Going Loco - May 2024

31 MAY

The Shed 3 - All the World’s a (Coal) Stage and Ashes to Ashes

The coal stage with No 4953 Pitchford Hall during her visit to Didcot in September 2023

That got a bit too close to literature didn’t it?! Well, for my humble scribblings at least … The traffic of coal in and ash out was a major concern of the engine shed and led to much traffic and organisational headaches. Hundreds of tons of coal were consumed by the locomotives of the Great Western Railway every day, and all that coal became ash. The ash needed to be removed as fast as the coal came in. There were other goods coming in and out of the shed as well. Sand came in to help the engines grip the rails. Oil and grease to keep the engines running smoothly. Spare parts, firelighters, even engines themselves that were in need of maintenance or overhaul. The steam locomotive shed generated a huge amount of traffic in its own right and that was before the railway was hauling anyone else’s freight!

No 1340 Trojan shunting the 20 ton coal wagon up the coal stage in September 2022

Coal is the obvious traffic. It came into the sheds in its own dedicated wagons. The way that it was distributed to the locomotives was unique to the Great Western Railway due to the grade of coal used. Welsh steam coal was of high calorific value – it had lots of chemical energy bound up within it – but it had a disadvantage in that it was soft. It broke up and turned to dust if roughly handled. The way the GWR dealt with this issue was to not use mechanical coaling plants like other railways. Instead the coal was moved from wagon to locomotive on shovels.

A GWR 40 ton coal wagon

The amount of back-breaking work this generated over the years must have been truly staggering. The only way that it was done efficiently even at medium size sheds was to use a coal stage. It was a truly herculean task undertaken on a daily basis. The wagons ranged in capacity between 10 to 20 tons*. They were propelled up the coal stage ramp by a locomotive so that 5 of them were at the top of the gradient. They were unloaded one at a time and them shunted down the man-made hill under gravity. This clearly didn’t go well 100% of the time. There was a pedal and lever trap point at the bottom of the ramp to prevent errant wagons making their way onto the main line but this just derailed them into the soft ground. It was apparently a royal pain to put them back on the track …

Young Volunteers shovelling coal into the tubs on 13 January 2024

The working conditions of the men on the coal stage were really quite primitive. It was just men and shovels. In Bernard Barlow’s fantastic book Didcot Engineman, he remembers Tad Jones and Freddie Knapp. These were hard men who would walk to work – four miles a day wasn’t uncommon. They would shift around 20 tons of coal by shovel and then walk home. Filthy doesn’t cover the conditions here. Up on top of the hill at Didcot, the wind would whistle through the building and in the winter the coal could be frozen in place. Only prying with iron bars would free it off. The coal was loaded into 15 ten cwt tubs on wheels that were then tipped, via a drawbridge arrangement into the bunkers or tenders of 25 to 30 hungry engines a day. Cleaning themselves in a bucket of hot water from the injectors of the nearest steam locomotive before changing, possibly a quick pint at the Prince of Wales or The White Hart and then walking home. Not for the faint hearted …

Coaling GWR No 813 during her visit in April 2017

Dealing with ashes at the other end of the cycle was equally difficult and unpleasant. The fire droppers were the individuals tasked with this job and having done it myself, I can tell you that it can be really trying at times. Fortunately, I have only had to do it on one engine. The fire droppers were doing it all shift … I can tell you that it can be really trying at times. The first job is to knock the fire through the firebars in the firebox. This is either easy, if the coal and the crew has been kind, and there is no clinker. It’s still hot and difficult, as with large engines like the Castle and Saint, you will find that the front end of the firebox is some 11 feet away from you. This means that heavy steel tools of longer lengths are needed to reach it. If the fire has clinkered then you are in for a real fight. This glass like substance forms a sheet over the firebars and can only be chipped, chiselled and smashed off in chunks. With the correspondingly huge and heavy tools. Large lumps that will fit through the fire hole door can be shovelled out, smaller bits can be knocked down through the bars.

