North East England - Steam Days Screenshots - Large Screenshots Possible

Hi edh6,
if the snippet of the BCR on the DLS might motivate you to build the D30 4-4-0 then that would be a big step forwards for fans of things southern Scottish (even though Bellingham and Reedsmouth Junction are in NE England.......). I don't have the time to build a 2m LIDAR Transdem of the whole of the BCR between Border Counties junction to Riccarton Junction, not least because I will end up wanting to actually build the route between between Hexham and Hawick. Then I will want to build it from Newcastle!
 
Hi borderreiver,
Thank you for answering my questions. I will contact barn700 regarding the Sentinel Railcars. On his website it does say that due to bandwidth he doesn't always show everything he's made so hopefully when I ask him he will give me the information about them. I got Paul to commission the LNER Silver Jubilee & Coronation sets a few years ago so I may get him to commission a NBR D30/31 once I can get hold of the plans for these loco's.
Over the last 3 years I've been modelling the old Blyth & Tyne railway circa 1950's from Morpeth to Blyth including Blyth staithes, including the branches to Lynemouth & Newbiggin also Backworth Colliery via Percy Main down to Northumberland Dock on the Tyne and from Manors North to Tynemouth. It is my first attempt to model a prototypical route and it's coming along quite well, I just need to upgrade it to Tane standards & add procedural track. I must say that I have enjoyed doing all the research into building the route & like yourself I managed to clone the ECML route & build my extensions from it upgrading Morpeth & it's yards to 1950's era layout on the way. I am also hoping to model the old 'Wannie Line' from Morpeth to Reedsmouth & Bellingham but I hear Vern is also considering doing this at some point & as he is no doubt a better & more professional route builder than myself so I will wait to see if he does decide to build it.
Thanks again for your replies, I will keep following your thread with great interest, keep up the good work.
 
Reedsmouth Junction Progress

Northeast England during the steam era. A bit more progress on the BCR Reedsmouth to Bellingham route today. Here, depicting a summer morning, I am using an ex-NER 4-4-0 R Class (LNER D20) to draw a four-set plus six-wheel van for Riccarton Junction away from Reedsmouth Junction. It is a work in progress. More scenery went in today. If I ever think it good enough, I will put it on the DLS.

 
Reedsmouth Junction Progress

Northeast England during the steam era. In rural Northumberland the LNER D20 crosses the River Rede on its way to Bellingham and Riccarton Junction.

 
Up in the air

Northeast England during the steam era. Some more progress with my BCR Reedsmouth and Bellingham route. Here is an aerial view of Reedsmouth Junction with an ex-NER C Class (LNER Class J21 0-6-0) on the turntable. The engine shed was on the Border Counties line but the turntable was beside the Wansbeck branch, locally nicknamed "the Wannie". I also have the first shots of Bellingham station. Nothing much other than the station at Bellingham is in place yet. A work in progress.






An 0-6-0 of LNER Class J21 in the station with the 4.05 p.m. afternoon school train for Scots Gap via Reedsmouth Junction, where after arrival at 4.09 p.m. the train would reverse direction, leaving for Scotsgap at 4:15 p.m. Anyone from West Woodburn who had come in to Bellingham to shop or to bank would be able to return on this train, made up of an ex-NER five compartment ordinary Third.




 
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Hot work on a summer's day

Northeast England during the steam era. The N.E.R. had a range of eight-coupled freight locomotives of T, T1, T2 and T3 classes, which became LNER Classes Q5, Q6 and Q7. The Q5s became associated with heavy traffic on Teesside, while the Q6s lasted right until the end of steam in the NE Region fifty years ago, doing the job that they were never surpassed at, moving coal. The heaviest and most powerful, Raven's 3-cylinder Q7s, were too heavy to pass over lightly laid colliery yards and with only ten in traffic were quickly displaced from main line freight duties in the mid-1920s by the greater numbers of war surplus ex-R.O.D. 2-8-0 O4 class. It took until WWII and their concentration at Tyne Dock shed for them to find their classic function, moving iron ore from Tyne Dock bottom up to the steel works of Consett Iron Company. Here in the late 1940s, and seen from Stella Coke works, the driver of the Raven two-cylinder Q6 and the driver of the Raven three-cylinder Q7 have diametrically opposed problems. The Q7 has a banker at the back of the iron ore train but is concerned with keeping the train moving up the incline towards Pelton station while the Q6 has the brakes pinned down and is trying not to run away down the incline to wreck at the junction. The firemen on the ore train's locomotives will have a hard hot job to feed the fire over the next ten miles.

