Going Loco

With a collection of locomotives and rolling stock dating from Victorian times to the 1960s, there's plenty to discover.

Going Loco - Explore The Archive

Latest Blogs

12 JULY

So, you want to be an engine driver?

It’s been the dream of many a youngster to become an engine driver. So much so it’s almost a cliché, but it is still an aspiration that many people look up to. It has to be said that doing so today is far easier than it was in a steam era. Most preserved lines, us included, have pathways that will enable you to become a driver in a few years but back in the day that was a much harder proposition. How hard? Let’s find out …

Boys from Eton College cleaning an engine at Slough during world war II. Photograph published in the Great Western Railway Magazine, 1945

If you want to be an engine driver, you started out as a boy cleaner and yes, it was a boy as well, women steam footplate crew are definitely something of the preservation era. Even during wartime, when many roles previously undertaken by men were turned over to women whilst the men were away fighting, an exception was made for locomotive drivers and fireman. The main reason given was that it took a long time to learn all the different routes that a crew may be expected to travel down. The short time that women had during the war replacing previously male-dominated jobs did not allow for this extensive training to take place. After the war, it again became a male only preserve until the end of steam. The skills were so valued that locomotive footplate crew was a reserved occupation. This meant that they were not eligible to be called up for military service.

The cleaning gang giving their best attention to No 6000 King George V, November 1934

You started your career at about 14 or 15 years old. You were taken on as a cleaner, but there really was quite a lot more to it than that. As part of your training you would help out with a great many of the jobs that were undertaken around the shed. This could be anything from shovelling ash, washing out boilers, acting as a fitter’s mate, and so on and so on … While this was going on, you were being instructed on the final points of the engineering and operation of steam locomotives. It’s worth mentioning here a rather egalitarian attitude to education on the railway.

Young firemen at Didcot engine shed in the early 1960s, Kev Pierpoint and Bob Cotterell

Education on shed was provided by the senior drivers and fireman to their juniors. There are several remarkable things about what was known as the mutual improvement classes. The first is that it was unpaid. When your time came to be in the senior ranks, you gave freely of your time to teach the next generation because that’s what the previous generation had done for you. While the company may well have provided some literature and maybe an old carriage in which to hold the classes, that was about the extent of their involvement. It was education for railway men by railway men.

Polishing No 6023 King Edward II at Didcot Railway Centre, 28 August 2017

The other thing to realise about a career on the railway was that any form of promotion was done on seniority. The classic example of this being the fact that when Churchward retired, Collett became the chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway this meant that William Stanier, despite his obvious ability, would never have become chief mechanical engineer as he and Collett were very close in age and Collett had seniority. A move to the LMS really was Stanier’s only option to become a CME. In terms of footplate crew, it was not uncommon to have to move sheds to take up a promotion while waiting for the equivalent position to open up at your home shed.

The Mutual Improvement Class at Swindon in 1911. Note W A Stanier, the tall man with dark moustache, standing in centre behind the valve gear model

So, once you had successfully completed your training as a fireman, you would initially be known as a passed cleaner. This meant that you were qualified to do firing turns but had not yet officially been promoted. This saw you at the bottom of the system called the links. This was a series of rungs on the ladder, if you like, that went from the mundane jobs of looking after locomotives on the shed to the most demanding turns such as express passenger work. As you became a fireman, you started by looking after the fires of locomotives on the shed, keeping the engines hot overnight ready for their work the next day and so on.

A posed photograph showing the driver and fireman of a goods train with an express passing

You would then move on to perhaps local shunting work on a small tank engine. then local goods work, local passenger trains, with the jobs on the route knowledge becoming ever more complex and demanding. Long distance heavy freight trains and faster passenger services were on the upper end of the links and somewhere like old Oak Common outside Paddington would have been the express workings on Kings and Castles, as the top link for our budding fireman.

On the footplate of No 7015 Carn Brea Castle in February 1953 with the fire made up to halfway up the firehole in true Great Western style. Fireman Maurice Townsend and driver Bill Bateman. Photograph by Kenneth Leech

As he was working his way up through the links he would have been training as a driver and he would eventually qualify as such. Again he would start off being known as a passed fireman able to take driving jobs, but not yet fully promoted. Once he had found a promotion, as a newly minted driver, of course he went right back down to the bottom of the links. He moved the engines round the shed as a driver, did the shunting work as a driver and slowly but surely crawled his way back up to the top of the links and with luck, skill and health permitting, by the time he was in his 40s or 50s he would be amongst the elite top link drivers.