No 1466 inside the ash shed while it still existed

We then move down to the ashpan. On the Castle and Saint (as with all the GWR 4-6-0s), there is a two section ash pan with the axle for the rear driving wheels placed in the middle of it. This means that there are 4 damper doors which will be opened fully to allow the rakes to get in to clear them out. So, you’ve been roasted by cleaning the fire and now you are trying to breathe in a hot, dusty environment which, if the wind is up, will be swirling around you. It is advised to damp the ashes down first. This helps. A bit. So you come out of that bit covered in white dust.

Dropping the clinker out of the firebox is a spectacular sight, even if it is a fight for the fire dropper to shovel it out through the fire hole door

Now we are going to the smokebox where the soot produced during the day will be hiding. This will turn everything black. The ash and soot ended up in the pit under the ash road alongside the coal stage ramp. There was a shelter built over this to prevent glowing ashes being seen by enemy aircraft in WWII but this was taken down in preservation as it had become structurally unsafe.

Shovelling ash out of the smokebox of No 4079. This was during the Great Western Envoy railtour from Birmingham to Didcot and back on 29 May 1977, before No 4079 Pendennis Castle was exported to Australia

So, how did the ash get out of the pit? Well, there was a man and a shovel. One particular individual that Bernard Barlow tells us of is a gentleman called Ted Betteridge. He was tasked with loading 10 tons of ashes into the awaiting wagons in the adjacent siding per day. He is described as an ‘artist with a shovel’ and was quite capable of filling the 10 tons in half a day. In the summer he started at daybreak and went home by lunchtime. He was an exception and if he was away, it was said that very little ash was moved until he returned! This hot ash sometimes still smouldered and there was unburnt fuel in there too. The net result was the sudden and unwelcome combustion of the contents of the wagons. It was not unusual for an engine to be brought alongside and the coal watering or pep pipe being used as a sort of mobile fire engine to put it out.

Back where she belongs – No 4079 Pendennis Castle in the identical position to the previous photograph, on the ash road during the Four Castles weekend at Didcot in March 2023

Then, what happened to all that ash and clinker? Well, to find out, you just have to look to the floor the next time you visit Didcot. If you look closely, you will find that the ground you are stood on is made up from ash and clinker. Thousands of fires, generated thousands of tons of very handy fill-in material and this is easy to see all over the railway. If you look down for less than 5 minutes, if you are lucky, you will find a piece of the ground that looks a bit like the inside of a Crunchy chocolate bar. This is clinker. As you hold this little bit of history in your hand, remember the people that put the coal in the engines and took the ash out. It’s not the glamour side of the Steam Era, but it is vital social history and these hard working men of the past deserve to be remembered for their efforts in keeping the nation moving.

* There were a few largely experimental 40 ton bogie coal wagons that were constructed in the early 1900s but they weren’t built in large numbers.

24 MAY

The Shed 2 - Bricks and Mortar

In our series of shed-related matters, the organisational structure of the whole affair was looked at to start with. The next step therefore is probably to look – as the title suggests – at the actual buildings themselves. There was a wide range of different structures perpetuated by the Great Western Railway, as you might expect with a company with such a long history and in a wide range of different terrain.

The original timber broad gauge engine shed at Truro, photographed in 1899. British Rail photograph published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

As we said last week, the size of the sheds was of course dependent upon the size of the allocation of locomotives. Allocations could range from one or two engines to a few hundred. At its simplest, a shed would ideally need a building in which to keep its allocation, a source of water, a structure to help coal the engines and a pit to enable easy access to the underneath of engines for oiling up, maintenance and disposal of the fire at the end of the day.

Wellington engine shed on 24 May 1952, possibly converted from a goods shed in 1876. Photograph in the R J Hill collection, Great Western Trust

As sheds got larger and as locations demanded, a method of reversing locomotives might be provided. Turntables being provided even in some small sheds such as Fairford. As sheds got bigger still, you may have methods of drying the sand required for adhesion in slippery conditions and the provision of maintenance resources such as lifting gear and workshop space. This had its own range of different provisions and we will look at that separately.

