North East England - Steam Days Screenshots - Large Screenshots Possible

1921 - A murky morning and a G Class

Thanks Ken, thanks Lewisner.
A diversion from other recent work.
A G Class 4-4-0 leaves Tow Law station in County Durham one murky morning bound for Darlington with a local passenger train.





 
tailight98 said:
It is nice to see screenshots of this junction & also your comments re the G5 0-4-4T class. This week I see they worked push pull on the Saffron Walden. Pics of Whitby West Cliff station are quite rare to find..
Click to expand...

Disused Stations has a few photos. In railway collecting circles it is famous for having just 2 BR(NE) orange enamel "Totem" signs, neither of which as far as I know has turned up for sale. If they did they would be worth several thousand pounds. There's an excellent book by Guinness Publishing from 1968 called "Just A Few Lines" and it has a chapter on the Scarborough & Whitby line with evocative colour photos of the stations.

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/whitby_west_cliff/
 
1921 - Ruswarp and a N.E.R. O Class 0-4-4T

North East England during the steam era. My experimental Whitby route based on Transdem using 2m DTMs and 25 inch to the mile OS maps has progressed as far as Ruswarp on the line to Grosmont, where the NER lines to Malton and Battersby diverged.




Above, the train approaches Ruswarp station with the 10.22 am local passenger train from Whitby to Stockton via battersby and Picton.




Above, the view from Ruswarp Signal Box as the train runs in to the station.




Above, the train in Ruswarp. The train will depart at 10.27 am.




Above, passing over the level crossing.




Above, beside the River Esk, the O Class begins to cross the bridge.

The 1926 Carriage Roster shows that the 10:15 am local passenger service to Stockton was assigned to set 207, a four-carriage West Hartlepool Link B set. This was made up of two 52ft 5-compartment Van Thirds, a 52ft Third and a 52ft Lavatory Composite with 4 First and 3 Third Class compartments. On Saturdays a Third Class strengthening carriage was added to the service. A 49ft Diagram 178 was likely to be used for that duty.

The mid-morning service was a long-standing one, departing Whitby at the following times;
10.22 am in Bradshaw’s July 1922 and the LNER NE Area timetable for July 1923.
10.11 am in Bradshaw’s April 1910 and N.E.R. timetable for October 1912.

The set had worked as set 206 in the Whitby area on the previous day, which in this case was Friday. The set arrived at Whitby as set 204 on Thursday evening working the 5.45 pm Stockton to Whitby local passenger train. Set 204 did not form this train on Saturdays, that will be worked by this set, 207, which will lay over to form set 206 on Mondays Only.

On Mondays set 206 finishes its working day at Whitby, so Tuesday will see this group of carriages work as set 207 again on Tuesday, when it will end its working day at West Hartlepool. That means that a set which is nominally a West Hartlepool one spends no less than five nights of the week at Whitby. This out-stationing would rotate through the seven consists allocated to the West Hartlepool Link B group.

Finding the engine which worked the mid-morning local departure from Whitby to Stockton via Battersby and Picton has not been successful so far. The 1908 Passenger Engine Working instructions for both Stockton and Whitby sheds lack a 10:11 – 10:22 departure from Whitby for Stockton. Turns for Darlington, Middlesbrough, Saltburn and West Hartlepool sheds also lack an entry relating to the duty. Even looking at sheds further afield such as Ferryhill, Hull, Malton, Pickering, Scarborough, Sunderland and York have not revealed a candidate.
 
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1921 - Ruswarp and an O Class

Below, set 207, in the hands of an O Class 0-4-4T (later LNER Class G5) passes Whitby Bog Hall Junction Signal Box.




The signal box is the work of John Whelan and is on the DLS as an NER Type 3 3B signal box enhanced scenery. It also comes as a simpler version without the interior, NER Type 3 3B signal box scenery. This was part of a project to build several N.E.R. Southern Division Type 3 Signal Boxes.

A close examination of the LNER NE Area's 1926 Carriage Roster reveals that the seven carriage groups allocated to the West Hartlepool Link B sets (Nos. 202 - 208) operated in two different rotations. Five were in a five week cycle, which included working one Sunday in five as set number 545, while two were in a two week cycle. This means that on a five week cycle that a set which started work on Monday, day one of week one on set 202, took five weeks to return to the same working on a Monday morning.