Kev Pierpoint firing No 4079 Pendennis Castle on a test run between Reading and Didcot in February 1967. Bill McAlpine is sitting, extreme left, on a comfortable chair attached to the fireman’s hinged seat, which is a plain wooden board. The comfortable chair had to be removed as the space it took up interfered with the fireman’s ability to swing his shovel!

These men really knew what they were doing in the main. And they had to. Being in charge of a 2,000 – 2,500 hp locomotive pulling a 500 ton train full of passengers for mile after mile at 70 to 80mph is a huge responsibility. You have to know where the signals are, you have to know where the gradients are, where the speed restrictions are, and so on and so on and so on … The constant flow of incoming information as you thundered through the countryside must have been intense.

The top link footplate crew for the 50th Anniversary of the Cornish Riviera Express, at Paddington on 1 July 1954

While we are talking about that, think about that top link fireman as well! He’d be keeping an eye out over the side of the cab for the signals, ensuring that the boiler had enough water and the driver had enough steam. In order to do that on a big GWR locomotive, when working hard, he’d be shovelling a ton of coal an hour. Trying to accurately place coal on the fire on a footplate that was partially exposed to the 80 mile an hour draught, standing on a floor that was never stable. Locomotive suspension is set up to allow the engine to put the power to the track and not for the comfort of the crew. The tender would rock and roll at its own rhythm and to fill the gap between the two, is a metal bridge piece called a fall plate. With one edge resting on the engine and the other resting on the tender, the motion of the fall plate is a combination of the two! Frozen from the waist up and roasted from the waist down – the glamour of the steam era …

Doug Godden at Didcot on 25 May 2019 – “It doesn’t take that long to train to become a brain surgeon does it?”

It’s quite amazing when you think just how long it took to become that express train driver. I had a very great privilege of knowing Doug Godden who was an Old Oak Common fireman and he said to me words to the effect that people wouldn’t put up with a training schedule for a non-professional job that was that long today! As he said: “It doesn’t take that long to train to become a brain surgeon does it?”

5 JULY

A Genuinely Lifting Experience

The lifting shop when new in 1932, with Bulldog class locomotive No 3448 Kingfisher

Well, sorry about the late publishing of last week’s blog – our webmaster went on a well-deserved holiday and we weren’t able to fill his not inconsiderable shoes*. To tell you the truth, none of us dare touch his website for fear of screwing it up! Still, better late than never and effectively it’s a double Going Loco week! Silver lining and all that good stuff. We had better get back to the shed I suppose. So, last time we talked shed, we were looking at washing out boilers and loading up coal. Now let’s have an uplifting experience …

The architect’s drawing of the lifting shop, in the Great Western Trust collection

The lifting shop is the big building to the rear of the locomotive shed. It is clearly cleverly named, as its main content is a 50 ton hoist! The building and the crane are contemporary with the building of the main shed. They have all been here since 1932. It’s therefore quite amazing it is all still in use. Admittedly not as intensively as once it was, but it is still a vital piece of equipment keeping the locomotives of the Great Western Society collection running.

A list of machinery installed in the lifting shop, original document in the Great Western Trust collection

There are two cranes that are combined on the one structure. The main 50 tonne hoist is obvious, with its huge hooks and massive winding drum. It can be driven in two speeds, fast or slow. The fast gear limits the weight to a 10 tons lift capacity. In slow gear the full 50 ton capacity can be used. To the side of one of the legs of the main hoist is a small six ton manually operated hoist this is used for lifting and swinging smaller components on an off locomotives. The main hoist is electrically powered but the auxiliary six tonne hoist is driven manually.

