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BRITAIN’S LEADING HISTORICAL RAILWAY JOURNAL

Vol. 31

•

No. 3

MARCH 2017

£4.75

IN THIS ISSUE

GREAT EASTERN STEAM IN COLOUR

THE BRIMSCOMBE BANKERS

THE CLOSURE OF THE MIDLAND & GREAT NORTHERN JOINT LINE

A LANCASHIRE ALLIANCE

PENDRAGON

PUBLISHING

STEAM TENDERS

BEYOND CLAPHAM JUNCTION

RECORDING THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS

THE LATEST

FROM PENDRAGON

ONE MAN AND

HIS CAMERA

£3

THE RAILWAY

PHOTOGRAPHY

OF TREVOR OWEN

COMPILED BY

PAUL CHANCELLOR

Trevor Owen is undoubtedly one of the greatest

names in railway colour photography. Avid

readers of the railway press will be very familiar

with his name whilst many others would be able

to spot one of his pictures without noticing the

photographer credit. First and foremost the

quality of the image was generally second to

none but other factors would betray the touch of

his genius, such as the creative use of light, often

low winter sunshine. Other ‘trademarks’ were

locomotives in action rather than at rest and trains

in the landscape rather than being tightly framed

front three quarters views. With Trevor being a

prolific and a very early adopter of colour film, the

results of his work are some of the best images

of the UK railway scene that we can enjoy today

and the fact that we can do this is down to the

photographer having had the foresight to place his

work in the Colour-Rail Collection. In association

with Colour-Rail, Pendragon Publishing now

brings you this wonderful selection of some 250

classic Trevor Owen images of the steam railway

in 1950s and 1960s.

144 pages A4 hardback • ISBN 978 1 899816 10 1

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No. 1 onwards

Vol.27

Nos. 2, 4 to 12

Vol.28

Nos. 2 to 12

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Vol 31 . No.3

No. 311

MARCH 2017

RECORDING THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS

Laying it on the line

2016 was sadly noteworthy for the number of public figures in the

entertainment world who left the stage, starting with David Bowie

early in the year and continuing with depressing frequency until Debbie

Reynolds joined the choir invisible as December edged towards its

close. In

Backtrack-land

for once the contrary applied and we have been

almost free of obituary notices for distinguished contributors over the

last twelve months.

One departure we did have to record was that of Michael Binks,

a former railway civil engineer who gave us a series of articles on

permanent way matters from 2005 until his final one last autumn. His

first in March 2005 concerned the major track remodelling scheme at

Barking on the London, Tilbury & Southend line in the late 1950s. This

was a large-scale project planned and executed by British Railways’

resident PW and Civil Engineering staff in close conjunction with

the Operating and Signalling Departments – and, as Mr. Binks made

clear, undertaken over 3g years and completed on time without train

cancellations. A thought to ponder over for those frustrated by this

Christmas and New Year’s total shutdown!

In a subsequent article Michael described the work of all the

various engineering officers and how their departments worked

together to drive programmes forward, then showed how ‘safety on

and about the railway’ was ensured at that time. Over the next few years

we were treated to descriptions of all the various components involved

in creating railway track, pointwork, curvature and clearances, going on

to explain how permanent way maintenance and renewals were carried

out to ensure the safe and reliable railway lines we have enjoyed for

so long. Michael’s ultimate pair of articles dealt with the wide range of

problems which can arise with track, cuttings, embankments etc and

the remedial action taken to put matters right as expeditiously and

thoroughly as possible.

On top of this, permanent way engineering is not always an

‘accessible’ subject for the non-technically minded, yet it has been

a hallmark of a Michael Binks article that whatever the topic under

discussion it was presented clearly and lucidly, well written in

understandable terms so as to leave any reader of

Backtrack

very

much better informed in appreciating the practicalities of this vitally

important aspect of railway management.

Mr. Binks was too much of a diplomat to comment on what

has become of the railway system in recent decades, specifically the

fragmentation of its operational structures in the model adopted on

privatisation. I suspect he would have been politely critical of it! What

emerged was referred to as ‘horizontal integration’ wherein ownership

of the track became separated from the ownership and running of trains;

and, of course everything else became separated from everything else,

the whole mad concoction ‘integrated’ only by means of contracts and

agreements. The period following privatisation of the railway tracks and

the contracting-out of their maintenance was marked by some serious

accidents (notably Hatfield and Potters Bar) which called into question

the competence and experience of the permanent way contractors and

it is at this that I think Michael would have been left most aghast.

Now I take no dogmatic stance on nationalised or privatised

ownership; I doubt if renationalisation would resolve everything that

is perceived to be wrong, any more than privatisation is by its very

nature the best solution in every possible way, though the fragmented

system we have seems the bizarre product of that worst of all creations,

a political committee, which presumably made sense at the time.

All the more remarkable, then, that the Transport Secretary

has expressed the view recently that he wants to see a coming

back together of train and track management as a response to the

apparently often dysfunctional relationship prevailing between them.

Not a return to proper ‘vertical management’, you understand, nor any

form of nationalisation: they would be steps too far. However, there

is acknowledgement somewhere in there that a railway should be a

cohesive entity, more than the sum of its multifarious parts – in fact,

rather as Michael Binks was describing it 50 years ago!