 
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Streak at Ouston Junction

Northeast England during the steam era. Between the end of WWII in 1945 and nationalisation in 1948, the LNER began to shake off wartime constraints. An invisible step was repairing parts of the East Coast Main Line to permit the resumption of non-stop expresses between London and Edinburgh (not to be achieved until 1948) but one of the most visible steps was casting aside wartime black and repainting of the A4 Pacifics in Garter Blue, complete with the application of numbers and lettering in stainless steel. A wartime measure to simplify maintenance was not overturned as the wheel fairings of the pre-war "streaks" were not restored.

Here in 1947, with some of the new Thompson coaches in the train, A4 Class number 19 "Bittern" of Gateshead shed with a non-corridor tender passes Ouston Junction with a down express for Newcastle Central. "Bittern" probably took over haulage of the train at York, likely relieving a Grantham locomotive of the duty. Changing engines at Grantham, York and Newcastle was a typical measure on the ECML in an attempt to maximise reliability.

The train retains Gresley catering, discernable in the middle of the train in the form of a triplet, since Thompson catering vehicles were not in service until 1948 and the Flying Scotsman sets were the recipient of the first two three-coach sets, (FO, RK, TO) with the third built RK held as spare. The express has just begun the descent to Low Fell, and despite it being shallow, you can detect the bend in the train just ahead of the catering set.

Coming in from the right is a Q6 0-8-0 heading from South Pelaw junction on the Consett branch and routed via the slow lines to Low Fell. Her destination could be Heaton yard, with the load going on to the busy shipyards on the north bank of the Tyne.

This is my NW Durham route, which is a work in progress. Bittern is Camscott's work.

 
Streak at Ouston - 50s style

Northeast England during the steam era. Depicting 1955 at Ouston junction when "blood and custard" coaches, brunswick green express locomotives and even some lined black locomotives were on the tracks. Here A4 "Bittern" in green hauls a down express for Newcastle. A K3 2-6-0 brings a loaded coal train off the Consett branch from Stella Gill bound for Dunston staithes on the Tyne while a J27 0-6-0 takes empty hoppers on to the Consett branch bound for Stella Gill, just past South Pelaw junction. A southbound V2 2-6-2 takes a Gateshead Park Lane to York Dringhouses yard past the junction. In the background an O1 2-8-0 with newly fitted westinghouse pumps takes a train of eight 56 Ton bogie iron ore hoppers from Tyne Dock to Consett.

There were five air-equipped O1s and five air equipped Q7s at Tyne Dock to operate the ore trains. In 1954 BR started a twenty year contract to deliver ore using the new bogie wagons.








This is my NW Durham route in T:ANE SP2 and continues to be a large work in progress.
 
Horsepower at Croft Spa Goods Depot

Northeast England during the age of the horse. The Railway companies were owners of thousands of horses, with even British Railways continuing the tradition. I believe that their last delivery and shunting horses were not retired until the late 1950s or early 1960s. Many station goods yards depended on horses to shunt wagons (a lot cheaper to buy, feed and shelter than even an 0-4-0T loco) and delivery was by horse-drawn carts for most of the railway's existence. Croft station was on the ECML but its goods depot was not, it was at the end of a spur laid by the Stockton and Darlington Railway from its line where the famous S&DR-ECML crossing would be, known as the Croft branch. About fifteen years later the east coast main line would join part way down the branch, to the south of Darlington, taking it over to become the main line. The remaining stump remained in place for a little over a hundred years with the S&D goods depot at the end of it.

Horses required protection for their hooves, so packed earth, ash or sunken track would be used. At Croft I have elected to use sunken track. There was no run around facility at Croft Spa goods yard, so I believe it likely that there was horse shunting to work the yard, which had six spurs, one of which extended through to the town's gas works. The yard worked only wagonload traffic and above. No "road van"* was scheduled to deliver or collect smaller consignments. Such items would be collected/delivered by railway cart to/from Darlington goods shed.

