keep the brakes off; they will apply if pressure is lost in order to be 'fail safe'.   If you were lucky, you might just make it from about Harrow & Wealdstone if you were doing line speed...

 

Perfectly feasible with some sort of partial loss involving traction power but enabling the compressor to keep running, though (I am not any sort of authority on the workings of 25kv electric locomotives, though I do know a little about train brakes). 

 

All the main London termini north of the river are approached down gradients, (not 100% sure about Fenchurch Street), and employ the dodge of slight uphill gradients as you approach the buffers, in order to assist stopping trains and give departures as much of a boost as you can at their standing start.  Paddington is the easiest, with the longest gradient, all the way to Swindon...

[Barclay]

I remember reading that one of the MSWJR Beyer Peacock 2-6-0s, knocking around the vicinity of Swindon in its final years, was used to deputise for a failed Castle on an express - not for very far I think! Given that this was in the vicinity of Swindon you'd think they might have had a more likely stand-in, but perhaps it was just in the right place at the right time. 

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Well, there's the story that a London-bound electric completely lost power somewhere in that vicinity but managed to reach Euston using inertia and gravity alone !

It's certainly happened at the top of Camden bank, only about a mile to coast into Euston.

[rodent279]

I've been on a Northampton Cobbler behind a class 81 (002 I think, will have to check), which failed somewhere about a mile outside Northampton station. After some while, a class 08 appeared and dragged us into the station.

I've also witnessed a failed Freightliner being pushed by a class 310 EMU (or at least attempting to push it!). How far it made it I don't know, this was somewhere near Milton Keynes, so possibly only as far as Bletchley.

[keefer]

Remember seeing a pic, taken early '80s of a Peak-hauled train pushing another which has failed. I think it was on the WR somewhere.

And the (relatively) more recent one with a cl.59-hauled stone train pushing a failed HST?

(sorry, can't remember more details and not really what the OP was after. Good examples though of the railway keeping things moving! )

Edited August 15, 2023 by keefer

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

...  If you were lucky, you might just make it from about Harrow & Wealdstone if you were doing line speed...

Not the ( earlier ) example I was thinking of, but https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/train-driver-freewheels-broken-down-train-13-miles-to-london-euston-after-a-power-cut.159844/ ... without the benefit of inertia to start with ! 

[pH]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

They regularly pulled expresses as did N1s, N2s, V1/V3s and L1s. The only problem was they were speed restricted due to derailments of the SR 2-6-4Ts and the fuel capacity.

 

What speeds were 2-6-4Ts restricted to? And did the restrictions apply only to certain classes? I ask because I have been behind a Fairburn and also a Standard 4 tank on trains between Glasgow and Gourock, each of them doing between 80 and 85.

[pH]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Well, there's the story that a London-bound electric completely lost power somewhere in that vicinity but managed to reach Euston using inertia and gravity alone !

 

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

Possible, but not really likely; that's a long way and, more to the point, a long time, to run without an air compressor to keep the train brakes from leaking on …

Perfectly feasible with some sort of partial loss involving traction power but enabling the compressor to keep running …

I remember that incident being reported in one of the magazines in the 1960s. The failure happened at line speed as the train approached Tring summit in the up direction. It made it to the platform at Euston, but not all the way to the bufferstops. From what you say, it would appear the compressor must have kept working.

[LMS2968]

Several B1s passed into service as stationary boilers on being withdrawn, although they remained fully capable of working around the shed under their own steam. Failures on the road were so common and rescue locos so scarce that these were often sent out to worked the failed train. Instructions from on high not to do this made little difference, so in the end all the drawhooks were removed; the loco could still move around the depot but could no longer work a train.

[The Johnster]

12 minutes ago, pH said:

What speeds were 2-6-4Ts restricted to? And did the restrictions apply only to certain classes? I ask because I have been behind a Fairburn and also a Standard 4 tank on trains between Glasgow and Gourock, each of them doing between 80 and 85.

The pedia of wiki states maximum speed 75mph for the BR 4MT tank, which had a lineage dating from the 1927 Fowler loco, but with 5’8” drivers I have no doubt that your observations are correct, and they were capable of more than that.  Some of those Glasgow suburbans were pretty heavily loaded as well.  The Southern withdrew it’s 2-6-4T ‘River’ class despite having a lot of work for which big fast tank engines were ideally suited.  The Rivers had 6’ drivers but their stability at speed was called into question after a series of incidents culminating in the Sevenoaks derailment, which resulted in the engines being withdrawn from service immediately and a ban on tank engines for fast work imposed for the rest of that railway’s existence.  There is some evidence that the loco was not the root of the problem and the use of Dungeness shingle ballast was at least a major contributing factor, as one was tested at over 80mph on the GN main line (with Maunsell and Gresley on the footplate) and found to ride perfectly well.  
 

