Western Region diesel hydraulic shunting locos - were there ever any?

[The Stationmaster]

22 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

Photos of the Old Oak batch are few and far between, but John Vaughan's book 'This Is Paddington' (Ian Allan, 1982) has this shot of D9521 passing through Acton Mainline on the down relief...

 

 

D9521 went new to Old Oak in November '64 then moved to Bath Road in October '65.

I've an idea that is a photo by Alec Swain and so might well have been a working being used for training.  London Division D95XX were based at one time for operating purpose at OldOak, Reading, and Didcot.  The (I'm not sure if Reading had more than one) most visible job at reading was on on the Down pilot at the station where the diesel replaced a 46-0 - often a 'Castle' in its later days but for many yearsa 43XX turn,   The Didcot one was no doubt there for trip working.

 

There are several Alec Swain photos of them which have been published over the years including one taken at Didcot with Traction Inspector Stan French - who did a lot (?all) of the London Division training on them  - standing nearby.

 

One Old Oak turn they were used on a was a Paper Train to, I think,  Maidenhead on which the loco came to grief one night dropping various parts of its transmission all over the place at Maidenhead east.

[Halvarras]

On 07/01/2024 at 21:47, Nearholmer said:

My betting is that if BR had continued to shunt things, rather than follow Dr Beeching’s wise advice not to, there would probably have been a BR Class NN, consisting of RR-Sentinels. Portuguese Railways bought a class of license-built ones:

 

 

 

 

In these days of 'what ifs', fictitious liveries and Kernow flogging the Hornby model at £55 I am already imagining one in BR green livery........oooh 'eck......help 😲!!

 

I think - but I may be wrong - that the furthest South West a Bristol Bath Road Class 14 ever travelled (i.e. not allocated) was Taunton (??)

[The Johnster]

Your ‘contentious point’ has long been a mystery to me, Brian.  I can confirm that Canton drivers’ opinion of them was that there were no redeeming features and they were a pointless waste of time, unreliable and with poor brakes, and I can’t comment from personal experience as they were out of service and being disposed to industrial buyers when I started on the railway.  A few were left at the back of Canton Maintenance at the time.  
 

Yet they were an instant hit with their new owners, some of whom worked them hard over large sites with indifferent maintenance facilities compared to the WR’s modern diesel depots.  I have no idea what Hull thought of their allocation, and on paper they looked like a good idea; trip work with 08s, originally designed for 24/7 marshalling yard work but used for everything else by the 70s, was painfully slow and a pita for signalmen.  
 

They were, IIRC, capable of 40mph, I imagine with transfer jobs in mind, but rarely needed to exceed 25, and gearing for a lower top speed might have improved their T.E.  But I cannot explain or even come up with a plausible theory for the apparent anomaly of their being a failure for BR and a success in steelworks and for the NCB.  I’m not aware of any particular problems in preservation use either, but the less intense nature and lighter loads of the heritage world are less likely to flag these up.  
 

I think they were to some extent victims of the problems being experienced with overworked Warships in the early 60s; failed Warships blocking bays in the erecting shop at Swindon resulted in delays to the delivery of new Westerns and prevented the building of the D95xx on time.  400 of them, though; that’s ambitious, and my gut reaction is that even half that figure would have been impossible for Swindon to deliver even under more favourable circumstances, and they’d have had to have been built elsewhere.  Might have kept Gorton going a bit longer!

[hmrspaul]

The GWR (Which the WR remained faithful to) was notorious for mis-ordering. Consider the hundreds of 0-6-0 tanks they had delivered in the first years of BR, many built (partially) by private works, many put straight to store. 

 

On the other hand, the lack of class 20s or similar in South Wales does seem to have led to O8s being used for trips which might have been better worked by a Class 14. I remember steel trains being worked into Newport Docks https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/br0809/e38e6c62e https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/br0809/e28e846e7 and  Llanwern steel works or the Ford trains in Dan-y-Graig. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/br0809/e2e8c7978 But, these workings probably didn't inconvenience local mainline working too much. 

 

Paul

[Nearholmer]

3 hours ago, br2975 said:

the D95xxs were a failure as a result of this, how do we account for 'outside industry' with staff not always as well versed as BR artisans, with lesser facilities, working in dark and dirty sheds getting the D95xxs to perform better and more reliably than British Railways ?

Hmmm…..

 

Corby loco facilities didn’t fit the image of a typical ‘industrial’ site; it was quite modern (1954) and well-equipped:

 

 

 

The NCB had very competent and well-equipped area workshops too.

 

You don’t get a steel works to work, or a coal mine to run, without a lot of very skilled engineering staff, and some decent kit. Another big ‘industrial’ user of diesel locos was MOD, and they too had good facilities and skilled staff. BR wasn’t the only outfit in the country that knew how to look after locos.

 

One thing I wonder is whether the locos actually performed better when worked hard and consistently, under the care of small teams for whom they were “the big thing” than being used for dribs and drabs, and being looked after by guys who had bigger fish to fry.

Edited January 12 by Nearholmer

[Cwmtwrch]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

One thing I wonder is whether the locos actually performed better when worked hard and consistently, under the care of small teams for whom they were “the big thing” than being used for dribs and drabs, and being looked after by guys who had bigger fish to fry.

A valid point. The other question, perhaps, was BR expecting too much of them in terms of power and speed, and the probably relatively lower speeds and shorter journeys of industrial use reduced the failure rate? The EE class 20 had 1,000 bhp at 850 rpm, the BTH class 15 and NB class 16 had 800bhp at 1,250 rpm, the Clayton class 17  had 2 x 450 bhp at 1,500 rpm and the class 14 650 bhp at 1,500 rpm. Apart from the class 20, all had Paxman power units of related designs, and lacked reliability for BR.