The timber Oxford engine shed dating from 1854. Note Fair Rosamund, the Woodstock branch line engine, standing in front of the 1931-built repair shop on the right. British Rail photograph published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

The arrangement of the main shed buildings was equally varied. Small sheds were exactly as you’d imagine. A single road, doors at one end and enough space inside for one or two engines. As the allocation got larger, so did the buildings. The building would gain extra roads and doors. Larger still and they became through sheds with doors each end. Didcot’s layout is a great example of this design.

St Blazey engine shed opened c.1872. Photograph in the Great Western Trust collection

Even larger saw the use of a roundhouses. These massive structures incorporated a central turntable with a series of storage roads leading off them. The Old Oak Common steam shed at Paddington in London was an impressive example. This was a conjoined quadruple roundhouse with four turntables and buildings covering them all. These buildings were often known as ‘cathedrals of steam’ and for good reason when you see photographs of their interiors.

Plymouth Laira engine shed under construction in 1900. British Rail photograph published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

Construction of early sheds was almost entirely timber and some of these lasted very well indeed. The recent excavations for the ramp into and out of Didcot Railway Centre revealed the brick footings of the first of Didcot’s locomotive sheds. Oxford remained as a timber shed through to the end as did Fairford. Later structures were brick all the way up to the roof with a metal roof framing and were quite substantial.

Old Oak Common engine shed, the ultimate cathedral of steam, opened in 1906. Great Western Trust photograph

The locomotive shed at Didcot is quite interesting in that it is only brick half way up the walls and then has corrugated sheets up to the roof. This is a sign of its rather interesting creation. It is what is known as a ‘Loans and Guarantees Act’ shed. This was a programme set up by the government to get men to work during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. This project gave employment on a range of projects across the country – one of which was the renewal of old locomotive sheds on the Great Western Railway. So, the most important surviving example of a steam locomotive shed in the UK was in fact built on the cheap!

Leamington engine shed when completed in 1906. This was the first of Churchward’s standard straight road sheds. British Rail photograph published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

There were of course outliers. Local conditions might dictate that it was cheaper to build from local materials. The most obvious being the substitution of brick for stone. Other outliers included such famous examples as the semi-roundhouse at St Blazey in Cornwall. This was of a design much more common in Europe and North America than it was here in the UK where a semicircular building wrapped around a turntable. Many of the GWR oddities were also caused by the amalgamation of other railway companies into the company – particularly at the 1923 Grouping.

Swindon engine shed roundhouse under construction in 1908. Great Western Trust photograph

It’s worth mentioning the track layout at this point too. The idea with this is to provide as many different ways to access as many of the facilities of the shed as is possible within the confines of the site provided. This is because there is a risk that an engine that is being coaled or having its fire disposed of could in theory block access to other things such as the turntable. We will go back to Didcot again as that one you can visit and examine for yourself.

Penzance engine shed as built in 1914. British Rail photograph published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

If you look at the original track plan, you will see that there were two roads into the shed yard. The loop around the ash wagon road meant that the coal stage could be accessed, even if there were locomotives having their fires disposed on the ash pits. There were also two roads to the turntable, allowing a number of locomotives to come and go. On that route was a number of passing loops too.

Didcot engine shed when new in 1932. Impeccable social history as a Loan Act shed and now Grade II listed. British Rail photograph published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

There was quite the art to making the best of these situations and spending a moment tracing your finger up and down the tracks on the map, will help you see just how clever it is. Whether you make chuff, chuff, chuff noises while doing so, I will leave up to you …

The interior of Didcot engine shed in 2011, when emptied after a filming contract. Now Grade II listed as the only surviving example of a medium-sized GWR engine shed

The track plan of Didcot engine shed published in An Historical Survey of Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 by E Lyons

Of course even Great Western Engine sheds don't last for ever, and Didcot remains as the last such shed in use for, broadly, its original purpose.  You may be aware that we are currently fundraising towards a major refurbishment of the main shed roof, and should you wish to find out more or contribute, please look at our shed roof appeal page.

