Riding Yorkshire's Final Steam Trains

by Keith Widdowson

  Bradford Manningham (55F) shed was located 1¼ miles north of Bradford Forster Square adjacent to Manningham station (closed 1965), on the Midland Railway (MR) route to Shipley. All locomotives working into Forster Square were serviced there and its own allocation of seven LMS Fairburn tanks only ever worked the 13½ miles to and from Leeds City, with the portions of services originating from or destined for Birmingham/Devon/St Pancras. Upon closure on 29 April 1967, resulting from service alterations involving Leeds Central’s demise, three went to Normanton and three to Wakefield – 42052 being withdrawn.

  Wakefield (56A) was a lengthy twenty-minute walk from Kirkgate station and was primarily a freight depot with over 100 of the War Department (WD) Austerity 2-8-0s allocated there for the intensive coal traffic. Never possessing more than seven LMS tanks and ten LNER B1s, the few passenger services out of Kirkgate and the Westgate/Bradford portions (the latter shared with Low Moor) were always liable for a 56A locomotive. Wakefield’s two Jubilees Bellerophon and Ulster were both withdrawn in January of 1967 being replaced by two Black 5s. The shed closed on 3 June 1967.

  Bradford Low Moor (56F) was located adjacent to Low Moor station 3 miles south of Bradford Exchange. Although the station closed in 1965, a proposal involving a budget of £10 million will see it reopen as part of a metro system – December 2015 being mooted at the time of writing. Low Moor’s allocation of LMS tanks varied in numbers between 7 and 10 – withdrawals being supplanted by a cavalcade of displaced examples from Tebay, Trafford Park and Birkenhead. Their one Jubilee, 45565 Victoria, was kept in spotless condition as befitted a depot ‘favourite’, but alas went to the cutters torch in January 1967. There had always been a small stud of Black 5s at Low Moor (never exceeding four over the final year) with incoming transfers from closing depots replacing withdrawals. The seven B1s gradually dwindled in numbers until extinction in December 1966 only for a surprise transfer in of three during August ’67 (the month the shed was recoded 55J). The immaculately turned out, and subsequently preserved, B1 61306 hauled The Yorkshire Pullman on Saturday 30 September 1967 and pre-empted the depot’s provision of a suitably adorned 42152 on the final day of steam on the Sunday – the depot closing at midnight.

  6

  THE MAIN PLAYERS

  ALTHOUGH BRIEFLY MENTIONED in the preceding chapter when detailing which sheds were still providing steam power for passenger services operating during the final months of steam in the NER, here I offer greater detail of the six different classes which were liable to be sent out by the foreman.

  LMS Stanier Tanks

  Designed by W. Stanier, 206 of these 4MT 2-6-4 tanks were constructed between 1935 and 1943 at Derby and North British (Glasgow) works. Based on his predecessor Fowler’s 2-6-4Ts they were initially allocated throughout the London, Tilbury & Southend (LT&S) system for use on the extensive passenger services into Fenchurch Street. After electrification of those lines they were dispersed throughout Britain, excluding the Southern/Western Region (SR/WR), but by the beginning of 1966 just twenty-six remained – none surviving into preservation. I was perhaps fortunate in obtaining runs with ten examples, four being within the NER.

  LMS/BR Fairburn Tanks

  Designed by C.E. Fairburn, 277 of these 4MT 2-6-4 tanks were constructed between 1945 and 1951 at Brighton and Derby works. Based on his predecessor Stanier’s 2-6-4Ts they were allocated throughout Britain (excepting the WR) and used mainly on suburban passenger services. By the beginning of 1966 just ninety remained – two of which (42073/85) have survived into preservation. I was to accrue runs with thirty-one examples, the NER area contributing a healthy twenty-five.

  LMS/BR Black 5s

  In the history of British steam locomotives, no locomotives have ever been as universally popular as W. Stanier’s 5MT 4-6-0 Black 5s. They were undoubtedly the most efficient design of general-purpose mixed-traffic engine ever seen in Britain, subsequently proving suitable for almost any duty. Construction commenced in 1934 and finished in 1951 (suspended 1939–42) eventually totalling 842 being distributed the length and breadth of the former LMS system. Only four examples were named and nationally by the end of 1965 numbers were down to 627 – the NER’s quota being a mere three-dozen. Eighteen have survived into preservation. I was to eventually collect runs with exactly a third of the class – my 281st being on Britain’s final booked steam passenger train into Liverpool in August 1968. A further eight examples have subsequently been caught in preservation mode.