[MidlandRed]

10 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Your ‘contentious point’ has long been a mystery to me, Brian.  I can confirm that Canton drivers’ opinion of them was that there were no redeeming features and they were a pointless waste of time, unreliable and with poor brakes, and I can’t comment from personal experience as they were out of service and being disposed to industrial buyers when I started on the railway.  A few were left at the back of Canton Maintenance at the time.  
 

Yet they were an instant hit with their new owners, some of whom worked them hard over large sites with indifferent maintenance facilities compared to the WR’s modern diesel depots.  I have no idea what Hull thought of their allocation, and on paper they looked like a good idea; trip work with 08s, originally designed for 24/7 marshalling yard work but used for everything else by the 70s, was painfully slow and a pita for signalmen.  
 

They were, IIRC, capable of 40mph, I imagine with transfer jobs in mind, but rarely needed to exceed 25, and gearing for a lower top speed might have improved their T.E.  But I cannot explain or even come up with a plausible theory for the apparent anomaly of their being a failure for BR and a success in steelworks and for the NCB.  I’m not aware of any particular problems in preservation use either, but the less intense nature and lighter loads of the heritage world are less likely to flag these up.  
 

I think they were to some extent victims of the problems being experienced with overworked Warships in the early 60s; failed Warships blocking bays in the erecting shop at Swindon resulted in delays to the delivery of new Westerns and prevented the building of the D95xx on time.  400 of them, though; that’s ambitious, and my gut reaction is that even half that figure would have been impossible for Swindon to deliver even under more favourable circumstances, and they’d have had to have been built elsewhere.  Might have kept Gorton going a bit longer!

From non professional observation, they seemed to work ok on the Gloucester based trip freights to places like Stroud (ex MR), Dursley and into the Forest of Dean. They did bits of shunting (being fitted with all the appropriate steps and handrails to enable function as per an 08, 03 or 04), with the added advantage of being able to run along the more major routes at a better speed than the traditional diesel shunters. 
 

@The Johnster you really need to invest in the Anthony P Sayer books on the class 14 to get the full story. Type 1s were being listed in WR diesel schemes from the early days of dieselisation, along with type 2s (which emerged as class 22). However, the factor holding class 14 development up appears to have been design resources tied up on the Western class D1000s). Once that obstacle was overcome the design was developed. The class, of which 56 were eventually produced, was actually justified financially based on the full build out of 400 (which had been identified in the 50s as a requirement and was still around in 1963). It does seem quite a flight of fancy on behalf of the WR that they might have work for nearly double the total number of type 1s actual purchased for the entirety of British Railways. The class 14 (along with the almost equally failed class 17) were touted as standard type 1s and offered alongside each other but no regions chose the class 14 other than the WR. 
 

It was conceived as a cheap and cheerful solution, instead of the type 2 (class 22) which was considered over specified for many of their duties, or even the diesel electric type 1 - so comparatively expensive items like multiple working equipment were omitted to get the cost down and even then, the final outturn cost were significantly higher than predicted thus diluting the benefit v a diesel electric type 1 - when used in E Yorkshire, and possibly to an extent in the Welsh Valleys lack of multiple working equipment was a major set back. It is ironic that after the closure of the withered arm in 1966, presumably class 22s had become available for redeployment and were used on those Gloucester based trip duties with shunting which lingered around for a few years and were previously rostered for class 14s - some of these were stored at 2 yrs old or less. Changing traffic patterns were a serious culprit as well (not least the closure of local goods facilities following the removal of common carrier status). 
 

I have been reading the Changing Engines - Birmingham and Rugby Districts recently and though it deals in great detail with the ex LNWR and MR lines, the ex WR routes transferred to LMR in 1963 are also dealt with and there were, up until late 1966, a handful of pannier tanks at sheds like Oxley, Stourbridge Junction and Tyseley required for a range of local trip and shunt duties (eg Halesowen) - I just wonder, if the LMR transfer hadn’t occurred whether these would have been class 14 duties! Would have been amazing for West Midlands based rail enthusiasts! 

 

It’s also interesting to see the influx of class 08 at sheds like Bescot were used, as well as in major yards like Washwood Heath and Bescot, on trips and shunts previously worked by, for instance ex LNW 7Fs. Many of these stayed out for a week returning to the shed for fuelling and maintenance weekly (eg the 03 at Albion, and shunter at Soho Pool - based originally from Monument Lane, later Bescot). 
 

The class 14s had a number of known mechanical weaknesses that BR had attempted to get on top of but presumably the likes of British Steel and the NCB were able to deal with - and in any case were not subject to the rigours of meeting the sort of utilisation requirements the National Traction Plan imposed on BR regions - and after all these locos were acquired from BR at a knockdown price so having a relatively high level of spares to cover reliability issues would not be as problematic. 
 

Back to other more traditional hydraulic shunters (possibly even on topic 😲) - the Rugby based D29xx North British 300 hp diesel hydraulics of the early 60s got as close to Leamington as Coventry parcels depot (ran with a match truck owing to track circuit issues) - where one was outstationed (also one was used at Nuneaton). Is it conceivable these might have got as far as Leamington Spa (Avenue)?!! Still not WR but relatively close for hydraulic shunters!! 

Edited January 13 by MidlandRed

[Nearholmer]

11 minutes ago, MidlandRed said:

full build out of 400 (which had been identified in the 50s as a requirement and was still around in 1963). It does seem quite a flight of fancy on behalf of the WR

 

How many Pannier Tanks did they have at the time? I’m wondering whether they thought they were to build one-for-one to replace them.

[MidlandRed]

46 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

How many Pannier Tanks did they have at the time? I’m wondering whether they thought they were to build one-for-one to replace them.