With an incline down to the yard entrance, and six spurs, one of which was at the northern end of the yard I have speculated on the operation and the screenshots are a diorama of one moment in time about 1938. ex-NER J77 0-6-0T 607, rebuilt from an old NER Fletcher 0-4-4T BTP, has brought the morning trip to the yard. Stopping outside and holding the train on the brake van the J77 could run forward on to the first spur and then the guard could release the brake, controlling the train rolling in to the main yard area. So long as the brake van clears the turnout for the first spur the guard need not be too fastidious about stopping too early. The J77 could then come out of the spur, take the brake van and place it in another spur, for attachment at the rear of the outbound train. The horse and the shunter have spent the morning taking the outbound wagons, all empty today, and placing them in to the first spur. The J77 can then promptly pick them up from the spur, shunt them down to couple up with the brake van and then depart back to Croft Junction yard to get on with its "day job", shunting the busy yard beside the ECML. The horse and the shunter then have time to take the arriving wagons to the gas works, to the loading bank and to the coal merchant.







* Note - I feel that I should explain the term "road van" as used by the NER/LNER in railway terms. It is not a road vehicle like today, but a covered four-wheel railway goods van assigned to a route on the railway between two points, usually depots and sometimes the same depot on an out and back route. It would be marked or tagged for the service and route. At the road van's starting point, it would be loaded up with consignments arrived in transhipment vans, then marshalled in a goods train travelling the route (the "pickup goods" or a trip working). The road van was carrying "small" consignments (under 2 Tons) and would collect/deliver at the stations on the route classified to handle small consignments.

If a consignor had traffic amounting to two tons or more the railway company would assign a wagon for the load. If the customer was a good one but the traffic less than two tons I am sure that the four rules applicable to goods clerks allowed the station master enough "wiggle room" to "find" the customer a wagon for the traffic they wished to consign. From the mid/late 1930s change was afoot. To reduce costs, the LNER was whittling down road van routes, preferring to send smaller consignments to goods sheds covering a large district if they could and then using motor vehicles, electric drays or horse-drawn carts to deliver consignments further out than was previously the case.

This is County Durham, my personal route and a work in progress.
 
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Aerial views on a summer's day

Northeast England during the steam era. Here are some aerial shots to give an idea of how much track I have laid in so far to roll back the County Durham section of built-in TS12 route Kings Cross to Newcastle in order to approximate what the area was like in steam days. I am merging the county in to a clone of the built-in T:ANE route Kings Cross to Edinburgh route but my ambition is limited to "the NER" between Chaloner's Whin, York and Marshall Fields, Berwick. If I am very lucky I might at some point roll back Doncaster to York, Doncaster to Hull and Berwick to Edinburgh. Don't hold your breath though. I figure it at taking me years to plod through the work.

Here in this posting I am in the air above Croft Spa and Croft Junction yard, to the south of Darlington.

Below , a K3 2-6-0 heading north with a Down Class D freight from York Dringhouses for Heaton encounters a southbound Up express in the hands of an A4 4-6-2. Notice the Thompson BG in plain Carmine, the only Thompson 63' BGs to get Carmine and Cream where the two built for the Flying Scotsman sets, which by the date of this shot were being used on the non-stop "The Capitals Limited (which will be renamed "The Elizabethan" in 1953 and is the subject of a British Transport Films movie). Croft station is in the foreground while Croft Spa Goods Depot is in the background.



The K3 runs north past Croft Junction Yard.



As the K3 passes the yard it encounters a southbound Up Class H freight in the hands of an ex-WD Austerity 2-8-0 running between Gateshead Park Lane and York Holgate. I am uncertain as to how Up trains calling off at Croft Junction were handled. While there was an Up slow loop to Croft Junction yard North crossover near Geneva roads and a Down slow to Croft Junction Yard South turnout, there seems to have been no Croft Junction Yard South to Up main connection. With loose coupled trains up to seventy, eighty or ninety wagons reversing out across the ECML to the loops by Geneva Roads seems a controller's stuff of nightmares. I wonder if Up freights stopped in the Up Slow, shunters detached short sections and crossed to the yard, bringing back short sections to attach for the onward journey. As for how long a "short" section could be and how signalmen viewed repeated crossing of a busy main line, I think it means more research on my part. Perhaps the maps I have used have missed a connection.