On any Saturday night there were only three of the seven West Hartlepool Link B sets in the sidings at West Hartlepool. One of them would work on Sunday, going out from, and returning to West Hartlepool. Two sets were down at Whitby, with one each at Stockton and Guisborough. Saturday was the only day of the week when a West Hartlepool set working ended its day at Guisborough. On Monday morning it would depart at 5.30 am, running ECS to Middlesbrough as set 205. This was a Mondays only working. For the remaining five weekdays set 205 started its day at Stockton. Tuesday to Friday at 10.30 working to Battersby while on Saturday it started at 5.30 am with an ECS run to Middlesbrough.

I am not clear what the maintenance arrangements were for these sets. One set of the Mainline sets (sets 1 - 20) spent a week out of use in the rotation, which would suffice. Sets 202 and 208 were only in use for short periods during the morning Mondays to Friday, so perhaps some minor maintenance work was done at Stockton and West Hartlepool after the wash and clean. For heavier work a trip to works was required. Whether there was an eighth set in existence or not at West Hartlepool to permit that is unknown. The five West Hartlepool Link B sets (set 210 - 214) differed in that the two Van Thirds were 3-compartment types rather than the 5 compartment types of the Link Bs. A maintenance set could have been shared between them, though if 3 compartment Van Thirds were used forty Third Class seats had to be found to make up the shortfall in a Link B set.


On a slight diversion (it is Sunday after all, so diversions are a fact of life.....) issue 69 of the N.E.R.A. "Express" Magazine from November 1977 has an article on aspects of traffic between Malton and Whitby, much of which is now the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. In early L.N.E.R. days most local trains were in the hands of ex-N.E.R. D23 4-4-0s but soon gave way to G5 0-4-4Ts, with assistance from F8 2-4-2Ts and A6 4-6-2Ts. At grouping, for goods traffic, only ex-N.E.R. 1001 Class and 59 Class (J22) 0-6-0 tender locomotives were authorised to work the route. With only one 1001 Class remaining, No. 1275 (now preserved and the subject of a build by Camscott) and scrapping of the J22s beginning in 1924, things had to change. Class J24 was authorised but all other types of 0-6-0 were prohibited! Eventually, J39s, K3s, V2s and even Pacifics were seen on the Malton to Whitby line but it is not clear what improvements, if any, were carried out to permit the larger locomotive classes to be able to work the route. What does surprise me from the article was that while J24s were authorised J21s weren't. Some more reading beckons....
 
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901 Class

I have been tinkering with the 901 Class numbers on the cab side and buffer beam.
Paul has been upgrading the outside framed Fletcher era 2,500 gallon tender for me too.



 
1903 - Newcastle and the Arc Roof North Tyneside coaches

North East England during the steam era. At Newcastle Central station during the evening in 1903 the commuters are starting to head home to the riverside and coastal towns of North Tyneside. For several years since the turn of the century and the old queen's passing they have enjoyed new 49ft bogie ordinary carriages, though of a low roof arc design rather than the more elaborate clerestories of the company's 52 ft carriages.




A six-car set gets away from one of the eastern bay platforms dedicated to local trains. In the hands of a Worsdell "O" Class 0-4-4T it carries express headlamps,heading for Blyth. it will head past Heaton shed and take the Benton loop to reach former Blyth & Tyne metals for Blyth.




Shortly after the previous train a seven-car set gets away, heading for North Shields and Tynemouth via the Riverside branch through Walker on an all stations service.




Heading directly for the fast lines the longest train of the North Tyneside local service departs Newcastle Central as the main rush hour gets underway. This is a seven-car set strengthened with two Thirds and a Composite, Like the seven-car set which left several minutes earlier, it is bound for the coast at Tynemouth, but via Wallsend and North Shields.

These sets were formed partly of carriages equipped with Gould couplers to permit close-coupling. The N.E.R. seem to have had a rather incomplete implementation of this. There were 11 Diagram 51 Thirds and 19 Diagram 50 Composites having Gould couplers and short, narrowly spaced buffers at both ends. There were nineteen Diagram 52 Thirds with Gould couplers and short, narrowly spaced buffers at only one end, At the other end they had regular screw couplers with standard buffers at normal spacing. This made the Diagram 52s translation vehicles between the two coupling systems.