The WR diesel schemes seemed to have a relatively conservative rate of steam v diesel replacement - I would guess you’re right to an extent - although the combined total of 57xx and variants (3F) and 94xx (4F) numbered over 1000 until withdrawals started in 1956, would dictate better than 1 to 1 - I’m minded to think they were intended as 57xx replacements as a class 14 is surely not a 4F - but it’s a bit odd the thinking didn’t change over the years though - most of the local passenger duties had gone over to DMU or succumbed to closures by 1963 and things, although still not crystal clear owing to rapid change, not least Beeching, were certainly different from the 1950s. Diesel locomotive reliability problems (on all Regions) would dictate replacement rates could not be achieved anyway as utilisation and availability rates were far lower than required (Simon Lilley’s Peak book is a revelation in this respect)!! 

Edited January 13 by MidlandRed

[The Johnster]

A serious proposal for 400 DH road switchers to satisfy the requirements of the 1955 modernisation plan sounds quite astoninshing, not that I'm doubting it!  I knew there were more planned than were built and many had  been cancelled, but all the same...

 

The principle, at least on the WR, was that each new deisel allocated to a shed required three equivalent steam locos to be withdrawn (because it was alleged that a steam loco could remain in service for 8 hours before needing to drop fire and the equivalent diesel could remain in service all day, therefore one diesel replaced three steam), so, roughly, 70 Warships displaced 210 Castles.  If you apply this to 57xx, 8750, and 94xx panniers and there were a thousand of them, then replacing them with the DH type 1 that became the Class 14 would have require 333 or 334 locos, which suggests a surplus of 60-plus Type 1s.  And this was before the major traffic  changes of the 1957-63 period.  But a thousand pannier didn't have to be replaced, since a good number (not the majority, but a significant minority) were involved in passenger work.  The first leg of the Cheltenham Spa Express, the successor to the Cheltenham Flyer, was a 94xx job between Cheltenham and Gloucester, and 8570s were taskes with the 3-hour journey from Newport to Brecon, and there were plenty of other examples.  By and large, this pannier work was replaced by dmus by 1960.

 

So, let's say that the Class 14 requirement would be reduced by all this to 300. 

 

The rapid rise in private car ownership, more powerful and efficient lorries, and, from 1958, the development of the motorway network, all against a background of heamorraging traffic, hit the railway hard.  Cars were cheaper and more reliable door-to-door, and road freight was faster as well, and undercut the railway, whose charges were set by government, while the customers left mileage traffic uncollected because the free warehouseing blocking sidings and tying up wagons was cheaper than providing your own storage, demurragen notwithstanding if it could be collected!   Factor in a swing to oil-fired central heating in new council housing reducing the demand for household coal and it's delivery to local yards by the very trip and pickup trains we are discussing in terms of Class 14 work, and the equation in the early 60s was very clearly road for the future, rail for long distance passenger and block heavy freight, plus the London commuter network but otherwise a thing of the past that increasing numbers of passengers and freight customers were abandoning in droves, the very conclusion that Beeching came to!

 

I'd contend that by 1961, the requirement for Class 14s was down to 200, halved in five years.  By the time the locos were authorised, the Beeching report had been published, removing a considerable amount of the pickup work as hundreds of goods depots shut up shop and collection/delivery was based on large urban hubs, the basis of what later became NCL.  There was still the trip work, but this was drying up as well; the demand for household coal was dropping and the traffic was 'hubbed' in House Coal Concentration Depots, with more final delivery by road.  More and more factory trips were being lost as the customers invested in the new toy, the flexible and cost-effective 40' articulated lorry, for which the motorway network was being buil.  So the eventual order was for 56 locos.

 

These were badly delayed.  Swindon was overwhelmed with dead Warships and the urgent need for Westerns; the loco shortage was so severe that the WR's express passenger timetable nearly collapsed in '62. not helped by the cracks in King frames, and while the scrap sidings were full of Castles that could have been made to function with not too much work, but the region was in a race with the Eastern to be the first to fully dieselise and any such suggestion was not 'on message'.  Also in '62, despite the problems, the region declared itself free of steam west of the Tamar Bridge, and most of those steam locos were scrapped, not transferred.  By '63 the situation was a bit more under control, as Westerns became available, but the hydraulic adventure was circling the drain; the region was baled out over the next two or three years by a mass influx of 47s and 37s, because they were in full production and the  builders had the capacity to provide more of them, quickly.  An order for 100 low-geared Hymeks to replace 56xx and 42xx in South Wales was cancelled when Beyer-Peacock collapsed and no other firm could be found to take the work on.  Crewe delivered it's order of Westerns before Swindon could manage to complete it's order, all of which delayed starting work on the 14s.  By the time they were built, they were the locos that nobody wanted.

 

I can't help feeling that the failure of the 14s to perform to an acceptable standard on the WR was to at least some extent a result of an attitude problem, the locos that nobody wanted.  The drivers didn't like them, the fitters didn't like them, the electrician didn't like them, the management didn't like them, and the signalmen hated them, and that sort of thing becomes infectious and beds itself in to the collective railway conciousness.  This is an entirely subjective comment and I cannot back it up with facts or figures, but it's certainly the impression I got talking about them with men who'd worked on them when I started at Canton. in the 70s.  Even when they started to become more reliable, drivers were nervous about taking them out in case they couldn't get home, and a cloud hung over them.  I'd be interested to know what Hull thought of theirs! 