 
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Croft Depot Reboot

Northeast England during the steam era. After my recent posting of Croft Depot I learned of the 25 inch to 1 mile map resource at the National Library of Scotland. Additionally I have visited the disused stations website. I decided to both revise the buildings at Croft and to demolish and relay the depot yard. It is significantly different. The Railway Clearing House book for 1904 confirmed that Croft Depot had no crane and I already knew Croft Depot was not served by a NER 12 Ton covered van, known as a "road van", so there was no traffic less than that of a wagon load normally received or despatched. There were six spurs, two of which were spurs with coal drops beneath them. The longest spur was shared with the gas works, which also was a tar distillery until 1960. At the start of that spur there was a loading bank for tipping bulk loads or rolling/trolleying consignments.

As mentioned before, there was no crane on site. The two shorter spurs at the west side of the yard may have had drops beneath them or just one of them. No photographs seen. There must have been a track to access the loading bank, which I believe went to the west of the westernmost spur and crossed over to the ban at either the southern end or northern end of the bank. The photograph from 1960 appears to show no barrow crossing at the southern end and no conclusive evidence of access from the east or a second road access to the yard just to the bank. From the evidence of regular track I doubt that horses were used to any extent as shunters so possibly the technique of "fly shunting" was used. The 1960 showed an 0-6-0 propelling two wagons down the branch and no brake van, but in busier days in my opinion the district supervisor would not have been happy with a loco doing that for longer trains.

So, Croft MKII representing the old Stockton & Darlington station yard in the 1940s, a hundred years on from it becoming the goods depot for Croft (Croft Spa station opening on the Great North of England Railway main line in 1841).

Below, the J21 0-6-0 stands in the northern spur as the guard in the brake van controls the train rolling off the gradient and in to the depot yard. The J21 is superheated with the longer smokebox.



Below, the J21 collects the brake van from the end of the train and will move it to the northern spur to go on the rear of the departing train.



Below, the J21 leaves the brake van in the spur. If the train driver is a martinet he will be telling the guard to get out and help the yard shunter to work point levers and couple/uncouple. As this is set during the war he may be prevailed on "to do his bit" with most of the younger men away at war. While women worked as ticket collectors, station staff and train cleaners in WWI I am not sure if any worked as train guards or yard shunters in WWII.



Below, the J21 collects empty hoppers from the coal drops. To the best of my knowledge locomotives were explicitly banned from proceeding on to the drops, so using a wagon as a spacer may have been required to meet this rule.



Below, the J21 is moving outbound wagons to the northern spur.



This the ECML County Durham route. It is a section of the built-in TS12 route from Kings Cross to Newcastle. It is a work in progress and plenty of buildings required to repopulate Croft.
I am planning on inserting it into the T:ANE ECML built-in route Kings Cross - Edinburgh for my own use.
 
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BCR Reedsmouth and Bellingham

Northeast England during the steam era. Back up to the Border Counties Railway Reedsmouth and Bellingham route. I have relaid Bellingham station and have begun to build the town of Bellingham. Here, depicting the early 1950s and the final few years of the BCR (passenger services were withdrawn in late 1956) one of the line's regulars, D49 Hunt "The Rufford" brings the early morning train from Hawick in to Bellingham. The old North British Railway Working Timetable for 1896 described the 6 a.m. train from Hawick to Newcastle as a "Fast Passenger Train" but it still took 2 hours 55 minutes to travel the close to 76 miles from Hawick to Newcastle with 20 stops en-route. Thorneyburn made it 21 stops on Tuesdays when it would stop for the one scheduled train per week! The return northbound call was Tuesdays at 1:25 p.m. giving one a mere 3 hours 37 minutes at Hexham or 1 hour 55 minutes in Newcastle to accomplish all one's business. If one or more of the dozen or so locals close by Thorneyburn halt needed to travel on another day their choice was either a three mile walk west to Falstone or a mile and a half walk east to Tarset, all on dirt trackways or across rough country.







