From June 1967 the train started at 17 47 and was diverted via the Calder Valley route and on 4 August another 12A Black 5 (44817 – withdrawn eight days later) took me to Leeds. I returned to LMR metals on that occasion via Diggle on a Manchester/Holyhead service starting back at Leeds with Holbeck-allocated 45219. Steam each way over the Pennines as late as August ’67 was a notable event. It wasn’t until my fourth and final trip on the train that I actually had a run with the booked power, Brit 70051 Firth of Forth on Friday 3 November, travelling the entire 76 miles through to York. Having accumulated nearly 7,000 miles with a total of thirty-nine members of the Britannia class over a mere twenty-six months, this was to be my last run with one on a public service train. The locomotive off this Friday working was often returned to the LMR each Monday via the 03 32 Leeds/Halifax/Manchester and with Kingmoor’s closure to steam on 31 December (70013 Oliver Cromwell working the final 17 47 departure on Friday 29 December) the train went DL. Kingmoor had, up until its closure, continued to send Brits, LMS 8Fs and Black 5s over the Long Drag on freights right through that autumn and there were several instances of Christmas passenger specials worked by LMR Manchester area-allocated steam locomotives over to Leeds, but I wasn’t privy, or in the area, to sample them.
Only possible because of a Christmas present of a flash attachment for my camera, Newton Heath’s Black 5 45310 waits at Leeds City on a bitterly cold February morning in 1968 with the 03 32 departure for Halifax. This particular locomotive annoyingly (from a chaser’s point of view) worked this train on many occasions during those final months of penetration by LMR-allocated locomotives into the diesel desert the NER had become. She even survived the shed’s closure that July, being withdrawn at Carnforth just a week prior to the end that August.
The second booked incursion into the NER was the 23 38 (SuO) Liverpool Lime Street/York – worked by a Patricroft Standard 5MT as far as Leeds. This called at Manchester Victoria (00 33), Huddersfield (01 20) arriving into Leeds at 01 50 and combining there with the 21 53 ex-Shrewsbury for York (03 11). This was an awkward train to cover with work on the Monday morning at my desk job at Wimbledon, but enticed by the desire to travel on one of the country’s longest steam-hauled passenger journeys remaining (74 miles) I managed it on seven occasions! My first visit was on the last Sunday of August ’67 with 73073. It was a bank holiday that weekend and, with no need to attend work on the Monday, after arriving into Leeds at 01 50 I wandered across to the stock for the 03 32 Halifax departure, jumped in, fell asleep and woke upon the jerking departure – assured, by the noise from the front and the ‘wet’ steam heating in the compartment, that I hadn’t boarded the wrong train. At Halifax, having found out that she was a required Kingmoor Black 5, I alighted and awaited the arrival of the 02 10 York/Manchester – the train 44775 was to take forward after berthing the Leeds stock away in the sidings. The Manchester train duly arrived and, making a beeline for an empty compartment, resumed my sleep quota that night on the one-and-a half-hour journey into Manchester.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the journey through the night on the Liverpool train I made plans to blitz the train on four consecutive Sundays that October. The first and third (73136/31) saw me alighting at Manchester Victoria at 00 30, then walking to the Exchange station for the 01 00 sleepers to Wigan en route to the office. On the second visit (73053) I stayed aboard at Manchester because, ever the track basher, the train was diverted, resulting from engineering work, under the wires at Guide Bridge and via the Stalybridge avoiding line. Travelling over rare freight routes such as this with steam was a novelty and being unaware of the revised arrival time into Leeds I was becoming concerned (about my London connection) until the lights of Leeds came into view at just gone 2 a.m. Although there were two southbound overnight services into St Pancras, at 02 23 and 03 15, the latter would not only have made me late into the office but more importantly I wouldn’t have had time for the obligatory fry-up breakfast at the transport café in Eversholt Street, Euston prior to starting work. I needn’t have worried – eventually making a leisurely thirteen-minute connection into the former – the 21 25 ex-Glasgow.