It is significant that on Nationalisation a batch of Fairbairns was ordered from Brighton, which went on to design and build the Standard 4MT tanks, both designs which served the Southern Region well in steam days. 
 

 

[The Johnster]

Right place right time is the key to this.  If a loco fails on an express, the primary consideration is get the train moving again asap.  First decision is whether the failed loco is fit to be hauled, which it might not be in the case of a mechanical failure or shifted/cracked tyre, or if it's melted it's fusible plug, in which case it must be removed and put aside by the replacement loco.  Otherwise you couple the replacement on the front, do a brake test, and right away!  Control may be able to source a better replacement further along the route, but if not the first replacement works through to destination (subject to route availability of course),

 

Steam locos may be present in the locality in large numbers and in steam, but take time to work up to working pressures, and may well be in 'light steam' at the end of their working day and have the fires dropped.  Even somewhere like Swindon, this can restrict the choice; the loco has to be prepared for duty or on a duty from which it can be pinched. 

 

The express is now under way, but the replacement loco has to be replaced in it's turn with the least delay to other services and, as far as possible, still providing them with suitable locos.  It can take several hours and a good bit of jiggerypokery with diagram allocations before the worst is over, and at small depots there may be a need for locos to be borrowed from elsewhere to tide you over.  All part of the fun or running a steam railway on a day-to-day basis. 

 

Reading and some similar spots had big engines diagrammed as station pilots, Halls at Reading.  This was so that they could be used as replacements for failures (not many jobs on the WR a Hall couldn't make at least a reasonable fist of) at short notice, Reading being a prime location for failures with problems discovered during the 40 miles from Paddington or on their last legs and not going to make it all the way to Paddington.

 

There was also the practice of using small engines over short distances prior to booked loco changes; the 'Cheltenham Flyer' was a classic, the train hauled from Cheltenham to Gloucester by a pannier, with a Castle attached a Gloucester where a revesal was needed anyway.  Similar situation with Bradford-KIng's X reversals at Leeds with 2-6-4Ts.  Some Cardiff trains to or from the North to West route were diagrammed for tank engines in the form of large prairies or 56xx to Pontypool Road, where an LMR loco would take the train forward but there was no reversal involved here.  On one occasion in 1963 there was no replacement loco at Pontypool Road and a Royal Scot worked through to Cardiff with a Manchester train.

[OnTheBranchline]

4 hours ago, bécasse said:

Back in the late-1980s I worked for Passenger Marketing Services and we shared the fourth floor at Euston House with InterCity. I often used to travel to work with Mike who was responsible for overseeing InterCity's rolling stock, although it was a strategic role, he was treated almost as if he were the sector's chief controller during business hours and was therefore always up-to-the-minute with anything that was going wrong on InterCity's network.

 

Around lunch time one day the driver of an up West Midlands train apparently advised at Birmingham International that he was having problems (probably a shifted tyre) and that the AC loco would have to be replaced at Coventry. The only loco available at Coventry was a 58 but that was readied to take over when the train arrived which it did. The original plan was for the 58-hauled train to be switched fast to slow south of MKC and then placed in Tring Goods Yard to await the arrival of an AC replacement from Willesden, apparently a fairly routine procedure (been there, done that!) but one which had the disadvantage of throwing the route's stock-working out of balance for the rest of the day with a Euston arrival at least an hour late.

 

By chance, Mike can just been given access on his desk computer to the then new TRUST and he thought that this would be a good opportunity to see how it could be used to monitor out of course workings. It very soon became clear to him that the 58 wasn't exactly hanging about, and after discussions with control (and the assurances that HQ would back the course of action), it was decided to allow the 58 to take the train through to Euston, for which it would be given priority, and to take it into platform 1 there which (with the adjacent gates into Eversholt Street) offered better ventilation for diesel fumes than the rest of the station.

 

Mike didn't keep this information to himself and it was soon suggested that the enterprising 58 driver should be given an appropriate reception when he arrived. Consequently, not overly more than an hour later, a fair number of people from IC and PMS, including a good sprinkling of SMGs, gathered by the stops at platform 1 and as the train ran in the driver was given a hearty round of applause. Meanwhile announcements apologised for the late arrival and lack of air-conditioning.

 

That's the sort of heartwarming story that everyone loves to hear!

 

What would have been the coach formation on a typical train like that?