TRACTION issue 213

[steverabone]

 

TRACTION 213 is on sale on the 7th June. The contents of this issue are below.

 

Mention the word Woodhead to most railway enthusiasts and they’ll probably think of double-headed Class 76 Bo+Bo locomotives lugging coal trains across the Pennines. But, of course there was much more to the line than that. In the 1950s and 1960s the editor lived only a mile or so from Guide Bridge, one of the line’s major centres, so was familiar with its varied operational interest. In two of the articles in this issue the Woodhead line is discussed in detail.

 

John Chalcraft describes the variety of passenger traffic that used to operate over the Woodhead line in ‘Woodhead Route Passenger Services’, whilst Colin Boocock’s article ‘Tommy the electric engine, and friends’ looks at the history of the line’s EM1 and EM2 locomotives.

David J. Hayes, in the first of a two-part article, looks in considerable detail at freight services over ‘The Princes End Line’ in the West Midlands. Click here for additional information that supports this article.

 

Steve Randall was fascinated by some of the long distance trains that British Rail used to run, such as the 07:30 Penzance to Aberdeen service. One week in 1984, he photographed the train every day and, nearly thirty years later, he asks the question, ‘Was this the longest end-to-end service train – ever?’

 

Andrew James turns back the clock to the 1960s to discuss the performance of the Class 24 diesels on passenger trains in various parts of the country in ‘The Early Years of the Class 24s’.

 

D200 become something of a ‘cult locomotive’ at the end of its career on BR and Lewis Bevan was one of those who photographed the pioneer English Electric Type 4 on rail tour duties, which he presents in ‘D200 in May 1987’.

 

Like many enthusiasts Andrew Burke would love to go back in time to the ‘good old days’ of Scottish locomotive hauled travel but, since a time machine hasn’t yet been invented, writing about it is the next best thing. The result is his fascinating article ‘Return to Scotland’, which I’m sure all loco bashers will enjoy.

 

This issue’s featured model railway layout is ‘Battersby North End’. Mike Knowles, of the Hessle Model Railway Group, shows how this real life station (see the article in TRACTION 207) has been adapted to make a fascinating model railway. 

 

Finally, Paul Lunn suggests how an old signal box was adapted for use as a ground frame in ‘Pwllheli West Frame’.

 

Stephen Rabone, Editor