Backtrackの Volume 38 No 8 - August 2024 の目次

When the Railfreight Distribution (RfD) business arm of British Rail (BR) abandoned its Speedlink wagonload network with effect from Monday 8th July 1991, the last full day of normal Speedlink operation being Friday 5th July, many in the railway fraternity, myself included, thought that wagonload freight here in the UK would now end up being as extinct as the dodo. How wrong, I'm happy to say, we were back then! To its credit, BR managed to initially save some 70% of its former Speedlink traffic and this was achieved in several ways. One was by creating block train operations where possible between supplier and customer. Another was to attach low-volume marginal flows to existing RfD block trains or to similar block train services operated by the Trainload Freight business sectors…

Introduction The year 1919 was the first one of peace following the horrendous four years of conflict between August 1914 and the Armistice on 11th November 1918. In the months that followed, the Great War cast a dark shadow over Britain's railways in many ways, whilst the State or Government controlled how the railways were run. Government control was not relinquished until 1921. It was difficult for British railways to find a scintilla of optimism in their striving to regain normality, let alone embark on new developments. Yet optimism there was and this shines through many of the examples found in The Railway Gazette (TRG) of 1919. Before the final weeks of the Great War, the world was blighted by the so-called Spanish Flu pandemic. A notable fact is that…

Little seems to have been written about railway left luggage offices, although they proliferated at main line stations before being superseded by self-service lockers. It was even possible to deposit items at smaller rural stations, although one felt that the heart of the staff was not really in it and the revenue earned by the railway was limited in consequence. I recall an occasion when I wanted to leave my bicycle at Westerfield station on the East Suffolk Line and was advised by the booking clerk to take it across the road to Mrs. So-and-so's cottage over the road which was cheaper! In my student days I supplemented my grant by working for three summers in the left luggage offices at Paddington. There are in fact two, both looking out…

As so often Betjeman got it just right: “this delightful, hidden old station,” he called it “less messed about with than other London termini”. The handsome little building in a backwater (not even in Fenchurch Street and with no Underground connection) is still a delightful reminder of London's railway heritage and its restored façade at least merits his praise. In several ways the station is unusual: the only main line terminus wholly within the City of London; still set exactly within its original boundaries established in 1854; devoted now solely to suburban traffic, with its most distant terminus only 40 miles away; and overlooking an improbable glade of City trees. The early history of its builder, the London & Blackwall Railway (L&BR), is equally exceptional: the railway was built to…

Lake met F. W. Webb for the second, and final, time, in 1902. Webb retired in 1903 and was replaced by his assistant of many years George Whale. Lake never met Whale, at least not in his capacity as Chief Mechanical Engineer. Whale himself retired in 1908, to be succeeded by Charles John Bowen Cooke, another London & North Western Railway employee of many years’ standing. Lake had already made one abortive attempt to meet Bowen Cooke in his post of Chief of the Running Department (Southern Division). Lake was on an overnight train journey from Glasgow to London and stopped off at Rugby at about 6.00am. He shouldn't have been overly surprised that Bowen Cooke was not there, but an explanation to the foreman resulted in a tour of…

Part of the former Saltburn to Whitby line was officially reopened on 1st May 1974 almost as far as Staithes to the newly developed mine at Boulby, initally owned by Cleveland Potash Ltd. (CPL). There had been some trains prior to the opening date, delivering equipement and new bogie hopper wagons to be used for transporting the potash. Background The Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway obtained an Act to build the line in 1866. However, due to construction problems and shortage of finance the route was not opened until 1883 following intervention by the North Eastern Railway. The section of line from Whitby to Loftus was closed in May 1958, long before Dr. Beeching’s modernisation plan. The main reasons given were that the low passenger and freight volumes did…

Book review Railway Towns I really must take issue with reviewer MBy in resurrecting the old canard, in his review of Railway Towns (BT May), that the burghers of Northampton opposed the railway and so prevented Northampton from being on the main line. This was exposed as untrue by Joan Wake, the Northampton archivist, in 1935 (Northampton Vindicated, Northamptonshire Past & Present) and reinforced by Victor Hatley, the Northampton Historian in 1959 (Northampton Re-vindicated, NP&P). I covered the situation on pages 49-50 in my East Midlands volume of the David & Charles Regional Railway Histories series (2nd edition 1984). There was no such opposition. In reality the issue was straightforward. When Robert Stephenson was planning the London & Birmingham Railway he held to two principles: keep the maximum gradient to…

I think I am correct in saying that in one of the Revd.Awdry‘s Railway Engine series of children's books the guard is left behind and has to chase his train by bus or taxi. As with many of the incidents related in his books Wilbur Awdry based this on a true event. Research in various newspapers via the British Newspaper Archive has revealed that whichever incident the reverend gentleman had seen a report about, it was certainly not an isolated one. Couldn't get aboard According to the Dundee Advertiser for 21st July 1897 a North British guard had a narrow escape from injury when the 8.15pm to Aberdeen set off from Dundee Tay Bridge the previous night. There was such a crowd on the platform that he could not actually…

The railway development of the south eastern area of England was characterised by an aggressive competition between the various major railway companies that sought to serve (and profit from) this populous and prosperous part of the country. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the railway boom of the 1840s was long gone but the many and varied independent railways of the time still operated vigorously in the Victorian ethos of a market-led economy. There was a wide-ranging free-for-all dog-eat-dog philosophy in business generally. In a world of very little regulation, companies were prepared to go to extreme lengths to maximise the benefit to their shareholders. The adoption of a typically energetic and expansive mode of operation was taken for granted as the way to go. As the railways…

Introduction Around a mile to the east of the town of Stratford-upon-Avon the single line of the East & West Junction Railway (EWJR) once passed in very quick succession beneath two bridges of quite different character and purpose. The eastern-most bridge, a typical arched brick structure, carried the main road between Stratford and Banbury, but by contrast the other simple girder span provided a route for another railway, although one of much earlier origins than the EWJR. This was the northern extent of the erstwhile horse-operated Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton-in-Marsh tramway, initially opened as far back as 1826. The story of the tramway has already been recounted many times before in various books, journals and magazines, but to provide a general background, suffice it to say that it was very much…