  An extract from the Autumn ’65 Locoshed Book – this page concerning the LMS tanks. These pages required updating every month with information gleaned from either the LCGB Bulletin or the Motive Power Miscellany section of The Railway World magazine. The blacked-out entries denote that the locomotive has been withdrawn; the right-sided amendment signifies that she has moved sheds and the redlined entry indicates that I have had a run with her.

  LMS Jubilees

  Constructed between 1934 and 1936 at Crewe, Derby and North British (Glasgow) these Stanier-designed 6P5F 4-6-0 locomotives were widely distributed throughout the former LMS system. In 1935 5552 was named Silver Jubilee (celebrating the silver jubilee of King George V), thus giving the marque to the class – all of which referred to either lands in the British Empire, admirals, naval vessels or early locomotives. A total of 189 of these well-proportioned locomotives were built, but a sharp reduction in numbers, commencing during 1962, consequential from a combination of service reductions and dieselisation led them, by my April ’66 visit, to have been whittled down to just thirteen.

  With the LMR retaining just three (45596 Bahamas, 45627 Sierra Leone and 45654 Hood) it fell to the North Eastern Region’s tally of ten to keep the flag flying. That June, however, saw Holbeck’s 45660 Rooke withdrawn – the remaining nine becoming treated as celebrities. Internally shed staff ensured they were kept in mechanically sound condition while eager young, and not so young, volunteers ensured most, but alas not all, were sent out externally resplendent. Although used throughout the week on parcel and freight services, it was on the summer Saturday passenger services that they came into their own. Courtesy of their Central England base the West Riding Jubilees saw the west coast of Britain at Llandudno and Blackpool, the east at Scarborough and Bridlington, and straddled the Pennines to Carlisle. Four have survived into preservation.

  LNER/BR B1s

  Introduced in 1942, but constructed over a lengthy ten-year period resulting from wartime conditions, these Thompson-designed 5MT 4-6-0 B1s, eventually totalling 410, were allocated to the Eastern Region (ER) (260), NER (80) and Scottish Region (ScR) (70). Withdrawals, however, began in 1961 accelerated by BR’s dieselisation policies on ER and NER passenger services. The first forty constructed were named after various species of antelope thus bestowing their epithet of ‘Bongos’. As the numbers increased it became impossible to find enough antelope species to continue this policy, and, apart from some locomotives named after directors of the LNER, most of them remained anonymous. Of the thirty-four remaining on NER metals only eighteen were at the two depots that retained passenger work. Compared with their stablemates (discounting the 6P/5F-rated Jubilees) at Wakefield and Low Moor the B1s, with their superior tractive effort, probably considered themselves better than the work opportunities given them. Mostly coming from sheds within the NER, unlike their sisters having worked Class-1 expresses on the Great Central and East Anglian routes such as The Master Cutler and The Hook Continental, they had never stretched their legs and in their dotage were eking out their final years on the few lightweight passenger services remaining – fortunately never requiring speeds in excess of 50mph.

  The ‘amended’ B1 pages in my Ian Allan Combined Volume.

  Among the survivors were a few ‘namers’ – a terminology awarded them by overexcited platform enders whenever one hove into view. Even though most were a mere 20-odd years old, young compared with some other pre-nationalisation classes, because of wartime shortages they were, similar to the SR’s Q1, c
heaply constructed, uncared for and in poor health – appearing to struggle with any ‘demanding’ work allocated them. Eventually I was to catch runs with a mere sixteen examples of these locomotives; twelve here in the West Riding, three the previous year in Scotland and one of the two preserved, 61264, on a Steam on the Met event in 1998.

  LNER/BR K1s

  Seventy of these North-British-built Peppercorn-designed 6MT 2-6-0s were built over the two years 1949–50 being shared between the ER, NER and ScR. These handsome mixed-traffic locomotives had, because of the modernisation plan, lamentably short lives – the first withdrawal coming in January 1963.