Bellingham North Tyne, to give it the full title (assigned by the LNER in 1926 to avoid confusion with a Bellingham in SE England) issued the most tickets and had the longest platform on the BCR, 160 yards in length. Riccarton Junction on the Waverley route at the Scottish end of the BCR had an island platform 280 yards long. While Bellingham was a token exchange point it never had two platforms, making it functionally impractical for two passenger trains to cross here.
 
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Pressing on at Preston Skerne, ECML, 1924

Northeast England during the steam era. The ECML has changed greatly since the end of steam and it takes research to pick out some of the changes that have ocurred. The NER and LNER took great pains to get goods trains out of the way of express passenger services and where four tracking was not accomplished loops were placed at strategic points. One such location on the ECML in County Durham was listed as Preston Loops in the working timetable. They were at Preston Skerne between Aycliffe and Ferryhill, with the signal box and trailing crossover at milepost 52 from York. Passengers passing by at 90 mph today would have no idea they ever existed.

Below I am depicting 1924, early in the existence of the new LNER. Raven's 4-4-2 Atlantics of 2-cylinder C6 Class and 3-cylinder C7 Class are still on top link duties and today No. 722 is hauling the down 10 a.m. Kings Cross - Edinburgh, which the press of the day are now calling "The Flying Scotsman", even though the scheduled time is still over eight hours. The days of it being a real flyer are still four years away in the future when the timing agreement between the operators of the East Coast and West Coast main lines expired. The timings were brought in at the end of the 1890s "Races to the North" but in the intervening quarter century express trains have changed significantly and while the rest of the country in the 1920s considered an express train to have an average speed of 60 mph or more the Anglo-Scottish expresses of the LNER and LMS barely pass the 50 mph average. The NER 52 mile milepost can be seen by the third coach.



In the up loop at Preston a Q7 0-8-0 stands with a long train of loose-coupled vans and wagons, what would later be a Class F freight. Originating at Gateshead Park Lane it is bound for Croft Junction Yard but will stay in the loop to let a passenger service pass it by heading for Darlington. In the distance the down loop is occupied by a goods train fitted with automatic brake.



The down loop's occupant is one of Raven's 3-cylinder B16 class 4-6-0s, no. 840 of Heaton shed on an express fitted goods service, which would later be known as a Class E goods. The B16 uses the same boiler as the Q7, with the B16's being a superheated variant though they were never interchanged between the classes. The leading vans behind the tender are ex-NER 25 Ton bogie transhipment vans, code "CovFit" in LNER days. They worked on assigned routes between major goods centres such as Forth in Newcastle, Park Lane in Gateshead and Wellington St in Leeds.



This is the County Durham section of the built-in ECML route from TS12, Kings Cross - Newcastle rolled back tot he steam era. it remains a work in progress.
 
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Consett Six-Coupled Turn 1935

Northeast England during the steam era. Consett station yard circa 1935. One of Worsdell's ex-NER P Class 0-6-0s, now LNER Class J24 has worked from Gateshead Park lane to Carr House West signal cabin delivering stores such as coal and lamp oil to signal cabins and stations on the branch from South Pelaw Junction. She has also delivered Loco coal to Annfield Plain shed, collecting empty loco coal wagons and 7-plank wagons filled with cold ash. The ash will be taken to the ex-NER ash ballast plant near Thornaby on Tees-side. The J24's train is in a loop in the station yard and the loco will turn on the short turntable in the yard, just fitting on it. After turning and running to the east end of the station yard 1854 will back down on to the train for the return trip to Gateshead Park Lane. It is a Saturday and the 11:35 a.m. Blackhill to Newcastle passenger train stands by the island platform waiting for shoppers and football fans to board. An extra Third Class bogie coach has been added to the train to cater for the expected demand, though by 1935 both the Northern and Venture bus companies were running buses to Newcastle's Marlborough Crescent bus station on a half-hourly frequency, taking an hour to make the journey one way. This was barely slower than the train's 56 minutes all stations stopping service from Consett to Newcastle Central via Birtley and marlborough Crescent was only a hundred yards or so further from Grey's Monument in the centre of Newcastle than Central station. The passenger service would last until the mid-1950s but the numbers it carried then had diminished by more than half compared to the peak of 1914.