 

I started my railway career on the E76 pilot, which would have been ideal work for them and had been one of their jobs a few years earlier, but we had to clunk and lurch about the place on 08s, which were bombproof reliable but glacially slow, and not very comfortable.  The ride of an 08 is actually surprisingly good, at least until the loco is in motion, then you realise it's got triangular wheels and the springs you thought were to absorb shocks were actually to amplify them.  They would have been lethal to anyone not lashed down at more than 15mph (yes, I know about the 27mph 09s and am very glad not to have ever encountered one in anger).  An old Cardiff Docks driver told me he knew when he was off the road because the ride improved.  Blagged myself a ride up the Gwendraeth Valley on an 03 once, and that was quantum better even light engine at over 30mph back through Llanelli station.  I have no idea how the 14s rode, but they had to be better than an 08.  Being dragged over the sleepers by a Deltic is probably better than an 08 (though 25s at 90mph ran them close!).

 

 

[br2975]

19 hours ago, The Johnster said:

A serious proposal for 400 DH road switchers to satisfy the requirements of the 1955 modernisation plan sounds quite astoninshing, not that I'm doubting it!  I knew there were more planned than were built and many had  been cancelled, but all the same..........................

 

.

Reading this book by Tony Sayers will explain all you need to know about the genesis, construction, operations and decline of the 'nine-fivers' under British Railways, and would have saved 'The Johnster' an hours worth of typing................ escpecially as Tony Sayer's research is not quite  co-terminus with The Johnsters' supposition.

.

 

[melmoth]

On 08/01/2024 at 22:41, Rivercider said:

You have joined two sentences together there, one where I agreed that I was not considering class 14s as shunting locos in the traditional sense.  I then postulated that there would not have been much requirement for the small diesel hydraulic shunters in the early days of dieselisation, as built by North British in 1957.

The class 14s did not appear until seven years later, in 1964, by which time they were already obsolete, and in any case were never expected to shunt in yards or locations with tight curves.

 

cheers

 

Yes, sorry. I edited out the middle sentence as it didn't seem relevant, but of course it is.

[The Stationmaster]

On 12/01/2024 at 23:52, MidlandRed said:

The WR diesel schemes seemed to have a relatively conservative rate of steam v diesel replacement - I would guess you’re right to an extent - although the combined total of 57xx and variants (3F) and 94xx (4F) numbered over 1000 until withdrawals started in 1956, would dictate better than 1 to 1 - I’m minded to think they were intended as 57xx replacements as a class 14 is surely not a 4F - but it’s a bit odd the thinking didn’t change over the years though - most of the local passenger duties had gone over to DMU or succumbed to closures by 1963 and things, although still not crystal clear owing to rapid change, not least Beeching, were certainly different from the 1950s. Diesel locomotive reliability problems (on all Regions) would dictate replacement rates could not be achieved anyway as utilisation and availability rates were far lower than required (Simon Lilley’s Peak book is a revelation in this respect)!! 

I think planned 1 for 1 replacement of smaller setam engine classes, especially panniers) would have been inevitablee foir non=passenger work as the diagram demand occurred at the same time of day.  In other words all the freight trips were running at similar times of day as were the yard pilots.  The big difference would have come with yard pilots where 350hp diesel shunters were 24 hour locos for at least 6 days a week in most yards to would have replaced a couple of similarly used steam engines.

 

But trips - at constant traffic levels - would have been much nearer a one-for one replacement.  The problem of course was, even as late as the arrival of the D95XX locos, the increasingly rapid rate of disappearance of the work they were built for.  The D95XX disappeared from the London Division of the WR quickly because the work simply didn't exist  and in most cases what trip work did exist needed something more powerful (even the dreaded NBL Type 2 D63XX aka Class 22).

 

When I was managing a marshalling yard in South Wales in 1973 we had one trip working (out of many) which would have justified a D95XX - it was worked by a 350 diesel shunter.  One trip based there which they had worked not too long previously had vanished by then.  When I moved to the West Country in 1974 neither of the areas in which I worked had a trip working that would have, for various reasons, suited a D95XX as they were longer distance running over main lines with limited shunting. but quite heavy loads.   The work really had gone.

 

The story of the 94XX is a sad reflection on Britsih ndustry and post war materials sortage couple, once again, with disappearing work.  the total size of the orders probably just about made sense at the time they were ordered but had become a nonsense by the time any of them were delivered.  Quite why orders were not cancelled is the most pertinent question there I think.

[hmrspaul]

Stationmaster, do you think they would have been a better, more flexible, loco if they had been fitted with steam heating? Or were they correct to assume all of the passenger traffic that the 0-6-0Ts had been responsible for had become operated by DMUs (or already lost - plenty of closures pre-Beeching)

 

Paul

 

[The Stationmaster]

19 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

Stationmaster, do you think they would have been a better, more flexible, loco if they had been fitted with steam heating? Or were they correct to assume all of the passenger traffic that the 0-6-0Ts had been responsible for had become operated by DMUs (or already lost - plenty of closures pre-Beeching)

 

Paul

 

I have wondered about that although basically their maximum speed was too low.  And, as you say, DMUs took over most - but not all - of the passenger services (mostly on branch lines) which had been worked by tank engines - for example the D63XX worked passenger trains on several West of England branches for a while.

 

The only WR passenger service that I can think of that went over to diesel loco haulage by a fixed wheelbase diesel were the Swindon Works staff trains on the Highworth branch which were worked by a 204hp shunter, without heat.  The D95XX were too heavy for that branch. 

[hmrspaul]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I have wondered about that although basically their maximum speed was too low.  And, as you say, DMUs took over most - but not all - of the passenger services (mostly on branch lines) which had been worked by tank engines - for example the D63XX worked passenger trains on several West of England branches for a while.

Thanks, I had overlooked the speed limitation of the Class 14s. Altogether a very strange idea - 40 mph would have made them a nuisance for any trips out on mainlines in busy periods - as you had through Cardiff where line capacity restricted the development of Milford Haven oil traffic. 