A complete engine lifted – Wantage Tramway No 5 being loaded onto a wagon for the journey to the 150th Anniversary of Railways exhibition at Shildon in 1975

Also contained within the lifting shop is a forge. The full range of blacksmith tools are still in the rack on the wall. The ventilation and chimney stretch way up into the high roof and out through the top. There is also an electric fan that is used to supply air to the fuel and the forge and get both it and the metal it is heating to the required high temperatures. Today you will find that the lifting shop is far more full of machine tools than it ever would’ve been during the steam era. This is because, basically, we need somewhere to put them to keep both them and their operators dry! You do, however, still get the feeling that you would’ve done had you walked in there in the late 1930s.

The forge in the lifting shop, photographed early in the preservation era

As far as we know, this is the last, Great Western Railway lifting shop that is in full operation with its original crane and equipment. Frankly, we’d be lost without it. The reason that the site is still here is because there is no road access but the problem with that is of course that you can’t get a crane on site to lift things like boilers out of locomotives … The 50 ton hoist is more than capable of lifting even our largest boilers and a great deal more. A number of the fleet are so light, that the hoist could quite literally lift the whole locomotive up! One other operation that we still do, that as far as I am aware is not done elsewhere, is where wheel sets and or bogies are removed from a locomotive by lifting it up from the buffer beam and pivoting it on the rear driving wheels. There are many photographs of this operation in the steam era, but not very many from the preservation era.

No 6024 King Edward I lifted for attention to the bogie in May 2008

I will use the lifting shop as a segway to talk about the variety of tradesmen that once worked day-in day-out at the shed. These were known as the shop grades. Bernard Barlow remembers there being 15 skilled craftsman working at the shed. There were boilersmiths who repaired and maintained the locomotive pressure vessels. The mechanical staff in Bernard’s day was led by chief fitter William Miles. Apparently he was an ex-Royal Navy man and immensely knowledgeable. He was an incredibly well-respected man who Bernard describes as ‘one of the few that really knew what he was talking about’.

The boiler of No 4079 Pendennis Castle lifted in November 2020 for the frames to be positioned underneath

Alongside the fitters and the boilersmiths there were blacksmiths, coppersmiths and many other people doing mechanical work to keep the locomotives moving. It was a complex set of skills that were needed to keep these engines moving, as it still is today. When you consider that a roster of Didcot staff taken in 1928, when the shed was home to 31 engines, there were a total of 172 people working there. Of these, only 110 were drivers and fireman. The rest were concerned with the maintenance, fuel and running of the locomotives and the shed.

The boiler of No 4079 Pendennis Castle being replaced in the frames in November 2020

When you look at staffing levels such as these, you can understand why the far simpler diesels eventually won their day. Having taken a very brief look at the maintenance staff – and there is a lot more to it than I’ve indicated here – I suppose the final things that we need to look at is the management of the shed and those folks that drove and fired the engines. Sounds like a couple more Going Loco blogs to me…

The bogie of No 1014 County of Glamorgan being run out in a demonstration for members of the public in September 2023

* Metaphorically speaking of course – I don’t want you all thinking that Website Rob is some British form of Sasquatch …**

** That’s my role …

28 JUNE

A little bit of this, a little bit of that…

With the Vale of Rheidol Railway opening their new museum at Aberystwyth, a locomotive that had somewhat slipped from the public eye has thankfully been brought back into focus. This is the sole-surviving 4-4-0 Dukedog class locomotive No 9017 Earl of Berkeley. This class of locomotive is a curious mix, that was born at a time when an outside-framed machine like this was positively outdated. So how did that come about?

No 9017 inside the new museum at Aberystwyth in June 2024

Picture this, it is the mid 1930s. Swindon works is confidently pumping out such classics as Halls, Granges, Manors, Castles and Kings. So what business did it have introducing a brand-new outside-framed 4-4-0 that looks like a product of the 1890s? Well, it really wasn’t quite as it seemed. Due to the introduction of the above mentioned classes, the outside framed 4-4-0s were being retired in large numbers. During this time, the City, Badminton and Atbara classes were all withdrawn from service. These were all large-wheel locomotives with driving wheel diameters of 6’8” and this made them exclusively express passenger engines.