I hadn’t planned on going through to Yorkshire any more occasions on that train, but on Bonfire Night (it was only that night back then – not the protracted week-long affair of these days!) that year upon arrival at Patricroft 73128 was exchanged, after an hour’s delay, for 73132 – the former suffering a burnt-out ash pan. Although seeing Brit 70021 Morning Star on the 01 00 sleeper departure at Manchester Exchange when passing, as there was insufficient time to ‘walk the walk’ between the two stations I had no alternative but to stay aboard.
Unable to monitor the train’s progress in the dark although fully appreciating the sterling efforts made by the crew I was fighting sleep deprivation in a bid not to miss the Leeds stop – every signal stop adding to my distress. She eventually arrived into Leeds at 02 59 (sixty-nine minutes late) that morning, forcing me to board the 03 15 (21 55 ex-Edinburgh) train into St Pancras. Being a slower (via Nottingham) service, after arriving into London at 08 16, forfeiting any breakfast and battling across in the rush hour, a tired and hungry enthusiast eventually arrived at his desk at 09 15 – nearly forty-five minutes late. I had not originally planned to stay out three nights that weekend, but having decided at the last minute to travel with Oliver Cromwell over Ais Gill on the Carlisle Kingmoor Rail Tour on the Sunday I arrived at the office that Monday morning with several days growth on my face and somewhat fragrant clothing! After commenting that ‘I’d thought you’d have grown out of this sort of thing’ (referring to the end of Southern steam earlier that year), my manager tactfully suggested that I took half a day’s leave and go home – to which I acquiesced. At least I wasn’t the two hours late that occurred in January ’69 when having to explain to my manager (albeit a different one!) that, being aboard the last train over the Waverley route, I was delayed by a protest group blocking the railway with a tractor – the MP David Steele participating in the events.
With the Prime Minister Harold Wilson endorsing the ‘I’m backing Britain’ campaign, attempting to encourage workers to work extra hours without pay, Sunday 14 January 1968 saw me once more heading north for an attempt at catching runs on some of the ever-decreasing number of steam-operated passenger services. After savouring a required Black 5 on a Preston to Liverpool Exchange portion I had to fester for some hours on the cold windswept Liverpool Lime Street station and wasn’t best pleased when espying a ‘diseasel’ (word coined by Thomas the Tank!) at the front of the 23 38 departure. Sitting with his feet on the console reading his paper in a warm cab environment I am sure the driver of Type 2 D5226 considered this a better option than a dirty run-down open-cabbed steam locomotive – an opinion rather selfishly not agreed with by myself.
The one final remaining steam penetration into the former NER therefore became the 03 32 Leeds/02 10 York/Manchester service. Officially the last NER shed to close to steam was Normanton in January 1968 and I therefore can only assume Holbeck still retained watering facilities, adequate coal being brought with her, for the 03 32 locomotive. Surprisingly remaining steam operated (Mondays excepted – MX) right through until the May, I used it on five occasions (one of which was another pesky Type 2 – the booked Black 5 having been declared a failure) during those final sad days of that last winter/spring. Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World was not exactly top of my charts. It was a warmer sleep-inducing method of accessing one of the few remaining steam services, that of the 09 00 Liverpool Exchange departure, than the alternative lengthy wait in the wooden-benched Wigan waiting room. The last reported booked working of the train by steam was on 11 May 1968 with 45310 – she, however, was failed and was replaced by a DL. Statistically I travelled on this service a stamina-busting twenty-six occasions – seriously contributing to the number of Stanier workhorses being caught. That fact in itself quantified why (at least to me) I still suffered thousands of electric and diesel miles to collect just a few
with steam.
And finally, my last steam visit to the North Eastern Region on both regular passenger services and rail tours was on Saturday 27 April 1968, as follows:
Preservation Special No. 2 – Saturday 27 April 1968
LMS Stanier 5MT 4-6-0s 44781 and 45046 Stockport Edgeley (dep. 10 37) to Stalybridge via Peak Forest Junction and Guide Bridge = 46½ miles.