This is my personal route NW Durham.
 
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The view at Deerness Valley Junction 1935

Northeast England during the steam era. I have been tracklaying near Durham on the East Coast Main Line, the County Durham section of the TS12 built-in route KIngs Cross - Newcastle. On the built in there is nothing at Deerness valley Junction or Relly Mill to indicate the junctions of the Bishop Auckland, Deerness or Consett branches with the East Coast main Line so the ECML must be slewed back to its pre-1970 alignment and the tracks laid in. The viaduct and road bridges between Brandon and Deerness valley Junction must also be restored.

Here an ex-NER Worsdell O Class 0-4-4T (LNER Class G5) can be seen by the signalman in the elevated signal cabin at Deerness Valley Junction. It is on a Bishop Auckland to Sunderland stopping passenger train, which will join the ECML at Relly Mill, call at Durham and leave the ECML at Newton Hall, reaching Sunderland by way of Leamside, Fencehouses and Pallion. While a passenger from London, Liverpool, Manchester, York or Darlington could disembark at Durham and take the stopping train onwards to Sunderland they would have less of a wait at Newcastle due to the greater frequency of Newcastle to Sunderland trains. At this time several express trains a day took the coastal route through Sunderland and West Hartlepool when heading to/from York, London and Liverpool, giving Sunderland some direct, if rather slow, trains. Bridge House Signal cabin and junction can be seen in the left background. The line diverging towards us is the Consett branch via the Browney Valley and Lanchester.



Below, the G5 passes the signal cabin and an ex-NER Worsdell T2 Class 0-8-0 (LNER Class Q6) waiting to leave the Waterhouses branch with a loaded coal train.



Below, an ex-NER Raven S3 Class 4-6-0 (LNER Class B16) flies past on the ECML down line between Bridge House Junction and Relly Mill Junction on an express freight fitted with automatic brake. The G5 will reach Relly Mill a couple of minutes behind the B16 and follow it down the 1 in 100 incline in to Durham station. The line in the foreground diverging from the G5 is from the Consett branch. From Bear Park trains from Consett had four options, join the ECML down line at Relly Mill and head to Durham, join the ECML up line at Bridge House and head for Ferryhill, join the Bishop Auckland branch at Deerness Valley junction and head for Bishop Auckland or join the Waterhouses branch at Deerness Valley and head for Waterhouses (Esh Winning). From Durham trains off the Consett branch could head for Leamside and Sunderland. From Ferryhill trains could head to either Darlington, Stockton or Billingham. From Bishop Auckland trains could head for either Darlington, Barnard Castle, Tebay, Penrith or Wearhead. In practise, the Consett branch to Waterhouses branch section appears to have mainly been used as a headshunt, where trains off the Waterhouses branch paused while the loco ran around, before then taking the crossover to the line from the Consett branch to Bridge House junction. There was a sizeable coke works at Littleburn and the steel industry on Tees-side was a voracious consumer of coking coal from the Durham coalfield. In addition, coke traffic amounting to around a million tons a year crossed the pennines via the Stainmore line to supply the steelworks at Workington in Cumberland.

 
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Bridge House and Deerness Valley Junctions - 1920

Northeast England during the steam era. I have been doing more work around Deerness Valley Junction on the rolled back section of the built in East Coast Main Line in County Durham. Here circa 1920 in pre-grouping days it is busy at Deerness Valley and Bridge House Junctions.

Below a Fletcher Bogie tank Passenger (BTP) 0-4-4T powers a North Eastern Autocar twin set past the railway cottages en-route from Durham to Bishop Auckland. The local nickname for this service was "The Brandon Bus". Brandon Colliery was the first stop en-route between Durham and Bishop Auckland. The BTP was largely superseded on branch passenger trains by Worsdell's O Class 0-4-4T (later LNER Class G5) but the NER liked to get its moneysworth from locomotives and commenced a program to rebuild most in to 0-6-0Ts. Around 1906, the NER identified a need to reduce the costs of running some branch passenger trains and took several BTPs and fitted them for push-pull working, converting several ordinary Brake Thirds in to Driving Composites as Diagram 116. Later several more were built to Diagram 162 with elliptial roofs.