No 3265 Tre Pol and Pen at Barmouth after conversion to the prototype Dukedog class 4-4-0

There were however, some smaller wheeled 4-4-0s with driving wheels at 5’8” in diameter. These locomotives continued to be quite useful as they had a relatively high power output for their size but, due to their low weight they were able to travel over many routes that the larger 4-6-0s were too heavy for. Of local interest for us at Didcot were the Duke class. 60 of these engines were built between 1895 and 1899. They did have by the beginning of the 1930s a bit of a problem. This was that the frames of the locomotives were pretty much worn out and in very poor condition.

No 3201 carrying the name St Michael, which she did during April and May 1936

While the bottom end of the locomotives were not great, their boilers were another matter entirely. Another 4-4-0 class, the Bulldogs, were also now being displaced by the larger 4-6-0s. the Bulldogs were heavier than the Dukes, but had the advantage of knowledge gained over the years and had a far better design of main frames. Swindon was never an organisation to throw away good material. Therefore, in 1929 something of a marriage ceremony was performed!

Duke class 4-4-0 No 3282 showing the elegant frames with curves over the driving wheel axleboxes, which were, however, not of robust design

In December 1929 Duke class locomotive No 3265 Tre Pol and Pen had been withdrawn at Swindon. She had all of the fittings above running plate removed and set aside along with the Duke class boiler. Also withdrawn was the straight top framed Bulldog class No 3365 Charles Grey Mott. The upper parts of the Duke and the lower parts of the bulldog were joined together to make this new hybrid machine. Whilst we now know this as the Dukedog class, it was originally known as the Earl class. This ‘new’ engine kept her original name at first, but was renumbered as 3201 in April 1936 and briefly carried the name St Michael.

Bulldog class 4-4-0 No 3380 River Yealm showing the more substantial frames fitted to this class, compared with the Duke class

This conversion was an immediate success and in the end, a total of 29 machines were so treated. They are most famous for two things. The first is the reason for that ‘Earl’ name. The plan was that originally they were to be named after prominent earls with a connection to the Great Western Railway. At least that was the plan of Charles Collett, the Chief Mechanical Engineer.

No 3217 had one of her preservation-era overhauls at Didcot during the late 1980s

He had been repeatedly asked by the GWR board to name some of his new engines after the aforementioned Earls. He really did not want to put those names on his new Castle class machines, so, in the tradition of the obstreperous doing exactly what they are told, he put the Earl names on his latest engines! Needless to say, that when an antique looking outside-frame 4-4-0 was presented for naming at Paddington, the great and the good were less than impressed… The names were eventually transferred to Castle class engines Nos 5043 – 5062, but it is a rather unusual and in a way, quite pleasing example of a display of a sense of humour in Collett

No 3217 after completion of the overhaul at Didcot

The second thing that the Dukedog class are famous for is operating on the Cambrian routes in Wales. The reason for the success being that they were one of the few classes that were light enough to travel over the wooden bridge at Barmouth. This gave them a surprising longevity. Despite the Second World War curtailing and eventually ending the conversion programme, the utility of these machines allowed them to be among the last outside-framed steam locomotives in regular operation British Railways. The class was re-numbered in 1947 from the 32XX series to the 90XX series. The last of these remarkable machines were still in service into the very early 1960s.

No 3217 and No 3440 City of Truro double-heading a train at Didcot

The preserved machine, No 9017 Earl of Berkeley, was constructed using Duke class No 3282 and Bulldog class No 3425 in 1938. Like many of its class, she spent most of her working life on the Cambrian route. She was withdrawn from service in 1960 from Oswestry shed. From here she was privately preserved and taken to the Bluebell Railway where she has lived ever since, Great Western outpost in the Southern Region. Ironically, she carries the nameplates from Castle class No 5060 – a case of history coming full circle perhaps? She has carried both of her numbers in preservation as well, being reunited with her original numberplates upon the withdrawal of Collett Goods 0-6-0 No 3217. She was donated to the Bluebell Railway in 2003.

No 3217 waits at Didcot Halt while the crew enjoy mugs of tea

She has had various periods of operation over the years. The last one ended in 2011 after a series of mechanical and boiler failures. The engine is currently on loan in the new museum at Aberystwyth for a period of two years. After then, who knows? It would be really nice to have an operating GWR outside-frame 4-4-0 again one day. Perhaps the completion of the replica Churchward 4-4-0 County will be a good time to see the mongrel take flight once again.

