North East England - Steam Days Screenshots - Large Screenshots Possible

1958 - A Cold Day at Ruswarp, Esk Valley

North East England during the steam era.

At Ruswarp in the Esk valley during early 1958 an A8 4-6-2T brings a down service from Goathland across the bridge spanning the Esk, bound for Whitby.




The shot is inspired by a photograph on the Steve Banks website, though while that shot is in summer 1958, I have let Trainz set the date as mid-February and while Steve's shot appears to have the carriages in unlined livery, probably still carmine, I have run a pair of lined maroon examples. The lead coach is a Thompson 52ft 4in Lav Compo to Diagram 338, which had three First Class and four Second Class compartments, all with access to a lavatory. The short 2-set's trailing coach is also a Thompson vehicle, a 52ft 4in five-compartment Diagram 361 Brake Second. I doubt that either would have been anywhere near full at this time of year, though it was likely that not one single First Class passenger was onboard.

The LNER and BR built 260 examples of the D.338 CL (3-4) between 1947 and 1953. They were a similar outline to the preceding generation of steel bodied CL built by Gresley to a 51 ft 1½ in body length. The Thompson oval window being the most distinguishable difference between them. The Diagram 361 five-compartment Brake Thirds were built during 1950/1951, with eighty being turned out. That compares to two hundred and fifty examples of the Thompson four-compartment Brake Thirds built to Diagram 340 between 1948 and 1951. Harris and Steve Banks both report that the D.361 were all built in 1951, while Isinglass reports that the carriage register shows Nos. 87178 through 87202 were built in 1950. Those first carriages to D.361 all went to the Scottish Region.

 
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An interesting read and photos as usual. I will have to look Paul up for those Thompson non-corridor coaches.

Quite a while back I noticed some screenshots with NER mileposts. Are they available anywhere?
 
Hello Stovepipe
Thanks for the kind words.
Paul is indeed the builder of both the Thompson non-vestibules and the NER mileposts.
They are all payware and you will have to email Paul about the mileposts, specifying which station zero point you want on them (e.g. YORK, NCL, HULL etc).
The posts marking whole miles had the zero point on them, whereas the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 mile posts did not,
The ones I have from Paul permit me to enter the whole miles value in them and I have them in a couple of different positioning values relative to track centres, to account for different trackside locations.
 
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NER Worsdell-Smith Class 4CC

A couple of shots of Edh6's fine NER Worsdell-Smith Class 4CC Atlantic hauling an up NER express passenger service made up of Paulz Trainz NER bogie carriages.




Approaching Croft station.




Crossing the bridge spanning the River Tees and entering the North Riding of Yorkshire.
 
Hello tailight98, thanks, though those are NER carriages, designed by Wilson Worsdell and Vincent Raven. At the time period setting of the screenshot Gresley was designing carriages for the GNR and the ECJS.
 
Q7 Feight

North East England during the steam era. The north end of the NER's Lanchester branch between Durham and Consett low yard was at Consett South Signal Box. Here, a Raven Q7 0-8-0 takes a class H unfitted goods out of the yard bound for Ferryhill. At Ferryhill the loco will come off the train and it will then be taken on to York, where it will be broken up and the individual wagons sent on to their destinations.

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After departure from the yard, the train is caught on camera between Consett South junction and Knitsley station.
 
Q7 Class H Goods

The Q7 continues its journey.


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Passing through Knitsley Station, which lost its passenger service in May 1939/ This was only 13 years after it was restored, having been suspended as a wartime economy measure during WWI.


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Accelerating away from Lanchester station, having slowed to walking pace for handing over the single line token for the Lanchester to Consett South section at Lanchester signal box.
 
Q7 Class H Goods

The Q7 is now on the double tracked section of the Lanchester valley branch.




Approaching Baxter Wood Junction No. 1 box, the northern apex of the junctions complex at this location. The main triangula junction, formed between Baxter Wood No. 1, Relly Mill junction and Deerness Valley junction connected the East Coast Main Line, Lanchester Valley branch and Bishop Auckland branch, with a further branch, the Waterhouses diverging at Deerness Valley. The later chord, formed between Baxter Wood No. 1 box and Bridge House junction connected the Lanchester Valley with the ECML in the southbound direction. Prior to this chord being built traffic from Consett bound for the south had to travel along the busy Bishop Auckland branch, reaching Darlington via Shildon.