 

Paul 

(whose Dad sold the movement of oil on rail during the 1960s from Marylebone HQ) 

[bécasse]

In early Trinity term 1966 the OURS made arrangements with the Bristol Division of the WR for one or two members at a time to have a brake van trip over the Strood and Nailsworth ex-MR branches which were about to close. My turn came on Friday 27 May which turned out to be the day on which the final scheduled train ran.

When I arrived at Stroud ex-GW station and found the Area ops man as instructed, I was informed by him that the Division had made a mistake and issued a cab pass instead of a brake van permit but had, of course, failed to roster an accompanying Inspector. However, he had had a word with the driver who was quite happy to have a passenger riding with him and so I was driven over to the ex-MR station where D9500 was already waiting with a long assembled train of empty wagons plus one loaded with scrap metal and a brake van on each end.

The driver was very chatty and seemed genuinely pleased to have an interested passenger but I remember being surprised at how cramped the cab was despite looking roomy from outside. We ran round at Dudbridge and then proceeded up to Nailsworth (where only the goods sidings remained), dropping off the loaded wagon at a single-siding scrap yard en route. Yet more empty wagons were picked up at Nailsworth making for quite a hefty train which D9500 seemed to have no problems in handling and after clearing the branch at Stonehouse we had quite a spirited run up the Bristol main line towards Gloucester until a howling noise behind us indicated that a wagon axle box was running hot, causing a more cautious pace to be adopted.

 

D9500 was almost two years old at that time and the driver seemed quite enthusiastic about his steed which he had also driven on the various remaining goods branches in the Forest of Dean, certainly I didn't hear a single word of criticism. I realise now that there cannot have been many other non-railwaymen enthusiasts who rode in the cab of one of the class while undertaking their originally-intended duties on BR.

 

Their was a somewhat amusing epilogue, two or three weeks later the OURS secretary told me that he had some money for me, "in view of the error made in issuing the permit" Bristol Division had refunded the fee that I had paid for the trip!

[The Johnster]

On 15/01/2024 at 15:23, hmrspaul said:

Thanks, I had overlooked the speed limitation of the Class 14s. Altogether a very strange idea - 40 mph would have made them a nuisance for any trips out on mainlines in busy periods - as you had through Cardiff where line capacity restricted the development of Milford Haven oil traffic. 

 

Paul 

(whose Dad sold the movement of oil on rail during the 1960s from Marylebone HQ) 

 

Not denying that Cardiff was, and still is, a bottleneck, but the worst trouble was the single track 'North Curve' section at the back of Canton shed.  Don't forget that the SWML was quadrupled between STJ and Leckwith, and that the up and down reliefs, which is where the bulk of Class 14 work took place on the SWML in that area, were speed restricted; 40mph STJ-Ebbw Bridge, 60mph Ebbw Bridge-Rhymney Bridge, then 40mph to Newtown West, 30mph to Leckwith.  The 14's lack of speed on routes that carried a lot of 25mph Class 9 traffic would have not been an issue.  Similar conditions apply to the R&SB and OVE 15mph permissive blocks in the Margam/Port Talbot area, and the Swansea District line was 40mph restricted due to mining subsidence.

 

Speaking for Cardiff Area (Awre Jc-Fishguard Harbour), I would say that nearly all class 14 work was Class 9 goods or mineral related, and I doubt the engines were ever required to run at more than 25mph in consequence.  I'm not aware of them being used on trains that required running faster than 45mph anywhere.

 

Did your dad ever consider routing some block oil trains from Milford Haven via the Central Wales?  I'm rather taken with the idea of Albion or perhaps even Kingsbury trains blowing holes in the sky and disturbing the sheeps miles away going up Sugar Loaf...

Edited January 17 by The Johnster

[25901]

On 12/01/2024 at 09:53, adb968008 said:

Maybe @25901 might want to share some of his memories with the preserved NBL shunters D2767/D2774 ?

Can't repeat my times with NBLs as I might get banned off this forum, lets just say that NBL deserved to go bust due to the use of M.A.N. based units. The original plan was to use Gardner units after the Paxman ones in shunters but somebody had a bright idea.

adb968008 did you ever see D2767s crankshaft suicide 

[hmrspaul]

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

 

 

Did your dad ever consider routing some block oil trains from Milford Haven via the Central Wales?  I'm rather taken with the idea of Albion or perhaps even Kingsbury trains blowing holes in the sky and disturbing the sheeps miles away going up Sugar Loaf...

My father rarely mentioned detail of his work (or his extensive war service for that matter). It was only my moving to Cardiff for my first Sandwich training that he mentioned the problems at Cardiff, that was 1970. He had even asked me about the Pembroke Dock branch when we went there for our A-level Ecology practical week in 1967

 

Would the Central Wales line be part of any long term plans - wasn't it supposed to close under Beeching? I haven't looked up my copy of the report. They had already lost the direct Southampton/Fawley to Birmingham routes so Oil trains (the heaviest in the country at that time) had to go via Acton.

 

Paul

[Stoke West]

1 hour ago, hmrspaul said:

My father rarely mentioned detail of his work (or his extensive war service for that matter). It was only my moving to Cardiff for my first Sandwich training that he mentioned the problems at Cardiff, that was 1970. He had even asked me about the Pembroke Dock branch when we went there for our A-level Ecology practical week in 1967

 

Would the Central Wales line be part of any long term plans - wasn't it supposed to close under Beeching? I haven't looked up my copy of the report. They had already lost the direct Southampton/Fawley to Birmingham routes so Oil trains (the heaviest in the country at that time) had to go via Acton.