21 JUNE

Little Didcot

Thanks to Photo Frank for his excellent photo essay on the stars of the silver screen that we have seen mingling with the collection at Didcot. That’s quite the history over the years. Some of which your blogger saw as a child in the cinema and some that came out before he was born … There are some amazing bits of cinema in there too. How do I follow that? Well, in the greatest traditions of Monty Python’s Flying Circus – “And now for something completely different …”

The original Fawley Cutting layout, as it appeared in on television. This is the branch and main lines converging on one side

The weekend of 22 and 23 June will see the inaugural, of what will hopefully become annual, Didcot Railway Centre Model Railway Event. So what’s that got to do with me? Well, a few years ago, your blogger was asked – along with a few of his fellows – by Lady Judy McAlpine to form a team for a television series that was to be shot at Fawley Hill. As you may or may not know, this was the museum and garden railway* of the late great Sir William McAlpine. The show? Something called The Great Model Railway Challenge.

And this is William Street Yard in its original state and position. It’s been HEAVILY rebuilt from here!

A team called The Fawley Fliers was duly formed, and five brave railway modellers were thrown into the fray. We did quite well, wining our first heat but didn’t quite get to lift the trophy at the end. Ahh well, we were in it to say ‘thanks’ to the lovely lady that lets us play with her full-size train set in her garden, and not to win! But this left us with a small, er, quite large problem. To the tune of two layouts. While it would have been lovely to keep them both, it really wasn’t practical so we did a bit of editing …

The remains of the original William Street Yard as liberated from the rest of the layout. Only the track and some of the ballasting remains totally original

The loco shed layout, called 81M**, was dismantled and its parts went into what became a fairly large store of model railway bits. The other layout was known as Fawley Cutting (imaginative, weren’t we?!) and it comprised of a junction with the twin track main line that the competition demanded and, for reasons, a small shunting yard on top. Of all the bits of the layouts we wanted to play with – er, we mean operate(!) – it was this shunting yard. So, a rescue plan was formulated.

The Phoenix arises – the start of the new display set up for the layout. “We can rebuild him – we have the technology”

The track and components were salvaged from the lower section and the shunting yard was removed. While the track was reasonably well laid and the ballasting and track weathering was also pretty good, the wiring beyond the attachment to the track wasn’t great. We needed to build a fiddle yard as the show only needed us to make it LOOK like it was working. Then we took a look at the scenery. Well, we could improve that, right? If we are doing that, then we could improve the control system as well can’t we? And we could add some other cool features too can’t we? Welcome to our rabbit hole …

A Hall brings in her fast freight to the yards for shunting as a Dean Goods awaits on the departure road for the signal. The two sidings in the front left corner are used as a permanent way yard for storing vehicles involved in track maintenance

The resulting layout was taken as far as we could manage. It has as many features in it as I could think to incorporate. It has a menagerie of different British wildlife on it. It has a number of cameo scenes of railway staff on it. For example, take a look at the front of the layout where you can see the fireman who is angrily waiting for his driver to hurry up with his cup of tea in the lineside hut! You would also see the yard manager outside his grounded coach body office. This is kind of special, as it is an actual 3D print of Sir William himself, scanned at his last public appearance by our friends at Modelu. All of the buildings have interiors in them and are fully lit, the yard lights work as well.

Two panniers are busy shunting the yard as the Hall takes water from the column

The water crane works and goes through an animated sequence which tells you what’s going on. Also animated, because I’ve never seen it done before, are the ground levers for the points. This seemed simple until you realise that the lever has to operate every time the point moves and not just once in one direction and once in the other. This caused a bit of head scratching … We did it though! The ground signal and the goods line signal are also operational and fully lit. The lighting rig uses electrical conduit as a frame and the lighting system is 24 volt, just like in a real passenger coach.