Below a Worsdell N Class 0-6-2T (later LNER Class N9) hauls a short rake of 101/2 Ton Coke Hoppers (diagram R5) off the Waterhouses branch, taking the chord to Relly Mill, which means it will join the ECML and proceed through Durham on the down main line. In the background of the second shot a train of steel plate is leaving the Consett Branch at Bridge House junction and heading towards Ferryhill on the ECML Up line.





Below a Worsdell P3 Class 0-6-0 (later LNER Class J27) takes the steel plate train on to the ECML at Bridge House junction. It is mostly composed of 2-plank 12 Ton four-wheel plate wagons to diagram B12. The loco will change over at Ferryhill, though this would change during LNER days with the enlargement of Croft Junction yard at Darlington.

 
BCR Reedsmouth and Bellingham Update - Summer's Day 1932

Northeastern England during the steam era. Eighty-five years ago in rural Northumberland and the valley of the North Tyne River. 1932 on my short Border Counties Railway Reedsmouth and Bellingham route. An ex-North Eastern Railway Worsdell 4-4-0 of LNER Class D20 hauls the morning stopping train from Newcastle to Riccarton Junction on the Waverley route. Here are some shots to show the build progress on the route.

Below, the first two shots show the D20 passing Countess Park on the section to the south of Reedsmouth Junction.





Below, the second two show the D20 arriving at Reedsmouth Junction and an aerial shot showing the Wansbeck branch train waiting in the Morpeth platform with a train for Scots Gap as the D20 waits in the BCR northbound platform. The river North Tyne is in the background.





In our next pair, the D20 crosses the bridge spanning the River Rede and heads for the next stop at Bellingham. The high hills to the north are very sparsley populated.





Below, the D20 arrives at Bellingham North Tyne station. Passing the token exchange point, which is unmanned as the train is stopping, so the signalman will exchange tokens on the platform.





The final two shots show the D20 to the west of Bellingham station on its way in to the far northwest corner of western Northumberland. It will cross the border in to Scotland on its way to Riccarton Junction.

The BCR was a North British Railway line, built in the 1860s in an attempt to reach the traffic, particularly coal traffic in NE England. Unfortunately for the NBR, the NER took over the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway, which was the route by which the NBR was to reach Newcastle after joining the N&CR to the west of Hexham. The other NBR access route, via the Wansbeck branch to Morpeth and a junction with the Blyth & Tyne was also frustrated by the NER taking over the B&TR. In reality the LNER-era on the BCR was still an era of NBR locos, with the mainstays being the D31/D33 4-4-0s and J36 0-6-0s. Ex-NBR coaching stock also predominated. Gresley coaches, particularly corridor coaches, were slow to reach rural lines such as the BCR.






 
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Darlington from the Air, circa 1938

North East England in the steam era. Depicting the period immediately prior to WWII when the LNER ruled the roost in the region three shots from the air of the area around the East Coast Main Line and the Stockton & Darlington Railway crossing on the level to the north of Darlington bank Top station.



Above, a J21 takes a stopping train northwards on the down ECML as a J26 0-6-0 stands with a coal train in the Stockton & Darlington loop by Parkgate Junction and a Q6 0-8-0 stands on the eastern side of the ECMl waiting for the right of way to cross the ECML and head towards Darlington North Road station and then onwards to the collieries in the Shildon/Bishop Auckland/West Auckland district. An alternate routing for the coal empties behind the Q6 would have been up the former Clarence Railway route which crossed the ECML to the north of Aycliffe station. This shot illustrates the work I have done installing the industries and sidings in the SW corner of the chord between the ECML and S&DR. A foundry, school furniture factory, coal depots and gas works.