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Taking the chord between Baxter Wood No. 1 signal box and Bridge House signal box.


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Joining the Up ECML at bridge House junction.
 
Trackbeds

Hello Jack

There are too many to conveniently list.
On the DLS search for FMA Trackbed by the authors Vendel and Painted Grace Workgroup.
Some I use are not on the DLS as they have some modified ballast textures.
The trackbeds work with the FMA range of embankments/bridges/viaducts.

At some locations on the route the trackbeds are actually buried embankments by the author Samplaire.
Search on the DLS for SAM VS Bank.



 
Northeast England during the steam era. My personal route encompassing part of County Durham has several colliery wagonways on it and one of them is the Beamish Wagonway. Here, an 0-6-0T Bagnall from Paulztrainz pushes a rake of empties up the steep grade to Beamish Colliery (East Stanley Pit). A Peckett 0-4-0ST from Paulstrainz shunts wagons on the line to Beamish Colliery (Second Pit).



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The Beamish Waggonway originally connected the collieries around Beamish with staithes on the River Wear, where keel boats were loaded to take the coal downriver to Sunderland, from where colliers would take it onwards by sea, mostly to London. The arrival of the Stanhope & Tyne Railway during the 1830s complicated the situation at the Great North Road to the south of Birtley, where the routes crossed path. The Stanhope & Tyne line eventually became part of the North Eastern Railway, but while waggonways from Burnhope, Craghead and Sacriston exchanged coal traffic at either Pelton Level or Stella Gill on the Stanhope & Tyne route that from Beamish did not. From around the 1890s, when the former S&T route to Washington was raised to cross the Great North Road on a bridge, rather than on the level, the Beamish waggonway exchanged its traffic with the N.E.R. at Beamish Junction, on the bridge above the Great North Road (now the A167) immediately to the south of the Wheatsheaf pub.

After nationalisation in 1947 took the coal industry in to state ownership, the National Coal Board (N.C.B) used the building of a coal washery at West Pelton Colliery (Handenhold Pit), between Roseberry, Grange Villa and West Pelton, to divert the Beamish Waggonway to join the former S&T metals via the Handenhold waggonway at Pelton level. This allowed the closure and lifting of the lower part of Beamish Waggonway to the east of High Handenhold. By this time the former S&T route between Stanley and Twizell Colliery had been closed and lifted, so there was capacity at Pelton Level to accomodate the diversion. In the end it was a short-term solution, as the collieries at Beamish, Burnhope, Craghead, Edmondsly, Sacriston, Twizell, Waldridge and West Pelton were all gone within 20 years. The waggonways and the former S&T site at Stella Gill being lifted and passing in to history.
 
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That is a beautiful screenshots borderreiver, alongside the rest of your screenshots! A very interesting read you've posted as well!
 
Thanks SRKing783.

I have Whittle's book on the Railways of Consett and NW Durham and despite first reading a copy of it at Consett Library close on 50 years ago I still read the one I have owned for over a decade. The Stanhope & Tyne route formed the core of the railway route taking coal, limestone and iron from NW Durham down to the coast. Slightly later, part of its eastern section between Washington and Boldon Colliery in NE County Durham would form a small section of George Hudson's first East Coast Main Line to reach Gateshead on the south bank of the River Tyne. Newcastle on the north bank of the River Tyne would not be reached until Robert Stephenson built the High Level Bridge across the Tyne in the 1850s.

Coal was king during the steam era of the railways in the UK. Nothing else came close in terms of tonnage moved or money earned.

To the North Eastern Railway, the company which came to dominate the region, profits from passenger traffic were almost marginal to its bottom line compared to coal traffic. The main express trains running north-south were all joint ventures. The East Coast Joint Company for the Anglo-Scottish services (a venture of the Great Northern, North Eastern & North British Railways) while the Great Northern & North Eastern Railway Joint stock was provided from 1906 for express passenger trains between London and Newcastle. The North Eastern Railway itself only owned around 75 corridor bogie carriages for its own in-house express trains and two of the routes (Newcastle - Liverpool Lime St and Newcastle - Liverpool Exchange) had services shared respectively with the London & North Western and Lancashire & Yorkshire Railways. There was also a summer service between London & Scarborough shared between the Great Northern & North Eastern Railways during the early years of the 20th century. The North Eastern Railway express train between Leeds and Glasgow, which ran out and back the same day was not a joint or shared service.