 

Paul

Did any Fawley to Bromford Bridge trains run via Acton ?   The original routing was Salisbury Bath Bristol chord and Gloucester 9F hauled  , then DN&S Oxford to Worcester 2 X 33 hauled  locos used on crew training runs to Hereford , then Basingstoke Oxford Banbury , then taken over by pipeline

[MidlandRed]

6 hours ago, Stoke West said:

Did any Fawley to Bromford Bridge trains run via Acton ?   The original routing was Salisbury Bath Bristol chord and Gloucester 9F hauled  , then DN&S Oxford to Worcester 2 X 33 hauled  locos used on crew training runs to Hereford , then Basingstoke Oxford Banbury , then taken over by pipeline

The Fawley trains when dieselised started with BRCW Type 3s (aka Cromptons and class 33) in 1963 (singly) via the OWW and Lickey - when they went over to 2000 tons, with double headed Cromptons they went via Banbury (from the end of 1963). The DNS route, which these trains used, was closed as a result of extensive track damage to the single line, between Whitchurch and Winchester, when tanker cars in a returning empty block oil train to Fawley, Crompton hauled, derailed. 
 

Interesting looking at how the LMR dealt with the closure of Stourbridge Junction to steam - included in the diesel requirement were two EE Type 1s (presumably as pannier replacements). Indeed Bescot had those plus another 8 for ‘Western Lines Local Freight Services’ in mid 1966 - so in 1966 were using their type 1s in a similar way (local trips) as the WR with their 650s. In all, the dieselisation of Stourbridge J, Tyseley and Banbury entailed 14 type 4 2000 hp (later class 40), 13 type 2 1160 hp (later class 24) and 2 x type 1 1000 hp (later class 20) replacing 61 steam!! All of this is quoted from the March 1966 LMR Regional Freight Plan reproduced in Michael Hollick’s excellent book - Changing Engines - Birmingham and Rugby Districts. Also shown is the freeing up of class 24s in the London Division for the Birmingham Division, by allocation of new dual braked brand new class 25s at Willesden, and replacement of 25s by new build 20s at Toton. All of the 20s envisaged single headed use. The pairing up of these appears to have been a later phenomena, possibly when the 46 class 27s were swapped with the ScR for class 20s - certainly Bescot’s class 20s had gone to Toton by 1969. Clearly the LMR 1000 hp type 1s were an altogether better and more flexible type than the WR’s 650s. In double headed form they became a formidable pairing - effectively a Class 40 with more weight and better braking ability - the WR’s required two drivers to double head and even so, would only equal a bit more than a type 2 (class 25). 
 

To pick up on @The Stationmaster comment about the levels of steam loco replacement, that same book, which deals with dieselisation and electrification from the  start of diesel shunters in the late 40s/early 1950s through to the end of the 60s, also covers the programme to replace local steam hauled passenger services with DMUs. In those cases the percentage steam locos replaced is lower (but more than 1:1), but the saving in staff is much larger, along with saving in hauled stock. The other notable element is the huge increase in passenger numbers, timetabled mileage and receipts created by the changeovers - its sobering to see that New St-Sutton Coldfield to Lichfield and New St to Redditch were slated for closure originally (modern day Cross City line) - indeed were real Cinderella services in steam days. Somewhere on line I saw a reproduction of the WR programme of 1957 for Birmingham and Cardiff local service dieselisation - also very interesting - not least because of both the LMR programmes and the WR programmes operating as if separate railways with no apparent attempt to improve interchangeability. 
 

So the reason for this (hopefully reasonably focussed) rambling - pre 1963 one could have imagined a fleet of class 14s eventually employed from Banbury and Droitwich to as far flung places as Pwhelli, Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury! If Swindon had had the design capacity and not delayed the type 1 development, this would surely have happened. As it happened, Oxley duties like the Wellington shunt were performed by a Drewry 204 hp (later 04) - which presumably trundled to and fro a little quicker than a 350 for its fuelling and inspections! 

Edited January 16 by MidlandRed

[The Stationmaster]

On 16/01/2024 at 10:37, hmrspaul said:

My father rarely mentioned detail of his work (or his extensive war service for that matter). It was only my moving to Cardiff for my first Sandwich training that he mentioned the problems at Cardiff, that was 1970. He had even asked me about the Pembroke Dock branch when we went there for our A-level Ecology practical week in 1967

 

Would the Central Wales line be part of any long term plans - wasn't it supposed to close under Beeching? I haven't looked up my copy of the report. They had already lost the direct Southampton/Fawley to Birmingham routes so Oil trains (the heaviest in the country at that time) had to go via Acton.

 

Paul

The Central eales Line was indeed slated for closure although I suspect that even before then the proposed CTC scheme had been abandoned and the stockpile of material which had been built up for, e.g. point machines, had been diverted elsewhere.

 

In any case the route would have been totally unsuitable for oil trains coming out of West Wales apart from the fact that it was a far longer route for most of them which would have increased operating costs for both BR and the poil com[anies due to lengthened journey times.   Some steel trains were routed over the Central Wales at one time plus it was later used at least once as a diversionary route for some steel working although with, I believe, reduced loads.

 

Fawly - Bromford Bridge trains did run over the DN&S with 9F haulage  but I think probably not for very long and less than a year as I only saw 9F worked oil trains once when at Churn Range.