BR Standard 5MT 4-6-0s 73050 and 73069 Stalybridge to Bolton via Diggle, Huddersfield, Copy Pit and Darwin = 72¼ miles.
LMS 8F 2-8-0 48652 Bolton to Stockport Edgeley via Rochdale and Oldham = 32 miles.
BR 9F 2-10-0 92218 Stockport Edgeley to Liverpool Lime Street (arr. 18 31) via Northenden and Warrington Bank Quay = 36½ miles.
This jointly organised tour (Severn Valley Railway Society/Manchester Rail Travel Society) started and finished at Birmingham New Street. Having, the previous Saturday, come across two dolled up Black 5s at Stockport while mooching around the Manchester area, I attempted to board the rail tour they were about to work. On this occasion my usual ‘board whatever steam train was running’ powers deserted me. For whatever reason, either the ever alert organisers or unavailability of seats, I was thwarted, but luckily, owing to the heavy demand a repeat tour was scheduled for the following Saturday. A week later, and having travelled out of Manchester on Friday’s Belfast Boat Express (BBE) with Carnforth 45025, I then went across to Yorkshire for my final steam departure out of Leeds (with the annoyingly common 45310) onto the 02 10 York/Manchester at Halifax.
With four hours to fill at Manchester before the tour I chanced a trip to Preston for that morning’s BBE, expecting 45025 again but gratifyingly collecting a run with a required 10A 45394. This day’s tour was the only occasion I’d had Standard 5s on NER metals and out of all the locomotives used only the subsequently preserved 73050 was dud. It was also the very last occasion a 9F was used on a passenger train. I had already booked the following Monday off and although I was prepared to stay up North the three nights with little on offer (i.e. that evening’s Preston portions) a very contented gricer made his way south for a rare Saturday night in his own bed.
It was during those final dispiriting months when realising my hobby, to which I had dedicated all my leisure time over the previous few years, was being taken away from me that Bill, the original inspirational friend back in 1963, once again came to my rescue. He highlighted the fact that there was plenty of steam available abroad and, depressed by the ever decreasing availability throughout Britain, I joined him on many European adventures (depicted in my first tome – The Great Iron Horse Chase: Europe).
The Love Affair’s Everlasting Love was blasting the airwaves and for once reflected the reigniting of my own enthusiasm with one of man’s greatest achievements. Later in ’68 Mary Hopkins had a top-ten success with her Those Were the Days. The frantic search for the dying steam locomotive in their ever diminishing habitats to the accompaniment of the vibrant raw ’60s music scene certainly, in my life, made that era unforgettable. While looking through my notebooks during research for this book I did wonder as to my mentality in spending hundreds of nights away from any warm comfortable bed. With steam seemingly becoming more and more confined to nocturnal services, where did the stamina and energy come from? I did it because I reasoned that it was all to end soon and I was witnessing history being made. I can honestly say that my hobby took me to many places I have never been to before (or again) all over Britain. I have met people, some of them with unfathomable dialects, from all walks of life in situations, locations and environments never imagined. I am that much wiser for the wonderful experience my hobby has given me and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
For those hardy souls who participated in the aforementioned scenario I hope this book has revived some pleasant memories – for those who didn’t, look what you missed out on!
AN AFTERTHOUGHT
AH, THOSE OVERNIGHT travels. Nowadays when sleep evades me during the night hours my mind returns to those far off days/nights spent in the pursuit of steam. Perhaps its 11 p.m. or thereabouts and I can picture myself, a solitary enthusiast, waiting on the platform of a cold, windswept Lime Street station for the steam heated stock of the 23 38 Sunday night departure to arrive. Perhaps its nearer 2 a.m., with the ethereal refection of Sheffield Midland’s station lights reflecting on a Jubilee with the Leeds departure. Or maybe it’s nearer 3 a.m. – the memories of standing on an overcrowded one-coach departure out of Normanton bring a smile to my face. Finally, with dawn breaking, it’s just gone 5 a.m., with the Hebden Bridge changeover about to ensue. None of these trains run today. The newspaper and mail traffic, together with the steam locomotives, are all gone – consigned to history books such as this. I console myself with the thought that I was young and able to undertake several consecutive nights ‘on the chase’ back then. I turn over, snuggle down under my warm duvet – the concurrent theme running through my head of ‘I was there’ – and sleep returns.
