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

[Hal Nail]

14 hours ago, Rivercider said:

 

A photo from Flickr by Carl Brunnock of 58002 passing Dawlish Warren.

The 12.12 Liverpool Lime Street to Penzance passing Dawlish Warren behind 58002, 1/9/84. Carl Brunnock,

 

cheers

 

Curiosity duly piqued, I've dug out the photo I recalled in Diesels on the Western Region, Hugh Dady, taken at a very sunny Exeter. It is the same occasion though and says the 58, from Saltley, dragged the completely failed HST all the way from the Birmingham area to Brent, where the 58 itself let go, and was then propelled to Plymouth by the partially revived HST!

Edited August 24, 2023 by Hal Nail

[Trev52A]

A BR Type 2 assisting a Brush Type 4 may not be that unusual, but perhaps the diesel brake tender sporting the Express Passenger headlamps is, so I hope I get away with this. Anyway, it's another opportunity to show this picture of mine, on the off chance that someone, somewhere, may also have witnessed this event and made a note of the loco numbers. I took this at Low Fell (Gateshead) on 2nd August 1967 but I can't find any reference to which locos they are - it's the northbound car carrier, of course. Any help at this late stage would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 

 

Trevor

  

[bécasse]

The RCTS Railway Observer is now available on-line. It isn't searchable in the way that the Railway Magazine archive or the Railway Modeller archive are, so if you don't have a date looking for information in it is like searching for a needle in a haystack, but if you do have a date - as you do - it can definitely be worth searching through the next few subsequent issues to see if there is any mention.

[unravelled]

12/5/65. 7920 rescued  D1593  somewhere north of Ardley Station.

 

 

At Adley it was replaced by 6823, presumably sent out from Banbury

 

 

 

For those of us interested in such things, the leading vehicle appears to be W111W,  a K41 brake.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[w124bob]

On 14/08/2023 at 14:07, LMS2968 said:

A friend of mine was a driver from Warrington Arpley and one did it to him on a bitterly cold, frosty night. He was stopped at a signal and looked out sideways to see a red glow emanating from under the 47; it was the remains of the block and some of the rigging that was glowing. Having considered just carrying on, he asked the bobby to be to be put inside and a fitter called out. As the morning light arrived he noticed the landscape was all white, except for a ten foot semi-circle around this brake block.

 

The fitter eventually arrived and changed the necessary parts, but then announced that the engine was a failure since the tyre was loose on the wheel. Since the train was loaded petrol tankers, my mate was rather glad he stopped!

I had very similar incident with a Birmingham Glasgow via Manchester service, engine removed at Preston for a leccy but the 47 usually did run to Liverpool. Class 31 for the run to Lime st, then back light to Preston for the last bit of a Glasgow Manchester. The 31 was needed for a parcels on return at Preston, Springs Branch provided 56013 for the run back Manchester and onto Longsight! The Springs Branch driver came for the ride and took the loco back once I bailed out at Victoria on the light engine run back to the branch.

I've also had a 37/6 on one occasion on the York Shrewsbury postal due to the late failure of the booked loco at Tyne Yard, the stock came down from Heaton arriving in York around 20.00. At the time the postal was booked into Piccadilly so I believe the loco sat there for a few hours as very few Piccadilly or Longsight drivers had 37 traction knowledge. 

[Stoke West]

12 hours ago, unravelled said:

12/5/65. 7920 rescued  D1593  somewhere north of Ardley Station.

 

 

At Adley it was replaced by 6823, presumably sent out from Banbury

 

 

 

For those of us interested in such things, the leading vehicle appears to be W111W,  a K41 brake.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

Note hoppers in yard for the Ardley to Greaves working this lasted after steam class ee type 4 worked . looking at the date wouldn't be surprised if one of the locos was off of this working

[Rugd1022]

On 15/08/2023 at 16:22, 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. 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...

 

Not forgetting the visible dip under Lordhills Bridge, before you even got past Ranelagh Bridge!

 

I've heard several anecdotes of various combinations of locos in the south west during the early years of the diesel-hydraulics when double heading was already common west of Newton Abbott, with multiple stories of pairs of D63xxs failing due to electrical issues, being assisted by another pair of 63xxs taken off another service, though I've yet to see a photo of four of them on such a working (I posted one of a D63xx threesome at Bodmin Road elsewhere on RMWeb recently). One tale I heard many years ago from an ex-Truro man who came up to Old Oak for his driving job was of D602 and its booked pilot D6301 grinding to a halt on a down parcels train at St.Austell, both locos were deemed unfit to continue on their own and the only loco available to assist was the St.Blazey allocated 08 sat in the yard, which dutifully took the train on to Truro where the 08 carted D6301 off to the yard. Luckily, also in the yard was another D6XX waiting to take an up freight forward to Tavistock Junction, this was duly purloined to take D601 and its train of vans onwards to Penzance. It's incidents like this which contributed to the NBL built hydraulic's reputation as bad eggs, but day in, day they carried out their booked duties with far fewer failures than most people would acknowledge.

 

There was another tale similar to the above where a D6XX and D8XX combo was assisted from Lostwithiel up to Treverin Tunnel and on down to Par by one of St.Blazey's 42xx tanks, that would have made a rather nice photograph.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Rugd1022

[Trev52A]

20 hours ago, bécasse said:

The RCTS Railway Observer is now available on-line. It isn't searchable in the way that the Railway Magazine archive or the Railway Modeller archive are, so if you don't have a date looking for information in it is like searching for a needle in a haystack, but if you do have a date - as you do - it can definitely be worth searching through the next few subsequent issues to see if there is any mention.

