The following day I had a superb footplate run on Newton Abbot’s 4037 The South Wales Borderers on the double-home turn, the 8am Plymouth–Liverpool (with through coach to Glasgow via the ‘Midday Scot’) between Pontypool Road and Shrewsbury — an experience covered more fully in the next chapter. I returned to Cardiff with one of the 1925-built ‘Castles’ behind which I’d not previously had a run, and despite an inordinate wait at Shrewsbury — the 12.15pm Manchester–Plymouth running ninety minutes late following a mishap at Sandbach, on the LMR just north of Crewe, where the overhead wires were down — I was pleased to get 4086 Builth Castle, of Canton (newly re-coded 88A). We had a 430-ton train and got no further than Bayston Hill before we were checked to walking pace on account of a freight dragging itself into the loop ahead. We recovered to 38mph at Church Stretton and with 78 at Onibury managed to hold schedule to Hereford. The fire was getting clinkered — the ninety-minute wait at Shrewsbury hadn’t helped — and a special stop at Abergavenny to set down passengers extended our lateness to ninety-five minutes at Pontypool Road. I watched the Plymouth portion continue behind 4086 while pannier No 3655 picked up the three coaches bound for Cardiff. Despite the pannier’s eagerness we suffered a broken signal wire at Panteg and yet another p-way slack at Maindee North Junction, which put our lateness over the magic 100 minute mark. I returned to London after another foray northwards, on the 8.55pm Birkenhead with Stafford Road double-chimney 5022 Wigmore Castle as far as Wolverhampton and 4075 Cardiff Castle (81A) thence via Oxford. I slept, exhausted, most of the way.
View from the brake van of the 11am Alexandra Dock Junction (Newport)–Coton Hill (Shrewsbury) freight ascending the bank up the Eastern Valley before Pontypool Road, hauled by Collett ‘2884’ 2-8-0 3837, February 1961.
In April I made a Saturday trip to Stroud, but the 1.40pm Paddington produced a high-mileage and down-at-heel 5967 Bickmarsh Hall, which, with a load of nearly 400 tons, was wholly unable to cope with a ‘three star’ timing and lost twenty minutes to Swindon, where 7000 Viscount Portal took over the five coaches for Gloucester. The return journey was very different, 7037 Swindon — transferred, for its last couple of years, from Swindon to Old Oak Common — setting a rousing pace, climbing to Sapperton Summit with its 325-ton load at a minimum of 34mph and achieving 83 on the level at Wantage Road and 81 at Maidenhead after the Reading stop. Despite a six min-late departure from Stroud an on-time arrival looked probable until two p-way slacks and two signal checks on the last leg put paid to that ambition.
I took some time off main-line runs in early April; I realised that I’d ignored steam-hauled local services and decided to put that right by travelling from Paddington to Bourne End, High Wycombe and Princes Risborough via the Western and returning to Marylebone, before both commuter services were entirely converted to DMU operation. 6169 (81A), the last numerically of the Paddington suburban ‘61xx’ class, performed on the 5.42pm Paddington–High Wycombe with eight non-corridor coaches (280 tons gross) and reached its first stop at West Drayton in 19 minutes, just nudging 60mph. At Bourne End I got out to take a branch trip on the ‘Marlow Donkey’ and was pleased to be invited into the cab of the push-pull trailer and return on the footplate of 0-4-2T 1453, although I was surprised at how ‘rough riding’ it seemed — due, most likely, to the state of the track rather than the engine, although she was fairly near her next works visit, which she survived. At High Wycombe I transferred to Neasden’s Fairburn 2-6-4T 42282 for a trip to Princes Risborough — and a noisy climb (45mph minimum) to Saunderton with its six coaches — and returned to Marylebone with another Neasden LM tank, 42089, which stopped at all stations punctually until West Ruislip, then just touched 59mph at Neasden before standing outside the terminus and finishing four minutes late.
At Easter I joined other teenagers and members of our church youth club in a youth-hostelling weekend on the Isle of Wight. On the Saturday we took the train from Ryde Pier to Sandown behind ‘O2’ 0-4-4T W17 Seaview and spent the night there — my first experience of listening to a dozen men and youths snoring in unison the whole night long. On Easter Day we hiked over the cliffs to Ventnor, and on the Bank Holiday Monday we walked the closed line from Ventnor to Newport, threading our way through the disused Whitwell Tunnel. We returned from Newport to Ryde Pier behind W33 Bembridge. Inspired by this brief acquaintance with the Island’s railway, I went back on my own a month later and just travelled from Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin and back — out with W14 Fishbourne and back with W16 Ventnor. This was the first of many solo trips I made to the Isle of Wight before the demise of steam in 1966.