I find the present-day unit orientated national railway scene of insufficient interest to entice travels such as those detailed here. There have been many intervening years where family activities took priority and steam-locomotive chasing took a back seat. Over more recent times, however, with my daughter preferring foreign climes to here in the UK, the opportunities for a renewal of enthusiasm have been more available. The varieties of surviving locomotives operating on both main and preserved lines from a wide cross section of classes are a credit to all concerned. Throughout the country there are approximately 350 steam locomotives in the hands of the preservation movement – some are in pieces, some are a long way down the list of priorities for restoration, while others are very much alive and well. By my calculations the latter (subject to boiler tickets and failures) amount to about 270. Of these I still require runs with seventy-six (at the time of writing – 2015) so, therefore, taking into consideration some up-and-coming new builds, my hobby is still very much alive.
Holidays or weekend breaks can now be planned incorporating these ‘needs’ and, unlike the tales depicted throughout this book, can be caught while cherishing comfortable overnight accommodation between clean sheets – perhaps befitting my advancing years. My current stats are 1,243 locomotives for 99,795 miles – how are yours? I hope you have enjoyed the journeys I took you on back in the ’60s and wish all those with similar interests a long and gratifying participation in a hobby that, courtesy of the stalwarts within the preservation movement, can continue to be relished by all and sundry.
On most family holidays over the years Joan, my ever understanding wife, always willingly acquiesces to a visit to the nearest preserved line. Having seen several 0-8-0 ex-LNER Q6s during my journeys in the 1960s I had never travelled with one until, on 22 July 2008, the now preserved 63395, withdrawn at Sunderland forty-one years previously, was powering trains that day on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Here, at Grosmont, she readies herself for the 17¾ miles of undulating gradients ahead on her journey to Pickering – not bad for a 90-year-old!
Two further visits were made to the former NER following steam’s demise – both over lines which were to close. They were the Clayton West and Alston branches – the latter seen here being visited in August 1975.
A ‘social’ expedition to the Inner Hebrides in August 1987 was deliberately planned to include a return trip on what has become one of Scotland’s biggest tourist attractions, that of the steam-operated ‘Jacobite’ trains over the West Highland line. Here at Mallaig on 30 August 1987 the now preserved K1 2-6-0 2005, a locomotive that had taken me on a tour of the Yorkshire Dales twenty years previously, rests having brought the morning train in from Fort William.
This LMS Fairburn 2-6-4T is one of two examples having survived the cutter’s torch. A long way from her Cumbrian home, 42085, with whom I collected two runs when allocated to Manningham, is seen at Sheffield Park on 20 February 2010 while visiting the Bluebell railway.
Another survivor into the world of preservati
on was Patricroft’s Standard 5MT 73096 – she having taken me over the Pennines in April 1967 on the Manchester/Leeds footex. Visiting Clapham Junction on a route clearance trial trip this Derby-built 43-year-old sets off back to her then home on the Mid Hants Railway on 27 January 1998.
With the only A1 in normal service having been viewed in a semi-derelict state at York in May 1966 this shot of new build 60163 Tornado in December 2009 indicates, to me, what a handsome design these locomotives were. She is seen arriving into Bromley South with a Christmas lunch circular tour of Kent and on this particular day was the only right-time running train in South East England – severe icing of the third rail having decimated normal services.
A recent Christmas present! Nothing more needs to be said.
GLOSSARY
Feedback from my first book, purchased by non-railway enthusiasts, revealed that some of the terminology and many of the abbreviations left them more than mystified. This is for them.
Riding Yorkshire's Final Steam Trains Page 13