 

In the 1963 summer (June - September) WTT the following Fawley - Bromford Bridge and return oil trains were booked via the DN& S -

21.10 SX Fawley - Bronford Bridge . booked to be diesel hauled.  Pass Newbury East Jcn at 00/33

23.15 MX Fawley - Bromford Bridge Not booked for disel traction. Pad ss newbury East Jcn at 02/35

04.10 MSX Fawley - Bromford Bridge Not booked for diesel traction/. Pass Newvury East Jcn  at 08/36

04.10 SO Fawley - Bromford Bridge Not booked for diesel traction.  Pass Newbury east Jcn at 08/48

13.55 Q SX  Fawlwy - Leicester Not bookred for diesel traction.  Pass newbury east Jcn at 16/32

14.40 SX Fawley - Bromford Bridge.  Not booked for diesel traction.  Pass Newbury East Jcn at 18.25

 

19.12 MTX Bromford Bridge - Eastleigh Not booked for diesel traction.  Didcot East Jcn 02C26

(21.50 MX Northampton - Northam Yard  -booked for diesel traction.  Didcot East Jcn  02C39

09.28 SX Bromford Bridge - Fawley. Not booked for diesel traction. Didcot East Jcn 13C*35

12.40 SO Bromford Bridge - Fawley Not booked for diesel traction.  Dodcot East Jcn 17C*24

12.40 SX Bronford V Bridge - Fawley Not booked for disel traction.  Didcot East Jcn 18C*05

 

the services obviouls don;t balance under those headings but there were other trans from the Birmingham area to Eastleigh e whoch probably vconvreyed dischatged rail tank cars.   The train I saw at Churn haukled by a 9F that summer would have been the 09.28 Bromford Bridge  Fawley or possibly a special.

 

I would be surprised in the oil trains did not operate on a weekly program,me basis so the WTT is really no more than a basic guide to what might happen.  Indeed it was not unusual to see 9Fs running light engine, especially southwards, during the day.  Also it is quite likely that the incidence of diesel haulage increased during the period of that WTT.

 

 

[45125]

On 13/01/2024 at 02:45, The Johnster said:

A serious proposal for 400 DH road switchers to satisfy the requirements of the 1955 modernisation plan sounds quite astoninshing, not that I'm doubting it!  I knew there were more planned than were built and many had  been cancelled, but all the same...

 

The principle, at least on the WR, was that each new deisel allocated to a shed required three equivalent steam locos to be withdrawn (because it was alleged that a steam loco could remain in service for 8 hours before needing to drop fire and the equivalent diesel could remain in service all day, therefore one diesel replaced three steam), so, roughly, 70 Warships displaced 210 Castles.  If you apply this to 57xx, 8750, and 94xx panniers and there were a thousand of them, then replacing them with the DH type 1 that became the Class 14 would have require 333 or 334 locos, which suggests a surplus of 60-plus Type 1s.  And this was before the major traffic  changes of the 1957-63 period.  But a thousand pannier didn't have to be replaced, since a good number (not the majority, but a significant minority) were involved in passenger work.  The first leg of the Cheltenham Spa Express, the successor to the Cheltenham Flyer, was a 94xx job between Cheltenham and Gloucester, and 8570s were taskes with the 3-hour journey from Newport to Brecon, and there were plenty of other examples.  By and large, this pannier work was replaced by dmus by 1960.

 

So, let's say that the Class 14 requirement would be reduced by all this to 300. 

 

The rapid rise in private car ownership, more powerful and efficient lorries, and, from 1958, the development of the motorway network, all against a background of heamorraging traffic, hit the railway hard.  Cars were cheaper and more reliable door-to-door, and road freight was faster as well, and undercut the railway, whose charges were set by government, while the customers left mileage traffic uncollected because the free warehouseing blocking sidings and tying up wagons was cheaper than providing your own storage, demurragen notwithstanding if it could be collected!   Factor in a swing to oil-fired central heating in new council housing reducing the demand for household coal and it's delivery to local yards by the very trip and pickup trains we are discussing in terms of Class 14 work, and the equation in the early 60s was very clearly road for the future, rail for long distance passenger and block heavy freight, plus the London commuter network but otherwise a thing of the past that increasing numbers of passengers and freight customers were abandoning in droves, the very conclusion that Beeching came to!

 

I'd contend that by 1961, the requirement for Class 14s was down to 200, halved in five years.  By the time the locos were authorised, the Beeching report had been published, removing a considerable amount of the pickup work as hundreds of goods depots shut up shop and collection/delivery was based on large urban hubs, the basis of what later became NCL.  There was still the trip work, but this was drying up as well; the demand for household coal was dropping and the traffic was 'hubbed' in House Coal Concentration Depots, with more final delivery by road.  More and more factory trips were being lost as the customers invested in the new toy, the flexible and cost-effective 40' articulated lorry, for which the motorway network was being buil.  So the eventual order was for 56 locos.

 

These were badly delayed.  Swindon was overwhelmed with dead Warships and the urgent need for Westerns; the loco shortage was so severe that the WR's express passenger timetable nearly collapsed in '62. not helped by the cracks in King frames, and while the scrap sidings were full of Castles that could have been made to function with not too much work, but the region was in a race with the Eastern to be the first to fully dieselise and any such suggestion was not 'on message'.  Also in '62, despite the problems, the region declared itself free of steam west of the Tamar Bridge, and most of those steam locos were scrapped, not transferred.  By '63 the situation was a bit more under control, as Westerns became available, but the hydraulic adventure was circling the drain; the region was baled out over the next two or three years by a mass influx of 47s and 37s, because they were in full production and the  builders had the capacity to provide more of them, quickly.  An order for 100 low-geared Hymeks to replace 56xx and 42xx in South Wales was cancelled when Beyer-Peacock collapsed and no other firm could be found to take the work on.  Crewe delivered it's order of Westerns before Swindon could manage to complete it's order, all of which delayed starting work on the 14s.  By the time they were built, they were the locos that nobody wanted.

 

I can't help feeling that the failure of the 14s to perform to an acceptable standard on the WR was to at least some extent a result of an attitude problem, the locos that nobody wanted.  The drivers didn't like them, the fitters didn't like them, the electrician didn't like them, the management didn't like them, and the signalmen hated them, and that sort of thing becomes infectious and beds itself in to the collective railway conciousness.  This is an entirely subjective comment and I cannot back it up with facts or figures, but it's certainly the impression I got talking about them with men who'd worked on them when I started at Canton. in the 70s.  Even when they started to become more reliable, drivers were nervous about taking them out in case they couldn't get home, and a cloud hung over them.  I'd be interested to know what Hull thought of theirs! 