Seen from the train to Sandown, hauled by W17 Seaview, W33 Bembridge arrives at Ryde Pier Head in April 1961.
Following my earlier success with the North & West triangular tour I decided to have another go on 17 April and joined the 7.30am Paddington, headed by 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe (81A) on ten coaches (370 tons gross). In terms of punctuality this trip proved to be the reverse of that with 7018 — we managed to lose eighteen minutes to Swindon, with just one severe p-way check, at Taplow, and a minute’s delay at Scours Lane, as we’d left Reading with a door open. The Bristol driver after Swindon showed us nothing was wrong with the engine, and we went out of Swindon like a bat out of hell, hitting 92mph at Dauntsey and 80 already by Box after a Corsham stop, reaching Bristol ten minutes late. On this Monday morning the 8 o’clock Plymouth had Newton Abbot’s 5024 Carew Castle on twelve coaches (440 tons gross), and to my surprise we swung east at Filton Junction and made our way to Westerleigh Junction and up the Midland line to Gloucester, touching 77mph at Charfield before a 15mph slack at Berkeley Road. At Standish Junction we crossed to the WR line and made our way around to Gloucester Central, where we waited for half an hour on the middle road for an assisting engine, 6941 Fillongley Hall (85B), to help us over the speed-restricted branch to Hereford. We’d been diverted because weekend resignalling work at Maindee Junction, Newport, was overrunning badly. At Grange Court Junction we stood for twenty minutes waiting for the corresponding southbound train with 5095 to come off the single line, while at Mitcheldean Road we had to wait to cross 4115 on the branch passenger service. We observed 5mph speed restrictions at a number of places, including Ross-on-Wye and Ballingham Tunnel, and eventually crept a full hour and a half late into Hereford, where 6941 was detached. 5024 at last set off at a normal pace and covered the Hereford–Shrewsbury section in 63 minutes net, with 49 minima of at Onibury, 34 at Little Stretton and 80 at Dorrington. We were still ninety minutes late into Shrewsbury. 5971 Merevale Hall got me back to Wolverhampton, where 6002 King William IV took over, managing to lose twenty-six minutes on the run to London, with p-way slacks and signal checks at Tyseley, Hatton, Fenny Compton, High Wycombe, West Ruislip, South Ruislip and Westbourne Park. How could a railway run this way?
Woking Methodist Church Youth Club walking the line from Ventnor to Newport, Easter Monday 1961.
I persuaded my college friend Alistair Wood to join me on the Saturday ‘Pembroke Coast Express’ on 22 April, and all looked good when we discovered we had one of Landore’s best ‘Castles’, recently ex works with double chimney, 7028 Cadbury Castle. With only two extra coaches, making ten (375 tons gross), we should have had no difficulty, but we proceeded to lose time against the advertised schedule while dribbling along at 65mph, blowing off steam furiously, exhaust inaudible, and arrived at Newport seventeen minutes late by the booked time but apparently on time, as the smug driver told me, by the revised Saturday time adjusted (but unadvertised to the public) for the extra load. As far as the public was concerned we were late, and frankly I thought the driver’s attitude disgraceful, for the engine demonstrated that it could easily have maintained the proper schedule.
Once we were in Wales it poured relentlessly with rain, and we consoled ourselves with a sprightly run behind pannier 9664 of Newport on the 3pm Newport–Brecon as far as Maesycwmmer, where we arrived two minutes early. We came back with lined-green 2236 on a similar three-coa
ch train, just beating the point-to-point times, which appeared to leave little margin for the sharp curves around which we squealed, still in the pouring rain. I hoped we might do a bit better on the up ‘Pembroke Coast Express’, and we left Newport with 5014 Goodrich Castle (81A) on 11 coaches — 405 tons. Two p-way slacks and signals on the Welsh side of the Severn Tunnel made us seven minutes late by Patchway, and then the Duke of Beaufort exercised his legal right to stop us specially at Badminton to pick up passengers attending the horse trials. By Wootton Bassett we were twenty-two minutes late, but now, at last, we got going, with a steady 74mph down the Vale of the White Horse, and with only one more p-way slack and two signal checks we were able to recover some time and reached Paddington fifteen minutes late.