With only nineteen Diagram 52s, it would have only been possible to make up nine sets of Gould coupled vehicles. Therefore I believe that the six car sets possibly operated the Newcastle - Blyth and Newcastle - South Shields services without any Gould coupler equipped carriages. Of the thirteen seven-car sets if nine were formed with a core of Gould-coupler carriages the formation may have been as follows;

Dgm 53 B, Dgm 52 T, Dgm 50 C, Dgm 51 T, Dgm 50 C, Dgm 52 T, Dgm 53 B

The carriages highlighted in bold had full Gould coupler equipment while the underlined carriages had Gould couplers at one end only.
The nine sets made up this way would use 18 out of 19 Dgm 50s, 18 out of 19 Dgm 52s and 9 out of 11 Dgm 51s.
If these nine operated the Newcastle - Tynemouth and New Bridge Street - Tynemouth services it left four more seven-car sets in use and those, like the six-car sets, I believe to have had no Gould coupler equipped carriages within them. I do not know if these sets also worked the services to Tynemouth or worked services to either Blyth of South Shields.

Strengthening carriages in the form of Diagram 54 Thirds and Diagram 55 Composites were provided. The Diagram 55 Composites were, like the Diagram 50s made up of five 1st Class compartments and two 3rd Class compartments, However, the Diagram 55 Composites were, like the Diagram 53s and Diagram 54s, equipped only with screw-couplings and standard buffers,

The bookazine "The British Railway Journal: N.E.R, Special Edition" reports that 17 Dgm 51s were built but I can only reconcile 11 carriage numbers with Dgm 51s in the December 1906 NER carriage numbering document. Even if the journal's figure is correct it does not alter the nine set limit for the inclusion of Dgm 52s.

This was all to be a short-lived era on the N.E.R. as the competition from electric trams impacted on ticket receipts. In response the company electrified the North Tyneside lines, which was advanced enough by 1904 to begin removing the sets from their work from the Newcastle - Tynemouth and New Bridge Street - Tynemouth. services and removing the Gould couplings, along with the narrow spaced short buffers. The arc roof stock would go on to be reformed in to three-car sets working out of Sunderland, four-car sets working out of Newcastle Manors to Blyth and Morpeth and some five-car sets working out of Newcastle, These workings would take them to various destinations across the company's Northern Division. Some sets found their way to the Whitby area for work. Individual carriages were later seen at Kirkby Stephen, York and on the Richmond branch. The Newcastle - South Shields sets seem to have become four car consists.

Shortly after electrification the N.E.R. finally began to close the gap between the former Blyth & Tyne terminus at New Bridge Street and the East Coast Main Line at Manors. This involved demolishing the N.E.R's Trafalgar Goods station and constructing a line beneath New Bridge Street to a junction immediately to the west of Manors station. Two new through platforms and three bay platforms became Manors North, with the platforms on the main line becoming Manors East. the new station and line opened in 1909. It had only taken the N.E.R. thirty-five years after absorbing the Blyth and Tyne to close the gap.


 
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Thanks everyone. Research on items like this relating to carriages is often a work in progress. Today, I accidentally came across an article on "roundabout trains" dating to November 1902 in Railway Magazine. This has a different slant on the trains running to Tynemouth from Newcastle Central and New Bridge Street stations, which were sited a ten-minute walk apart in the city. "The majority of trains travel from Central via Heaton, Wallsend and Percy Main to North Shields, Tynemouth, Whitley Bay and Monkseaton, and thence via Backworth and Gosforth to New Bridge Street; but a few use the Riverside line from Central to North Shields. The New Bridge Street to Monkseaton section is not by any means a busy line at present and there are only a few Blyth and Morpeth trains in addition to the Tynemouth "roundabouts", the latter of which run approximately hourly. But the other section is a very busy one, there being many trains between Central and Monkseaton, for Tynemouth, Cullercoats, Whitley Bay and Monkseaton provide residences for a large proportion of the business men of Newcastle, besides which there are favourite seaside resorts in the district."

The article went on to list 13 trains from Central to New Bridge Street: - 7.00 7.13 8.50 9.55* 10.27^ a.m. 1.05 2.00 3.50 5.10 6.20 7.05 8.17 9.22 p.m.
From New Bridge Street to Central: - 6.55 8.23 8.48** 9.53** 10.38^ a.m. 12.35^ 2.03 3.08 4.58 5.10^^ 5.40 6,48^ 8.18 9.38 p.m.