 

I started my railway career on the E76 pilot, which would have been ideal work for them and had been one of their jobs a few years earlier, but we had to clunk and lurch about the place on 08s, which were bombproof reliable but glacially slow, and not very comfortable.  The ride of an 08 is actually surprisingly good, at least until the loco is in motion, then you realise it's got triangular wheels and the springs you thought were to absorb shocks were actually to amplify them.  They would have been lethal to anyone not lashed down at more than 15mph (yes, I know about the 27mph 09s and am very glad not to have ever encountered one in anger).  An old Cardiff Docks driver told me he knew when he was off the road because the ride improved.  Blagged myself a ride up the Gwendraeth Valley on an 03 once, and that was quantum better even light engine at over 30mph back through Llanelli station.  I have no idea how the 14s rode, but they had to be better than an 08.  Being dragged over the sleepers by a Deltic is probably better than an 08 (though 25s at 90mph ran them close!).

 

 

Having worked with many ex Dairycoates staff, both drivers and maintenance, the general option of them was that they were not bad locos. The reliability of them was reasonable, with most of the issues down poor manufacturing of some of the components (cylinder heads, starter motor,turbo brackets and gearbox reversing mechanism) as well as the poor brake. Many of the jobs that they worked often relied on double heading due to the poor brakes, so required double manning, consideration was given to fitting MU equipment, but due to the downturn in traffic this was dropped.

 

When the fleet was sold on for industrial use, a couple of Dairycoates staff spent sometime with the NCB and Stewart and Lloyds getting the staff familiar with them, as well as isolating some of the troublesome safety devices (reverser standstill etc). 

 

Most train crew liked them as the cab was a vast improvement over the WDs that the Paxman's replaced , the only crumble was the brakes.

 

Al Taylor

Edited January 18 by 45125
Spelling

[br2975]

On 15/01/2024 at 22:03, The Johnster said:

.....................................

 

Speaking for Cardiff Area (Awre Jc-Fishguard Harbour), I would say that effectively all class 14 work was Class 9 goods or mineral related, and I doubt the engines were ever required to run at more than 25mph in consequence.  I'm not aware of them being used on trains that required running faster than 45mph anywhere.

 

.......................................

.

Class 9 only ?

.

Well, not quite.

.

Canton's Diagram 90 ( a "650hp" job outbased at Radyr), commencing 28th. December, 1965 for example

.

Radyr dep 0210 Light Diesel

Cardiff Gen. arr 0228 dep 0315 3T01 Parcels

Merthyr arr 0430

The loco then shunted Merthyr and tripped to vaynor Quarry a couple of times, until 

Merthyr dep 1830 Light Diesel

Pontypridd arr 1900 dep 2050 3T47 Parcels

Cardiff Gen. arr 2128 dep 2135 Light Diesel

Radyr arr 2145

.

* Not bad, 20hrs work out of a D95xx, and the Vaynor Quarry trips were not easy.

.

This Diagram 90 was later formed of 2x D95xxs, which alternated between local Radyr Trips to PCN and Maindy Fuel Sidings, and the Merthyr / Ponty parcels shown above.

.

Diagram 90, became Turn 855 from 27th. November, 1967, when the Vaynor Quarry branch, and Merthyr Plymouth St. goods both closed, making a pilot job redundant.

Turn 856 then commenced at Radyr, at 0605 M-F as H04 and finished at Canton Depot at 2100 where the loco was serviced, leaving for Rasdyr at 0045 with a 'Ferry Crew".

.

On 25th. July, 1966 the shed duty board at Radyr (my local shed)  included 

" C3 2-0 D9550? T01 3-15 Merthyr Pcls"

Also on the Radyr shed duty board that day were the following D95xx; 

H14                 6-5      D9548            H05     6+15   Control           3 turns L/E ex Canton

H17                 6-35    D95xx             H19     6-50    Ely                  L/E ex Canton

H20                 7-10    D9538             H16     7-25    Long Dyke     L/E ex Canton

H27                 10-10  D9550            H15     10-25  Adare             ( ? )

H26                 11-30  D9551            H04     11-35 Maesmawr

(H14 = locos last duty, 6-5 = time off shed, H05  6+15 Control = details of next diagrammed working working)

 Pilots

H11  T38 4-55    D3595 Aber Junction, 3 turns

CP7  T37 5-40    D3505 Cathays, 2 turns

H41  T41 5-58    D3425 Top End, 3 turns

H45  T40 6-00    D3510 Quarry, 3 turns

H24  T39            D3603 Roath, 2 turns

H34  H08 14-35 D9520 Trips, 2 turns

.

On shed at 13:30hrs that day, were 

D9537, Spare, off Ely 6-10

D6840, For 15-0 Ogilvie, should be D6985 if diagram followed.

D6980, For 17+18 Ocean.

D6985, Off 7-50 Nantgarw, should be for 15-0 Ogilvie

D9520, For 14:35 trips

D9550, In L/E ? 13:30 off 10:25 Aberdare ?

D6950, In L/E ? 14:30 off 6-05  Control

D6935, Off 9-35 Nantgarw, in L/E ? 14-10

D6973, Off 5+30 Windsor

.

Those notes refer to 6x  D95xxs working off Radyr alone.

.

The foreman had also noted......

D95xx used on light D68xx turns.

Canton has 25 D95xx, for

(i)            11 Cardiff and Cardiff Valleys turns

(ii)          8 Newport turns

Leaving 6 spare, Radyr wants 2, but has 5, .’. 3 still spare ?

Make of that what you can.

.

 

 

Edited January 17 by br2975