In NW Durham, parts of the S&T route to the east of Consett were bypassed as traffic grew beyond its capacity to handle it. There were several rope worked inclines which proved to be severe bottlenecks. The eastern-most one, to the east of the Great North Road and hauling loaded wagons up the grade to the watershed between the Tyne and Wear rivers was dealt with relatively early on. On the western side of the great north Road, work during the 1880s and 1890s to build new double track sections bypassing the inclines and double track the more level sections of the former S&T meant that local passenger trains could work between Newcastle and Consett. The section of the S&T to the east of South Pelaw junction heading to South Shields did not benefit from any passenger service after the 1850s apart from a very short section at Washington where the Leamside line joined with it on its way south between Pelaw and Ferryhill.

The section of the S&T between West Stanley and Oxhill was one of the last sections of the original S&T route concerned with coal traffic, not closing until the early 1970s due to serving Morrison Colliery at Annfield Plain. This survived long enough to see rail blue Class 37 diesel haulage. A section running eastwards to the top of the former incline at East Stanley closed when Stanley Colliery in the middle of the town closed. The site is now an ASDA supermarket and dual carriageway road. The incline down from East Stanley and Twizell closed during the 1940s.

The last two sections of the original S&T route concerned with coal traffic were in the vicinity of South Shields and traffic lasted in to the 1990s on the final section. They were the line between Boldon Colliery and Harton Junction, as well as between Harton Junction and Garden Lane Junction. these sections handled coal from Boldon Colliery, Harton Colliery and Westoe Colliery. The life of the section between Harton Junction, Whitburn Junction and Garden Lane Junction, (the latter being close south of South Shields station), is complicated. The through track on the part between Whitburn Junction and Garden Lane Junction from the coal depots alongside Johnson Street north to Reed Street were lost between 1913 and 1942, being built over. This rendered the line between Reed Strret north to Garden Lane Junction as a stub, with several sidings. Coal passing between Westoe Colliery and the LNER/BR (NE) network joined at Whitburn Junction. This line survived the conversion of the line to South Shields as part of the Tyneside Metro system, a single line running to the east of the Metro and behind the new Metro ststion at Chichester. Harton Colliery closed in 1969, Boldon Colliery closed in 1982 and Westoe Colliery closed in 1993. During building of the Metro tracks were built from the vicinity of the site of Whitburn Juntion, through the new Chichester station to the site of Garden Lane Junction, crossing what had been a stone yard and refuse despatch point, so bringing passenger rail traffic to much of the easternmost section of the original Stanhope & Tyne trackbed in South Shields. The S&T in South Shields never operated passenger trains, that being provided by The Brandling Junction Railway on a different alignment in to its terminus, which was soon diverted in to a new station more or less at the northern end of the former Stanhope & Tyne formation, joining that alignment at Garden Lane Junction (which was named St Hilda Colliery Junction prior to 1904).



 
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V! 2-62T with passenger train on the Consett branch

Northeast Englnd during the steam era. A Gresley V1 2-6-2T brings a passenger train from Newcastle via Birtley approaching Annfield Plain station on the Consett branch.


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For many years the NER and its successor, the LNER had sought solutions to the demands of hauling local passenger trains on steeply graded lines in the region. In 1925 Gresley had a number of A5 large tank locos built for the NE Area, which were to the former GCR design by Robinson. Gresley later produced the V1 2-6-2T for this work, and for LNER lines in Scotland. A number of the class were uprated to V3. This train is a Saturday service, with a Third Class strengthener added outside the Brake Third and behind the loco for easy detachment when required.


 
R Class heads Down train for Newcastle out of Ferryhill

North East England during the steam era.