Above, a K3 2-6-0 brings a long class H unbraked loose coupled freight south on the Up ECML past the "Albert Hill Estate" to the west of the ECML in the NW corner of the chords between the ECML and S&DR. It was a tightly packed area which included "The Barningham Foundry", which by 1938 may have been occupied by Thomas Summerson & Sons, a major manufacturer of railway sidings. I believe that the site was also occupied by South Durham Iron Co and Darlington Forge. Grace's Guide provided the information on the industries. With several rail-connected heavy industries on site I am not clear on how it was serviced, whether the LNER shunted it in the course of working trip freights, (of which I believe there must have been several daily) or one of the larger companies posessed at least one shunter and exchanged traffic at the two access points, (from the ECML down line and from the north side of the S&DR). From the 25 inches to the mile map of the area there were a lot of lines and plenty of sidings going in to the buildings but not a lot of outside sidings for storing/sorting wagon load traffic. There was a coal depot in the middle of the complex, presumably to supply the Summerson & Sons works. Also on the Albert Hill Estate was a "powerhouse", which presumably was coal fired, supplying electricity and possible steam to the surrounding companies (this is an era before the UK National Grid).



Above is another view of the K3 2-6-0 heading south on the Up ECML. I have still to work on the wagon works and Darlington Wire Mill complex to the east of the ECML to the north of the S&DR crossing, so my apologies for the lack of track serving the "placeholder" Auran building rolling mill. The Albert Hill industries are representative rather than a prototypical reproduction. However, I do hope that it conveys the vision of an immense amount of Heavy Industry which could be found at either side of the line in the Darlington area. There remains a considerable amount to build in the vicinity of Darlington North Road. The NER/LNER Darlington Locomotive Works were there, along with Stooperdale paint shops and other heavy industry in the vicinity of the junction between the Bishop Auckland line and Barnard Castle line. This is my personal rolling back of the County Durham section of the built-in ECML route in Trainz. As you can see, it is very much a work in progress.
 
The morning trip freight from Croft Junction Yard

North Eastern England during the steam era. The LNER is associated with the steam record holder Mallard of Class A4, the Flying Scotsman, both of Class A3 and the express train of the same name, the streamliner trains and the glamour of long distance travel. However, the LNER made more money moving freight than it ever did moving people. Pretty much the humblest level of this momentous undertaking were the trip freights and branch line goods trains, delivering and picking up small numbers of wagons at factory sidings or factory exchange yards. Here a Class J77 0-6-0T reverses off the down ECML line to access the line in to Thomas Summerson & Sons factory at Albert Hill, Darlington. The shunter man works the manual point levers while both the guard in the brake van and the footplate crew keep a close watch on their progress since a derailment at this location will involve senior officers very quickly. The J77 originated as a Fletcher Bogie tank passenger 0-4-4T built in 1877, rebuilt as a 0-6-0T in 1899 after the Worsdell G5 0-4-4Ts displaced it from passenger services. By the time of this depiction, in the late 1930s, the loco was already 60 years old. It would last almost 20 more years, being scrapped in 1956 aged 78 years and 10 months. The North Eastern Railway, the L.N.E.R. NE Area and British Railways North Eastern Region certainly got their moneys worth out of this asset.

I have laid out the Darlington Wire Mill to the east of the ECML and on its southbound trip back to Croft Yard the J77 will collect the wagons loaded with coils of steel wire and take them down to Croft Junction yard, where they will be added to the main line freight trains taking them south to York, north to Gateshead or even west to Tebay on the WCML.

 
ECML 1953 - Trains 1700 and 1850

Northeast England during the steam era. The wttreprint.talktalk.net reprint of the NE Operating Area 1953 working timetable and the Xpress publishing book "The District Controller's View No. 7 York - Newcastle" inspires these screenshots of two morning down freight trains to the north of Darlington Bank Top station. At 09:00 the K3 2-6-0 has charge of train No.1850, the 06:00 Class E freight to Gateshead Park Lane sidings from York Yard North while the ex-WD Austerity 2-8-0 "Flying Bedstead" waits in the down Parkgate Loop with train No.1700, the 08:40 Class H freight from Croft Junction Yard to Consett. The WTT shows train No.1850 as "UB to Park Lane". It will leave the ECML at Ferryhill and take the Leamside line to reach Gateshead Park Lane sidings on the south side of the Tyne. These are the second and third trains in a "flight" of three northbound freights, the first being train No.934, the 07:20 Class E freight from Skelton New Sidings to Heaton New Yard north of the Tyne, rostered to a B16 4-6-0 and is already passing Ferryhill as these two are still in the Darlington area.







 
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