Table of contents for Volume 38 No 3 - March 2024 in Backtrack

Although not a railway modeller myself, though I suspect a good percentage of the Backtrack readership may well be, there are several railway locations in my native Black Country region of the West Midlands that I have often thought would not only make for interesting articles in themselves, but would perhaps also appeal to the railway modelling fraternity and serve as a source of inspiration for potential modelling projects. One such location is Langley Green for reasons I hope will become apparent from this twopart feature, which roughly spans a 30-year timeline from 1970. Although the main subject matter will be freight operations, passenger and other services will also be touched upon as well (in Part Two). Langley Green itself lies on what is generally referred to as the Stourbridge…

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES…

The Great Western Railway's much lauded ‘Castles’ and ‘Kings’ have rightly had a generous share of colour features in Backtrack over the years in representing the highest points of the company's express motive power. But we should not overlook their illustrious predecessors, the ‘Saint’ and ‘Star’ Classes which, under G. J. Churchward, blazed the trail for them. The two-cylinder ‘Saints’ originated in 1902, eventually totalling 77 up to 1913. Thirteen were built as 4-4-2s but converted to 4-6-0s in line with the rest of the class between April 1912 and January 1913. The rebuildng of one of them in 1924 with 6ft driving wheels became the prototype of the highly successful ‘Hall’ Class mixed traffic 4-6-0s which went on to number 330 in total over 22 years. The first of…

The objections to the Transport Users’ Consultative Committee A week before the TUCC public hearing in Aberdeen on 23rd September 1964, British Railways produced its customary internal ‘Brief for Liaison Officer’.1 This clarified that while there had been 314 objections, 280 of these had been received “on a stencilled form”. The objectors’ case – much of which had become a familiar litany across closure proposals in the mid1960s – was summed up as follows: “The principal grounds of objection relate to the inadequacy of the alternative bus service with regard to speed, frequency, comfort and facilities; to the lack of bus services between the Torphins/Lumphanan area and Aboyne/Banchory; to the lack of bus/rail co-ordination at Aberdeen; to the bad conditions of the roads in the area in winter; and to…

Lincolnshire was thoroughly ‘Beechinged’. Looking at a map of the county today we have the line from Cleethorpes and Grimsby just below the Humber in the north, which reaches Barnetby (Wrawby Junction) then heads off in three different directions like the hydra, towards Scunthorpe and Doncaster, Gainsborough and Retford, and Market Rasen and Newark. That lot was once all a part of the GC (Great Central) network. There are two rival lines that still head south from Doncaster, cutting across Lincolnshire on the way: the old GN (Great Northern) line which speeds through Newark and Grantham as part of today's ECML (East Coast Main Line); the old GN&GE Joint (Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway) which takes in Gainsborough, Lincoln, Sleaford and Spalding on its rather more circuitous route…

For seven summers from 1933-1939 the London & North Eastern Railway operated what must surely rank as the most ambitious luxury touring service by rail that this country has ever seen, ‘The Northern Belle’. Its inspiration possibly stemmed from the earlier success of the ‘Eastern Belle’ (see Backtrack December 2019) which offered Pullman Excursions from Liverpool Street to East Anglian holiday resorts during the summer season. These were inexpensive luxury day trips employing Pullman cars which ran during the late 1920s and 1930s. They proved to be immensely popular with London residents. The ‘Northern Belle’ was essentially similar but on a far more elaborate scale, as it provided just 60 passengers with a week long touring experience of Northern England and Scotland for only £20 (equivalent to £1,700 in 2024).…

One of a number of railway routes linking the Red and White Rose counties was the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway line between Todmorden and Burnley. Passing through rugged Pennine country, its course through the Cliviger gorge necessited some challenging gradients – as steep as 1 in 65 from Todmorden to Copy Pit Summit. Regular passenger services ended in November 1965 but the line continued to see excursion trains between Yorkshire and Blackpool, while more importantly there was heavy coal traffic from the Yorkshire pits to the power stations of Lancashire which called for banking assistance up to Copy Pit. The decline of this traffic saw the line sink into virtual disuse in the 1980s, but by 1984 a new service had been instituted between Burnley and Bradford and the restoration…