(* Semifast between Manors & N. Shields. ** Fast between Manors & N. Shields ^ Via Riverside line ^^ All Stattions Saturdays, other days **).

So, in 1902 it seems to be that most sets ran between Newcastle Central and Monkseaton, with only thirteen going all the way to New Bridge Street via Monkseaton and then back to Central. In my opinion, I think that it is at least possible that those 13 trains each way were not Gould coupling equipped. Perhaps the four seven-car sets I mentioned earlier. This would leave the nine Gould coupling equipped seven-carriage sets running in the busiest section, from Central to Monkseaton via Heaton, Wallsend, North Shields, Tynemouth and Whitley Bay.

The article also mentioned that work was under way extending track from New Bridge Street to Manors. Evidently it took over six years to complete the works. Another snippet within the article was calling the N.E.R. the "king of relief trains", with some Saturdays seeing local passenger trains not just duplicated or triplicated but sometimes quadrupled or even, in extreme cases, quintipled! To be able to quadruple or quintiple services must have drawn heavily on older stock in the carriage sidings. I imagine that it also put enormous strain on passenger locomotive resources too. This provides "cover" for turning out an older or rare locomotive with potentially six (or even four) wheeled carriages. 1902 possibly saw some of the latter in the sidings. At that date there are likely to have been many older carriages which had brakes but no heating equipment (what joy on a relief service prior to Christmas).



 
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What a great piece of information to find Frank. Articles written by people who were there at the time are worth their weight in gold.
 
Contemporary sources are brilliant things Annie.

Written close to 119 years ago by a J.F. Gairns.
They possibly were of my great-great grand parents' generation (born during the 1860s) and must have been gone from this world for a very long time now.
They might have seen WWI and the grouping but may have passed before WWII.
Even so, the era they lived through was one of great change.
 
1921 - BCR Summer Days

North East England during the steam era. Making a visit to rural Northumberland where I have been doing some tweaking in to PBR for the BCR route.




The shed at Reedsmouth Junction viewed from the station.




Reid "J" Class at Bellingham.

By 1921 the North British Railway was the only "foreign" company to have access to Newcastle with both its locomotives and trains. This, however, was a pyrhhic victory for them. Upon the N.E.R.'s takeover of the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway in the 1860s the event had rendered the N.B.R. vulnerable. Its trains along the new Border Counties Line would stop short of Hexham without a deal with the N.E.R. The process of agreeing a deal with the N.&C.R. having died with the N.E.R. takeover. The N.B.R. got running powers between Border Counties Junction and Newcastle Central station but at the cost of admitting the N.E.R. to Carlisle Citadel Joint Station and granting the N.E.R. the right to haul East Coast Joint Company trains right through to Edinburgh. The other ally of the N.B.R. in Northumberland, the Blyth & Tyne Railway, which could give access to Newcastle via the Wansbeck branch from Reedsmouth Jcn on the BCR to Scots Gap and the Rothbury branch from Scots gap to Morpeth, fell in to the clutches of the N.E.R. in 1874.
 
1921 - Whitby, a D Class 4-4-4T and an Excursion

Northeast England during the steam era. The North Eastern Railway had a significant level of excursion business, which included outings by groups, societies, churches and factories. Here, a newly built Raven D Class 4-4-4T from Darlington shed brings a summer day trip to Whitby. The lead coach is a 49ft five-compartment Diagram 147 Van Composite, which has two First Class compartments for the senior members of the group booking the outing. There are four 49ft Third Class carriages, mostly Diagram 178 and a single Diagram 148. Bringing up the rear is a 49ft five compartment Diagram 150 Van Third. All in all twelve First Class and four hundred Third Class seats.




Just after 10 am, the train passes Whitby Bog Hall Junction.




Arriving at Platform 2.

 
1923 - LNER Identity

Northeast England during the steam era. Following the grouping in January 1923 the L.N.E.R. set about trying to decide what would portray its identity. By around April the new company had decided to paint the Class H1 4-4-4T passenger engines in black livery with single red lining and began to put locos through works. This decisiveness was not matched in the lettering. The first nine to go through works between April and June came out with the lettering L. & N. E. R. with ampersand and full points. Two more followed, one during June and another during July, with L & N E R lettering, keeping the ampersand but dropping the full points. This changed again for the next two emerging from shops, one at the end of July and another during early August, with L N E R lettering, dropping the ampersand. There then followed a change in policy regarding numbering, with NE Area engines being assigned a D suffix from September 1923 as they went through shops. Ten received this treatment in the remainder of 1923 with a further six emerging during 1924. The last to be so treated was No. 1517D in February 1924. After that the company had standardised the NE Area Class H1 locomotives with L N E R lettering and their previous N.E.R. number.




