Table of contents for Vol 36 No 3 - March 2022 in Backtrack

BIRMINGHAM’S GRAND CENTRAL STATION MEMORIES OF THE OLD NEW STREET 1954-1962 BY NICHOLAS DAUNT (C. Banks Collection/ Colour-Rail.com BRM1335) The old New Street was a slum. I think it was best put by some American acquaintances of my mother who, passing through Birmingham in 1956 and having to change trains at New Street, took the opportunity to meet her for a cup of tea in the station buffet. “What a pity Hitler didn’t do a better job!”, one of them remarked as they looked out from what I later came to know as Number 1 Refreshment Room at the sad remains of the once elegant London & North Western Railway station. A rather tactless remark, no doubt, but it contained more than an element of truth. The station’s current state…

THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY RUABON–BARMOUTH ROUTE PART TWO BY IAN TRAVERS (P. A. Fry/Colour-Rail.com BRW2233) At grouping a Great Western steam railmotor took over the erstwhile Cambrian locals to Barmouth across Pont y Bermo. They had been worked conventionally pre-group, partly by one of the three ‘Seaham’ Class 2-4-0Ts or ‘Wrexham tank’ 0-4-4Ts. Lower capacity 48-seat, 59ft railmotors were much used and out-shedded each week at Penmaenpool from Machynlleth. Four cars recorded were Gloucester RC&W-built Diagram ‘Q’ to Swindon drawings. Annual practice saw summer season extensions of some journeys north along the coast line to Dyffryn or Harlech for ‘beach’ trippers. In 1923 an additional excursion platform was built at Barmouth to the south of the level crossing and became the normal departure point for the Dolgelley shuttle. Railmotors were…

RECALLED TO CUMBRIA In August last year a colour feature followed the scenic Cumbrian Coast line between Carnforth, Barrow and Carlisle. We return to Cumbria this month with another selection of GAVIN MORRISON’s photographs showing a variety of motive power in one of the finest parts of England.…

A NEW OBSERVATION TRAIN BY ALISTAIR F. NISBET Wikipedia) In the UK an observation car has generally been considered to be a vehicle with large picture-type windows and probably similar windows in at least one end, usually marshalled at the rear of a train running through dramatic scenery. In the US and Canada the railroads have also used observation cars but, with their much more generous loading gauge, these have tended to be dome cars with a large ‘bubble’ on the roof through which a lucky few passengers can watch the scenery go by. One of the Canadian trains is operated by VIA RAIL and runs on Canadian National tracks from Vancouver to Toronto and includes a number of these cars. The ‘Rocky Mountaineer’ tourist train, which runs between Vancouver…

THE J94 CLASS SADDLE TANKS – WHICH ALSO SERVED The first of an ‘Austerity’ design of 0-6-0 saddle tanks for the War Department took to the rails in January 1943 and was the prototype for a total of 377 from a range of industrial locomotive builders, with many seeing service in France after D-Day. After the war the availability of a stock of these locomotives led to the London & North Eastern Railway purchasing 75 of them in 1946, classifying them J94. Strong, robust, simple and durable, these 0-6-0STs proved ideal for almost every sort of shunting and local goods activity, the last surviving until 1967. Many more, of course, gave service on industrial railway systems, such as for the National Coal Board, and construction of them continued until as…

THE ‘CHINAMAN’ AND THE BRITISH ENGINEER WHO BUILT IT BY L.A. SUMMERS (Author) Of all the great coincidences of history, the extraordinary link between the Chinese revolutionary, Sun Yat Sen1 and a distinguished British locomotive engineer, is probably the least known. Briefly Sun Yat Sen had been awakened to the poverty and technological backwardness of China and believed that better education was the underlying requirement for improving the life of the Chinese people. He studied to become a doctor; medical consultation, he believed, provided an opportunity of infiltrating revolutionary ideas into the Chinese mind. On the pretext of intensifying his studies, he became a student of Sir James Cantlie at the Hong Kong College of Medicine for the Chinese, in 1884. Several failed uprisings, organised from Hong Kong, made it…