  Just one, 62005, made it into preservation. She had become a rail-tour celebrity during her final year (1967) after which she was used as a stationary boiler at the North Tees Refinery at Billingham. Viscount Garnock subsequently purchased her for use as spare parts for his K4 prior to a group of enthusiasts buying and restoring her to working order. She can now be seen at work on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR).

  So was that it? Not quite, although the aforementioned six classes, all allocated to NER sheds, were the mainstay of expectation; two other LNER types, both having precisely two examples surviving, just about made it into 1966, all four at York. Peppercorn-designed A1 8P Pacifics, 60124 Kenilworth and 60145 Saint Mungo were sporadically reported on passenger trains during the early months of 1966 but only as a short-notice replacement for diesel failures. Saint Mungo herself had marked the official end of express passenger steam on the ECML with an eight-vehicle special between York and Newcastle on 31 December 1965. Advertised as the final run of an A1 Pacific, attaining a maximum of 88mph en route, she was, however, kept as a standby until June 1966. With no examples surviving the cutter’s torch, my only haulage with an A1 has been with the newly built and widely travelled 60163 Tornado.

  Also at 50A were two survivors of another LNER class, Gresley’s 6MT 2-6-2 V2s. These locomotives were often lauded as the LNER locomotives that won the war – frequently called upon to haul loads far in excess of their design capabilities. The two remaining examples were also used sporadically to stand in for DL failures, the final member, 60831, being reported working the 08 18 York to Hull, perhaps resulting from a shortage of DMUs, for an entire week during October 1966. Upon 60831’s withdrawal that December the York foreman ‘borrowed’ Holbeck’s Hardy for several weeks – insisting his firemen were passed out on both two- and three-cylinder locomotives. Fortunately I was to have a run with a V2 in Scotland that August and, in 2010, with the preserved 60800 Green Arrow. Then there were the LMS Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0s, affectionately referred to as ‘Flying Pigs’ (reasons unknown), which had no rostered passenger work but were sometimes turned out by the shed foreman as short-notice replacements for non-availability of the booked power. Patricroft’s Standard 5MTs often came over the border with the LMR and we mustn’t forget the ‘visiting’ Britannia’s. Carlisle Kingmoor often dispatched its representatives over the Pennines to Yorkshire and, unbeknown to me at the time, until the April of 1966 Stockport-allocated Brits were rostered to and from Leeds on the Aberystwyth/York Travelling Post Office (TPO).

  So there we are. With a mere eighty-odd NER-allocated locomotives to catch working approximately thirty often awkward-to-cover passenger services, I perhaps might have concentrated my efforts elsewhere in the country. As a haulage enthusiast you always lived in hope and expectation, and unaware of the paucity on offer I was to return again – and again – determined to hunt down those elusive catches. Please read on and see how I did.

  7

  DISAPPOINTMENTS GALORE

  BUOYED WITH THE success of the previous trip, the second week of May had been selected for my next NER bash – Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley being sentenced to life imprisonment dominating newspapers that week. Musically, Manfred Mann once again were topping the charts, this time with Pretty Flamingo. The enthusiast fraternity within which I circulated was an eclectic bunch of personalities from all walks of life. The common denominator was the Waterloo rush-hour steam departures where, having ascertained ‘what was about’, it was often the case that after an initial dispersal, each person having departed after their own particular quest, there was a regrouping later in the evening for a jar or two. Paul, with whom I was to spend the next forty-eight hours, was one of those colleagues, and having also expressed an interest to see steam in another part of Britain, had agreed to accompany me to Yorkshire – I fail to remember which one of us actually planned it! The selected departure date of Thursday 12 May saw us setting forth out of St Pancras on the 21 30 departure. Built in 1868, this Victorian terminus was equipped with a William-Barlow-designed arched train-shed canopy – unique in its day being spaced across 245ft without intermediate support. The station was to survive a closure threat in the 1970s and given a new lease of life, albeit after a vast transformation, as London’s Eurostar terminus.