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A Worsdell R Class 4-4-0 (LNER D20 post-grouping) gets away from Ferryhill with a morning passenger train to Newcastle Central.
The core set is one of the North Eastern Railways' "mainline sets", which was a four-carriage set book ended by three-compartment 52ft Brake Thirds. inside the brakes was a 52ft Lavatory Composite and a 52ft Third.
Modernisation is ongoing though, with three of the four carriages in the core set being of the newer elliptically roofed carriages introduced from 1905/6 onwards.
This morning though, around 110 years ago, there is a van behind the loco's tender and a strengthening clerestory-roofed third at the rear.
While the company used the term mainline set for this carriage set they were non-corridor carriages.
The NER, by grouping, only owned around 74 corridor carriages, which is a very low total compared to its overall number of carriages,
However, by the grouping, the NER had all but eliminated six-wheel carriages from its timetabled passenger trains in favour of bogie carriages.

 
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Some excellent screenshots in this thread. :) Would be nice to see some close ups of the colliery and the winding wheels.
 
1920s - J22 With Goods train at Belmont

North East England during the steam era.


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During the early post-grouping period in the mid-1920s an elderly J22 0-6-0 joins the down Leamside line at Belmont Junction during the evening, bound for Gateshead from Durham Gilesgate.
The J22 is a McDonnell "59" Class from 1883. While McDonnell was quickly driven to resign, the 44 engines of the class went on to give over 40 years of service to the NER and its successor the LNER.
32 were built at Darlington in eight batches, with 12 from Robert Stephenson & Co.
They were not as powerful or reliable as Fletcher's "398" Class, but Worsdell rebuilt them with steel boilers during the 1890s.
Originaly they were meant to do mixed traffic work and had Westinghouse brake, which probably contributed to their survival as almost any locomotive with automatic train brake that could turn a wheel was needed on Summer Saturdays to haul passenger trains.
Along with the "398" Class they were demoted to lesser duties as T.W. Worsdell's "C" Class 0-6-0 (LNER J21) locomotives were introduced.
The first J22s were withdrawn in 1924 but it took until 1930 to eliminate the class.

Durham Gilesgate opened as Durham's first passenger station in Durham (the first station to serve Durham was built during 1839 by the Durham and Sunderland Railway but it was around two miles outside Durham at Shincliffe). Gilesgate opened in 1844 with a north facing connection to the leamside line, which was then the East Coast Main line from London. Passengers from Durham wishing to head south changed at the junction station at Belmont. This arrangement did not last long. In 1857 a new through station opened in Durham, on the branch line from Bishop Auckland to Sunderland, using the Leamside line for some distance between Auckland Junction and Penshaw junction. A new interchange station was built at Leamside and the Gilesgate terminus became the goods station for the city. Belmont Junction station was closed.

The terminus station building survives as part of a hotel, but much of the trackbed of the branch has disappeared beneath the dual carriageway road in to Durham from the A1(M).
 
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1920s - Evening Shift at the Colliery - Beamish

Thanks Evilcrow

Johnarran - Here is a shot of one of the smaller collieries in the area, up at Beamish. Just behind the position the screenshot is taken runs the NER Consett branch from South Pelaw Junction, which around 30 years later than this shot would see the 9F 2-10-0s working hard to take iron ore from Tyne Dock to Consett Iron Company. However, this colliery waggonway did not have a junction with the Tyne Dock - Consett line for several miles to the east of this location, close to where both lines crossed the Great North Road between Chester le Street and Birtley.


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The Colliery company's locomotive has placed several empty hopper wagons ready for shunting beneath the screens but the locomotive will not be permitted to pass beneath them. there is an access line to the eastern side of the screens, which the loco will run along to pick up the loaded hoppers from the northern side of the screens. they will then be moved in to sidings near the waggonway's "main line" and taken to the junction with the North Eastern railway and then hauled to their destination.

Coal from the Durham coalfield was suitable for making in to coke and for town gas production. The iron and steel industry had an almost insatiable demnd for the former, while gas works consumed considerable quantities to provide supplies for domestic and municipal purposes. Coal from the Northumberland coalfield was more suited for furnaces. If the Newcastle Gas Works sourced its coal from collieries in County Durham then despite what the legends say, there was actually a considerable business of "sending coals to Newcastle".


 
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