SUCCEEDING LIKE SUCCESS The London Midland & Scottish Railway’s Class 5 4-6-0s need no introduction – 842 of them built between 1934 and 1951, found throughout the company’s system from the Far North lines in Scotland to Swansea via the Central Wales line and Bournemouth over the Somerset & Dorset route... and everywhere in between. They were the ultimate mixed traffic locomotives, competent on all but the heaviest freights or the fastest expresses – and if necessary they’d put in a shift even then. How appropriate that they should see out steam on British Railways at its very end in 1968. These photographs are from a welcome new colour contributor – the SIMON LATHLANE Collection.…

YORKSHIRE COASTAL ENGINE SHEDS AND THEIR LOCOMOTIVES PART THREE BRIDLINGTON ENGINE SHED BY ROGER GRIFFITHS AND JOHN HOOPER (W. H. Whitworth) The coastal town of Bridlington had a history of three locomotive sheds. First was that built in October 1846 by the Hull & Selby Railway (HSR) which had been leased by the York & North Midland Railway the previous year. Erected was a two-road, dead-end locomotive depot south of the up line, west of the station; its construction is not known but facilities included a small turntable and a coal stage with water tank above. Provision of such an edifice proved to be premature as in June 1875 a tender for £522 was accepted by the North Eastern Railway for a new, smaller engine shed, which actually incurred the…

SIGNAL BOXES IN THE NEW WILLESDEN CARRIAGE SHEDS Visited by PETER BUTLER In 1936 the London Midland & Scottish Railway was giving considerable attention to providing covered accomodation for its carriage stock. Previously, the principal arrangements had been provided on both sides of the main line from Euston, just south of Willesdon Junction station. To this end, a site had been chosen between Harlesden and Wembley stations on the up side and, in 1938, preliminary work had started on an area of some 27 acres. Amongst the new works involved were to be double tracks from Harlesden in the south, new connections to the north and with new bridges where the site crossed over the North Circular Road. Sadly, the advent of World War II brought all this work to…

SPYING IN DARLINGTON COMPETITION BETWEEN BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS AND CANALS IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES From the early 1840s railways had challenged, and then superseded, Britain’s inland waterways, offering higher speed, greater freight-carrying capacity and disciplined, waged, workforces. There were only rare examples of rail and canal working together to service the transport needs of the world’s first fully industrialised nation; they competed, nearly always to the detriment of the waterways. But competition very soon led to acquisition... A. J. MULLAY explains. (Neil Parkhouse Collection) Spying in Darlington is not what might be expected of canal owners from Birmingham. But in January 1826 the directors of the Birmingham Canal Navigations decided to send one of their number to County Durham “to inspect the state of the Railroad laid down there,…

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES WHAT ABOUT THE WORKERS? Archive photographs showing some of the people who kept the railway service running.…

PRIVATE STATIONS AND WAITING ROOMS ON THE HIGHLAND RAILWAY BY ANNE-MARY PATERSON (Anne-Mary Paterson) Why would anyone feel the need for a private station or waiting room? Was it a fashion for the upper classes or a need to be separate from people? All this might seem rather strange to us in the twenty-first century. However, in one way or another separation in some form still exists in the travel industry. On long-distance routes on the railway, there are first class and standard class coaches with more room on first class and extra perks. Some airlines go as far as having three classes – first, business and standard, the first two of which have separate waiting rooms. At many of the larger railway stations there are first class waiting rooms.…

WELSHPOOL ONCE MORE The 2ft 6in gauge Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway opened in 1903 to link the market town of Llanfair Caereinion and its surrounding agricultural area to the main line at Welshpool. At the grouping it passed to the Great Western Railway (which withdrew the passenger service in 1931) and then to British Railways which continued to run the local goods service until 1956. The railway last featured here in Vol.34 No.10 but the arrival of some new colour photographs from COLOUR-RAIL provides the opportunity to make another visit. (Colour-Rail.com 323245) (Colour-Rail.com 323238)…