17 MAY

The Shed 1 - Let's Get Organised

The senior managers of the GWR’s locomotive department were posed together at the opening of the new Old Oak Common engine shed in March 1906. This photograph, with the names of the Divisions they were responsible for, was published in the May 1906 edition of Great Western Railway Magazine

Photo Frank and I were wracking our brains to see what we would do for our topic on Going Loco this week and I had just completed a firing turn on No 1340 Trojan. We were sat on the bench in front of the bike shed when it struck me that the largest exhibit at Didcot, the shed itself, really deserved a mention. In fact GWR loco sheds of all kinds deserve a mention. They have a range of both physical and personnel structure all of their own and much of this history and context is now exactly that – a history.

Gloucester engine shed, photographed in the snow in 1961 by Mike Peart

I’m going to have to pick a period to explain their structure from and I’m going to choose post WWII as this is the one that most people are familiar with. Sheds were allocated, reallocated and had their importance increased or diminished over the years. The other reason for choosing this is the excellent book by E T Lyons – Great Western Engine Sheds 1947 published by Oxford Publishing Co. Out of print but very easy to find on the second hand market. Well worth a purchase if you want to know more than I can provide here! That will stave off at least some of the “I think you’ll find” type comments ...

The interior of the straight road shed when new at Plymouth Laira, which was added in 1931. Photograph in the Great Western Trust Jeffery collection

Locomotive sheds come in all different shapes and sizes. Organisationally, the Great Western had three levels when dealing with sheds. The first is the division. Think of this like a set of sheds in an area that are grouped together for administrative purposes. There were nine Divisions on the GWR. These were numbered as follows:

1: London
2: Bristol
3: Newton Abbot
4: Wolverhampton
5: Worcester
6: Newport
7: Neath
8: Cardiff Valleys
9: Central Wales

The Cardiff Valleys and Central Wales ones were the newest (to the GWR at least). This was formed as a result of the Grouping which amalgamated a number of small Welsh lines into the Great Western. Each of the divisions had a main shed. So, London, was Old Oak Common (London Paddington), Bristol was Bristol Bath Road, Central Wales was Oswestry and so on.

The bottom goods table at Old Oak Common in 1957. Photograph by Ted Abear

These could be quite large geographic areas. The London area will be the one we look at and for good reason – it’s the one Didcot was in! So, there were six main sheds in the London division and these ranged from London in the east and Oxford in the west, a distance of about 60 miles.

The full list is as follows:

Old Oak Common
Slough
Southall
Reading
Didcot
Oxford

Southall engine shed in March 1966, with 2-6-2T No 6106 about to depart for a new life in preservation, initially at Taplow then at Didcot

Well, no it isn’t the full list. That’s right, there’s another layer! These are the main sheds. Steam locomotives are maintenance-heavy beasts and there were a whole host of smaller branch lines that existed before the Beeching axe fell on them in the 1960s and they closed. To look after the locomotives on these smaller lines, limited facilities were provided at what is called a sub-shed. These sheds could be a building with a few facilities like the one at Fairford that even had its own turntable, but could equally be a water tank and a pit with no shed building such as at Newbury. Really, Newbury was just a special siding! The London Division sub sheds in 1947 were as follows:

Old Oak Common
Sub Sheds: None.

Slough
Sub Sheds: Watlington, Aylesbury, Marlow

Southall
Sub Sheds: Staines

Reading
Sub Sheds: Basingstoke, Henley

Didcot
Sub Sheds: Wallingford, Winchester (Chesil)

Oxford
Sub Sheds: Abingdon, Fairford

Boys from Eton College as volunteer cleaners at Slough engine shed during the second world war. Photograph published in Great Western Railway Magazine in 1945

So, how did they keep track of all these places? Well, for administrative purposes, each shed has its own code. There were a whole host of different codes but the system of sheds and sub-sheds were rationalised in the 1930s. The way it worked after that was that only the main sheds in the division got a unique letter code. Engines allocated to sub sheds, carried the code of the main shed that looked after them. These were usually to be found on the engines painted just behind the front buffer beam in our time period, but they were spotted in numerous places over the years.

