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Hydraulics (was Warships) in the north west


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  • 5 weeks later...

Well here is a shot of a Western at Chester (that I took earlier).

 

4031844350_7c3ba4478b_o.jpg

 

August Bank Holiday 1962, around 06 August. The picture is D1007 which I believe records state was out shopped 01 August 1962. looks about right. I have also penciled in that I spotted D1001 Western Explorer!! I never was any good at maths but I do remember it was green with a red nameplate. No Castles around but a grimy Hall.

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aye but photos of them there dont seem very common

 

Sid Wainwright had quite a few iirc, but sadly he passed away a while ago now.

 

I've got Western Yeoman (the original) passing Chester No.3A signal box.

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  • 3 months later...

 

It was Edge Hill not Speke.

 

 

just remembered I asked Edgehill signalman on flickr, he worked at Exhibition jnc around that time and has a good memory but the Hymek must have been when he wasnt on duty..

 

"I know nothing about the Hymek at Ex Jcn, I wish I had. As the normal shift was 8 hours I stood a good chance of missing something"

 

Mike

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Just curious, did any of them reach Birkenhead (or any other hydraulic types) ??

 

 

I always hoped they did, that was one of the reasons for starting this thread, but found no evidence.

steam took over from Chester to Birkenhead.

 

always hoped id find some evidence of a hydraulic working to Liverpool, maybe a grand national working to Aintree, but the only western trains I know of was the blue pullman and possibly a Hymek on a freight discussed earlier.

 

the western coaches would work in to placed like Lime street, but the locos didnt.

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Warships were regular performers on freights to the Stoke area in the mid 1960's. I was power Controller at the time, pests they were as non of my Stoke traincrew "knew" them.

 

Got a Western to York though when the Broad Gauge tried a fast one - they thought they would get it back 0Z00, but forgot some Crewe men knew them

 

Mike.

Love the term 'Broad Gauge' - old terms last forever. Sounds to me like some of the train crews might have known them, but refused to admit it!

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so Crewe and Chester.

 

but how far north would they have got for freight, either regular or rare workings.

 

and ive edited the thread title to include all Hydraulics.

 

From 'Railway Magazine' August 1968 : ''WR Warship D834 'Pathfinder' (81A) was noted on a freight at Crewe on May 23rd, and D844 'Spartan' at Wolverton (Bucks) on June 16th''.

 

From 'Railway Magazine' February 1971 : ''At Wellington (Salop) on November 20th 1970 an oil train provided the rare sight of two Cl.35s, Nos. 7058 and 7061''. (Apparently this was due to a derailment at Stourbridge so I'm told).

 

From 'Railway Magazine' March 1971 : ''D815 'Druid' and D824 'Highflyer' were noted double heading a salt train to Hartford Sidings near Crewe on January 5th. Also, D857 ''Undaunted'' arrived at Crewe on a parcels on 20th December (1970)''.

 

From 'Railway Magazine' August 1971 : "Coventry had the very rare sight of Cl.43 No. 839 (NA), which headed a freight on March 30th''.

 

Not all in the North West I know, but it does show how they still managed to get about, even towards the end of their (criminally short) lives.

Edited by Rugd1022
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could the Western's be seen on freight when they where relativley new? or was it more towards the end of the 60s?

 

basically workings of them on freight during the steam era.

 

Definitely Mike, and in quite a few cases the Crewe built machines worked freights down to the WR before official acceptance into traffic. There's a cracking shot of D1047 Western Lord fresh out of the box working a 4V78 at Oxley in February '63 on just such a run in Derek Cross's 'Fifty Years Of The Westerns'. They had booked freight turns on all of the routes they were allocated to in their early days as part of their cyclic diagrams, often working freight or parcels turns during the night, the same applied to the Warships and Hymeks.

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