Pannier No 3650 takes water as a shunter discusses the day’s work with the yard manager (played by a 3D printed Sir William McAlpine)

What’s really nice about exhibiting at Didcot, is that the vast majority of the rolling stock on the layout are faithful representations of the preserved fleet that we have on site. This includes most of the locomotives and freight stock. This is the collection that I have nicknamed ‘Little Didcot’. Each of the models doesn’t have just the correct number, but is exactly the right type as well. The little Didcot collection as a whole is just a couple of locomotives and three freight wagons short of completion. Just don’t ask me about the passenger coaches – there’s a fair bit of work to do on that front still…

No 3738 shunts in the front yard with a complete train ready to leave in the background

The plan is that I will get the team to run William Street Yard and I’m going to sit at a nearby table and do various modelling skills demonstrations. I’ve already been asked to renumber and weather a pair of 15XX pannier tank locomotives and to fit DCC decoders to them. I’m also planning to find a couple of rolling stock kits from my ‘embarrassment sized’ backlog(!)*** to be getting on with as well. Please come and say hello and see what we are up to. It should be fun – I’ll see you there!

Heavy freight 2-8-0 No 3822 is ready to go and awaits the signal

* For those that don’t know, it’s full size standard gauge – yep!

** The fake but real shed code that was used by Sir William for Fawley Hill loco shed. The buildings were vaguely based on those at Didcot. Sad to lose, but it was built in a hurry and there are now other plans afoot …

*** You can’t leave that poor lonely kit laying there on the shelf can you now? Might not be there next time…

14 JUNE

The Shed 5 - Holiday Snaps

As part of our Going Loco series on engine shed related matters, we have realised that Didcot Engine Shed is much travelled and has popped up in many parts of the world as a film star. Now that we are in the summer vacation season, we present for this week’s Going Loco a selection of holiday snaps from the Engine Shed’s journeys.

1. Copenhagen: The Danish Girl (2015) with Alicia Vikander

2. Paris: The Danish Girl (2015) with Eddie Redmayne

3. Dover: The Incredible Sarah (1976) with Glenda Jackson being photographed on departing for Paris

4. Dover: The Incredible Sarah (1976) with Glenda Jackson

5. Paris: The Incredible Sarah (1976) with Glenda Jackson

6. Paris: The Incredible Sarah (1976) with Glenda Jackson

7. London Waterloo: Three Men in a Boat (1975) – Michael Palin and Tim Curry depart from Waterloo for their boating holiday. The third man (Stephen Moore) joins them at Kingston

8. London Waterloo: Three Men in a Boat (1975)

9. Moriarty’s armaments factory: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). A masterpiece of computer generated imagery but you can still identify the real Engine Shed within the picture

10. Moscow: Anna Karenina (2012)

11. Moscow: Anna Karenina (2012), Keira Knightley boards a snow-covered carriage

12. Moscow: Anna Karenina (2012)

13. Moscow: Anna Karenina (2012), Keira Knightley inside the Engine Shed as Moscow station

14. New York: Genius (2016), Colin Firth and Robert Downey Junior at New York Central railroad station

15. Occupied France: François, proof of concept film (2018)

16. Occupied France: François, proof of concept film (2018)

17. Soviet Russia: Thank You Comrades (1978), just after the Bolshevik Revolution, Russian movie makers travel abroad to buy much-needed film stock. Ben Kingsley on left

18. Soviet Russia: Thank You Comrades (1978), after the Bolshevik Revolution travelling cinemas in trains took propaganda films to the population

19. Didcot: The Architecture the Railways Built (2021), back home the Engine Shed was a backdrop for continuity shots in Tim Dunn’s documentary series

7 JUNE

The Shed 4 - Keeping it going.

We have to keep things moving. That’s true of life in general, certain species of shark in particular* and is a truism as far as the railway is concerned. The steam locomotive is a maintenance-hungry beast. They are finicky in the extreme at times and some engines in particular will constantly do their level best to not work when you need them to. The old thing about engines having their own distinct ‘personalities’ is in many ways true.

To make sure these quasi-alive beasts kept moving, there were a whole host of different arrangements. We will continue looking at the post-war era under the guidance of our friend from last week – Bernard Barlow in his book Didcot Engineman. The first of which he described was the maintenance schedule. This was known as the MP11. This was essentially the title of the document.