  Back in 1966 the overriding fragrance of fumes from the many diesels ticking over was the order of the day and making for what was to become a regular starting point for NER bashes we headed for Sheffield. There we boarded the 02 00 departure for Leeds City – on this occasion with Holbeck’s 44854 at the head. Somehow (I was asleep) we lost eighteen minutes en route, which fortuitously reduced the wait at the inhospitable Leeds City station for services to start up to a mere two hours!

  The next ten photographs were all taken on Friday 13 May 1966. It’s 06 30 in the morning at Bradford Forster Square and 16-year-old Brighton-built Fairburn LMS 2-6-4T 42072 is performing shunting duties. This Manningham (Bradford) allocated 4MT was, upon the closure of 55F, transferred across the city to Bradford’s other shed, Low Moor, being withdrawn in the NER cull of October 1967.

  Steam-powered named trains were becoming scarce as the years went by. It’s now 07 30 at Leeds City station and The Cornishman has been brought the 13½ miles from Bradford by Holbeck (Leeds) allocated Fairburn 42161. Starting out of Bradford at 07 02 the train would now be worked forward by a Brush Type 4 diesel the 410 miles to Penzance where it was due to arrive at 17 35. This 1948 Derby-built tank was to be withdrawn that December.

  Over to Bradford with another recently delivered ‘Splutterbug’ a second 55A locomotive, in the form of Fairburn tank 42161, was already heating the 07 02 The Cornishman departure. Steam-worked named trains were becoming as rare as hen’s teeth and this was recorded (in capital letters) in my notebook with much flourish!

  Ominously it was now several hours into Friday the 13th as we embarked on what turned out to be an abortive attempt at tracking steam-operated services by travelling over, courtesy of a four-month-old Brush Type 4 D1984 working the 08 35 North Briton departure, to the confluence city of the three Ridings, York. The present-day York station was first opened by the NER in 1877 and, at the time, was the largest station in the world – being provided with thirteen platforms. It had replaced the somewhat inconveniently sited predecessor, which, by being built as a terminus within the city walls, required all trains calling there to have reverse. The fine overall roof still stands today overlooked by the Scarborough bricked Royal Station Hotel, opened but a year later. Expanded to sixteen platforms in 1909, it was heavily bombed during the Second World War. Remodelling in 1988 led to several bay platforms succumbing to an inevitable extra car park. We were there for the 10 08 departure for Poole – shown in Roger’s book as steam worked. It wasn’t, but a compensatory unauthorised bunk around the shed, camera in hand, was undertaken – the results still nostalgically often browsed through to this day.

  York once boasted two steam sheds: York South, which housed LMS locomotives and York North, which housed the LNER locomotives. The South shed closed in 1961, boosting the North’s allocation to over 185. Previously consisting of four roundhouses in 1954 two were demolished and replaced by a straight shed 50A, although closing to steam in June 1967, continued to operate as a diesel depot for a further fifteen years. The site is now part of the National Railway Museum, which, in 2015, ce
lebrates its 40th birthday.

  On that fine May morning we were able to wander at will (unchallenged) among these workhorses at rest. The intoxicating aroma of coal, steam, smoke and oil of these hallowed edifices, although similar scenes are created on a smaller scale at many preserved railways, can never, on a size such as here, be replicated. It was as if we had walked through a TARDIS (Doctor Who was a popular TV show of the period) and gone from a fresh-smelling, open-air world into a strange sepulchral atmosphere, silent but for the hiss of escaping steam. Although this was my only NER shed bunked, when visiting other sheds, such as Bournemouth, Shrewsbury, Carlisle and several Glaswegian locations, if challenged by ‘authority’ after producing our BR identity cards we were usually allowed to continue with the comment ‘I haven’t seen you’, in case we were to befall any mishap. The thirty locomotives present are detailed here:

  YORK SHED (50A) – Friday 13th MAY 1966 – 1100

  Status

  Class

  Number

  Total

  In steam

  LMS 4MT

  LNER V2

  LNER B1

  LNER K1

  WD Aus

  BR 9F

  43071, 43133, 43138

  60806

  61319

  62028, 62042

  90078

  92006, 92008, 92239

  11

  Dead

  LMS 4MT

  LNER A1

  LNER V2

  LNER B1