Table of contents for Volume 37 No 8 - August 2023 in Backtrack

A fleet of twenty Type 2 Co-Bo locomotives was ordered by British Railways from the Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Co. as part of the 'pilot scheme' of 174 locomotives to evaluate various designs. The locomotives incorporated a Crossley 1,200hp two-stroke diesel engine intended to provide a comparison with the more conventional four-stroke engines. The locomotives, which were constructed at Metro-Vick's Bowesfield works at Stockton-on-Tees, weighed 97 tons, boasted a top speed of 75mph and it was anticipated that the class would largely be employed on Midland Lines freight traffic. On 1st October 1958 a pair of locomotives was reportedly put through its paces on a Hendon to Gushetfaulds (Glasgow) fitted freight working, which included a dynamometer car, and it was planned to use the class on the prototype 'Condor' Freightliner service…

Introduction Railways were late in coming to the Tendring Hundred in north east Essex, an area of some 80,000 acres of rich farmland extending from Colchester in the west to the North Sea in the east. Local businessmen in the port town of Mistley set up the Mistley, Thorpe & Walton Railway Company (MT&WR) to significantly improve access to existing agricultural and fish markets in Mistley, Ipswich and beyond, effectively to provide a missing link between local communities and the existing rail network to the west and north boundaries of the Hundred. From Mistley the line was to set out in a south easterly direction to Tendring then easterly via Thorpe to the small isolated fishing village of Walton, a distance of some twelve miles. At the outset the MT&WR…

The Barry Railway was the brainchild of David Davies, owner of the Ocean Coal Company collieries, mainly located in the Rhondda Valley. During the 1870s, like many coal owners, he was frustrated by the sloth of the Taff Vale Railway (TVR) and Cardiff Docks to accommodate their burgeoning coal traffic. Consequently, these colliery owners and shippers of coal suggested that without improvements, they would build an integrated railway and docks to enhance their coal trade. However, despite there being some improvements these were not to their satisfaction. A Barry Dock and Railways (BD.&R) committee was formed in 1882 and presented a Bill to Parliament in 1883 but was rejected by the House of Lords Committee. A second Bill presented in 1884 was successful and authorised construction of a railway from…

DAVID IDLE visited Southall locomotive shed, in west London, on 23rd October 1965, just two months before its closure. The place already had that look about it……

It is not unknown to hear somebody complain that the train service at their nearest station is “no better than it was in the days of steam” or words to that effect, although whether this refers to the frequency or the speed, or perceived lack of it, is often not clear. It is certainly true to say this lack of improved frequency applies on some rural routes such as the Middlesbrough to Whitby line. It is also true that when the first Modernisation Plan diesel multiple units were introduced more services may have been run in some places while the bright new interiors, together with the ability to see out of the front windows, increased their appeal. Very often, however, the speed at which they ran was no faster than…

The despatch of Government mails between England and Ireland (London and Dublin) was of paramount importance in the years leading up to and beyond 1800. The transport of mails by road presented carriers with many difficulties, not least the amount of time absorbed from the source of mails to their destination on roads that were unfit to carry important traffic. The arrival of a successful railway, exemplified by the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830, prompted the desire to link the port of Holyhead, Anglesey, with Chester by a railway. This decision was made, however, despite the proposal of other railway routes to Holyhead made by eminent engineers. It was not until 4th July 1844 that the Royal Assent was given for the construction of…

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES Mention has often been made in Backtrack of the vital role played in the nation's life by the railways’ ownership of docks, ports and shipping fleets ranging from Channel steamers to humble coasters and tugs. Here, then, are some views of the railway shipping world.…

When the great and the good of London's railways gathered on a chilly Friday 9th December 1932 they marked both a beginning and an end. One purpose was to celebrate the opening of one of the last surface railways to be built in Greater London, the Metropolitan Railway's branch to Stanmore. But the event was also the swansong of the company, which would be absorbed into the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) seven months later. A renowned railway would disappear as an independent entity after 78 years: this article explores some of its lasting achievements. The origins of ‘the Met’, as we shall call it here, are well known and can be summarised briefly: as we shall see, they have resonance for the rest of its history and, indeed, today.…

Fluid introduction The earliest examples of the use of oil as a fuel for firing steam locomotives were not in any way the result of carefully pre-planned experiments. In fact, the first came about as the result of a geological feature, when deposits of crude oil were found in the Caucasus region of southern Russia in the 1870s. The Grazi & Tsaritsyn Railway had been built to open up the region and latterly to transport this new resource, and between 1874 and 1884 the motive power was under the supervision of the enterprising English engineer Thomas Urquhart. In a paper presented to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 18951 he described how he had converted locomotives to burn ‘petroleum refuse’ – crude oil after the kerosene element had been removed…

In Backtrack No. 36/4 for April 2022 I wrote about F. S. William's Our Iron Roads, broadly-based history published in 1852, intended for the general reader. Twelve years earlier, in 1837, it had been preceeded by S. C. Bree's Railway Practice, strictly technical treatise for professional engineers, financed by a list of subscribers, all civil engineers, surveyors or architects. They included such well-known figures as I. K. Brunel (wrongly printed as ‘J. K.’), William Cubitt, R. B. Dockray, Thomas Langridge Gooch, Grissell & Peto – the big contractors, Joseph Herapath — the publisher of the wellknown Railway & Commercial Journal, the Rennies father and son, Charles Vignoles and Bicholas Wood, together with three Board of Trade Inspecting Officers of Railways. In addition, the author acknowledged the assistance and encouragement he…