Some reassurance on Western performance was now necessary — after all, I now worked for the outfit — and I tried again in mid-May, taking an evening trip to Banbury and back. On the outward run, on the 5.10pm Paddington, Stafford Road’s 6006 King George I, with thirteen coaches, did well enough in the hands of Driver Priest, attaining 50 on the climb to Saunderton and 86 at Haddenham, while on the 2.35pm Birkenhead 5036 Lyonshall Castle (81A), with with eleven coaches and Driver Townsend of Banbury, did even better, maintaining perfect punctuality despite a p-way slack, to 20mph, at Blackthorn, where we should have been doing 80. We touched 88 through Denham, and despite a signal stand at North Acton we arrived back in London half a minute early. I tried the 5.10 again a week later, with Stafford Road’s 5047 Earl of Dartmouth deputising for a failed ‘King’ (6011) and Driver Morris (who would be killed a couple of years later while driving a ‘Western’ diesel involved in a collision with a crane jib that was fouling the loading gauge). The 465-ton load (142 tons overloaded on a four-star timing for a ‘Castle’) was really too much, but it sounded as though it was being driven flat out, speed falling to 32mph at Saunderton but reaching 77 at Haddenham, a deficit of ten minutes at Princes Risborough (following a p-way slack at West Ruislip) being reduced to six minutes by Banbury. 6025 King Henry III (81A) was early on the return journey, despite some rather curious uneven driving by the Banbury crew.
At the end of May it was the custom for the office to enjoy a free day out, and an extra coach (along with crates of beer) was added to a ‘Warship’-hauled express to Weston-super-Mare, whence we took a paddle-steamer to Cardiff. Most participants were well into their cups by the return trip, and I got some very odd looks as I tried to time the return run from Cardiff to Paddington with Landore’s 5006 Tregenna Castle on the 2.30pm Neyland. I did manage to time it, recording a steady run with the eleven-coach train, which left Newport five minutes late after signal checks at Gaer Junction. However, there was station overtime at every stop, and we were ten minutes late at Paddington despite a maximum of 78mph on the level at Didcot.
On Saturday 3 June I decided on an afternoon trip to Evesham and back to see how Worcester’s ‘Castles’ were faring. 7027 Thornbury Castle on the 12.45pm Paddington got horribly delayed by the Ramsgate–Birkenhead (the ‘Conti’) at Reading and Oxford and left the latter station fifteen minutes late, but thereafter we made mincemeat of the easy schedule, and, with 82 down Chipping Campden Bank, we were only three minutes late into Evesham. No 7006 Lydford Castle was on the 1.50pm Hereford with just eight coaches and, after leaving Evesham five minutes late, ran hard to Oxford, accelerating from a 25mph slack at Honeybourne to 42 before the summit at Chipping Campden Tunnel, then 80 after Charlbury. The run was non-stop from Oxford in 68 minutes (63 minutes net), and arrival precisely on time.
The 1961 Summer Timetable was now in operation, and my thoughts turned to what could well be the last steam services to the West of England via the Berks & Hants. On Saturday 10 June I joined the 9.18am Paddington–Paignton — No 4078 Pembroke Castle (81A) with eleven coaches (380 tons) and Driver Harris of Exeter. We left a couple of minutes late and took things easily until a 15mph p-way slowing at Slough, but the driver seemed reluctant to take the loco much over 65mph — he complained it was roughriding and due for shopping. We climbed energetically to Brewham at 53mph, but 70mph at Charlton Mackrell was our highest speed, and the usual Summer Saturday checks put us eighteen minutes behind time at Clink Road Junction. A 43mph minimum at Whiteball was good after a slowing through Taunton to 12mph, and we lost no further time to Paignton, despite severe p-way slacks at Cowley Bridge and Teignmouth.
After a cold and drizzly reunion with the Paignton station remembered from my teenage years I found that the 1.50pm Kingswear–Exeter local was being extended through to London as a relief, so I joined 2-6-2T 4165 (83C) on ten coaches to Exeter which took a ‘41xx’ banker at Torre and achieved a creditable 66mph at Exminster. At St Davids we swapped 4165 for 4930 Hagley Hall (83C) and an Exeter driver, Gater, and set off enthusiastically, managing a minimum of 47mph at Whiteball and 83 down the bank at Wellington. After gaining three minutes to Taunton we left there eleven minutes late and ran steadily through the now glorious sunny afternoon, gradually picking up time. Recovery time approaching Reading reduced the deficit to four minutes, although a p-way slack at Slough and a signal check at Iver prevented us from regaining any more time.
On 17 June I had a last try at experiencing a ‘Nelson’ achieving 80mph and nearly made it — 30861 Lord Anson on the Saturdays-only 12.22pm Waterloo–Bournemouth even raced the ‘Belle’ around Fleet, when we surged to 73mph as we tried to hold it as it passed us on the main. Leaving Basingstoke was painfully slow, but once past Wootton ’box things looked up, as we kept steam on down the gradient and touched 78 — my highest in 383 runs with the class — at Shawford. We arrived on time at Southampton, so I shouldn’t carp. (See Appendix, Table 6.)
