Table of contents for Vol 36 No 12 - December 2022 in Backtrack

Following a number of proposals to link London and Dover, the South Eastern Railway received the necessary authority in 1836. The route left the London & Croydon Railway - sanctioned on 5th June 1835 - at Penge to head south and climb the dip slope of the North Downs above the Caterham Valley before entering the Eden Valley at Chiddingstone and heading east. The London & Croydon Railway opened four years to the day after authorisation while, in the meantime, several protagonists of whom, oddly, the SER was one, had vied to build a London to Brighton railway. The route ultimately selected from the several presented - not the SER one! - left the London & Croydon at a point three-quarters of mile south of Norwood Junction. The Brighton received…

To be involved in one railway accident must be bad enough but to be a passenger in a train which became involved in two incidents on the one journey must be quite unnerving as well as possibly unique. This, however, was the fate which occurred to the passengers on an overnight train from Aberdeen to London in 1891. To set the scene, a snowstorm was raging over the whole of the country on the night of the 10th/11th December that year and the train in question was running about twenty minutes behind time when it left Dundee on its way south. Kinghorn Having crossed over the Tay Bridge and passed through Fife the train was making its way along the shores of the Forth when it encountered a special mineral…

The former Somerset & Dorset Joint line remains, it seems, an enduringly compelling railway - for its difficult gradients through the Mendips, its heavily-loaded summer holiday trains, its delightful scenery and perhaps the manner of its closure in 1966. This is the first of a series of pictorial features by GAVIN MORRISON over the coming months following its course from its northern terminus in Bath to its junction with the South Western main line near Bournemouth. This one takes us from Bath as far as Shepton Mallet.…

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES For a class of 175 locomotives to depart from the scene barely remarked upon and hardly missed might suggest that was the only noteworthy thing about them but such was the case with the London Midland & Scottish Railway's 7F 0-8-0 goods engines. With something of greater power needed than the Midland-designed 4F 0-6-0s, the chance to produce a worthwhile up-to-date heavy freight locomotive was completely missed at Derby by obstinate adherence to outmoded practices, not the least being perpetuating the use of the inadequate 4F-type axleboxes. They were all built - at Crewe - between 1929 and 1932 and laboured without seeking (or receiving) any reward and had been cleared away by 1962, most well before that.…

The 'Early Years of the Mid-Wales Railway' were considered in our April issue this year.. The railway passed through some delightful but remote landscapes on its way from Moat Lane Junction, on the Cambrian main line, via Rhayader and Builth Wells to Talyllyn Junction and Brecon. It served its sparsely populated communities well despite operational and financial difficulties but its closure at the end of 1962 was hardly surprising and in fact preceded the 'Beeching Report'. Here are some of its delights.…

My uncle Sam Whalan was one of the last station masters to serve at Bassenthwaite Lake station on the Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith (CK&P) line. When the line was closed in 1972 the station was abandoned and left to decay - until recently. In 2019 a major refurbishment took place and 'Bass Lake’ became re-invented as a tourist attraction. Having spent a lot of time at the station when growing up I was inspired to look further into its history and particularly the life and times of its station masters. The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway As far as rail transport in mid-nineteenth century Cumberland is concerned, despite the scenic beauty of its lakes and mountains, it was the needs of industry which were always going to drive things forward.…

Readers may recall sitting in geography lessons in the 1950/’60s, when any one of the following could have been the subject of the day: the Lancashire cotton industry, the West Yorkshire woollen industry, centres of shipbuilding, the West Midlands motor car industry, the Potteries and last, but not least, the importance of the Manchester Ship Canal (MSC). Thirty-six miles long, this civil engineering masterpiece of the late ninenteenth century, connected Liverpool with Manchester, conferring on the latter, the status of inland port, capable of receiving ocean-going vessels. The conventional wisdom is that the Canal was necessary in order to avoid the heavy tolls and dues levied on imports passing through Liverpool. The London & North Western Railway Company also charged excessive rates for the conveyance of raw cotton to Manchester…

The year of 1976 will long be remembered for its very hot summer, one of the hottest on record. Enthusiasts of the Class 52 ‘Western’ will also remember it as the final summer in which these highly esteemed locomotives remained in normal service. With time running out, therefore, I was determined to make one last pilgrimage to the West Country to photograph ‘Westerns’ in action whilst the weather remained good. It was already apparent that the class would not see another summer, So if I postponed my trip I knew the opportunity would be lost forever. One long-held ambition was to travel the complete length of the West of England main line, from Paddington to Penzance, behind a Class 52. If I could achieve this, then there would be no…