Northeast England during the pre-grouping steam era.
May 1914 and the world remains oblivious to the fact that this spring remains the last peaceful one they will see for five years and that the world in that first spring of peace will be entirely different.
Summer will arrive as normal but before it is out Europe, including Great Britain, will have exploded into a state of warfare.
The view is that of one as if from an early biplane, capturing one of Raven's new 2-cylinder 0-8-0 T2 Class goods engines heading north on the down Leeds Northern line in North Yorkshire with a long train of unfitted stock. The location is to the north of Picton junction, where a two platform rural station has stood for almost seventy years at the time of the shot, while for sixty years it has been a junction between the Leeds Northern and Picton-Battersby branch.
While the limit of 90 wagons applied on the East Coast Main Line had to contend with a restriction to a mere 54 wagons if crossing the Tyne by either the High Level or King Edward bridges, there is no such limitation for traffic to yards on the River Tees serving the district around "
Ironopolis", more commonly known to us by its actual name, Middlesbrough. For almost the whole of its existence, the N.E.R. had been building ever more powerful locomotives to grapple with the never-ceasing growth in train length and weight. The preceding thirty years had seen the best engine in it initial build year been superseded within a few years. Progressing from the Fletcher and Tennant 0-6-0 tender engines via TW Worsdell C Class 0-6-0s using compounding, W Worsdell P, P1 and P2 Classes of larger 0-6-0, to 0-8-0s in the shape of T and T1 classes. Raven has took up the challenge and turned out his 2-cylinder T2 Class, which would become LNER Class Q6.
By the 1950s the Q6 was indelibly associated with coal traffic in NE England, particularly in County Durham, but in its early years the relentless flood of freight moving north and south in unfitted rolling stock had to be dealt with. The preponderance of sheeted open wagons at this time reflects the fact that while vans were both heavier and more expensive to operate, it was also the case that they were not suited to being used to transport many of the goods on offer, particularly if a crane was required to load and unload the cargo.
The driver of the train in the shot knew that despite his maximum speed being just 25mph he was in a race. The race was to get between the junctions at Northallerton and Eaglescliffe before a passenger train needed the road. The train could have originated at either York or Leeds. The four-track layout between York and Northallerton did not exist prior to the mid-1930s and Northallerton's upper station was a two-track affair with bays at either end. This means that the Leeds Northern route through Starbeck and Ripon was a busy line for goods.
Today, Picton station building still stands, but the platforms, the Up shelter and the line from Picton to Battersby are long gone.