• • • • •

Having noted how few

losses we suffered last year, it is a touch ironic

that just as I was drafting this editorial I was informed of an unwelcome

start to 2017 with the death of regular contributor Alan Bennett. Sent

from his abode in his and indeed

BT’s

Cornish homeland, Alan’s offerings

on railway holiday publicity pamphlets and brochures brightened our

pages with their colourful depictions of the likes of St. Ives, Exmoor,

the Isle of Wight, Scotland, ‘The English Riviera’ , ‘Shakespeare Land’

and ‘Thomas Hardy Country’ to which potential visitors were to be

enticed. Conversations between (as he called it) the frozen North (even

in July) and sub-tropical Cornwall (even in January) often touched on

the wide range of stereotyped characters featured to set the holiday

scene: from rustic locals and yokels to the ‘average family’ resolutely set

upon serious enjoyment, via the cavemen and Romans of our long-ago

past to no shortage of livelier, more up-to-date selections of bouncing

beach babes. Alan was also one of the few writers to enter the public

arena from the erstwhile Institute of Railway Studies, a failing we tried

to account for during breaks in discussing which was our favourite

Samantha or Kirsty from the publicity artists’ vivid imaginations over

the years. Our condolences to his family.

Contents

Ripon – A City no longer with a Railway

– Part Two

...................................................................................

164

A Lancashire Alliance 1863-1870

............................

171

Morfa Mawddach in Limbo

..........................................

178

The Great Silence and the Railways – 1919

180

Beyond Clapham Junction

............................................

182

Carruthers (and Others)

...................................................

189

Readers’ Forum

......................................................................

190

Book Reviews

..........................................................................

190

A Great Eastern B12 4-6-0 in

Scotland: LNER No.1543 at

Kittybrewster shed, Aberdeen, in

September 1949.

(J. M. Jarvis/Colour-Rail.com NE35)

Changing at York

...................................................................

132

What about the Workers?

.............................................

135

The Closure of the Midland & Great Northern

Joint Line – Part One

.........................................................

138

The Brimscombe Bankers

................................................

145

Getting a Quart out of a Pint Pot – Part One

155

Representing the Eastern Counties

.....................

160

Publisher and Editor

MICHAEL BLAKEMORE

•

E-Mail

pendragonpublishing@btinternet.com

•

Tel

01347 824397

All Subscription Enquiries

01778 392024

(see inside back cover for details)

•

Trade Account Manager

Ann Williams

Design + Repro

Barnabus Design in Print

• Typesetting

Ian D. Luckett Typesetting •

IT Consultant

Derek Gillibrand

Printed by

Amadeus Press, Ezra House, West 26 Business Park, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire BD19 4TQ

Newstrade Distribution

Warners Group Publications Plc • Tel. 01778 391135

Contributions of material both photographic and written, for publication in BACKTRACK are welcome but are sent on the understanding that, although every care is taken, neither the editor or publisher can accept responsibility

for any loss or damage, however or whichever caused, to such material.

Opinions expressed in this journal are those of individual contributors and should not be taken as reflecting editorial policy. All contents of this

publication are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers

Copies of photographs appearing in BACKTRACK are not available to readers.

All editorial correspondence to:

PENDRAGON PUBLISHING • PO BOX No.3 • EASINGWOLD • YORK YO61 3YS •

www.pendragonpublishing.co.uk

MARCH 2017

PENDRAGON PUBLISHING 2017

131

PENDRAGON

PUBLISHING

above

This classic view from Holgate Bridge shows the south end of York station

CHANGING AT YORK

The once-great railway city of York has

undergone much change over the last

few decades: the carriage and wagon

works closed, the locomotive depot

the same along with the marshalling

yards, the railway management

function reduced. On the positive

side the East Coast Main Line was

electrified in the late 1980s but that was

accompanied by a drastic reduction of

the track layout at the station. These

photographs by

TOM HEAVYSIDE

were taken in the 1970s and ’80s before

the transformation of the York scene.

on 21st May 1977, with Class 46 No.46 027 departing on a Newcastle–Liverpool

express. The locomotive-hauled Trans-Pennine trains were substantial affairs then:

MkI stock maybe, but there was a first class coach and a buffet car! The track layout

remains ‘unsimplified’, with the avoiding line cutting across from the left and the

Queen Street sidings still in place on the right (that site now a car park). The Minster

overlooks everything, unchanging.

below

Class 56 No.56 106 eases round the avoiding line towards York Yard North

signal box with empty oil tankers for Teesside on 28th June 1986; before the

forthcoming resignalling a cluster of semaphore signals remained there. The East

Coast Main Line curves round to the left towards the station. Activity in the North

Yard has declined since then, and in the carriage and wagon works has ceased

altogether, while civic debate continues over what to do with redundant railway land.

Gone the ‘Deltic’ era as when No.55 022

Royal Scots Grey

headed

out of the city under Holgate Bridge and past the former racecourse

platform with the up ‘Talisman’ on 21st May 1977.

Gone, too, Chaloners Whin Junction where the Leeds route diverged from the ECML.

It disappeared when the ‘Selby Diversion’ opened in 1983; a Tesco now marks the

spot. Class 37 No.37 208 passes with a down freight on 15th May 1981.

Also gone is Dringhouses Yard, south of York, the area now occupied by housing. It was still

busy when Class 47 No.47 462 accelerated on its way with an up express on 15th May 1981.

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