 

Thanks for the tip-off. I will report back if I find anything.

Cheers

Trevor

[unravelled]

5 hours ago, Stoke West said:

Note hoppers in yard for the Ardley to Greaves working this lasted after steam class ee type 4 worked . looking at the date wouldn't be surprised if one of the locos was off of this working

Around that date I only saw the hoppers on a couple of occasions, hauled by 56xx 0-6-2T's.

[OnTheBranchline]

On 29/08/2023 at 17:12, unravelled said:

12/5/65. 7920 rescued  D1593  somewhere north of Ardley Station.

 

 

At Adley it was replaced by 6823, presumably sent out from Banbury

 

 

 

For those of us interested in such things, the leading vehicle appears to be W111W,  a K41 brake.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

Looks like Rev Awdry wrote this story (he also wrote Super Rescue which was rescuing two dead diesels).

[Mike 84C]

Ardley stone was usually hauled by 5600 0-6-2's and 6100 2-6-2's from Leamington shed. When that shed closed the work came to Banbury and you tended to get whatever sort of locos. 9f,  8f, 5mt even 4mt.

[DCB]

On 15/08/2023 at 16:22, 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. 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...

I remember the article   I believe the driver lowered the pantograph at line speed for some reason and it would not raise again.  Plan A was to stop for a replacement loco but it kept rolling at a decent pace with clear signals until stopped at near the final descent into Euston. The driver explained he had no power over a lineside telephone but managed to blow the brakes ff and coast into Euston.   May have been back in Vacuum brake days, but there must be some onboard power for raising the pantograph (batteries) so logically it would also run the brake exhauster/pump as well

[KingEdwardII]

After WWII, the 4700 2-8-0s were used on the heavy summer Saturday expresses, especially to the West Country, particularly "The Royal Duchy" and Paddington - Kingswear but also the Cornish Riviera.

 

Some of this is detailed in David Maidment's "Great Western Eight Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives" book, with some great photos.

 

We can only hope that the Heavy Freight group at the GWS at Didcot succeed with their new build 4709 and that we get to see a suitably long train hauled by one of these magnificent steeds.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Steamport Southport]

5 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

After WWII, the 4700 2-8-0s were used on the heavy summer Saturday expresses, especially to the West Country, particularly "The Royal Duchy" and Paddington - Kingswear but also the Cornish Riviera.

 

Some of this is detailed in David Maidment's "Great Western Eight Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives" book, with some great photos.

 

We can only hope that the Heavy Freight group at the GWS at Didcot succeed with their new build 4709 and that we get to see a suitably long train hauled by one of these magnificent steeds.

 

Yours, Mike.

 

Designed as such though.

 

They were express freight and secondary passenger engines, not heavy freight engines. 

 

 

Jason

[45070]

On 24/08/2023 at 07:25, Hal Nail said:

Curiosity duly piqued, I've dug out the photo I recalled in Diesels on the Western Region, Hugh Dady, taken at a very sunny Exeter. It is the same occasion though and says the 58, from Saltley, dragged the completely failed HST all the way from the Birmingham area to Brent, where the 58 itself let go, and was then propelled to Plymouth by the partially revived HST!

I believe that is a younger me window hanging from the back of the first class.

 

other hearsay I have heard since this day is that 58002 ran out of fuel at South Brent and it was on crew training runs around Birmingham when it was asked to assist, and it would have gone through to Penzance had it not failed.
 

Birmingham was short of power that afternoon D200/40122 also took over a train to Bristol.

 

Jeff

Edited September 8, 2023 by 45070

[OnTheBranchline]

On 13/08/2023 at 08:32, Wickham Green too said:

Not necessarily - it could have been a visiting loco that was borrowed. Presumably 77077's allocation was justified and there was some regular traffic that should have taken it away from Taunton at times. 

 

Does anyone know what livery this engine or WD's in general would have been in around this time?

[65179]

On 29/09/2023 at 17:51, OnTheBranchline said:

 

Does anyone know what livery this engine or WD's in general would have been in around this time?

 

WDs that received a bit of a spruce up before entry into LNER  service proper seem to have received plain black with just the number in large numbers on the cabside and nothing on the tender. The number was also on the bufferbeam.

 

I don't know about what the GWR did, but 77077 certainly had larger numbers (photo on railway photography smugmug site) when seen at Shrewsbury in May 1950:

 

From the same site, 77115 at Chester with typical bufferbeam numbering style:

 

Regards,

Simon

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by 65179
Extra photo link added

[kevinlms]

6 hours ago, 65179 said:

 

WDs that received a bit of a spruce up before entry into LNER  service proper seem to have received plain black with just the number in large numbers on the cabside and nothing on the tender. The number was also on the bufferbeam.

 

I don't know about what the GWR did, but 77077 certainly had larger numbers (photo on railway photography smugmug site) when seen at Shrewsbury in May 1950:

 

From the same site, 77115 at Chester with typical bufferbeam numbering style:

 

Regards,

Simon

 

There seems to be something missing on the bufferbeam!

[Wickham Green too]

On 29/09/2023 at 17:51, OnTheBranchline said:

Does anyone know what livery this engine or WD's in general would have been in around this time?

Well, three that went through Eastleigh Works in early 1948 emerged in gloss black with cabside numbers and 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' in S.R. 'Sunshine' style ................. but they were still owned by the Military so the tender lettering was soon painted over  -  on two of them !