Repacking a piston gland on 2999

The mechanical examinations included all the moving parts of an engine such as the valves, pistons, wheels, valve gear and so on. These were done every 6,000 and then 12,000 miles. There was also something called the X Day examination which was usually undertaken while the crew was preparing the locomotive for either a vacuum-fitted goods or passenger service. This was due to the inherently higher speeds that would be involved. Engines working as pilot, shunter or goods trains which had lower top speeds, were examined once a week. This brought to the attention of the fitters (maintenance staff) any issues that needed attention. Of course there were then mechanical issues discovered by the crews out on the road. These were booked upon the return of the engine to the shed for the fitters to deal with.

The pump and hoses ready for washing out 1340

While the mechanical parts were done on a mileage basis, the safety critical systems on the boiler were examined on a time based schedule. This was on a three, six or twelve monthly schedule. As well as the mechanical and safety systems, there was keeping the boiler clean. Apart from the regular emptying of firebox, ashpan and smokebox, the most regular of the maintenance jobs on a steam engine – then as is now – is the washing out of the boiler.** This too had its own schedule, according to the class of locomotive. 60XX and 50XX (Kings and Castles) were washed out after every four days in traffic. The 59XX, 69XX (Hall and modified Hall) and 28XX (2-8-0 tender locomotives) were done every seven days and the smaller tank engines were done after fourteen days and so on.

The process at Didcot was done by a team of boiler washers that were three strong. There was also a boilersmith and boilersmith’s mate that was sometimes a young cleaner - a boy training to become an engineman. One of the jobs that Bernard Barlow remembered doing with the boilersmith was raising steam on the old Dean-era boiler (No 947) that was installed to provide steam and hot water to the wash-out pipework and to pump the water up into the the oil tanks in the oil store. The boilersmith would remove all the boiler wash out plugs and the mud hole doors and the loco was then turned over to the wash out team.

Washing out 4144

The boiler washers had a series of tools at their disposal. The hoses they used had a variety of different nozzles that could be fitted to the ends of them. There were differing lengths and angles of jet that enabled the washers to get to all the nooks and crannies in the boiler. There are quite a few areas that are difficult to get to as well. The fire and flue tubes get in the way as does the fact that there is an inner and outer firebox with only a few inches between them and all the stays in there too. The silt and scale is washed from the top, downwards and in theory is flushed out. The reality is though that the silt and scale can compact and solidify and this necessitated the use of metal rods and the like to poke in the cramped spaces to loosen it up first.

Young volunteers with one of the washing out nozzles after 4144’s wash out

The teams worked together and there was a man working the hose and another working the valve to turn the water on and off. The hose man would shout to the valve man on or off. When the valve was turned off, the man working the hose would move to another mud hole door or wash out plug hole. This is all well and good if you can be heard but the problem came in the fact that Didcot shed was at times extremely noisy. This meant that it was not uncommon for the man on the hose to get an unexpected soaking! Bernard Barlow remembers that the boiler washout worked on a piecework basis and that were only so many hours allocated for each locomotive. He said “I’m convinced that the work was hurried – the sooner the job was done, the earlier they could finish. I don’t think that some of the locos had the really thorough wash they needed, in between boiler inspections, and I was later to experience the problems this caused”.

Replacing the tapered plugs in 2999’s boiler after a wash out

Whatever the reality of the situation, the truth is that a dirty boiler does not allow heat to be transferred from the fire to the water efficiently. this clearly means that the locomotive will not operate efficiently and can cause a lot of problems for the fireman trying to provide steam to his driver. The more heat that is wasted, the more coal that has to be shovelled by the fireman to keep the engine working. You can see why Bernard was not impressed, as a trainee fireman, when he got an engine that was badly washed out.

That will do for our look at the basic data today maintenance of steam locomotives on Didcot shed during the steam era. What we will do next time is take a look at the various trades and skills that were used at Didcot to keep the steam locomotives running. We will also have a look at the shed staff structure to see how this all fitted together, and the maintenance areas such as the lifting shop. See you next time!

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.

* For those that don’t know this particular nugget of information, some species of shark require oxygenated water flowing over their gills constantly in order to breathe. No flow = dead fish …

** There is an excellent British Transport Films production which is on YouTube that I encourage you to watch if you want the in detail story on how boiler wash outs were performed in the steam age. It’s called Wash and Brush Up and you can click the link to see it.

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

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?!

* 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.

Going Loco - Explore The Archive