On 24 June — a scorching-hot day, in contrast with the weather two weeks earlier — I decided to try another full day in the West Country and arrived at Paddington in time to catch the thirteen-coach 8.25am to Penzance, headed by Old Oak double-chimney ‘Castle’ 5056 Earl of Powis. Driver Webber of Laira got the heavy load (500 tons gross) on the move after a signal check had slowed us to walking pace before we’d even passed Subway Junction, and we sustained the low 70s all the way from West Drayton to Reading, where we were brought to a stand by a tardy DMU entering the diesel depot. A nasty p-way slowing at Hungerford interrupted our climb to Savernake, which we passed at a hard-working 51mph, and we had just reached 79 after Patney when we were brought to a halt at Heywood Road Junction, where we stood for nearly ten minutes. We then crawled around the Westbury cut-off before stopping at Brewham to take water. We had clearly joined a queue of trains. After an eight-minute stand whatever was in front gave us space to stretch our legs, and 5056 got the heavy load going well, achieving a maximum of 83mph at Langport before we caught up with more trains, which had doubtless joined us at Cogload Junction en route from Bristol and Birmingham. We sailed through Taunton at 60 but got an awkward 20mph signal check at Wellington, and we did well to accelerate from this, topping the summit at Whiteball Tunnel at 31mph. Having free-wheeled down through Tiverton Junction in the low 70s, we were checked through Exeter and had another signal stand on the sea wall approaching Teignmouth, as we were obviously following something that was stopping there. At Newton Abbot, now four and a half hours from London, we acquired as pilot North British B-B diesel D6327, which didn’t seem of much help on Dainton or Rattery, as 5056 appeared to be doing most of the work. Speed fell to 16mph at Dainton and 20 at Tigley ’box before we stopped at Brent for the Kingsbridge branch. The coup de grâce was a six-minute signal stop at the bottom of Hemerdon Bank, and we drew into Plymouth North Road just over half an hour late.
As there was no obvious steam train back on the Western route I took the three-coach 2.33pm Plymouth–Waterloo via Okehampton behind unrebuilt ‘West Country’ 34030 Watersmeet. This was driven surprisingly hard with — according to my notes — a lot of noise and soot, producing a surprising 80mph at North Tawton, but a p-way slack after Crediton made us five minutes late into Exeter St Davids. There I joined a Paignto
n–Wolverhampton train with 5075 Wellington (83C), leaving twenty-five minutes late and suffering signal checks at Cullompton, Tiverton Junction, Wellington and a dead stand at Poole sidings, so we were twenty-nine late at Taunton, where I alighted. I now awaited the last up Kingswear with trepidation — it was appearing quite often with a ‘Warship’ now — and was delighted to get a ‘new’ ‘Castle’, 4077 Chepstow Castle (82B) on an eleven-coach rake (390 tons) and driven by Driver Weekes of Exeter. We left Taunton nine minutes late and ran steadily without any fireworks or high speeds (upper 60s most of the way) and were surprisingly unchecked until the Reading area and then a signal failure at Southall. We arrived in London eleven minutes late. It could have been a lot worse.
A week later I tried the 12.0 Paddington–Plymouth with 7037 Swindon (81A), twelve coaches (430 tons) and Driver Watts of Old Oak. A p-way slowing and four signal checks before Reading made us twelve minutes late there, and I feared the worst. Reading station staff recovered a couple of minutes, and then we set off down the Berks & Hants, gradually recovering more time despite the quantity of black smoke and smuts (the coal was slack and ovoids). With a 48mph minimum at Savernake and 50 at Brewham — but nothing over 76 elsewhere — our lateness was down to four minutes at Castle Cary, and at Taunton we were actually nearly two minutes early by the public timetable. I went through to Exeter and returned to Taunton behind a Tyseley engine, 6855 Saighton Grange, on the 3.5pm Paignton–Wolverhampton and then got ‘Warship’ D801 on the last up Kingswear. That left Taunton fifteen late and got to Paddington, virtually unchecked, four minutes late, but my feeling was that it could have done a lot better — most of the running was indistinguishable from 4077’s the previous week. The highest speed achieved was 75mph (momentarily) at Athelney and again after Witham; the rest of the time we cruised in the 60s. Apparently one engine had failed the previous day, and I suspect we were running on one engine throughout.
A Privileged Journey Page 18