During the summer of 1923 No. 1330 of Blaydon shed stands in Newcastle Central station with the ampersand and full points, which it received in May of that year when just under two and a half years of age. It probably changed to L N E R lettering without ampersand or full points during its next 57-day general repair at Gateshead during March/April 1924.




During the autumn of 1923 Nos. 2151 of Saltburn shed and 1522D of Darlington shed stand at Darlington Bank Top. No. 2151 emerged from works at the end of June with the ampersand but no full points. It was one of only a pair to be so treated around that time. march 1925 would see it back in works for a general repair and it probably changed to standard L N E R lettering at that time. No. 1522D received just L N E R lettering on the tanks side during its September works visit but was the first of sixteen Class H1 to acquire the D suffix. It would be back in works during June 1924 and probably reverted to No. 1522 at that time.

Gresley would rebuild them all as Class A8 4-6-2T during the 1930s.


 
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They certainly were Annie and they kept this through their rebuilding to A8. When initially built under Raven the 3-cylinder 4-4-4T D Class held plenty of promise, but with only half their gross weight available for adhesion on the drive wheels and a propensity to roll at speed they were not wholly welcomed by footplate crew. There was at least one infamous event with a Pullman between Leeds and Harrogate when a H1 lost over thirty minutes en-route due to persistent slipping. They were another attempt by the N.E.R. in around a decade to deploy a passenger tank larger than an O Class 0-4-4T (LNER G5), one which was better suited to hauling heavy passenger trains on routes with adverse gradients. Worsdell had built the ten 4-6-0T W Class in 1907-08 but lack of coal capacity led Raven to begin rebuilding the W Class to 4-6-2T (LNER Class A6) within a year of building the first batch of D Class 4-4-4T.
 
1925- Private Owner Wagons and an 0-6-0ST

A colliery 0-6-0ST passes along the Beamish Waggonway towards Beamish Junction with a short rake of loaded Private Owner coal hoppers. They are ex-NER Diagram P4 10.5T type sold out of company service by the LNER as more 20T hoppers entered service. The Beamish owners have added some planks to increase capacity to 12 Tons. The miners nicknamed these planks "greedy boards". Many ex-main line wagons destined to remain on private colliery systems were treated this way but some were used to haul coal to their customers own sidings, saving on main line wagon rental. However, the Railway Clearing House required those wagons to be registered with a main line railway company, and the Beamish owners may not have used the LNER for registration. Any main line railway company would suffice. Given that the Beamish wagons are ex-NER hopper types it is likely that their customer has coal drop facilities and is probable that they are located within the NE Area of the LNER. A LNER loco will pick the wagons up from the exchange sidings at Beamish Junction and will probably leave some empty wagons for the colliery at the same time.




It is a wet day but it is not washing away the grime on either the wagons or the loco. the signal box in the background is Ouston Junction on the ECML.

 
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1892 - 1902 - A decade of change

North East England during the steam era, 1892 - 1902. Thomas William Worsdell as C.M.E. of the N.E.R. was a proponent of compounding, but his brother Wilson was not, and on succeeding his brother as C.M.E. in 1890 he intended to take a different path. However, this was frustrated for some time, as Thomas was retained as a consultant for several years after his retirement. From the mid-1890s Wilson began to convert many locomotives to simples. though was persuaded to build a couple of compounds for comparison purposes.




Around 1892 a TW Worsdell "J" Class single hauls an Up N.E.R. express passenger train along the ECML between Gateshead and Bensham. The train is made up of six-wheelers and is bound for Liverpool via York.




A decade later in 1902 times have moved on. An "M" Class compound 4-4-0 (reclassified as 3CC Class in 1914) hauls an Up ECJS express passenger train along the ECML on the same stretch of track as the "J" Class. The only six-wheeler is a baggage van, with the remainder of the train made up of clerestory roof bogie carriages. The M Class, whilst a compound engine from new, was rebuilt by Worsdell in 1898 to test the Smith compound system.

Even in 1902 change has not stopped. The King Edward bridge is only a couple of years in the future and significant changes are coming to both locomotives and carriages.

 
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