Marlow, the sub shed to Slough, photographed in 1962 by Mike Peart

British Railways used the same ideology but different codes, being a numerical / letter code. The codes were generated on the former Great Western by using the number from the division and adding 80 to it. Therefore, London Division was division 1, add 80 and it becomes 81. Then they allocated a letter to each shed. So Didcot went from being DID to 81E. These codes were displayed on a small elliptical cast iron plate fixed to the lower half of the smokebox door.

Reading engine shed photographed in 1961 from a passing train in a blizzard by Mike Peart

The shed codes for the London Division for both the GWR and BR were as follows:

Old Oak Common = PDN, 81A
Slough = SLO, 81B
Southall = SHL, 81C
Reading = RDG, 81D
Didcot = DID, 81E
Oxford = OXF, 81F

Didcot engine shed on 5 May 1958 with 2-6-0 No 5322 and 4-4-0 No 3440 City of Truro standing on the siding alongside the engine shed, known at No 5 road (roads 1 to 4 being inside the engine shed). No 6 road has the wagons standing on it. Both these sidings still exist. No 7 road, with another 53XX 2-6-0 standing on it, is now a stretch of grass for visitors to the Railway Centre to enjoy watching trains on No 8 road, now known as the Main Demonstration Line. Photograph by J Oatway

The only thing we need to know about now is the allocation. This is the locomotives that are currently being looked after by that shed. Locomotives rarely lived at just one shed, most of the GWR classes were fairly nomadic, being swapped around as overhauls were carried out. The allocations were of course dependent upon the work that get local railway environment were likely to need. Slough’s allocation in 1947 was entirely tank engines. Out of 44 engines that lived there, no less than 28 were of the 61XX Class large prairies*. Slough’s main job was commuter work in and out of London. The rest of the allocation was the maid of all work 0-6-0 pannier tank engines of various vintages except for just one 14XX Class 0-4-2 auto tank. Old Oak Common in contrast, had no less than 232 engines with all the Kings and Castles you could handle as well as a whole host of other machines!

Wallingford station with the roof of the engine shed, sub shed to Didcot, visible behind the train. Photograph in the Great Western Trust collection

Didcot’s current allocation of the GWS collection is in some ways hugely unrealistic from a historical viewpoint! At the main shed in 1947 were 48 locomotives + one service loco. The most glamorous type represented was the Hall / Modified Hall. Just 4 lived on shed. There were 9 Moguls like our No 5322. 9 0-6-0 tender locomotives, a motley collection of outside frame 4-4-0s and a single 2-4-0. There were also 4 of the mighty 72XX 2-8-2Ts, 11 panniers and 3 of the ex War Department 2-8-0s from the recent conflict.

Oxford engine shed, photographed in 1964 by Laurence Waters

However, the shed’s mission has changed now hasn’t it? The rather extensive collection now housed with us is there to keep the flame alive. To demonstrate the amazing diversity of steam locomotive engineering and to inspire future generations. From that point of view, I happen to think that the allocation is just perfect – don’t you?!

Of course even Great Western Engine sheds don't last for ever, and Didcot remains as the last such shed in use for, broadly, its original purpose.  You may be aware that we are currently fundraising towards a major refurbishment of the main shed roof, and should you wish to find out more or contribute, please look at our shed roof appeal page.

* Including our very own No. 6106!

10 MAY

Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Sorry about the news blackout last week – I’ve been suffering with a pretty horrible case of a flu type thing that has laid your blogger low. I’m feeling a bit better now though thank goodness! I seem to have missed the visit of a fantastic and historic little engine in the middle of all that, but there is no reason not to have a chat about it, right?!

51456 shunting a string of locos on 3 May

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&Y) was established in 1847 and ran from Hull in the east across the country via Leeds and Manchester, to Liverpool in the west. They were quite a forward-looking company, being one of the first to electrify a main line route in 1904, with a great deal of suburban railway in the Liverpool area also being so treated. Initially this was a four-rail system – just like the London Underground – but was later converted to a three rail system akin to what is now predominant on the ex Southern Railway system. One of their very influential locomotive engineers was a gentleman by the name of William Barton Wright. He served in post between 1875 and 1886 and in that time, he managed to make the L&Y one of the most efficient carriers of freight in the United Kingdom.

The subject of our chat today originally started life as a Class 25 0-6-0 tender locomotive. These were known as Ironclads after the warships of the same name being developed at the same time. They were compact and yet powerful for the time. They had a set of 4’ 6” diameter driving wheels, boiler pressure of 140 psi and 2 inside cylinders of 17½” diameter and 26” stroke. This gave them a tractive effort of 17,545 lbf. They are externally quite reminiscent of the GWR Dean Goods locos, but predated them. The first Ironclad was constructed in 1876 and production went through until 1887 with 280 machines being built. The Dean Goods were built from 1883 to 1899.

51456 on passenger train duty on 4 May

These locomotives have their own story – the L&Y was merged with the London North Western Railway in 1922, which didn’t last long as the grouping act of 1923 ended that railway which became absorbed into the London, Midland & Scottish Railway! By then there were 50 engines left in service (for reasons that will become clear in a moment) and withdrawals of those began in 1930. Even so, their utility meant that there were still 23 working by the time the railways were nationalised in 1948.

51456 working hard to lift a coal wagon up the coal stage incline

Engine No 958 had been built by Beyer Peacock in 1887. She became engine No 12044 under the LMS and No 52044 under BR. She was one of the last two of her kind in service in the late 1950s. The other engine, No 52017, was due to be saved as she was in better condition. Sadly, she was involved in an accident and was so badly damaged that she was cut up on site and that just left No 52044. A gentleman by the name of Tony Cox fought very hard to save her and this resulted in her eventually being delivered to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in 1965. She still lives there to this day and found fame in the film The Railway Children as the engine called The Green Dragon.

So, what about the other 230 engines? They had been the victims of a tenderectomy! Barton Wright’s successor, John Aspinall, started a rebuild program with the Class 25s that saw them become 0-6-0STs, or saddle tank locomotives. This took place at Horwich works between 1891 and 1900. They were masters of their work – shunting and short trip freight workings. So much so that they also had very long working lives. Withdrawals of this class began in 1926 but so many of them were built that there were still 101 going strong at nationalisation. Remarkably, 20 were still eking out an existence in 1961! Sadly, not one of these historic machines was preserved.

51456 making her way down from the coal stage

What? Well, what visited Didcot? A ghost engine? No – a number of them, including No 752 (LMS No 11456), were sold into industrial service instead of scrapping upon withdrawal. No 11456 went to Blainscough Colliery Company of Coppull in Lancashire in 1937. The collieries were themselves nationalised in 1947 forming the National Coal Board and the engine remained working in the North Western Division until the late 1950s. She was preserved in 1967 but had been in open storage for nine years and as a result was in pretty poor order.

She was slowly rebuilt by the L&Y Saddletank Fund (later known as the L&Y Railway Preservation Society). The locomotives owners have subsequently become the L&Y Trust. The engine was restored by 1971 and took part in the Grand Locomotive Cavalcade at the Liverpool & Manchester Railway 150th Anniversary at Rainhill in May 1980. She was dismantled in 1982 and remained as a kit of parts until 2016, when the rebuild commenced. She is now based on the East Lancashire Railway, despite starting her operational preservation career at the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.

51456 resting in the engine shed before her next duties at Didcot on 11 and 12 May

The locomotive currently runs as No 51456 in BR livery. She was never part of the British Railways stock so this is a little fictitious but she did wear this number in 1968 when she was towed from Parsonage Colliery near Leigh to her first home at Yates Duxbury paper mill at Heap Bridge, Bury. She is, however, a fine tribute to her lost sisters that lasted in main line service into the 1960s. These engines were incredibly successful when you think about it. To have been originally conceived in the 1870s and to still be working in the 1960s is an amazing accomplishment and the fact that we have representatives of both the L&Y Class 25 and Class 23 is very fitting reminder of this indeed.

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